Rule of Benedict 33
July 6, 2009
Benedict writes in 4:48-49
Keep guard at all times over the actions of your life, knowing for certain that God sees you every where.
I didn’t grow up with this Sunday School song: O be careful little hands, feet, eyes, ears what you do, where you go, what you see, and hear for the Father up above is looking down in love… Yes indeed one must be careful. Enticements to drift away from a Jesus-abiding life are many. Outward enticements to indulge our sensual pleasures of every kind abound. Inward enticements fueled by stored memories of sinful pleasures, boredom, and a sense of entitlement or missing out, lie in wait in every nook and cranny of our heart, mind, and soul. Thus keep guard at all times is apt advice, the one necessary thing in kingdom living.
Two people I read about and read some, who have managed a keeping guard over their hearts (Proverbs 4:23) are Brother Lawrence and Frank Laubach (other than the proverb writer and of course our Master). Perhaps there are many more.
Laubach in Letters by a modern Mystic says:
As for me, I never lived, I was half dead, I was a rotting tree, until I reached the place where I wholly, with utter honesty, resolved and then re-resolved that I would find God’s will, and I would do that will though every fiber in me said no, and I would win the battle in my thoughts. It was as though some deep artesian well had been struck in my soul… and strength came forth. I do not claim success even for a day yet–in my mind, no complete success all day–but some days are closer to success, and every day is tingling with the joy of a glorious discovery. That thing is eternal. That thing is undefeatable… This spirit which comes to a mind set upon continuous surrender, this spirit is timeless life.
Does this sound doable? Is there a desire within me for this?
Laubach adds:
It seems to me now that yonder plowman could be like Calixto Sanidad, when he was a lonesome and mistreated plowboy, “with my eyes on the furrow, and my hands on the lines, but my thoughts on God.” The carpenter could be as a full of God as was Christ when he drove nails. The millions at looms and lathes could make the hours glorious. Some hour spent by some night watchman might be the most glorious ever lived on earth.
We occupy our lives with all kinds of activities. But with our thoughts we train our minds to turn upward, keeping guard over our actions because the Father up above is looking down in love to give us the desires of our hearts.
This is challenging to say the least. Keeping guard is only the starting point. The rest is to turn our minds to be stayed on Him. Much easier said than done. But willed by our Lord for us.
Prayer from Celtic Daily Prayer morning canticle:
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.
CDP 2
May 8, 2009
Celtic Daily Prayer has been our chosen way at Missional Order to order our days. We have chosen to order our days around four spiritual pauses to focus our hearts, souls, and minds on the only Ground of our being: father, Son, and Holy Spirit. This is a valuable way to help us be intentional about growing in grace. Experience tells us that without intention it is impossible to accomplish the vision of Christ likeness we so desire as those intent on doing life with God. A garden untended grows wild. A life untended grows stale.
Today’s readings from CDP are all about intention. Here they are:
Psalm 42:11 Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Saviour and my God.
A conversation with ourselves is an essential way of attending to our inner thoughts, feelings, and attitudes. Whatever that conversation yields is placed in hope into the hands of God. By default, O Lord, make me to always hope in you.
Jeremiah 21:8 Furthermore, tell the people, This is what the LORD says: See, I am setting before you the way of life and the way of death.
We come to forks in the road daily, hourly, even more often. Choosing the way of life must be a deliberate action. The inner voice always cries out for the right choice unless the cares of this world have choked it out. Our baser parts heed the wrong voice for a wrong choice leading to interrupted relationality with the Lord. A moment of decision sets the course of a day, even a life. You bid me, my Lord, to tell the people. So I tell, first my soul, then the soul of others: Mind the little decisions.
2 Corinthians 11:3–4 But I am afraid that just as Eve was deceived by the serpent’s cunning, your minds may somehow be led astray from your sincere and pure devotion to Christ. 4 For if someone comes to you and preaches a Jesus other than the Jesus we preached, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received, or a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it easily enough.
Deception is constant. It is as constant as our wills are determined on devotion to Christ. The cosmic forces that seek to thwart our attention away from God, Jesus, and the gospel are not only real but also disguised. It takes the wisdom of Solomon and the patience of Job to be discerning. Lord Jesus Christ make me discerning of anything that would come between us and merciless in eliminating it from my life.
