Conforming (phase 2), The parable of the Kingdom of Christ (step 7), session 1

And the crowds that went before him and that followed him shouted, "Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!"  - Mt 21, 9

If I recall correctly, in addition to serving as the pre-processional Gospel reading on Palm Sunday, the triumphal entry is also sometimes used as the Gospel reading on the feast of Christ the King. Even those of use who consider ourselves delivered into his kingdom fail to fully live under his rule. Sometimes this is due to our stubbornness, in other cases because of our ignorance, and sometimes because the flesh is weak.

But when the chief priests and the scribes saw the wonderful things that he did, and the children crying out in the temple, "Hosanna to the Son of David!" they were indignant . . . - Mt 21, 15

Yes, sometimes this is us, too, when God seems to ask something of us that contradicts our sensibility. How judgmental of God and of our fellow sojourners we become! Humble obedience seems beyond our grasp. Only the Holy Spirit transforms us into subjects who eagerly seek and heed the King's commands to glorify him with our lives.

Conforming (phase 2), The parable of the Kingdom of Christ (step 7)

One main principle of the following exercises is that we will recognize the will of God at the present moment with the help of the contemplation of the life of Jesus.  - Step-by-Step Retreats, step 7

The orientation and meditation of this step begins by invoking the Gospel reading we heard yesterday, which is then the scripture specified for the fourth session of this step. Therefore I will not now reflect on this passage. Since I have three weeks for this step and seven sessions specified, it's probably good for me to spend a couple days just on the introduction to this step.

I'm a bit concerned that this whole retreat might end up too left-of-center for my liking, with too much emphasis on social justice rather and too little on being vessels of Christ's love. It is hard to explain the difference between those two things, because from the outside they can look like the same thing. I'm not reaching conclusions on that, though. In this retreat, and I'm trusting God to work in me the growth and maturity that I still lack rather than trusting my ability to have it all figured out.

In logotherapy Viktor Frankl stresses life’s unconditional meaningfulness, since meaning can be found in every situation - also beyond the possibility to work and to love, even in suffering and death. - ibid.

(Part of my caution about this retreat stems from these continual references to Christotherapy and logotherapy. That aside . . . ) 

I find myself struggling to find the meaning in the situations of my life, yet being willing to struggle, to trust that it is actually there. We are facing so many circumstances right now that are so maddeningly beyond our control that we don't see God's hand at work in. And there are other frustrating ones within our control for which I don't see any signs of growth or hope.

My calling is not . . .

. . . to spend (at least parts of) seven evenings a week watching television - even shows I like; I'm not just talking about the ones I disdain - just so that I can be with my bride.

But if I'm not going to do that, I need to do something better with my time, not just something different.

And when I subsequently go to bed alone most evenings, I need to do it without this resentment.

The second phase: Conforming

One is “conformed” to Christ in every single spiritually and morally good act without the necessity that it should be performed for consciously supernatural motives. - Step-by-Step Retreats, introduction to the second phase

This second phase is subtitled "To conform the reformed, or the illuminative way." In terms of the number of steps, it is more than twice as long as the first phase, and this make sense to me. The process of getting the Holy Spirit to conform me to the image and likeness of Christ should be a longer and more painstaking one than to regenerate me in the first place.

There is much emphasis in this introduction about how Christ can be at work in and through us even if we are unaware of it and do not attribute this work to Him. True though this may be, it seems to me that the more important emphasis for a pilgrim who is sufficiently aware of the journey to be making such a retreat as this is on participating in and recognizing the Spirit's conforming work within us.

I am tired of this exercise

No, not Ignatius.

The exercise where an abuser makes the news or the television or social media and everybody righteously condemns him or her and I have to convince myself again how I'm different. 

Twice today, and counting.

Reforming (phase 1), Hell and Mercy (step 6), session 7

Maybe I'm already there.

I mean, is my calling really to sit on the sofa and consume banal entertainment and try to find some form of fulfillment in that, for the sake of nurturing our unity? And then to go to bed alone (again) while she partakes of more?

