love (iii)

I've recently bought some fabulous books from MLS students who are leaving town. Among them is an anthology of George Herbert's work, and now I'm back on a poetry kick. (I call it a kick because it won't last more than a few weeks...as soon as I'm inspired to start writing my own, it becomes painfully obvious that prose is a better genre for me.) ;-)

Anyway, I hope to blog more now that the semester is over, but for now, here's Herbert's "Love (III)."

Love bade me welcome, yet my soul drew back,
Guilty of dust and sin.
But quick-ey'd Love, observing me grow slack
From my first entrance in,
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning
If I lack'd anything.

"A guest," I answer'd, "worthy to be here";
Love said, "You shall be he."
"I, the unkind, the ungrateful? ah my dear,
I cannot look on thee."
Love took my hand and smiling did reply,
"Who made the eyes but I?"

"Truth, Lord, but I have marr'd them; let my shame
Go where it doth deserve."
"And know you not," says Love, "who bore the blame?"
"My dear, then I will serve."
"You must sit down," says Love, "and taste my meat."
So I did sit and eat.

in the pauses of my day

I'm still over my head in end-of-semester work, but here are two small contemplations from Oswald Chambers' My Utmost for His Highest that have strengthened and encouraged me in the last few days:

INSTANT IN SEASON
Be instant in season, out of season." 2 Timothy 4:2 Many of us suffer from the morbid tendency to be instant "out of season." The season does not refer to time, but to us - 'Be instant in season, out of season," whether we feel like it or not. If we do only what we feel inclined to do, some of us would do nothing for ever and ever. There are unemployables in the spiritual domain, spiritually decrepit people, who refuse to do anything unless they are supernaturally inspired. The proof that we are rightly related to God is that we do our best whether we feel inspired or not. One of the great snares of the Christian worker is to make a fetish of his rare moments. When the Spirit of God gives you a time of inspiration and insight, you say - "Now I will always be like this for God." No, you will not, God will take care you are not. Those times are the gift of God entirely. You cannot give them to yourself when you choose. If you say you will only be at your best, you become an intolerable drag on God; you will never do anything unless God keeps you consciously inspired. If you make a god of your best moments, you will find that God will fade out of your life and never come back until you do the duty that lies nearest, and have learned not to make a fetish of your rare moments.

I've heard this preached before, but for some reason this time it stuck. Maybe it's because I'm fighting with even simple discipline like "sit down and work on your paper," and maybe it's because I was recently reminded of lavish (broken) promises I made to God from the heights of retreats and mission trips when I was a teenager. Like a worn in liturgy, sometimes I need this reminder that taking up my cross and following God should be an ingrained habit.

THE SUPREME CLIMB
"Take now thy son . . and offer him there for a burnt-offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of." Genesis 22:2 Character determines how a man interprets God's will (cf. Psalm 18:25-26). Abraham interpreted God's command to mean that he had to kill his son, and he could only leave this tradition behind by the pain of a tremendous ordeal. God could purify his faith in no other way. If we obey what God says according to our sincere belief, God will break us from those traditions that misrepresent Him. There are many such beliefs to be got rid of, e.g., that God removes a child because the mother loves him too much - a devil's lie! and a travesty of the true nature of God. If the devil can hinder us from taking the supreme climb and getting rid of wrong traditions about God, he will do so; but if we keep true to God, God will take us through an ordeal which will bring us out into a better knowledge of Himself. The great point of Abraham's faith in God was that he was prepared to do anything for God. He was there to obey God, no matter to what belief he went contrary. Abraham was not a devotee of his convictions, or he would have slain Isaac and said that the voice of the angel was the voice of the devil. That is the attitude of a fanatic. If you will remain true to God, God will lead you straight through every barrier into the inner chamber of the knowledge of Himself; but there is always this point of giving up convictions and traditional beliefs. Don't ask God to test you. Never declare as Peter did - "I will do anything, I will go to death with Thee." Abraham did not make any such declaration, he remained true to God, and God purified his faith.

No promises, just faith in action, this moment. How amazing would it be to be not a devotee of my convictions, but of God alone. He is trustworthy and true and good. I'm so thankful.

starlit faces (eden)

I've been listening to this song all week, including on single-repeat for the last hour.

I'm not sure if it was written or if it just grew, but it's performed here by it's creators, John Sharpe and John Paul Worrall, Jr. It will never be played live again.

However, the recording might have to be played at my wedding. It makes me think of stargazing and hope and happiness and friendship and intimacy and longing for heaven. If I had to choose the most spiritual song I own, this would probably be it. It makes me smile and it makes me cry.

I welcome your comments.

(And if any of you who have emotional or proprietary ties to this music prefer that I take it down, just let me know and I will.)

