Praying with Origen (Psalm 1)

   Origen recommends prayer in six stages. He doesn't name the first step, but we can sum it up with the monastic term, recollection. Entering a "holy place set aside and chosen in our own house, if possible," we take a few moments to "cast away all temptation and troubling thoughts and remind ourselves so far as we are able of the Majesty whom we approach." We "put away all malice" by turning toward the God of justice, releasing all our "debtors" as we lift our hearts to the God of mercy.
   The second stage is praise. Standing and facing east, "a symbolic expression of the soul's looking for the rising of the true Light," we lift our hands and eyes, representing in the body "characteristics befitting the soul." Origen suggests Psalm 104, "Bless the Lord, O my soul, O Lord my God, you are very great." "See how frequently the topic of praise is found scattered in Scripture," he says.
   Third comes thanksgiving; we thank God for blessings general and specific. And as an example Origen gives David's prayer in 2 Samuel chapter 7, "Who am I, O Lord God, and what is my house, that you have brought me thus far...", which is interesting, because in the prayer David doesn't use "thank you" or "I give thanks" or any such phrase. Perhaps Origen thought it was a good example of combining individual thanks, "Who am I," with collective thanks, "and what is my house," and even more collective, "you established your people Israel."
   After thanksgiving Origen recommends confession. We start by kneeling, "...kneeling is necessary when we are going to speak against our own sins before God, since we are making supplication for their healing and their forgiveness." Like the publican, we kneel not just in body but in spirit, with contrition, confessing our sins and asking God's mercy. "Deliver me from all my transgressions" (Psalm 39).
   Next is petition, and Origen wants us to request the "great and heavenly things," like the fruits of the Spirit, for ourselves and those we know. Origen often quotes a non-canonical saying of Jesus, "Ask great things, and little things shall be added to you: ask heavenly things, and earthly things shall be added to you," much like, "Seek first the kingdom of God, and all these things shall be added unto you."
   Personally, I pray a lot for what Origen would classify as "earthly" or "base" material things, but Origen thoroughly applies to all areas of life the distinction between flesh and spirit. Take two of Jesus's relevant sayings: "Do not fear those who can kill the body but not the soul;" "Life is more than food, and the body more than clothes." Origen might collate these two verses into a kind of syllogism, "see how the soul is so much more valuable than the body, and the body so much more valuable than clothes...how much more valuable, then, is the soul than clothes! therefore do not pray for bodily clothes to wear or earthly food to eat, pray rather for the "essential bread" day by day (how he understands Lord's prayer), which is the bread of heaven (John), and pray for the clothes of "our heavenly dwelling" (2 Cor), for the perishable must put on the imperishable (1 Cor)."
   The final stage is, once again, praise, "a doxology of God through Christ in the Holy Spirit." I'm assuming we stand back up at this point. "Having begun with praise it is right to conclude the prayer by ending with praise." Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

    I'd like to try out some Origen style prayers (somehow I'm reluctant to say Origenian), experimenting with familiar scripture. Hopefully not "heaping up empty phrases!"

Recollection

    ...on his law they meditate day and night...

    ...day and night...


Praise

    Bless the Lord!

    Praise the Lord, the truly Blessed One,
        Wonderful Counselor,
        the True Way,
        enthroned in Glory.

    Bless the Lord, Giver of the Law,
         Stream of Living Water,
         Ever-prospering Shoot of Jesse,
         Producing fruit for Nourishment and leaves for Healing.

    Praise the Lord, Whirlwind of Judgment,
         Bane of sinners,
         Guardian of the righteous,
         Doom of wickedness.

Thanksgiving

   Thank You Lord!

   Thank you for blessing us
         with your counsel, the solid rock of teaching,
         leading us down the narrow way,
         seating us humbly beside you on the mountain side.

   Thank you for delighting us
         by giving and fulfilling your Law,
         offering us the water that quenches all thirst,
         growing among us the mustard tree of the kingdom.
 
   Thank you for threshing us
         with the scorching wind of conviction,
         with the sword of division and scepter of judgment,
         with protection for the sheep and destruction for the goats. (poor goats!)

Confession

   Have Mercy on us, Lord!