I'm feeling pretty ungrateful this morning for God's abundant gifts. Maybe that is the beginning, at least, of hell.

Bless the LORD, O my soul, and all within me, his holy name.
Bless the LORD, O my soul, and never forget all his benefits.
It is the LORD who forgives all your sins, who heals every one of your ills,
who redeems your life from the grave, who crowns you with mercy and compassion,
who fills your life with good things, renewing your youth like an eagle’s.
The LORD does just deeds, gives full justice to all who are oppressed.
He made known his ways to Moses, and his deeds to the children of Israel.
The LORD is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger and rich in mercy.
He will not always find fault; nor persist in his anger forever.
He does not treat us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our faults.
For as the heavens are high above the earth, so strong his mercy for those who fear him.
As far as the east is from the west, so far from us does he remove our transgressions.
As a father has compassion on his children, the LORD’s compassion is on those who fear him.
For he knows of what we are made; he remembers that we are dust.
Man, his days are like grass; he flowers like the flower of the field.
The wind blows, and it is no more, and its place never sees it again.
But the mercy of the LORD is everlasting upon those who hold him in fear, 
upon children’s children his justice,
for those who keep his covenant, and remember to fulfill his commands.
The LORD has fixed his throne in heaven, and his kingdom is ruling over all.
Bless the LORD, all you his angels, mighty in power, fulfilling his word, who heed the voice of his word.
Bless the LORD, all his hosts, his servants, who do his will.
Bless the LORD, all his works, in every place where he rules.
Bless the LORD, O my soul! - Ps 103

There are a number of verses herein trying to speak to me; ordinarily I would selectively quote and reflect upon a few of them. Today my dark mood and cold heart seek only to rebut them. I know this Psalm is truth, yet it does not reach through the shroud I have wrapped around myself.

Last night in my bride's frustration I had the good sense to simply offer frequent hugs, which she appreciated. Today I feel certain that there are none that would bring me comfort.

This concludes phase 1. By no means do attribute my foul mood to these Exercises. I know I have my attention in the wrong place despite them, not because of them. I pray that Grace may keep my feet upon the path that I would forsake.

Reforming (phase 1), Hell and Mercy (step 6), session 6

My toe still hurts, but it is better than last week. Hell is not like that.

I am watching as one loved one after another makes choices that are clearly against God's will and (redundantly) not in their own best interest. Perhaps hell has a degree of that. The parable of the rich man and Lazarus suggests as much.

I continue to experience moments of brightness that get me through the frustrations of life. Hell is certainly not like that.

I guess that last maybe leads me (finally!) to something else to reflect on about hell. There have been moments in my life that have had me very close to ultimate despair. I suspect that hell may be eternal ultimate despair. I certainly don't look forward to my darkest moments, so I know I want no part of such a dark eternity.

Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is remitted. - Ps 32, 1

I am indeed abundantly blessed.

Blessed the man to whom the LORD imputes no guilt, in whose spirit is no guile. - Ps 32, 2

This one I'm not so sure about. I'm sure I have previously expressed my admiration for those who are simpler than I perceive myself to be. I know that there is guile in me, thoughts and feelings that I feel I must both suppress and hide for the sake of those whom I love.  I suspect this may be common for people in lifelong relationships, and so I don't take myself too extensively to task for it. Yet I must be guileless before God, who knows my every thought; this is the One with whom I can and must always be my true, honest self.

To you I have acknowledged my sin; my guilt I did not hide.
I said, “I will confess my transgression to the LORD.” And you have forgiven the guilt of my sin. - Ps 32, 5

Yes, God is quick to forgive the contrite sinner. Still my transgressions remain sometimes too dear to me, though, and contrition slow.

So let each faithful one pray to you in the time of need.
The floods of water may reach high, but such a one they shall not reach.
You are a hiding place for me; you keep me safe from distress;
you surround me with cries of deliverance. - Ps 32, 6-7

You are indeed my hiding place, my refuge, O Lord. You have delivered me from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of light. Help me to seek it in all things!

