The Fear of the Lord and Humility

Today I've been reading The Rule of St. Benedict, concentrating on Chapter 7, Humility. In this chapter Benedict asks me to enter, understand, and thoughtfully introduce myself (perhaps with some qualifications) to twelve indicators that signal the emergence of humility in someone's life. Benedict believes these twelve markers to be indices, manifestations, and signs that point to the presence of humility in one's life.

The first indication as to one’s movement toward humility is one's fear of God. As I consider what Benedict says about the fear of God in one's life, I'm quite aware that various external [medieval] expressions of humility . . . are cultural forms and, as such, may not necessarily translate into the milieu of the twentieth century . This observation may well be applicable as I try to unpack Benedict’s insistence that humility begins with one’s “fear of God.” Quite frankly, “the fear of the Lord” is bluntly a medieval sounding phrase, at least to my ears. As a youngster growing up in a Lutheran parsonage, I knew something of the fear of God. When I was in the sixth, seventh, and eighth grades as a Lutheran catechetical student (three hours of study and memorization of Luther’s Small Catechism each Saturday for three years!), I was taught that the meaning of each of the Ten Commandments certainly involved the fear of God. Here, for example, is what Luther’s Small Catechism says about the first commandment:

THE FIRST COMMANDMENT
“You shall have no other gods.”
What does this mean?
Answer: We should fear, love and trust in God above all things.

The use of the three verbs—“fear, love, and trust”—together as the initial sentence in explaining the meaning of each commandment made it impossible for me as a young Lutheran to think of “fearing” God apart from “loving” and “trusting” at the same time. My catechetical teacher (actually my father) always pointed out to me the distinction between “filial” and “servile” fear (a distinction I later learned he got from The Apology of the Augsburg Confession, XII, 38).

My fear of God is to be filial; that is, I am to fear God just as I fear a loving father who knows when and where I need punishment for my own good. I was not to cringe before God in some servile fashion, full of dreadful anxiety as a slave might find it necessary to quiver and cower before a menacing master. In our synod’s “expanded” edition of the Catechism, this understanding of the first commandment was re-enforced with numerous Scripture texts.

Furthermore, it was made quite plain to us twelve-year-olds that the English word fear does not quite catch the original Hebrew word which is best translated as reverence and awe. “Reverence for God” is a better way of expressing the biblical concept of faith and trust in God, we were told, so that in the progression of things, we turn from sin and evil and trust in God’s promises centered in Christ.

As Terrence Kardon notes, all of us who live in post-Vatican II, have been encouraged (as in my Lutheran tradition) to place our first emphasis on the love and faithfulness of God, rather than in the so-called “fear of God.” As a consequence, when Benedict says “we must constantly recall the commandments of God, continually mulling over how hell burns sinners before God,” Kardong finds it necessary to make this observation:

This ferocious verse . . . is exactly the kind of religious sentiment most people today no longer accept. . . . We have to accept that on some questions our religious sensibilities may be quite different from those of the ancient monks—and from our grandparents! (Day by Day with Benedict, January 10)

Yet in spite of these differences, it seems to me that there is something in the older way of understanding the “fear of the Lord” that is necessary for a firmly grounded Benedictine way of life. While it is true that the phrase “fear of God” is used only once in the New Testament (Acts 9.31), nevertheless much of what our Lord says to us (for example, his insistence that we will be judged by our actions in Matthew 25) ought properly give us serious hesitation about any day-by-day assumptions we may have about the quality and quantity of our presumed Christian behavior. Under no circumstances may grace afford us casual or easygoing comfort simply to walk as always. We will be judged and that judgment may well be harsh, if not damning. Here Psalm 36 (sung in my breviary during Morning Prayer on the seventh day of each month) is a telling reminder as to how the fear of God either works well or, if absent, fails to work in my life:

There is a voice of rebellion deep in the heart of the wicked;* there is no fear of God before his eyes.

He flatters himself in his own eyes* that his hateful sin will not be found out.

The words of his mouth are wicked and deceitful;* he has left off acting wisely and doing good.

He thinks up wickedness upon his bed and has set himself in no good way;* he does not abhor that which is evil.

When the fear of God is absent, I am out of touch with the importance and opportunities of life, and I neglect considering the consequences of decisions. And if even if aware of decisions, I may deliberately and maliciously enjoy the effect they will have on others—-to their harm. It is a serious problem when I decide to have no regard for God—-either by complacency or deliberate
decision.

By completing with faith the rest of the Psalm, we sing that whatever disasters not fearing God may produce, God Himself moves us toward recovery, that is, a fearful and reverent awareness of His presence; in God's light, we see light:

Your love, O LORD, reaches to the heavens,* and your faithfulness to the clouds.

Your righteousness is like the strong mountains,your justice like the great deep;* you
save both man and beast, O LORD.

How priceless is your love, O God!* your people take refuge under the shadow of your wings.

They feast upon the abundance of your house;* you give them drink from the river of your delights.

For with you is the well of life, * and in your light we see light.

Continue your loving-kindness to those who know you,* and your favor to those who are true of heart.

Let not the foot of the proud come near me,* nor the hand of the wicked push me aside.

See how they are fallen, those who work wickedness!* they are cast down and shall not be able to rise.

To live in the fear of God is be aware of the significance of life; it guarantees wide-eyed robust living. We need “the fear of the Lord” so that we can be fully alive. And lest we imagine that we generate any such fear by our own effort, it too is a gift of God, encouraged by the Holy Spirit (Acts 9.31). It is, as Proverbs says, a builder of confidence, “making a world safe for [our] children,” “a spring of living water” that keeps us from “drinking from poisoned wells” (14.26-27).

Our fear of, love of, and trust in the Lord frustrates, demobilizes, and deconstructs whatever incipient tendencies we possess toward egotism, self-conteredness, haughtiness, smugness, complacency, and self-righteousness so endemic and pervasive in one’s daily life. The fear of God is, as Benedict reminds us, the first step toward humility, a deep appreciation for all of life.

Image: Julie Deane, Reverence, pastel. About this work of art, the artist writes, "During a music and praise session one evening [on a mission trip to Peru], the man in the foreground of the painting came into the church and stood next to me. He was obviously very weary, but he stood for hours that night, worshipping quietly. The scene was a highlight of my trip."

Thomas Merton on The Inner Self

The inner self is not a part of our being, like a motor in a car. It is our entire substantial reality itself, on its highest and most personal and most existential level. It is like life, and it is life: it our spiritual life when it is most alive. I t is the life by which everything else in us lives and moves. It is in and through and beyond everything that we are. If it is awakened, it communicates a new life to the intelligence in which it lives, so that it become a living awareness of itself: and this awareness is not so much something that we ourselves have, as something that we are. It is a new and indefinable quality of our living being.

The inner self is, first of all, a spontaneity that is nothing if not free.

Thomas Merton. The Inner Experience: Notes on Contemplation. Ed. William H. Shannon (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2003), 6.

