Silence is almost to simple

The simplest spiritual discipline is some degree of solitude and silence. But it's the hardest, because none of us want to be with someone we don't love. Besides that, we invariably feel bored with ourselves, and all of our loneliness comes to the surface.
We don't have the courage to go into the terrifying  place without Love to protect us and lead us, without the light and love of God overriding our own self-doubt. Such silence is the most spacious and empowering technique in the world, yet it's not a technique at all. It's precisely the refusal of all technique.

Richard Rohr

Conversations with Jesus of Nazareth

Simon Parke wrote an interesting book called conversations with Jesus of Nazareth in which he simply speaks with Jesus.
here are some quotes from the book:
So you (Jesus) are offering a fresh start...Lot, to save his life, has to leave his hometown Sodom. he knows he must do it but still finds it very hard. It may have been a terrible city, but it was all he knew, and it's hard to leave what we know.
Jesus: "If anyone desires to come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me".
So like Lot, are we asked to leave our hometown, the town of our conditioning?

Don't go with the flow like dead dogs in a stream!

So good prayer needs trust, a readiness to forgive others, seclusion (alone with God like Jesus often went to be alone with his father), and a stillness of heart.

Previously Zacchaeus had only known what he knew, a sense of lack within himself, which he tried to calm with greed. But Jesus offered a new way of seeing the world.

We need to draw back the shutters of our lives...if your whole body is well lit (light), having no dark part, it will be full of light, as when the glowing lamp shines all around. And it starts with your eyes and how we look at things.

The Kingdom of God is 'homecoming', when like the hungry (prodigal) son, we wake up, or come to ourselves. The Kingdom of God is a state of being.
The Kingdom of God is elusive, like a scent on a breeze, coming and going. It spreads out upon the earth but people do not see it.

We find our value in our relationship to our heavenly father and not in hallucinations of self-importance fueled by popular acclaim.

(Concerning the woman from Tyre)  - You're a failed separatist, teacher (referring to Jesus), or put it more positively, a man large enough to change his mind.

If you don't want the law of Moses from your people, what do you want?
Jesus: It is kindness I want, not animal sacrifices.

Sacred Money

Money's original purpose is simply to connect human gifts with human needs, so that we might all live in greater abundance. How instead money has come to generate scarcity rather than abundance, separation rather than connection? ... Yet despite what it has become, in that original ideal of money as an agent of the gift we can catch a glimpse of what will one day make it sacred again.  
Charles Eisenstein

Katharsis, Fotosis, and Theosis

In  ancient christian  spirituality, taught by monks and mystics, they spoke of a threefold way; the Via Purgativa or Katharsis, the Via Illuminativa or Fotosis and the Via Unitiva or Theosis.

Via Purgativa/Katharsis:
To open the curtains of our soul and discover the power of pride/power, greed/money and lust sex. When we see these festering in our lives it's best to 'fast', to deprive ourselves of these things that reinforce the darkness of the soul.
Positively we can serve rather than seek power and pride, we can be generous and live simply rather than caving in to greed, and we can practice self-control and even a willingness to suffer pain for a good cause rather than lust for pleasure and comfort.
Via Illuminativa/fotosis:
The path of light. The spiritual life is about seeing. Turning to God's light.
We can do this by practicing the study of the Bible, Contemplation, meditation, practicing God's presence in the ordinariness of life, an enlightenment from the Holy Spirit.
Via Unitiva/Theosis:
The way of union with God.
Like a log that catches fire when placed with burning logs - if we are plunged into God's light and heat long enough, if we stay close enough to God for long enough, close enough to breathe God's breath; we'll catch on fire...we'll become one with Him, we'll begin to see as Hs sees, feel as He feels, we'll be infected or consumed by Him.
Another image is the end of the fire place poker that has entered the flame. We glow hot in the light of God, we send heat farther and farther up the length of the iron rod. We don't seek Theosis to the exclusion of other people, but to their benefit...freely we have received freely we give.

The end of Katharsis, fotosis and theosis, is that we join God in seeing, standing with Him, seeing in his light, and on fire with God as we see.

A celtic morning prayer:
As I stir the embers of my daily fire, I ask you, living God, to stir the embers of my heart into flame of love for you, for my family, for my neighbour, for my enemy.