Today's word

officious \uh-FISH-us\ - 1. volunteering one's services where they are neither asked nor needed : meddlesome  2. informal, unofficial

That moment when you realize that you have always and consistently misunderstood the meaning of a word. I always took it to mean something like "pompously, demonstratively official."

Ending with the third track of Physical Graffiti

I just read an article outlining seven habits of chronically unhappy people. I thought I might find myself all over them.  Instead there was only one that looked as if it described me, and when I read its details, it turned out not to pertain to me either.

Today I have been letting the Holy Spirit remind me that I can trust God to provide a greater joy for me than I could ever know by not trusting (and therefore following) God's revealed plan for my life, and I am trying to approach that without impatience. I am reminding myself that it's true for my life, too, that manure is not a delicious hamburger, and that I am instead called to a great feast.

I am also being reminded that if it were easy, it wouldn't be called dying to oneself. (Sorry, the live versions I found were all from the same show and weren't in tune.)

Reforming (phase 1), Hell and Mercy (step 6), session 5

Is choosing hell over heaven the same thing as choosing sin over God's plan for us?

I am considering someone I know who has said, in unequivocal terms, that the sin in which he has participated all of his life is so much a part of him that he chooses it rather than choosing to love his family by laying down his life for them. From his perspective it is more a case of his wife not choosing to allow his addiction to continue to influence their children's environment. Maybe he isn't fully able to choose otherwise, but he has made it clear that he also has no interest in doing so.

Yep, this could be hell.

I don't know what makes us think that laying down our lives for each other is going to be easy. And I don't know what makes some of us manage to do that, or makes others of us refuse to. But only in sacrifice do we find glory, and if we are unwilling to choose sacrifice, are we not instead choosing hell?

And you he made alive, when you were dead through the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience.  Among these we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, following the desires of body and mind, and so we were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.  But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up with him, and made us sit with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.  For by grace you have been saved through faith; and this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God -- not because of works, lest any man should boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.  - Eph 2, 1-10

I'm just including the entire text of the passage for this session. There's too much here, and all of it is cause for hope that God will get hold of this man whom I love and cause him to see his need and accept the gifts of grace and love which he rejects. He is no less deserving of them than I, and even though he is hurting those I love, he knows not what he is doing.

If it weren't for my belief that God's grace is greater than our sin, I would have no hope at all for this situation.

Reforming (phase 1), Hell and Mercy (step 6), session 4a

The reading for session 4 (Lk 15, 11-32) has led me back to reflect on the reason that I think is most likely to cause people to choose hell over mercy. Since I don't want to get ahead of the calendar, this is a great opportunity to spend more time considering the snare of judgment.

This is the trap into which we fall very easily when we begin to think of salvation as a reward we earn rather than a gift of grace. The older brother felt that he deserved such a reward, and that his wayward brother certainly did not. He might have been correct on both counts, based on their respective behavior, but in focusing on that he prevented himself from freely receiving all that his father desired to give him.

So here are a few thoughts related to this wonderfully revealing passage:

• God's greatest gift to us is himself, which we can only receive in relationship.
• We receive our relationship with God in the context of our relationships with one another.
• A natural result of receiving the gift of our relationship with God is that we desire that gift for others.
• When we would deny others' God's merciful gift, we reveal that we have really considered it a reward, something that we deserve. This rooted in immature thinking about salvation, heaven, hell and grace.

I have long been of the opinion that the older brother of this parable represents our most insidious obstacle to entering the heavenly banquet for all eternity: what if we don't like who we'd have to spend eternity at the table with? Certainly, many who accept the Father's gift of grace and mercy do so only after heinous actions. If we mistakenly believe that our ticket to the meal gets punched as a result of our worthiness, we are less likely to accept "that unworthy person" who is admitted as well.

Still, the father in the parable reminds us that everything he has is ours, and invites us again to enter into the feast he has prepared, to rejoice with him that our brother who was dead has been restored to life.