Image: Stephen Rue, One Big Self, oil on panel, 36" x 36"

January 27: Remembering Lydia, Dorcas, and Phoebe, Witnesses to the Faith

While in Haiti, a few of us managed to rise early in the mornings and, gathering in the darkness, turn on our flashlights so as to read Morning Prayer; truth-told, our Evening Prayers suffered somewhat, the place where we were staying often overcrowded with young Haitian men and women who wanted to talk with us. Now, however, that I'm back from Haiti and recuperating from a respiratory illness, I find it so physically and spiritually healing to re-enter more fully the Church's prayer life on a more regular basis.

Many of us when checking our church calendars find that in the last week of January (either on the 27th or 29th) we are asked to remember the life and witness of Lydia, Dorcas, and Phoebe. All three shared one pre-eminent quality: they helped others.

Dorcas was known for her assistance to the poor. So highly regarded was she, that when she died, the saints of Joppa appealed to Peter. He prayed over her and God raised her from the dead.

Lydia was a seller of purple cloth. After Paul shared the gospel with her, Lydia and her entire household were baptized--his first convert in Europe. She insisted Luke and Paul stay at her house. Her prosperous home became the original church at Philippi.

As these three individuals of the New Testament show, middle-class women were already beginning to play an important role in the Christian world.

Most of the women I know--like Lydia, Dorcas, and Phoebe--are well within the so-called middle class. Here I think of those women in our ecumenical prayer group: Lutherans, Methodists, Presbyterians, Episcopalians, Baptists, and Roman Catholics, many of whom have so positively and deeply influenced my life. As the Church owes so much to Lydia, Dorcas, and Phoebe, so my life is indebted to many women who share their faith in Christ with me. While I will not mention names, those of you who are reading my words know who you are. You may be middle-class by some definitions, but you are truly "classy in Christ" to me and to all who know, work, pray, and worship with you. To all you Lydias, Dorcases, and Phoebes--by whatever name we know you today--may God bless you, each and every one. Tonight in Evening Prayer I will remember you before God, asking him to bless you, take care of you, sustain and heal you, and keep you in His compassion and protection.

The Prayer for Today

Almighty God, who inspired your servants Lydia, Dorcas and Phoebe to uphold and sustain your Church by their loving and generous deeds: Give us the will to love you, open our hearts to hear you, and strengthen our hands to serve you in others for the sake of your Son Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.

Image Source: St. Lydia, Theology in Color

Poverty, Jesus, and God's Silent Night of Love

While in Haiti, we found the unsettling poverty of Our Lord Jesus everywhere, on every street, in every home, shop, school, chapel, church, clinic, hospital, cane field, and alleyway. In the eyes of nearly all Haitians--especially the children--Jesus starred at us and held out his hands to us to touch and hold. While at the Village of Hope, Pastor Bollinger took the three of us (Pastor Ron Luckey, Pat Mundt, and I) twice to visit "The Little Children of Jesus," an orphanage for 101 "throw-away"children who are, in one way or another, severaly disabled, either physcially or mentally, sometimes both. As sadly and commonly understood among the poor of the world, there are not enough resources to take care of the weakest and most desperate. Were it not for the Village of Hope, these children would not be living.

Children everywhere are in need to help, love, and assistance. In his arms Pastor Luckey holds a little girl whose parents died in the recent hurricane; in Ranquitte Pat Mundt is opening herself to a special relationship with 12-year-old Hippolyt; and I saw the face of my Lord Jesus in little Monuel, who just recently underwent a coronary transplant and now sees at least a bit more clearly her Haitai world and friends. Her photograph here is in my prayerbook.

Going to Haiti changes us. I expect my prayer life to change now so that it will include intercessions for this little Monuel, this Jesus. I will look at her, remember her before God, and then do what I can to give her some water, some clothes, a meal, and the touch of a nurse. And so Jesus will be in my prayers speaking to me through Monuel.

The world's poverty unsettles terribly. And one might well grow desperate were it not for God's abiding Presence in the midst of it all. While in Haiti I had little time to enter God's Silence, his Deepest Presence wherein all Haitians and their recents visitors-Ray and Bobby, Greg, Pam and Grover, Charlene and Amos, Pam, Shannon, Joe, Ron, the orphans, Pat, Hippolyt, Monuel, and all God's poor--are covered in the Night of Love and blanketed with compassion beyond words.

Recently a friend sent me the following from Thomas Merton's The Hidden Ground of Love; apparently it was part of a letter Merton sent to a Christian community. You may wish to enter its encouragement as I do today:

O my brothers and sisters, the contemplative is not the person who has fiery visions of the cherubim carrying God on their imagined chariot, but simply those who have risked their mind in the desert beyond language and beyond ideas where God is encountered in the nakedness of pure trust, that is to say, in the surrender of our poverty and incompleteness in order no longer to clench our minds in a cramp upon themselves, as if thinking made us exist. The message of hope the contemplative offers you, then, is not that you need to find your way through the jungle of language and problems that today surround God: but that whether you understand or not, God loves you, is present in you, lives in you, abides with you, calls you, saves you, and offers you an understanding and light which are like nothing ever found in books or heard in sermons. The contemplative has nothing to tell you except to reassure you and say that, if you dare to penetrate your own silence and risk the sharing of that solitude with the lonely other who seeks God through you, then you will truly recover the light and the capacity to understand what is beyond words and beyond explanations because it is too close to be explained: it is the intimate union, in the depths of your own heart, of God's spirit and your own secret inmost self, so that you and God are in all truth One Spirit. I love you, in Christ. (157-158)

How much God loves us

God loves us too much to allow us to be satisfied and contented with mere images or signs of his Presence, like the material icons that we see or the mental concepts of him that we form with our intelligence. It is to his most secret and hidden abode-symbolised by the clouds which covered Mount Sinai or enveloped Jesus at his Ascension-that God calls his beloved children. The words of Jesus in the Gospel exactly express the Father'swill: 'Father, I desire that they also.may be with me where I am' (John17:24).

From The Fire of Silence and Stillness: An Anthology of Quotations for the Spiritual Journey, ed. Paul Harris (Springfield, Illinois: Templegate, 1995), 13.

Some More Words from Haiti

Hi, ieveryone! Our thirteen-member team (with 20 cargo tubs) left Kentucky and Georgia, met in Miami, and made our way to Port au Prince on Tuesday, January 6. After spending the night with Pastor and Margaret Bollinger at the Village of Hope at Port au Prince, we left on Wednesday to arrive by plane in Pignon; from there we traveled an hour and a half trucks to Ranquitte, our destianation. On Thursday and Friday working with a team of Haitian masons, helped construct a home for a family that has been living in a sticks-and-mud home. Their new home will have a concrete floor, walls made of blocks (made days before on site), wooden rafters, and a metal roof. We will note be able to see the completed home because the mortar needs to dry thoroughly before the roofing can begin. The family, however, will be able to move into their new home in about two weeks.

In the photo below, you see me in front of the nearly completed home with Jude, a disabled young many who works with his heart and hands as best he can. Below that photo, someone has taken a photograph of Pastor Luckey, the family, and me.