[May] I find Thee enthroned in my heart,
my Lord Jesus.
It is enough.
I know that Thou art throned
in heaven.
[May} My heart and heaven are [be] one.
Alistair Maclean
CDP 1
May 1, 2009
CDP is acronym for Celtic Daily Prayer. Today’s Scripture reading and reflection are encouraging to me.
The Bible Verse: Genesis 26:12 Isaac planted crops in that land and the same year reaped a hundredfold, because the LORD blessed him.
L’ABRI
But in addition to these conversations and discussions, something else was happening.
People were finding it hard to ’shake off’ what they were living through.
They were there while we were praying for things that they later found had been given …
They were being given (not by us, but by God’s answers to prayers) a demonstration that God exists …
It was a combination which could never be ‘planned’ or ‘put on’ as an exhibit … it had to be real.
… a completely new work … would never have been possible if we had not been uprooted completely in every way, and if in that uprooting we had not decided to pray for God’s solution and leading every step of the path as it wound through unknown territory.
We also prayed that if it grew, God would send us the workers of His choice, rather than our trying to advertise or get people to help us … So not to advertise, but simply to pray that God will send those of His choice, and keep others away, is a different way of doing things.
We don’t say everyone ought to work this way, we simply say we feel we were led by God to do this as a demonstration that He is able to bring the people to a place - even a tiny out-of-the-way place … and only to bring the ones He wants to have there for His purposes.
Edith Schaeffer
Missional Order is our planting a crop for the Lord, it is our L’Abri. We pray that the blessing of God will be upon each visitor and that our efforts yield a hundred fold fruit for the sake of God and others. Amen.
St. Patrick the “Missional”
March 18, 2009
This week marks the celebration of the Feast of St. Patrick. He was known as the apostle to the Irish andone of the most important missionaries of Christian history. Thomas Cahill (in his book How the Irish Saved Civilization) claims that if it weren’t for the work of Patrick, and his fellow missionaries and monks, Europe would have had no Christian legacy or memory to withstand the onslaught of Islam which arose only a few centuries later. Patrick’s work was not only soul saving but culture making. (Two enterprises that should never separated.)
Remember that St. Patrick’s day is a good time to recall the way in which God works through the small and despised; through the failed and forgotten; through the Samaritan (Stephen, the woman at the well,) and through the Irish (Patrick, Aidan, Brendan, Columba, Killian, Art Guinness, Brigid and Bono).
Living as God’s people require that his mission become our own. Patrick is one of the best examples of following Christ into the world. He returned to a world that had once abused and enslaved him. Yet, Patrick followed God’s lead and joined Christ in the work he was doing among the most dangerous and despised of the world.
The Irish saints had strong sense of God’s presence and power in their lives. Regardless of where they were, whether adrift at sea like Brendan, engaging the violent pagans in conversation like Patrick, or establishing beachheads of the faith in far away places like Aidan, they each knew that God was with them and that Christ was working through them. This trust in God’s abiding presence is evidenced in the morning canticle from CDP:
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.
It Is Making Me
February 18, 2009
In his book Orthodoxy, G.K. Chesterton sets out to establish the basic coherence and beauty of orthodox Christianity (that’s orthodox with a small “o”). In this process he acknowledges his is not a system that he created but one that he discovered, or rediscovered as it turns out. He says:
I have attempted in a vague and personal way, in a set of mental pictures rather than a series of deductions, to state the philosophy in which I have come to believe. I will not call it my philosophy; for I did not make it. God and humanity made it; and it made me. (Orthodoxy, pg. 13)
What Chesterton here ascribes to the work of theology, philosophy and apologetics I want to ascribe to prayer. I created neither prayer nor praying the daily office. The concept of sacred rhythm has been around much longer than I have. In fact, it predates Christianity itself. Yet, when praying the hours of CDP, I feel a thrill of rediscovery. The words are now so familiar that they have become a part of my mental soundtrack. The words of prayers which didn’t start with me, nonetheless, follow me throughout the day. Rather than reducing my experience with Christ to a routine, the familiarity of these words, enlarge it so that I find myself enjoying God’s friendship during the moments of prayer (the “hour” itself) and all throughout my day.
