Author: shelliwilliams

The Path of the Wind

shelliwilliams Awareness, Belief, Born Again, Change, Darkness, Knowing, Mystery, Nicodemus

WindScripture Passage: John 3: 1-17 (Lent 2A)

Now there was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews. He came to Jesus by night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God.” Jesus answered him, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.” Nicodemus said to him, “How can anyone be born after having grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mother’s womb and be born?” Jesus answered, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit. What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not be astonished that I said to you, ‘You must be born from above.’ The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” Nicodemus said to him, “How can these things be?” Jesus answered him, “Are you a teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things? “Very truly, I tell you, we speak of what we know and testify to what we have seen; yet you do not receive our testimony. If I have told you about earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you about heavenly things? No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. “Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.

This is a hard one.  More of us are probably a lot more like Nicodemus than we care to admit.  I don’t think that there’s any question that he was smart, well-learned even.  He was a rabbi, a teacher of all things Scriptural and all things of faith.  He knew what questions to ask and we should give him the benefit of the doubt that he was continuing to probe and explore.  Perhaps he wasn’t as sure anymore of his own certainty when it came to his beliefs.  But he wasn’t ready to admit it even to himself.  He wasn’t really ready to go there yet.  So he goes to Jesus in the dark of night, cloaked in mystery and secrets.  And Jesus begins to explain in the way that Jesus always does–not literally, not factually, but open-ended, inviting one not to believe what he is saying but to enter who he was.

You know, when you have a seminary degree, people often assume that you somehow spent several years of your life studying so that you will have all the answers.  Well, sadly, that would not be the case.  You see, not so sadly, seminary does not teach you the answers; it teaches you how to ask the questions.  That’s what sort of makes up faith, don’t you think–questions that leave us desiring more, questions that will not allow us to rest on the laurels of who we have figured out God is, what we have figured out God meant (Really?)  and what we have figured out God wants us to do.  Faith is what reminds us that there is always something more, always something up ahead, always a faint road that God calls us to walk not so that we will know the answers but so that we will become The Way to God.

And, interestingly enough, this calling often comes when we are at our most vulnerable, cloaked in the dark of night, so to speak.  The anonymous 14th century mystic described it as “the cloud of unknowing”, proposing that the only way to know God is to let go of what we know, to risk surrendering ego and mind and what we have “figured out”, and enter the cloud of the unknown, where we would truly know God.  (The 4th century bishop Gregory of Nyssa contended that as we journeyed deeper into faith, we entered darker and darker places and in the darkness we could finally see what needed to be seen.) That’s where Nicodemus was–still struggling, still wandering somewhat aimlessly in the darkness, still asking “how can this be?”, but beginning to know. (Not “understand”, mind you, just know.)

Jesus tells the questing rabbi that he must be born from above (or “again”, or “anew”–the Greek anothen remains ambiguous at best.)  But whatever it is, you have to let the wind blow where it chooses and just be in it.  When I read that, I thought of “riding out” Hurricane Ike in my pier and beam bungalow a couple of years ago with my mom (who didn’t want me to do that by myself) and my rather confused Black Lab.  What we realized was that, as opposed to a house with a slab that remains staid and unyielding. my house is built so that the hurricane-force winds swirls around it and UNDER it.  It just moves with the wind.  It doesn’t have to bend or push.  There were no straining or creeking walls.  It just moves.  It gives itself to the wind. (Conversely, the tornado that grazed the slab house in which I now live convinced me in that moment that the roof was going to definitely come off!  Thankfully, that did not happen–it just creaked horribly for several minutes over me and yet another confused Black Lab!)

In this Season of Lent, the winds of change are swirling all about.  We hear the sounds but we do not know its path.  We, too, must give ourselves to the wind, must enter the darkness, the cloud of unknowing, and walk, trusting that we will find ourselves in the place where we belong.  We are not always called to understand, but only to know.

Where does the wind come from, Nicodemus?  Rabbi, I do not know.  Nor can you tell where it will go. 

