Tag: language

When God says “Psst.” -The follow up

Before I follow up (click here for part I), I want to say that I’ve learned that talking too much about a splendid spiritual experience is problematic:

1. There’s really no way language can encompass something mystical (an experience with the divine). It just won’t translate.

2. Sometimes the more you sort it out the more the sweet memory lifts in a puff and vaporizes. I just hate doing that to it. It’s like squeezing a kitten until you hear a pop. Bad idea.

(And the details work more like forensics too, like writing a research paper on your first kiss. By paragraph three you just regret starting to tackle the project at all. Not that I tried to do that, because that would be weird.)

I don’t pray the whole time when I go away for a prayer retreat. I have a Brother Lawrence life of faith, mostly. Integrated. That means Life is Prayer. Prayer is lived. Each breath is an exchange of that gift of life up into the atmosphere. That hope and petition… and God is everywhere, receiving it with a smile.

Sometimes when I tell people I go for a whole day to pray, I get weird looks. They think it must be work or simply beyond boring. Or worst of all…that it’s super spiritual and religious. It’s not whatsoever. It’s carnival of inner joy. I wish it for everyone.

A typical day away
So when I’m there, I turn off my phone, I walk the halls or the grounds, enjoy the paintings, sculptures, the plants, gardens, wildlife and scenery. I pray, worship, and intercede for others in the onsite chapel or in the little alcoves, prayer rooms, the library, or benches outdoors. When I get stiff I stretch and walk a bit more. I journal, write prayers, take notes and a few photos, and I read scripture or devotional books… just short bits. They have an art room, so sometimes I draw or paint. I enjoy snacks I brought and a good hearty lunch on the grounds. I make sure that nothing is done out of obligation or becomes drudgery. Sometimes I just sit there and be. Many times. I allow myself to truly relax and be myself. How life-giving it is. My heart fills up. It is truly sacred space. Somehow more fully the permission is given, the place is consecrated for pilgrims to come alive and enjoy it all, and feel loved ever deeply by our good Maker. Do you like picnics? It’s like that.

Sometimes I feel the shine of God and sometimes it seems God is thinking and being quiet next to me. We’re friends and friends can do that.

So, instead of going into everything I enjoyed and relished in the details, I’ll share a few field notes and let the rest be hidden to ponder in my heart.

• The Sacred will hush you and bring you home.

• As jars of clay filled with treasure (God within) we need rest and reconnection to be cleaned out and readied for God’s use in holy work.

• Life is short, bitter-sweet, and suffused with exquisite joy and ravaging sorrow–all that makes us more human but it takes divine healing through it to become whole. We are simply too fragile to do “being human” apart. Beside God, we need people who love God. People have God inside, and that helps.

• The birds aren’t frantic as I assumed for too long; they are alive with work. Excited to be themselves.

• Deep calls to Deep. In God’s whispers the deepest parts of ourselves are stirred yet we often mistake it for other things.

# # #

When was the last time you got away?

 If you’d like to go and you live near Reading/Lebanon, Pa, let me know. I’m always happy to go with a companion. I travel there with a friend or two, then we go off, each own our way to enjoy God or pray and then meet back up for lunch and sometimes discuss it a bit.

I also offer a guided experience there, and more info for that is here if you are interested.

Discernment Series: Defining “Consolation” and “Desolation”

This is the 2nd week of the Discernment Series.

This time it’ll be good to know about the terms Consolation and Desolation as described by Ignatius of Loyola in his work Spiritual Exercises.

BUT FIRST…some of you who know me know I’m not a Catholic. I’ve been trained at a decidedly Evangelical Seminary, called…not-so-creatively “Evangelical Seminary“. So why am I going on about a 500 year old book from a counter-reformation Catholic?

In short, because your soul will be blessed.

Because the tensions from that time (1491-1556 CE) aren’t here in force now so we can learn some very useful things that align with basic Christian theology. The major hostilities at the time made listening to what God was saying “on the opposing side” quite difficult. (Things were hostile to the point of murder on both sides, no less….how Jesus of them?!ugh.) So, from the point of my tradition, Protestants rejected both grimy bath water and baby.

