Solitude is the furnace of transformation

Greetings All,

     Today's "thought" is about the need for times of solitude in our lives. In our busy society, where our schedules tend to dictate nearly every moment, it becomes difficult to carve out times for solitude. Yet (and I do know I speak as an introvert) they are necessary for our spiritual formation.
     I once worked in a wilderness program up in Northern Canada dealing with inner city Chicago teens. It was rugged. One of the exercises was to drop the teens off on a small deserted Island in the middle of a huge lake, for three days, with very minimal supplies. They would need to build their own shelter, find their own food, etc.  I would check in on the boys daily (morning and evening). After they had gone the entire three days, I returned by canoe to pick up each teen. Most did well, but one boy in particular simply could not bear the three days of silence, alone time, and the complete lack of the things he normally used to distract himself from himself and the thoughts that would run through his head. What the author calls, the "confusing ideas, disturbing images, wild fantasies, and weird associations that jump about in one's mind like monkeys in banana tree," when we enter into solitude.  Normally he was able to block them out with music, activities, conversations, and such, but not this time.

     This thought comes to you from a book I have looked back to often since purchasing it in seminary way back in 1982.  It's called, "The Way of the Heart" by Henri Nouwen.  In a society that places very little value on the traditions of Christian contemplation, Christ-focused meditation, or purposefully prolonged times of prayerful solitude, his words act as a good counter-balance.  He shares some of the benefits of such disciplines, so I won't.  Yet I must say that when I have set aside such times, I have benefited greatly from them.  One seven day long stint in the Dominican Republic (combined with fasting) helped guide me into my future calling, and another seven day stint (with the support of my very gracious wife Nancy who realized my need to get away and be with God) saved me from leaving the pastorate back in 1992.  Enjoy.

The Furnace of Transformation

     "Solitude is the furnace of transformation. Without solitude we remain victims of our society and continue to be entangled in the illusions of the false self. Jesus himself entered into this furnace in the wilderness. There he was tempted with the three compulsions of the world: to be relevant (“turn stones into loaves”), to be spectacular (“throw yourself down”), and to be powerful (” I will give you all these kingdoms”). There he affirmed God as the only source of his identity (“You must worship the Lord your God and serve him alone”). Solitude is the place of the great struggle and the great encounter – the struggle against the compulsions of the false self, and the encounter with the loving God who offers himself as the substance of the new self.

     This might sound rather forbidding. It might even evoke images of medieval ascetical pursuits from which Luther and Calvin have happily saved us. But once we have given these fantasies their due and let them wander off, we will see that we are dealing here with that holy place where ministry and spirituality embrace each other. It is the place called solitude... We say to each other that we need some solitude in our lives. What we really are thinking of, however, is a time and a place for ourselves in which we are not bothered by other people, can think our own thoughts, express our own complaints, and do our own thing, whatever it may be. For us, solitude most often means privacy… In short, we think of solitude as a place where we gather new strength to continue the ongoing competition in life… [Yet] solitude is not a private therapeutic place. Rather, it is the place of conversion, the place where the old self dies and the new self is born, the place where the emergence of the new man and the new woman occurs…

     In solitude I get rid of my scaffolding. I have no friends to talk with, no telephone calls to make, no meetings to attend, no music to entertain, no books to distract, just me – naked, vulnerable, weak, sinful, deprived, broken – nothing. It is this nothingness that I have to face in my solitude, a nothingness so dreadful that everything in me wants to run to my friends, my work, and my distractions, so that I can forget my nothingness and make myself believe that I am worth something. But that is not all. As soon as I decide to stay in my solitude, confusing ideas, disturbing images, wild fantasies, and weird associations jump about in my mind like monkeys in banana tree. Anger and greed begin to show their ugly faces. I give long and hostile speeches to my enemies and dream lustful dreams in which I am wealthy, influential, and very attractive – or poor, ugly, and in need of immediate consolation. Thus, I try again to run from the dark abyss of my nothingness and restore my false self in all its vainglory.