Put yourself into the path of the wind, Nicodemus.  You will be borne along by something greater than yourself.  You are proud of your position, content in your security, but you will perish in such stagnant air. 

Put yourself into the path of the wind, Nicodemus.  Bring leaves will dance before you.  You will find yourself in places you never dreamed of going; you will be forced into situation you have dreaded and find them like a coming home. 

You will have power you never had before, Nicodemus.  You will be a new man. 

Put yourself into the path of the wind.

      (Myra Scovel, “The Wind of the Spirit”, 1970, in Hearing God’s Call, by Ben Campbell Johnson)

In this Season of Changing Winds, what things that you have “figured out” do you need to release?  What will it take for you to let go of needing to understand?  What will it mean for you to know?

Grace and Peace,

Shelli

The Pilgrim’s Way

shelliwilliams Alien, Awareness, Faith, Journey, LENT, Openness to God, Plans, Presence of God, Spiritual Journey, Way, Wilderness

the_journeyScripture Passage:  Genesis 12: 1

Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you.

Have you ever noticed that no one spends much time standing still in the Bible?  The story begins with God breathing life into Creation and, in essence, making us a home, a place.  But it doesn’t take but a few chapters before we are on the move–aliens, immigrants, sojourners.  It’s pretty clear that God calls us to be pilgrims on this Way, traveling light and gathering all of Creation together as we move. And along the way, we hear lots of words like “sent forth” and “go” and “follow”.  We are called to be a people on the move (at least figuratively and probably even a little literally), essentially migrating from one place to the next, from one way of being to another.  And most of the time, those that came before us moved freely through their journey without a map, without real plans or even real provisions.  Most of the time they were just journeying to a place they did not know but that they knew that God would show them.

So what has happened to us?  How did we become so planted? How did our lives become so safe?  It was never that way in the beginning.  The journey of faith was a wildly unpredictable one into places unknown. The journey of faith called its travelers to be pilgrims in the wilderness, sojourners through foreign lands.  Oh, we like to think of ourselves as journeyers, particularly we Methodists who readily espouse Wesley’s notion of faith as movement, as, to coin his words, “going on to perfection”.  (Gee, there’s that “go” thing again!)  And yet, we will do everything possible to avoid getting driven to the wilderness or left without everything that we need (or at least the latest technological gadget).  We tend to separate ourselves from discomfort or inconvenience or chaos.  We stick to our plans.  But wildness and chaos often creates a certain energy.  It wakes us up; it makes us pay attention.  This week on the Today Show, Al Roker is doing some sort of “Tech Out” series, meaning not that he techs out but that he TAKES tech out.  He’s going analog and old school and EVEN vinyl.  (Remember those words?  They existed before we became so technologically advanced.  On Monday, he looked at vinyl (yes, vinyl) records.  The interesting thing is that a company that was about to go belly up a few years ago is searching for old LP printing machines because the sale of albums has surpassed the sale of streaming music this year.  Who would’ve thought THAT?  (I mean, because we’re so advanced and all.)

Maybe on some level we really DO crave wilderness.  Maybe that’s why Lent begins in the wilderness.  Have you ever noticed that when you travel you see a lot more than when you’re just driving to and from work?  Is it because there’s more to see?  Or is it that when one is unfamiliar territory, one is more aware of the surroundings, more open to seeing things as they are?  Seeing oneself as a pilgrim, a wanderer, is the same thing.  It keeps our eyes open and our minds alert.  We notice God’s Presence; we notice God’s People; we do not see ourselves as “owners” or even squatters.  We see ourselves as part of Creation.  We begin to see that we are called not to arrive but to journey.  Our faith IS the journey.  So Lent begins in the wilderness and asks us to travel deep within ourselves, beyond our preconceptions, beyond our assumptions, beyond our plans.  We go, open to what God has to show us along the way. (So, maybe it would help if we put down our smart phones just for a little while so that we could see the world!)

It may be that when we no longer know what to do, we have come to our real work. And when we no longer know which way to go, we have begun our real journey. (Wendell Berry)

So as we make this Lenten journey, what do you see?  What are you missing?  Where are you being called to go? (And does that have to involve your cell phone?)