Today's word

meliorism \MEE-lee-uh-riz-um\ - the belief that the world tends to improve and that humans can aid its betterment

I had a sense of this one based on the roots, the first of which I recognized from ameliorate, which was also invoked in the write-up.

Reforming (phase 1), Hell and Mercy (step 6), session 4

In today's reflection on hell, I find myself thinking about our tendency to long for things that can never fulfill us. We might think of these as addictive thought patterns, and sometimes these are part of actual addictions which bind us spiritually as well as psychologically and physically. We can become fixated on what I want, what I don't have at present or long to have again, and it can keep us from entering into the love and the abundant life that is waiting right before our eyes. We believe that the object of our obsession will make us happy, and might even bask in it when we have it for a time, but it doesn't fulfill us, it merely consumes us and keeps us from the abundant life to which we are called.

How appropriate for this reflection is the scripture reading for this session (I should probably explain that, for this step, I haven't been reading the scripture for each session until after I reflect on some potential aspect of hell), Lk 15, 11-32.

For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.' And they began to make merry. - Lk 15, 24

Indeed, this lost son had been through this pattern of obsession, and emerged on the other side determined to return to a better life than he had. But his father's mercy proved greater than his own addiction to wild living, and our God's love is greater than our own similar sins.

Tomorrow I believe I will reflect on the older brother, since I am now back on schedule and need to slow down my session frequency a little to remain in step with the calendar.

Reforming (phase 1), Hell and Mercy (step 6), session 3

Yesterday I suggested a reflection idea I wanted to come back to, and now I'm going to revisit it even though I really don't want to. It is painful. It feels sad and lonely, and I have no control over it. But there are a number of people I love deeply who are at various stages of cutting me out of their lives, or at least of keeping me at a far greater distance than I wish for.

This feels different from when I was isolated by my own sin. In that case, I knew what I had done wrong warranted the rejection I was receiving. Most of those relationships have been healed over time, much to my surprise. These felt very different from what I imagine hell to be, as I suspect that life in hell includes a high degree of disdain for others' (and God's) opinions that was not a part of my emotional makeup back then. I knew I deserved the isolation I was experiencing, and viewed it as only just. I imagine that God meets even a belated humble recognition of this sort of truth with grace and mercy.

What I feel now for those who are separated from me by their choice is also probably not very like hell, as I believe it to be. I don't think that God condemns people to hell, with the result that people in hell feel as if God is depriving them of what they really want. I think it's more as if hell is like getting what we think we really want and it never satisfying us, because we really want the wrong thing. In fact, I think that God hurts for our sake when we choose to fix upon such objects of our desire, and I think that God feels the pain of our choices more than we have the sense to feel it for ourselves. But the agony of hell is going to be the realization of all of that pain and the insistence that it's still better than humbling ourselves and accepting God's will.

For the mountains may depart
and the hills be removed,
but my steadfast love shall not depart from you,
and my covenant of peace shall not be removed,
says the LORD, who has compassion on you. - Is 54, 10

I pray that God's mercy may indeed prove greater than hell, and that he would bring every one of us to the point that we would choose it.

Reforming (phase 1), Hell and Mercy (step 6), session 2

For today's meditation upon hell, I am going to draw upon the pain of the credenza falling on my foot last night and of the burning of the subsequent shots of lidocaine which ultimately numbed my toe so that the doctor could stitch it. In both cases, I knew that the pain would pass. In fact, I was walking around frantically after the credenza landed on my foot, trying to determine whether the toes which hurt were broken, and concluding that as pained as they felt, they were not. In fact, I couldn't feel the toe that is broken and cut. Suppose I could have? That would have been more hellish, I imagine. The burning of the lidocaine as it was being shot into the flesh of my toe and foot certainly was. Yet I knew three things about that which are not true of hell:

• It would be a temporary and passing pain. 
• It was ultimately for the good.

In these two ways, I suppose that the lidocaine was more like purgatory than hell.

• It was localized rather than all-encompassing.

So if I could remove those three elements, my physical pain last night might give me a glimpse into what hell might be like.