     [Yet] the task is to persevere in my solitude, to stay in my cell until all my seductive visitors get tired of pounding on my door and leave me alone… The struggle is real because the danger is real. It is the danger of living the whole of our life as one long defense against the reality of our condition, one restless effort to convince ourselves of our virtuousness. Yet Jesus “did not come to call the virtuous, but sinners” (Matthew 9:13). That is the struggle. It is the struggle to die to the false self. But this struggle is far, far beyond our own strength. Anyone who wants to fight his demons with his own weapons is a fool. The wisdom of the desert fathers is that the confrontation with our own frightening nothingness forces us to surrender ourselves totally and unconditionally to the Lord Jesus Christ. Alone, we cannot face “the mystery of iniquity” with impunity. Only Christ can overcome the powers of evil. Only in and through him can we survive the trials of our solitude… Only in the context of the great encounter with Jesus Christ himself can a real authentic struggle take place…

     We enter into solitude first of all to meet our Lord and to be with him and him alone. Our primary task in solitude, therefore, is not to pay undue attention to the many faces which assail us, but to keep the eyes of our mind and heart on him who is our divine Savior. Only in the context of grace can we face our sin; only in the place of healing do we dare to show our wounds; only with a single-minded attention to Christ can we give up our clinging fears and face our own true nature. As we come to realize that it is not we who live, but Christ who lives in us, that he is our true self, we can slowly let our compulsions melt away and begin to experience the freedom of the children of God."

     As with all things we read, merely being brought to think of the things spoken of is not enough. One benefits most by putting such suggestions into practice. As with the Word of God, it is the doers who receive the greatest benefit. I can believe with all my heart that exercise is good for the body, but if I don't get out and actually do it, it benefits me little.  Will you do a half day?  A day?  A few days? No phone, no Facebook, not Twitter, no texts, no movies, no magazines... just you and God alone in a forced time of solitude. There are few I've spoken with who have done it, who have not testified to the benefit of the time spent having to confront their compulsions, needs, insecurities, brokenness, and nothingness. For in confronting their own insignificance, they (like myself) have found it reinforces their dependence upon God and can bring us face to face with Jesus.

     With prayers that you will seriously consider this lost Christian discipline and schedule forced times of solitude,  Pastor Jeff

Setting Time Off

Greetings All,

This week's 'thought' comes to you from the late Henri Nouwen (1932-1997). It is found in "Devotional Classics," edited by Richard Foster and James Bryan Smith, and consists of small excerpts taken from Nouwen's book, "Making All Things New." It has to do with the need for the spiritual discipline of solitude in our prayer lives. I share it with you because as I read it this morning it spoke both a corrective and encouraging word to me. I pray it will do so for you as well. Enjoy.

"Our worried, over-filled lives... are usually surrounded by so much outer noise that it is hard to truly hear our God when he is speaking to us. We have often become deaf, unable to know when God calls us, and unable to understand in which direction he calls us. Thus our lives have become absurd. In the word absurd we find the Latin word 'surdus' which means 'deaf.' A spiritual life requires discipline because we need to learn to listen to God, who constantly speaks but whom we seldom hear. When, however, we learn to listen, our lives become obedient lives. The word obedient comes from the Latin word 'audire' which means 'listening.' The spiritual discipline of listening is necessary in order to move slowly from an absurd to an obedient life, from a life filled with noisy worries to a life in which there is some free inner space where we can listen to our God and follow his guidance...

A spiritual discipline, therefore, is the concentrated effort to create some inner and outer space in our lives where this obedience can be practiced... Without solitude it is virtually impossible to live a spiritual life. Solitude begins with a time and a place for God, and him alone. If we really believe not only that God exists, but also that he is actively present in our lives -- healing, teaching and guiding -- we need to set aside time, and set aside a space, to give him our undivided attention. Jesus says, 'Go to your private room and, when you have shut the door, pray to your Father who is in that secret place." (Matt. 6:6 Jerusalem Bible).

To bring some solitude into our lives is one of the most necessary but also most difficult disciplines. Even though we may have a deep desire for real solitude, we also experience a certain apprehension as we approach that solitary place and time. As soon as we are alone, without people to talk with, books to read, TV to watch, or phone calls to make [and we could add, texts to answer, Facebook posts to respond to, or computer games to distract us] an inner chaos opens up in us. This chaos can be so disturbing and so confusing that we can hardly wait to get busy again.

Entering a private room and shutting the door, therefore, does not mean that we immediately shut out all our inner doubts, anxieties, fears, bad memories, unresolved conflicts, angry feelings, and impulsive desires. On the contrary, when we have removed our outer distractions, we often find that our inner distractions manifest themselves to us in greater force. We often use those outer distractions of life to shield us from the interior noises. For this reason it is not surprising that we have a difficult time being alone. The confrontations with our inner conflicts can be too painful for us to bear.

