i think we all go through a process of leaving childish things behind ... and embracing a bigger picture as we grow and mature. this is a central theme of my upcoming book, "a new kind of christianity: ten questions that are transforming the faith," which will be released February 9, 2010.
"Play awakens and engages our sensuality and sexuality. Playful activities create the glue for mutual, innovative endeavors and meaningful relationships. An antidote to suffering, play is healing and restorative."
"Spiritually, play is integral to a vital, healthy, and whole life. Playing is a profound way to pray, and only one letter separates pray from play!"
in the midst of silence, there was spoken within me a secret word...But where is the silence and where is the place where the word is spoken?...It is in the purist place that the soul is capable of, in the noblest part, the ground....
For more than a thousand years, pilgrims have visited Glendalough where Saint Kevin played, prayed, and discovered his purpose. One day, the legend tells us, while Kevin the monk was praying with outstretched arms, a blackbird landed in his hand and built her nest. Imagine holding a prayer stance -- in Zen stillness -- long enough for a blackbird to build a nest and raise her young. The Irish poet Seamus Heaney beautifully teaches us about the spiritual companionship between the blackbird and Saint Kevin,
And then there was St Kevin and the blackbird,
The saint is kneeling, arms stretched out, inside
His cell, but the cell is narrow, so
One turned-up palm is out the window, stiff
As a crossbeam, when a blackbird lands
And lays in it and settles down to nest.
Kevin feels the warm eggs, the small breast, the
tucked
Neat head and claws and, finding himself linked
Into the network of eternal life,
Is moved to pity; now he must hold his hand
Like a branch out in the sun and rain for weeks
Until the young are hatched and fledged and flown.
And since the whole thing's imagined anyhow,
Imagine being Kevin. Which is he?
Self-forgetful or in agony all the time
From the neck on out down through his
hurting forearms?
Are his fingers sleeping? Does he still feel his knees?
Or has the shut-eyed blank of underearth
Crept up through him? Is there distance in his head?
Alone and mirrored clear in love's deep river,
"To labour and not to seek reward," he prays,
A prayer his body makes entirely
For he has forgotten self, forgotten bird,
And on the riverbank forgotten the river's name.
Saint Kevin’s whole body became a prayer of love that recognized God in an ordinary blackbird. Now imagine me, standing across the lake from Saint Kevin’s cave. Gazing into the lake, I contemplated the blackbird resting in Kevin’s hand and the call for contemplative action in today’s world to become responsible stewards of all God’s creation. Suddenly, my soul felt seen by Saint Kevin, staring out from his cave. In that instance, a robin started singing from a branch just over my head. In that thin place, I felt Saint Kevin’s love encouraging the kind of singing presence that sees God in all things.
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The bishop, overwhelmed by what he was seeing and hearing, said, “But, dear brothers, how the do you pray?” They answered, “Well, we just say, ‘Dear God, there are three of us and there are three of you, have mercy on us!’” The bishop, awestruck by their sanctity and simplicity said, “Go back to your land and be at peace.”
Tolstoy’s parable illustrates true Christian spirituality. Christian spirituality is not about being able to memorise and recite the Lord’s Prayer (though it will be good to be able to do it), conducting “worship” services in a certain place, receiving higher theological learning or even what we can do for God. All these are helpful for Christian living but as the three monks have shown us, it is not the key. Christian spirituality is simple. It is all about God. Relationship with the Triune God is the key. Being mindful of the awesomeness of God and our place as his creatures needing mercy is the turning of the key and opening the door to a life of sanctity and simplicity. Peter could not understand this and he sank beneath the waves. A holy life with God demands simplicity. The rest is religiosity. Religiosity is about having too many rules, regulations and rituals to govern our worship of God. We accuse the Pharisees of religiosity, not realising our own mirrors reflect the same image. The religiosity of our communities of faith actually separate people from God.