This morng we all went to a joyful Mass where Per (Father) Andre Augustin, the much-loved priest at St. Francis parish, welcomed us to the celebration of Christ's Presence in the world. It was really quite wonderful additionally because we witnessed the marriage of two Haitian coiuples. Absolutely happiness!

There's lots of prayer here, wonderful fellowship, good vegetarian food, much laughter, and a whole lot of smiling. More tomorrow.

On my way to Haiti

Tomorrow morning I'll be driving to the Atlanta airport to catch a plane to Miami where I'll meet twelve others, all of whom are going with me to Port au Prince and Ranquitte, Haiti; most are going for a week; three of us are staying an additional two days. I may have access to our blog while there. All depends on the amount of solar energy the roof panels can generate. If opportunities arise, I'll keep you posted as to how things are going.

Tomorrow we celebrate The Feast of the Epiphany. The star we twelve will be following leads us to the manger at Haiti, and all of us ask for your prayers, especially as you pray for the Haitian people who are so desparately poor. Our work while in Haiti will be the building of a small concrete-block home with a metal roof for a family that now sleeps on a dirt floor.

Here are some words from Thomas Merton that you may wish to ponder:

Spiritual rebirth is the key to the aspirations of all the higher religions. By "higher religions" I mean those which, like Buddhism, Hinduism, Judaism, Islam, and Christianity, are not content with the ritual tribal cults rooted in the cycle of the seasons and harvests. These "higher religions" answer a deeper need in [humankind]: a need that cannot be satisfied merely by the ritual celebration of [our] oneness with nature-[our] joy in the return of spring! [Humankind] seeks to be liberated from mere natural necessity, from servitude to fertility and seasons, from the round of birth, growth, and death. [Humankind] is not content with slavery to need: making a living, raising a family, and leaving a good name to posterity. There is in the depths of [our] hearts a voice which says: "You must be born again." It is the obscure but insistent demand of [our] own nature to transcend itself in the freedom of a fully integrated, autonomous, personal identity. --Love and Living (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1979), 194.

Do visit this Epipahny video. I'll be back in Kentucky on the 22nd.

Some thoughts on January 1, 2009

This morning the Church asks us to remember that when we wake up today, we may well want to remember, as Luke tells us, that” at the end of eight days, when Our Lord was circumcised, he was called Jesus, the name given by the angel before He was conceived in the womb.” In other words, January 1 is the Feast of the Circumcision and Name of Jesus.

Quite frankly, except on January 1, I don’t think about the circumcision of Jesus very much. But today I’m aware that there are numerous paintings depicting the scene, and that when January 1 occurs on a Sunday, I may hear a sermon reminding me that long ago Jesus began to bled for our redemption. So soon after birth, his Passion begins. Having never seen a medical circumcision, I’ve always imagined it, however, to be somewhat painful for the infant, but I could be wrong; maybe today some kind of anesthetic is used. When Jesus was circumcised, however, I’m quite sure he did a good bit of screaming and crying in protest. And I’m equally sure that Mary, setting her eyes squarely on the body of her screaming son, watched with empathy as the local surgeon went work on her son while Joseph did his best to hold their son firmly on the operating table.

As I understand the custom among Jewish families, the circumcision and naming of a Jewish baby took place eight days after birth, and it was performed at home; a specialist cut the prepuce, the father gave the child a name and imposed his hands on him. Luke seems to imply that Jesus was most likely circumcised in or nearby the “inn” inasmuch as makes no mention of it occurring anywhere else. Today when we see paintings, icons, or other depictions of the event, the artist frequently places Jesus’ circumcision in the Temple of Jerusalem. That fairly well eliminates the family setting of the ceremony and ritual. Moreover, artists, often not squeamish about anatomical details, often depict the cutting up close and often with an altar in the scene to link the blood of the Circumcision to that of the Passion. Sometimes a lamb is added to the scene.

So what are we to make of this day, this scene, this realization of what’s happening in our Lord’s life. For me it’s a very profound reminder that Jesus’ heart always pumped Jewish blood, that he was bilingual, speaking Aramaic with a Galilean accent, the way his mom and dad chatted, and that he learned to read Hebrew with the rest of boys at the local synagogue. During the so-called 'missing years' filled in by spurious apocryphal gospels, my Jesus undoubtedly received a Jewish education perhaps, as Jonathan West suggests, along these lines: “at five years of age" he would be "ready for the study of the written Torah, at ten years of age for the study of the Oral Torah, . . . at 20 for pursuing a vocation, at 30 for entering one's full vigour.”

My Jewish Jesus grew up watching Roman soldiers patrol the streets, played Jewish teen-age games, learned how to chant the psalms from his elders, sweated in a saw-dust strewn carpenter shop with Jewish tools, and got acquainted with local zealots (terrorists, some of whom were active in his inner circle). He was liturgically informed, observed Jewish prayer customs (e.g., reciting the Shema three times a day), went to synagogue every Sabbath, made frequent pilgrimages to the Temple in Jerusalem for important religious celebrations like the Passover. When traveling he mostly walked and sometimes rode donkeys. My Jewish Lord slept out in the fields when necessary, made good friends among Jewish women, and often overstepped cultural boundaries and local expectations. He loved the Torah, especially the Prophets and the Psalms. My Jesus had a Jewish memory. And yet he had a way of being more--the most!--authentically Jewish man than all of his Jewish friends and critics. While Jewish, he saw into the heart of Almighty God who is not Jewish. And therein lay the tension, the suffering, the Passion of his life.

He was barely eight days old when the pain began that would ultimately wind him up on a cross, marked as a anti-Jewish criminal who showed himself the King of Jews, the man for everyone, the man for Andy, thoroughly non-Jewish, who never learned Hebrew well, who struggles with the Prophets and the Psalms, and who—to this day—has a hard time figuring out what an authentic life with the radical Jew Lord Jesus really means from a domesticated, basically urban, American point of view.

For me January 1, Feast of the Circumcision and Name of Jesus, means that I am more and more somehow called to be wonderfully Jewish--to think prophetically Jewish about injustice and poverty--in order to live with Jewish Jesus. So I pray today that my Jewish Lord fills me up with his Jewishness--his uncommon prophet, redemptive Jewishness--so that my heart is circumcised even as he was circumcised both in body and in heart.

Images: “The Circumcision of Jesus”, The Cloisters, New York; A mohel (a ritual circumciser) carries out the circumcision of a boy on the eighth day after birth; The Circumcision; Simon BENING; 1525; tempera and gold on parchment; from Cardinal Albert von Brandenburg’s Book of Prayers; J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles; The Circumcision; workshop of Giovanni BELLINI; 1500; oil on wood; National Gallery, London; Jesus as a Boy

Thomas Merton on Contemplation: Two Observations

Each week The Merton Institute sends out one or more reflections taken from Thomas Merton's writings. Here is the week's reflection:

True contemplation is the work of a love that transcends all satisfaction and all experience to rest in the night of pure and naked faith. This faith brings us so close to God that it may be said to touch and grasp Him as He is, though in darkness. And the effect of such a contact is often a deep peace that overflows into the lower faculties of the soul and thus constitutes an "experience." Yet that experience or feeling of peace always remains an accident of contemplation, so that the absence of this "sense" does not mean that our contact with God has ceased. Thomas Merton. (New Seeds of Contemplation. New York: New Directions Press, 1961, 211)

You will never be able to have perfect interior peace and recollection unless you are detached from even the desire of peace and recollection. You will never be able to pray perfectly until you are detached from the pleasures of prayer. (New Seeds of Contemplation, 208)

From my chapbook of thoughtful sayings

Benedict Groeschel says, "A saint is just a sinner who is more repentant than most of us."