This kind of prayer is formative. Rather than merely comprehending the points in my praying I discover that the various phrases and ideas in the prayer are working on me at all times and in all kinds of occasions. Words such as, “…be within and without me lowly and meek yet all powerful” from the morning office, or from the midday, “…all things are passing, God never changeth”, and from the evening prayer, “Lord, You have always spoken when time was ripe; and though you be silent now, today I believe.”
These words weren’t crafted by me but I find that they are crafting me. From the Psalms and the prayers of ancient others these words are, much like Chesterton’s discovery, making me. (Perhaps re-making me?)
In his musical rendition of the Apostles Creed Rich Mullins ends the song with a phrase that is not from the creed by his brief and powerful reflection upon it. He says, “I did not make it. No, it is making me. It is the very truth of God not the invention of any man.”
No, I did not make it. But it is remaking me.
Tuning In, Tuning Out
February 4, 2009
Anne Lamott, in her book Bird by Bird, speaks about many challenges of writing. The discipline required to sit down everyday, clear one’s head and get something down on paper was overwhelming to her and through her experiences she humorously advises her fellow aspiring writers.
One of the biggest challenges she recounts was the continual process of quieting the “voices” in her head. Everyday, she would sit in front of her keyboard, pray a little prayer and try to proceed with the work of writing both creatively and authentically. In this process she discovered that her mind seemed tuned to a psychic radio station blasting overblown, outlandish praise of herself in one ear and absolute derision in the other.
As much as I love Lamott’s writing, politeness requires that I not quote her directly.
Much like Anne Lamott being kept from writing by her internal radio station I have found something similar which keeps me from prayer. These are not auditory hallucinations but “voices”, which I suspect we all hear, often in our own voice or the imitated voice of someone we love. Voices that drown out God’s voice.
In one ear I hear a voice telling me how wonderful I am, what a gift to humanity I am, how lucky the people around me are to have me in their life, and how my universal competence is only outstripped by my humility. On the other hand, or, more appropriately, in the other ear, I hear words that sound something like this: you are an idiot, everything you touch turns to poo, people are too polite to tell you how lousy you really are, and not even God would enjoy your company.
Now I know those words are all wrong. But knowing they are wrong does not keep me from tuning into that diabolical station.
Eugene Peterson asserts that every chapter in the Psalter is a prayer save one. Psalm 1, while not exactly prayer itself, it is preparation for it. Prayer does need preparation and this preparation is never more obviously needed than when I have difficulty quieting the voices in my head. Often, when praying the hours, I realize that I would be more “present” in my praying by taking a moment to set the scene, clear my mind, and, through conscious awareness of God’s presence and love, allow myself to pray more completely, more “prayerfully”. Reading the Psalms within CDP leads me to pray the Psalms. Prayer becomes the most rich when I hear just one voice, God’s.
The rhythm of daily praying the Psalms not only tunes out the voices but enables me to tune in, more frequently and reliably, to God’s voice. A voice speaking clear words of love and sanity.
The Blessing
January 25, 2009
The blessing at the end of morning prayer in CDP is:
Blessing
May the peace of the Lord Christ go with you,
wherever He may send you.
May He guide you through the wilderness,
protect you through the storm.
May He bring you home rejoicing
at the wonders He has shown you.
May He bring you home rejoicing
once again into our doors.
As you notice, this voiced wish or desire for good, is not addressed to God. This “prayer” assumes that you have someone in mind for whom you wish all the wonderful desires mentioned here. It is a prayer in community, for community, by community.
A couple of questions:
Has anyone used this prayer in their missional communities, or societies of Jesus (churches)?
Who do you have in mind when you say this blessing?
Perhaps I’ll be the first to answer my own questions. I haven’t used it in a corporate setting. But I am excited when I think about using it in a couple of settings to see how it goes. I will try it in two life groups I am involved with. And I hope to make it a reguar part of the prayer we end with in those groups. I am not a pastor of a church presently but would love to hear from some to see how it works in larger settings.
As to the second question, I’ll also be the first to answer. Sometimes I think and pray for family members, my sisters, and brothers, my wife and children and grandchildren, friends, and colleagues, and the life groups of which I am a part. Especially, I desire the expressions of this prayer in the presence of the Lord for those who are away from home, from God, from the fold.