Grace and Peace,

Shelli

Re-Patterned

shelliwilliams Awareness, Faith, LENT, Openness to God, Perspective, Seeing, Uncategorized

RoundaboutScripture Passage:  Romans 4: 1-5, 13-17 (Lent 2A)

What then are we to say was gained by Abraham, our ancestor according to the flesh? For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. For what does the scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness.” Now to one who works, wages are not reckoned as a gift but as something due. But to one who without works trusts him who justifies the ungodly, such faith is reckoned as righteousness…For the promise that he would inherit the world did not come to Abraham or to his descendants through the law but through the righteousness of faith. If it is the adherents of the law who are to be the heirs, faith is null and the promise is void. For the law brings wrath; but where there is no law, neither is there violation. For this reason it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his descendants, not only to the adherents of the law but also to those who share the faith of Abraham (for he is the father of all of us, as it is written, “I have made you the father of many nations”) —in the presence of the God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist.

We are creatures of habit.  We cling to our patterns of life sometimes for our very identity.  And it is no different with our faith.  Our ways of believing, our ways of worship, our ways of practicing our faith are, for most of us, virtually untouchable.  (If any of you have ever tried to make any changes in a worship service, you know EXACTLY what I’m talking about!)  We are open to change as long as WE don’t have to be the ones that change.  We are open to doing things differently as long as it doesn’t affect us.  Does that sound a little bit uncomfortably familiar?

The audience to whom Paul was probably writing were really no different.  They had grown up with norms of what was “right” and “righteous”, what made them acceptable before God and as people of faith.  For them, their revered patriarch Abraham was blessed because he followed God and did the right things (which also happened to of course be the things that they were doing or at least thought they were doing).  And now here is Paul daring to write that that’s not what it meant at all, that it had nothing to do with what Abraham did or whether he lived and practiced his faith in the right way but that he had faith in a God that freely offered relationship, in a God that freely and maybe even a little haphazardly offered this relationship to everyone (whether or not it’s actually deserved–go figure!).  Faith is not something that you define or check of your list of “to do’s”; faith is something that you live.

In this Season of Lent, we talk a lot about giving up old ways and taking on new patterns in life.  Lent is a season of re-patterning who we are and how we live.  Maybe it’s a time to let go of the things that we assume, those habits that are so ingrained in us that we don’t even realize that they are there, things that have somehow become so much a part of our lives that they have by their nature changed who we are.  Think of Lent as the season that asks us to drive on the other side of the road.  I remember the first time I did that.  It was in New Zealand.  Now if you’ve been to New Zealand, you understand that the miles and miles of rolling hills patterned only by sheep farms is a good place to learn to drive on the other side.  There is lots of room for “correction”, shall we say.  That wasn’t the problem.  The problem was the more heavily populated areas where we had to deal with other people’s habits and ways of being.  (As in when you had to worry about other people on the road, all of whom were driving on the “wrong” side of the road!)  And in the middle of every town was what they call a “round-about”.  It was sort of fun to get on but getting off was a completely different story.  My brain did not work that way.  I couldn’t make myself turn the right way (or the wrong way) while I was driving on what was to me the “wrong” side of the road.  (So, needless to say, we would just drive around that circle several times until I just took a breath and sort of went for it!)  It was one of the scariest things I’ve ever done.

Paul was trying to get people to look at things differently, to think differently, perhaps even to drive on the other side of the road.  “Leave the old patterns and the old rules and the old ways of thinking behind,” he was saying, and get on.  It’s a little scary and you might have to drive around it a few times just to re-pattern your brain.  But just do it.  Open your eyes and look at things differently.  Open your lives to faith.  Oh, don’t get me wrong, our rules and our patterns can help us at times.  They give us foundations, sort of a tangible guide to support us on this journey.  They are necessary.  They are a means of grace.  But the passage reminds us that these rules and foundation are just that.  They are not an end unto themselves.  It takes faith to breathe life into them, to make them come alive.  It takes faith to give us the ability to back away from ourselves sometimes and figure out in what ways our life needs to be re-patterned.  (Otherwise, we just keep driving around in circles!)  Lent calls us to look at all of our life with a critical eye, to discern what is purely habit and what is truly a way of living out our faith.  Lent calls us to look at things differently, to really see rather than just assume.  Lent calls us to have enough faith to drive on the other side of the road.  So, just take a breath and go for it!