Getting ready for next Sunday, January 4, 2009

Each Monday morning I receive a weekly essay on the Biblical lectionary by Daniel B. Clendenin. Here's the beginning of this week's essay:

Last month I called Palo Alto's Friends of the Library to help me purge my bookshelves. They hauled away thirty-two cartons — 1,002 books, if I counted correctly. What was interesting was not the books that I gave away, but the ones I kept. When I looked at the few books that I kept, I noticed that a large percentage of them came from the desert monastics of the fourth century. Read more . . . .

Learning to face Facebook

For the past half-year people have been inviting me to Facebook, and in the past few days I've been exploring the phenomenon. For what it's worth, I'm there now, staring at I-don't-know-what and gazing fixedly at the "wall." It's an interesting village! I've found a namber of groups focused variously on Centering Prayer, the Divine Office, The Cloud of Unknowing, and the witness of Tom Merton, among other interesting areas of interest. If you are ever somewhere in the area, whistle "hello!" and show me the way around!
!

Prayer Shawls and Tallits

Danielle is knitting a prayer shawl for a friend who has been diagnosed with a recurrence of breast cancer. As Danielle knits, she is both praying over the shawl for her friend’s restoration to health and asking others to join her so that eventually the shawl is saturated with prayers. When Danielle finishes her knitting, she will give the prayer-soaked shawl to her friend as a gift heavy with hopes and intercessions for healing.

When Danielle asked if I’d like to participate in the praying and preparation of the shawl, my musings about prayer shawls led me to remember that Jesus might well have used and recommended prayer shawls as an aid to “secret prayer” in Matthew 6.6:

But when you pray, go to your private room and, when you have shut your door, pray to you Father who is in that secret place, and your Father who sees all that is done in secret will reward you.

Here Jesus urges that we enter a private room (other translations call it a “closet,” “a quiet, secluded place,” “chamber,”) to circumvent any ego-driven tendency to ostentatious praying. Some commentaries suggest that Jesus’ word for closet--in the Greek New Testament (τὸ ταμεῖόν, to tameion) is best understood as a reference to the Jewish prayer-shawl, the tallit, traditionally used by observant Jews during prayer. The wearing of the "tallit" (Hebrew: טַלִּית‎, pronounced tal-eet), also called the "tallis" or "prayer shawl," was commanded by God in Num.15:37-40:

God spoke to Moses: "Speak to the People of Israel. Tell them that from now on they are to make tassels on the corners of their garments and to mark each corner tassel with a blue thread. When you look at these tassels you'll remember and keep all the commandments of God, and not get distracted by everything you feel or see that seduces you into infidelities. The tassels will signal remembrance and observance of all my commandments, to live a holy life to God. I am your God who rescued you from the land of Egypt to be your personal God. Yes, I am God, your God."

Lest we forget that Jesus was thoroughly Jewish and that he observed that commandment, it may be helpful to picture Jesus as always wearing his tallit or prayer shawl. Indeed, Jim Gerrish is quite right to remind us that we can be assured that he wore one. Marc Chagall's "The Praying Jew" might well give you the image of Jesus that fits what we know about the way Jesus looked when wearing his prayer shawl.

Had he not done so, he would have broken the very law that he came to uphold. The law concerning the wearing of such garments is found in Numbers 15:37-49. These garments were certainly still worn in Jesus time, because along with the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, a tallit was found almost intact. It can be seen on display today at the Shrine of the Book in Jerusalem.

On one occasion a sick woman came and touched what must have been the fringes (tzitzit) of this garment, and in so doing, she was healed (Mk. 6:53-56). Traditionally the four corners of the tallit are called "the four wings." Perhaps she had in mind that phrase in Malachi 4:2, which speaks of the Messiah as one with "healing in its wings."

The clear implication is that at Matthew 6.6. Jesus is recommending the use of one’s tallit as a closet, inner room, or secret place.

This interpretation is born out when we remember that TALITH contains two Hebrew words; TAL meaning tent and ITH meaning little. Thus, you have LITTLE TENT. Each man had his own little tent. Six million Jews could not fit into the tent of meeting that was set up in the Old Testament. Therefore, what was given to them was their own private sanctuary where they could meet with God. Each man had one! His Prayer Shawl or Talith. They would pull it up over their head, forming a tent, where they would begin to chant and sing their Hebrew songs, and call upon God. It was intimate, private, and set apart from anyone else -- enabling them to totally focus upon God. This was their prayer closet! (The Hope of Israel)

As Danielle knits her prayer shawl for her friend, she is encouraging the revival of an ancient prayer tradition—the use of a tallit; and moreover, remembering Jesus’ encouragement of its use for “secret prayer,” Danielle might also be suggesting a prayer shawl is perhaps an apt aid to Centering Prayer, prayer spoken only to God in secret, deeply interior prayer, prayer that forsakes not only public ostentation but also minimizes as much as possible the interruption of private thoughts, images, imaginative speculations, interior story-telling, and pious perceptions, no matter how "holy" they may be.

Surely we enter our closets by simply closing our eyes. Many, however, also find it helpful to pray in a darkened room or at night. If those practices are helpful, surely the use of a prayer shawl might also be beneficial in that it may help us—as Jesus recommends—to physically close the door to distractions and nearby disturbances.

Personally I don’t own or use a prayer shawl, but in Centering Prayer I sometimes pull the hood of my so-called sweat-shirt up so as to bury my head inside something much like a tallit. Now, however, that Danielle has gotten me interested, I may start actually thinking about using one. Methodist women, like Danielle, seem to be leading the renewal of tallits as gifts, prayer closets, and aids to healing. If you’re interested, you might like to visit one or more of the following:

• Prayer Shawls Become Gifts of Love
• Methodist women minister through prayer shawls
• Prayer Shawl Ministry
• Prayer Shawls

May God bless Danielle's knitting and prayers for her friend.

