By Kenton W. Smith, D.Min., DASD 3:36 AM. Awake…again. Mind working, whirling. Body tossing, turning. Spirit restless in the dark. In my mid eighth decade sleep is impoverished. But Presence is lurking. In the biblical narrative night is a time of brooding unaware of something unimagined being born in the unconscious. What I am writing is not routine, it is not in my training as a theologian or spiritual director. Something unorthodox taught me that chaos is something and a whole lot of something comes of it. I was trained as many of us in the spiritual arts of direction: silence, listening, the long loving look at the real, gazing, the Experience Circle, cataphatic/apophatic prayer, Lectio Divina, the Examine, Centering Prayer, journaling, walking in nature, the Rosary, Reformed spirituality, Catholic spirituality, Feminist spirituality, Ecospirituality, the Ignatian Exercises, discernment (personally and systemically), theopoetics, artistry, Taizé, et al. Like most of us I have practiced various forms of these disciplines for nearly thirty years. I was filled to overflowing…and then I was not. Maybe I was bored, distracted, trying too hard. Maybe I was aging out. Or maybe it was something Else. Something original, fresh born. In the early 2000’s I was a group facilitator in the DASD program at SFTS. Our instructor invited us to discover our own name for God. We could hold to one or all the names we knew for the Mystery we call God or search for something more personal, alive, enduring. I confess by this time the name of Jesus had worn out on me. Overuse I suppose, weaponized by some, commercialized by too many, hijacked by politicians. During an hour of silence it came to me, moving, stirring, energizing, bonding to my soul and body. Ever since I have been married to this secretive name*, never wavering, never fading, moving through me like a life form not my own yet my own. But I forgot the spiritual practice of naming. I kept on keeping on until I couldn’t. Twenty some years later it was 3:36 AM. Awake. Chaos inside. A cataphatic apophatic swirl of consciousness and unconsciousness streaming thoughts and images of God mixed with nonsense and longing. It felt raw unhinged like prayer without shape or discipline or practice. I forced myself to return to the mantra of my secretive name: Desire of My Heart*. Begging to fall asleep. Then out of nothing, something moving through from the other side, something unspoken, unheard, but present and active. It was just a notion like “Who am I to you, who do you say I am?” Only it wasn’t like that, it was more like a life-giving energy that sought me out. Over the next weeks the invitation returned nightly and “tapped” through my unconscious to my conscious knowing. These qualities are not theology or dogma which are attempts to describe God as a thing “[and] by their very nature are inadequate” but “can only be expressed in symbols or analogies(1)." Theology is faith seeking understanding(2) , spirituality is faith seeking intimacy (3). Intimacy with God is a whole lot of something. * The essential nature of God is Beauty. Beauty is a mystical presence (O’Donohue). All the world is beautiful, everyone is beautiful, I am beautiful. * The essential nature of God is Belonging. Everyone belongs. I belong. As a helpless introvert I have rarely known actual belonging. * The essential nature of God is Friendship. The existential nature of my knowing God is not that of superior but that of an equal. This is the meaning of incarnation, isn’t it? I am lonely for human friendship but this perceived experience of God is like a bond of mutual attraction. * The essential nature of God is Good. My (our) essential nature is good. Nothing about us can extinguish what God has created in us. *The essential nature of our nature is created Unfinished. Creation is unfinished. God is unfinished. I am unfinished. Like my secretive name for God these cautiously stated notions are mantras that grow my being and thriving in a way of knowing myself, seeing others, referencing my lived relationship to God. The mantras expand my consciousness of the world, its beauty, wonder, griefs and sorrows, work to be done. Are they enough? Of course not, the Mystery of God can only be expressed in limited terms and each of us will only have limited notions. I really can’t explain how this works, nothing is something, when I go into the unknown the unknown knows me and desires to be known by me. 1 Lucien Joseph Richard, The Spirituality of John Calvin (Atlanta, GA: John Knox Press, 1974), 186- 187. 