Revisiting

I am reading Jesus, the Teacher Within by Laurence Freeman for the second time.  I bought the book used some years ago, and I loved it then, and I am finding it a rich offering now as well. It is interesting to see the highlights and comments left by the first owner, the marks I left from the first reading, and what is catching my attention now.  

I do not remember reading these two lines attributed to St. Augustine, but I find myself returning to them, and they showed up in my preaching on Sunday. I feel a soul shift and a clearing.  Please excuse the masculine language. Centuries have passed since St. Augustine wrote these lines: 

A person first be restored to himself, that making of himself 

as it were a stepping stone, he may rise thence to God.  

 

I am finding that thinking of my life as a series of stepping stones to God is both illuminating and encouraging, and is helping me regain some footing as I journey through the last third of my physical life.  I think we all go through periods of being repurposed.  Such times can bring us unease, even a sense of failure.  However, if we think of these times of redirection as stepping stones, hopefully we can then move in the direction where we feel called with confidence, a confidence rooted in the trust that we are being led ever closer to God.      

  

   

photograph: August, 2021, San Leandro

Hope

 "Hope is the aspiration to be totally at home. It is the strongest aspiration of our being. The word virtue means 'strength'. The virtue of hope is a strength of spirit. But to be virtuous does not mean only to do the right things and be a respectable person. To be virtuous means to be strong in the Spirit, to have accepted the gift of the Spirit's strength." *  

  

Although I have read all 159 pages of the book, The Selfless Self, I think it is a book that I will never conclude. Reading it has deepened my meditation practice, and my meditation practice touches every aspect of my life. In addition, meditating reminds me that we are eternally held in love. This is a gift I gratefully accept.  

 

The Selfless Self, Laurence Freeman, OSB, p. 152 

photograph: San Leandro, August 2016  

Novena, Day 8

 I have been thinking that if we greet each day with Christ  (or whatever word brings a sense of the sacred to you) in our hearts, we should also end our day with "I greet this night with Christ in my heart." I find the rhythm of opening and closing meaningful for that is the ongoing rhythm of this life.  We are not static. 

This morning in my reading, I came across this passage, "Self-knowledge and experience of God unfold together and into each other...It is a path in which we leave egoism or incomplete selfhood behind, the egoism that tries to control and monitor the process of self-knowledge."*  We must constantly ask ourselves, "Am I on a path to know God, or my own ego?"  We say vigilant because the ego is desperately trying to maintain control, whereas God tenderly whispers, "Come." It is like trying to listen to a very quiet voice in the midst of a marching band and a cheering squad. Yes, distraction comes easily. However, let us be easy with ourselves in this time of unlearning and learning. I appreciate the image of unwrinkling in this novena. Sometimes I do feel rather wadded up. 

I greet this day with Christ in my heart. 

I address each one whom I comfort 

with tenderness and strength, 

knowing love within my heart. 

Though shared from my heart, 

the offering shines in my eyes, 

unwrinkles my brow, 

brings a smile to my lips 

and a ring in my voice. 

For each pleasant and constructive experience, 

I am grateful. 

From each unpleasant experience, I learn. 

For the experienced of awakened life, 

I am uplifted. 

I greet this day with Christ in my heart.  

  

Rev. Carol Parrish-Harra (first and last lines have been edited)  

 

*The Selfless Self," Father Laurence Freeman, OSB, p. 86 (1998, Continuum) 

image: This photograph was taken in Millbrae probably close to a decade ago

Right Sizing

 The most important teaching that I am taking away from this time of  pandemic is the belief that Christ resides in each and every person I meet. Those of a different faith tradition will call this sacred meeting by another name, and I celebrate that. There are, of course, many who simply cannot believe such a notion. However, that most certainly does not mean that my awareness should be diminished.  Quite the contrary. 

Meditation and prayer help us to sweep out our sacred temples. "Meditation is about the radical Christian conversion, a change from being people of theory, taster of ideas, to people of experience, prophets of certainty.  This no doubt sounds rather arrogant. But in the course of that process, which does not happen overnight and yet we can begin whenever we wish, all arrogance is burned away and we are compelled to become extraordinarily humble."*

I have also learned that I have grown too accustomed to thinking in terms of a "mustard seed" size of faith.  On Thursday, Rabbi Yael Levy shared with her class what she calls, "Verses for Protection and Rescue".  She readily admits her translations do include some creativity, and I deeply appreciate her work. She also encourages us to go and ahead and struggle with the more difficult Psalms, while taking  what is meaningful for us at any given time, even if it is only a short verse. The Psalm that I am carrying with me this week is Psalm 61:4 which Rabbi Yael translates as: "You are my refuge, a tower of strength." I am  grateful for this reminder that God can never be diminished, no matter how small the faith. Therefore, my  faith can remain steady and even increase. This is true regardless of whom and what I must face, as long as I remember to make room for Divine Presence and Source.  We are all  capable of living into sizeable, yes, even towering love and courage. 

