Dan Kimball, writer of the book Emerging Churches and a man gracious and discerning enough to blurb my book, leader in emerging/missional church circles (and leading people in advancing directions now in the progression of thought), has been featured on that not-altogether-pro-Christianity, tech/nerd/sci-fi site boing-boing. For changing his brand of hair grease.

The Holy Spirit, out of compassion for our weakness, comes to us even when we are impure. And if only He finds our intellect truly praying to Him, He enters it and puts to flight the whole array of thoughts and ideas circling within it, and He arouses it to a longing for spiritual prayer.

While all else produces thoughts, ideas and speculations in the intellect through changes in the body, the Lord does the opposite: by entering the intellect, he fills it with whatever knowledge he wishes; and through the intellect he calms the uncontrolled impulses in the body.

Whoever loves true prayer and becomes angry or resentful is his own enemy. He is like a man who wants to see clearly and yet inflicts damage on his own eyes.

If you long to pray, do nothing that is opposed to prayer, so that God may draw near and be with you.

Spiritual knowledge has great beauty: it is the helpmate of prayer, awakening the intellect to contemplation of divine knowledge.

~Evagrios

Embrace prayer. Embrace holiness. Embrace knowledge. These three go hand in hand to lead us to fullness and stillness.

Though, doing this does not necessarily mean we’ll be free from storms and persecution. Maybe even the opposite. We do these things and we become dangerous to those who are opposed to fulness and stillness. And such can be found in all kinds of places, even the places where we might trust the most.

If you are a theologian, you will pray truly. And if you pray truly, you are a theologian.

~Evagrios

Tomorrow I begin school again. To become a theologian according to the academy.

However, I cannot forget that it is not my words about God that make me a theologian. It is my words for God, and with God, and from God, that I will be truly a theologian.

I must hold onto prayer. Growing in depth of the Spirit, even as now, I enter into a new phase of growing in depth of knowledge.

It is essential, then, to imitate people who are in danger at sea and throw things overboard because of the violence of the winds and the threatening waves. But here we must be very careful in case we cast things overboard just to be seen doing so by men. For then we shall get the reward we want; bu we shall suffer another shipwreck, worse than the first, blown off our course by the contrary wind of self-esteem.

That is why our Lord, instructing the intellect, our helmsman, says in the Gospels: “Take heed that you do not give alms in front of others, to be seen by them; for unless you take heed, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven.”

Again, he says: “When you pray, you must not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in synagogues and at street-corners, so as to be seen by men. Truly I say to you, they get the reward they want… Moreover when you fast, do not put on a gloomy face, like the hypocrites; for they disfigure their faces, so that they may be seen by men to be fasting. Truly I say to you, they get the reward they want” (Mt. 6:1-18).

Observe how the Physician of souls here corrects our inflammatory power through acts of compassion, purifies the intellect through prayer, and through fasting withers desire. by means of these virtues the new Adam is formed, made again according to the image of his Creator–an Adam in whom, thanks to dispassion, there is ‘neither male nor female’ and, thanks to singleness of faith, there is ‘neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free, but Christ is all, and in all” (Gal. 3:28; Col. 3:10-11).

~Evagrios

Throw things overboard when in a storm.

Not long ago I finished reading through the Aubrey/Maturin series of books by Patrick O’Brian. The seas can be a very dangerous place, not only because of storm, but also because of other ships. When caught in a storm, or chased by a heavier gunned frigate, the tactic was to let go of anything that wasn’t entirely necessary, to save the ship from sinking or being sunk.

This makes a lot of sense. However, it’s so interesting what we will hold onto, going down with the ship rather than casting away. Sometimes these reflect our fears and doubts and sinful ways. Other times, as I’ve learned over the years, these might reflect something we enjoy, or find interesting, or good.

Friendships can pull us away from God at times. Work. Pursuit of money. Pursuit of ministry. I ahve seen so many earnest pastors focus all their time on organization and strategy, and little time in prayer or study or their relationship with God. To save ourselves, we cast such things away during storms.

Another big one that I’m seeing so strong now is politics. Political action is our right and maybe even an obligation as citizens. But over the last thirty years or so I would guess there’s no other emphasis that has distracted the people of God from their mission as much as politics. Pornography and drunkenness have nothing on the allure of politics to drive people from stillness, and hope, and love. For a long time this was reflected on the Right, with Falwell and Robertson distorting the focus of our Faith. Now it’s the exact same on the Left, with so many people letting go the call to peace and love and hope for the sake of political grandstanding and scoring points.

This has been a big reason, maybe the biggest, why my blog here is quite different than it was in 2004. I’ve had to let go politics. Because the storms came. and politics was drowning me, because it’s not my calling to worship a candidate and demonize the other. It’s my calling to worship God, and fight the evils that are present and active, and seeking souls.

