Hearts, Ears, and Mouths
December 31, 2008
This day be within and without me,
lowly and meek, yet all-powerful.
Be in the heart of each to whom I speak;
in the mouth of each who speaks unto me.
This day be within and without me,
lowly and meek, yet all-powerful.
Georges has recently shared some reflections upon the Canticle which closes the morning office of CDP. This song of prayer, borrowed in part from St. Patrick’s Breastplate, is not only a hymn of worship and a request for God’s presence. It is a request that God speak directly to us.
Whether it was in Moses’ flaming shrubbery, the still small voice that came to Elijah, or Saul getting knocked to the roadside by a light from God, our faith has a long and varied history of direct communication from God. We frequently dismiss some of the more dramatic cases of God speaking as ‘not for today’ but regardless of the dramatic degree, God still speaks. One of the many ways we hear him is through one another.
Be in the heart of each to whom I speak;
in the mouth of each who speaks unto me.
When we pray that Christ be “in the mouth” of everyone who speaks to us we are asking Christ himself to speak. This is no small request. This is not a prayer to be taken lightly but one that should drive us to listen to family members, friends, enemies and those seemingly insignificant interactions during the day such as the clerk at the cafe or the unknown neighbor walking their dog. I suspect that God likes to speak to us through voices we wouldn’t expect.
At the beginning of this year perhaps we should ask God to give us “ears to hear”. Certainly God speaks to us through Scripture and all kinds of Holy reading but what about through the voices of Darius (who freed the Israelites to rebuild their temple), Balaam’s ass (you know, the donkey), or through Rhoda (the servant girl who brought news that Peter was alive). Can we hear God speak through the voices of ones we know as the “enemy”, “the absurd”, and the “too small or insignificant to be taken seriously”?
Finally, the Canticle has us pray that Christ would be “in the heart of each to whom we speak”. No words are perfect, no intention without mixed motive, and no ears are perfectly attuned, at all times, to God’s voice. Asking for Christ to be in the heart of our hearers gives our words the opportunity to take root in the hearts and minds of those listening. Asking for Christ to be in the heart of our hearers gives our words an opportunity to be transformed by God’s Spirit into that which needs to be heard. In spite of our imperfections, in spite of our stammering, we participate in God’s Kingdom.
If you cannot express yourself on any subject, struggle until you can. If you do not, someone will be the poorer all the days of his life. Struggle to re-express some truth of God to yourself, and God will use that expression to someone else. - Oswald Chambers, My Utmost…, Dec 15
Canticle 2
December 29, 2008
Missional Order is engaged in three interrelated commitments or vows. First we are committed to live in a sacred way in chronological time and the special moments of worship. The second vow is continuous spiritual formation. We believe our initial conversion into Christ is just that initial. We want to spend the rest of our lives learning and training to be conformed to the image of Christ. The third commitment that unifies our vision for the Christian life is missio dei. It is not enough to worship and train. We must also do the work of God in this world as we participate in the establishment of the Kingdom of God. By making these three commitments we declare our Christian lifestyle not just our beliefs.
We take seriously time set aside for worship, and special moments of encounter with God. As an aid to worship we are using as our guide Celtic Daily Prayer, which is accessible from this site’s menu. Celtic simply means Irish in this case. This prayer book we use was composed by a community of Christ followers in a place in Ireland called Northumbria. Each morning time of worship we sing with them this song or canticle toward the end of the worship time. Last week I wrote a few comments on the first two lines. This week a few comments on the following two lines are in order: Christ, as a shield overshadow me.
Notice again that the form of this line is petitionary, in other words, we are asking Christ to be our shield and as a shield to overshadow us or protect us. I don’t know about you but as for me I need Christ’s protection for he knows how to protect his own as promised “I will never leave or forsake you, and no one will pluck you out of my hand.”
What do you need to be protected from in your life?
For me it is mostly my heart, soul, mind, and body. These are the components of my self and what they are like is the sum total of what my character is like. Proverbs 4:23 says that we must protect our hearts because out of them flows life. Our heart, soul, mind, or inner existence needs protection. It is susceptible to all kinds of attacks from the evil side. These are the areas of susceptibility many of us deal with and need the overshasowing by Christ’s shield: lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy, and pride. If you guessed or recognized that these are the 7 deadly sins the early church gave us, you would be right.