   Forgive us, Lord, for resisting your blessing
         taking bad advice and returning it in kind,
         walking the wide and easy path to destruction,
         sitting in scorn and judgment over our neighbors. 

   Forgive us, Lord, for despising your Law
        idolizing mammon day and night,
        preferring the bitter waters of resentment,
        the rotten fruit of opulence, or withered leaves of avarice.

   Forgive us, Lord, for pursuing wickedness,
        hopelessly blown and tossed about in the wind,
        humiliated and locked out of the congregation,
        no one to look after us, headed for hell.
      
Petition

   Help us, Lord!

 Help us, Lord, to seek and receive your blessing
        as doers of the word, and not hearers only,
        guide our feet in the path of peace;
        may we sit before you and choose the better part.

Help us, Lord, to delight in your Word,
       keep it near to us, on our lips and in our heart;
      Water and fertilize us like the fig tree, spread the manure!
      That we might bear fruit worthy of repentance.

Help us, Lord, to turn from evil and do good.
    Take us up in the Holy Wind of the Spirit,
    that we may stand forgiven in Judgment, together with the saints.
    Watch our steps and keep us from every wicked way.

Doxology

    Praise God our Parent, who sets before us two ways, life and death, that we may choose life, punishing our sin for a season, and blessing our goodness into eternity.
    Praise Christ our Savior, who crossed our wicked paths with love, who hung without hatred among the scornful rulers, who bloomed in Grace after the winter of death.
    Praise Holy Spirit, voice we hear behind us, saying, "this is the way, walk in it;" fountain of water welling up to eternal life; wind that drives away sin and dances through the trees of righteousness.

What is Allegory?

   So wait, what is allegory again? I'm just as baffled as I was when I started looking for answers. Or I'm baffled in a more informed way, I guess.
   Let me back up. For our Ruah class we had to pick a saint or church father or mother to study. I picked Origen, because I'd heard he was kinda crazy and read the Bible in eccentric ways. After reading Balthasar's thematic anthology and a handful of articles about Origen, I'd describe him and his exegesis as "very intense," rather than eccentric. He is certainly eccentric vis a vis me and my experience, but it seems like for his time and place he was right in the thick of things. His allegorical method (allegoresis) can claim a Biblical basis - he relies heavily on Paul's distinction between flesh and spirit, letter and spirit, so forth; he's also traditional - scholars speak of an Alexandrian school - Philo, Clement, and other people I haven't read; and he's a very devoted Christian - Christ and his church are front and center.
   What is the big bad deal with allegoresis? Don't we all use it a little bit?
   I like to think of allegory as a double decker bus - a story or scenario with a literal meaning on the first deck and a similarly structured symbolic meaning on the second deck. To me, allegory comes alive the more the relationships at the symbolic level (second deck) correspond to the relationships on the literal level (first deck). Often what happens is, we - the readers - unconsciously discover a couple characters or events with symbolic vibrations; we "find" the stairs to the second deck, so to speak. Then we start to look for more symbolic resonances, and more, and try to understand the second deck plan based on the first deck plan. 
   However, we don't want the literal level and the symbolic level to be too squarely stacked, or too easily discerned; that ruins the fun of finding the hidden meaning and structure. The experience is as important as the result. Maybe that's why meticulously designed allegories often feel lifeless or taste stale. 
   Then there's the messiness of determining what the literal is. How literal is literal? I often think of the literal as the plain, ordinary meaning, but plain, ordinary speech uses lots of "figures of speech." For Origen, the literal level seems to be the most concrete meaning possible.
   So, where does this typology thing fit? Typology is when we understand events or things on the first deck refer to other events or things (as opposed to ideas or values) on the second deck - Old Testament to New Testament, the past age to this age, or this age to the future age, etc.. I think that's a decent definition. Or, to use Bienert's distinction between allegory and typology, allegory is vertical - first deck to second deck, while typology is horizontal - like an articulated bus, two similar structures joined horizontally by a stretchy thingy. I think I'm gonna stick with that: allegory is a double decker bus, typology is an articulated bus. However, for Origen, allegory is any non-literal interpretation, so typology wouldn't be a separate exercise.
   I think for my paper I'm going to take this angle: how does Origen read the Bible, and how do I feel about it...participate in it...reject it...converse with it...etc

