The Dazzling Darkness

At the Center for Spiritual Development we have spent the last few days in discernment and Ignatian prayer. As a result of silence, and pondering the movements of discernment, I have moved from a murky focus to a sense of deep assurance.
The work of discernment begins in prayer and emptying. The spiral of movement into God passes through humility and obedience before it swirls into clarity. We do not rest here, as our spiral is not static but moving. Sometimes, as in the passage from Philippians, clarity is very dark indeed:

Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death— even death on a cross.
Phil 2:5-8
In this passage, we are encouraged to let Christ be our guide on the via negativa-which is the way of emptying. Christ, through self-emptying, moves into the vision that God is holding for the world. It wasn’t enough to become human; obedience insisted on the assumption of all that humanity had made of itself, including sin and death.
We are invited to join Christ in self-emptying. We are invited to let go of everything that keeps us from clarity of God’s vision for us.
Spiritual clarity is not the same as arriving at a solution to a question. It is more like a diamond’s clarity, which is determined by clearness and lack of impurities. The most valuable stones catch the light around them and reflect it out in shimmering brightness.
The soul’s clarity glimpses the Presence without name and without words--at once unknown and yet known intimately.
Read what Dionysius (around 500 AD) wrote about this mystical encounter with God:

(The)"unchangeable mysteries of heavenly Truth lie hidden in the dazzling darkness of the secret Silence, outshining all brilliance with the intensity of their darkness."

What I am circling around here is the unchangeable nature of the living God. Spiraling or coming to the edge of mystery is the way of dazzling darkness. This is the deep paradox of the spiritual life. I seek light and I find darkness. I seek life and I am invited to give up my life. I seek Christ and I find a man hanging from a tree.
And yet, these conundrums are the very means of my salvation. The good news is that I do not have to understand them with my intellect I only need enter them with my heart wide open.
Blessings,
Debra


"Teach me to go to the country beyond words and beyond names.”
T. Merton

Rivers in the Desert

Do not remember the former things, or consider the things of old. I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.

Isaiah 43:18-19

This is a curious passage, which comes after a recitation of the works of Yahweh in the former times. The reminder of what Yahweh has done for Israel in the past is more about who Yahweh is rather than what Yahweh has done. Yahweh is redeemer.

Isaiah encourages the people to focus on God rather than circumstances, to look to redemption rather than a repeat performance of the exodus.

God is about to do a brand new thing—something, which goes beyond the expectations or even hopes of the people. The prophet tells the people to put aside what they have known so that they can experience the remarkable work of God. God is going to bring them home.

We have a tendency to be just like the people in exile, don’t we? Our hopes are so often explicit that we don’t even perceive the grace that God is pouring into our lives. We can’t let go of our attachments long enough to let our imaginations be inspired by the wonder of God.

Throughout the Old Testament, Israel moves from captivity to freedom and then back again.

This is our journey as well. We become captive to our fears and even to our hopes. We settle for a lesser vision rather than opening to God’s vision.

And yet, we too, have moments of freedom.

We are surprised by an unexpected kindness. We are moved to do something for another that we never thought possible.

Once again, we are reminded that the goal of the spiritual life is freedom, especially freedom from the false self that keeps us captive. Freedom invites us into a broad life rather than a narrow existence. Freedom in God invites us to spread our wings and ride on the winds of the Spirit.

The prophet said:

God guides the redeemed through a narrow way

into the broad road,

so that they come into the wide and broad place;

that is to say, into true freedom of the spirit,

when one has become a spirit with God.

Meister Eckhart

Blessings,

Debra

Last Words

Father, Forgive Them For They Know Not What They Do.

This Lent, at St. James Parish, we are reflecting upon the last words of Christ from the Cross.
I did a meditation on the words of forgiveness, traditionally the first words in the list of seven last words.

These first words, Father forgive them; describe the deep mystical work of the Cross. Here Christ shows us with his own body what it means to reconcile the world to God.
The reconciliation of the Cross is a cosmic work. The cosmic Christ is focusing here on the whole world.
Christ on the Cross becomes the truth of God’s great desire and love for humankind.
This love stretches out from the Cross through the human arms of Jesus to embrace all of us- saints and sinners, faithful and those who do not have a faith, and all in between.

Christ begins the work of reconciliation with forgiveness. And in these last words we see that Jesus is addressing the very heart of forgiveness. Forgiving that which seems unforgivable. Jesus’ forgiveness starts with the particular and moves out to the universal. Jesus forgives the ones who are killing him, he forgives the ones who have deserted him, he forgives all those through the ages who have maligned and degraded him and his followers and he forgives us. But this divine forgiveness is not confined by a particular moment. Forgiveness begins at the Cross and moves through time and space and into the present moment-right now.
How shall we live now that we have experienced the forgiveness of Christ?
What is God inviting in you? Are you being encouraged to forgive someone that it has been hard to forgive? Is that someone even yourself?
Forgiveness allows us to let go of all that doesn’t belong to us, and make room for all that does. We, too, have been lost from time to time and it was forgiveness that helped us to be found.
I pray that you will let yourself be found this Lent by the One who is seeking you.
Blessings,
Debra