And so the petition: Christ as a shield overshadow me gains in significance for me as I reflect on the presence of these categories of sin in my life. We are predisposed to all of them; perhaps not always, but periodically. Confession and repentance follow and forgiveness is received. Then we can ask Christ the shield to overshadow us with the 7 virtues, which are also the gift of the early church to us: courage, faith, hope, justice, love, prudence, and restraint.
With Heart and Mind
December 24, 2008
My mother’s father died when I was 12 and he was 96. Already an old man when his daughter was born, he lived a rough life, slaving away in a sawmill providing for seven children before and during the Great Depression. Two years before he died, my mother and I entered his nursing home room and found him chanting, singing and shouting a string of profanities. Both sad and embarrassed, my mother ushered me out of the room, as the old man continued his litany of curse words and obscenities.
Slipping in and out of lucidity, my grandfather shouted and sang words that he had used all of his life. They were normally saved for the occasion when something went wrong at the mill or a friend cheated him at cards. He would have been ashamed had he been able to hear himself but these words had been a part of his daily life. They were part of his daily rhythm.
I have reflected on that moment numerous times wondering what would happen if I were in his circumstance. Would profanity, inanity, or nonsense roll off my tongue? Or, after entering into a sacred rhythm, could I be found chanting words of prayer?
The prayer of the heart, sometimes referred to as the “Jesus Prayer”, is a mode of prayer encouraged throughout the Eastern Orthodox church. Through this mode of prayer the individual is encouraged to pray, repeatedly, a brief phrase in order that the pray-er moves from doing the work of prayer to God doing the work of prayer within him. St. Isaac the Syrian says:
When the Spirit makes Its dwelling-place in someone, he does not cease to pray, because the Spirit will constantly pray in him.
For awhile I have wondered if entering Sacred Rhythm might not create a similar experience where prayer becomes a partnership between the individual and God. Regularly meeting God, daily spending time with the same words of prayer, may become the environment where God’s Spirit prays from within us. (Rom 8:26)
When prayer becomes a part of our daily rhythm as our minds and bodies engage God’s Spirit, we may be found, even if our minds are in a state of disarray, praying words and having them prayed through us, that were a part of our daily, sacred rhythm.
Canticle
December 21, 2008
Christ, as a light
illumine and guide me.
Christ, as a shield
overshadow me.
Christ under me;
Christ over me;
Christ beside me
on my left and my right.
This day be within and without me,
lowly and meek, yet all-powerful.
Be in the heart of each to whom I speak;
in the mouth of each who speaks unto me.
This day be within and without me,
lowly and meek, yet all-powerful.
Christ as a light;
Christ as a shield;
Christ beside me
on my left and my right.
I find this prayer deeply meaningful. I cannot simply recite it without going deeply into myself and appreciate its work in me. It reflects a ton of biblical images and concepts that are familiar to the Bible reader. That’s the most endearing thing about it. I am going to write a few posts on this canticle of worship. Reading these words is one thing, reading them and letting them read us spiritually is another. I read them slowly, meditatively, prayerfully, and restfully allow them to settle down deep within (by the way this kind of reading is called lectio divina).
The canticle begins appropriately with Christ: Christ as a light, illumine and guide me. The form is prayerful. It is the asking for direction, for wisdom, for understanding of everything in life and of the things of God. Jesus said “I am the light of the world, he who comes to me will not live in darkness”. And this world of darkness needs the light of Christ, and in my world of darkness I need the light who is Christ. Daily I make numerous decisions, some of them are big, most are small, but cumulatively, they shape my future life. How I need The Light!
Christ as a light means to me that Christ reveals God, no small thing. Christ as a light reveals life and reveals me to me. Equally no small thing. Christ as a light reveals the way of life in the kingdom of God. I rest in the thought that I am his and he is mine and that he wants to show me himself and show me myself and the ways of the kingdom of light. He is ever so gentle in his pointing the light. Sometimes the light floods over me and sometimes it comes with laser precision. He knows which I need. I rest in that knowledge of being known and accepted.
Christ as a light, illumine and guide me. Amen.
God’s Presence
December 19, 2008
35 The angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God. 36 Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be unable to conceive is in her sixth month. 37 For no word from God will ever fail.” 38 “I am the Lord’s servant,” Mary answered. “May it be to me according to your word.” Then the angel left her.
