Another post on Renovare's website...
How is your Lenten fast going?
If you're anything like me, two weeks into Lent, you've already broken your fast a few times.
Whether by accident or neglect—and I've been guilty of both so far—breaking a fast is often evidence of how deeply a thing controls you, taking your or my attention away from God.
And yet, there's a subtle challenge to what we do with ourselves, with our hearts, when we break a fast before its prescribed end.
I've recently been invited by Renovaré, the organization founded by Richard Foster, Dallas Willard and friends, to begin blogging on their website. Today was my first post there. Appropriately, I've shared some reflections about Shrove Tuesday (which is today) and Lent (which starts tomorrow.) What follows is the first paragraph of that post. You can read the rest by clicking on "Read More."
For Lent, 2010In the Protestant and Catholic traditions, today is Shrove Tuesday. Most people in North America know today by its more popular name—Mardi Gras, a day for pancakes and watching most of New Orleans go more than a little bit wild.
"Shrove" is actually the past tense of the English verb "to shrive," a verb that doesn't conform to all of those neat and tidy conjugation rules that I learned in school, but is nonetheless a very useful word for followers of Christ to know. According to Merrimam Webster, "to shrive" means "to confess ones sins, especially to a priest" or "to administer the sacrament of reconciliation to" or, most kindly, "to free from guilt."
To free from guilt.
That phrase just makes you take a deep breath, doesn't it?
In a society that is overworked, overextended and overwhelmed, Sabbath is the antidote. Rest, restoration, life.
Today's Friday favorite is a quote on Sabbath that really challenges our (and my) need to produce in order to be valued or loved (neither of which are the truth or basis of God's love of us.)
Friday Favorite: Sabbath Is...
“Sabbath is
…taking a day a week to remind myself that I did not make the world and that it will continue to exist without my efforts.
…a day when my work is done, even if it isn’t.
…a day when my job is to enjoy. Period.
…a day when I am fully available to myself and those I love most.
…a day when I remember that when God made the world, he saw that it was good.
…a day when I produce nothing.
…a day when at the end I say, ‘I didn’t do anything today,’ and I don’t add, ‘And I feel so guilty.’
…a day when my phone is turned off, I don’t check my email, and you can’t get a hold of me.”
(from Rob Bell. Velvet Elvis. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2005, p. 117-18.)
I hope that each of you have found rest and solace during the waiting spaces of Advent, and that Christmas and Epiphany have burst upon you with joy, even in those places within you that are exiled or hurting.
This new year is a time of fresh starts and new beginnings, when we (or at least I know *I*) look forward with hope at what is to come. We make plans to change, we think about our desires and consider the ordering of our days.
One of my favorite poems to read to my directees is also a poem that I read to myself quite regularly. As I embark on this new year, this second Friday of 2010, I need to reminder that while I may make plans and partner with God to pursue honorable and good ends, there is more at work than I realize. That hope can energize me, but it need not push me toward frenetic activity or hardened expectation. It is a reminder that we are all in process, and that process may indeed be slow. And that is a good thing.
Friday Favorite: Patient Trust by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
Friday Favorites
I'm starting a new tradition here at the Anam Cara Blog. Every Friday (except holidays, of course), I'm going to be posting a new "favorite" (or, as I prefer to write it, favourite—it's better with a YOU in it!) for you. These favorites will be resources I found that I use in my spiritual direction practice, verses that have inspired or moved me, practices that make a difference in my life and the lives of my directees, as well as other great things that have become 'favorites' of mine as a spiritual director.
I'm excited to kick off this feature with my thoughts on a recently released book by Margaret Feinberg called Scouting the Divine: My Search for God in Wine, Wool, and Wild Honey. I'm always looking for ways to help people enter more deeply into the experiential aspects of Scripture, and this book has that in spades. Read on...