 

    

*The Selfless Self, Father Laurence Freeman, OSB, page 55-56

photograph: Passion fruit flower, San Leandro, June 2021. I have never seen an all white blossom before. I did not have time to investigate further, as there was a man armed with a leaf blower coming our way. He was stirring up an amazing amount of dust. He seemed determined to keep going, so I felt Jack and I needed to move along.      

Universal Resonance

 I have returned to the book The Selfless Self by Laurence Freeman, OSB. Father Freeman studied and served with Father John Main to create the World  Community of Christian Meditation. He continues to serve as the director. I found the following passage to be insightful. It concerns a man who had been meditating for a few years "with the ordinary lack of 'experiences' that accompany the silent, ongoing change in our selves and lives." Then he was diagnosed with cancer at a time when he thought there was nothing seriously wrong with his health.  Father Freeman writes: 

"[The diagnosis]  shocked and stunned him. But then, at that very moment, he heard the mantra. The mantra began to sound and it rose in his heart with wonderful peace and certainty. From that moment until the time he was speaking, he understood more deeply  John Main's teaching that, through the mantra, we learn to hand over control to Christ. He felt every day, more deeply, the presence and the guiding spirit of Christ with him."   Father Freeman said it reminded him of a phrase that John Main wrote in one of his last letters in which he was describing his own illness and pain. He ended the letter with, "But it doesn't matter, it is all the Lord."     

The man would need to undergo several operations. After one procedure, he felt that his life and energy was so low that his death was a possibility.  Yet, in the recovery room, he again heard the mantra. However,  this time it did not seem to be arising from his own heart, but rather from the heart of all believers, "a universal resonance."

 Meditation is not about perfection. It is about the day to day return to the practice of opening our hearts to Christ.  Eventually, at some unknown and unexpected time, our very lives become imbued with this love.  There is no magic about mantras. A mantra helps pause our usual train of thought which can often be trite and repetitive, and can even be harmful to ourselves and those around us.  Once we become aware of these "tapes" running through our mind, we can begin to draw our attention away from them. They will fade, but yes, it takes time.  This is the "silent ongoing change" mentioned above. 

We are, and we are becoming. Christ be our light.    

 

The Selfless Self, Laurence Freeman, 1989, Darton, Longman and Todd, London, p. 128.    

   

Meditation via Zoom is held every Wednesday at 7:30 p.m., Pacific Time. Send me a note if you would like to participate. Yes, even on Zoom we feel the presence of one another welcoming Christ into our hearts.   Together, we sit in silence together for 25 minutes.  A short discussion often follows, but you are welcome to leave at any time.  

   

photograph:  Oakland, May 2021

Deep Listening

 I have come across this quote from Father Laurence Freeman twice in as many days.  It is from his book, First Sight, page 87 and 88 (copyright 2011).  

   

"First sight is seeing what is. Deep listening is an act of radical obedience to what is. Obedience means more than just doing what you are told. It is becoming the truth that you hear. The Latin obaudire links listening to obedience. St. Benedict speaks of ' obedience without delay' as the means of uniting the mind of the disciple with that of the master...     The 'kingdom of heaven' or the 'reign of God' are the gospel terms for union with God and others in the fully developed form of love without boundaries called 'agape'.   Father Freeman continues by saying, "Union, once it is uncovered, is boundless...Peace means the acceptance of the freedom from limitations."   He refers to this as "being infinitely stretched into nothingness."  

 

In our society, where people clamor to be heard and recognized, it is easy to become suspicious of, and even reject such an  idea. Yet Father Freeman reminds us that what inhabits us is expanding endlessly. God knows no boundaries, and that limitless is our destination,  and where we already are.  If it helps, think of  your soul as a beautiful, ever expanding mandala, or perhaps a blossom that never stops blooming.   

   

I am looking forward to sitting in meditation with others during Lent.  If you are interested, please send me a note.  Two times will be offered on Zoom:  Tuesdays at 2:30 and Wednesdays at 7:30 p.m.  Pacific Time.  We will start with a reading then sit in silence for twenty minutes.  We will follow with a short period of discussion and prayer.    

     

Blessings on your ever expanding  journey.     