In general, Catholics rejected what they considered a heretical and a rebellious front to the unquestionable authority of the Church, and didn’t see what was coming from Reformers as helpful or biblical ideas for doing church differently. (It took about 500 years at Vatican II to incorporate many of those needed Reformation era ideas, but a surprising number of them went through and were accepted. Masses conducted in a language understood by the people listening being just one of them. Then, it takes 50 years or so, so I’m told by Catholics, to see them flesh out at the parish (local church) level.)

SO Now-
We’re at a point (I’m generalizing here) where we don’t have to fear reading other streams of Christianity from that time. No one will be tied to a stake and torched, not literally anyway. I think we’re okay accepting that God has much truth to impart from devoted believers with various backgrounds, and this willingness to hear can aid our spiritual growth.

Ignatius was convicted and motivated to “find God in all things”.
 I like that about him. This is the way we live incarnational lives. This is how our worldview and our true selves get put right by the love and dominion of our Savior and Creator, and his Son, the enfleshed God, Jesus Christ. While I find some of the ideas, concepts, doctrine, and long-ago language of Ignatius foreign to me, I don’t let it unsettle me. Instead, I let the Holy Spirit speak to my heart and guide me while I read. I pray with the ideas and ask for guidance. I admit I have a lot to learn. I leave some things behind and take in what is transformative and what will make me more like Jesus, the Christ.

Not every but of it will help me or you, but enough will that I bother to write about it and include those outside of my tradition and experience in my blog to open our eyes to some great advice and sage wisdom for understanding how to discern God’s will in transformative ways.

So now for “consolation” and “desolation”

Ignatian teaching has it that these are two terms that help us decipher what is from God, and what is not. At first blush, we may assume that consolation is “happy…yeah God…feelings” and so forth. Desolated might be unhappy ones. But, hang on while we dig a little deeper.

For Ignatius, Consolation is a word to describe interior stirrings that are aroused in the soul that has been inflamed with love for God as Creator and Lord, and too every creature made by the Creator. It’s marked in every increase in faith, hope, love, and interior joy that bring a filling of peace and quiet. A drawing closer to God. A soul in consolation may weep too at the recognition and repentance of sins, and also the relief of the abiding grace of God. A godly grief may be a Consolation, though a difficult patch to get through. Most importantly Consolation is a gift. We don’t arrive there by techniques or things we do. God graces us with consolation.

Desolation is indeed the opposite of consolation, but note how Ignatius writes about it,

“I call desolation what is entirely the opposite (of  consolation), as darkness of soul, torment of spirit, inclination to what is low and earthly, restlessness rising from many disturbances and temptations which lead to want of faith, want of hope, want of love.  [In desolation] the soul is wholly slothful, tepid, sad, and separated, as it were, from its Creator and Lord.”

Desolation then is all the stuff that stirs our souls and draw us away from God, regardless of the subjective feelings. Some in desolation will not recognize it as that. They will be oblivious. And plenty more will not associate what feelings they have with interior stirrings of the soul. Maybe they’ll blame the government, the economy, circumstances, or other things instead.

So, now that you know which is which, listen and tune in to your interior stirrings. Consolation and Desolation are not mere feelings. They have to do with a conflation of responses and influences that are the movings at the soul level (our core).

Note when you are in consolation. Note when you sense desolation. Get a feel for the movements and workings of God. Begin to distinguish them from the ungodly ones that come from the Enemy or the ungodly parts of yourself.

Next time I’ll talk about the uses and aims of both consolation and desolation in God’s work on us.

To read the (English) PDF of Ignatian’s “Spiritual Exercises” click here.

(Don’t miss the next installation of the series. Use the sidebar to get the next update.)

Transcendence is moving from noun to verb?

GOOGLE is the number you get if you write the numeral 1 and then add 100 zeros. this is a largely lost mathematical factoid that’s been replaced by other meanings.

Google is the most popular internet search engine. (yeah, Duh.)

But something happened in contemporary culture when it was influenced by this culture of the information age. Google made the leap worldwide from a noun (think: person, place, thing, or idea) to a VERB. The noun form of Google standing for a company name sprouted into other parts of speech too.

