The Mountain of Silence

"THE EYE OF CONTEMPLATION" IS A CORRECTIVE ANTIDOTE TO THE DOMINANCE OF SCIENTIFIC MATERIALISM - Kyriacos Markides

Most western Christians are familiar with the Roman Catholic Church but know little to nothing of the Eastern Orthodox faith. Here is a long historical, robust, incarnational way of following Jesus that runs deep with the church fathers, trinitarian liturgy, Jewish forms of worship, and sacramental understanding of our world around us. "The Mountain of Silence" is a true story of how one man found his way to Mount Athos and was taught by monastic teachers an ancient way of following Jesus today.

I have several wonderful Eastern Orthodox friends and I am only at the starting of Kyriacos Markides book that shares his personal struggles and spiritual journey. This book tells its own story of recovery of the ancient tradition and how our contemporary culture is dominated by western science for interpreting everything from what "is" the biblical text (textual criticism) to how we should understand the scriptures. How can we break out of this naturalistic way of seeing and doing that is everywhere we turn? Here is what Father Maximus says concerning the western church's over-emphasis on searching for God almost solely with the intellect. "The way we know God is neither through philosophy nor through experimental science but through systematic methods of spiritual practice that open us up to the grace of the Holy Spirit" (p.12).

There is so much here but once again the church needs to reach back to the ancient practice of the earliest Christians who lived very spiritually disciplined lives before a Holy God. We also need to remember the next time we open the Bible G. K. Chesterton's words, "The trouble arises from man trying to look at these stories from the outside, as if they were scientific objects."

I Married a Monster from Outer Space

HAVE WE LET SATAN INTO OUR MARRIAGE?

I love old sci-fi movies, especially the ones made in the 1950's and early 1960's. "I Married a Monster From Outer Space" was made in 1958 where aliens were posing as humans and trying to take over the world. It seems today that there are so many problems in Christian discipleship, that the divorce rate among Christians is either the same or worse than the world. How do we explain that? As the economy gets harder, marriages are failing at an alarming rate today, even among Christians. More and more Christians unfortunately are waking up to the persom they are sleeping next to and wondering if they did not marry a monster? Most couples simply don't fall out of love as much as they fall out of repentance!

It seems people are raising all kinds of questions today like when is it okay to get a divorce?, what about gay marriage?, and what about remarriage among Christians who have already been divorced? The problem is we often come up with the wrong answers on these questions because we do not even know what marriage is anymore? If Christian theologians are asking anew "What is the gospel?" then maybe even more we need to be asking, "What is Marriage?

Many marriages today do not even come close to following what is described in the Bible as something that nourishes, builds up, blesses, and where couples live sacrifically for one another. Divorce and remarraige have become such acceptable practices in the church today that questions the Bible asks concerning remarriage as possibly adultery or people not even planning to have children in their marriage are not even challenged anymore concerning what the Bible teaches on these issues.

When it comes to marriage, family, children and related issues, it seems like many Christians have forgotten the biblical truth that First Corinthians chapter seven says, "You Belong to God."

A Prayer

"WHOM HAVE I IN HEAVEN BUT THEE? AND THERE IS NOTHING UPON EARTH I DESIRE BESIDES THEE" - George Mcdonald

It's Monday and I'm tired, but the Spirit of God still speaks and listens as we pray. I pray for leaders everywhere, especially our political leaders. I pray that God will deliver his church from thinking that politics or elections or human effort will somehow save us in the end. My only trust is in you O God!

Lord, help me not confuse the patterns of this world with your Holy Word. Father, may your church once again recapture the beautiful vision of what it means to be your intimate spouse. Oh Sovereign Lord, lead me not to be distracted by earthly things but to see your kingdom and heaven on earth. Keep my mouth from speaking vain things that ultimately do not matter in the end and give me the boldness to speak for you when I am tempted to keep silent.

O Almighty God, birth your love anew in me this day. Amen!

The Evolution of Adam

Peter Enns new book "The Evolution of Adam" leads into the complex problem for many of how does science and religion intersect? Is evolution the way God created the universe and when we read in the Bible stories about people like Adam and Eve, did they really, literally, historically exist at all? For some people, the book of Genesis is all about science and how God created the world around us. But what if Genesis is really a critique of all the pagan neighbors false deities and really about idolatry? For some people today, they have outgrown the childish notions of talking snakes, universal floods, and the Bible as history. We are like grown up adults who have left our innocence and child-like faith behind. But maybe its child-like faith that God wants to recreate in each of us? Maybe it's God's image stamped on us and his fingerprints all over creation, God wants us to see once more? Maybe God wants us to simply stop, listen, and read and once we read, to listen some more to what God's Word and the Holy Spirit speaks to us in the moment. Holy moments with God. Silence. In the beginning . . .

