Attending to hope, faith, and love

Lately I've been revisiting what St. Ignatius referred to as consolations and desolations. Thinking about and identifying occurrences of each over the course of a day is suggested as a spiritual practice to help a person understand how God is moving in his or her life. Some instruction I've heard on this practice, however, makes it seem like nothing more than taking a minute at the end of a day to write down what made you feel good and what made you feel bad, as if God has the same work in you as would an overindulgent grandparent whose only goal was to make you happy.

It always helps to go to the source.

Here's what Ignatius wrote about distinguishing the two "movements which are caused in the soul."

On consolation:

"I call consolation every increase of hope, faith and charity [love], and all interior joy which calls and attracts to heavenly things and to the salvation of one's soul, quieting it and giving it peace in its Creator and Lord."

On desolation:

"I call desolation all the contrary of the [above], such as darkness of soul, disturbance in it, movement to things low and earthly, the unquiet of different agitations and temptations, moving to want of confidence, without hope, without love, when one finds oneself all lazy, tepid, sad, and as if separated from his Creator and Lord."

Hope, faith, and love–oh, and interior joy. Yes, please; more of those.

~~~

[Photo: taken several years ago of a statue depicting St. Loyola's "Examen" at Fairfield University in Fairfield, Connecticut (sculptors: Jeremy Leichman and Joan Benefiel).

The year of small things done with great intention

About 20 years ago – or was it longer? – I took a class taught by a Protestant minister, the father of a good friend, about the devotional classics. We learned about and read from Thomas Kelly (A Testament of Devotion), Brother Lawrence (The Practice of the Presence of God), Thomas a Kempis (The Imitation of Christ), Saint Augustine (Confessions), John Bunyan (Pilgrim’s Progress), Dietrich Bonhoeffer (Life Together), as well as William Law (A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life).

Law was an English cleric and devotional writer from the 18th century. Based on the book’s title, it sounds oh so heavy, but Law lightened it substantially by crafting his book using fictitious stories following characters named Classicus, Octavius, Miranda, and more as they learn the importance of intention. A much younger “me” wrote the book’s key message on its first page: “We aren’t where we want to be because we never intended to be. Commitment of will.” The lesson of intention delivered by this book resonated with me all those years ago and it resonates with me now. I still have things to learn from it.

The book’s lesson came to me again the last couple of weeks as I read The Year of Small Things: Radical Faith for the Rest of Us, written by Sarah Arthur (who I’ve written about here and here) and Erin F. Wasinger, and published by Brazos Press. The Year of Small Things tells the story of how Sarah and Erin and their husbands intentionally became “communal friends” and together committed themselves to adopt, cumulatively over the course of a year, the twelve spiritual disciplines typically associated with new monasticism, with some adaptations for their young families. They began in August with their covenantal friendship, continued into September with hospitality and October with radical finances. Late fall and winter focused on spiritual habits, possession, holy time, and vows. Spring brought the practices of congregational life, teaching children, and sustaining creation. The start of summer brought self-care and justice.

Not all of us will move to the inner city or live with the homeless or protest unjust laws before city councils. Some of us will do just one of those things; a few of us might do several. But many of us are called to try this radical thing right where we are, facing our current battles and barriers, one day at a time. Mother Teresa is often quoted as saying, “We can do no great things, only small things with great love.” Well, that’s all we’ve got. Small changes, small acts of hospitality, small attempts at solidarity with “the least of these.” This is what our families, with help from some wise friends and our local church, attempted over the course of one year, taking notes as we went. We hope that others, like you, will not only rejoice with us but give it a shot.

Although this gem of a book claims the word “discernment” as its guiding word, I think the stories of these two families could have the word “intention” as the watermark on every page. I was moved by all they intended and how they did what they intended.

Reading the story of the Arthurs and the Wasingers, you may not – or you may – join them in committing to the same spiritual practices, but my guess is at the very least you will close the book, like me, with some response in mind. An idea. An idea that will become an intention that will become an action that might change your life and someone else’s too.