First Friday Favorite: Scouting the Divine
This past May, my husband and I spent our honeymoon in Ireland, driving about the countryside and generally enjoying the 'thin places' that the Irish tout. (A 'thin place' is a place, they say, where the veil between the spiritual and the material is very thin.) Along the way, we stopped at a working sheep farm in the high country to learn more about these fuzzy creatures that seemed almost ubiquitous in Ireland. The results were eye-opening. From learning that sheep farmers these days make about 500 Euro per year for the wool from the 1,000 sheep that they keep to the fact that sheep need to be shorn or they will die from infection, we were immersed in the world of sheep-farming that gave us a much deeper appreciation for what it mean to be a shepherd.
In Scouting the Divine, Margaret Feinberg has written a book that takes the reader into the fields of Scripture in the same way that my husband and I were taken into the fields by our Irish shepherd. Through encounters with a gentle shepherdess, a burly farmer, a silver-haired beekeeper, and a meticulous vintner, Feinberg unpacks passage after passage of Scripture with sometimes lyrical and sometimes startling revelations.
What makes this book my first favorite is how deeply it involves you not only in the story of shepherd, farmer, keeper and vintner, but in Margaret's own story as well. This isn't a dusty look at how farming practices relate to first century Palestine, but a frank look at what it means when our faith has become dusty and needs invigoration. Early on, Margaret confronts us with the fact that we are very far from the rhythms and ways in which we are designed to live, that we (herself included) don't have dirt under our fingernails nor an understanding of the agriculture that sustains us. She isn't necessarily advocating a return-to-nature lifestyle, but a slowing down that allows us to live and appreciate the depth to which God calls us.
Scouting the Divine is a light, lively read which, for someone who is usually neck-deep in the heady and sometimes heavy language of spiritual classics like Teresa of Avila's Interior Castle, is a relief. By 'light' I don't mean insubstantial, and neither do I mean shallow by 'lively.' Feinberg's story-telling allowed me to live her journey alongside her in a way that both opened me to transformation and allowed me to relax and enjoy the ride. There were also startling moments for me, when I realized a much beloved or often glossed-over segment of Scripture was seen in a much different light by those familiar with the practices and lifestyle described within them. Not only were these moments deeply touching, they rekindled in me a love for the experience of Scripture, of knowing what it's like to be walking around with the Word within us and without us, touching us in our day to day moments as well as in our moments of more structured communion with Him.
So, if you're longing for that kind of touch from the One who knows the sheep, the fields, the hives and the vines, I highly recommend you pick up this fresh-eyed, open-spirited journey into God's loving Word to us.
My friend and colleague, Sam Jolman, recently shared this reflection with our church. It speaks to some of the deepest places in our hearts, the places that paradoxically long to be seen and be hidden. Sam is an excellent counselor and wonderful man of God. To follow his blog or learn more about him, you can visit his website here.
I actually had one of those dreams once - the “being naked in front of people” dreams. The setting was my old place of employment, the Christmas party no less. Everyone mingled about, in holiday attire, snug in their sweaters, sipping eggnog. And there I stood, in the midst of all my coworkers, in my birthday suit naked as the day I was born, desperately trying to find my way out of sight. Everything they say about these dreams is true – it feels absolutely horrible. Embarrassing doesn’t touch it. Sheer terror would be a more fitting description. Like a heart attack of fear. Or facing a firing squad of eyes. I remember thinking I could never, ever see my coworkers again. I woke to reality, thank God, but the feelings lingered long after my morning coffee.
That dream has a story to it: I got that job when I was very young and it was a leadership position, leading folks almost entirely older than me. More than just feeling under qualified, I felt totally inadequate for it. Any day it seemed the higher ups would discover I was actually getting paid, shriek in horror on their way to my office, throw open the door and cry, “Get out!” Let’s just say my door was shut a lot. Is my dream making more sense now? My greatest fear was being found out. It was being seen. And in my dream, being caught naked played out all that fear. It was the eyes of the others that made it so terrible. They saw my nakedness and saw my shame.
