What Jesus Demands from the World

John Piper, (2006) What Jesus Demands from the World, Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books

John Piper is the pastor for reaching and vision at Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis. Recently he received a gift of a five-month sabbatical from his church for serving as pastor in the church for 25 years. He spent the sabbatical in Tyndale House in Cambridge, England. Tyndale House with its excellent library resources and community of scholars and pastors is an excellent place to be. John used his time there fruitfully and wrote this excellent book on what Jesus demands from the world.

John is conscious that he is contributing to the ongoing quest for an authentic historical Jesus debate. He is aware that there have been three Quests for the Historical Jesus. Numerous scholars have tried to redefine our understanding of who Jesus is by using the most modern scholarship tools.

The first Quest period was arbitrarily started by Benedict Spinoza (1632-16770), Herman Raimrus (1694-1768), David Friedrich Strauss (1808-1874), William Wrede (1859-1906) and ended with Albert Schweitzer (1875-1965). This ‘quest’ collapsed under its own weight as they realize that the reconstructed historical Jesus is not ‘the biblical Christ.’

The second Quest for the historical Jesus started in 1953 by Ernest Kasemann, a student of Rudolf Bultmann. However this second quest was heavily influenced by the social and psychological theories of the time. The reconstructed Jesus appears as an existential political figure (Milan Machovec) or as ‘collective process of consciousness’ (Niderwimmer).

The third Quest begins in the 1980s. Ben Witherington III observes that scholars involved in this third Quest are all in a hurry to say something ‘new,’ another product of our modern society where new gimmicks sells.

John Piper comes to the conclusion that “The growing conviction in me is that life is too short and the church is too precious for a minister of the Word to spend his life trying to recreate a conjectured Jesus.” (p32) To him, all that is required to know the real Jesus can be found in the four Gospels. That is truly a revolutionary yet simple statement. This he set forth in this book by revealing the real Jesus in terms of the demands or commands he gave to his disciples to observe and teach (Matt. 28:19-20). He resolved to use only materials from the four Gospels.

In this book, he has summarized the hundreds of Jesus’ commands into 50 and these are worth studying. Each demand is in a short chapter and hence can be used as a daily devotion.

What Jesus Demands from the World

John Piper, (2006) What Jesus Demands from the World, Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books

John Piper is the pastor for reaching and vision at Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis. Recently he received a gift of a five-month sabbatical from his church for serving as pastor in the church for 25 years. He spent the sabbatical in Tyndale House in Cambridge, England. Tyndale House with its excellent library resources and community of scholars and pastors is an excellent place to be. John used his time there fruitfully and wrote this excellent book on what Jesus demands from the world.

John is conscious that he is contributing to the ongoing quest for an authentic historical Jesus debate. He is aware that there have been three Quests for the Historical Jesus. Numerous scholars have tried to redefine our understanding of who Jesus is by using the most modern scholarship tools.

The first Quest period was arbitrarily started by Benedict Spinoza (1632-16770), Herman Raimrus (1694-1768), David Friedrich Strauss (1808-1874), William Wrede (1859-1906) and ended with Albert Schweitzer (1875-1965). This ‘quest’ collapsed under its own weight as they realize that the reconstructed historical Jesus is not ‘the biblical Christ.’

The second Quest for the historical Jesus started in 1953 by Ernest Kasemann, a student of Rudolf Bultmann. However this second quest was heavily influenced by the social and psychological theories of the time. The reconstructed Jesus appears as an existential political figure (Milan Machovec) or as ‘collective process of consciousness’ (Niderwimmer).

The third Quest begins in the 1980s. Ben Witherington III observes that scholars involved in this third Quest are all in a hurry to say something ‘new,’ another product of our modern society where new gimmicks sells.

John Piper comes to the conclusion that “The growing conviction in me is that life is too short and the church is too precious for a minister of the Word to spend his life trying to recreate a conjectured Jesus.” (p32) To him, all that is required to know the real Jesus can be found in the four Gospels. That is truly a revolutionary yet simple statement. This he set forth in this book by revealing the real Jesus in terms of the demands or commands he gave to his disciples to observe and teach (Matt. 28:19-20). He resolved to use only materials from the four Gospels.

In this book, he has summarized the hundreds of Jesus’ commands into 50 and these are worth studying. Each demand is in a short chapter and hence can be used as a daily devotion.

Strengthening the Soul

The soul is strengthened to all manner of good works by the fire of the Holy Spirit, but it is weakened by the fire of indifference and neglect. The powerful fire and its contrite disposition mingle in human beings and bring forth good fruit. If humans are overburdened and wearied by sins, these sins will all gather together as a fire is smothered by thick smoke and can no longer burn brightly. But if through the power of the soul the greed of human desire is broken, then we burst out with longing for the Father's heavenly home, just as the bee constructs its comb from its own honey. In this way, the new works and old deeds of human beings are so intermingled that they are bound together in true humility, and the fire of pride cannot consume or dry them up.

Hildegard of Bingen

De Operatione Dei, Vision Four

Strengthening the Soul

The soul is strengthened to all manner of good works by the fire of the Holy Spirit, but it is weakened by the fire of indifference and neglect. The powerful fire and its contrite disposition mingle in human beings and bring forth good fruit. If humans are overburdened and wearied by sins, these sins will all gather together as a fire is smothered by thick smoke and can no longer burn brightly. But if through the power of the soul the greed of human desire is broken, then we burst out with longing for the Father's heavenly home, just as the bee constructs its comb from its own honey. In this way, the new works and old deeds of human beings are so intermingled that they are bound together in true humility, and the fire of pride cannot consume or dry them up.