- Luke 1:35-38
I have been captured by this account of Mary’s interaction with the LORD. One of the aspects of this story I find especially compelling is the allusion to the Trinity that is found here….
The Holy Spirit will come on you….
the power of the Most High will overshadow you…
the one inside you will be called the Son of God.
I am hungry for this secret intimacy with God. I want to know God in ever increasing depth and wonder. I want to be baptized in the strong name of the Trinity.
Advent is about watching and waiting. Surrendering to the Presence of God that is upon us, overshadowing us, and even in us. It takes discipline to slow down, to stop, to wait and allow God himself to wash over me, loving me, cleansing me, filling me.
Lord, I make the choice to slow down right now. I am sitting here in stillness well aware that your Presence fills this room, that your Presence fills my heart. I receive you just as I am today. I am not trying to figure out your grace, I am content to just experience it wash over me. Thank you for loving me. I love you.
Do you examen?
December 15, 2008
Here is my question right off the bat: How do you close out your day? Do you have certain practices you engage in to bring an end to your day? What’s your routine?
A day can pack a lot of punches. Think of how many events can happen in a day. Lives can change quickly by an announcement of birth, of death, of the arrival of the kingdom of God into a person’s or a community’s life, or the onset of recession. Sin can lodge free at our expense in our thoughts, words, deeds, and bodies. Distancing ourselves from the loving Father only takes a careless moment of falling into temptation. We make the right or wrong decision, we take the right or wrong turn and by the end of the day life accumulates and many parts of life demand resolution. Stuff happens that needs debriefing with God. An experience cries out to us to be revisited and understood deeply in the presence of God. While this time taken at the end of the day may be a luxury to many (I think here of the mother who is exhausted after a day with a fussy baby, or parents whose children demand more energy than they have). If not daily, then, some form of reflection upon the day, the week, the month needs to take place in our lives.
Compline, saying our prayers just before we retire to bed, allows us a chance to reflect (even if ever so briefly) upon the day’s activities: what we did and did not do, how we felt, how we thought or how we loved, what we said and shouldn’t have said. The kind of prayer par excellence for doing some introspection is called examen. In examen, we address God as “revealer” of our hearts asking him the all-too scary yet necessary questions about our lives. Or perhaps we ask embarrassing questions that would shine the light of God, Scripture, and conscience upon our hearts. Celtic Daily Prayer (also here) offers us a liturgy of examen. By the way examen does not need to be sad and despairing. Far from it. Simply put, be yourself, and expect that hope is alive.
Examen is no easy feat. It can be real scary. What would God think and what do I think about myself, about my experience with God today? Here is that scary prayer: Search me, O God, and know my heart. Test me and know my thoughts. See if there be any wicked way in me, abide with me, and lead me in the way everlasting.”
What’s so scary? …
Who wants to be exposed, knowing that there is no way of escaping from ourselves. Here’s the thing, when exposed, we are exposed by one who is loving and totally committed to will everything good for us. This is what makes examen a good activity at the end of the day for me. I get to face myself and God, my sinfulness and my righteousness, my joys and my sorrows in an attitude of neediness before a loving God.
Real Listening
December 14, 2008
ADVENT-that period of great anticipatory joy - is a time for waiting, listening and preparation for the arrival of Christ in Bethlehem as well as our hearts.
The word “listening” in Latin is obedire, and audire means “listening with great attention.” That is where the word “obedience” comes from. Jesus is called the obedient one, that means the listener. The Latin word for not listening, being deaf, is “surdus.” If you are absolutely not listening, that is where the word “absurd” comes from. so it might be interesting to note that some body who is not listening is leading an absurd life….
Now, to become a listener, one way to do it is to say, “How can I let the ‘Lord is my Shepherd, there is nothing I shall want,’” enter in from my mind to my heart? I can say it is here and that is just a statement, but it becomes prayer when I experience the shepherding presence of God in the center of my being…Listening starts precisely when you move from the mind to the heart and let the truth of your being center you down. -Henri J. M. Nouwent, Advent and Christmas
God’s Transforming Presence
December 9, 2008
“As a young follower of Jesus, I was taught that Jesus had commanded his disciples to go into the world and make disciples. It is ture. He did.
