Francis of Assisi
Francis of Assisi was known for faithfully praying a daily prayer that is believed to have consisted of: Most high and glorious God, Enlighten the darkness of my heart And give me true faith, certain hope, and perfect charity, sense, and knowledge, Lord— That I may carry out your holy and true command. Amen This simple prayer is known as Francis’ ‘Prayer before a crucifix’. Adapting this prayer to my own situation in life, it reads: Most holy and mighty God Bring light to the darkness of my heart And lead me in gentleness and grace, simplicity and faith, a life of balance between relationship and productivity. Help me to extend peace and forgiveness to all I meet, leaving judgement in your hands, and teach me humility and meekness, brokenness instead of overconfidence in myself That I might love you with all my heart, and love those around me as I love myself. Amen
The tension between brokenness and “can-do”
I struggle with the tension I feel between two competing paradigms: At times I feel I bounce like a ping-pong ball between these two competing mindsets. How do I live and reconcile the perpetual and holy brokenness of an apprentice of Jesus with my vocation? Is it possible to live all of my life ‘before the Lord’, from a well of brokenness? The cycle of (1) contemplation/prayer and (2) action may be the vehicle for this. Teach me to live my life, Lord, as you would live it if you were me.
On Solitude and Isaac Newton
[an article written for Southland Vineyard Church's newsletter, June 2008] “For God alone my soul waits in silence, for my hope is from him.” -Ps 62:5 It was the summer of 1665. The plague was ravishing Europe, and in one year would kill 1 of every 6 Londoners. Cambridge University began to send students and faculty to their homes in the country in hopes they would escape sickness. One of these students, in the midst of a rather unremarkable third year, was sent to his home in the country. Here he built himself some bookshelves, filled them with textbooks, and bought a notebook with 1000 blank pages. He would eventually spend a total of 20 months in country exile, and he started to fill his notebook with reading notes and questions. He created math and science problems, calculated answers in his notebook, and then asked more questions. During this period, young Isaac Newton remained almost completely alone, received no formal teaching, and did not publish any of his notes. In 20 months this academically unexceptional 24 year old university student created modern mathematics, mechanics, and optics. Historians consider that there is nothing remotely equivalent to this period of discovery and self-instruction by a single person in the history of scientific thought. Even for those of us who may not revolutionize the world with new scientific theories, there is something profound about times of solitude. Something happens inside us when we are alone and abstain from interaction with other people. When we create space in our lives, we begin to see more clearly the things that compete with God for our loyalty. We start to see what controls us, and by which influences we unconsciously order our lives and actions. Solitude is more than an attempt to ‘get away from it all’ and find a peaceful and a happy place. It is also more than mere effort to assist in personal change. Like other disciplines of the spiritual life, it is based on the humble recognition that we are unable to change ourselves—we cannot become more like Christ within the limits of our own abilities. So we do what are able to do: take intentional action to place ourselves before the Lord so that we can receive from God the ability or power to do what we can’t by ourselves. Loving our enemies is a great example of this. We will never, ever be able to love our enemies on our strength, no matter how hard we try. The strength, or power to love our enemies—to genuinely and unconditionally love those who hate or spitefully use us—is simply out of our reach. Do we just give up and see this aspect of Christ’s character as a far-off and lofty ideal, never to be achieved on earth? Far from it: we determine, as an act of our will, to do what we can in order to receive by God’s grace what we can’t do on our own. We might practice solitude, allowing the Lord to open our eyes to the many things that control us, so that He can begin His process of setting us free. We may practice deliberate acts of service in order to learn humility. In Mark 6, after they have returned from their first teaching and healing mission, Jesus asks his disciples to ‘Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while (6:31).’ Later, after they feed the five thousand, Jesus sends the disciples away, and goes off by himself on the mountain to pray alone (6:47). Throughout Scripture, and particularly in the life of Jesus, we are encouraged by the lives and habits of other saints to seek out times of solitude. What habits have you established in your life to place yourself before the Lord and allow His grace room to work? For further action: Schedule a day in the next two weeks that you will spend completely alone. You may want to plan a day in the country, or head to a favorite place where know you can be by yourself. Begin the day by asking the Lord to guide and lead you. Spend the day praying, reading, and studying.
Doctrinal idolatry
In Philo’s commentary on Genesis, he expounds on the duality of man–that man is both formed from the earth, but has an eternal soul which “…belongs to the upper air, a shard detached from the Deity: ‘For God breathed into [Adam's] face a breath of life and man became a living soul.’ [Genesis 2:7].” Like most Jews living in Alexandria at the beginning of the 1st century A.D., Philo was Greek-speaking—there is no evidence that Philo knew any Hebrew. Hence Philo uses the translation of Genesis from the Septuagint (the Hebrew scriptures translated into Greek in the third century BC) and expounds on it prodigiously. His use of the phrase ‘living soul’ is a literal translation of the Greek in the Septuagint, psyche zoe. The words used in the original Hebrew, however, are nephesh hayyah, which mean only ‘living [moving, breathing] being’. The early Hebrews (who put Genesis to paper some ten centuries before Philo) had no concept of man having a soul. Philo, steeped in Greek logic and philosophy, affirmed the concept of the duality of man (man being both material flesh and eternal soul in one package), which was a philosophy taught by Plato and his students—and generally accepted amongst the Alexandrian intelligentsia of the day. This both affirms my faith and brings conviction simultaneously. My faith is affirmed because it is evidence that God has progressively revealed his creation and the nature of his Kingdom over time. Concepts such as man being both spirit, eternal soul, and flesh that Christians now nearly universally affirm would have been completely alien to Abraham, who had a worldview (similar to many other ancient worldviews) that death was the end—when you died, you died, and there was no more. I am simultaneously convicted because of my tendency, and the tendency of fellow Christians I observe around me to seize on a particular aspect of theology as ‘gospel’, when in reality there is only one gospel–the good news that Jesus Christ brings us life in the present, and in the future. It is easy to believe that a particular doctrine one holds to be true should be self-evident to everyone (because you have always believed it), and it is a small step from there to doctrinal arrogance and intolerance of others’ beliefs, no matter how inconsequentially they differ from your own. The interfaith warfare amongst Protestants, for example, regarding the present-day use of the gifts of the Holy Spirit, or how to translate the book of Revelations, grieves me. The reality of the progressive nature of revelation by God (as evidenced above by the lack of a concept of a soul by the ancient Hebrews) brings me quiet humility and a determination to carefully explore why and what I believe, and to be able to articulate it with grace.