~~~

[Photo: taken of my kitchen window on a very cold morning]

Listening to the music

Sunday, at church, after the service was over, we sat again, as has become customary, while our extraordinary organist played the postlude.  Instruction to stay seated is not given in the bulletin; it just started happening. Not everyone stays and listens. Many get up and move to greet the minister, chat with a friend or visitor, or go find the coffee and treats. Those of us who do stay usually keep seated where we are but some switch to a pew closer to the front, where the pipe organ lives. Sunday's postlude was the most beautiful Bach's Prelude and Fugue in C Major. I love this quiet moment, this spontaneous and organic practice of leisure, this corporate dwelling in beauty.

In my work as a medical writer I've written a little about "consolidation therapy" - for some kinds of cancer, once the main treatment is finished another course of something is given to "consolidate" the main treatment's effect and to help finish the work it started. I sometimes think of walks after a session of creative writing as a period of consolidation. The thoughts and images that had earlier rushed in at the writing desk are given a chance to gel and find their place.

It struck me on Sunday, sitting quietly in that pew with Bach ringing, that this post-service listening is a kind of "consolidation therapy." The Word that has already moved through the hymns, the prayers, the readings, the sermon, the communion table now sinks in deeper, finishing the morning's inner work in ways unseen.

~~~

[Photo: taken on a Memorial Day hike.]

Reading for Holy Week and a conversation with Sarah Arthur

This week holds Holy Monday, Holy Tuesday, and Holy Wednesday. Maundy Thursday. Good Friday. Holy Saturday, then, finally, Easter. Holy Week. I’m reading Between Midnight and Dawn: A Literary Guide to Prayer for Lent, Holy Week, and Eastertide, gathered and edited by Sarah Arthur. It’s Sarah’s third devotional guide. I wrote about another, At the Still Point, on this blog last summer.

On these pages Sarah brings together Scripture, poetry, and literature for the purpose of prayer, for the purpose of Word informing word and visa versa, for the purpose of sparking imagination in service to truth.

I’ve jumped ahead to the readings for Maundy Thursday with its title “Accused,” the day of the last supper and Jesus’s arrest and midnight trial. From Psalm 35: “Ruthless witnesses come forward…” From the prophet Isaiah: “He was opposed and afflicted yet he did not open his mouth.” From Mark 14: the narrative of the first hours after Jesus’s arrest. From Revelation: an angel delivers judgment. From a poem by Hannah Faith Notess: the images of the blood sacrifice of Passover startle the soothing comforts of bread and wine and a well laid table. From a poem by Jill Peláez Paumgartner: Jesus’s silence before Pilate is “the silence of termites. / It is the silence of the vein of silver / underneath the mountain’s / grimace….” From a poem by Luci Show: “fallen knees / under a whole world’s weight….” From the Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky: an excerpt from the epic and genius scene of the Grand Inquisitor, a fictitious story of Jesus being brought to trial again during the Spanish Inquisition and challenged for his responses to the three temptations of Satan.

Recently I asked Sarah some questions about the book and her process.

What do you say to readers who have never before considered listening to God through literature, such as fiction or poetry, or who have never thought of integrating literature into their devotional practice?

SA: Well, if they’ve read scripture as a devotional practice, then they’ve already been in the habit of listening to God through literature. The psalms are ancient Hebrew poetry, after all; and meanwhile Jesus’ parables are stories he invented, brilliant little fictions that point to truths about the nature of human beings in relation to God. I sometimes picture Jesus lying on his mat at night gazing at constellations, the campfire burning low, the sounds of the disciples slumbering nearby; and his imagination is playing around with metaphors—seeds and birds, a luminous pearl, a banquet. Or he’s inventing characters: a father with some sons; make it two sons; and make the father loving and gracious, because that’s what our Father is; and the youngest son says…. So that by the time Jesus’ friends are stirring the next morning and have eaten breakfast around the dying fire and set out groggily for the next town, the entire story has unfolded in Jesus’ mind, complete with details like the pigs and the angry older brother and the father running, running hard. All of this to say, that if Jesus could engage in the practice of imaginative storytelling as holy work, then so can we; and so have many, many Christians over the centuries. To ignore that vast spiritual library is to impoverish ourselves as a people.

Within the broader themes of Lent, Holy Week, and Eastertide, what specific themes will readers encounter? And how did you select the readings, poems and prayers that are compiled in this book?