Waiting for the God Who Waits For You

TO PRAY MEANS TO WAIT FOR THE GOD WHO COMES - Carlo Caretto

God is looking for spiritual mystics who will abandon everything to find God alone. One such modern day crazy in love with God Catholic spiritual writer I have stumbled onto is Carlo Caretto. May the fire of God's Spirit burning through his words sting your heart:

"Every prayer-filled day sees a meeting with the God who comes; every night which we faithfully put as his disposal is full of his presence . . . His coming is bound to his promise, not to our works or virtue. We have not earned the meeting with God because we have served him faithfully . . . God is thrust onward by his love, not attracted by our beauty. He comes even in moments when we have done everything wrong, when we have done nothing . . . . when we have sinned."

"To have found God, to have experienced him in the intimacy of our being, to have lived even for one hour in the fire of the Trinity and the bliss of his Unity clearly makes us say, "Now I understand. You alone are enough for me."

(excerpts from his THE GOD WHO COMES)

Ghost Stories for the Christian Soul

Holy Ghost, Batman!

I have never liked ghost stories but I have watched and heard a few. I can't tell you how many credible people have told me some tale of a recently deceased person showing up and offering some kind of comfort to the grieving. I know there are some who count all ghost stories as some kind of last days plot by the Devil. If Satan can masquerade as an angel of light, he certainly can masquerade as a ghost! Christians are called to discernment because there is the real and there is the false. There is the true and there is deception posing as the truth. There are angels and there are demons and it's important we can tell the difference!

I have heard many a ghost story but I do not recall one personally. But the best ghost story of all is this invisible teacher the Bible calls "the Holy Ghost" or "Holy Spirit." I know some people say we should not call God's Spirit a ghost but I doubt there was a dimes worth of difference when the King James Version was first written. Ghosts may come and go but God's Spirit (the Holy Ghost) is here to stay with us forever.

When it comes to following Jesus, if we are not following the Spirit he sent to us then who or what are we following? Coaching, mentoring, disciplers are badly needed in today's world but I would love to hear more people say "The Holy Spirit!" or "Holy Ghost" as the answer to the question "Who Discipled You?"

If anyone wants to read the longest section of Scripture on the Holy Spirit/Ghost, read John chapters 14 thru 16. As I was reading John 14 today prayerfully, here is what God's Spirit impressed upon me. There are three questions asked in the context of how are disciples of Jesus to be different than the world. Here are the three questions:

1. We don't know where Jesus is going or how to follow him (v.5). Sound familiar to people's questions today?

2. I just need to see God and that would be enough (v.8). Jesus shows us the Father and people today are desperately wanting to encounter or know God is some kind of tangible and real way.

3. How is it that some people seem to know, see, feel God and others don't? (v.22). Have you ever asked this question? Is God fair with the many gifts and experiences given to some but not all?

The first question is answered exclusively that the way forward is only through Jesus. The second is asking and passionately seeking God and His ways that it overshadows and destroys us doing things simply by our own way. The last question is answered by those who really love God will obey all that God tells them to do. Maybe the last answer is the toughest of all. For without God teaching us and empowering us, we will not do any of these in the end.

Maybe the answer to more questions than we have given credit to really is the Holy Spirit/Ghost. Now there is a story that may haunt some of us for the rest of our lives!

Subversive Spirituality

JESUS WILL NOT BE DOMESTICATED - John Piper

What church do you go to? I like to respond, "I go to the church that loves one another." We think that going to the right church, believing the right doctrines, and being part of the right religion will save us one day. Jesus comes to bring us heaven today. Jesus comes to offer us God's love now. Without God's love, we are noise makers in an already loud world. When all is said and done, remember, "The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love (Galatians 5:6).

Uprising

"Two thousand years ago God started a revolt against the religion He started. So don't ever put it past God to cause a groundswell movement against churches and Christain institutions that bear His name. If he was willing to turn Judaism upside down, don't think for a moment our institutions are safe from a divine revolt. I am convinced that even now there are multitudes of followers of Jesus Christ who are sick and tired of the church playing games and playing down the call of God. My travels only confirm that the murmurings of revolution are everywhere. I am convinced that there is an uprising in the works and that no one less than God is behind it."
- Erwin McManus