A Table of Fellowship

I was flipping through Alan Mann's Atonement for a 'sinless' society, when I came across this inclusive piece of communion liturgy.
I took the service at our local church last Sunday and rewrote a communion liturgy - which also majored on the inclusive nature of Jesus and the Table. I won't bother including my own as it's in French.

Here's Alan Mann's:

A Table of Fellowship

On the night that he was 'betrayed',
Jesus ate with his friends: 'betrayers' and self-betrayed, one and all.

Jesus broke bread and gave it to his friends
As a sign of his intent to die that they might have life.

He also shared wine with them
A symbol of his death
That opened to humankind the possibility of reconciliation to God,
To ourselves and to Others.

So we also come to the table of Jesus,
For that is what he desires.

We come to reflect on his story.
But we also come to reflect on our own story
And to the stories of those we love and those we struggle to love.

We acknowledge the absence of the Other in our own lives-
Both human and divine.
We have told our story for far too long
Isolated from the Other.

As we acknowledge the inadequacies of our own story,
We say that we are sorry.
For out of ignorance and weakness,
We have not found space in our stories for the presence of Others.

Though we are not against you
We have failed at being for you.
You have been absent from our lives.
As a result, we are against ourselves, for we are Your Creation.

Therefore, we lift our heads to gaze upon the cross and listen to these words of hope:
"Forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing."

Like prodigal child, we bring our story to the table of Jesus
Assured by the story of the Lord's Supper that we will find fellowship there.

We come
Without fear of exposure
Without fear of judgement
For this is the Lord's Table.

Though we withdraw from you and from Others
You do not withdraw from us
And so we thank you.

Our presence at this table means that we are your friends.

So, as we approach this table of fellowship
We recall those absent from all lives
And acknowledge the presence of Others here with us.

We gather
That we may become one with ourselves
One with each Other
One with God

Though we fear it.
We also come to this table so that we,
Like You,
Can 'die' to ourselves.
This is our Golgotha
This is our cross.
For we know and understand that in dying
We open ourselves up to the presence
Of Others in our lives.

Therefore, we offer Others a sign of peace
A symbol of our desire for the Other to be part of our story
And for ourselves to be part of the Other.

We come in the hope of at-one-ment.
That we may be reconciled to Others
And to the Other: God.

At this table
In this moment,
We are given another chance.
To put aside our denial of the Other
And embrace the story of Jesus as our own story.

God, into your hands we place our lives.
We look to Your story to become part of our story
And so be at-one with You, with Others and with ourselves.

Amen

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)

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...

Enlarged Container

I receive daily meditations from Franciscan Richard Rohr. Here's yesterday's:

"Second half of life" wisdom requires prayer and discernment more than knee-jerk responses toward either conservative or liberal ends of the spectrum. You have a spectrum of responses now, and they are not all predictable, as is too often the case with most knee-jerk responses. Law is still necessary, of course, but it is not your guiding star, or even close. It has been wrong and cruel too many times.

The Eight Beatitudes speak to you much more than the Ten Commandments as you grow older. Life is much more spacious now. The boundaries of the container have been enlarged. You are like an expandable suitcase, and you became so almost without your noticing. Now you are just here, and here holds more than enough.

I'm very much into the "Second half of life" both in age and also in experience and outlook to life. I know what Richard means when he talks about knee-jerk responses to life's questions - it's so easy to react in an automatic manner , using the trite responses that we've been taught - but I agree that we need more time to reflect, pray and think through our preconceived and ready-made answers. 

I've found that the longer I've been on this planet the less I see things in black and white, but there's a lot more grey areas. I like Rohr's metaphor of the 'boundaries of the container have been enlarged' - maybe it's not so much 'grey areas' but a life that's played out in 'Technicolor' - or a container that's enlarged - less narrow but more ready to 'hold on to' the ambiguities and the uncertainties - and to see God in the here, in the midst of it all, in all of life... I believe our 'container' needs to enlarge in order to embrace the great big omnipresent God...

He's so much bigger than our finite minds could ever imagine!   

GOD, MY DANCING PARTNER

“God, you were here all along, and I never knew it” (Genesis 28:16), says Jacob on awakening from his stone pillow.


I came across this verse last week and I was blow away by the fact that God is here, right now in our world, culture, city, home, skin,...and we so easily forget this wonderful reality...
maybe it's because we are unable to 'see'...
maybe it's because we only expect to meet with God in the 'holy' place of Church...
maybe it's because we're so busy that we no longer take the time to be still and actively 'wait' for Him...


Here's Richard Rohr's take on this verse:

The essential religious experience is that you are being “known through” more than knowing anything in particular yourself. Yet despite this difference, it will feel like true knowing. This new way of knowing can be called contemplation, nondualistic thinking, or “third-eye” seeing. Such prayer, such seeing, takes away your anxiety about figuring it all out fully for yourself, or needing to be right about your formulations.

At this point, God becomes more a verb than a noun, more a process than a conclusion, more an experience than a dogma, more a personal relationship than an idea. There is Someone dancing with you, and you are not so afraid of making mistakes. You know even those will be used in your favor. At that point you also have awakened from your stone pillow, and you know with a new clarity what you partly knew all along!

I love the idea of God being more that a static noun or dogma or conclusion...

God is so much more, and the relational aspect of His nature is marvelous...

I can't dance to save my life...

so the image of God as my dancing partner who doesn't scold me when I take the wrong step or tread on his toes is comforting...

A Prayer of an Irish monk

here's a prayer from Columbanus a 5th century irish monk:

“Loving Savior, be pleased to show yourself to us who knock, so that in knowing you, we may love only you, love you alone, desire you alone, contemplate only you day and night, and always think of you. Inspire in us the depth of love that is fitting for you to receive as God. May our love be so great that the many waters of sky, land and sea cannot extinguish it in us.”

The trivializing of Prayer

Here's a quote from Richard Rohr concerning prayer:

“Everything exposed to the light itself becomes light,” says Ephesians 5:13. In prayer, we merely keep returning the divine gaze and we become its reflection, almost in spite of ourselves (2 Corinthians 3:18).

The word “prayer” has often been trivialized by making it into a way of getting what you want. But here I use “prayer” as the umbrella word forany interior journeys or practices that allow you to experience faith, hope, and love within yourself. It is not a technique for getting things, a pious exercise that somehow makes God happy, or a requirement for entry into heaven. It is much more like practicing heaven now.

Coming from a protestant evangelical tradition i've been brought up to see prayer as asking God to do things, the things that we think we or the world needs.

i like the contemplative approach to prayer; in fact as we gaze on God we are changed, transformed and we no longer come to Him with our 'shopping list/wish list'. But we become one with the One and His desires because ours.