Your turn…
Canticle 5
January 18, 2009
The last part I’ll comment on from the canticle in the morning office of CDP is: This day be within and without me, lowly and meek, yet all-powerful. Lowliness and meekness spell out the virtue of humility that every Christian should ask for from the Lord who dwells within.
This prayer is asking the Lord to manifest himself within us in lowliness and in meekness. Frankly, I am not given to ask for this meekness and lowliness by nature. They ran out of humility when my turn came. I am more inclined to assert myself. Perhaps I can blame society’s influence on me: lowly and meek are out, brash and proud are in. Perhaps it’s not society at all; it’s just my human nature taking its time dying. Blame is not a very productive defense mechanism.
All the same, this prayer of receiving the humility of my Lord is a needed corrective for me. Perhaps it is for you too. Notice also the dailiness of this part of the prayer. I get the manna of humility in daily but sufficient portions. Sufficient unto each day its dose of humility. Tomorrow, I start over again and the day after until lowliness and meekness become inherent character traits in me. Or as Dallas WIllard says until humility become second nature in me.
Biblical lowliness and meekness are not self-deprecating nor are they cowing down to others. In fact the very opposite is true as the words yet all-powerful affirm. Our king Jesus had unlimited power from God while on earth, but willingly laid those aside exercised in order to teach us to negotiate the virtues of lowliness and meekness. How much self-control did he have to learn (he learned obedience through the things he suffered)? Did he pray daily for humility? While I can’t answer those questions for my Lord, I can use all the means of grace available to me to help me on the path of humility. It takes the powerful energy of the Holy Spirit within me to be self-controlled when my tendency is to exert unnecessary power when humility works better. Not everyone will see self-control as power. No matter, we know that “pupils are not above their teacher, but when we are fully formed we will be like our teacher.”
Prayer as Place
January 14, 2009
Often, when speaking or writing about fixed hour prayer, the hours are referred to as place. Phyllis Tickle refers to them as a “small chapels or wayside stations within the day’s courses”. We frequently use language such as “entering in” or even “going to” for these special times of prayer. This language is not a recent human innovation but a tradition that is millenia old. It’s rooted in the Psalms themselves.
One thing I have asked of the Lord,
this is what I seek:
that I may dwell in the house of the Lord
all the days of my life;
to behold the beauty of the Lord
and to seek Him in His temple.
The opening sentences of our morning office remind us of this fact and these sentences from evening prayer follow it up.
In the shadow of Your wings
I will sing Your praises, O Lord.
The Lord is the refuge of my life;
of whom shall I be afraid?
to dwell in the presence of my God,
to gaze on Your holy place.
I believe I shall see the goodness
of the Lord in the land of the living.
Each of these images are here to remind us of both the tangibility of God’s presence in prayer and in the incarnation of Christ experienced through the other. Through an emphasis on place, the Psalms, from which all of these words are drawn, root us in the reality that prayer is connected to real everyday life. These words further remind us that where we live and who we love matters and that this life in the Spirit exists beyond the space between our ears.
While these words may remind us that we have a citizenship in heaven (Phil 3:20), they keep us from borrowing against that hope of heaven without being rooted in and connected to the place we are now. The place where we live, serve and love God through loving our neighbors is that place where we experience God.
Wendell Berry, that champion of the sacredness of place and an enemy of the abstract, reminds us:
Love is never abstract. It does not adhere to the universe or the planet or the nation or the institution or the profession, but to the singular sparrows of the street, the lilies of the field, “the least of these my brethren.”
Canticle 4
January 11, 2009
I have commented in previous weeks about the canticle found at the end of morning prayers in CDP. Today I want to add a few more comments on my favorite part of the canticle: Be in the heart of each to whom I speak; in the mouth of each who speaks unto me. The form of this prayer is a request. It is a good thing because I believe it is a necessary prayer.