James 4:1-10

What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? You want something but don’t get it. You kill and covet, but you cannot have what you want. You quarrel and fight. You do not have, because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.

You adulterous people, don’t you know that friendship with the world is hatred toward God? Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God. Or do you think Scripture says without reason that the spirit he caused to live in us envies intensely? But he gives us more grace. That is why Scripture says:
“God opposes the proud
but gives grace to the humble.”

Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.

This is a reminder for me this morning. Just because I cast something away for a little while, doesn’t mean it stays away, or that I don’t try to get it back. Then once again I wonder why the storms feel particularly strong and I feel cannon shots pummel my stern.

Do everything possible to attain stillness and freedom from distraction, and struggle to live according to God’s will, battling against invisible enemies. Be like an astute business man: make stillness your criterion for testing the value of everything, and choose always what contributes to it.

~Evagrios

Seemingly simple suggestion. One of the most profound lessons I’ve learned, and am still learning. It’s curious the directions stillness comes, not always in the most spiritual acts, not always separated from action. Stillness of being is the Spirit whispering, “good”, even in the midst of storms.

Jesus modeled this when the storm came up and he rested. The disciples modeled fear and frenzy.

But, it’s not only in the storms we seek stillness. Sometimes in the mundane realities of life, there is a way of stillness. It is this stillness that marks the rhythm of the dance with God. We know we have made the steps when we are still.

Start now. I suspect really learning this takes a lifetime. But it’s so, so worth it.

added: I was trying to think of the times I’ve felt this stillness. I think I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve felt this in a church setting. Stillness isn’t a church activity.

Well, not at my various churches.

I spent a lot of time in pentecostal churches, and I’m wondering how that would be. If the Spirit’s present truly is stillness, then isn’t stillness the ultimate Pentecostal expression? Peter sang in prison, unconcerned. He was still. We emphasize frenzy, oddly enough, and stamp it with God’s presence. Not to say those actions are wrong in themselves, but I wonder what all those flair would look like if stillness were the criteria.

I entreat you not to leave your heart unguarded, so long as you are in the body. Just as a farmer cannot feel confident about the crop growing in his fields, because he does not know what will happen to it before it is stored away in his granary, so a man should not leave his heart unguarded so long as he still has breath in his nostrils. Up to his last breath he cannot know what passion will attack him; so long as he breathes, therefore, he must not leave his heart unguarded, but should at every moment pray to God for His help and mercy.

~Isaiah the Solitary

The old emphasis on the vices of the barroom have done a disservice here. We think of guarding our hearts and think of ‘family-safe’ activities, noting what we watch, what websites we visit, what foods we eat, what morals we keep.

Today, though, guarding my heart is not difficult because of encroaching temptations to obvious sins.

The news today seeks to undermine my heart.

It is not lust or gluttony that might get to me. It is politics, leading me to frustration and anger and poor treatment of those I should love. It is the financial news that causes worry and fear. It is the things that most people would say are rational concerns that undermine my hope and stillness today.

So, I must guard my heart. Not necessarily by fleeing and hiding. But, by praying to God for help and mercy.

Back in 2004 I was desperate for some kind of deeper spiritual text. Everything in my life had collapsed. I let go, or was forced to let go, most everything that a person holds as defining a successful life.

I had made a decision to stop running from the Void, from the shadows and chaos and darkness that chased me, making me fearful and fretting and angry and depressed. I felt driven by fleeing from that rather than driving towards seeking God. Instead of running I would turn around. I would let them wash over me, standing against them and hoping that God would help me conquer. I made a choice in late 2003 to find some measure of stillness, taking up those few remnants that spoke of that in my soul.

I was cast adrift in a way. Churches don’t know what to do with sorts like I became. I was a seminary graduate, an Evangelical on the edges of the emerging church, who did not seek the excitement of the city or the security of the suburbs. I sought quiet and peace and spiritual depths.

I was burned out and burned up. I needed balm and solace. And found it in the mountains.

Yet, that wasn’t enough. I was learned, to a degree, but not wise. I was spiritual, but not mature. I was pensive, but not contemplative. I wasn’t whole. I wasn’t still. I wasn’t real.

Who was?

To find that answer I knew to go outside my tradition. But where? John Wesley was an initial source, though I found his own frenzy and historical situation somewhat off-putting. However, there was a deep thread of depth in him that spoke to what I was seeking. Who did he read?

I knew some answers, as I had found them in years past. But there was a missing figure, a key source of his own spiritual development: Makarios the Egyptian.

Who?

One desperate day I started doing a search, trying to find where I could read this seemingly wise source of Spirit’s wisdom. Wasn’t in my standard collection of early church writings. I looked around.