Hildegard of Bingen

De Operatione Dei, Vision Four

On Retirement and Semi Retirement

Received this from my friend and fellow spiritual traveller, Punna. This is in line with Blogpastor's post on Can I Retire?


Optimum Strategies for Creativity and Longevity
By Sing Lin, Ph.D.
Member of National Council of Chinese Institute of Engineers – USA/Greater New York Chapter, and Member of Board of Director of National Taiwan University Alumni Association – Greater New York (March 2002)

1. Most Creative Years in the Life

The Nobel Laureate, Dr. Leo Esaki, delivered the distinguished lecture entitled "Innovation and Evolution: Reflections on a Life in Research" in the University of Texas at Dallas in the afternoon of Feb. 23, 2002 during the 2002 US National Engineering Week. In this lecture, Dr. Esaki indicated that most of the great discoveries and innovations by the Nobel Laureates occurred at the average age of 32 even though the Nobel prizes were awarded 10 or 20 years afterwards. Furthermore, Dr. Esaki indicated that the peak creativity of most scientists occurred around the age range of 20 to 30 years. As one gets older, the experience increases but the creativity decreases steadily with the age.

It is, therefore, very important to stimulate, encourage and cultivate many young people to get interested in science and engineering at their young age and to provide the optimal R&D environment for these very powerful young scientists and engineers to unleash their very strong creativities during their most precious and creative years around the age of 32.

2. Longevity Vs. Retirement Age

The pension funds in many large corporations (e.g., Boeing, Lockheed Martin, AT&T, Lucent Technologies, etc.) have been "Over Funded" because many "late retirees" who keep-on working into their old age and retire late after the age of 65 tend to die within two years after their retirements. In other words, many of these late retirees do not live long enough to collect all their fair shares of pension money such that they leave a lot of extra-unused money in the pension funds resulting in the over-funded pension funds.

Dr. Ephrem (Siao Chung) Cheng provided the important results in the following Table 1 from an actuarial study of life span vs. age at retirement. The study was based on the number of pension checks sent to retirees of Boeing Aerospace.

Table 1 – Actuarial Study of life span vs. age at retirement
Age at Retirement (Average Age At Death)
49.9(86.0)
51.2(85.3)
52.5(84.6)
53.8(83.9)
55.1(83.2)
56.4(82.5)
57.2(81.4)
58.3(80.0)
59.2(78.5)
60.1(76.8)
61.0(74.5)
62.1(71.8)
63.1(69.3)
64.1(67.9)
65.2(66.8)

Table 1 indicates that for people retired at the age of 50, their average life span is 86; whereas for people retired at the age of 65, their average life span is only 66.8. An important conclusion from this study is that for every year one works beyond age 55, one loses 2 years of life span on average.

The Boeing experience is that employees retiring at age of 65 receive pension checks for only 18 months, on average, prior to death. Similarly, the Lockheed experience is that employees retiring at age of 65 receive pension checks for only 17 months, on average, prior to death. Dr. David T. Chai indicated that the Bell Labs experience is similar to those of Boeing and Lockheed based on the casual observation from the Newsletters of Bell Lab retirees. A retiree from Ford Motor told Dr. Paul Tien-Lin Ho that the experience from Ford Motor is also similar to those in Boeing and Lockheed.

The hard-working late retirees probably put too much stress on their aging body-and-mind such that they are so stressed out to develop various serious health problems that forced them to quit and retire. With such long-term stress-induced serious health problems, they die within two years after they quit and retire.

On the other hand, people who take early retirements at the age of 55 tend to live long and well into their 80s and beyond. These earlier retirees probably are either wealthier or more able to plan and manage their various aspects of their life, health and career well such that they can afford to retire early and comfortably.

These early retirees are not really idling after their early retirements to get old. They still continue doing some work. But they do the work on the part-time basis at a more leisure pace so that they do not get too stressed out. Furthermore, they have the luxury to pick and chose the types of part-time work of real interest to them so that they can enjoy and love doing that "fun" work at a more leisure pace.

The late retirees are small in number, tend to die quickly after retirement and disappear from the population of old people beyond the age of 70. Late retirees, therefore, have very little weight on the statistical average life expectancy of the population of "old people" dominated by the early retirees.

Conclusion and Recommendations

The most precious, creative and innovative period in your life is the 10-year period around the age of 32. Plan your career path to use this precious 10-year period wisely and effectively to produce your greatest achievements in your life.

The pace of innovations and technology advances is getting faster and faster and is forcing everybody to compete fiercely at the Internet speed on the information super-highways. The highly productive and highly efficient workplace in USA is a pressure-cooker and a high-speed battleground for highly creative and dynamic young people to compete and to flourish.

However, when you get older, you should plan your career path and financial matter so that you can retire comfortably at the age of 55 or earlier to enjoy your long, happy and leisure retirement life into your golden age of 80s and beyond. In retirement, you can still enjoy some fun work of great interest to you and of great values to the society and the community, but at a part-time leisure pace on your own term.

