Consumed

“The notion of a spirituality of subtraction comes from Meister Eckhart (c.1260-1327), the medieval Dominican mystic. He said the spiritual life has much more to do with subtraction than it does with addition. Yet I think most Christians today are involved in great part in a spirituality ofaddition.

The capitalist worldview is the only one most of us have ever known. We see reality, experiences, events, other people, and things—in fact, everything—as objects for our personal consumption. Even religion, Scripture, sacraments, worship services, and meritorious deeds become ways to advance ourselves—not necessarily ways to love God or neighbor.

The nature of the capitalist mind is that things (and often people!) are there for me. Finally, even God becomes an object for my consumption. Religion looks good on my résumé, and anything deemed “spiritual” is a check on my private worthiness list. Some call it spiritual consumerism. It is not the Gospel.”

Richard Rohr

Soul Growing

When I pray, I feel schizophrenic. The voices in my head are many and competing, each shouting to be noticed: “Don’t forget the dry cleaning.” “What shall I have for dinner?” “Do something with your hair.” Sometimes, I just want to stand, like a teacher, on the desk of my forehead and instruct all the voices to sit down and be quiet. Ssshhhh!

What’s all the noise about? What would I find in a quieted mind and soul? Author Margaret Guenther suggests that, once silent, we “simultaneously yearn and fear to hear: ‘One thing is needful.’”

In Luke 10, Jesus disciplined Martha for her distraction, while her sister, Mary, did the needful thing; she sat as His feet. I do yearn to push out the cacophonic clutter and make room for Him. When I do try to focus on God, I get distracted with dry cleaning, dinner and my “do.”

In my spasmodic attempts of prayer and stillness, I realize that my soul is small. These little things take on great importance. Pastor John Piper suggests that the soul “expands to encompass the magnitude of its treasure.” I need a treasure worth the whole space of my soul.

Soul stretching, like running, requires effort. When I’m training for a race, I build from a base of miles, and then I push out farther each time. My endurance and capacity expand. So does the territory I can cover comfortably.

Soul stretching is no less. “What the Lord does is enlarge us to possess,” writes Miles Stanford in The Green Letters. “[He] takes us by some way which means our spiritual expansion, and exercise of spirituality so that we occupy the larger place spontaneously.”

But what means expand our souls? When I am romanced by the sight of a golden birch and the vista prompts awe, then my soul expands. Certainly grief and longing grow us. But so do hope, worship and mystery. Conversely, control, miserliness and trivial entertainment can shrivel us.

In prayer, my capacity for Jesus grows. But it happens incrementally. It helps to consider this principle of God’s means of Israel’s territorial expansion: “But I will not drive them out in a single year, because the land would become desolate and the wild animals too numerous for you. Little by little I will drive them out before you, until you have increased enough to take possession of the land” (Exodus 23:29,30).

Little by little, God grows us. And as I create the space and time for Him, He pushes out the trivial and the trite “animals,” like drycleaning and dinner. Most importantly, He makes room enough for my soul’s greatest treasure: Jesus Himself.

Why We Read and Write

“Writing and reading decrease our sense of isolation. They deepen and widen and expand our sense of life: they feed the soul. When writers make us shake our heads with the exactness of their prose and their truths, and even make us laugh about ourselves or life, our buoyancy is restored.

“We are given a shot at dancing with, or at least clapping along with, the absurdity of life, instead of being squashed by it over and over again. It’s like singing on a boat during a terrible storm at sea. You can’t stop the raging storm, but singing can change the hearts and spirits of the people who are together on that ship.”

Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird

Creator’s Rights

“I saw an angel in the marble and I just chiseled until I set him free.”

Michelangelo

‘”How foolish can you be?  He is the Potter, and he is certainly greater than you, the clay! Should the created thing say of the one who made it, ‘He didn’t make me? Does a jar ever say, ‘The potter who made me is stupid’?”

Isaiah 29:16

Saved to Love

 

Thought this was wonderful.

Parachute Wedding Dress, 1947

 

This wedding dress was made from a nylon parachute that saved Maj. Claude Hensinger during World War II.

 

In August 1944, Hensinger, a B-29 pilot, and his crew were returning from a bombing raid over Yowata, Japan, when their engine caught fire. The crew was forced to bail out. Suffering from only minor injuries, Hensinger used the parachute as a pillow and blanket as he waited to be rescued. He kept the parachute that had saved his life. He later proposed to his girlfriend Ruth in 1947, offering her the material for a gown.

 

Ruth wanted to create a dress similar to one in the movie Gone with the Wind. She hired a local seamstress, Hilda Buck, to make the bodice and veil. Ruth made the skirt herself; she pulled up the strings on the parachute so that the dress would be shorter in the front and have a train in the back. The couple married July 19, 1947. The dress was also worn by the their daughter and by their son’s bride before being gifted to the Smithsonian.