In faith there is enough light for those who want to believe and enough shadows to blind those who don’t. (Blaise Pascal)

As we continue on this Lenten journey, take a look at your habits, at those things that you just take for granted.  Which ones are life-giving?  Which ones hinder faith and openness?

Grace and Peace,

Shelli

The Dwelling Place

shelliwilliams Desire for God, Faith, God-bearer, Home, LENT, Openness to God, Temple, Uncategorized

Open HouseScripture Passage: Psalm 27:4

One thing have I desired of the Lord, that will I seek after; 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 enquire in his temple. (KJV)

The Psalmist gives us great comfort, this idea of dwelling with God forever.  It is our hope; it is our promise; it is what our faith is all about.  So what does it mean to “dwell”?  One definition is to “stay” or to “reside in permanent residence.”  That is usually the way we think of this notion–to live with God, to stay with God forever.  For us, a “dwelling” is something permanent, a structure that protects us and gives us shelter.  It is the place where we can go when life gets to be too much and when we need rest and sustenance.  It is the place where we can hide ourselves away and heal.  It is the place that feels like home.

IMG_0033[2]But dwellings also wall us off from the rest of the world, setting up boundaries of what is “mine” and what is “yours”.   They allow us to ignore the needs and the lives of those who are not within our walls.  I used to live in an older neighborhood in Houston.  Once filled with a few older Victorian homes and lots of small 1920’s bungalows (I had one of those), it eventually became a victim of the so-called “McMansion” syndrome as bungalow after bungalow was torn down so that a sprawling three-story (or even four-story) Victorian wannabe can take over the entire lot.  Sadly, when I sold my lovely historic bungalow this past September, it was immediately torn down to make room for “more” dwelling.  It still bothers me.  Is it appropriate to grieve for a house?  See, beyond mere protection and shelter, the dwelling has creeped beyond its own boundaries and taken on an identity all its own.

Is this how we read these words now, as if we have somehow taken up residence with God and God’s sprawling house?  Is that what it means to dwell with God, to stay, to hide, take move into a permanent structure (perhaps with other like-minded children of God)?  But there is another meaning of the word “dwell”.  It is also defined as “to linger over” or “ponder”. So what, then, would it mean to spend all the days of one’s life pondering God, lingering with God?  I don’t think God calls us to stay with God but rather to be with God.  The walls of dwellings sound to me far too limiting of a limitless God. (Which is the reason that the image of Christ becomes the new Temple, the new Dwelling.)  But this dwelling that we have somehow conjured up in our minds is not where God lives but rather where we want God to be, the place where we envision pulling God into our notion of who God is.  But to be, to be with God, means to go where God is, which means we have to open one’s mind and heart and soul to being the very image of God, to being the dwelling of God.

Once again, it requires us to make room, to clear our lives of the “stuff” that we have accumulated and to perhaps open the doors and windows and let the fresh air and light in.  God IS our sustenance, our shelter, even, at times, our protector.  But God does not wall us off from the rest of the world.  We are called to go forth, to be God’s image in the world.  We are called to ponder, to linger over, to become.  Doesn’t that sound a little familiar?  Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart. (Luke 2: 19, NRSV)  And then, if you remember, she became the very dwelling of the Godself, the God-bearer, the one that birthed God into the world.  We are not called to stay with God; we are called to be with God, to be a dwelling place for God with God in God.  We are called to be the God-bearers.  It is home, the place where we can truly rest our souls.

My ego is like a fortress.  I have built its walls stone by stone to hold out the invasion of the love of God.  But I have stayed here long enough.  There is light over the barriers.  O my God…I let go of the past, I withdraw my grasping hand from the future, and in the great silence of this moment, I alertly rest my soul.  (Howard Thurman)

On this Lenten journey, what does it mean for you to dwell in God, to ponder?  What does it mean to become a dwelling place for God?