On the other hand, if you are not able to get out of the pressure-cooker or the high-speed battleground at the age of 55 and "have" to keep on working very hard until the age of 65 or older before your retirement, then you probably will die within 18 months of retirement. By working very hard in the pressure cooker for 10 more years beyond the age of 55, you give up at least 20 years of your life span on average.

Personally I feel that there is a watershed is all our life. I do not think there should be a fixed age about it. Before this age, say 55 years, we are working hard first to establish our careers, to start and develop our families (for those married), to serve our churches, and to improve ourselves. The watershed comes after our children have graduated from university (and begin their own lives), and we have reached the peak in our chosen careers. We then move into a stage of producing significance. In this stage we do not have to worry about paying for our children's education, our mortgages should be paid up and as Fowler said, we should be thinking about our legacy. What do we want to leave behind? I believe our legacy should not be physical but spiritual.

Retirement? I do not think it is biblical and we should serve Him until He calls us home.

soli deo gloria

On Retirement and Semi Retirement

Received this from my friend and fellow spiritual traveller, Punna. This is in line with Blogpastor's post on Can I Retire?


Optimum Strategies for Creativity and Longevity
By Sing Lin, Ph.D.
Member of National Council of Chinese Institute of Engineers – USA/Greater New York Chapter, and Member of Board of Director of National Taiwan University Alumni Association – Greater New York (March 2002)

1. Most Creative Years in the Life

The Nobel Laureate, Dr. Leo Esaki, delivered the distinguished lecture entitled "Innovation and Evolution: Reflections on a Life in Research" in the University of Texas at Dallas in the afternoon of Feb. 23, 2002 during the 2002 US National Engineering Week. In this lecture, Dr. Esaki indicated that most of the great discoveries and innovations by the Nobel Laureates occurred at the average age of 32 even though the Nobel prizes were awarded 10 or 20 years afterwards. Furthermore, Dr. Esaki indicated that the peak creativity of most scientists occurred around the age range of 20 to 30 years. As one gets older, the experience increases but the creativity decreases steadily with the age.

It is, therefore, very important to stimulate, encourage and cultivate many young people to get interested in science and engineering at their young age and to provide the optimal R&D environment for these very powerful young scientists and engineers to unleash their very strong creativities during their most precious and creative years around the age of 32.

2. Longevity Vs. Retirement Age

The pension funds in many large corporations (e.g., Boeing, Lockheed Martin, AT&T, Lucent Technologies, etc.) have been "Over Funded" because many "late retirees" who keep-on working into their old age and retire late after the age of 65 tend to die within two years after their retirements. In other words, many of these late retirees do not live long enough to collect all their fair shares of pension money such that they leave a lot of extra-unused money in the pension funds resulting in the over-funded pension funds.

Dr. Ephrem (Siao Chung) Cheng provided the important results in the following Table 1 from an actuarial study of life span vs. age at retirement. The study was based on the number of pension checks sent to retirees of Boeing Aerospace.

Table 1 – Actuarial Study of life span vs. age at retirement
Age at Retirement (Average Age At Death)
49.9(86.0)
51.2(85.3)
52.5(84.6)
53.8(83.9)
55.1(83.2)
56.4(82.5)
57.2(81.4)
58.3(80.0)
59.2(78.5)
60.1(76.8)
61.0(74.5)
62.1(71.8)
63.1(69.3)
64.1(67.9)
65.2(66.8)

Table 1 indicates that for people retired at the age of 50, their average life span is 86; whereas for people retired at the age of 65, their average life span is only 66.8. An important conclusion from this study is that for every year one works beyond age 55, one loses 2 years of life span on average.

The Boeing experience is that employees retiring at age of 65 receive pension checks for only 18 months, on average, prior to death. Similarly, the Lockheed experience is that employees retiring at age of 65 receive pension checks for only 17 months, on average, prior to death. Dr. David T. Chai indicated that the Bell Labs experience is similar to those of Boeing and Lockheed based on the casual observation from the Newsletters of Bell Lab retirees. A retiree from Ford Motor told Dr. Paul Tien-Lin Ho that the experience from Ford Motor is also similar to those in Boeing and Lockheed.

The hard-working late retirees probably put too much stress on their aging body-and-mind such that they are so stressed out to develop various serious health problems that forced them to quit and retire. With such long-term stress-induced serious health problems, they die within two years after they quit and retire.

On the other hand, people who take early retirements at the age of 55 tend to live long and well into their 80s and beyond. These earlier retirees probably are either wealthier or more able to plan and manage their various aspects of their life, health and career well such that they can afford to retire early and comfortably.

These early retirees are not really idling after their early retirements to get old. They still continue doing some work. But they do the work on the part-time basis at a more leisure pace so that they do not get too stressed out. Furthermore, they have the luxury to pick and chose the types of part-time work of real interest to them so that they can enjoy and love doing that "fun" work at a more leisure pace.

The late retirees are small in number, tend to die quickly after retirement and disappear from the population of old people beyond the age of 70. Late retirees, therefore, have very little weight on the statistical average life expectancy of the population of "old people" dominated by the early retirees.

Conclusion and Recommendations

The most precious, creative and innovative period in your life is the 10-year period around the age of 32. Plan your career path to use this precious 10-year period wisely and effectively to produce your greatest achievements in your life.

The pace of innovations and technology advances is getting faster and faster and is forcing everybody to compete fiercely at the Internet speed on the information super-highways. The highly productive and highly efficient workplace in USA is a pressure-cooker and a high-speed battleground for highly creative and dynamic young people to compete and to flourish.

