An Ash Heap with A Cosmic View

Two books I read almost one after the other was Paul Wallace's "Stars Beneath Us" and Mike McHargue's "Finding God in the Waves." Both books are about losing faith in God and rediscovering faith and how science and the Christian faith intersect each other.  I read Wallace's book first which focused on the story of Job.  A very fitting parallel since most people find themselves on an ash heap like Job in some great crises and rise out of the ashes with a bigger view of both God and reality.  Wallace is an astrophysicist and loves how God takes Job on a cosmic tour.  Job's faith and view of reality and God are changed by the great suffering he endures through.

Mike McHargue says its his study of neuroscience that brings him back to God. The mysteries of the brain and how it points us to God consolidated Mikes faith but I would argue it was a mystical experience of meeting God in the waves of the ocean one night that changed Mike life forever.  He still has the mind of an atheist but his heart is now for God.  Each one of these books is biographical in nature that speaks of the divergent journeys people take through faith, doubt, and faith again. When one goes through the darkness and comes back into the light, their faith and how they live and believe are transformed greatly by these mystical intuitions and experiences we have with God's presence and the mystery of God's universe.

What I keep discovering is God is always present to us be we are not always present to God. We often kill God through bad religion and atheism is often generated from bad theism.  Mystical awareness is where we wake up to the constant presence of God in our lives. God enlightens our imaginations, purifies our perceptions, and bring us into union with all reality. I resonate with the Catholic writer Ronald Rolheiser who said, "Death brings about final purification, not by making us as cosmic angels who no longer have bodies, but by making us pan-cosmic spirits with the entire cosmos for a body" (Shattered Lantern, p.90).

The Naked Present

Richard Rohr is a contemporary mystic who writings are timeless and timely. In his book, "The Naked Now," here are some of his essential thoughts:

1.  Asking something from God does not mean talking God into it. It means an awakening of the gift within ourselves.

2.  Science and religion are merging from common descent of all living creatures to the star dust of all creations matter. Oneness is no longer a vague mystical notion but now a scientific fact.

3.  Western religion has been telling people what to know more than how to know, telling people what to see more than how to see.

4.  We see what we are ready to see.

5.  Christianity believes that God and humanity can coexist in the same place!

6.  God does not love us because we are good. God loves us because God is good.

7.  Prayer is about changing you, not about changing God.

8.  Remember this, if you do not transform your pain, you will surely transmit it to those around you and even to the next generation.

9.  There are two great doors we dare not leave closed----suffering and love.

10.  Open yourself to recognizing the great paradoxes in Jesus.  Then you can begin to hold those same opposites together in yourself.

Benedictine Monastery: Day Three

Practicing the Benedictine spirituality is a life of contemplative silent prayer, singing the Psalms, practicing 'Lexio Divina' scriptural meditations, and immersing oneself in the writings of the patristic fathers.  All of life is to be lived and worked as a prayer to God.  Above all, prayer is not asking God for things but learning simply to pray is to be in the presence of God.

I started this spiritual retreat reading Hans Urs Von Balthasar "My Work in Retrospect" and I ended the retreat by finishing the book.  Here is how Balthasar ends his work:

1.  We all start with a reflection on the situation of man. We quickly discover that we exist as limited beings in a limited world.  We are not God and God has no need of the world.  But if God has no need of the world, then why do we exist?

2.  God is love and created us in the freedom to love in God's image. God created us as personal beings who need love and communion.  God reveals himself to us by his Word and Spirit.  Human reason must be open to the infinite and transcendent.  Human knowing is always partial and limited.

3.  The One, the True, and the beautiful all surpass reason and point to transcendent attributes.  God is One and love and makes all things beautiful. Man exists only by interpersonal dialogue. Why then deny speech to being itself?

4.  God is not silent and speaks. God mystically meets and communes with us.  Like an epiphany, God appears! God enters into an alliance with us, a covenant where we do not chase after other gods and idols.  How can God come and make himself understood to man?