SA: Lent is rather famously a penitential season, so as I researched poetry and fiction I looked for works that seemed to speak to the human experience of spiritual poverty: simply stated, we need God. Maybe the main character is terrified of death. Or maybe the poet has sinned, and knows it. Or maybe the author has looked inside himself and found nothing: no reserves of strength or virtue, no therapeutically helpful insight, just the bald awareness that apart from Jesus, he can do nothing. After Easter, however, the themes make the turn toward redemption and healing, restoration, recovery—but not cheap grace: I made sure of that. There’s a long road ahead, and our healing has cost God everything.

When writing this book, what pairing of literature and scriptural theme brought you the biggest sense of surprise or excitement, and why?

SA: When I was in 9th grade my English teacher read aloud to us, over the course of several weeks, A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens—but right in the middle of the story my family moved to a different state. And for some reason, though I remembered key details and guessed what was probably going to happen (I figured Dickens didn’t create two nearly identical characters for nothing), I never finished it on my own. So when I began my research for this book I thought, “I wonder what ever happened to Darnay? Did that other guy take his place at the guillotine?” It sounded like an appropriately Good Friday-esque sort of theme. But what I didn’t realize was how powerfully Dickens deals with themes of rebellion and sacrifice and resurrection hope throughout the entire book. When the blood-thirsty crowds of the French revolution treat Darnay like a celebrity one day and call for his execution mere days later, I knew I had my fiction excerpt for Palm Sunday. It’s a harrowing insight into the kind of collective madness that could make both Palm Sunday and Good Friday possible. And we’re all in the crowd. All of us.

In what practical ways do you suggest readers use this book during Holy Week?

SA: It’s tricky because for the rest of the season (Lent, Eastertide) there’s a batch of readings for each week, whereas during Holy Week each day of the week has it’s own selections: four or five poems plus a fiction excerpt. Which means each day you’re going to be doing a lot of reading—good reading, I hope, enriching reading, but a lot. It will require some extra discipline, some intentional chunks of time. Maybe read a little in the morning, a bit more on your lunch break, and the rest before bed. In any case, perhaps you can think of yourself like the disciples in the garden on the night of Jesus’ arrest: you’re being prompted to keep awake, to pay attention, to concentrate. Which is good practice for the devotional life all year round, actually.

The Word that shimmers: lectio divina writing exercise

Last weekend I was at a day retreat and led a devotional writing session. It may be something you’d want to try on your own or with a group. The eight of us divided up some passages of Scripture and started with prayer and silent slow reading. Lectio divina is based on the assumption that Scripture is not only the Word of God with wisdom and instruction for living, but also that it is the living Word of God with something to say directly and in real-time to each of us who reads it. To me. To you. To listen for that personal word (that Word), the practice of lectio divina suggests listening for the phrase or image or single word that resonates with you, that jumps off the page at you, that shimmers. I particularly like that last description. Listen and watch for what shimmers, I told the group. Then start writing. Write fast.

I’m a believer in the value of writing fast when you’re trying to bring something to light. Keep the pen moving across the page even if all you have to write is “keep the pen moving,” because something in this rush pushes away the strong and strict self-editor that makes you want to judge each word before you write it down and instead allows something true and deep to emerge, even if it’s only one sentence on a page of throw-away words. There’s time enough later for writing that’s slow and careful.

We huddled each in our private corner and listened for what shimmered. We wrote in response.

But there was deeper still to go. Next we did what I called the “double shimmer,” which means applying the lectio divina listening to what we had just written. What shimmers, what jumps off the page, what surprises and interests you most from what you had just written in response to the initial shimmer? Now write fast in response to that.

The purpose, of course, is not to fill journal pages, but to finally prayerfully consider, what has been spoken to you, only you?

The passage I got was the prelude to the last supper. Someone else got the story of Jesus washing the disciples feet. Another, the story of the woman washing Jesus’s feet with her hair. Another, the Old Testament story of Abraham hosting the visiting angels. So much to shimmer. 