Origen - Spirit and Fire: A Thematic Anthology of His Writings - ed Hans Urs von Balthasar, transl Robert Daly, S.J.

from The Body and Society: Men, Women, and Sexual Renunciation in Early Christianity - by Peter Brown
   Chp 8 - "'I Beseech You: Be Transformed': Origen"

from The Blackwell Companion to Paul - ed Stephen Westerholm
   Chp 10 - "Paul and Scripture" - by J. Ross Wagner
   Chp 20 - "Origen" - by Peter Widdicombe

from International Journal of the Classical Tradition, Vol 18, No 3
    "The Philosophical Stance of Allegory in Stoicism and its Reception in Platonism, Pagan and Christian: Origen in Dialogue with the Stoics and Plato" - by Ilaria Ramelli

from Journal of Early Christian Studies, 16:3
   "Revisiting the Allegory/Typology distinction: The Case of Origen" - by Peter Martens

from A Handbook to the Reception of Classical Mythology - ed Vanda Zajko and Helena Hoyle
   Chp 8 - "Circean Enchantments and the Transformations of Allegory" - by Greta Hawes


I beseech you: be transformed

• Origen thought of himself, above all, as an exegete
• "the whetstone of us all," Gregory Nazianzen
• The material universe as a whole, in his opinion, had been subjected to frustration, not of its will; but it had been subjected in hope...to be placed in a body was to experience a positive act of divine mercy...the body was necessary for the slow healing of the soul...pressing against the limitations imposed by a specific material environment that the spirit would learn to recover its earliest yearning
• Angels and demons were as close to the Christian of the third century as were adjacent rooms
• [sex, even in marriage, procreation - provisional, fleshly, not our highest calling (somewhat different from Clement)
• The eunuch was notorious (and repulsive to many) because he had dared to shift the massive boundary between the sexes
• It [virginity] was a physical concretization, through the untouched body, of the pre-existing purity of the soul
• In such a Platonism, sensuality could not simply be abandoned or repressed. Rather, the sharpness of sensual experience was brought back to its primordial intensity: it was reawakened, in the mystic's heart, at its true level - the level of the spirit. [spiritual senses - Origen and Plotinus]
• the "declaratory" role of the Christian virgin
• [body as temple of the Lord] The humble "ass" of the body could become the "resplendent" vehicle of the soul

Paul and Scripture

• 1 Cor 15 Christ died for our sins "in accordance with the scriptures," buried then raised "in accordance with the scriptures
• weight of holy scripture
• "he says," "it is written"
• 1 Cor 9:10 [do not muzzle oxen while treading out grain] "Or does he not speak entirely for our sake? It was indeed written for our sake.
• 1 Cor 10 (recounting Israel in the wilderness, and putting God to the test, "spiritual food and spiritual drink," "And Christ was the rock") Now these things occurred as examples for us...to serve as an example...written down to instruct us, on whom the ends of the ages have come
• Paul's frequent clustering of mutually interpreting citations and his occasional conflation of two or more separate passages to form a composite quotation provide further evidence that he hears in Scripture a multitude of harmonious voices speaking in concert with him as witnesses to the gospel.
• allusion
• intertextual echo
• For Paul, the hermeneutical key to the Scriptures is the extra-textual apocalypse of God's righteousness in the death and resurrection of Jesus the Messiah
• Rom 15:4 whatever was written in earlier times was written for our instruction, so that through perseverance and through the encouragement of the scriptures we would have hope

Origen

• For Origen, the writers of the New Testament, and the Old for that matter, all told one story about one subject.
• By the time of Origen, the Pauline epistles had acquired the status of Christian Scripture.
• 2 Cor 3:6 the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life
• he tends to use the distinction between the letter and the spirit to solve any problems
• Paul, for Origen, was the person who taught the church how to read the Bible [also Jesus - explaining the scriptres on emmaus rd - and Holy Spirit]

The Philosophical Stance of Allegory in Stoicism and its Reception in Platonism, Pagan and Christian: Origen in Dialogue with the Stoics and Plato