"Becoming the Beloved"

Chatting with a friend today about blogs made me really miss writing in mine. So hopefully more from me in the next few weeks, or at least after classwork is finished. (I have a stack of outlined blog entries just waiting to be written.) :-)

If my previous post from Nouwen's Life of the Beloved expressed a rather simple principal, the following excerpt describes a simple principle that can also be unendingly complex. I'd never heard it put quite this way, and I like it. This will be my last Nouwen excerpt, if only because more would fall outside copyright law. :-)

Dear friend, being the Beloved is the origin and the fulfillment of the life of the Spirit. I say this because, as soon as wee catch a glimpse of this truth, we are put on a journey in search of the fullness of that truth, and we will not rest until we can rest in that truth. From the moment we claim the truth of being the Beloved, we are faced with the call to become who we are. Becoming the Beloved is the great spiritual journey we have to make.

Augustine's words, "My soul is restless until it rests in you, O God," capture well this journey. I know that the fact that I am always searching for God, always struggling to discover the fullness of Love, always yearning for the complete truth, tells me that I have already been given a taste of God, of Love, and of Truth. I can only look for something that I have, to some degree, already found. How can I search for beauty and truth unless that beauty and truth are already known to me in the depth of my heart? It seems that all of us human beings have deep inner memories of the paradise that we have lost. Maybe the word "innocence" is better than the word "paradise." We were innocent before we started feeling guilty; we were in the light before we entered into the darkness; we were at home before we started to search for a home. Deep in the recesses of our minds and hearts there lies hidden the treasure we seek. We know its preciousness, and we know that it holds the gift we most desire: a life stronger than death.

If it's true that we are not only the Beloved but also have to become the Beloved; if it is true that we not only are children of God, but also have to become children of God, if it is true that we not only are brothers and sisters, but also have to become brothers and sisters. . . if all that is true, how then can we get a grip on this process of becoming? If the spiritual life is not simply a way of being but also a way of becoming, what then is the nature of this becoming?

You are enough of a pragmatist to ask how we get. . .from being the Beloved to fully becoming it. This is such an important question because it allows us to let go of any romanticism or idealism and to deal with the utter concreteness of our daily lives. Becoming the Beloved means letting the truth of our Belovedness become enfleshed in everything we think, say, or do. It entails a long and painful process of appropriation or, better, incarnation. As long as "Being the Beloved" is little more than a beautiful thought or a lofty idea that hangs above my life to keep me from being depressed, nothing really changes. What is required is to become the Beloved in the commonplaces of my daily existence and, bit by bit, to close the gap between what I know myself to be and the countless specific realities of everyday life. Becoming the Beloved is pulling the truth revealed to me from above down into the ordinariness of what I am, in fact, thinking of, talking about, and doing from hour to hour.

When I think about your life. . .I am quite aware of the pressures you undergo. You and Robin live in the middle of New York in a small apartment; you have to keep working to earn enough for your rent and your food; you have thousands of little things to do, from making phone calls to writing letters, buying and cooking food, staying in touch with family and friends and remaining informed about what happens in your city, your country, and your world. All of that seems quite a lot for one person, and it is usually these very simple concrete things of daily life that provide the raw materials for our conversations. The question, "How are you doing?" usually leads to very down-to-earth stories about marriage, family, health, work, money, friends, and plans for the immediate future. It seldom, however, leads to deep thoughts about the origin and goal of our existence. Still, I am thoroughly convinced that the origin and goal of our existence have everything to do with the ways we think, talk, and act in our daily lives. When our deepest truth is that we are the Beloved and when our greatest joy and peace come from fully claiming that truth, it follows that this has to become visible and tangible in the ways we eat and drink, talk and love, play and work. When the deepest currents of our life no longer have any influence on the waves at the surface, then our vitality will eventually ebb, and we will end up listless and bored even when we are busy. . . .

It goes on, introducing the rest of the book. Which I again suggest you read.

Peace be with you.

"Being the Beloved"

In the nooks and crannies of my life I've been reading Henri Nouwen's book, Life of the Beloved. Nouwen, a Catholic priest, wrote prolifically about the spiritual life and is, at least in my book, quickly becoming part of the modern-Christian-life canon. His insights are profound and his writing accessible. The following is an excerpt from Life of the Beloved, which is written as a letter to one of Nouwen's friends. It's expressing an old truth, but it's good to hear it again, over and over. (If you're in a hurry and just want a sip of that truth, skip to the penultimate paragraph.)

Fred, all I want to say to you is "You are the Beloved," and all I hope is that you can hear these words as spoken to you with all the tenderness and force that love can hold. My only desire is to make these words reverberate in every corner of your being--"You are the Beloved."