Grace and Peace,

Shelli

To Boldly Go Where No One Has Gone Before

shelliwilliams Faith, Journey, LENT, Roads, Trust

Star TrekScripture Passage:  Genesis 12: 1-4a (Lent 2A)

Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”  So Abram went, as the Lord had told him; and Lot went with him.

We are familiar with this story that our lectionary brings for this second week of Lent.  We know it well.  Abram is called to go forth, called to leave what he knows and become someone new.  We know that it will end with him becoming Abraham.  It is the beginning of Israel, the beginning of Judaism, and, ultimately, the beginning of us and our own faith story.  The story quickly moves from a broad sweep of humanity to a focus on one family and one person.  Perhaps it was a way of reminding us that humanity is not just a glob of no-name people but is rather made up of individuals, each children of God in their own right.

We like this story of our hero Abraham.  What courage, what persistence, what faith it would take to leave one’s home, to leave everything that one knows and to follow God.  It is that to which we all aspire and to which most of us fall incredibly short.  We struggle with what leaving would mean for us.  After all, what would it mean to you to just lock your doors and walk away, never looking back at the comforts and certitudes of your existence, never look back at all the stuff you’ve gathered and stored, never look back at this life that you have so painstakingly created?  And, yet, think about it.  Abram’s people were nomadic, wandering aliens.  Their sense of “home” was not the same as it is for us.  And family?  Well, Abram had more than likely outlived his parents and he had no children.  Who was he leaving behind?  What was he leaving?  Maybe God was calling him from hopelessness and loneliness and barrenness and finally showing him home.  Maybe God was not calling him away but toward.  Maybe that was the promise.  And yet, Abram still had to have the faith to go into the unknown, to trust in the promise that God was beginning to reveal.

Maybe that’s the point that we are supposed to learn–not that God calls us to leave behind what we know but that God calls us to journey into the unknown, to journey beyond what we know, to journey far past those things of which we are certain.  It is called faith.  We are not called to know, to be certain.  We are called to trust that the Promise is real.  Do you remember the Star Trek mission–“to boldly go where no man has gone before”?  (Well, it was the 1960’s so I’ve made it more inclusive for the title of this post.)  I’m not really that big a Star Trek fan (more of a Princess Leia, Luke Skywalker, and Han Solo kind of gal!) but I remember watching it when I was little.  There was something that drew me in.  Perhaps it was that notion of going beyond, traveling to a place where no one had ever been, a place where parents and mentors and clergy, where books and Scriptures and songs could talk about but never really fully depict exactly what it was.

God does not call us to “figure it out”.  There are no “right” answers.  In fact, I have found that really good discussions of faith matters generally create more questions.  (Thanks be to God!)  God doesn’t expect us to blindly follow into certainty but rather to leave what we know behind and journey far into the unknown, into the wilds of our lives where the pathway is less paved and worn down by others.  Maybe that is why Lent begins not in the Temple but in the wilderness, where the winds blow the pathways into changing patterns rather than roads and the sands swirl and blind us at times.  Maybe it is when we leave behind what we know that we can finally hear the way Home.  That is the Promise in which we trust–that somewhere beyond what we have figured out and what we have planned and for which we have prepared is the way Home.

Today we are bombarded with a theology of certitude. I don’t find much biblical support for the stance of “God told me and I’m telling you, and if you don’t believe as I do, you’re doomed.” A sort of “My god can whip your god” posture. From Abraham, going out by faith not knowing where he was being sent, to Jesus on the cross, beseeching the Father for a better way, there was always more inquiring faith than conceited certainty. (Will D. Campbell)

As this second week of Lent begins, of what are you certain?  What would it mean for you to leave your certainty behind and journey into the unknown?

Grace and Peace,

Shelli

Psalm 32: A Season of Clearing

shelliwilliams Confession, Forgiveness, LENT, Repentance, Sin

WeedingPsalter for Today:  Psalm 32: 1-5

Happy are those whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.