(Note to self: two more reflections on hell to write about, maybe in the same future session: watching a loved one make terrible mistakes, and how God feels on our behalf; these might be the same thing.)

They shall return and dwell beneath my shadow, they shall flourish as a garden; they shall blossom as the vine, their fragrance shall be like the wine of Lebanon. - Hos 14, 7

For the second consecutive day, the recommended scripture (Hos 14, 4-10) includes a verse which appears not to exist. 

But this reminder from God that he has prepared a better and ultimate answer for our exile is exactly the call to patience that I need as an answer to my circumstances.

Today's words

threnody \THREN-uh-dee\ - a song of lamentation for the dead : elegy

I recognized this definition when I saw it, but couldn't recall it just by seeing the word. I think it was within the past month or so that I first encountered it, perhaps somewhere where it was identified as a synonym of "elegy."

That last word always reminds me of the hilariously awful story in which I first saw it, which I hope isn't true: 

A musician of more ambition than talent composed an elegy at the death of composer Edward MacDowell.  She played the elegy for the pianist Josef Hofmann, then asked his opinion.

"Well, it's quite nice," he replied, "but don't you think it would be better if . . ."

"If what?" asked the composer.

"If . . . if you had died and MacDowell had written the elegy?"

A small positive from this story: I have now learned a little of whom both MacDowell and Hofmann were. The latter's life story is another of many that warn of the dangers of addiction; alcohol was his poison.

Then there was this word from today's Dictionary Devil that I also remembered after the fact from a post when it was the WOTD . . .

²imperial noun \im-ˈpir-ē-əl\  3. [French impériale; from the beard worn by Napoléon III] :  a pointed beard growing below the lower lip

. . . not to mention this more-obscure definition of this well-known word, which I must have recognized from somewhere, as it was one of the first definitions that I matched up in the puzzle.

Reforming (phase 1), Hell and Mercy (step 6), session 1

At the beginning of this meditation we ask the grace to know at least by imagination the pain the of being definitely lost and damned might be; and pray for that we don’t fall in this danger of rejecting God if not for the love of him at least for the fear of the consequences. - Step-by-Step Retreats, Phase 1, Step 6 overview

Actually, click the link and read the entire overview. It introduces a fascinating approach to this step.

The first "hellish" situations I will reflect on is the feeling of being alone, hopeless, and afraid it's never going to change. This isn't the worst thing I can imagine, though, and I will imagine worse ones in other sessions of this step.

 "And in that day, says the LORD, you will call me, `My husband,' and no longer will you call me, `My Ba'al.'" - Hos 2, 16

I don't know yet whether this will be the pattern of the entire step, but clearly this first session's reading (Hos 2, 16-25, though all the versions I see only have 23 verses in chapter 2) is intended to bring the merciful answer to the contemplation of what Hell must be like. It seems to me that many people live with hellish situations in their lives to which they don't believe there is a better answer.

I suspect that my feelings of isolation and loneliness are not nearly so hellish as I imagine them to be, though.  They are probably more a case of God drawing me to himself, using my desire for deeper communion to teach me that it can only really be found in one Source.

Reforming (phase 1), Our Personal History of Salvation (step 5), session 7

The reading for today's session is Ps 136, followed by ongoing praise in the same vein involving my personal history of salvation. What a humbling and uplifting way of approaching this!

This is the end of this step that had me so worried at the outset. There has really been no abatement of the emotional turmoil to which I was concerned about adding by doing this step now, but undertaking these sessions hasn't added to that, as I thought it might.

The fact is that God's love is greater than our sin, and knowing our sin honestly and with open eyes just reveals God's love, his grace and mercy, more completely. It is a great temptation and trap to instead become stubborn and arrogant about defining sin for ourselves so that we can feel self-justified. But this keeps us from knowing God's tender care and great compassion.

There is so much more to say about this, but Caesar calls (as does my stomach).

Reforming (phase 1), Our Personal History of Salvation (step 5), session 6

The lengthiest reading yet: Job 38: 1 - 42: 6, by far.