Yet this makes the discipline of solitude all the more important. Entering into solitude doesn't come naturally to an occupied and preoccupied life... Therefore we must begin by carefully planning some solitude into our schedule. Five or ten minutes a day may be all we can tolerate... an hour, an afternoon, a day, a week every year... The amount of time will vary for each person according to temperament, age, job, lifestyle, and maturity. But we do not take the spiritual life seriously if we do not set aside some time to be with God and listen to him. We may have to write it in black and white in our daily calendar so that nobody else can take away this period of time. Then we will be able to say to our friends, neighbors, students, customers, clients, or patients, "I'm sorry, but I've already made an appointment at that time and it can't be changed."

Once we have committed ourselves to spending time in solitude, we develop an attentiveness to God's voice in us... The pains and struggles we encounter in solitude become a way to hope, because that hope is not based on something that will happen after our sufferings are over, but on the real presence of God's healing Spirit in the midst of these sufferings. The discipline of solitude allows us gradually to come in touch with the hopeful presence of God in our lives, and allows us to taste even now the beginnings of the joy and peace which belong to the new heaven and new earth."

Three things hit me when I read his thoughts:

1.) The hardest "work" I may have to do in my whole day is the work of forcing myself to do nothing but sit, stop dwelling on what needs to get done, and listen! For most of us it is an intense struggle to become still and attentive toward God, since as Americans we wrestle with feeling "lazy" and "unproductive" if we spend more than 10 or 15 minutes a day in prayer. Culture has taught the little voice of conscience in our heads to function like an alarm clock that says: "Get up off your knees and DO something for goodness sake!" "Hurry," as Samuel Chadwick once said, "is the death of prayer."

2.) Realizing this is true I must set boundries and limits to my labor, activities and interactions with people in order to protect my time alone with God. I may get a lot done through constant activity and busyness, and that feels good, but without significant times of quiet prayer my spirit will shrivel and atrophy over time. As one book title reminds us, we are "Too Busy Not To Pray."

3.) To my shame I realize I have rarely broken an appointment with any person in order to spend time with God, but I have frequently, at a moments notice, broken set appointments with God to spend time with people -- even when there was no urgency involved. I need to take Nouwen's advice to heart and "say to (my) friends, neighbors, students, customers, clients, or patients, "I'm sorry, but I've already made an appointment at that time and it can't be changed."

With you in the struggle, Pastor Jeff

Breathing

Greetings All,

Today's 'thoughts' have to do with prayer. They are by Henri J. M. Nouwen and come from his book, "Bring Prayer into Your Life--With Open Hands." To understand his first thought you must know that in the Old Testament the Hebrew term for the Spirit of God is "Ruah Elohim" - the wind or breath of God. Likewise, in the New Testament the word for Spirit "pneuma," which like the Hebrew "ruah" is also translated wind or breath (as in John 3:5-8 where "pneuma" is translated "spirit" in verses 5,6, and 7 and then rightly (because of the context) translated "wind" in verse 8). Enjoy!

"Perhaps the challange of the gospel lies precisely in the invitation to accept a gift for which we can give nothing in return. For the gift is the breath of God - the Spirit poured out on us through Jesus Christ. This life breath frees us from fear and gives us new room to live.

Those who live prayerfully are contantly ready to receive the breath of God, and let their lives be renewed and expanded. Those who never pray, on the contrary, are like children with asthma. Because they are short of breath, the whole world shrivels up before them. They creep into a corner gasping for air, and are virtually in agony. But those who pray open themselves to God and can breathe freely again. They stand upright, stretch out their hands, and come out of their corner, free to move about without fear."

"In the thinking of our modern, active, energetic world, praying and living have come to be so widely separated that bringing them together seems almost impossible. But here lies the central problem: How can our prayer be truly necessary for the welfare of our fellow human beings? What do we mean when we say that we should 'pray always,' and that prayer is the 'one thing necessary'?

The question becomes important only when it is posed in its most radical form. The question of when or how to pray is not really the most important one. The crucial question is whether we should pray always and whether our prayer is necessary. Here, the stakes are all or nothing. For if we say it's good to turn to God in prayer for a spare minute, or if we grant that a person with a problem does well to take refuge in prayer, we have as much admitted that praying is on the margin of life and doesn't really matter... Prayer has meaning only if it is necessary and indispensable. Prayer is prayer only when we can say that without it, we cannot live."

Nouwen touches on something I've witnessed over and over: Prayer being used as little more than an occasional emergency distress call. People using prayer like the captain of a ship that's going down in a storm, who races to send out the S.O.S. signal, but does it only then and never when things are well. And, of course, there's nothing inately wrong with turning to God when we're desperate. We all tend to do so.