Christian spirituality needs solitude to develop. These three monks lived on an island that nobody visits so they have ample solitude. However solitude is not so much a place as a state of mind. In our hurried busy lifestyle, it is still possible to find solitude. However, we must first desire it. If we truly desire to know God, we will find time for this solitude. Even in the busiest life, solitude may be found. First realise that there is a place all of us where God is waiting for us. Let us call this place solitude. Think of it as a room with a door which we can enter and leave anytime. We enter this room to spend time with God. God is there in the room, patiently waiting for us all the time. The length of time we spend with him is not important. It may be hours, moments, seconds or microseconds. It may even be as short as the time between our breaths. God does not mind. He wants to meet with us and the length of time does not matter to him who is timeless. Next resolve to visit this room as often as possible in a day. This will keep our mind focussed upon God. Slowly develop this into a habit. Suddenly you will realise that you do have time for solitude. In your solitude, commune with God for this is the language of prayer. Share with him, who loves you, your hopes and your plans; your hurt and your pain; your loneliness and your aloneness; your love and your joy; and your need for him. Then learn to listen. And you will realise that it is not in the storm, or the wind or the earthquake, but in a small still voice that you will hear God say “you are my beloved.” This is Christian spirituality.
Christian spirituality is the developing of our love relationship with God over time. Aside from solitude, Christian spirituality needs time. We will gradually come to understand that God already is loveing us when we are just primordial elements at the moment of creation, even more when our forms were developing in our mothers’ wombs, and most of all when our consciousness become aware of him. God uses the metaphor of the sexual act, bride and marriage to describe his love for us. Yet, God’s love is not a romantic love but a transforming hesed love, and if we yield to him, we will become more like him until we are one with him. Then surely we can compete with horses and run on water.
Soli Deo Gloria
Then the Pastor closed the Bible, called the soldiers, and told them where the boy was hidden. And after the soldiers took the fugitive away to be killed, there was a feast in the village because the Pastor has saved the lives of the people. But the Pastor did not celebrate. Overcome with a deep sadness, he remained in his room. That night an angel came to him and asked, “What have you done?” He said: “I handed over the fugitive to the enemy.” Then the angel said: “But don’t you know that you have handed over the Messiah?” “How could I now?” the Pastor replied anxiously. Then the angel said; “If, instead of reading your Bible, you had visited this young man just once and looked into his eyes, you would have known.”
What would you have done if you are this Pastor? Would you consider justifiable that one man should be sacrificed for the lives of the whole village? Would you felt that you have obeyed God by letting the Bible speak to you this way? Our first impression is that the Pastor did right. Is he not considerate of his village? Did he not seek the will of God through his Word? Is it not better that one should die so that others may live; especially if the one who is to die is a stranger? In fact he should be commended for his wisdom and piety.
However the angel was not happy. The fugitive is the long awaited Messiah. The Pastor asked a question which millions of persons before him have asked since they nailed the Prince of Peace onto a wooden cross to die, “How could I know?” Would it have made a difference if he has known earlier? Of course it would. He would have been willing sacrifice himself and his village for the Messiah. Or would he?
I believe that the Pastor had already made up his mind to save himself and his village even before his deliberation. He had already decided that the fugitive, this outsider, should be sacrificed for the greater good. His deliberation was just to find reasons to justify his actions. He agonised in prayer and in his meditation throughout the night, but just cannot find the peace until a random passage in the Bible confirmed what he had already decided. That would have explained why he did not go to meet the fugitive. It was a small village. Could it be that he was unable to meet the person he had already condemned? On hearing about the arrival of this fugitive, he would had already resolved to give up to the soldiers whom he knew is on the heels of this fugitive.
The Pastor’s greatest weakness is his failure to see that all men reflect the face of God and are all of equal value. If he did, he would no more willing to give up the fugitive to the enemy as he would give up any of his villagers. His second failing was to make up his mind first and then seek God’s counsel.