Adjective: “If you want to know about me, do a Google search.”

Adverb: “He Google searched and found my article.”

Verb: “If you don’t know something, don’t ask me, just Google it!”

A lot of big things happen when this shift happens.

A noun gets this categorically right.

A adjective hones down a noun. Specifics.

An adverb specifies what a verb is doing or what an adjective is describing.

but, a Verb not only shows action (as the definition will tell you), but also taps into the ontological core of the thing itself.

This is helpful to know when we say, for instance, “God is Love.” Love is a noun, verb, adjective (loving) and maybe other things.

I wonder if that’s where we locate transcendence. Language captures crucial shifts in their broad strokes. It works to define parameters we can’t see. The layers ones.

So–Will you be marginalized to just a noun? Or will you flourish into as an adjective and or verb?

Tomorrow will be a PART II to this. The “how” bit.

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On Being Embarrassed When Worship Songs Seem Sexual

[CAUTION: This post is satirical. Calm down.]

Over-sexualized.

Worship songs? No. Everything.

I’ve been both a victim and a participant in the American cultural norm…Scope out opportunities to rejoin comments with, “That’s what she said.”

(To be sure, the phrase was around long before the TV show “The Office”, but a certain Michael Scott character seemed to usher the phrase into a broad and sweeping cultural vernacular. Am I right?)

So now, it seems thousands of words and phrases are hijacked, and church gatherings are not immune to it either. Or, maybe it’s just me. It can be hilarious, dreadful, or just plain embarrassing. Recently, a few worship songs have sort of had their way with me on this, so to speak.

“Bride of Christ” by Marion Coltman (I thought it was entitled: “Jesus, keep your hands where we can see ’em”) …and it’s all just a bit too much for me.

I didn’t want to think it at the time, but the Casting Crowns song “Your Love is Extravagant” sounded just a little too much like a “friends with benefits” song. Golly, all you have to do is take the “t” off Christ, and you have a fine mess (in my head):

Your Love is Extravagant

Your love is extravagant
Your friendship, it is intimate
I feel like moving to the rhythm of Your grace
Your fragrance is intoxicating in our secret place
Your love is extravagant

Spread wide in the arms of Christ is the love that covers sin
No greater love have I ever known You considered me a friend
Capture my heart again

Spread wide in the arms of Christ is the love that covers sin
No greater love have I ever known; You considered me a friend

Capture my heart again
Your love is extravagant
Your friendship, it is intimate

Don’t get me wrong, Casting Crowns does so many great worship songs I really enjoy. This may be one your favorites, which is fine. I hope it creates a worshipful experience for you, and for everyone, but I get derailed.

Basically, if a worship song talks about touching, my mind wanders. Such as Kari Jobe song:

I wanna sit at your feet.

Drink from the cup in your hand.

Lay back against you and breathe, here your heart beat

This love is so deep, it’s more than I can stand.

I melt in your peace, it’s overwhelming.

 

The fact is love is risky. God is risky…Obviously risky and risqué has sort of been a fine line in songwriting. But, to be honest, I realize that love can often feel awkward as it gets emotionally deeper. When it starts to change and effect us–and affect us. The awkwardness is part of the path to greater spiritual maturity. (In this case, I’ll let you know for sure when I get there.)

Admittedly, the psalms that King David wrote got quite amatory, and for some it feels embarrassing. I can handle David getting up close and personal with God. I’m fine with Song of Solomon’s sexy talk, and David’s passionate poem songs, but maybe in singing those things corporately, we confront those issues of intimacy differently than we do in our times of personal devotions, songs, or prayers. What do you think about it?

I think the challenge, for me, is a renewing of my mind a bit more, and praying for better ears to hear. Thank you for your patience with me, Lord.

Lastly, for all you songwriters out there, if you’re writing something sweet to sing for Jesus, please–for me–don’t put the words “intimate,” “secret place,” and “rhythm” too close together. (It can be a “worship hijack” for some of us, okay, for me.)

When was the last time you felt embarrassed/awkward at the worst time?