Images: Marc Chagall (Russian-born French painter, 1887-1985), "The Praying Jew" (1923, copy of 1914 work), oil on canvas, 116.8 x 89.4 cm, Art Institute of Chicago; The blessing of shawls made by Methodist women

Monastic Skete

Found a good blog this morning: Dan Phillip's Monastic Skete (a skete is a settlement of monks or ascetics). Dan is wise Baptist pastor who likes Tom Merton. You need to meet him, and so I'm adding Monastic Skete to our list of places to visit so you can tromp on over now and then when you come visiting here. To give you a preview as to what sorts of things Dan is up to, here's a poem that Dan wrote and posted on December 16:

FIRST CORINTHIANS 13 (paraphrased)

CHRISTMAS VERSION

If I decorate my house perfectly with plaid bows,
Strands of twinkling lights and shiny balls,
But do not show love to my family,
I'm just another decorator.
If I slave away in the kitchen, baking dozens of Christmas cookies,
Preparing gourmet meals and arranging a beautifully adorned table at
mealtime,
But do not show love to my family,
I'm just another cook.
If I work at the soup kitchen, carol in the nursing home
And give all that I have to charity,
But do not show love to my family,
It profits me nothing.
If I trim the spruce with shimmering angels and
crocheted snowflakes,
Attend a myriad of holiday parties and sing in the choir's cantata,
But do not focus on Christ,
I have missed the point.
Love stops the cooking to hug the child.
Love sets aside the decorating to kiss the husband.
Love is kind, though harried and tired.
Love doesn't envy another's home
that has coordinated Christmas china and table linens.
Love doesn't yell at the kids to get out of the way,
but is thankful they are there to be in the way.
Love doesn't give only to those who are able to give in return,
but rejoices in giving to those who can't.
Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures
all things.
Love never fails.
Video games will break, pearl necklaces will be lost, golf clubs will
rust....
But giving the gift of love will endure.
You can give without loving, but you cannot love without giving.

BRO. DAN AND THANKS ROGER WILLIAMS

December 26-31: The Witness Days

On the six days between Christmas Day and its Octave on 1 January, we remember five persons who have in various ways, by martyrdom or otherwise, born witness to the truth of the Christian faith.(Note that the word martyros in pre-Christian Greek simply means "witness," and that it is not always clear whether early Christian uses of it (as in Revelation 2:13) ought to be translated broadly, as "witness", or in the narrow technical sense as "martyr", that is, someone who has explicitly chosen to die rather than to deny Christ as Lord.)

On December 26th, we remember St. Stephen, first member of the early Christian church to be put to death for his faith -- see Acts 6,7. He was "a martyr in will and deed."

On December 27th, we remember St. John the Evangelist, one of the Twelve Apostles. It is commonly believed that, although he was imprisoned and beaten for his adherence to Christ, he lived to old age and died a natural death. He was "a martyr in will but not in deed," meaning that he was willing to lay down his life for his Lord, but was not called on to do so -- See M 20:20-28 = P 10:35-45.

On December 28, we remember the Holy Innocents, the children of Bethlehem who were slaughtered by command of King Herod lest one of them prove a danger to his throne -- see M 2:16-18. They were "martyrs in deed, though not in will," and their deaths are a disquieting reminder that suffering on behalf of a good cause is not always restricted to those who have a choice in the matter.

The witnesses commemorated on these first three days are all from New Testament times. On the two days following, we commemorate witnesses from a later period in Christian history. Taking them in reverse order of days --

On December 31 we commemorate Sylvester, bishop of Rome from 313 to 335 -- that is, roughly from the Edict of Toleration issued by the Emperor Constantine to the death of the said Emperor, and thus the first bishop of Rome in the days after Christianity ceased to be an illegal and persecuted religion. With his term of office, we enter an era when to become a Christian is no longer to place oneself in automatic danger of being put to death by the government. However...

On December 29, we remember Thomas a Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, slain in his own cathedral in 1170, for his defiance of King Henry II. The death of Thomas reminds us that a Christian, even when safe from pagans, can be in danger from his fellow-Christians.Two recent additions to the Calendar are John Wylcif (31 Dec), a pioneer of Bible translation; and Josephine Butler (30 Dec), who came to the assistance and defense of women whom society had, in effect, declared outside its protection. Neither was (in the technical sense) a martyr. Both are witnesses.

In recent years, it has become the practice of some groups of Christians to give the First Sunday after Christmas precedence over the observance of these days, and so to postpone by one day those commemorations falling on or after that Sunday.

Again, presumably to avoid commemorations close to Christmas (just as we avoid them within seven days of Easter Day), some Christian groups have adopted alternate dates for some of these celebrations.

Thomas the Apostle: 3 July
Stephen the First Martyr: 3 August
John the Evangelist: 6 May
The Holy Innocents: 11 January (after the Magi on 6 January)
Thomas a Becket: 7 July

On January 1st, we celebrate the Circumcision of Christ. Since we are more squeamish than our ancestors, modern calendars often list it as the feast of the Holy Name of Jesus, but the other emphasis is the older. Every Jewish boy was circumcised (and formally named) on the eighth day of his life, and so, one week after Christmas, we celebrate the occasion when Our Lord first shed His blood for us. It is a fit close for a week of martyrs, and reminds us that to suffer for Christ is to suffer with Him.

Text source: The Witness Days

Source of images: St. Tom's Players

Christmastide

As we all know, the Feast of Christmas is not simply a one-day affair; it's a nearly two-week, twelve-day celebration of the Incarnation. It's really a "tide," "tidings" of days; and so remembering that the "tidings" (perhaps from Old Norse tīdhendi, events as "news events") of Christmas cannot be told in a mere day, the Church has extended its celebration for a whole row or days, making sure that we have plenty of time to receive the Lord Jesus in many ways, throughout many days. That's why we call the coming days Christmastide.

That, of course, is not to diminish the importance of Christmas Day, the Feast of the Nativity. As Christians, we surround that day with lights and candle-burning, with carols and cantatas, with church drama and creches, with parishes providing special services, and with exceptionally beautiful provisions for Morning and Evening Prayer. Take, for example, our local Episcopal parish in Covington, Georgia. This morning there is Eucharist at 11:00; then later at 5:00 p.m. and at 10:00 p.m., two more Eucharists! The Church of the Good Shepherd wants to make sure--no matter the work schedule (whether it's baking home-made cookies, driving a tractor-trailer, preparing for family gatherings, or working as a server in a restaurant)--that everyone has an opportunity to kneel at the manger and receive the Lord Christ. And at Faith Lutheran Church in Lexington, KY, Andy's home parish, there will Christmas Even Eucharists at 4 and 11 p.m. (with music 20 minutes before the services begin). And on Christmas Day, another Eucharist at 10 a.m. Everywhere we Christians all over the world are praising God for the gift of Jesus Christ.

As we worship our way through Christmastide, I'll be sharing my thoughts with you. For now, however, if you're attending an especially beautiful celebration of the birth of Christ, leave us a comment and tell us what your parish did in response to the love of God in Mary's Son.

Some Photographs

Dr. Joe King, who is going to Haiti with a group of us in January, has introduced me to a place where I can share some of my photographs with you. If you'd like to see them, go to http://harnacka.zenfolio.com/. I'll put up a more-or-less permanent link to my photographic work on this and the other blogs I try to maintain.

Stethoscope

You might like to watch (and listen) to this one.