2 Attributed to St. Augustine and St. Anselm. 3 Andrew Dreitcer, “The History of Christian Spirituality” (course notes, San Francisco Theological Seminary, DASD, 1998). By Jim Peterson Take a moment to gaze at the image. Really open yourself to let it in and stir you. Be fully present to the scene and immerse yourself in it for a while. What feelings arise? What memories are stirred? Does some inclination to respond come to you? 2 When we wake up or are struck awake fortuitously as I was by this scene, and truly pay attention -- when we pay real, deep attention -- we come to see the world in an altogether new way. We “see” what is deeper, more real, more alive. The world shimmers with light, vitality, and unity, all held in love. Poets have long known this and expressed it in ways that open us to this wonder. Two examples: O world, I cannot hold thee close enough! Thy winds, thy wide grey skies! Thy mists, that roll and rise! Thy woods, this autumn day, that ache and sag And all but cry with colour! That gaunt crag To crush! To lift the lean of that black bluff! World, World, I cannot get thee close enough! Long have I known a glory in it all, But never knew I this; Here such a passion is As stretcheth me apart,—Lord, I do fear Thou’st made the world too beautiful this year; My soul is all but out of me,—let fall No burning leaf; prithee, let no bird call. --Edna St. Vincent Millay: God’s World I have to wonder what scene Millay came upon that day. Certainly one comparable in awesomeness to the one I saw at Lake Tahoe. Such love does the sky now pour, that whenever I stand in a field, I have to wring out the light When I get home. --Saint Francis of Assisi Here Saint Francis does not seem to respond to an extraordinary scene that would catch the attention of all but the most jaded. He simply stands in a field, and sees with deep eyes. I recall an experience I had once when, upon going outside at midday for a walk I was suddenly struck by a light, a brilliance, an inner aliveness that seemed to pervade the bushes and trees nearby, and even to reside in everything I saw. It was as though the leaves were the very source of light, rather than mere reflectors. They seemed to dance and shimmer from an aliveness that came from within. The entire world seemed aglow. And I was a participant in it. I was indeed astonished! Though this experience lasted only a short while, I have since lived with the knowledge that what I saw then is always present, whether I notice it or now or not -- and I do get hints of it from time to time if I am paying deep attention. What astonishing experiences have you undergone that have opened you up to a deeper reality? Perhaps gazing on your newborn child, the wonderment of a new relationship, or … ? One of the barriers that keeps us blinded to the splendor of the world, is our practice of labeling what we see and, having labeled it, proceeding as though the label captures the essence. This is a useful practice for navigating our environment and our days -- if we stopped to truly see everything before us, we’d barely make it out of the house in the morning! But if we never stop and open to the wonder that is always all around us, we miss the heart of what it is to be alive. Sometimes it takes the actions of children to reawaken us to this wonder: the little girl reaching up to try to touch a butterfly, or a young boy delighting in making big splashes in a small puddle. My granddaughter wakened me to her wondering eyes once when (at about age 3) she lay down in the grass among the fallen autumn leaves, gazing up at the leaves still falling, and making “snow” angels with her arms and legs in the leaves already fallen. She saw just as Edna St. Vincent Millay saw. What habits or ways of making your way in the world have kept you from seeing with wonder and being astonished. Conversely, what opens you to being astonished? As you ponder these questions, may you find ways of letting your attentiveness lead you into an openness to astonishment. “Pay attention, Be astonished, …” Then, perhaps, you will be moved to “Tell about it!” Footnotes: 1 This is the second phrase in a three-phrase stanza (#4) of the poem, “Sometimes,” by Mary Oliver. The three together are: Pay attention; be astonished, tell about it! 2 The photo was taken at Lake Tahoe one afternoon. I was in a room overlooking the lake when I saw this happening outside and was so astonished, I quickly took out my iPhone camera and snapped the image. A pure gift, there for a moment and gone. |
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