 

Arms Wide Open

I wrote this some time ago, but God brought it to mind this weekend when I faced a much smaller disappointment. Big or small, the need to look to faith in the future (as Mary guides) still applies. 

Not too long ago, a dream of hope died. A relationship unraveled and I was wrecked. Hope deferred makes the heart sick indeed. My heart was sick and broken. After some time of grieving, I got tired and sick of my sick and tired heart. Grief has contours and a bottom (and for that I am profoundly grateful), but what it doesn’t have is bite. And I was ready for a hard edge.

I wanted a posture that felt commanding, not soft and bowed. I tried crossing my arms. I even tried shifting my weight a bit onto a back leg, head tilted to the side, but looking up, as if to say, “Lord, You’re going to do what You want to anyway, so go right on ahead.”

For whatever reason, that arm-crossed stand seemed to stem my leaky eyes. And it even gave me some boldness: “Yeah, Lord, like I said, have at it. Clearly, my desires are not part of Your equation.” This worked surprisingly well. I liked the bite, the posture. It felt so much better than the soreness. It felt like strength.

Later, a friend asked how my disappointment had affected my view of God. I told her about my recent move from grief to crossing my arms and leaning away.

“It sounds kind of icy to me,” she said.

“Icy? Really? It doesn’t feel cold,” I told her. “It feels good, strong.”

“What do you think it feels like to God?”

“Umm. Oh. Hmm,” I stammered. “I don’t know.” Part of me didn’t care. I didn’t want to feel anymore and I wasn’t particularly concerned how I made someone else feel. Even God.

After more discussion, my friend suggested that should my heart thaw, I might consider praying like Mary. Like when the angel came to her and radically changed what she thought her life might look like: “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word” (Luke 1:38, ESV).

Soon, at every turn, I heard messages about Mary, stumbled on artwork portraying her, and read tributes to her simple faith. Like when your old boyfriend drives a white truck, all you see are white trucks everywhere. Suddenly, Mary was everywhere.

The image that touched me most was Michelangelo’s Pieta, housed in the entrance to St. Peter’s in the Vatican. I visited there a few years back and was captured by the sculpture of Mary, arms outstretched, with her Son’s crucified and broken body across her lap. The serenity of her expression, in the midst of this moment of unbearable loss, surprised me. Jesus had not yet risen from the dead, and yet she emanated acceptance. Caught between Friday and Sunday, Mary was at rest.

I learned that the Pieta is a “pyramidal” sculpture, topped by Mary’s graceful visage and moving out broadly to the base. Michelangelo used the draping of Mary’s gown to provide the cradle and width necessary for a woman to bear the body of a grown man.

The foundation of the pyramid is noted by art scholars and shook my icy stance. The foundation of the pyramid: the rocks of Golgotha. My heart softened. My arms loosened to my sides.

“Oh, sweet Mary, you’re on a tomb,” I thought. “You rest atop the hill of redemption. You bear the weight of the moment, but your face reflects your faith in the future.”

Mary, your arms, they are stretched out. Stretched out. Wide open.

“Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.”

John Steinbeck on Love

This is so lovely. It must be read. In one of his many, many letters, the writer of Of Mice and Men counsels his young son who has fallen in love.

November 10, 1958

Dear Thom:

We had your letter this morning. I will answer it from my point of view and of course Elaine will from hers.

First — if you are in love — that’s a good thing — that’s about the best thing that can happen to anyone. Don’t let anyone make it small or light to you.

Second — There are several kinds of love. One is a selfish, mean, grasping, egotistical thing which uses love for self-importance. This is the ugly and crippling kind. The other is an outpouring of everything good in you — of kindness and consideration and respect — not only the social respect of manners but the greater respect which is recognition of another person as unique and valuable. The first kind can make you sick and small and weak but the second can release in you strength, and courage and goodness and even wisdom you didn’t know you had.

You say this is not puppy love. If you feel so deeply — of course it isn’t puppy love.

But I don’t think you were asking me what you feel. You know better than anyone. What you wanted me to help you with is what to do about it — and that I can tell you.

Glory in it for one thing and be very glad and grateful for it.

The object of love is the best and most beautiful. Try to live up to it.

If you love someone — there is no possible harm in saying so — only you must remember that some people are very shy and sometimes the saying must take that shyness into consideration.

Girls have a way of knowing or feeling what you feel, but they usually like to hear it also.

It sometimes happens that what you feel is not returned for one reason or another — but that does not make your feeling less valuable and good.

Lastly, I know your feeling because I have it and I’m glad you have it.

We will be glad to meet Susan. She will be very welcome. But Elaine will make all such arrangements because that is her province and she will be very glad to. She knows about love too and maybe she can give you more help than I can.

And don’t worry about losing. If it is right, it happens — The main thing is not to hurry. Nothing good gets away.

Love,

Fa