We insist on declaring to God what is sin, and further insist that we are declaring it against our oppressive fellow man and not against God himself.  I am as guilty as anyone of minimizing my sin, especially since it now pales in comparison to what I formerly committed.

"Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge? Gird up your loins like a man, I will question you, and you shall declare to me . . . " - Job 38, 2-3

"Shall a faultfinder contend with the Almighty? He who argues with God, let him answer it." - Job 40, 2

"Will you even put me in the wrong? Will you condemn me that you may be justified?" - Job 40, 8

I'm chagrined by our collective cheek in pushing the boundaries of socially acceptable behavior, and even more so by my individual audacity in minimizing or justifying my sinfulness.

"I had heard of thee by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees thee; therefore I despise myself,  and repent in dust and ashes." - Job 42, 5-6

So often we try to dictate to God how the world ought to be run. It is the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil run rampant in our world and in our lives. But Job's is the only humble response before God.

Addendum: Here's a great article that indicates just how far down this road we - even we in the church - have gone.

Facebook annoyances from today:

Item number one: Okay, I've noticed it before, but have never commented on it as I am so tempted to every time: this picture should definitely have the skull rotated 180° vertically. I suppose it is a sign of my own anal nature that this bothers me enough to interfere with the humor. (Also: was the first politician a woman?)

Item number two: Reeaaalllly?  Some people think that because they are "so close" to someone because of all the deep conversations that they've shared that they can publicly question their marriage decision on Facebook? I hated the decision, but I'm certainly not going to slam it there!

Item number three: I've decided to stop posting comments with links to the Snopes site for all of those gift card scam posts. Any of my friends and relatives who are so gullible - even after years of being online - that they don't recognize a phishing scam when they see one deserve to be phished.

Reforming (phase 1), Our Personal History of Salvation (step 5), session 5

After a weekend of no sessions, I'm officially behind now. But I can't really complain that the weekend was wasted. Especially, the Unbound: Freedom in Christ seminar on Saturday was a gift. The Unbound ministry uses the analogy of an onion, peeling away layers bit-by-bit, and I can see how that fits. I've learned more now about how we give spiritual influences a foothold in our lives, especially through habitual sin and extramarital sexuality. My Unbound prayer session focused on the spiritual results of abuse received and abuse committed, but there are a world of other choices I've made that have spiritual consequences, too.

I didn't have a prayer session during this seminar, and the easy reason why is that my involvement providing music ministry during the prayer sessions kept be from participating in any. But there is another reason that I dare not deny: I must still renounce the lie that there it's okay to fall back upon the endorphines when I feel alone and rejected. I suppose they're my escapist drug of choice.

And that probably brings me at least partly in touch with today's session, which deals with the personal sin of squandering the gifts God has entrusted to me. The reading today is Mt 5, 14-30, and it seems to me that the warning at the end is applicable to the gift of holiness when we bury it rather than live in it.

Reforming (phase 1), Our Personal History of Salvation (step 5), session 4

Just when I was on my own case for getting too far behind the power curve comes this session that really should fall on a Friday anyway. I suppose if I'd synched up with the liturgical calendar just a week sooner it would have hit on last Friday.

But the reason why it's a Friday session is because it contains the wonderful hymn of repentance which is part of morning prayer every Friday: Psalm 51.

My transgressions, truly I know them;
my sin is always before me. - Ps 51, 3

It is too often true that we hide our sins from ourselves, let alone from God. We may have a lot of different reasons for this, including our wish to think more highly of ourselves. This lack of humility is an integral part of our sinfulness. But like David, I have found my sinfulness is undeniable. But there is a danger for those of us who can't ignore some great failing in our lives, especially a failing which we have already addressed and dealt with, and which God has already long since forgiven. Keeping our attention focused on the past keeps us from growing in the present, from allowing God to set before our minds the sin from which he longs to cleanse us today, in his abundant love for us.