Yet if that's the only time we think prayer is necessary; if we don't see it as our lifeline to God at all times and for all things (even when things seem to be going very well!), then we have misunderstood prayer's purpose, will not make it a priority, and will not in any true sense be praying people. We will, as Nouwen says, keep it "on the margin of life" and be affirming what our true inner belief in regard to prayer really is -- that prayer "doesn't really matter."

Here the imagery of the Spirit as the "wind" or the "air we breathe" is helpful in relation to prayer. If we were to observe the prayer life of many we could be led to believe that the only time one needs to "breathe" is when they're in trouble. The only time they need to suck in air is when they're drowning. Yet its so untrue. We need to breathe all the time - whether we're in trouble or not!

We stand in desperate need of the "air" or "wind" (the "ruah" or the "pneuma" of Christ or God) whether we are sinking, drowning, walking on solid ground or sleeping peacefully.

In fact, if we prayed "always," or "without ceasing," as the apostle admonishes us, we would find ourselves sinking a lot less, and using prayer as a mere, occasional, hurried S.O.S or distress call far less. As Richard Baxter once said, "Prayer is the breath of the new creature." It's what the Spirit born and renewed soul feeds on and thrives on!


With prayers that God might pour out a spirit of prayer upon all His people, Pastor Jeff

Created, Redeemed and Loved

Greetings All,

This week's thought comes to you from Henri Nouwen, a prolific Dutch writer and at various times a professor of Christian spirituality at Notre Dame, Yale and Harvard. His last few years were spent at one the L'Arche communities, caring for mentally handicapped people. This profound insight comes from his time working in that community and has to do with how we in our culture measure our value as people. It is found in his book "In The Name of Jesus." Enjoy.

"The first thing that struck me when I came to live in a house with mentally handicapped people was that their liking or disliking me had absolutely nothing to do with any of the many useful things I had done until then. Since nobody could read my books, the books could not impress anyone, and since most of them never went to school, my twenty years at Notre Dame, Yale, and Harvard did not provide a significant introduction...

Not being able to use any of the skills that had proved so practical in the past was a real source of anxiety. I was suddenly faced with my naked self, open for affirmations and rejections, hugs and punches, smiles and tears, all dependent simply on how I was perceived at the moment. In a way, it seemed as though I was starting my life all over again. Relationships, connections, and reputations could no longer be counted on.

This experience was and, in many ways, still is the most important experience of my new life, because it forced me to rediscover my true identity. These broken, wounded, and completely unpretentious people forced me to let go of my relevant self -- the self that can do things, show things, prove things, build things -- and forced me to reclaim that unadorned self in which I am completely vulnerable, and open to receive and give love regardless of any accomplishments.

I am telling you this because I am deeply convinced that the Christian leader of the future is called to be completely irrelevant and to stand in this world with nothing to offer but his or her vulnerable self. That is the way Jesus came to reveal God's love. The great message that we have to carry, as ministers of God's Word and followers of Jesus, is that God loves us not because of what we do or accomplish, but because God has created and redeemed us in love and has chosen us to proclaim that love as the true source of all human life...

Beneath all the great accomplishments of our time there is a deep current of despair. While efficiency and control are the great aspirations of our society, the loneliness, isolation, lack of friendship and intimacy, broken relationships, boredom, feelings of emptiness and depression, and the a deep sense of uselessness fill the hearts of millions of people in our success-oriented world... Feeling irrelevant is a much more general experience than we might think when we look at our seemingly self-confident society... More and more people are suffering from profound moral and spiritual handicaps without any idea of where to look for healing.

It is here that the need for new Christian leadership becomes clear. The leaders of the future will be those who dare to claim their irrelevance in the contemporary world as a divine vocation that allows them to enter into a deep solidarity with the anguish underlying all the glitter of success, and to bring the light of Jesus there."

Nouwen's book is well worth a read. I would like to quote more, but the longer the quote the less likely people are to read it! All the places where you see the.... is an indication I skipped over a section to keep it as short as possible. A complete reading of In the Name of Jesus is recommended.

Yet, what is written here is enough to help us to ask: "What do I base my value on? What do I consider to make me a person of worth? Is it my accomplishments and achievements? My competencies and talents?"

Or is it as Nouwen discovered by being in a place where none of that mattered: "That God loves us not because of what we do or accomplish, but because God has created and redeemed us in love." And have we, like him, realized that we are not simply to affirm that truth, but realize that as Christ followers God has "chosen us to proclaim that love as the true source of all human life."

In the Bonds of the Gospel, Pastor Jeff