Happy are those to whom the Lord imputes no iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit.

While I kept silence, my body wasted away through my groaning all day long.

For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer. Selah

Then I acknowledged my sin to you, and I did not hide my iniquity; I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the Lord,” and you forgave the guilt of my sin. Selah

We don’t really like talking about confession very much, do we?  Oh, we come that one day a year and get ashes on our forehead and then quickly wash them off that night.  We’d rather just assume that the whole notion of the cross just covered all sins past, present, and future so that we can talk about things that are more to our liking–love, grace, acceptance, even forgiveness.  And the language of iniquity and confession is so archaic to many, not really part of our mainstream thinking about what church and faith should hold.  (I suppose it doesn’t hold a lot of attraction for our “feel good” society either.)  And so, to be honest, we sort of just look at our “light” side, so to speak, burying the dark and the unmentionables behind closed doors, keeping our sins and transgressions hidden from sight hoping maybe, just maybe, they’ll just somehow evaporate and go away.  Maybe if we quit talking about them, just take them off the table, they’ll just slip away unnoticed.  The words of the Psalm sort of haunt us though.  Keeping silent is not the same as reconciling. Silence should be revealing rather than something that hides. Burying one’s transgressions and shortcomings just takes too much of our life and too much of who we are to handle. (And they usually eventually get exposed anyway!)

This season of Lent brings up a lot of discussion about sin and confession.  Have you noticed that?  We also hear quite a bit of farming and gardening language, don’t we?  We hear words like “fertile ground” and “new growth”.  We like those.  They give us hope and a chance at new life.  But even the most inexperienced of gardeners knows that plants do not grow and flower without a little preparation, without a little room.  I am feeling that right now each time I look at my sad flowerbeds that are still full of winter brush choking out most promises of growth or life.  (And the little tornado that shot through them a couple of weeks ago did not help!) There are a few apparently detrermined plants peeking through or trying desperately to scale the dead branches of their former selves.  They are literally begging for me to help them.  We are no different.  We need room.  We need to clear the underbrush and all that is choking out our life.  We need to recognize and acknowledge those things in our life that separate us from God and separate us from who we are before God.  From that standpoint, acknowledgement of sins, confession, is life-giving.

The French philosopher, Simone Weil once said that “all sins are attempts to fill voids.”  You see, I think we’re a lot like those growing plants.  God left us a little room for growth, a little breathing space.  But emptiness is hard to hold, hard to maintain.   And over time, it is easy for things to seep into that space that do not belong, things that choke out life for us.  It is imperative for us to know that, to acknowledge those things, so that we can then let them go.  That is what confession does.  It’s not a matter of wallowing in guilt or proving one’s remorse.  Confession is the clearing.  It once again leaves room to grow.  It frees us to be who God calls us to be.

Now don’t get me wrong.  I don’t think God is standing back waiting for us to confess our sins so that forgiveness can be handed to us.  This is not a barter system or even a divine reward system.  I believe that God has already forgiven us, is already making that space ready.  God does not demand our confession like some sort of callous judge.  The confession is for us.  It is the way that the door opens again.  It is the way that we make room again.  Silence denies that open door.  Silence denies the grace that God is always and forever offering.  Repentance is a way of beginning again.  It doesn’t change what has happened.  It doesn’t erase the consequences or the hurt or the change in one’s life.  It just once again makes room to grow.  The fact that we don’t talk much about confession anymore is not short-changing God; it is short-changing us.  Oh sure, there will always be those wonderful parts of who we are that peek through like fledgling plants.  But think what life would look like if you got rid of all that underbrush, if you truly allowed room for God to work.

Providence watches over each of us as we journey through life, providing us with two guides:  repentance and remorse.  The one calls us forward. The other calls us back.  Yet they do not contradict each other, nor do they leave the traveler in doubt or confusion.  For the one calls forward to the God, the other back from the evil. And there are two of them, because in order to make our journey secure we must look ahead as well as back.  (Soren Kierkegaard)

On this first Sunday of Lent, what are those things that you have buried in your life?  What needs to be done to reconcile so that you can begin again?