~~~

[Photo: taken of a marble submerged in water in a cut-glass bowl.]

Happy are those: a new book by Heather Choate Davis

Heather Choate Davis is a new virtual friend of mine. We “met” last summer when I was considering taking on a medical writing project for a new client: writing a packet of information for parents of children with brain tumors. It felt daunting and sobering. Years ago I had read the classic memoir by John Gunther, Death Be Not Proud, about his son’s illness and death, but I needed more insight into the parental experience. I went to Amazon and put in some combination of the search terms: memoir child brain tumor. I narrowed the results to what was available on Kindle, because I needed it fast and was going away for the Fourth of July weekend. Up popped Heather Choate Davis’s memoir, Baptism by Fire, about her experience of her daughter’s brain tumor. It’s also a story of coming to faith. I loaded it onto my Kindle and went out of town, reading it in the car, lakeside, and amidst holiday sparklers and barbecuing. I had a hard time putting it down.

After finishing the book, I looked up Heather online and from her website saw that we had some things in common, such as the Glen Workshop experience, and so I sent her an email telling her I loved her book and was happy to find her work. She wrote back, and we found each other to be kindred spirits.

Heather’s latest book is happy are those: ancient wisdom for modern life. I had the privilege of reading an advance copy of the manuscript and loved it. It’s a meditation on the first psalm, the one that starts with “happy are those who….” I’ve read that psalm more times than I can count, but this was an experience of hearing it new. The book is small and a pleasure to hold - it really is no longer than a pen. Its layout and structure moves you forward bit by bit almost without you realizing how broad and deep an understanding of wisdom it's building from the first page to the last. So much wisdom! I love its gentle and peaceful tone.

Awhile back I wrote a blog post about a young woman who came to see me and told me that it seemed like there were no adults around and life was so chaotic, inside and out. Reading Heather’s manuscript brought that blog post to mind and made me think: this book is like having a grown-up present; this book can speak calm hope and order into lives that often feel confusing and chaotic.

I asked Heather a few questions about happy are those, and here's what she had to say.

What's the rationale for making the happy are those so physically small?

HD: Well, I think the size is a big part of its appeal. We are all so overwhelmed with content. And most books about the spiritual life are pretty weighty (or worse, filled with fluff). The Barna Group tapped into this problem a few years back and experimented with a series of small books called Frames. Great idea, and again, based on the premise that we buy lots of books and never seem to get past the first few chapters.

I wanted happy are those to feel really fresh and light and unintimidating—something you could put in your purse or backpack or even back pocket. And just in the first weeks of the release I’ve seen this to be true. People love the color and the cover, which really draws them in. And then when they pick it up they get sort of a child-on-Christmas-morning look as they thumb through it and see how short it is and how much white space there is, and they think, “this is a book I could actually read!”

With all the passages of wisdom in the Bible, why did you pick Psalm 1?

HD: It’s funny you should ask that because I didn’t really pick it—it picked me! I have used the psalms and the prayer practice of lectio divina for as long as I’ve been a Christian — 20+ years now. So that aspect wasn’t new. But then last fall a writer/theologian friend, Gary Neal Hansen, sent me a little booklet about the prayer practice, and one of the suggestions he had was to try praying the first psalm. So I did. And I found myself going deep into the psalm, and starting to make feverish notes, and doing some follow up study on key words and phrases. After a few days I wrote in big letters along the top of one of the scrawled pages: Is This A Book? As soon as I wrote it I knew that it was.

I think it also helps that the psalms are sung prayer-poems, an idea which resonates with many in the new creative economy. They are also part of world’s trove of “wisdom literature,” which is a more compelling, less fraught source than other parts of Scripture. The fact that the first psalm is also known as The Two Ways of Living speaks to clarity and simplicity of message, as well.

