The dance of the ego - 27 April 2012

Jesus talked about leaving self behind. In the modern world, that is incomprehensible. Leaving self behind is unlikely, to say the least. In contemplative understanding of spiritual truth, self means generally what psychology calls the ego. This is what springs to life as soon as we are still and silent, because stillness and silence is an environment the ego doesn’t like very much. However, it is a mistake to start thinking of the ego as any kind of enemy. Our ego is part of us, and is very much concerned with survival. So it tends to be nervous of change, anything that might upset our fragile balances of control and happiness. From our earliest days the ego has been perfecting our responses to our environment to secure our continued existence, protection, even life-style and possessions. Control and management are a large part of this. When stillness and silence threaten to set aside management and planning, the ego responds with an avalanche of thoughts. We can be literally driven to distraction. And so we have the mantra. It is what we return to, away from the distractions. But the ego doesn’t give up. “Isn’t this boring, a waste of time? Shouldn’t we be doing something right now, like saving the world or joining a committee, or stopping our grandchildren diving into drugs...?” Well yes, no doubt, we should be doing those things, along with going to church and getting dinner ready. But first we will be still, and silent, and receptive, and consenting to God, who made us, knows us much deeper than our egos, loves us unconditionally nevertheless. And as we are still, gently and interiorly choosing our mantra rather than the flow of distractions, the Holy Spirit, like a sculptor, is chipping away at the stone to reveal the true self, the person God always saw and knows and loves -- day after day, year by year. In a way it is quite fun to say no to the ego -- even more fun than keeping the driver behind me to 50 km/h in the long 50 km/h stretch through Snells Beach and Algies Bay. As a Hebrew prophet saw it long ago: In returning and rest will you be saved, In quietness and confidence will be your strength. [Isaiah 30:15]

Living Easter - 13 April 2012

I had a fascinating Easter Day last Sunday. All on my own, all day... Around our neighbourhood the blokes were out in the sunshine, happy in their black singlets and baseball caps, starting up their tractors and hauling their boats around. The Vicar of Warkworth informed us that being an Easter Christian does not mean just wearing a cross -- Madonna does that much, she said. Well me too -- I had thought that morning, in honour of Easter Day and my rare epiphany at church I should wear my Benedictine Oblate cross. So that’s two of us, Madonna and me. But then I went home, turned on the web, and found that the Roman Catholic Cardinal Archbishop of Edinburgh said that all Christians should now wear a cross to make the point that there are some things we believe and stand for. Best of all for me, as always, were the words I heard in the liturgy: Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us, therefore let us keep the feast, not with the old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth... (KJV) There is an excitement at Easter, if and when we turn our attention to it. It is a permission to say that death can be very terrible, but it can never be the worst thing or have the last word. It is a permission to live life without labels and discrimination -- free from those things -- neither Jew nor Greek, neither bond nor free, neither male nor female... all are one. It is a permission to say no to evil in our culture, to evil compromise -- and to become who we are in Christ. It is permission to spot, to identify, whatever is true, loving, kind and hopeful. The angel said to the women he was not there, where they were looking for him, because he was risen. We know him no longer after the manner of the flesh – and that includes the manner of the imagination. He is not what we think. He is here in all that happens, prior to us, waiting for us, life and hope and love. To meet him we require to be still, receptive, needy and consenting to change.

God to Lulu, 20 April 2012

Lulu, aged 6, came home from school and wrote a letter to God:

To God how did you get invented? From Lulu xo

Lulu’s parents considered themselves atheists. But, respecting their daughter’s serious enquiry, they eventually decided to send it to Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury. He ought to know. This is the letter that came:

Dear Lulu, Your dad has sent on your letter and asked if I have any answers. It's a difficult one! But I think God might reply a bit like this –

'Dear Lulu – Nobody invented me – but lots of people discovered me and were quite surprised. They discovered me when they looked round at the world and thought it was really beautiful or really mysterious and wondered where it came from. They discovered me when they were very very quiet on their own and felt a sort of peace and love they hadn't expected. Then they invented ideas about me – some of them sensible and some of them not very sensible. From time to time I sent them some hints – specially in the life of Jesus – to help them get closer to what I'm really like. But there was nothing and nobody around before me to invent me. Rather like somebody who writes a story in a book, I started making up the story of the world and eventually invented human beings like you who could ask me awkward questions!'
And then he'd send you lots of love and sign off. I know he doesn't usually write letters, so I have to do the best I can on his behalf. Lots of love from me too. +Archbishop Rowan

“They discovered me when they were very very quiet on their own…” In this loud, clamorous culture of instant communication, TV, cellphones, texting, emails, iPads, iPods and things I haven’t heard of yet, and all the peer pressures to live that way and have those things, Lulu could do with a meditative discipline to be very very quiet on her own.

Christian Meditation people are these days introducing meditation to young children, who turn out to be sometimes better at it than their teachers. In a culture in which so many people get so very restless and nervous about silence and stillness, terrified of boredom and being left not knowing what to do, it is scarcely amazing that they lose any concept of God also. So we make friends again with silence and stillness, and learn to welcome mystery and wonder, and be quite surprised.

Numbered with the transgressors - 6 April 2012

...the old King James Version words of Isaiah 53:

He poured out his soul unto death;
and he was numbered with the transgressors;
and he bore the sin of many...

It is very ancient and very beautiful and very moving poetry. It comes from centuries before the time of Jesus. It starkly depicts what happens to people. Never mind whether they are good people or bad. The fact is, as the poet realised, it is a cruel and unjust world.

We go on and on these days about deserving. Deserving has nothing to do with it. Good people suffer. In the towns of Syria... Or Nature takes over and devastates our lives. We get leukaemia, or alzheimers. Babies get born with some lethal disorder. Or in another way, after a lifetime of devoted public service you may stand in the dock accused of some neglect as a company director, and suffer utter and prolonged humiliation. People are accused unjustly, or justly. What is the difference...? as Robert Burns said,

Who made the heart, ‘tis he alone decidedly can try us...
Then at the balance let’s be mute, we never can adjust it.
What’s done, we partly may compute,
But know not what’s resisted.

The Jews under Jewish law were in no doubt that Jesus was guilty as charged -- guilty they thought of blasphemy. The Romans under their law were not so sure -- he may have been guilty of sedition -- but Roman rule was in any case corrupt, and they needed peace in Palestine.

And so, in a morass of conflicting motives and ideals, of corrupt people, frightened people, ignorant people, Jesus chooses to stand there silent. Where would you start, anyway? His contemplative love of the Father, his complete confidence of the Father’s love for him, at this moment is the sustenance he needs. He is content to be numbered with the transgressors. Beaten, tortured, humiliated, condemned. We too have to fall into silence, if even for just this short time...

He hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows...
He poured out his soul unto death;
and he was numbered with the transgressors;
and he bore the sin of many...