However, when you get older, you should plan your career path and financial matter so that you can retire comfortably at the age of 55 or earlier to enjoy your long, happy and leisure retirement life into your golden age of 80s and beyond. In retirement, you can still enjoy some fun work of great interest to you and of great values to the society and the community, but at a part-time leisure pace on your own term.

On the other hand, if you are not able to get out of the pressure-cooker or the high-speed battleground at the age of 55 and "have" to keep on working very hard until the age of 65 or older before your retirement, then you probably will die within 18 months of retirement. By working very hard in the pressure cooker for 10 more years beyond the age of 55, you give up at least 20 years of your life span on average.

Personally I feel that there is a watershed is all our life. I do not think there should be a fixed age about it. Before this age, say 55 years, we are working hard first to establish our careers, to start and develop our families (for those married), to serve our churches, and to improve ourselves. The watershed comes after our children have graduated from university (and begin their own lives), and we have reached the peak in our chosen careers. We then move into a stage of producing significance. In this stage we do not have to worry about paying for our children's education, our mortgages should be paid up and as Fowler said, we should be thinking about our legacy. What do we want to leave behind? I believe our legacy should not be physical but spiritual.

Retirement? I do not think it is biblical and we should serve Him until He calls us home.

soli deo gloria

Reading about Athens

For me one of the joys of travel is the discovery of new culture, languages, people, food and society. I often study the place well before I go.

I have found DK Eyewitness Travel Top 10 Series very good. It was useful when I was in Rome last November , TOP TEN ROME.

In Athens the book TOP TEN ATHENS is extremely helpful. It listed the top ten most see attractions, what they are, how to get there and what to see. Often in a strange place, we often miss the most important sight even if it was just behind us.

Athen's Top Ten are
(1) Acropolis
(2) The Agora
(3) The National Archeological Museum
(4) Museum of Cycladic Art
(5) Roman Forum and Tower of the Winds
(6) Benaki Museum
(7) Kerameikos
(8) Byzantne Meseum
(9) Filopappos Hill
(10) Temple of Olympian Zeus

The other guide book I find extremely useful in this trip is the KNORF GUIDE.

The book carries the summaries (which are tastefully illustrated in color) about the culture, nature, history, sight, climate, hotels, restaurants.

It helps me to understand the ancient history of the Greeks from prehistory, the cycladic period, the Minoa civilisation, the Mycaean civilisation (Trojan War period), the migration and the geometric period, the two Persian Wars, the Peloponnesian war (between Athens and Sparta), The Roman period, Byzantine period, Ottoman period, the Independence and the catastrophe of 1922. And the book also shares about their religions (and mythology)

Reading about Athens

For me one of the joys of travel is the discovery of new culture, languages, people, food and society. I often study the place well before I go.

I have found DK Eyewitness Travel Top 10 Series very good. It was useful when I was in Rome last November , TOP TEN ROME.

In Athens the book TOP TEN ATHENS is extremely helpful. It listed the top ten most see attractions, what they are, how to get there and what to see. Often in a strange place, we often miss the most important sight even if it was just behind us.

Athen's Top Ten are
(1) Acropolis
(2) The Agora
(3) The National Archeological Museum
(4) Museum of Cycladic Art
(5) Roman Forum and Tower of the Winds
(6) Benaki Museum
(7) Kerameikos
(8) Byzantne Meseum
(9) Filopappos Hill
(10) Temple of Olympian Zeus

The other guide book I find extremely useful in this trip is the KNORF GUIDE.

The book carries the summaries (which are tastefully illustrated in color) about the culture, nature, history, sight, climate, hotels, restaurants.

It helps me to understand the ancient history of the Greeks from prehistory, the cycladic period, the Minoa civilisation, the Mycaean civilisation (Trojan War period), the migration and the geometric period, the two Persian Wars, the Peloponnesian war (between Athens and Sparta), The Roman period, Byzantine period, Ottoman period, the Independence and the catastrophe of 1922. And the book also shares about their religions (and mythology)

Rediscovering Mother Teresa

Book Uncovers a Lonely, Spiritually Desolate Mother Teresa
"There is no God in me," she wrote.
Shona Crabtree, Religion News Service posted 8/30/2007 01:42PM

Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light, to be released Sept. 4, is a collection of Teresa's personal letters to her spiritual advisers. For the most part, they are letters she never intended to become public and, in fact, had asked to be destroyed...

In 1942, Mother Teresa made a vow not to refuse Jesus anything. Starting in 1946, she experienced several mystical encounters with Jesus, whom she called "the Voice," asking her to serve "the poorest of the poor." The "darkness" was her term for feelings of loneliness and abandonment when her communion with Jesus ended.

Prior to 1946, Kolodiejchuk said little was known about Teresa's spiritual life. "She says in a letter, 'I came to India with the desire to love Jesus as he has never been loved before,'" he said. "She was a woman passionately in love with Jesus."

Yet no sooner did Teresa start her work in the slums of Calcutta than she began to feel the intense absence of Jesus—a state that lasted until her death, according to her letters.
"The paradox is that for her to be a light, she was to be in darkness," Kolodiejchuk said.
In a letter estimated to be from 1961, Teresa wrote: "Darkness is such that I really do not see—neither with my mind nor with my reason—the place of God in my soul is blank—There is no God in me—when the pain of longing is so great—I just long & long for God. … The torture and pain I can't explain."