I am not describing a perfectionism in which we are never good enough, but a calling to holiness which God offers us as a gift and we often fail to fully receive. Having received such an apparent gift of grace, we may fail to grow in grace in all the ways God envisions for us.

Create a pure heart for me, O God;
renew a steadfast spirit within me. - Ps 51, 10

I believe God rejoices when we pray this in earnest!

My sacrifice to God, a broken spirit:
a broken and humbled heart,
O God, you will not spurn. - Ps 51, 17

What are the hallmarks of a truly contrite heart?  There is clearly more involved here than mere regret of our actions. I think of the months and months over which I failed to take decisive action against my most hurtful actions, and the decades of tolerating my less harmful ones, and I conclude that true humility of the heart is a challenge that I have not fully embraced. I believe God's grace is greater than my shortcomings, though, including my failure to be steadfast in holiness.

There is power in the name of Jesus
to break every chain - Will Reagan

If ever there was a perfect song for an Unbound: Freedom in Christ workshop, this is it.

Today's word

chouse \CHOWSS\ - cheat, trick

A completely new one on me; I'm pretty sure I've never seen it before. I wasn't familiar with all of the uses of its synonym chicane, either.  

Reforming (phase 1), Our Personal History of Salvation (step 5), session 3

"`If they do not hear Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced if some one should rise from the dead.'" - Lk 16, 31

Okay, I realize that the reading for this session is intended to make me consider something very different, that it wants me to focus on my neglect of the poor. I'm not going to totally ignore that element. I certainly haven't done as much for the poor as I believe I am called to do, for their sake and mine. And while I think that my life would look much less material were my vocation singlehood, I don't believe I'll be able to offer that as an excuse for not tending to Lazarus.

But this prophetic word which Jesus spoke in a parable continues to resound through the ages. Why is it true? Because Moses and the prophets invariably point to the Savior through the millenia and in each word spoken through them. We cannot recognize the risen Jesus if we reject the law and the prophets.

Within the step, but not rushing through it

Since I have my retreat amid the Spiritual Exercises in step with the liturgical calendar now, and with the holidays coming up, and with the step that I'm currently in feeling as if I shouldn't rush through it, I will be spending some time on related writing between sessions.

Today I find myself reflecting on my lifelong self-indulgence and my daughter's (I don't know, probably daughters') focus on appearance. I can't help but believe that the latter is related to the atmosphere I created around our home when they were growing up, and has become a perpetuation of the former. "I'm a wreck, but don't I look great?" seems related to "I'm a wreck but let me escape it for a few minutes in the endorphines." Neither of those approaches deals with the rest of what's going on in our lives, though, and for me, that can be a scary thing to face.

I know that I am called to love and build up my bride, and I know that our choice of each other has resulted in a couple who share very few interests in common. I have long run from the latter aspect of our reality somewhat, because I have discovered so little that I can really do about it. I can only embrace her interests so much, and I know that it is the same for her, and we have found so little that we enjoy in common. I feel fortunate that we still love each other so deeply despite this, and that the frustration that each of us feels to varying degrees at different times does not overwhelm our love with a desire to turn away, to seek greater compatibility outside of each other.

I suppose it's also helpful that my own interests don't consume my attention to such a degree that I am able to just throw myself into them and let a gulf grow between us. Yet that hasn't kept me from feeling a void in my life that I have, until fairly lately, continued to fill in the same way I have always escaped from the unpleasantness in my life. I may no longer indulge that so destructively as he taught me to, but it has nonetheless remained a way of escaping for a while into something that consumes me.

It seems as if this personal history of salvation step may provide a means to see how my past echoes somewhat in my present, even if far removed from the level of harmfulness that used to be there. I'm grateful that the boundaries I put in place - with my therapists' help - have become so strong that they continue to fulfill their purpose, and I am grateful that God is leading me to progress even further from them as he calls me further up and further in.

The holiness and wholeness to which God is calling me is so much more than I have allowed him to immerse me in thus far. I seem to be finding in these Exercises an approach that doesn't feel like an interior battle.

