September 15, 2012
This week I started reading a book by a man, Jon Sweeney, who for years had been trying to discover the place and way to live out a more faithful, real relationship with God. His life, like most of ours, seemed to be pulled in lots of directions and all the while he deeply wanted his life of faith to be pleasing to God, to be profoundly intimate with God and to find this in middle of an extremely busy, very ordinary life. Over the years he had been going to church, involved in mission, listening to tapes, reading books, going to monasteries all looking for those “ah-ha moments” that would give him sense that his life was where it ought to be.
If I may, there is a section early in this book that gives an image of this in a conversation he had with Father Ambrose at a monastery in Kentucky. It’s a little longer than the passages I usually share with you but I thought it was such a good reflection of the wrestlings that so many of us go through as we seek to connect more deeply with God and live in that place consistently. One morning in December, Jon and Father Ambrose go for a walk and Jon shares his dilemma.
“I never want to leave when I’m in a place like this, with people like you, and yet, I love my wife and family and even my work very much. What do you think this means?’ I asked. He shrugged and he smiled. We walk a little further… ‘Busy people like you come here all the time. I see them in church, the retreat house, and walking around the grounds. You come here to slow down, we know that.’… ‘If I had to give you one piece of advice it would be this: don’t look for sudden enlightenment. People call them ah-ha moments; don’t worry about those. I know that you may feel your time is wasted here if you haven’t had enough ah-has, but I assure you it won’t be.’
‘So what should I be doing?’ I asked him, feeling confused and more than a little bit foolish.
‘When you finally quiet down enough you’ll begin to hear a splinter of the divine voice.’ … ‘When you visit here, don’t walk around looking for moments of enlightened insight,’ Ambrose advised me, ‘For one thing, we’re not that smart!’ He laughed. ‘Instead, you should walk around praying. Sit in the church before dawn, praying. Or just shut your mouth for a few days. Listen to the talks given by the retreat master, if you like. Just sit. Try your best to stop thinking.’
It sounded too easy to me. I told him that. ‘What I’m suggesting is much harder than you might think. You’ll see.’
At that point, I felt the need to lighten things up. ‘What about a little old-fashioned scourging? Wouldn’t that be easier?’
“Yes, well,’ he said, smiling, ‘we Trappists aren’t much into asceticism anymore. Beating yourself up doesn’t do for you what the monks of earlier centuries thought it would do: purify you. In fact, it only confuses things further.’…
‘So, here’s your ascetical work for this week: Try your best not to be clever or insightful. Try your best not to look in the mirror…Think of this time as a stripping away of paint to reveal what’s underneath.
‘If you’re lucky, you’ll discover some of your truer self before you leave – and it will change you, or stick with you much better than an ah-ha ever could.’ Ambrose concluded.
He was right.” **
One of the things I’ve noticed in my own life and in conversations that I’ve had with others is how often we get stuck because of how fearful we are about what God might think about us if he really knew. So we go through all kinds of gyrations trying to get ourselves in that place where God would be pleased. This summer I was listening to a CD of a teaching about how God uses our time “in the wilderness”. The speaker reflected on how often we are fearful that God might be disillusioned of us if our real weaknesses were revealed. But the speaker laughingly reminded us that God can’t become disillusioned because the Lord has no illusions about us!
God knows all our weakness and weirdness. God knows the fears that we might have that we’re terrified to admit even to ourselves. God knows all the brokenness, all the places where we trip up and the Lord still calls us to come closer!
Another place we are fearful is that we tend to think we’re the only ones who wrestle with our particular kind of weakness and weirdness. We aren’t. They may be variations on a theme but we all have them.
I think about this a lot when I think about the call in Hebrews that we “…think of ways to motivate one another to acts of love and good deeds. And let us not neglect our meeting together, as some people do, but encourage one another…” Heb. 10:24
Just as Jon and Father Ambrose did, we are called to share ourselves as we share our journey. It does help us to lean into that wondrous sweet relationship with our Lord that molds us and shapes us into the vessel God has in mind for us. Sharing the realities of our journey, to live out our faith is so central to whom we are as followers of Jesus Christ. This final thought is not original but I love it. Instead of living our lives and sharing our faith what if we live our faith and share our lives. We have many places we can do that, worship, retreats, community, service, work, school, in our families and most essentially with our Lord.
Potter’s Wheel will gather again this Sunday at 5:00pm on the courtyard at Second Church at 55th and Brookside. We’ll enjoy a potluck meal and continue to share the journey together…on the Potter’s Wheel. COME JOIN US! If you need more information, please feel free to contact me.
God’s Peace,
Mary
** Sweeney, Jon, Cloister Talks: Learning from my Friends the Monks, (Brazos Press, 2009) pgs.18&19,