Over time, the Rev. Joseph Neuner, a spiritual adviser, helped Teresa realize her feelings of abandonment only increased her understanding of the people she helped, Kolodiejchuk said. Ultimately, she identified her suffering with that of Jesus, which helped her to accept it.
Catholic saints typically experience a "dark night of the soul" in the words of 16th-century priest St. John of the Cross, Martin said, but never as long as the "whole working life" Teresa experienced...

Mother Teresa's Crisis of Faith
Thursday, Aug. 23, 2007 By DAVID VAN BIEMA

A new, innocuously titled book, Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light (Doubleday), consisting primarily of correspondence between Teresa and her confessors and superiors over a period of 66 years, provides the spiritual counterpoint to a life known mostly through its works. The letters, many of them preserved against her wishes (she had requested that they be destroyed but was overruled by her church), reveal that for the last nearly half-century of her life she felt no presence of God whatsoever — or, as the book's compiler and editor, the Rev. Brian Kolodiejchuk, writes, "neither in her heart or in the eucharist."

That absence seems to have started at almost precisely the time she began tending the poor and dying in Calcutta, and — except for a five-week break in 1959 — never abated. Although perpetually cheery in public, the Teresa of the letters lived in a state of deep and abiding spiritual pain. In more than 40 communications, many of which have never before been published, she bemoans the "dryness," "darkness," "loneliness" and "torture" she is undergoing. She compares the experience to hell and at one point says it has driven her to doubt the existence of heaven and even of God. She is acutely aware of the discrepancy between her inner state and her public demeanor. "The smile," she writes, is "a mask" or "a cloak that covers everything."... more


And yet "the question is, Who determined the abandonment she experienced?" says Dr. Richard Gottlieb, a teacher at the New York Psychoanalytic Society & Institute who has written about the church and who was provided a copy of the book by TIME. "Could she have imposed it on herself?" Psychologists have long recognized that people of a certain personality type are conflicted about their high achievement and find ways to punish themselves. Gottlieb notes that Teresa's ambitions for her ministry were tremendous...Gottlieb also suggests that starting her ministry "may have marked a turning point in her relationship with Jesus," whose urgent claims she was finally in a position to fulfill. Being the active party, he speculates, might have scared her, and in the end, the only way to accomplish great things might have been in the permanent and less risky role of the spurned yet faithful lover.

The atheist position is simpler. In 1948, Hitchens ventures, Teresa finally woke up, although she could not admit it. He likens her to die-hard Western communists late in the cold war: "There was a huge amount of cognitive dissonance," he says. "They thought, 'Jesus, the Soviet Union is a failure, [but] I'm not supposed to think that. It means my life is meaningless.' They carried on somehow, but the mainspring was gone. And I think once the mainspring is gone, it cannot be repaired." That, he says, was Teresa... more


The Rev. Joseph Neuner, whom she met in the late 1950s and confided in somewhat later, was already a well-known theologian, and when she turned to him with her "darkness," he seems to have told her the three things she needed to hear: that there was no human remedy for it (that is, she should not feel responsible for affecting it); that feeling Jesus is not the only proof of his being there, and her very craving for God was a "sure sign" of his "hidden presence" in her life; and that the absence was in fact part of the "spiritual side" of her work for Jesus...more

Personally I do not find that surprising. Many of the great Mystics of the church talk about the dark night of the soul or the cloud of unknowing. I remember asking Father Thomas Green, author of Drinking from Dry Wells how long does these periods of dryness and aridness (absence of God) lasts. He answered, "For the rest of your life."

I find that terrifying and difficult to reconcile with our church teachings of God's presence in our everyday life giving us health, wealth, and prosperity. Sugar-and-spice-and-everything-nice Christianity. The Roman Catholics and Greek Orthodox teaches about 'dark night' experiences but not the Protestants. Why is that?

Rediscovering Mother Teresa

Book Uncovers a Lonely, Spiritually Desolate Mother Teresa
"There is no God in me," she wrote.
Shona Crabtree, Religion News Service posted 8/30/2007 01:42PM

Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light, to be released Sept. 4, is a collection of Teresa's personal letters to her spiritual advisers. For the most part, they are letters she never intended to become public and, in fact, had asked to be destroyed...

In 1942, Mother Teresa made a vow not to refuse Jesus anything. Starting in 1946, she experienced several mystical encounters with Jesus, whom she called "the Voice," asking her to serve "the poorest of the poor." The "darkness" was her term for feelings of loneliness and abandonment when her communion with Jesus ended.

Prior to 1946, Kolodiejchuk said little was known about Teresa's spiritual life. "She says in a letter, 'I came to India with the desire to love Jesus as he has never been loved before,'" he said. "She was a woman passionately in love with Jesus."

Yet no sooner did Teresa start her work in the slums of Calcutta than she began to feel the intense absence of Jesus—a state that lasted until her death, according to her letters.
"The paradox is that for her to be a light, she was to be in darkness," Kolodiejchuk said.
In a letter estimated to be from 1961, Teresa wrote: "Darkness is such that I really do not see—neither with my mind nor with my reason—the place of God in my soul is blank—There is no God in me—when the pain of longing is so great—I just long & long for God. … The torture and pain I can't explain."