    

photograph: San Leandro, February 2021

My Father's House

When I woke this morning, the house was warm. I thought of my father who would rise early, often as early as 4:30 a.m. The coffee maker was always set on a timer, so the coffee would have been made by 4:15 a.m. On his way to get his first cup ("Always the best one," he would say), he would stop and turn on the heat if the house was cold. I can never remember waking up to a cold house when I was growing up.  A few days after he died, I went into his apartment at the assisted living community where he lived for only a few months. The timer was still set. It was a strange feeling to turn that timer off. I was amazed that the glass decanter had not broken during those days when no coffee was being made. Dad loved coffee, and I think of him this morning as I sip my own cup.  I suddenly remember that the anniversary of his birthday was November 26. This year, he would have been 101.  Dad, I am sorry to have forgotten, but it seems I have inherited your arthritic knee, and as you all too well know, I can get rather self-absorbed. I am reminded of Jacob wrestling with the angel, and walking away, limping, but blessed.  You and I did struggle to understand one another, but I am grateful that we did find reconciliation, thanks to the common ground of love and humor.  I drink my coffee in your memory today.  Yes, the house is warm and the coffee is fine - just the way you would have liked it.        

We are created, we emerge. And as we emerge, as we grow, as we develop, we become more conscious of ourselves – as where we have come from, or what we are emerging from and what we are returning to, or what we are feeling ourselves linked to. It’s not just a mathematical problem or philosophical question. It’s an existential journey that takes time and in which we change. Even our mistakes are incorporated into the journey. Nothing is wasted. We are who we are. Can’t say I should have been somebody else. I am who I am. And this existence, life, is full of contradictions and paradoxes, ups and downs, life and death, sorrow and joy, fear and celebration, fear of incompetence. It’s very variable and of course unpredictable. It is uncertain, radically uncertain. But in this process of existence, of life, of growth, of growing consciousness, we realise, we become aware, self-aware that we are emerging, we are appearing. We’re coming to know ourselves...

Father Laurence Freeman, OSB 

World Community of Christian Meditation, November 27, 2018  

photograph:  Pismo Beach, September 2018

Faithfully Related

Some of you may remember that last year I wrote that I believed that to become part of a faith community required a "conversion to vulnerability." What this conversion is the risking of being known in an ongoing relationship with others. My belief in this conversion has only deepened. We are indeed faithfully related. We come to find our common ground in God. This is how we grow into Christ.

"Faith is about relationship. You talk about having faith in someone, how powerful it is when you feel that someone has faith in you, and how important it is to a relationship, and what a gift it is when you put your faith in someone. It is different from being able to define them or control them. So faith is about relationship in this way. It is about being faithful, faithfully related to someone. That means making a commitment, growing in that commitment over time, going through good times and bad times, staying with it as much as you humanly can, or starting again if you stopped. It means eventually realising that the relationship is taking you beyond yourself, beyond the ego, beyond the ego’s attachment to good times rather than bad times, beyond the ego that says, when it runs into a difficult period, ‘I don’t want this; I don’t need this; this isn’t what I signed up for’."

Father Laurence Freeman, World Community for Christian Meditation, November 4, 2018 

photograph: San Leandro, October 2018   

   

Now, Please

The following post is from the World Community of Christian Meditation and is something I deeply believe.  I do hope we can learn to love while we still have some remaining days and nights to live out that love.  No need to wait until the last second.  Let's be easy on one another and this beautiful, beleaguered planet.   Have a beautful, loved filled week.

St Augustine said that we can only love what is beautiful. This means that love reveals the beautiful even in things or people that don’t strike us as beautiful at first. How often do we find that as our first impression of someone fades, based as it was on superficial appearances or prejudices, a deeper insight comes to the fore and our response to this person is wholly changed. We feel bad about our misjudgement and shed it. Their true nature is now more visible and we resonate with it from a simpler, truer part of our self. Perhaps this is what awaits us all at the end of life, regardless of how mistakenly we have chosen to live. All our ways of seeing and knowing will fuse in a great healing simplicity as we see God. In that instant of pure perception – of the beauty ever ancient, ever new – we will not be able to resist falling in love, with the love that has always surrounded us. And so we will be saved.
( Meditatio Newsletter, October 2012 ) 
   

Photograph is the front of one of our Little Free Libraries here in San Leandro.  September, 2018

The Everywhere Temple

​"​For a number of reasons it takes time to come to the level of trust and stillness. First, it is just because it is an unfamiliar state to be in. We may feel intuitively drawn to it but also a little scared of it, as we do when we find ourselves in a new country without the local language and without bearings. The Cloud warns us that beginners in meditation easily mistake the spatial metaphors of ‘in’ or ‘up’ or ‘deep’. It insists that the spiritual work is not done in any particular place. “But to this you say, ‘Where then shall I be? By your reckoning I am to be nowhere!’ Exactly. In fact you have expressed it rather well, for I would indeed have you to be nowhere. Why? Because nowhere physically is everywhere spiritually.” (Chapter 68).