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Things you get WRONG in Bible Study

(This is being submitted to the Deeper Leader Synchro Blog sponsored by Evangelical Seminary. Find out more here.)

WARNING: This post may rock your world. (a.k.a. “BOOM post” )

How should we read and study the Bible?

Debates on this will rage, but one thing we often assume that we can simply read the Bible and understand it. Essentially, the Holy Spirit just pops the correct meanings into our brains. Right?

If that were the simple truth, we’d all be, at least mostly, on the same page in Christianity, and we ARE! Um. bzzzz. No…not. at. all.

The Holy Spirit will convict our conscience of sin, and the Holy Spirit help us understand certain things about God’s nature and his grace. Yet, some huge obstacles lie before us concerning the details of Scriptural text.

These details can, and do turn into doctrine or false teaching that fall outside the intent of the text. In clumsy hands, dogmatic presumptions of the Holy Spirit’s opinion have led to all manner of errors, deceptions, injustice. And this study method, if you will, has even started more than a few whacky cults. Yes, and some involve koolaid.

SO!
If you forget EVERYTHING about this post, please don’t forget this. When interpreting the meaning of the Bible (a.k.a. engaging in hermeneutics) remember: A scripture passage cannot mean something different than its original intent.

Huh? What?
Let that red text sink in. Please…Re-read it.

Seriously. It’s a huge deal once you truly comprehend it, and even bigger when you apply it.

A scripture passage cannot mean something different than its original intent. (That’s a needed re-refresher. Please bear with me.)

Understanding the Bible involves a continual tension between discerning…

Our understanding and the writer’s intent.*

Here are just 5 a mere few of the obstacles that can hinder a proper understanding of scripture:

– Language barriers (Ex. Jesus spoke Aramiac, The New Testament was written in Greek (a dead form of the Greek language now,) and English was taken from the Greek. This book collection HAS TO be divine and God-breathed to still transform individuals, whole communities, and cultures through its message of the Good News!)

– Historical distance barriers (Now is later. Stuff has changed. ‘nuf said.)

– Cultural barriers (We don’t wear the same stuff, and do the same things, at all. period.)

– Circumstantial differences (But one example: Every church has “its stuff” unique to it. Particular concerns and problems.)

– Our lens/perspective, education, and experiences (I hope this is self-explanitory. If not, maybe this blog is too much for you. No worries. Just search this blog for “humor” and forget about this post entirely.)

Quick & Hot Tips for the Good Book

When reading, and attempting to understand a Bible passage,

– include paragraphs and sections, rather than a sentence, a phrase, or a lone sentence. (Nothing can twist scripture more than attempting to find meaning in a small phrase of scripture, instead of taking the complete thought and verbiage into account. You wouldn’t want to be taken out of context, so you know, do the right thing.)

– Read a few translations (Don’t parse words. Just don’t. It’s major mistake! Chances are the translators had to give it their best guess. Plenty of words in ancient Hebrew, and Greek, won’t and can’t translate out of the original language. Translators disagree. A lot. So, don’t assume you have read the perfect word choice. The word may not have been used or known outside of that one, or just a few, times.)

– Consult commentaries (These folks have dedicated their whole life to studying the Bible, the ancient culture, the history, etc. They’ve studied deeper, longer, and harder than you, and probably have some great insights from their research.)

Yes. This post was a “BOOM post”. It may come off sort of… um… strong. I see people all over the place butchering what the Bible says simply because they are naive. They haven’t bothered or known how to read the bible in a way that will get things at least mostly right. They start to sound goofy pretty fast. Next time you hear someone spouting off about a Bible passage, inquire if they’ve done the passage good justice by learning it intelligently in these few ways; then (as nicely as possible) challenge their mode of learning and teaching.

Bible study is a vital spiritual discipline, and like prayer, fasting, giving, and all the rest should be done through being better informed. Learning is a continual process. Keep up with it!

*Some of my information is straight from Stuart and Free’s fantastic book: How to Read the Bible for All its Worth. Many agree that it’s the book par excellence, for understanding and studying the Bible. Give it a whirl.

Did this post help you think of the Bible in a new way?
What has helped you understand what the Bible says?