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September 19 - September 24, 2021
He tells us, “It merely reveals the nothingness from which I was trying to give in the first place.”
As long as we remain enslaved to a culture of speed, superficiality, and distraction, we will not be the people God longs for us to be. We desperately need a spirituality that roots us in a different way.
What I’ve learned has reinforced the truth that unless we live with an intentional commitment to slow down, we have no hope for a quality of life that allows Jesus to form us into his image.
Theologian and poet Thomas Merton once wrote, “Solitude is to be preserved, not as a luxury but as a necessity: not for ‘perfection’ so much as for simple ‘survival’ in the life God has given you.”
I had four days to myself, and at the start of my retreat, I took thirty minutes to close my eyes and be with God. The purpose of this time was not to get anything out of it but simply to be still—to do nothing, say nothing, and just be in God’s presence.
The world says, “Show yourself. Prove your worth. Make a name. Build a platform.” I began to think, Who am I apart from the retweets and likes? Why am I so enamored and preoccupied with the quantity of voices approving and affirming me? How can I say that my identity is grounded in God’s love when I give most of my attention to approval of people I’ve never even met?
Whether we know it or not, we are locked inside the supermarket of God’s abundant life and love. It’s all available to us. Even so, people are spiritually starving. But it doesn’t have to be this way.
Like the apostle Paul said, we are invited to “live freely, animated and motivated by God’s Spirit” (Galatians 5:16, MSG).
These four contemplative practices are silent prayer, Sabbath keeping, the slow reading of Scripture, and the commitment to stability.
One could argue that discomfort with being silent before God just might reveal how unfamiliar we are with God.
At the core of silent prayer is the commitment to establish relationship with God based on friendship rather than demands.
Attitude is key: we must recognize that silent prayer is not a technique to master but a relationship to enter into.
But like with most of our closest relationships, even in the ordinary moments, our shared presence is a gift.
Silent prayer is often uneventful; it’s what I refer to as normalized boredom. In a society driven by sensory stimulation, distraction, and activity, silent prayer is an alien practice;
Jesus rebukes Martha, not for being busy in the kitchen—after all she did have to prepare the meal—but for her inattentive interior attitude, betrayed by her annoyance with her sister….
Along these lines, engaging in silent prayer requires us to remember that God is always for us. One of the reasons we don’t come to prayer is because we believe that God is angry with us. We dare not approach the throne of grace with boldness because we have been ravaged by guilt and shame. And even if we come to God, we don’t believe we deserve to be there.
“Our twisted inner logic, often unconscious, can convince us that we are too bad even for God to forgive! To hold God’s mercy hostage to a determination to punish ourselves is truly a human sickness of spirit.”
Anger is commonly the only way to survive in those environments. My anger was often my defense mechanism, shielding me from the deeper anxiety I felt.
People who have been severed from their true feelings since early childhood will be dependent on institutions like the church and will let themselves be told what they are allowed to feel. In most cases it is very little indeed. But I cannot imagine that it will always be like this. Somewhere, sometime, there will be a rebellion, and the process of mutual stultification will be halted. It will be halted when individuals summon up the courage to overcome their understandable fears, to tell, feel, and publish the truth and communicate with others on this basis.
To follow Jesus in this world requires us to embrace a fully human life, alive to the dimensions of our interior worlds that often are repressed, ignored, and explained away with Bible verses and in the name of respectability. A rebellion is indeed needed—a rebellion marked by truth, integrity, and wholeness.
Sooner or later the stuff we ignore will explode when we least expect it.
It’s as if he knows that the way toward divine union in worship is through a willingness to be human.
God knows it all: the sadness and joy, the fears and lusts, the hopes and dreams. He sees the good in us, the bad in us, and the ugly in us. God knows us thoroughly.
The contemplative way is about listening deeply to God. The way of reconciliation entails listening deeply to each other. The way of interior examination is about deeply listening to ourselves.