Some thoughts on the Gospel lesson for the Fourth Sunday in Advent

The appointed Gospel reading for the Fourth Sunday in Advent is Luke 1.47-55; in many churches during worship we'll listen as the pastor or lector reads the Song of Mary, what many know as The Magnificat--what many sing or say every afternoon and/or night during Evening Prayer. Although you may know it well, look at it again:

And Mary said,

My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord;
my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
for he has looked with favor on his lowly servant.
From this day all generations will call me blessed;
the Almighty has done great things for me,
and holy is his name.
He has mercy on those who fear him in every generation.
He has shown the strength with his arm;
he has scattered the proud in their conceit.
He has cast down the mighty from their thrones,
and has lifted up the lowly;
he has filled the hungry with good things,
and the rich he has sent away empty.
He has come to the help of his servant Israel,
for he has remembered his promise of mercy,
the promise he made to our father,
to Abraham and his children forever.

If, however, we read several verses before coming to the Song of Mary, we have this context for her Song :

In those days Mary set out and went with haste to a Judean town in the hill country, where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the child leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit and exclaimed with a loud cry, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me? For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leaped for joy. And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.”

[The Song comes here!]

And Mary remained with her about three months and then returned to her home.

Thomas Keating in The Mystery of Christ: The Liturgy as Spiritual Experience shares his understanding of these contextualizing verses this way:

What is Mary's first response to the gift of divine motherhood? She goes to see her cousin Elizabeth who happens to be having a baby and who needs help with whatever you do when you are getting ready for a baby: making diapers, preparing
the bassinet, knitting little socks and bonnets. That is what she figured God wanted her to do. It never occurred to her to tell anyone about her incredible privilege. She simply did what she ordinarily did: she went to serve somebody in need. That is what the divine action is always suggesting: help someone at hand in some small but practical way. As you learn to love more, you can help more.

Mary did not go to counsel Elizabeth; she did not go to evangelize Elizabeth; she went to prepare the diapers. That is true religion: to manifest God in an appropriate way in the present moment. The angel had said that Elizabeth was soon to have a baby. Mary said, "Is that so? She must need help; I'll go at once." She went "in haste," manifesting her eagerness to be of service without any thought about her own condition, including, I presume, what Joseph or her mother were thinking about her unexpected pregnancy.

As the title of his book suggests, Keating is responding to what he hears during Advent when he attends the Church's communal eucharistic worship. In his reflections, Keating reminds us that all of us listen and pray within many environments: those times we set apart for the Daily Prayers of the Church, Sunday morning worship, private praying, support-group meetings, short bursts of thoughts to God during any time of the day, and personal Centering Prayer. Using all these (and more) resources of the Church, the Holy Spirit works the will of the Father upon and in us all.

The Scripture in several places tells us that Mary spent a good deal of her time pondering, musing, and wondering about the activity of God in her life. She was often, I think we can safely say, practicing "centering prayer" although two thousand years ago she didn't describe her "listening in stillness" that way. For Mary is was simply "quiet time" with God. As Keating suggests, this quiet time extended itself into all avenues of her life. Such Mary-like "resting in God" will also prompt us to be more responsive to everyone, urge us to help someone whenever the occasion arises, and recommend to us creative ways to show our love for everyone, including family members, in-laws, and neighbors.

As you worship, read, intercede, praise God, give thanks to the Father, come to the Lord Jesus in Holy Communion, and listen to his voice in centering prayer, you too will find yourself "in haste" to make a visit, speak to a friend, spouse (or disgruntled neighbor) in love, write a letter to someone who'd like to hear from you, visit someone in the county jail, and say hello to your server at Bob Evans with an appreciative smile. You'll let the Blessed Virgin Mary be an example on how to re-enter ordinary living after prayer.

Christmastide Reading

During our Monday evening conversation, we said that we'd like to read Thomas Keating's Open Mind, Open Heart: The Contemplative Dimension of the Gospel in preparation for our late January meeting. Here's what http://www.amazon.com/ provides as information for ordering:

Open Mind Open Heart: The Contemplative Dimension of the Gospel by Thomas Keating (Paperback - Dec 30, 2006), Buy new: $10.85, 37 Used & new from $9.38.

I have often found that after reading this book, my entrance into centering prayer naturally follows.

About our February Benedictine Retreat

Sr. Judy, Prioress at The Monastery on Mount Tabor, in Martin, Kentucky, called this morning to say we have reservations for eight-to-ten of us for February, 2009: February 27 (Friday evening) through March 1 (Sunday afternoon). When our Daily Office and Centering Prayer Support Group meets again in late January, we'll fill each other who are committed to going on the details of minimal cost, what to take, transportation needs, and so on.

One little surprise: Sr. Judy tells me that I will be able to make my promises and be received as an oblate with the community while we're there.

A Delightful Surprise in the Daily Office Today

This morning when June and I were preparing for Morning Prayer, we discovered in our prayerbook that the fourth appointed reading for today comes from a sermon by Johannes Tauler (1300-1361). What a surprise, especially so because it relates so nicely to the discussion on Centering Prayer that a few of us had last night in our living room.

I happen to like Tauler a good deal; many of his sayings are worth slipping into one’s chapbook of quotations, worth remembering. Here are three samples:

A good meditation, even when it is interrupted by occasional nodding, is much more beneficial than many outward religious exercises.

As a good wine must be kept in a good cask, so a wholesome body is the proper foundation for a well-appointed inner ground.

In the school of the Spirit man learns wisdom through humility, knowledge by forgetting, how to speak by silence, how to live by dying.

In the fourteenth century, of course, Tauler didn’t know that his contemplative prayer is now often called “Centering Prayer." He simply called what he did prayer, and he frequently preached wonderful sermons about doing contemplative or centering prayer. Here following is the excerpt the editors in my prayerbook appointed for today’s reading. To help you see how it is a commentary on or explanation of what we now call Centering Prayer, within brackets I've provided some editorial comments. As you read the excerpt, it’s also important to know that in this sermon, Tauler refers to a medieval legend which suggests that when the Holy Family fled to Egypt, the idols of the Egyptians crumbled whenever Joseph, Mary, and the infant Jesus passed by.

Should God speak, you must be silent; should He enter, created things [thoughts, perceptions] must give way. When our Lord entered Egypt (Matthew 2.13-15), all idols crashed to the ground; those are our false gods [again, our thoughts, ruminations, abstract thinking, imagining, and so on], everything that hinders the immediate generation [birth] of the divine Word [God] in the soul, however good and holy it may seem [in other words, don’t mistake thinking about God for dwelling in the Presence of God]. Our Lord tells us that he had come to bring a sword to cut off all that clings to man, even mother, sister, and brother. For that with which you keep intimate company [your thoughts and perceptions] without God, that is hostile to you. The multiplicity of images [again, thoughts] conceals the divine Word and prevents its birth in you, although the inner stillness [the “still point” in Centering Prayer] may not be entirely removed. Though it [that is, the inner stillness] may sometimes desert you, it should nevertheless become a fertile ground for the divine birth. Cherish this deep silence within, nourish it frequently [twice a day is recommended], so that it may become a habit, and by becoming a habit, a mighty possession . . . . It is habit which creates skill [in living out the Christian life]. May God help us to prepare a dwelling place for Christ’s noble birth, so that we may attain spiritual motherhood [that is, giving birth of Jesus in our hearts].