• arkhe (arche) - beginning, origin, source of power, first principle, method of government
• telos - end, purpose, goal
• [on stoic use of allegoresis] Poetry, expressing myth, and cultic traditions must therefore be interpreted allegorically in order to detect the truth hidden in them, and since truth is one, just as the Stoic Logos is one, the truth thereby detected will be one with the philosophical truth of Stoicism.
• etymology very important
• finding hidden truth, under the veil of riddles, decrypt symbolic language
• Porphyry on Origen, "His life was that of a Christian and contravened the laws, but in his view of the existing realities and of God his thoughts were those of a Greek, and he turned the Greek ideas into a substratum of the alien [Jewish] myths...he availed himself of the books of the Stoics Chaeremon and Cornutus, from which he learned the allegorical method of the Greek mysteries, which he applied, then, to the Jewish Scriptures
• according to Ramelli, Origen, Philo, and Clement insisted texts have complete unity, coherence, interpret scripture with scripture, intratextuality [for Stoics, myths not exactly "holy scripture"]
• Origen quoting Celsus, "they [the scriptures] are not susceptible of any allegorical interpretation, but, on the contrary, they are bare myths, and of the most stupid kind...However the allegories that appear to be written on these myths are far more shameful and unlikely than the myths themselves, since, with astonishing and totally senseless madness, they link together things that are absolutely and completely incompatible with one another
• for Origen, creation and Revelation almostly completely allegorical
• the spiritual meanings of scripture are inexhastible
• moral interpretation - troubles of the soul (Philo)
• Origen "necessary to look for a meaning that is worthy of God"
• "Eden" as "once upon a time"
• Origen against Marcionites - "if they are so mistaken in their thoughts it is because they interpret the Law exclusively in a literal sense, and ignore that the Law is spiritual

Revisiting the Allegory/Typology Distinction: The Case of Origen

• Danielou - typology is the research of the correspondences between...OT...and NT
• Gal 4:24 Sara and Hagar as allegory
• W.A. Bienert - "allegory is the vertical manner of interpretation, since it establishes unhistorical-timeless relationships between images (allegories) and their spiritual archetypes; typology, in contrast, is the horizontal manner of interpretation, since it transports the historical events of the past into the present and future
• Frances Young - typology "requires a mirroring of the supposed deeper meaning in the text taken as a coherent whole" (doesn't destroy narrative; ikonic mimesis)
• typology, more analogous relationship?
• typology (requires perception of likeness) as species of allegory (any kind of non-literal understanding)
• for Origen, allegory appears "simply to label the nonliteral reading of texts"
• allegoria - other speaking
• typos - result of a blow or pressing, image, symbol, figure
• sometimes Origen uses typos as a mere symbol, like a letter of the alphabet, to mean literal level
• Origen's guidelines for good allegoresis
• principle of similitude, likeness or relationship between symbol and symbolized
• must fit church doctrine, ecclesiastical rule
• etymology important
• interpret scripture with scripture
• follow example of authoritative allegorists, such as paul

Circean Enchantments and the Transformations of Allegory

• Responses to ancient myth are never arbitrary; a subtle nexus of established assumptions and habits of thinking guide both interpretation and narration.
• allegoresis - an instrument of transformation
• huponoia - undermeaning
• Heraclitus, "If Homer did not compose allegorically, then he was entirely impious; desecrating myths, full of blasphemous madness, tear through both texts"
• need a stable literal level as foil for allegory
• use existing mythological associations
• allegorists distil from texts generalized philosophical principles
• The habits of allegoresis captured a partial vision of Greek literature. Allegorists shone lights into hidden corners of the mythic tradition, but cast a blinkered gaze over other aspects of it.
• lose "numinous ambivalence"
• creative subjectivity of interpretation
• the deliberate composition of large-scale allegories was rare
• Northrope Frye "all commentary is allegorical interpretation"