Amazon pointed me to a set of books called the Philokalia, which are collected spiritual writings from Orthodox monks, almost entirely from the 1st millenium. I ordered a volume. It blew me away. That was exactly what I sought. These were men who truly sought God, who poured their life into the quest and the discovery of the utter depths of Christian spirituality. They dedicated their lives to this exploration. And they left their wisdom behind.

Being a collection of spiritual texts that touch on how to live, how to pray, how to manage thoughts and passions and hopes and fears, these books did not get into the controversies that lay at the heart of church organization arguments. I have a lot of disagreement with church organization and power structures, that come out of my own experience and education. I also have key theological issues with various churches, that keep me from sharing their communion–or rather that keep them from sharing their communion with me.

These books don’t touch on those. Some may say that the various aspects can’t be separated, but I disagree heartily–though that’s a totally different topic. For me, finding people who wholly and entirely sought God, plumbing the depths in both thought and action pointed me towards a true peace and a true development of wholeness, leading me indeed to where I am now.

God’s call on my life does not, it now seems, include my living a monastic existence devoted solely to isolated intense spirituality. God has called me, pushed me, opened me, outwards now, and there is joy in that. However, for my continued learning, a learning that I will not exhaust no matter how many times I read or years I live, I come back to the Philokalia, advanced texts on living the Christian life.

Next to Scripture itself, these books mark my own spirituality quest more than any other. I bought all four of the released volumes, and since 2004 have read each about three times or so. But, I haven’t done any regular reading for a while.

Now, I’m feeling the push of new worlds and new life. But, I don’t want to set the old behind, but instead bring it with me, infusing this active life with the contemplative, taking the lessons of stillness and wholeness into participation with an unstill and unwhole world.

I am young. I am still so immature. I have an immense amount to learn of God, myself, and our dance together.

So, I am thinking of coming back to the Philokalia on a regular basis, and maybe marking that by noting most every day some of the wise words I find.

These writings were written when the church was still unified, when there was no separation of denomination nor division based on power struggles and demands everyone organize according to one standard model. This was when people who truly sought God shared both communion and hope, embracing each other in the desire for true transformation into the likeness of God and true participation with him for eternity, beginning even this moment. It is in this spirit, in this context, that I’m going to look at these writings again, not for their historical or ecclesial value, but for their value to my soul and to the souls around me.

This question was asked on a forum I participate in. Here’s the answer I posted:

The classic way is to agree with the Nicene Creed:

We believe in one God,
the Father, the Almighty,
maker of heaven and earth,
of all that is, seen and unseen.

We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,
the only Son of God,
eternally begotten of the Father,
God from God, light from light,
true God from true God,
begotten, not made,
of one Being with the Father;
through him all things were made.
For us and for our salvation
he came down from heaven,
was incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary
and became truly human.
For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate;
he suffered death and was buried.
On the third day he rose again
in accordance with the Scriptures;
he ascended into heaven
and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead,
and his kingdom will have no end.

We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life,
who proceeds from the Father,
who with the Father and the Son is worshiped and glorified,
who has spoken through the prophets.
We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church.
We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.
We look for the resurrection of the dead,
and the life of the world to come. Amen.

This sums up the core theology and was adopted when the church was still unified, not under a single church leader but rather because of a shared faith.

That would be an official criteria then.

But, that’s not really enough for a lot of churches. I can say that all I want and still not be accepted by many. And, I’m not sure that merely acknowledging statements as accurate is enough. Doesn’t seem like Jesus ever made that a requirement.

What did he require?

Acknowledgement, participation, hope.

We acknowledge Jesus as our Lord. We participate with his Spirit in this world. We hope for the future that God has already accomplished so as to live in a new way in the present.

The first includes salvation from sin. The second includes works that are not for our salvation but because of our salvation. The third includes freedom from fear that is marked by progression in holiness and wisdom and discernment.

I would say if we lack these things we are probably not a Christian. If we are marked by these things then we are a Christian, and it really doesn’t matter what anyone else says on the subject.

Only Jesus gets to determine who and who is not truly a sheep or a goat, and his standards are sometimes not exactly what the various churches would choose.

As of 8:44 Pacific Time, right now, the sun is now directly over the equator. Night equals day. Day equals night.

Autumn has arrived!

This might be the only year my whole life where I hope this season, my favorite, gets over very quickly.

I mentioned earlier my new book has been picked up by Barclay Press for publication. I’m working on a edit now, to get everything progressing.

Here’s an excerpt from the new book.