​  

​Father Laurence Freeman, OSB​

 

 

I ​am always grateful for Father Laurence's accessible meditations of the "The Cloud of Unknowing," written by an anonymous 14th century mystic. I have never been able to find my way into the book. I am also grateful for this post because it reminds me of an experience I had in a grocery store this week.  Tyler and I were anticipating having some friends over for dinner, so I stopped at a supermarket to pick the proverbial few things one always seems to need when cooking.  While there, I spotted some yellow spider mums, and their bright cheeriness found their way into my heart and shopping cart.  When I arrived at the check out counter, the young female cashier picked them up to check their price, but then she simply paused and gazed at them.  She spoke softly: "They are beautiful, aren't they?" She then handed them to another young woman who was kindly bagging my purchases.  She enthusiastically added, "Thank you for bringing these to us!"  We then had a sweet conversation about the color yellow.    

 

I found this brief interchange both enjoyable and interesting. These two young women work in close proximity to where the cut flowers are kept.  Yet, in the busyness of checking and bagging groceries, their inherently free ranging senses are held captive by the routine and expectations of customers, co-workers, management, and daily living. I wish I could say I never experience this short tether, but I do, and often. Fortunately, we are given these moments when our boundaries suddenly disappear and we are nowhere and everywhere. Color and light break through, and eternity is revealed once more. 

   

   

At the Heart of It All

I think I am finally beginning to understand mandalas.  And maybe a bit more about Christ (if that is possible). I am reminded that I really am not photographing flowers, but rather the sacred beauty that is within us all.  

 

Blessings to the fathers, and those who have or have had fathers. May our nation be gentle today. The children need us to be love.   ​

"​

We find this stillness at the centre of the wheel of the prayer, but if we were to try to describe that stillness more specifically every one of our traditions would have different terms. As a Christian it seems to me that at the centre of this wheel of the prayer we find the mind of Christ. We find the person of Christ praying at the centre. His prayer is not words or thoughts. His prayer is pure worship, what he calls worship “in spirit and in truth”. It is pure worship of God his Father. It is this prayer of the Spirit in the Christian understanding that pours out of Him into the human heart, into every human heart. The Spirit of Christ universally has entered and touched the human heart in a non-sectarian way.

​"​

​"​

 The Contemplative Dimension of Faith, Meditatio Series 2012B

​,"  Father Laurence Freeman, OSB  

  

   

Fixation

"(...) to pay attention to someone is to be with them, to be present to them as you are to a friend when they come to you with a problem and you just listen. You might say, I wish I could do something for you, but I can’t. I don’t know how to solve your problem, but I am here for you. I am present for you. That is compassion. It’s not just problem-solving, it’s not just counselling, but it is compassion in action. Meditation certainly develops this capacity for compassion. Stillness is at the heart of meditation in all traditions. “Be still and know that I am God,” it says in the Psalms."
Contemplative Dimension of Faith, Laurence Freeman, OSB

I received this post from the World Community of Christian Meditation this morning. Reminds me of my spiritual direction supervisor of whom I think with much gratitude. She would periodically caution against trying to "get under the hood and fix things." However, this morning we have a refrigerator that is not cooling enough, and we await the repair person who can indeed fix things. All have a place, and we belong. This I experience as the Christ among us.

The temperature is rising in so many ways. Reading Psalm 46 in its entirety seems appropriate this morning. May the peace of Christ be with you all.

God is our refuge and strength,
a very present help in trouble.
Therefore we will not fear, though the earth should change,
though the mountains shake in the heart of the sea;
though its waters roar and foam,
though the mountains tremble with its tumult.
There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God,
the holy habitation of the Most High.

God is in the midst of the city; it shall not be moved;
God will help it when the morning dawns.
The nations are in an uproar, the kingdoms totter;
he utters his voice, the earth melts.
The Lord of hosts is with us;
the God of Jacob is our refuge.

Come, behold the works of the Lord;
see what desolations he has brought on the earth.
He makes wars cease to the end of the earth;
he breaks the bow, and shatters the spear;
he burns the shields with fire.
“Be still, and know that I am God!
I am exalted among the nations,
I am exalted in the earth.”

The Lord of hosts is with us;
the God of Jacob is our refuge.

NRSV   

Christ Within

This is the essential mystery or the essential challenge too of Christian faith, that the historical person of Jesus, the universal teacher of wisdom, is also present in a way, in a form, within or with us. St Paul says the secret, the mystery, is Christ within you. 

 Father Laurence Freeman, World Community of Christian Meditation