Spirit and Fire

• He himself hardly ever wrote, but dictated, practically day and night, tirelessly, to a team of stenographers.
• The voice of the Alexandrian is more like that glowing, rainless desert wind that sometimes sweeps over the Nile delta, with a thoroughly unromantic passion: pure, fiery gusts. Two names come to mind in comparison: Heraclitus and Nietzsche. For their work too is, externally, ashes and contradiction, and makes sense only because of the fire of their souls which forces their unmanageable material into a unity and, with a massive consumption of fuel, leaves behind it a fiery track straight across the earth.
• Nevertheless, Origen's style is so thoroughly saturated with the language of scripture that there is really no way to draw clear lines between quotation, vague reminiscence and his personal manner of speaking.
• "...he [Isaac/Christ] wants to renew the wells of the Law and the Prophets which the Philistines had filled with earth....those who put an earthly and fleshly understanding of the law and block up its spiritual and mystical meaning so that they neither themselves drink nor allow others to drink...'neither enter yourselves or permit others to enter'
• But if, from among those who are now listening to me speak, someone familiar with secular letters should say: what you are saying is ours, and it is learned from our skill; these very things which you are discussing and teaching are our art of eloquence...all earth contains water
• For Christ did not change their names but their understanding
• everything that is manifest is related to one of those things which are secret (quoting wis of sol)
• [soul kinda in the middle between body and spirit; call is to be transformed into spirit, or follow spirit]
• every creature endowed with reason has a need for participation in the Trinity
• Justice is in us like an echo; it comes to us by reverberation from the first Justice
• [image - at creation; likeness - consummation]
• look for the fall of the world, so that from finding its fall you might come to see its setting aright
• [journey through wilderness as journey of soul - etymologies or symbolism of place names, Num Com]
• in that same way must Wisdom be understood to be the Word of God because it opens up to everything else, that is, to every creature, the meaning of the mysteries and secrets which are, of course, contained within the divine wisdom.
• For when the Word became flesh, he opened up with this key the scriptures which were closed before his coming, and which no one can now close by claiming they have not been fulfilled
• the Word is near you, on your lips and in your heart
• [spoken word cannot be touched or seen, but takes bodily form when written, so Word of God, took flesh, was seen and written.
• You are, therefore, to understand the scriptures in this way: as the one, perfect body of the Word
• even an "iota or dot" is full of mystery
• If the Law of Moses contained nothing written with a deeper meaning, the prophet would not have said in his prayer to God, "Open my eyes...
• scripture is the "one perfect and harmonious instrument of God"
• all if 167 (so vast a sea of mysteries)
• Search the scriptures (John)
• all of 178 and 179 (will hold the four to be true, but not in bodily form)
• the kingdom of heaven is likened o a net of varied texture because the scripture of the old and new testament is woven together from all kinds of variegated thoughts [humans are fish, some caught by one part of net - prophets - others by another - law - others by apostolic part, etc]...this net is cast into the sea, the tumultuous life of human beings who, everywhere in the world, swim in the bitter affairs of life
• the tutor of the law [and letter?]...we have need of the splendor which can pass away for the sake of the splendor which surpasses it (2 Cor 3:10)...perhaps this refuse is the dung put down under the fig tree by the vinedresser which is the cause of its bearing fruit
• the holy and spiritual person a kind of botanist who reads every iota and every dash which happens to be in the sacred scripture, and finds out the power of the letter and whit it is good for, and knows that nothing written down is superfulous
• the kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field...that field, it seems to me, is the scripture, planted...of the histories, law and prophets...Christ "in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge" (Col 2:3)
• it seems to me that each word of the divine scripture is like a seed whose nature it is, once it has been thrown into the earth...to be multiplied many times over [happens more with more effort or beneficial earth]
• [multiplying loaves] well then, consider how we break the few loaves: we take from the divine scriptures a few words, and how many thousand people are filled! But unless these loaves were broken, unless broken down into small pieces by the disciples, that is unless the letter was broken down into little pieces and discussed, its meaning would not be able to come to all
• ..."And the Rock was Christ" (1 Cor 10:4)...You can see how different Paul's tradition is from the historical reading...How then are we to act, who have received such principles of interpretation from Paul, the teacher of the church?