Grace and Peace,

Shelli

Poustinia

shelliwilliams Awareness, Calling, Jesus Christ, LENT, Listening, Solitude, Wilderness

 

The Judean Wilderness, February, 2010

Scripture Passage:  Matthew 4: 1-11

Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. He fasted forty days and forty nights, and afterwards he was famished. The tempter came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.” But he answered, “It is written, ‘One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’” Then the devil took him to the holy city and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple, saying to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down; for it is written, ‘He will command his angels concerning you,’ and ‘On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.’” Jesus said to him, “Again it is written, ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’” Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor; and he said to him, “All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.” Jesus said to him, “Away with you, Satan! for it is written, ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.’” Then the devil left him, and suddenly angels came and waited on him.

Well, you know that we’re coming up on the first Sunday in Lent when you read of the temptation of Christ in the wilderness.  To be honest, most of us are incredibly uncomfortable with this passage.  After all, how can Jesus, Son of God and Son of Man, the gift of the father’s unfailing grace, Emmanuel, God With Us, the Savior of the World be tempted?  How can that even be possible? And why would someone like Jesus even risk it?  What, really, is Jesus doing out in the wilderness all by himself?  What, really, is the purpose at all?  I mean, it almost sounds like this was an attempt to gather some sort of proof that Jesus was who he was.  I’ve always been just a bit distrustful of “proof” of the Divine.  So, what is this all about?

In Russian (because THAT’S current), the word poustinia means “a desert, a lonely and silent place”.  It is a place of solitude.  In the Russian Orthodox tradition, a poustinik was one who was called by God to live alone in the desert with God.  But the notion was not looked upon as a solitary life removed from the rest of the world.  Because it was there that he or she prayed, fasted, and made oneself available to humanity.  Think of the poustinik as humanity’s listener.  The idea was that even though the poustinik lived in solitude, there was always a part of him or her that was open to the world, a door to a life of solitude that invited the world in and sent the person forth.

And yet, this pilgrimage into the wilderness is not really part of the world in which most of us live.  Our culture may be a bit too goal-oriented and scheduled for that.  We tend to respond better to words like “connection”, “community”, and “fellowship”.  (Those are the words on which religious entities build good mission statements, aren’t they?)  Going out into the desert or the wilderness alone to find oneself or center oneself sometimes sounds to us a little selfish, as if the person is not participating with others, not caring for others.  Maybe our problem is that we’ve forgotten the door, the threshold.  We forgot that there is always a door between solitude with God and the world, between the community of faith and that part of the Godself that each of us hold inside of us.  It is not an either-or.  The poustiniks understood that.  They stepped into the solitude to connect with God while at the same time keeping a foothold on the world, being available in case the world needed them or open to what God needed them to take into the world.  It was a way of listening and a way of active faith.

Maybe that’s why this passage is so difficult for us.  We forgot that there was always a door.  Jesus was not shutting himself away from the world.  Jesus was called to the world (good grief, he was the Savior of the World, was he not?).  But in the bustling and noisy ways of the world, it is important to find the door, to listen to God, to enter the solitude of our deepest self so that we can finally hear where we are called to go.  There will always be voices pulling us away, pulling us toward things that we think we need, things that we think will help us in life, or things that will give us the power to do what we think we should do.  But deep within us is a holy place of solitude, a place where we can listen to God unencumbered by the voices of the world.   Some of us need to go into the wilderness to hear it; others need to only listen where we are.  Jesus trek into the wilderness was not because he needed to get away from the world but rather so that he could hear the world’s needs and God’s calling to fill them with grace.

The poustinia is within, and one is forever immersed in the silence of God. foreverlistening to the word of God, forever repeating it to others in word and deed.  (Catherine Doherty)

On this Lenten journey as we traverse through the wilderness, think of those place of solitude in your life.  Where are those place where you are at your best at listening to the needs of the world, at listening to what God is calling you to do?

Grace and Peace,

Shelli