Over time, the Rev. Joseph Neuner, a spiritual adviser, helped Teresa realize her feelings of abandonment only increased her understanding of the people she helped, Kolodiejchuk said. Ultimately, she identified her suffering with that of Jesus, which helped her to accept it.
Catholic saints typically experience a "dark night of the soul" in the words of 16th-century priest St. John of the Cross, Martin said, but never as long as the "whole working life" Teresa experienced...

Mother Teresa's Crisis of Faith
Thursday, Aug. 23, 2007 By DAVID VAN BIEMA

A new, innocuously titled book, Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light (Doubleday), consisting primarily of correspondence between Teresa and her confessors and superiors over a period of 66 years, provides the spiritual counterpoint to a life known mostly through its works. The letters, many of them preserved against her wishes (she had requested that they be destroyed but was overruled by her church), reveal that for the last nearly half-century of her life she felt no presence of God whatsoever — or, as the book's compiler and editor, the Rev. Brian Kolodiejchuk, writes, "neither in her heart or in the eucharist."

That absence seems to have started at almost precisely the time she began tending the poor and dying in Calcutta, and — except for a five-week break in 1959 — never abated. Although perpetually cheery in public, the Teresa of the letters lived in a state of deep and abiding spiritual pain. In more than 40 communications, many of which have never before been published, she bemoans the "dryness," "darkness," "loneliness" and "torture" she is undergoing. She compares the experience to hell and at one point says it has driven her to doubt the existence of heaven and even of God. She is acutely aware of the discrepancy between her inner state and her public demeanor. "The smile," she writes, is "a mask" or "a cloak that covers everything."... more


And yet "the question is, Who determined the abandonment she experienced?" says Dr. Richard Gottlieb, a teacher at the New York Psychoanalytic Society & Institute who has written about the church and who was provided a copy of the book by TIME. "Could she have imposed it on herself?" Psychologists have long recognized that people of a certain personality type are conflicted about their high achievement and find ways to punish themselves. Gottlieb notes that Teresa's ambitions for her ministry were tremendous...Gottlieb also suggests that starting her ministry "may have marked a turning point in her relationship with Jesus," whose urgent claims she was finally in a position to fulfill. Being the active party, he speculates, might have scared her, and in the end, the only way to accomplish great things might have been in the permanent and less risky role of the spurned yet faithful lover.

The atheist position is simpler. In 1948, Hitchens ventures, Teresa finally woke up, although she could not admit it. He likens her to die-hard Western communists late in the cold war: "There was a huge amount of cognitive dissonance," he says. "They thought, 'Jesus, the Soviet Union is a failure, [but] I'm not supposed to think that. It means my life is meaningless.' They carried on somehow, but the mainspring was gone. And I think once the mainspring is gone, it cannot be repaired." That, he says, was Teresa... more


The Rev. Joseph Neuner, whom she met in the late 1950s and confided in somewhat later, was already a well-known theologian, and when she turned to him with her "darkness," he seems to have told her the three things she needed to hear: that there was no human remedy for it (that is, she should not feel responsible for affecting it); that feeling Jesus is not the only proof of his being there, and her very craving for God was a "sure sign" of his "hidden presence" in her life; and that the absence was in fact part of the "spiritual side" of her work for Jesus...more

Personally I do not find that surprising. Many of the great Mystics of the church talk about the dark night of the soul or the cloud of unknowing. I remember asking Father Thomas Green, author of Drinking from Dry Wells how long does these periods of dryness and aridness (absence of God) lasts. He answered, "For the rest of your life."

I find that terrifying and difficult to reconcile with our church teachings of God's presence in our everyday life giving us health, wealth, and prosperity. Sugar-and-spice-and-everything-nice Christianity. The Roman Catholics and Greek Orthodox teaches about 'dark night' experiences but not the Protestants. Why is that?

The Jesus Diet

Books & Culture, September/October 2007

The Jesus Diet
Eugene Peterson's "conversations in spiritual theology."

by Craig Mattson

Alas, this gadget-mindedness inclines us to treat grammar, meaning, narrative, hermeneutics as devices for extracting "biblical principles." Eat This Book counters this serious-minded technologism with a great deal of disarming storytelling—so much so that the reader begins to see that, for Peterson, narrative and doesn't have a point; it is the point. Gradually, we find our bearings in his narrative style, listen to his confessional voice, follow him as he circles back to gather up an earlier plotline. As we learn the criteria that his aesthetic discourse presents us with—plot and character, cohesiveness and plausibility, connotation and irony2—we begin to realize that Peterson is mentoring us in the practices that make up the second part of this book: reading as an act of hearing, meditating as a gestalt-like apprehension of the biblical story, prayer as response to the always prior word of God, and contemplation as living out this word....