The one who gave us this prayer understands that humans relate best by speaking one to another. Frankly there is no other way we get to know people intimately. Also understood and assumed in this request is the fact that humans can bless or injure one another by what they say. The author of this prayer knows the power of words. God also does and we do too. I speak many words daily (thousands). We all do. Many hear our words daily(7% of our communication is verbal). Many see how we express ourselves daily (50% of our communication is non verbal). Many hear our tone of voice (43% of our communication is tone). Let’s assume we are speaking good words, with right motivations, in a tone of voice that is loving. Does that guarantee a receptive hearing? I wish it were so. This prayer is necessary because of the endless possibilities of misunderstandings or willful rejection. After Jesus finished healing Lazarus, some of the Jews believed in him, and some plotted to kill him (John 11:45ff).
So Lord, we pray, please be in the heart of each to whom we speak that they might understand, see, and hear our love and your love for them.
In the mouth of those who speak to me. Hearing God is an art cultivated with the disciplines of silence, solitude, study, and contemplation. A main way God speaks to us is through others. Do you believe it? Is that a habit you intentionally cultivate. Yesterday I listened to my pastor preach and because of listening I was able to formulate his main theme, which he never said in these words: The church exists to be compassionate to those in need. God answered the prayer of my heart to hear his voice.
This prayer in the canticle teaches us a good habit: Before every conversation, every meeting, pause and let this prayer silently awaken our ears, hearts, and lips: Be in the heart of each to whom I speak; in the mouth of each who speaks unto me. Amen.
Canticle 3
January 5, 2009
Today, I reflect briefly on the part of the canticle in morning prayers in CDP that says: Christ under me; Christ over me; Christ beside me on my left and my right. My one word comment is I am Surrounded.
The form of this part of the canticle is not petitionary in that no verb expresses a request. Still we get the feeling that both a statement is being made of the reality we experience at times as well as a request for being surrounded by Christ.
Yes all dimensions of life come under our surrounding relationship with Christ. All dimensions: the things we experience with our hearts, minds, souls, and bodies. Not just the good things, or the right things, but all things. The things we think, say and do are subject to Christ. No dimension we know is outside the surrounding of Christ. When I feel rich with the presence or poor with the absence; content with my life, or discontent and striving for more, hungry for presence, empty and alone? No matter! I am surrounded and can do all things by the strength of his surrounding.
This interpretation is helpful to me in reflecting about this surrounding prayers.
Christ under me: My foundation. The ground of my life. The one sure thing that is not going to crumble when the crushing meteors of life hit us.
Christ over me: My authority. I have the freedom and will to act but never on my own authority. In any role in my life. As a parent or grandparent I am not the final authority. As a minister ditto. As a husband ditto. As a friend, spiritual guide, counselor, sibling, ditto, ditto, ditto, and ditto. King Jesus has come and his kingdom is here. Authority belongs to you my king.
Christ beside me on my left and my right. He walks with me as he did with the two on the Emmaus journey. He talks with me as he did with them. He listens to me as a friend would. He shares with me my humanity, my temptations, my victories, my defeats. Where is he in my suffering? Where is he in my joys? Where is he when I am despairing? Where is he when I feel I can conquer the world? Beside me, on my left and my right.
And now I ask O Christ and state that I be surrounded by You.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Advent
November 30, 2008
Do you do any special practices in preparation for the celebration of Christ’s birth? I mean do you do any special readings? Do you have any special activities that you consider important by way of commemorating the coming of Messiah? Individually and corporately, how do you do advent? CDP has an Advent and Christmas section beginning on page 228. Check it out. If you access CDP through the link, the special readings are not available online.
Most churches began advent season yesterday. Anglicans celebrate the feast of St Andrew on the first Sunday of advent. Andrew, one of the Apostles, who brings his brother Simon to Jesus (John 1:35-42), and in John 12:20-22 he and Phillip bring the Greeks to Jesus to hear the proclamation of Jesus of the arrival of the kingdom of God, the gospel of repentance in faith.
During advent the church used to prepare for the birth of Christ by reading what the prophets said (the call for the people to return to God) and what John the Baptist proclaimed: repentance. Some parts of the church included the discipline of fasting along the readings of repentance in their preparation. I wonder if this is still true in many churches today. The festivities of the birth were celebrated during the 12 days of Christmas (December 25-January 6). But repentance was the order of the day during advent time. I also wonder if we are not in a hurry to enter the festivities without first considering repentant expectation.
Are repentance and fasting part of your preparation for the celebration of Christmas? They will be mine this year.
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