“Who told you that you were naked?” is the most fascinating question I think God asks in the Bible (Genesis 3:11). Nakedness was not a new thing. A chapter earlier at the end of Genesis 2, Adam and Eve stood in the buck “…and they felt no shame.” They were comfortable in their own skin, in only their skin. Watch any two year old who has the chance to disrobe and you’ll get a sense of what this must have been like. Squealing delightful, unencumbered freedom! But when Adam and Eve sinned, they did introduce an awareness of nakedness. That is to say, they introduced shame. And their instant impulse was to cover up and hide, with fig leaves and then literally to go hideout from God.
Nakedness can be such a symbol of shame. When we say we “feel naked”, what we mean is we feel ashamed and exposed. Caught with our pants down, as the saying goes. Dan Allender writes, “Shame is a phenomenon of the eyes. More than anything in the world, the shamed person wants to be invisible or small so the focus can be removed, the hemorrhage of the soul stopped. Somehow the eyes of the one who sees him must be deflected or destroyed.”
In other words, shame is a relational experience, something we feel in relationships. We carry it unnoticed until we are seen, until we are in the presence of another. And then it rears its ugly head. You pick your nose just fine in the car, until that other driver pulls up next to you. Take those times you are “people watching” (a.k.a. staring at) someone else. When they turn and catch your eyes, don’t you blush and smile or, even worse, try and look away?
The worst, most destructive, absolutely deadly part about shame is how it tempts us to withdraw, cover up, run and hide. We do exactly what Adam and Eve did. And this kills connection. It kills relationship -kills it dead in that moment. Oh, the agony of this reality! We can do it a thousand ways – avoiding people, changing the subject in a conversation, getting angry with someone, laughing at something difficult, even smiling. Do this long enough and your personality becomes an elaborate way to hide. We end up living out “…all the other selves we are constantly putting on like coats and hats against the world’s weather,” as Frederick Buechner says so poetically.
Here’s the wild thing about shame: it takes relationships to heal it! The very connection it seeks to destroy is the very connection that set us free. You can’t work on your shame in a closet. As Sue Johnson says, “We define ourselves in the context of our most intimate relationships.” And if that’s true, then you can only heal from your shame by working it out with those most intimate with you, those that love you.
At our church, we take communion every week. We all file forward in big long lines to receive the bread and wine directly from the hands of another. And in this way it is a very intimate experience. My heart beats fast every time I get near to the front of the line. Why? Because of the eyes of the person that’s about to hand me the bread and wine. They stare right at you. And what can they see inside me? What must I look like to them? And right about the time I am thinking all this, I am next in line. I step forward and I am looked straight in the eye. I am seen. I am absolutely seen. And I am told, “The body of Jesus broken for you…” And then again I am looked in the eye. Again I am seen. And I am told, “The blood of Jesus shed for you.” I am seen. And I am loved. It does not get much deeper than that. Like fog rolling back against the sunlight, my shame is chased away. I walk back to my seat warmed and with tears.
Want to deal with your shame? Look people in the eyes. Let them look at you. Let people love you.
Spiritual directors and the practice of spiritual direction has been in the news quite a bit in the past few months. While the mainstream media still isn't sure what to call a spiritual director (writers are using everything from "spirit guide," which makes us sound like we're experts in the paranormal, to "spiritual counselor," which leans a little closer to the therapeutic than most directors are comfortable with), the media is starting to pay attention in a new way to the practice of soul care and the impact that it can have on leading a healthy, full life.
Below are a few of the pieces and perspectives recently published. I'd love to hear your thoughts and feedback on these articles and videos.
Rome Reports
A short video in which Pope Benedict XVI recommends that people seek counsel and guidance from a spiritual guide or director.
Philadelphia Inquirer: "Certified Spirit Guides"
Quietly, compassionately, spirit directors take the soul by the hand, helping a seeker tap deeper dimensions.
By Anndee Hochman
The New York Times: "Right Way To Pray?"
In an article about religious life and prayer, New York Times writer Zev Chafets asks if there is a right way to pray.
I have a friend who has recently been sharing the love of God around the globe. She spent time in Calcutta, India, loving those who are so difficult to love. If you want to risk having your heart touched by a beautiful story and struggle of loving those who don't know how to be loved, click here. It will change you.