Which brings us to Peterson's metaphoric exploration of The Jesus Way. We tend to forget that "Way" is itself a metaphor—what rhetoricians would call a "buried metaphor." We'd actually prefer (as the disciples did) for Jesus to be more literal with us, to offer us a broader band to divine data. But by describing himself as a kind of medium, Jesus confronts us with different sorts of questions than our catechisms have historically asked—questions not so much of definition as of direction. Not (as Peterson hastens to add) that defining the truth is unimportant, only that all too often in our deliberations "Jesus as truth gets far more attention than Jesus as the way." The result? Too many Christians acting like Flannery O'Connor's Hazel Motes, the founder of the Church of Christ Without Christ. We want the message without the medium; we want immediate connection with the divine. But as Peterson's latest book makes clear, we can't avoid mediation. We'll always be using some sort of means, following some sort of way. So, to get us back on the Jesus Way, Peterson traces the early steps along this path, following Old Testament wayfarers such as Abraham on the road to Moriah, Moses delivering sermons, David praying his way through his own imperfection, Elijah eating well on the banks of the Cherith, Isaiah clapping his hand to his mouth before the dangerous beauty of holiness. These stories clear places for spiritual theology—heeding the creational, practicing the sacrificial, avoiding the managerial, honoring the personal...

read complete article here

The Jesus Diet

Books & Culture, September/October 2007

The Jesus Diet
Eugene Peterson's "conversations in spiritual theology."

by Craig Mattson

Alas, this gadget-mindedness inclines us to treat grammar, meaning, narrative, hermeneutics as devices for extracting "biblical principles." Eat This Book counters this serious-minded technologism with a great deal of disarming storytelling—so much so that the reader begins to see that, for Peterson, narrative and doesn't have a point; it is the point. Gradually, we find our bearings in his narrative style, listen to his confessional voice, follow him as he circles back to gather up an earlier plotline. As we learn the criteria that his aesthetic discourse presents us with—plot and character, cohesiveness and plausibility, connotation and irony2—we begin to realize that Peterson is mentoring us in the practices that make up the second part of this book: reading as an act of hearing, meditating as a gestalt-like apprehension of the biblical story, prayer as response to the always prior word of God, and contemplation as living out this word....

Which brings us to Peterson's metaphoric exploration of The Jesus Way. We tend to forget that "Way" is itself a metaphor—what rhetoricians would call a "buried metaphor." We'd actually prefer (as the disciples did) for Jesus to be more literal with us, to offer us a broader band to divine data. But by describing himself as a kind of medium, Jesus confronts us with different sorts of questions than our catechisms have historically asked—questions not so much of definition as of direction. Not (as Peterson hastens to add) that defining the truth is unimportant, only that all too often in our deliberations "Jesus as truth gets far more attention than Jesus as the way." The result? Too many Christians acting like Flannery O'Connor's Hazel Motes, the founder of the Church of Christ Without Christ. We want the message without the medium; we want immediate connection with the divine. But as Peterson's latest book makes clear, we can't avoid mediation. We'll always be using some sort of means, following some sort of way. So, to get us back on the Jesus Way, Peterson traces the early steps along this path, following Old Testament wayfarers such as Abraham on the road to Moriah, Moses delivering sermons, David praying his way through his own imperfection, Elijah eating well on the banks of the Cherith, Isaiah clapping his hand to his mouth before the dangerous beauty of holiness. These stories clear places for spiritual theology—heeding the creational, practicing the sacrificial, avoiding the managerial, honoring the personal...

read complete article here

Rules for the Practice of Prayer

Rules for the Practice of Prayer
Age-old wisdom for approaching the throne of grace.
by Jeremy Taylor

Jeremy Taylor was a highly regarded preacher, teacher, and counselor in 17th century England. He believed that life could be holy in every respect. His Rule and Exercises of Holy Living (1650) accentuates this fact; it is a plea to seek righteousness in every area of living. Following are excerpts from his practice of prayer. There are valuable for both personal and group reflection

1. We must be careful, that we never ask anything of God that is sinful: for that is to ask of God to dishonor himself. Let us principally ask of God power and assistances to do our duty, to glorify God, to do good works, to live a good life, to die in the fear and favor of God, and eternal life.

2. We may lawfully pray to God for the gifts of the Spirit, such as preaching, good expression, a ready and unloosed tongue, good understanding, and learning, with these restraints:
• That we cannot be so confident of the event of those prayers as of the former.
• That we must be curious to secure our intention in these desires, that we may not ask them to serve our own ends, but only for God's glory.
• We must submit to God's will, desiring him to choose our employment, and to furnish our persons as he shall see expedient.

3. Whatsoever we may lawfully desire of temporal things, we may lawfully ask of God in prayer, and we may expect them, as they are promised in Holy Scripture.

4. He that would pray with effect, must live with care and piety. For although God gives to sinners and evil persons the common blessings of life and chance; yet they by contradicting some necessary ingredient in prayer, (such as mercy, humility, purity, and sincerity) do defile the prayer, and make it a direct sin.

5. All prayer must be made with faith and hope.

6. Our prayers must be fervent, intense, earnest, and importunate, when we pray for things of high concernment and necessity. In other things, we are to use a bridle: and, as we must limit our desires with submission to God's will, so also we must limit the importunity of our prayers, by the moderation and term of our desires. Pray for it as earnestly as you should desire it.

7. Our good desires must be lasting, and our prayers frequent, assiduous, and continual; not asking for a blessing once, and then leaving it; but daily renewing our suits.

8. Let the words of our prayers be pertinent, grave, material, not studiously many. God hears us not the sooner for our many words, but much the sooner for an earnest desire.

9. In all forms of prayer, mingle petition with thanksgiving.

10. Whatever we beg of God, let us also work for it. For God loves to bless labor and to reward it, but not to support idleness. Read Scriptures; and then pray to God for understanding. Pray against temptation: but you must also resist the devil. Ask of God competency of living: but you must also work with your hands the things that are honest.