I wonder how often in our lives have we decided upon a course of action first, and then ask God to justify our actions? Having made up our mind, we would spend days, months and years in a struggle with God, and our conscience looking for confirmation and justification. We would interpret all circumstances and events to support our decision. We accept only the counsel of people who say what we want to hear. And we pick from the Bible passages that agree with our assessment while rejecting the rest. We suppress the quiet voice of the Holy Spirit and our conscience, resisting the sense of unease, and sometimes attributing it to spiritual warfare. We believe that the strong impression that we sense in our heart are a confirmation from the Lord, not suspecting that our hearts are capable of great self-deception. Then we proceed with the course of action, convincing others that it is God’s will or even worst that we speak for God. The result of these is often catastrophic. People are hurt, ministries disrupted, and our souls are severe injured. What is not of God will not endure.
So when we want to discern the will of God, let us be honest. Let us truly seek his wisdom and counsel and be open to listen and accept his guidance. We need to move into a place of solitude as Jesus did in the
There is a great need for Christians to learn spiritual discernment. For too long, we have leaned unto our own understanding, using our minds to make decisions, and to discern a course of action. We must avoid what the Pastor has discovered. What seems right in our own eyes may not be right at all. We all need spiritual sight in our discernment. Let us beware that we do not unintentionally crucify Jesus again.
Soli Deo Gloria
I have written this book for two reasons. First, I want to address the way the Celtic people related to God to keep their devotion centered on the Savior. But I also want to demonstrate how these ancient lovers of God were able to strip away institutional business and empty religiosity that can separate Christians from Christ.
Calvin’s understanding of God is fundamentally social and socializing. Within the trinity, the Spirit is the relational bond that unites the Father and Son. It is also the ordering and vivifying power within the creation. Chung writes, “The Spirit, which Calvin stressed in trinitarian context, is the fountain and source of all creature’s lives. God poured life into creatures and sustains their lives through divine power. All living things are in the power of the Spirit” (18). The same relationality that the Spirit manifests within the Godhead overflows into the Spirit’s role in the creation.
In human beings, the Spirit is not only the source of life, but also the communicator of new life. The Spirit engrafts Christians into Christ. According to Dr. Chung, Calvin understands “union with Christ pneumatologically” (44). Without the work of the Spirit, Christ’s benefits would not be available to human beings. The spirit effectuates both justification and sanctification, pressing humanity back toward the order and vitality of the creation they had abandoned and betrayed.
The relational and dynamic nature of Calvin’s theology is most apparent in Chung’s discussion of the relationship of the Spirit to the law and the church. The law provides the basic structure of the cosmos. It communicates the natural law, setting out our obligations toward both God and our fellow creatures. Yet, as scripture is barren without the inspiration of the Spirit, so the law is powerless without it. The Spirit illumines the dynamic purpose and provides the inner meaning of the law, which may be summarized simply as love. Revealing the connection between Calvin’s understanding of law and Spirit, Chung shows that, for Calvin, the law is dynamic and relational rather than static and legalistic.
The church, also, exists only by power of the Spirit. According to Calvin, it is the Spirit that knits the church into the body of Christ, and in the Lord’s Supper it is the Spirit that brings Christians into the presence of Christ. Moreover, connecting the work of the Spirit in creation with the role of the Spirit in the church, Chung argues that, for Calvin, “the church has the task to constitute a new society, i.e., to regenerate society” (106). Therefore, in the chapter on the church, Chung also examines economic and political ethics. In each case, he presents Calvin as an advocate of solidarity and community. Economic and political life are spiritually significant in the sense that they move us toward or away from proper relationship with God and one another.