How do you recommend a person should read this book?

HD: I originally thought people would read it straight through over a cup of coffee. It takes about an hour and a half. But what I discovered is that folks—particularly young adults—are really taking their time with it. Reading a few pages that riff on a single word or phrase from the psalm, and then pondering that for a while before going on. The book is an interesting mix of deep wisdom and easy conversation; as with most things, approaching the work slowly and thoughtfully is going to bear more fruit.

Who are you imagining your readers to be for happy are those?

HD: I didn’t initially write it with a target audience in mind, but as I came to revise the work it became clear to me that the heart of it was all about millennials—those beautiful young people who long for answers about how to navigate their lives, to find purpose and meaning—and, yes, happiness—but wouldn’t think of going near a church for that kind of wisdom. So what this book really tries to do is remove some obstacles and create some entry points for them. To help them see that there is some life wisdom that tolerance and technology have not made obsolete. That this desire they all have to know who they are Meant To Be doesn’t really make any sense without a One Who Meant It.

Ultimately, I hope they walk away from the book knowing that they do not have to live with this incessant pressure to perform, compete, and self-actualize. To know that who they were meant to be is already more than they could ever dream of. And happy are those who are willing to receive the gift of knowing just that.

~~~

Think about getting a copy of this book for yourself or for someone you know who needs a voice of calm hope in their life. You can order happy are those from Amazon. You can read more about Heather and her other books on her website.

Newsletter on repeat: lifted faces and flashing eyes

Last Sunday I sent out my monthly newsletter. A substantial proportion of you who subscribe to this blog also subscribe to the newsletter and receive it in your inbox. But since many of you don’t subscribe to both, I’m going to beg the indulgence of the dual subscribers and post the main letter here as a blog post.

~

Last December in my newsletter, I mentioned that I was reading a book by Elton Trueblood, Alternative to Futility. Trueblood, a Quaker theologian, wrote the book in the late 1940s in response to the prevalent sense of futility in society around him despite the end of World War II. In many ways he could have been writing today.

This paragraph jumped off the page at me:

“Joy has gone out of much of our lives. Millions go through the motions as though they were waiting for a catastrophe. What we miss, almost everywhere, is the uplifted face and the flashing eye. Men [and women] cannot live well either in poverty or abundance unless they see some meaning and purpose in life, which alone can be thrilling.”

Trueblood goes on to describe societal ways in which the human spirit can be renewed. While some of his suggestions and ideas are a bit dated, this key – and timeless– theme emerges: the need for communities to be a place of renewal for each other.

In a chapter called “The Habit of Adventure.” he wrote:

“Here then is our clue. The method which succeeded before must be tried again and we must not be dismayed by its amazing simplicity. The best chance for the renewal of the human spirit in the twentieth [read: twenty-first] century, as in the first, lies in the formation of genuinely redemptive societies in the midst of ordinary society. Such fellowships could provide a sense of meaning for the members within the societies and, at the same time, maintain an infectious influence on the entire culture outside.”

Through my little blog and my little books, I’m trying, in a small way, to offer this to you. A space of community and camaraderie in which we lift our faces and not only open our eyes, but flash them, as Trueblood wrote. I like that image of emanating light. It’s my hope, and assumption, you have other real-time spaces in your life for this renewal: churches, family, friends, book groups, special interest groups, and so on. There are also opportunities for such spaces online, and I hope you’re finding what you need wherever you can. Please consider letting me know how I can do better at providing such a space. Also consider letting me know where else you find community and and camaraderie that encourages you to lift your face and flash your eyes - if I get enough response to this I may include them in a subsequent newsletter or blog post.

Thank you for taking the time to read. As always, I appreciate it so very much.

~

You can read the rest of the February newsletter here. You can read past monthly newsletters here in the archive.

~~~

[Photo: taken this weekend of the tiled wall in a new coffee shop in Minneapolis.]