11. To this purpose let every man study his prayers, and read his duty in his petitions. For the body of our prayer is the sum of our duty.

12. In all prayers, we must be careful to attend our present work, not wandering upon impertinent things. Strive to obtain a diligent, sober, untroubled, and composed spirit.

13. Let your posture and gesture of body in prayers be reverent, grave, and humble. Stand or kneel, or lie flat upon the ground on your face, in your ordinary and more solemn prayers; but in extraordinary prayers, the reverence and devotion of the soul, and the lifting up of the eyes and hands to God with any other posture not indecent, is usual and commendable. For we may pray in bed, on horseback, everywhere, and at all times, and in all circumstances.

14. We, who must love our neighbors as ourselves, must also pray for them as for ourselves. This is called intercession; we are to remember our relatives, our family, our charge, our benefactors, our creditors; not forgetting to beg pardon and charity for our enemies, and protection against them.

15. Rely not on your single prayer in matters of great concern. Make it as public as you can, obtaining others to pray with you, this being the great blessing of the communion of saints: that a prayer united is strong, like a well-ordered army. God loves to be tied fast with such cords of love, and constrained by holy violence.

16. Every time, that is not seized upon by some other duty, is seasonable enough for prayer: but let it be performed as a solemn duty morning and evening, that God may begin and end all our business, and "the outgoing of the morning and evening may praise him."


source

Rules for the Practice of Prayer

Rules for the Practice of Prayer
Age-old wisdom for approaching the throne of grace.
by Jeremy Taylor

Jeremy Taylor was a highly regarded preacher, teacher, and counselor in 17th century England. He believed that life could be holy in every respect. His Rule and Exercises of Holy Living (1650) accentuates this fact; it is a plea to seek righteousness in every area of living. Following are excerpts from his practice of prayer. There are valuable for both personal and group reflection

1. We must be careful, that we never ask anything of God that is sinful: for that is to ask of God to dishonor himself. Let us principally ask of God power and assistances to do our duty, to glorify God, to do good works, to live a good life, to die in the fear and favor of God, and eternal life.

2. We may lawfully pray to God for the gifts of the Spirit, such as preaching, good expression, a ready and unloosed tongue, good understanding, and learning, with these restraints:
• That we cannot be so confident of the event of those prayers as of the former.
• That we must be curious to secure our intention in these desires, that we may not ask them to serve our own ends, but only for God's glory.
• We must submit to God's will, desiring him to choose our employment, and to furnish our persons as he shall see expedient.

3. Whatsoever we may lawfully desire of temporal things, we may lawfully ask of God in prayer, and we may expect them, as they are promised in Holy Scripture.

4. He that would pray with effect, must live with care and piety. For although God gives to sinners and evil persons the common blessings of life and chance; yet they by contradicting some necessary ingredient in prayer, (such as mercy, humility, purity, and sincerity) do defile the prayer, and make it a direct sin.

5. All prayer must be made with faith and hope.

6. Our prayers must be fervent, intense, earnest, and importunate, when we pray for things of high concernment and necessity. In other things, we are to use a bridle: and, as we must limit our desires with submission to God's will, so also we must limit the importunity of our prayers, by the moderation and term of our desires. Pray for it as earnestly as you should desire it.

7. Our good desires must be lasting, and our prayers frequent, assiduous, and continual; not asking for a blessing once, and then leaving it; but daily renewing our suits.

8. Let the words of our prayers be pertinent, grave, material, not studiously many. God hears us not the sooner for our many words, but much the sooner for an earnest desire.

9. In all forms of prayer, mingle petition with thanksgiving.

10. Whatever we beg of God, let us also work for it. For God loves to bless labor and to reward it, but not to support idleness. Read Scriptures; and then pray to God for understanding. Pray against temptation: but you must also resist the devil. Ask of God competency of living: but you must also work with your hands the things that are honest.

11. To this purpose let every man study his prayers, and read his duty in his petitions. For the body of our prayer is the sum of our duty.

12. In all prayers, we must be careful to attend our present work, not wandering upon impertinent things. Strive to obtain a diligent, sober, untroubled, and composed spirit.

13. Let your posture and gesture of body in prayers be reverent, grave, and humble. Stand or kneel, or lie flat upon the ground on your face, in your ordinary and more solemn prayers; but in extraordinary prayers, the reverence and devotion of the soul, and the lifting up of the eyes and hands to God with any other posture not indecent, is usual and commendable. For we may pray in bed, on horseback, everywhere, and at all times, and in all circumstances.

14. We, who must love our neighbors as ourselves, must also pray for them as for ourselves. This is called intercession; we are to remember our relatives, our family, our charge, our benefactors, our creditors; not forgetting to beg pardon and charity for our enemies, and protection against them.

15. Rely not on your single prayer in matters of great concern. Make it as public as you can, obtaining others to pray with you, this being the great blessing of the communion of saints: that a prayer united is strong, like a well-ordered army. God loves to be tied fast with such cords of love, and constrained by holy violence.

16. Every time, that is not seized upon by some other duty, is seasonable enough for prayer: but let it be performed as a solemn duty morning and evening, that God may begin and end all our business, and "the outgoing of the morning and evening may praise him."


source

Athens in Greece

(The Acropolis in Athens)

I shall be away to Athens, Greece from today until 1st September 2007. I shall not be updating this blog until my return. In the meantime, enjoy my previous posts.