Isn’t that wonderful! Can you imagine a pastor or preacher describing prayer like that from a pulpit today? Well, not likely. To be reminded of this kind of praying, we now need to help of those who know our Christian tradition well, folks like Thomas Keating, Basil Pennington, and William Menninger. You can be sure that they recognize Johannes Tauler as a good friend!

Hoping that you are finding practice of Centering Prayer helpful, let’s remember one another in our intercessions and plan to meet again at the end of January, 2009. In the meantime, listen to Keating’s advice: just sit quietly, twice a day if possible.

Image: Fuite in Egypte [The Flight into Egypt]

Monday, Dec. 15. The Psychology of Centering Prayer

Tomorrow evening at 7:00, we'll meet again in our home to listen to Thomas Keating speak on "The Psychological Experience of Centering Prayer," practice Centering Prayer, and close with a brief discussion. All are welcome to come. Here are directions to our home:

1. Go to Exit 87 (the intersection of I-75 and the EKU By-Pass)

2. Go west on Barnes Mill for 2.3 miles to Crutcher Pike.

Crutcher Pike is the first crossroad past The Corner Store.

3. Turn right onto Crutcher Pike.

4. Go .5 miles to Mule Shed Lane.

5. Turn left onto Mule Shed Lane.

6. Go .8 miles to Marengo Drive.

7. Turn left onto Marengo Drive.

8. Go .3 miles to 281 Marengo Drive, the brick house on the crest of the hill after you enter the left-turning curve of Marengo Drive.

We'll have the porch light on for you.

A Hidden Wholeness: The Zen Photography of Thomas Merton

Although I've not been able to confirm things by a phone call, I'm given to believe that there's a exhibition of Thomas Merton's photographs in the Great Hall, Special Collections Library, in the Margaret I. King Building at UK, from November 23, 2008 to January 15, 2009. If so, June and I plan to visit the exhibit sometime early this coming week (before the 19th). If you'd like to travel with, let us know. Maybe we can have lunch and Merton together. The library is open from 8:30 a.m. to 5:00, Monday through Friday.

Photograph by Thomas Merton, "The Only Known Photograph of God"

Advent Conspiracy

Marlene Bertke, one of my Benedictine friends, asked me to visit the video below. Well, I did and then thought I'd like to share it with you. More to come in a day or so!

Thomas Merton Memorial, KET Broadcast Planned

A service in Louisville tomorrow will commemorate the 40th anniversary of the death of Kentucky author-monk Thomas Merton on Dec. 10, 1968. A brief "Prayer for Peace Remembering Merton" is being planned for Wednesday at 9 a.m. at "Merton Square" -- the intersection of 4th and Muhammad Ali. The ceremony includes readings of words by Merton calling for world peace. The intersection was the scene of another Merton anniversary ceremony earlier this year -- 50 years after Merton's visit to downtown Louisville on a routine errand prompted him to reflect that he wasn't isolated in the monastery but connected to everyday people and their problems.

Other ceremonies are being planned around the world. In one, Paul Pearson of Louisville's Thomas Merton Center will be speaking in his native England, with the main address given by Anglican Archbishop Rowan Williams.

Morgan Atkinson's documentary, "Soul Searching: the Journey of Thomas Merton," will air on KET1 on Sunday at 10 p.m. It tells the dramatic tale of Merton's conversion from a dissolute young life to his conversion, his entrance into the Abbey of Gethsemani in Kentucky and his pursuit of greater spiritual knowledge and greater connection to the urgent social crises of his day.

Upcoming Airdates:
KETKY: Sunday, December 14 at 1:00 pm EST
KET1: Sunday, December 14 at 10:00 pm EST
KETHD: Sunday, December 14 at 10:00 pm EST
KET2: Monday, December 15 at 2:00 am EST
KET2: Tuesday, December 16 at 4:00 am EST
KETKY: Thursday, December 18 at 6:00 am EST
KETKY: Friday, December 19 at 7:00 pm EST
KETKY: Saturday, December 20 at midnight EST
KETKY: Saturday, December 20 at 2:00 pm EST
KET2: Sunday, December 28 at 10:00 pm EST

Source of Information

Centering Prayer: Reflections on Our First Gathering

Last evening six of us--Mason, June, Stephen, Danielle, Pat, Harry, and I--met to talk about Centering Prayer and watch Thomas Keating present "The Method of Centering Prayer." From what I surmise, our discussion went well and our initial practice of Centering Prayer proved itself helpful as we are coming to understand something of the apophatic prayer tradition in the life of the Church. Encouraged to practice Centering Prayer during the coming week, we plan to meet again next Monday on December 15, once again in my home at 7:00 p.m. In the days to come, I'll be posting thoughts and comments that others have made about their practice of centering prayer. Please feel free to post any comments you may have concerning your contemplative prayer life.

Musings about our Holy Baptisms

Last night—in the middle of Evening Prayer, of all things!—June and I had a discussion about baptism. My wonderful June is a Southern Baptist, who, in marrying me, managed to get a Lutheran as a husband. June was baptized as a sixteen-year-old young adult (fifty-six years ago), and I was baptized as a five-week-old baby (seventy-one years ago) on St. Andrew’s Day, November 30, 1937. With June I now attend worship at her First Baptist Church in Barnesville, GA, and she attends worship with me at Faith Lutheran Church in Lexington, KY. We also worship at First United Methodist Church in Richmond, KY, and at The Church of the Good Shepherd, Episcopal, in Covington, Ga. Even though June is basically Baptist in her thinking and soul-thoughts and I’m a hard-shell liberal Lutheran in my theological outlook, one might also describe each of us as post- or trans-demoninational. In short, we get around, visiting and worshipping with the Body of Christ here and there. It’s a wonderful life!

But, as you might expect, because of our early years and experience in the Church, we sometimes share differences about our approaches to Christian doctrine and teachings, often and notably about Holy Baptism. We gave expression to our differences last night during Evening Prayer, and although we finished our prayers in good spirits, I felt a lingering dissatisfaction with our conversation and spent a good bit of the night pondering over the meanings and significance of Holy Baptism for both of us as we articulate and live them out life in Christ in our daily lives.

Hence, these musings:

Every day in Morning Prayer June and I pray the so-called Benedictus Dominus Deus (“Blessed Be the Lord”), the song of thanksgiving sung by Zechariah on the occasion of the birth, circumcision, and naming of his son, John the Baptist. Many prayer books—including the one June and I use daily--are sure to include it as one of our Morning Prayer canticles; one of my prayerbooks, The Daily Prayer of the Church, which I use when June is not with me, provides me with a beautiful melody for the canticle that I often sing while out walking in the morning.