The greatest gift my friendship can give to you is the gift of your Belovedness. I can give that gift only insofar as I have claimed it for myself. Isn't that what friendship is all about: giving to each other the gift of our Belovedness?

Yes, there is that voice, the voice that speaks from above and from within and that whispers softly or declares loudly: "You are my Beloved, on you my favor rests." It certainly is not easy to hear that voice in a world filled with voices that shout: "You are no good, you are ugly; you are worthless; you are despicable, you are nobody--unless you can demonstrate the opposite."

These negative voices are so loud and persistent that it is easy to believe them. That's the great trap. It is the trap of self-rejection. ... When we have come to believe in the voices that call us worthless and unlovable, then success, popularity, and power are easily perceived as attractive solutions. The real trap, however, is self-rejection. I am constantly surprised at how quickly I give in to this temptation. As soon as someone accuses me or criticizes me, as soon as I find myself rejected, left alone, or abandoned, I find myself thinking: "Well, that proves once again that I am a nobody." Instead of taking a critical look at the circumstances or trying to understand my own and others' limitations, I tend to blame myself--not just for what I did, but for who I am. My dark side says: "I am no good...I deserve to be pushed aside, forgotten, rejected, and abandoned."

Maybe you think that you are more tempted by arrogance than by self-rejection. But isn't arrogance, in fact, the other side of self-rejection? Isn't arrogance putting yourself on a pedestal to avoid being seen as you see yourself? Isn't arrogance, in the final analysis, just another way of dealing with the feelings of worthlessness? Both self-rejection and arrogance pull us out of the common reality of existence and make a gentle community of people extremely difficult, if not impossible, to attain. I know too well that beneath my arrogance there lies much self-doubt, just as there is a great amount of pride in my self-rejection. Whether I am inflated or deflated, I lose touch with my truth and distort my view of reality.

... Self-rejection is the greatest enemy of the spiritual life because it contradicts the sacred voice that calls us the "Beloved." Being the Beloved expresses the core truth of our existence.

I am putting this so directly and simply because, though the experience of being the Beloved has never been completely absent from my life, I never claimed it as my core truth. I kept running around it in large or small circles, always looking for someone or something able to convince me of my Belovedness. It was as if I kept refusing to hear the voice that speaks from the very depth of my being and says: "You are my Beloved, on you my favor rests." That voice has always been there, but it seems that I was much more eager to listen to other, louder voices saying: "Prove that you are worth something; do something relevant, spectacular, or powerful, and then you will earn the love you so desire." Meanwhile, the soft, gentle voice that speaks in the silence and solitude of my heart remained unheard, or, at least, unconvincing.

That soft, gentle voice that calls me the Beloved has come to me in countless ways. My parents, friends, teachers, students, and the many strangers who crossed my path have all sounded that voice in different tones. ... Beneath all my seemingly strong self-confidence there remained the question: "If all those who shower me with so much attention could see me and know me in my innermost self, would they still love me?"

... I think you know what I am talking about. Aren't you, like me, hoping that some person, thing, or event will come along to give you that final feeling of inner well-being you desire?" ... Bu as long as you are waiting for that mysterious moment you will go on running helter-skelter, always anxious and restless, always lustful and angry, never fully satisfied. You know that this is the compulsiveness that keeps us going and busy but at the same time makes us wonder whether we are getting anywhere in the long run. This is the way to spiritual exhaustion and burn-out. This is the way to spiritual death.

Well, you and I don't have to kill ourselves. We are the Beloved. We are intimately loved long before parents, teachers, spouses, children, and friends loved or wounded us. That's the truth of our lives. That's the truth I want you to claim for yourself. That's the truth spoken by the voice that says, "You are my Beloved."

Listening to that voice with great inner attentiveness, I hear at my center words that say: "I have called you by name, from the very beginning. You are mine and I am yours. You are my Beloved, on you my favor rests. I have molded you in the depths of the earth and knitted you together in your mother's womb. I have carved you in the palms of my hands and hidden you in the shadow of my embrace. I look at you with infinite tenderness and care for you with a care more intimate than that of a mother for her child. I have counted every hair on your head and guided you at every step. Wherever you go, I go with you, and wherever you rest, I keep watch. I will give you food that will satisfy all your hunger and drink that will quench all your thirst. I will not hide my face from you. You know me as your own as I know you as my own. You belong to me. I am your father, your mother, your brother, your sister, your lover, and your spouse...yes, even your child...wherever you are I will be. Nothing will ever separate us. We are one."

Every time you listen with great attentiveness to the voice that calls you the Beloved, you will discover within yourself a desire to hear that voice longer and more deeply. It is like discovering a well in the desert. Once you have touched wet ground, you want to dig deeper. ... All we really need is a great desire to find the water and drink from it.