• all of 205...search out every sign in the old scriptures as a type of something in the new, and what is called sign in the new covenant as indicative of something either in the age to come or in the generations after that in which the sign took place
• pointed to by signs and guarded by seals
• 207...proper understanding of scripture...purpose of the Spirit...to teach us something about the hidden mysteries regarding the fate of human beings...second purpose...to conceal the doctrine...in the revealed accounts...[so that we wouldn't be content with obvious meaning] the Word of God arranged it that some scandals, so to speak, stumbling blocks, and impossibilities would be mixed in...by not parting from the letter, learn nothing that is more divine
• 208 some things literal and not allegorical (ethics), some things both, some things allegorical and not literal
• 209 threefold mode of understanding in the holy scripture: a historical, a moral and a mystical [body, soul, spirit] [three chambered ark]
• the literal sense in holy scripture cannot always stand but is often lacking, when for example it is written, "Thorns grow in the hand of the drunkard" (Prov 26:)...etc
• 212 threefold - Abraham means moral philosophy through obedience...Isaac stands for natural philosophy since he dug wells and searched into the depths of things. But Jacob stands for internal vision [vision of angel and ladder]
• 213 just as "the seen and unseen" (2 Cor), earth and heaven, soul and flesh, body and spirit are related to each other, and this world is made up of these relationships, so too must it be believed that holy scripture is made up of seen and unseen things. It consists of a body, namely, the visible letter, and of a soul which is the meaning found within it, and of a spirit by which is also has something of the heavenly in it...let us seek out not the letter but the soul...if we can do this, we will also ascend to the spirit
• 216 [hunter seeking prey with help of dog's sense of smell - hidden trails, losing the trail, asking for help]
• 217 [like journey through wilderness, suffering failure and hunger], those searching the scriptures "frequently tried by a failure of their ability to perceive"...God "gives food in due season" (Ps 145)
• 218 Jesus spits on the ground and makes a past [dust of the ground is history and deeds, law and prophets, Christ's spittle is Logos, anoints our eyes, wash in the pool of Siloam] by this is signified the swimming so to speak involved in the searching and groping for the truth
• One can even dare to say that the gospels are the first fruits of all the scriptures, but that John is the first fruits of the gospels. No one can grasp its meaning who has not lain on Jesus' breast and also received Mary from Jesus as one's own mother...shown Jesus by Jesus...how elevated a mind must we have in order to be able to perceive worthily this Word lying hidden within the earthen treasures of the ordinary word [Origen interprets "Behold your son" as not "Behold this too is your son," therefore John is like Jesus now, like Paul "Christ lives in me"
• For truly, before Jesus, the scripture was water, but after Jesus it has become wine for us
• lifting the veil (2 Cor 3:14 - have the veil when old covenant is read, only in Christ is it taken away
• Heb 10:1 - since the law has only a shadow of the good things to come and not the true form of these realities
• 214 - divine providence arranged for the city itself and the temple and everything to be destoryed...[so that people would look for higher or deeper meaning of scripture]
• Mt 21:43 - the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a nation producing the fruits of it...the meaning of the scriptures is taken from them
• law/prophets and gospels: for neither one has fullness of life without the other
• tree of knowledge of good and evil - thus the law contains both: the letter that kills and the Spirit that gives life [seems to play on Paul's claim that before the law there was no sin...before eating of tree no sin]
• [disciples told to cross the sea - cross from material to immaterial, buffeted by wind
• [Moses and Elijah appear with Jesus - law and prophets in the gospel
• [Jesus as Isaac, as the ram, as the angel who stays Abraham's hand] he himself was in the form of Isaac...the ram too was a form of him
• there never was a time when the spiritual order of salvation according to Jesus was not available to the saints
• We would like, now, to say something even more daring: what came into this life emptied itself, so that through its emptiness the world would be fulfilled. But if what came into this life emptied itself, that very emptiness was Wisdom"
• And just as sin began with the woman and then spread to man, so too what was good began with women.
• For Christ has inundated the whole world with holy and divine streams...from the wound...in his side
• the cross was a double cross, Jesus visibly and the devil/evil invisibly
• Nevertheless it was with wood that that fire was lit (importance of body to the spirit, fire points upward)
• 2 Cor 5:16, even though we once regarded Christ from a human point of view, we regard him thus no longer
• is everywhere and interpenetrates everything