However, I began to notice that while many missionary-driven, transform-the-world types were passionate about making a difference in the world and effecting change in other people’s lives, they often failed to invest the same energy in transforming their own life. When they did make personal adjustments, it was often motivated by their desire to be more effective in their world changing.
It began to occur to me that if the God of the universe has truly taken up residence in us, radical changes in us should be inescapable. No gardener takes over a new plot and doesn’t remove the weeds, prune the trees, and introduce and nurture new, more appropriate, and beautiful plants.
It also occured to me that as a world changer, Jesus was not very strategic. He arrived in a small, somewhat inconsequential country, spent three years with twelve uninfluential men and a broader gathering of unknown men and women, and oh, by the way, changed the world. I decided that either Jesus was doing something wrong or contemporary world changers were.”
- Dick Staub in The Culturally Savvy Christian
What are you singing these days?
December 7, 2008
Christmas is full of songs. “Hallelujah how the angels sang, Hallelujah how it rang… tis the birthday of the King.” In Luke Mary writes a magnifying the savior song. Zechariah too has his song. And a host of angels, backing up in chorus fashion the ones appearing to the shepherds, with one voice burst into an oratorio of “glory to God in the highest and on earth peace upon men on whom God’s favor rests.”
In public I rarely participate in voicing my singing; I would much rather listen to the singing of the laos of God and get my worship in by listening. In private, that’s a different story. I sing in the car, I sing in the shower, I sing at home while I play the piano. Especially at Christmas. So for the Christmas season I often sing and play during morning prayer and at night before compline. I sing hymns or Christmas carols.
My favorite Christmas song is What Child is This. It is reverential and so full of wonder and mystery. Another song that is really growing on me is “Mary, Did You Know?” Handel’s Messiah is glorious of course.
It would be good if some of you who visit us could share what your favorite Christmas song or Christmas CD is and why (if you wish). Does singing play a role in your practice of sacred rhythm?
Good Shoes
December 3, 2008
I was recently discussing the value of fixed hour prayer with a class of Bible college students. The concept of praying the office, in whatever form, was an oddity for all of these students most of whom had grown up in non-liturgical backgrounds.
One objection raised was one that I had wrestled with myself. Roughly quoting Matthew 6:7, a student expressed concern about what seemed to him to be “vain repetition” when praying the same phrases, psalms and prayers every day. The verse, in it’s entirety and in the NASB, is quoted below:
“And when you are praying, do not use meaningless repetition as the Gentiles do, for they suppose that they will be heard for their many words.”
I was quick to point out that the problem was not repetition itself but the “meaningless” form of repetition which Jesus was contrasting with the pagan prayer activities of Gentiles. If repetition alone was the problem then many contemporary praise and worship songs would be in violation of Jesus’ command. The student appreciated the distinction which was made and it led me to think back to my earliest experiences with CDP.
When I first committed to pray the office through Celtic Daily Prayer I was concerned that my attention would drift and my interest dissipate when praying the same words every day of the week. The morning, midday and evening offices in CDP are identical from day to day. The only changes are the addition of daily Scripture readings, along with a brief meditation, in the morning and evening prayer times. Otherwise the prayers are the same.
It took only a week or so before I discovered that the same prayers, prayed day after day, had a positive impact upon me. Rather than being dulled by what I thought would be a mechanical, rote memorization of prayer I was enlivened by entering into and praying words that I had prayed before. I was further inspired knowing that many others, I have no way of knowing how many, would pray the same words with me in spite of the fact that we were dispersed around the globe. The familiarity with the words didn’t breed contempt in nor indifference. Instead it instilled within me the ability to be present to the words, present to the prayer, and most importantly present to God via the words of the office.
“A good shoe is a shoe you don’t notice. Good reading becomes possible when you need not consciously think about eyes, or light, or print, or spelling.”
While discussing the changes that were occurring within the worship of the Anglican church, C.S. Lewis made the point that the best worship service “would be one we were almost unaware of; our attention would have been on God.” (from Letters to Malcolm, pg. 4) Rather than instill novelty into our prayer life, routine is in order. A regular routine, a sacred routine, allows the pray-er, to be present. No longer focused on saying the right words or saying the words right, the one praying is allowed, through the words of the office, to be present to God.
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