Posted on by Kurt Bodling

true self, free self

“Once you have faced your own hidden or denied self, there is not much to be anxious about anymore, because there is not fear of exposure–to yourself or others. The game is over–and you are free. You have now become the ‘holy fool’ of legend and story, which Paul seems to say is the final stage (2 Corinthians 11), when there is no longer any persona or project. You finally are who you are, and can be who you are, without disguise or fear.”

Rohr, Richard. Falling Upward: a Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2011, p. 134

Comment: Not having to defend, and not having to go on the offense either, means that the game is over. You’re freed from its rules, from its ticking clock, from the intrusive noise of the crowds. Your true self emerges from behind the uniform and protective padding. Take a breath. See what’s up ahead now. Enjoy!

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scholarship’s place

“Scholarship, too, both biblical and otherwise, is certainly important to the individual and to the church as a whole. It is a part of our part in responsible living before God. But it can never stand in the place of experience of the living voice of God, and it cannot remedy or remove our fallibility.”

Willard, Dallas. Hearing God: Developing a Conversational Relationship with God. Updated and expanded by Jan Johnson. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Books, 2012, p. 239

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a contemplative start

“The most important thing in initiating a contemplative attitude toward life is being still and open. I see it as involving various levels of relaxation and silence, the kinds of not-doing that are so essential to the contemplative life.”

Bruteau, Beatrice. Radical Optimism: Practical Spirituality in an Uncertain World. Boulder, CO: Sentient Publications, 2002, page 27

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focus on the Word made flesh

“In a time when the ‘Fatima secrets’ and the Medjugorje phenomena, not to mention the millennialism of Hal Lindsey and others, are stirring up anxiety, fanaticism, and even hysteria among simple unbelievers, we need Saint Romuald’s sober focus on God’s true, total and definitive revelation in the Incarnate Word.”

Matus, Thomas. The Mystery of Romuald and the Five Brothers. Trabuco Canyon, Cal.: Source Books / Hermitage Books, 1994, p. 103. (about facing the year 1000, as he was facing the year 2000 when he wrote)

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a source for the apophatic

“As an approach in spirituality, the apophatic tradition can be traced to yet another source in the fourth century. The monastic experience of early desert dwellers like Evagrius of Pontus gave rise to the discipline of prayer which paralleled the negative way. Living at Nitria in the wilderness west of the Nile, desert silence and simplicity taught him the relinquishment of self that accompanies the renunciation of language.”

Lane, Belden C. The Solace of Fierce Landscapes: Exploring Desert and Mountain Spirituality. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998, p. 64.

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Mary and Martha

"The mystics in history have also offered different ways of understanding Mary and Martha. The fourteenth-century manual of contemplation The Cloud of Unknowing suggests that Mary represents the contemplative life while Martha symbolizes the active life. In other words, Mary stands for those who live in cloistered communities of monks or nuns, devoting their lives to prayer and meditation, while Martha represents those who live ‘in the world,’ with families and households and the ordinary responsibilities of secular life.

“… On the other hand, Teresa of Avila in her mystical masterpiece The Interior Castle refuses to see one sister as somehow more exalted than the other.”

McColman, Carl. The New Big Book of Christian Mysticism: an Essential Guide to Contemplative Spirituality. Minneapolis: Broadleaf Books, 2023, p. 95.

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practical notes on silence

“Some spiritual leaders have the privilege of regularly incorporating silence into their spiritual routines. Most people would find it difficult, in the course of their work routines and family obligations, to carve out a day of silence every week or even once a month! Nonetheless, all followers of Christ would benefit from incorporating this practice into their schedules and rhythms of life. For some, it might mean setting aside a Saturday a month to spend time in the discipline of silence. For others, it may mean asking a friend to come and watch the kids for a few hours during the afternoon so that one can enter into silence without the responsibilities of parenting during that time.”

Cannon, Mae Elise. Just Spirituality: How Faith Practices Fuel Social Action. Downers Grove, IL : InterVarsity Press, 2013, p. 31.

Note: ALL followers of Christ would benefit

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experience

"Now the great obstacle to mutual understanding between Christianity and Buddhism lies in the Western tendency to focus not on the Buddhist experience, which is essential, but on the explanation, which is accidental and which indeed Zen often regards as completely trivial and even misleading.

“Buddhist meditation, but above all that of Zen, seeks not to explain but to pay attention, to become aware, to be mindful, in other words to develop a certain kind of consciousness that is above and beyond deception by verbal formulas–or by emotional excitement.”

Merton, Thomas. “A Christian Looks at Zen.” (1967) in Selected Essays. Edited with an introduction by Patrick F. O’Connell. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2013, p. 346.

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secrets revealed

“While it is unclear just how the Greek concept of mystery influenced early Christianity, the concept of mystery as ‘hiddenness’ appears in the writings of the apostle Paul and other early Christian mystics–even as it has an entirely different flavor from the pagan contexts out of which the language of mystery emerged. The earliest Christian mystics don’t talk about ritual secrets that only initiates can access; rather they talk about secrets that are revealed–through Christ, through the Bible, through the Christian sacraments, and eventually, through personal experiences of the presence of God.”

McColman, Carl. The New Big Book of Christian Mysticism: an Essential Guide to Contemplative Spirituality. Minneapolis: Broadleaf Books, 2023, p. 59.

Posted on by Kurt Bodling

radical proposals to build silence

"…to resign oneself to a situation in which a community is constantly overwhelmed with activity, noise of machines, etc., is an abuse.

"What to do? Those who love God should attempt to preserve or create an atmosphere in which He can be found. Christians should have quiet homes. Throw out television, if necessary – not everybody, but those who take this sort of thing seriously. Radios useless. Stay away from the movies – I was going to say ‘as a penance’ but it would seem to me to be rather a pleasure than a penance, to stay away from the movies. Maybe even form small agrarian communities in the country where there would be no radios etc.

"Let those who can stand a little silence find other people who like silence, and create silence and peace for one another. Bring up their kids not to yell so much. Children are naturally quiet – if they are left alone and not given the needle from the cradle upward, in order that they may develop into citizens of a state in which everybody yells and is yelled at.

“Provide people with places where they can go to to be quiet – relax minds and hearts in the presence of God – chapels in the country, or in town also. Reading rooms, hermitages. Retreat houses without a constant ballyhoo of noisy ‘exercises’ – they even yell the stations of the Cross, and not too far from Gethsemani either.”

“For many it would mean great renunciation and discipline to give up these sources of noise: but they know it is what they need. Afraid to do it because their neighbors would think they were bats.” (9 November 1950)

Merton, Thomas. The Sign of Jonas. San Diego: Harcourt, Inc., 1981. (originally published 1953), p. 311-312.