• for he was sent not only to be known but also to remain hidden [why did some did him resurrected and others didnt]
• two laws, two men
• steps up the temple - our savior is all the steps
• Mt 24:27 [coming of the son of man like lighting] this lighting...it can be found in the whole scripture
• "climbing to higher levels to search out meanings which are beyond my power and ability
• You took your garments, and sewed them into idols for yourself (Ezek 16:16) These clothes are the divine scriptures and the meaning which lies in them. The heretics tore up these clothes and sewed together expression to expression and word to word, but without the right connection
• there is also sin to be seen at a higher level, because I frequently am nourishing pride if I understand the divine word, if I am wiser than the rest. "Knowledge puffs up" (1 Cor 8:1)
• they want to kill the Word and break it up into pieces, as it were, because they do not have room within them for its great size
• there is no matter, which has been founded seriously and is useful for life, in which various heresies have not arisen
• [Jesus escaping arrest] with the exception of the Word of Christ, it is possible to 'capture' every other teaching. It is possible to grasp the spirit of each and every system, gain control of it and, as scripture says, come to terms with it.
• but listen to this spiritually, if you can
• "his garments became white as light" The garments of Jesus are the words and letters of the scripture which he had put on
• But what John calls the "eternal gospel" (Rev 14:6), which might be rightly called the spiritual gospel, presents clearly to those who understand, everything about the Son of God in himself, both the mysteries contained in his words and also the realities of which his deeds were the symbols
• bodily meaning v higher meaning
• John 1:45, we have found him about whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote
• speech is one thing, voice is something else...the sheep hear his voice, but the men hear his Word
• the deeper meaning of what he said
• that which someone cherishes above all else, admires and loves above all, that is that person's God
• the prototype of all images, "the image of the invisible God"
• it is thus necessary to die first to the letter so that the soul, finally free, can wed the Spirit and enter into matrimony of the new covenant
• [things hidden brought to light by temptations]
• the holy spaciousness of God "You have given me room" (Ps 4:1)
• [the sun] makes the day by shining, but the night by going away
• evil works constrict the evil one in himself. the love of God makes room in our souls
• as human beings, all of us have within us both sight and blindness
• Would that we too, understanding from this that we are blind and do not see, as we sit by the road of the scriptures and hear that Jesus is passing by, might by our prayers make him stop and tell him we want our eyes to be opened.
• Abraham sitting at the door of his tent (not inside, bodily, etc)
• for something cannot be desired if it is not even known (also Augustine)
• for these things go together inseparably: the pure word in the soul and an irreproachable life
• For one cries out "Lord!" in a perfect way when one's works are crying out and saying, "Lord, Lord!"
• the fruit of works is the vision of being
• and it seems to me that the first beginning and the very foundation of salvation is faith, the development and expansion of the building is hope, but the perfection and summit of the whole work is love
• every time we understand, we owe it to our faith that we understand
• the disciples were reminded of the fulfillment of the scriptures
• But if, like the apostles, we never move away from him but remain with him in all his trials, he will then privately explain and interpret for us what he had said to the multitudes
• [com on Lev] Christ...the one and perfect sacrifice which all these sacrifices preceded in type and image
• just as the church was given for its dowry the books of the law and the prophets, so too were the law of nature, reason, and free-will given to the soul...
• [com on Cant] this is the explanation of the plot of the drama; let us now come to its spiritual understanding
• 691 [if living right, words are "sweeter far than honey in the comb;" if living in sin, then words are bitter]
• true bread is that which feeds the true human being
• 700 "Give us this day our essential bread" Because some suppose that we are being told here to pray for physical bread, it will be helpful, after exposing their error, to present the true understanding
• we must pray for this, that we may be made worthy of it
• do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul
• which truth is rightly called the blood and life of the scriptures because all scripture,  unless it is understood according to the truth, is dead
• 727 the law and the prophets are the cups of the soul's spiritual drink...the scribes and Pharisees search after the external and common meaning and try to show that this is pure and holy; but the disciples of Christ try to purify the internal and spiritual meaning... (clean the inside and the outside will be clean)
• the soul becomes sterile when God abandons it; but becomes a mother when he is at work in it
