Posted on by Kurt Bodling

Thomas à Kempis on Midges



“There is no creature so little and so vile as not to manifest the goodness of God.” (Thomas à Kempis,  Imitation of Christ, Book 2, ch. 4)

Really, Thomas?

When I was young, I questioned whether the goodness of God was manifest in gnats flying around me on a summer afternoon. (I was also not a big fan of worms, but they could usually be avoided.) Lots of other insects were not on my ‘good list’ even if they might be on God’s. Yellow jackets in the rotting apples on the ground under the tree or sipping from our soda cans at a picnic. Crickets in our cellar. Mosquitoes.

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Posted on by Kurt Bodling

the start of contemplation

“When the work of thought leads to an intuition of love and religious awe, then we have ‘active contemplation’.”

Merton, Thomas. The Inner Experience: Notes on Contemplation. Edited and with an Introduction by William H. Shannon. NY: HarperOne, 2003. (NOTE: originally written in 1959), p. 60

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the greatest love story

"The beautiful promise of Christian mysticism is that, by choosing love over all the other potential blessings that life can give us, we are embracing the best possible life; a life in which all blessings can flow, but always in accordance with love.

"… Whether the topic is love won or lost, love thwarted or misunderstood, comic romance or passionate tragedy, there is nothing so fundamentally human as a good story about love. And Christian mysticism is just that. It calls us to become part of the greatest of love stories. And that’s why it matters.

“That’s why people like you and me are drawn to mysticism. Far from being merely a ‘head trip,’ mystical Christianity is the ultimate ‘heart trip’–a journey into the sacred nature of love.”

McColman, Carl. The New Big Book of Christian Mysticism: an Essential Guide to Contemplative Spirituality. Minneapolis: Broadleaf Books, 2023, p. 123

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amazing promise

“The amazing promise of Christian mysticism is that, when God loves you, the Spirit transforms you into love; when God loves you, God gives the fullness of divinity to you and, through you, to all creation. In being called to partake of the divine nature, you are called to be loved, to love, and to be love. You thereby join in the most amazing of cosmic dances, a dance of joy and fullness, of healing and restoration, of light and rest and delight, that will give you the entire cosmos forever and ever.”

McColman, Carl. The New Big Book of Christian Mysticism: an Essential Guide to Contemplative Spirituality. Minneapolis: Broadleaf Books, 2023 p. 118

Posted on by Kurt Bodling

knowing God

“We know God aright when we grasp him not in his might or wisdom (for then he proves terrifying), but in his kindness and love. Then faith and confidence are able to exist, and then man is truly born anew in God.”

Luther, Martin. “A Meditation on Christ’s Passion” (1519) Luther’s Works Vol. 42. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1969, page 13.

Comment: How do we really know God? Not through the Law (which holds us at arm’s length) but through the Gospel (which wraps us up in God’s loving arms).

Posted on by Kurt Bodling

God’s wrath

“Praise God we do not have hearts of stone or spirits of iron either. I do not wish evil on anyone, and no Christian, especially, is supposed to desire the wrath of God for anyone, not even for the Turks or the Jews or his enemy, indeed, not even for the cardinals and the pope.”

Luther, Martin. “To the Saxon Princes” (1545) Luther’s Works Vol. 43. (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1969), page 262.

“Not even”! Late in his life Martin Luther made this declaration that all of us should be able to sign on with: don’t wish evil, don’t wish God’s wrath, on anyone. He had in mind at that particular moment Muslims, Jews, and Catholics – all of whom were his opponents in one way or another. (And why didn’t the Anabaptists or the Reformed make his list?)

Whom would he list today? More importantly, who would make your list of opponents? And most importantly, would you also not wish them evil? Can you love your enemies instead?

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why pray?

“Why should I pray? Basically it is for the sake of praying. There is much else we might claim about prayer–it is for the sake of the world, it is for those in need, for the Church, for individual souls–all of which is true. But unless it is rooted in the boundless freedom of love and confidence in God, it is void and crippled. It has some effect perhaps, but lacks the current of grace and graciousness that flows from God.”

Quenon, Paul. In Praise of the Useless Life: a Monk’s Memoir. Notre Dame, IN: Ave Maria Press, 2018, p. 5.

My note when I read this in Quenon’s book: We pray well when we are simply praying. It’s one of the things believers do. We don’t do it to get stuff (although that may be the result, or a result). We don’t do it because we are forced to, required to. We pray in order to be praying.

Posted on by Kurt Bodling

the love of Christ

“There is no true spiritual life outside the love of Christ. We have a spiritual life only because we are loved by Him. The spiritual life consists in receiving the gift of the Holy Spirit and His charity…  If we know how great is this love of Jesus for us we will never be afraid to go to Him in all our poverty, all our weakness, all our spiritual wretchedness and infirmity.”

Merton, Thomas. Thoughts in Solitude. NY: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. 1958. (pbk ed 1999), (p. 25).

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silence leading to love

Note: Happy Valentine’s Day! I have come to learn over the years to be more comfortable with silences in a relationship, either earthly ones, or the one God has with me. I think now that this is a sign of maturity and of being comfortable together. Early in a relationship, when you’re just starting out, you’re full of questions about each other and there can be long phone calls, multiple emails or texts each day, or (way back in the day) daily letters mailed. But sometimes you’re able to reach a point where it’s good to be sitting together silently watching the frogs in the pond, or sharing the couch while you’re both reading and the cat snoozes in between you, or walking together through the woods while you give the birds and insects a chance to share what’s been going on in their lives.

Quote: “My sense is that the mystery of silence draws us deeper into love, and love is something that we cannot control; love invites us into fresh ways of thinking and unfamiliar ways of being.

“Fundamentally, love is at the heart of our Christian faith tradition. God is love, and in consenting to silence, we allow Love to wash over us, inviting us into a ‘new we,’ a new kind of community that affirms the divine imprint within all humanity and contributes to building the kind of world we all want to live in.” (p. 164)

Source: Heuertz, Christopher L. The Sacred Enneagram: Finding Your Unique Path to Spiritual Growth. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 2017, page 164.