Posted: Tuesday, May 27, 20088:16 pm CDT
Spirituality is such a slippery word. We hear it all the time, on the lips of Deepak Chopra and other New Age practitioners, Hindus, Buddhists, and Christians. Sometimes it seems like another avenue for self-improvement: if I meditate for 20 minutes daily, I will lower my stress level and have more energy for my work. For some, it means burning candles, having a quiet place for retreat, perhaps making a kind of altar with precious objects to encourage quiet, restful thoughts. For some traditions, Christianity among them, it means prayer, a time of quieting the mind, a time for deep listening and no speaking. Listening for God is quite different than telling God what you need done for you today. There is more, of course, for Christian spirituality invites disciplined reading and contemplation of biblical and other writings, sharing your insights with others, growing in one’s willingness to be vulnerable, developing a regular time for prayer, making the inner journey essential to your daily life. And the object of it is to be more empathetic, more open, more connected with the world around us. We journey inward in order to journey outward as people of compassion and wisdom. As we grow and deepen in our Christian lives together at Emmanuel, we trust that God’s Spirit will work with our spirits to produce lives of joy and passion and peace, whatever the circumstances.
But sometimes life overwhelms us. “Life comes at you fast,” as the commercial says. We do not feel we have the inner resources to deal with it. Sometimes the undreamed of, least expected situation lands in our laps. Sometimes the inevitable shows up early, fiercer than we had ever imagined. The gospel lesson for last Sunday brings Jesus’ words into our hearing, perhaps when some of us most need them, calm and reassuring. From Jesus we learn what it means to be attentive to our spiritual lives. Stay in the moment, he says. Feel your connection with the natural world around you. Quit relying on yourself: trust God. Let go and let God, as the AA saying goes. I do not think Jesus is urging us to quit our jobs and wait to be taken care of. But I do think he assures us that we are safe in God’s hands. In Matthew 6, Jesus says:
…do not worry about your life, what you will eat and what you will drink, or about your body, or what your will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life? And why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed as one of these…So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own (25-29, 34a).
Wendell Berry, a farmer and a revered American poet, knows what it means to feel overwhelmed by worry. When he cannot cope, he turns to nature as an on-going source of grace for his life. I have carried this poem in my heart for a long time and hope it will speak to you, as well. May these words be a balm to your spirit and may you hear in them God’s invitation to go inward, so that you may go outward to serve Christ in the world. See you Sunday in worship. And think about covenanting with some of us at Emmanuel to do intentional work together on our spiritual lives. It could be one of the most important steps you take.
When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
(from Openings)
Peace,
Carol
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