The text for Zechariah’s Song and the story surrounding its singing is in Luke 1.68-79. According to Luke, Zechariah and his wife Elizabeth have just been to the temple to have their little boy circumcised and given his name: John. Then, holding his little baby in his arms, Zechariah, “filled with Holy Spirit” sings a psalm-like Song as he looks down on the infant who will become the Forerunner of Jesus. Towards the end of his song, Zechariah chants (I always imagine it in a raspy voice because he’s been speechless a good while) this Song:

You, my child shall be called the prophet of the Most High, for you will go before the Lord to prepare his way, to give his people knowledge of salvation by the forgiveness of their sins.

Sometimes, however, when I sing Zechariah’s “Blessed Be,” a painting about John the Baptist comes to my mind’s eye: it’s Matthias Grunewald’s famous painting of crucifixion in the Isenheim Altarpiece wherein John stands on the right side of Christ (as you view the painting) and, holding the Old Testament in his left hand, points to Jesus while our Lord is dying. Next to John’s left foot is a white lamb, reminding viewers that we are seeing the Lamb of God, Jesus, dying sacrificially for us.

In the Gospel for the Second Sunday of Advent, Mark 1.1-18, we are introduced to the work and witness of this same John the Baptist. Mark tells us John is a “voice” who proclaims the coming of the Messiah, who comes over the hill while John is baptizing repenting Jews. Obviously John knows his cousin Jesus quite well; their mothers were kin, they’ve grown up together and attended numerous family reunions. I have no doubt that John and Jesus played together as kids, hung out together as teens, and stayed in touch during their young adult lives. When in his early thirties, John (who decided to live monk-like in the Judean desert) tells his listeners that Jesus, who comes over the hill into view, is a man with tremendous power, power so great that John cannot now imagine himself daring even to untie his cousin’s sandal strings. Obviously John is now astonished at who Jesus has become. He tells the gawking crowd standing around that here is Someone who will baptize them with no one less than the Spirit of the Most High God.

That said, something remarkable happens. As I imagine it, Jesus sits down, takes a good look at John, unties his own sandals, and bare-footed clambers down the rocky bank of the Jordon to wade into the waist-deep river. Without a lot fuss (at least in Mark’s Gospel), John then either immerses Jesus, pours water over his body, or somehow makes sure that Jesus gets really wet; that is, he baptizes and washes his cousin. We don’t know what John says; we know only his actions. Then, with his clothes dripping and head wet, Jesus sees the “heavens torn apart, the Spirit, like a dove, flying down around and on him, and an announcing voice declares, ‘You are my Son, the Beloved; my favor rests on you’.” Then, just as quickly as he came forward and got himself baptized, the wet Jesus who is baptized with the Holy Spirit is driven into the desert by that same Spirit. Quite a story! It's been "written" and told again by many Orthodox "writers" of icons; my favorite is The Icon of the Feast of Theophany which depicts the baptism of Jesus with artfully perceptive insight.

Advent reminds us that we are never to forget the two-fold, yet single, message of John and Jesus. First, we are to “change the way we think about life” and our culture (Repent!) and then unite ourselves to Jesus (Trust him!) so that we enter his witness, death, and resurrected life by a baptismal beginning. Sometimes our solidarity with Jesus begins when we are baptized as infants (as I did) or children when God adopts us into his Family, the Church; sometimes our solidarity with Christ takes places when we step into a river or tank full of water (as June did) to announce publicly that we believe in Jesus our Savior and that we want to be immersed into God’s Name: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. When we are baptized, either as infants, children, or adults, we enter into Christ’s life as Paul tells us in Romans, Chapter 6:

When we were baptized into Christ Jesus, we were baptized into his death. So by our baptism into his death we were buried with him, so that as Christ was raised from the death by the Father’s glorious power, we too should begin living a new life.

For most of us, Christ in and with baptism as already come into our lives (as infants or as adults) as God's beloved Advent. Now (often over the span of decades and years later) he keeps on coming, every morning, moment-by-moment, day-by-day, until he will come finally, either at our deaths to take us the Father by the power of the Spirit, or at his final Great Descent when he comes in glory to claim all the worlds as his own. Either way, by daily repentance and renewed trust, we are always in solidarity with Christ. Seeing all of life with his eyes, all hearing with his ears, all touching with his hands, all walking with his feet, all singing with his voice, and all thinking with his mind, we are wet behind the ears with His baptism, ready to let the Spirit be our guide.

While I wish that the Holy Scriptues were more explicit about the kind of baptism we ought clearly to affirm and practice, the Holy Spirit has decided to leave the Church divided (and sometimes tragically opinionated) about a preferred mode of baptism. Importantly, however, both infant-baptism and adult-baptism seem to work well with God. C. S. Lewis, for example, was baptized as an infant and became a great witness to the truth of the Gospel and the vitality of Christian living; Billy Graham was baptized as an adult and become an equally great witness to the power of God to work miracles in the lives of men and women. Clearly, the baptisms of both men have proven themselves worthy of God’s blessing and effectiveness. God surely seems to bless both kinds of baptism: infant and adult. For this reason, June respects my infant baptism, and I honor and respect her young adult baptism. Paul says there is “one faith, one baptism, one Lord,” and he’s right. Although there are two kinds of baptism practiced in the Church, there is in the final analysis only one baptism, the baptism that unites us to Christ.

So June and I rejoice in our baptismal unity, and we strive to live out the meaning of our baptisms by walking in newness of life every day. As baptized persons, we want to think with the mind of Christ, to walk with the feet of Jesus, to see with the eyes of the Savior, to hear with the ears of our Lord, and to imagine the world with the vision of God's Beloved Son. In short, we want to live resurrected lives. The challenge is not so much to find out who is right about the how and when of baptism; the challenge is rather how to live united with Christ now that we are in solidarity with Christ. It's quite an adventure!

A wonderfully artful Advent calendar

During Advent Christianity Today is providing a wonderfully artful Advent calendar. Copyright restrictions prevent me from providing you with an image, but (trust me) it's worth a daily visit!

An Encouragement from Thomas Merton

As we begin to introduce ourselves to Centering Prayer, we will often make mention of Thomas Merton. Each week I have the privilege of receiving a short quotation from Merton’s writing, selected and sent by The Merton Institute of Contemplative Living. As they arrive, I’ll post them; here is this week’s reflection:

Puritas cordis [purity of heart] means much more than moral or ascetic perfection. It is the end of a long process of spiritual transformation in which the soul, perfect in charity, detached from all created things, free from the movements of inordinate passion, is able to live absorbed in God, and is penetrated from time to time with vivid intuitions of His action, intuitions which plumb the depths of the divine mysteries, which "grasp" God in a secret and intimate experience not only of Who He is, but of what He is doing in the world. The [person] who is pure in heart not only knows God, the Absolute Being, pure Act, but knows Him as the Father of Lights, the Father of Mercies, Who has so loved the world as to give His only begotten Son for its Redemption. Such a [person] knows Him not merely by faith, not by theological speculation, but by intimate and incommunicable experience.

Thomas Merton. Bread in the Wilderness (New York: New Dimensions, 1953): 20-21.

If you would like to receive these Weekly Email Reflections, visit the Institute and sign up.