5.  The Holy Spirit and Christ's incarnation of love makes us one with God, ourselves, all people and the whole cosmos of creation.  Trinitarian love disrupts our divisions and binary thinking and leads us into fullness and peace with reality.  We enter the divine life through the Son of God who is the eternal icon of the Father.  Our response is simply humble surrender, honest transparency, and vulnerable love.

Benedictine Monastery: Day Two

God woke me up at 4am and heaven and earth collided in mystic joy of prayer.  I had breakfast with a scientist who was seeking after the mysterious unknown.  I sensed his science was not answering his present questions and possibly he had a mystical experience that did not fit into his closed system worldview.  Could it be he is running after what he does not know as he is haunted by the ghost of God?

Another gentleman in my retreat talked about Mother God Sophia.  Here is a man possibly trying to get in touch with the feminine side of God. God is Spirit and beyond gender but maybe some people need God more as Mother than Father? This reminds me of the movie "The Shack" where God shows up in the movie as a black woman.  All I can say is God meets us in the moment and where we are at and reveals as much light as we can accept by his mercy. James 2:13 says "mercy overcomes judgment."

I went to my first confession today. I shared my pain and heart with an 80 year old priest.  I prayed Psalm 149 & 150 and gave contrition for my sins. He simply shared his love and smiled at me the whole time as if I was giving my confession to Christ himself!

Benedictine Monastery: Day One

God is calling me to a life of complete surrender and peace. To learn to be content in all circumstances and to listen to the intuitions and movements of the Spirit of God throughout the whole day.  God is calling me to a contemplative lifestyle where I live an incarnational life and ask the Holy Spirit into every decision of the day.  Every new day is an opportunity to invite the Holy Spirit in the present moment.

At Supper, I met a Reformed minister whose life parallels mine in so many ways. He loves church history, the catholicity of the church and faced many of the same challenges I do in my relationships and life.  I could not help but feel God put us providentially together for such a time as this!  Discontentment, apathy, fear, anger, anxiety have filled to many of the last days of this month.  God is calling me out of the dark abyss into the light and freedom of rest in Christ. Is it possible that facing the worst moments leads to life's best?

In the empty silence of the monastery is the naked Spirit of God healing my overburdened soul and leading me into Holy communion.  After darkness comes light and crucifixion comes resurrection.  God is making all things new and God is making me new. Alleluia!

Immortal Diamond

A new author for me to read is Richard Rohr. He is one of the leading contemporary Christian mystics of our day.  Here are some of the beautiful insights from his book "Immortal Diamond":

1.  The goodness of God fills all the gaps of the universe.

2.  Your soul is who you are in god and who God is in you.

3.  Contemplation is the ultimate recovery, because it is from the universal addiction to our preferred way of thinking.

4.  The opposite of contemplation is not action---it is reaction.

5.  God is resurrecting everything all the time.

6.  Love is what we already are and what draws us to the fullness of our own being.

7.  Intimacy is the only gateway into the temple of human or divine love.

8.  Our failures and insufficiency are what leads us into a larger life and love.

Out Of The Empty Silence

Can you hear it, quietness, gentleness, tranquility
Out of the darkness flows the works of God's Spirit inscrutability
All is one ins the silence of God's eternal kingdom
Everything sinks and is melted into a sacred wisdom

Circular currents of Trinitarian love, everything is connected
Everything turns and spins, one great rhythmic detected
Every pocket of creation sings and echoes movement
The universe stilled with silence and joyful amusement

Sacred energy awakens opening blind eyes to the Divine
Vibrant silence hushes the emptiness and fills it with a new story line
Like layers of ocean waters flooding the soul
Space, time and matter are left behind, the void now filled whole

Can you hear the silence, rippling through the endless landscape
Waves of mercy crushing all with a translucent light  that penetrates
All is still, one with Christ's victory
Even the angels gaze at the cosmic mystery