(The above post was inspired from Finding Our Way Again; The Return of the Ancient Practice by Brian McLaren)

The Gospel Redefined

I've been in blogland and came across a guy called Carl Medearis. He's  a follower of Jesus who's been for many years in the Arab world and has an interesting spin on Jesus and religion.

To be honest I warmed to his approach, his love and passion for Jesus.

here's an article he wrote in the Huff Post.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/carl-medearis/the-gospel-re-defined_b_1327872.html

The gospel is not about a religion, but about Jesus, his message and the Kingdom of God!

So do we need to redefine the Gospel? possibly so!

New Year, Jesus, Favour, and the Unexpected

We're only into the 9th day of the New Year...
I'd like to share some of my thoughts on some familiar Scripture that I've been studying over the last couple of days.

Jesus is led into the desert by the Holy Spirit and then Luke sees Him go back to Galilee where he was brought up, and there he enters the Synagogue. Jesus is given the scroll of the Prophet Isaiah. He unrolls it and finds the place where it is written:
"The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favour".
Jesus then goes on to say that the fulfillment has come.
Jesus sees the words of the prophet as his own personal mission. Good news indeed, for those on the margins of society, for those in need, for those who are helpless and have no hope.

The mission of Jesus (according to Luke chapter 4) - was to proclaim (in word and deed) the year of the Lord's favour! A Year of grace and favour from the part of our Creator God.

The folks in the Synagogue found it hard to believe that Jesus - was the chosen one. He was too familiar to them - he had grown up in the same town, they knew his father and presumably his mother, brothers and sisters.

Jesus then goes on to anger them by saying this:
"Look I'll tell you the truth, no prophet is accepted in his own town. I assure you that there were many widows in Israel in Elijah's time, when the sky was shut for three and a half years and there was a severe famine throughout the land. Yet Elijah was not sent to any of them, but to a widow in Zarephath in the region of Sidon. And there were many in Israel with leprosy in the time of Elisha the prophet, yet not one was cleansed - only Naaman the Syrian."
These words angered them so much that they wanted to kill Jesus! But why?

Jesus annonces the time of God's favour upon the 'unexpected'. God's favour rests with the destitute and the other. Jesus quotes examples where God favoured those outside the familiar - for Jesus' listeners these were the non-jewish, Gentile dogs. The syrian enemy soldier and the foreign pagan widow.
They found it hard to accept that God's favour was for such as these.

Who are those that you consider 'outside' of God's favour? Why?


May this year be one of favour and grace,
healing, reconciliation, freedom and insightfulness.
That God may surprise us with the unexpected,
As we follow Him in the Way that is often on the edge.
Amen

Spiritual Exercises

I've been thinking of 2013 and Spiritual Practices. I read a useful post on Jonny Baker's blog http://jonnybaker.blogs.com/jonnybaker/2013/01/space-to-think-pray-relax-meditate.html where he wrote about how he and his wife Jen plan spiritual practices for the coming year. It's true that if we don't plan and are not intentional we will most probably not 'practice' what we dream of doing.

McLaren in his book 'finding our way again:The return of the ancient practice' also underlines the importance of intention. Like someone who would like to play an instrument, she has to rehearse and practice so as to become an accomplished musician.

McLaren seeing the reason for Spiritual Practices as: Character building, (an) Awakening, and Experiencing God.

In the Abrahamic tradition there are 7 practices:
Fixed-hour prayer, fasting, Sabbath, Sacred meal, pilgrimage, sacred seasons, and giving.

These practices are seen in 3 way:
The Contemplative Way (practices by which we become prepared for grace to surprise us)
The Communal Way (practices the lead us from into me to into we; practice of liturgy)
The Missional Way (Jesus called disciples so he could send them out).

In 2013 by the grace of God (and some work on my part), I want to continue to develop Spiritual practices...
Prayer, Meditation, Study of Scripture, seeing God in the ordinary, reflecting on art and culture, expressing thanksgiving to God, wonder and awe, pilgrimage, following the sacred seasons, helping the poor, crying out for justice, demonstrating the love of God through Jesus in both deed and word...