“This is going to sound terrible, Deb. Don’t hate me. But why does that help? How did it help you to think that God was with you after Courtney died. Where was he to stop Courtney from dying? I don’t care that God is with me now. I can’t sculpt! I can’t paint anymore! I can’t do anything. All that I was sure he asked me to do. I can’t do it now. He makes demands and then he takes away all the ability to fulfill those. He robs me and then I am supposed to want him next to me. I’m mad at him, Deb! I’m pissed off and I don’t know what to do about it.” She stops as the tears take over. Deb hands her some Kleenex. “I’m sorry Deb. I’m sorry. It just broke out. I’ve been keeping that in.”

“You can never make me hate you, Liss. I know what you’re feeling. Don’t you think I said those things too? I’ve had time now, so it sounds so… so rational and easy and everything. It matters, Liss, because for me I had to first see that God wasn’t against me. And God isn’t against you. Just because this has happened doesn’t mean that somehow God has rejected you. I know, I know. That’s so trite to say. But it’s true. And if you can see that part then the next part makes more sense. And that’s what helped me. I could see that God wasn’t against me, he was with me. I could realize that what happened to Courtney wasn’t the divine plan, or that I somehow had to justify it to myself or anyone. So as I read the rest of the story, the rest of Joseph’s story I could see something I hadn’t seen before, not really.”

“What?”

“His being in prison. Sold as a slave. Everything. It wasn’t right or good or somehow okay. But God was with him throughout all of it, and not only that. He used it. He used it.”

“So he made all that happen so that something good will come out of it? How does that make God seem better.”

“No. That’s not what I’m saying. It happened; God used it. God was with Joseph throughout all of it. God was with Joseph in the dry well, and God was sold into slavery when Joseph was. God was with Joseph as he worked for Potiphar and God was with Joseph when he was tossed into jail. And all this isn’t saying those were good things. It’s saying that those weren’t hopeless. Everything got stolen from Joseph, but with God there he still had hope. Courtney was stolen from me, Liss. Stolen. Stolen by an evil man who couldn’t just stop with one beer. Stolen. And I don’t have to say that’s okay. But I also don’t have to think that everything is gone, that my life is hopeless and there’s nothing left for me. I don’t have to see it like that. The Bible doesn’t tell me that all of that is okay. It says there is sin and evil in this world, sin and evil that God hates even more than I do. The Bible doesn’t tell me that I have to be perfect and live a perfect life and have only pretty, lovely things happen to me. The Scriptures don’t tell me that the sign of God’s presence is constant happiness, and riches, and all that I could possibly want.”

“They tell you about Joseph.”

“They tell me about Joseph and everyone else. They tell me about the cross, Liss. I saw this and realized all those pretty, heroic characters in the Bible, all those that I thought were these models of perfection. They all had crap hit them from every direction. Why don’t we expect it then? Why haven’t we been taught that crappy lives aren’t a sign of God’s disfavor? Life happens and the Bible is filled, filled, with all kinds of life, a lot of it worse than what has happened to us. That’s not the point. The stuff isn’t the point. That’s what I saw. The point is that God is with us, and that only by staying with him, even with all of that crap happening around us, we will see freedom and hope and life. God doesn’t make us think that bad is good, and that crap is chocolate cake. ‘Just eat it and you’ll like it.’ No. God says that this stuff, all of it, is what happens and we’re not asked to justify it or him or ourselves or anything. He tells us, tells us all through Scripture, that he’ll stick with us, and we need to stick with him, because what we see isn’t the end of the story. It’s not over. There’s more and we have to, the only hope we can possibly have, is to have faith that he’s playing to win. Playing to win everything. But that doesn’t mean in the middle there won’t be disasters and problems and all the crap that happens.”

“So, we’re supposed to have faith, no matter?”

“That’s it, Liss,” Debbie says. “That’s what I’m saying. Look at those stories. Some miracles, sure. But a lot of hurt and heartache and confusion and frustration. What happened to us isn’t some kind of rejection or sign that God hates us. We’re part of this chapter, you see. That’s what I saw. I was with Joseph in prison too. And now I’m not waiting for God to say how lovely prison is or that I should be happy with it. No! I’m waiting to be let out of prison with Joseph. To be, like the Israelites, be set free from Egypt. ‘Let my people go,’ right? That’s faith. And that’s hope. That’s how I can live. That’s how I started piecing my life back together. The faith talked about here. Not the flimsy, silly, everything is okay so I can talk about faith, kind of faith. ‘Jesus loves you, pass it on.’ No. In the face of all the crap, faith is realizing God is still with me and realizing he plays to win. Right now we’re neither here nor there. But we have to expect there is a there. Something more than all of this. That’s the kind of faith that keeps me moving still.”

“I don’t know if I can have that kind of faith, Deb,” Melissa says, tears in her eyes. “I don’t know how. I can’t. I don’t see it. I don’t understand. I don’t have faith and I don’t know how to.”

“I know,” Debbie says. She stands up and leans over the bed, hugs Melissa. “I know.”