Another key word on our spiritual journey: vulnerability. To be vulnerable means to let our guard down and to open up the walls we have made between ourselves and God and ourselves and others. It takes great courage to be vulnerable with God because we have to begin to lean into grace and lower our pride. So often the patterns we have in our lives are about performance and earning our way in the world. We bring these patterns into our spiritual life. However they are not life giving patterns. With God there is no shame, condemnation or guilt. God is pure radical love that can accept all, forgive all and integrate all.
It is only when we are vulnerable with God, when we are really being ourselves that we can experience this love. If we try to prove to God that we are good, or feel guilty about asking too much or not praying enough then we miss the grace. Simply sit before God in silence, bring to mind all that you are ashamed of and listen to forgiveness, love, acceptance, mercy, tenderness, compassion and joy over you. This is all there really is in God and this is foundation of all interior work. We can never really move forward without a clear, accurate understanding of God as love in each and every moment of our existence. Receive your title as beloved, for this is your true self.
It is a challenge because we must let our ego go and be vulnerable to loss of those things that are hindrances in the way. Pride also wants to earn God's love and to be vulnerable is to risk losing our pride and coming to God with nothing, only receiving blessing. This is not the way of the world but it is the way of the kingdom.
What would it take for you to simply sit and listen to God?
What are the barriers for your vulnerability?
Who can help you grow in the grace of understanding God's love for you?
Are you willing to be transformed and come to God in humility?
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Community
Very few are called to the eremitcal life; that is the life of a hermit. Most of us all called to live in community and to grow in grace together. Sadly many Christians live alone while in the company of others. The standard pattern looks something like this: attend worship on Sunday, receiving the blessing of worship but rarely making any more than surface conversation with anyone else. Attend a class which gives information with little relation. Read or pray alone regularly and then go to work and tend to fmaily issues without really getting a sense of deeper community. We can find ourselves living a solitary spiritual life which for most is not their calling. Living this kind of spiritual life oftens means people get "stuck", the don't grow and get content to sit in the patterns they have been in for years.
Authentic spiritual community is one of the tools God uses to shape our hearts and minds. These places of grace are a gift from the Lord and a necessity for growth. Monks were only allowed to be hermits after years in community and then it was with the blessing of their abbot. I would encourage all people to seek a place where they can be in authentic spiritual community and recieve the blessings God has ordained for those moments.
Authentic spiritual community is one of the tools God uses to shape our hearts and minds. These places of grace are a gift from the Lord and a necessity for growth. Monks were only allowed to be hermits after years in community and then it was with the blessing of their abbot. I would encourage all people to seek a place where they can be in authentic spiritual community and recieve the blessings God has ordained for those moments.
Friday, May 8, 2009
More thoughts on availability
Availability does not mean inserting ourselves into places we are not called. It means to open our lives to the unique calling God has for us. The key is not trying to be someone other than God called and created us to be.
Availability therefore is a process of removing the barriers that would keep us from growing into who we are meant to be. Many of those barriers are connected to our ego and the false self. Pride and fear are perhaps the two greatest barriers.
A person ruled by pride is not receptive or open to change, they do not have a "beginners mind" and therefore they learn little. Life has a way of stripping our pride and at these times we become more aware of the Divine in our lives. Pride is the opposite of humility and is not a Christlike attitude (see Phil 2).
Fear keeps us from trusting that the gentle rule and reign of God is present in our lives. If we are ruled by fear then it is hard to trust that God is the shepherd of our souls. We fear the unknown because we do not trust Christ has already gone ahead of us. Christ's perfect love casts this fear out and opens us to losing our lives for his sake. We can trust the one who gave his life on the cross and whom God raised from the dead.
Availability therefore is a process of removing the barriers that would keep us from growing into who we are meant to be. Many of those barriers are connected to our ego and the false self. Pride and fear are perhaps the two greatest barriers.
A person ruled by pride is not receptive or open to change, they do not have a "beginners mind" and therefore they learn little. Life has a way of stripping our pride and at these times we become more aware of the Divine in our lives. Pride is the opposite of humility and is not a Christlike attitude (see Phil 2).
Fear keeps us from trusting that the gentle rule and reign of God is present in our lives. If we are ruled by fear then it is hard to trust that God is the shepherd of our souls. We fear the unknown because we do not trust Christ has already gone ahead of us. Christ's perfect love casts this fear out and opens us to losing our lives for his sake. We can trust the one who gave his life on the cross and whom God raised from the dead.
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