In the end, this volume not only presents a sympathetic and enlightening view of Calvin’s thought seen through the lens of pneumatology, it also recovers an understanding of spirituality that is prone to neither individualism nor sentimentality. Chung notes that, when dealing with Calvin’s thought, “it is necessary to recognize and to investigate spiritual experience, not only in terms of the individual, religious dimension, i.e., the so-called interior life, but also in terms of its integration with the historical, social, and political realms of human life, i.e., outward life” (3). From this perspective, spirituality and social ethics cannot be divorced because the Spirit is the dynamic, ordering force at the heart of the creation and the transformative, humanizing power in the heart of the believer.
Dr. Chung offers a timely book that contributes to our understanding of the relationship between spirituality and social ethics through a close reading of Calvin’s theology. The book is difficult to read, partly because English is the author’s second language. It is probably not accessible to the average undergraduate or even seminarian. The effort, however, will reward the persistent reader.
Timothy Beach-Verhey
Adjunct Professor of Religion, Davidson College
Davidson, NC
PUBLISHED IN THE BULLETIN OF THE INSTITUTE FOR REFORMED THEOLOGY, SPRING/SUMMER 2003, VOL. 3, #2.
How much sin should we expect in the church? We have gauges for other elements of church life. We generally monitor attendance. We know how many people are in small groups. Somebody counts the offerings. And often we don't just measure what we're interested in—we set goals.
Anybody hear of a church that set a goal for a 5-percent sin reduction next year?
I don't mean to be glib about this. Sin is, somehow, at the root of all human misery. Sin is what keeps us from God and from life. It is in the face of every battered woman, the cry of every neglected child, the despair of every addict, the death of every victim of every war.
Pastors have historically understood their primary battle to be not the battle to build a big church, but the battle against the power of sin. "We wrestle not against flesh and blood … ." Christians have measured the seriousness of the battle by the suffering and bleeding of Calvary.
And sin doesn't seem to be going away, either outside or inside the church. So how should we be thinking about sin, in our congregations and in ourselves?
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Been a while since I last posted my reflections of my Lectio Divina exercises using Alex's "Spiritual formation on the run". Been extra busy as my wife is still in Malaysia. Not too busy to do my contemplation as it is after all being done ... "on the run". :-) If you didn't get that, that's the whole beauty of this concept. You do not have to be disappear for hours in a quiet secluded place to get close to God and "practice the presence of God". But busy I have been as all the cooking and cleaning duties are now my domain so time to type is rather limited ... but more on that as it is related to this blog's reflection and ramblings. Ah ... Brother Lawrence would be smiling in heaven at hearing this .... :-) 
Closing devotion
In the Joseph’s narrative in Genesis 37-49
This is a powerful narrative of jealousy, good and bad. It also ensures the survival of the Jacob family, the family that will become ancient
Who do you think is a vital link in this narrative?
An unnamed man in Shechem (Gen.37:14-15)
14 So he said to him, “Go and see if all is well with your brothers and with the flocks, and bring word back to me.” Then he sent him off from the
When Joseph arrived at Shechem, 15 a man found him wandering around in the fields and asked him, “What are you looking for?”
16 He replied, “I’m looking for my brothers. Can you tell me where they are grazing their flocks?”
17 “They have moved on from here,” the man answered. “I heard them say, ‘Let’s go to
So Joseph went after his brothers and found them near
This unnamed man is the link. If he has not been helpful, if you have not told Joseph where his brothers are things will have been different.
God has a plan. This plan is unfolding with and without our help. God is sovereign. Actually he does not need us but he loves us enough to allow us to take part. Sometimes we actually get in the way.
When I was about six, my father was clearing his overflowing bookshelves. He piled all the books he wanted in one pile and books to be burnt in the other. Helpful number one son come along and want to help. Take this pile of books outside for your mother to burn, said my father. Guess which pile did number one son took?
Sometimes we are a hindrance to God’s plan. This is especially when we ran ahead of him with our own plans. God is a sovereign God. God is larger that what we can imagine him to be.
Today we have learned something about ourselves and about God. I hope we have learnt enough to stay close to him.
Soli Deo Gloria