Today's word

usufructuary \ˌyü-zə-ˈfrək-chə-ˌwer-ē, -sə-\ - 1.  one having the usufruct of property  2.  one having the use or enjoyment of something

I often know the masked word in Dictionary Devil puzzles. By the time I match up all the definitions, the masked word's definition, length and starting letter are frequently enough for me to identify it before the puzzle reveals it upon completion. Not today!

I am somewhat familiar with this word, though. I think the context in which I've heard it relates to maintaining a right-of-way through someone else's private property. 

 

Reforming (phase 1), Our Personal History of Salvation (step 5), session 2

But I say, walk by the Spirit, and do not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh . . .  - Gal 5, 16-17a

I know that I sometimes use my less pure thoughts as a way of escaping my stress and loneliness. But I also know that the thing that keeps me alive is the desire to be the person God is calling me to be.

Fortunately, the former are becoming rarer and briefer. I am noticing that things at which I never used to hesitate are now clearly choices that I am unwilling to make. But I still don't guard my mind to the degree that I should.

This lesson's reading continues through verse 23, but I really feel that the rest of the chapter goes right along with it.

Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit.- Gal 5, 24-25

Why do we expect crucifying the flesh with its passions and desires to be painless? I think that, early in my Christian walk, I expected the Holy Spirit to simply lift every negative impulse from me. I heard an interesting talk on the radio last week about Jesus, temptation and sin. The speaker wanted to address people's objection that, if Jesus' ever-present divine nature was such that it would be, in a sense, a contradiction of himself to commit sin - if he was in this sense incapable of sinning, because he would always exercise his free will according to his Father's plan for him - how could we accept that he was ever then really tempted?  As part of his rebuttal, the preacher asked who better knows the weight of the barbell: the one who successfully holds it aloft or the one who fails in their effort to fully lift it? Jesus knows the full weight of temptation better than we do precisely because he did not succumb to it.

I heard that either last Tuesday or Wednesday, as it resonated with the reading I received during prayer group last Tuesday evening:

What then? Are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! Do you not know that if you yield yourselves to any one as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness?  - Rom 6, 15-16

So when we choose the flesh, we make ourselves slaves to the flesh rather than to the Spirit. And since no one can serve two masters (Lk 16, 13), using the wrong things even as a brief respite from realities and frustrations keeps me from being fully available to God's will for my life.

Reforming (phase 1), Our Personal History of Salvation (step 5), session 1

“Mind-fasting” is the central technique of the Christotherapy together with the complementary “spirit-feasting.” - Tyrrell, Christotherapy as quoted by Step-by-Step Retreats

I first read this and cringed. It was not the first part of this step's overview that provoked this response in me. I find the idea of revisiting what God has delivered me from intimidating, especially in my current emotional dynamic. But I am going to trust that God will continue to supply my every need, including not letting me get bogged down in an unhealthy place.

But when I first read this, I thought of mind-fasting vs. spirit feasting as something that was likely to be utterly beyond me. My mind chews on things incessantly; I know I am more introspective and analytical than is likely good for me. Then I read on:

It means an emptying the mind from the thoughts, attitudes and desires discerned as harmful, a letting go of the destructive tendencies by the help of the Holy Spirit and sort of replacing it with authentic, life-giving inspirations and feelings. - ibid.

and I realized that I have already begun this process. We'll see where the Lord takes it.

Did that which is good, then, bring death to me? By no means! It was sin, working death in me through what is good, in order that sin might be shown to be sin, and through the commandment might become sinful beyond measure. - Rom 7, 13

I had to fight against misunderstanding this when I was going through (and putting our family through) our personal tribulation. It was not the good thing that I had done that was causing the terrible circumstances we were experiencing. Rather, these were the result of the wrong I'd done, the brokenness in me that needed to be made whole. I was not being punished for confronting my sin, but the nature of confronting my sin meant dealing with things that had been previously swept under the rug to putrify.

Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! - Rom 7, 34-35a

Thanks be to God indeed, that as I read verse 34a I am not overwhelmed by it as I have so often and so long been.