• In his Epistle to Timothy Paul says that "woman will be saved through bearing children, with modesty." But who is this woman, if not the soul which conceives the divine Word of truth and brings forth good works which are like Christ?
• Ephesians 5:32 This is a great mystery, and I am applying it to Christ and the church.
• Say to wisdom, you are my sister (Prov 7:4)
• Those who do righteousness do Christ who is justice. Their souls become, in bringing him forth, the mother of Christ
• 759 [com on Gen] Now I have often said that it is not history being narrated here, but mysteries being woven. I think that something like the following is meant here
• for there is never a time when the soul is not giving birth; it is always doing so
• [com Cant] no flowers appear to her then in her scripture reading, nor do any secrets of a deeper wisdom or hidden mysteries echo, so to speak, from the voice of the turtledove...Then the Word of God comes to her, then he calls her to himself and urges her to "go out"...beyond everything that is bodily and visible in the world
• Blessed is the one who is always being born of God
• all will nevertheless come to salvation in their own particular ways
• Lev 1:3 and 5 - repetition of place
• take heed: there must always be fire on the altar
• Col 2:16-17 - Therefore do not let anyone condemn you in matters of food and drink or of observing festivals, new moons, or sabbaths. These are only a shadow of what is to come, but the substance belongs to Christ
• we ought to practice the symphony of this divine music
• 856 worthy of supplying some goats' hair
• Let us see how we can apply this...
• he cannot drink alone the wine he promised to drink with us
• 872 - seraphim hide beginnings (head) and endings (feet) but not the middle
• since what was prophesied by them [law and prophets] has been fulfilled, but the words of Christ are always full, and are always in the act of being fulfilled, and are daily fulfilled and never overfilled
• And perhaps everything that is perceivable by the senses, right up to heaven itself and what is in it, are fields white for the harvest, waiting for those who lift up their eyes
• for the one who is dead to worldly things, the weekdays have been skipped and the day of the Lord has come
• Our God is a consuming fire
• What is this fire so wise that it guards my gold and shows forth my silver more brilliantly, that it leaves undamaged that precious stone in me and burns up only the evil I have done, the wood, hay and straw I have built over it"
• but fire has a twofold power: to illuminate, and to burn
• But even if one could, one should not, I think, want to escape the judgment of God
• rather we will learn all things in the judgment of God through our Savior Jesus Christ
• What seemed at first to be an evil, the Egyptian famine, became the starting point of the best decisions the Hebrews could make. Indeed, whatever is regarded as evil, even if it is really evil, is later turned into something good.
• he makes use of these spirits in accordance with their own free decisions
• 948 If the poor heretics could only understand this, they would not be constantly repeating to us: Do  you see how the God of the law is savage and inhuman, since he says: "I kill and I make alive"? Don't you see in the scriptures the message of the resurrection of the dead?
• even to speak truly of God is dangerous
• 961 [interpreting God hardening Pharaoh's heart vs Pharaoh's heart hardened] Now if we really believe that these writings are divine and written by the Holy Spirit, I do not think that we would think so poorly of the divine Spirit as to attribute it to chance that there is this variety in so great a work as this
• I pray that my examination will find something true in this passage
• We are all children with respect to God
• Or don't you see that the resurrection of the dead has already begun in each one?
• If someone, then, in searching through the law and going through the texts which speak of the marriage of women and men thinks that there is nothing more there than the literal meaning, that person is in error, and knows "neither the scriptures nor the power of God" (Mt 22:29)
• But it will be a true sabbath on which God will rest from all his work...when God will be all in all
• And this too must be looked into
• 1015 - Woe to you [those who understand only the letter], scribe of gospel...allegorical meanings "A scribe is trained for the kingdom of heaven"
• 1035 one should not think that historical events are types of historical events, and that bodily things are types of bodily things, but that bodily things are types of spiritual things, and that historical events are types of intelligible events [doesn't this contradict 205]
• in the very acts themselves knowledge is written
• he recognizes there not only the historical but also the anagogical meaning, as it is written, "interpreting spiritual truths to those who posses the Spirit" (1 Cor 2)
• RJD - Origen's mind was tireless in noting the rich panoply of the connectedness and interconnectedness of things

A Question for Mary Oliver

    We were talking about Mary Oliver today at Ruah - grateful for her life and work, and sad that she is gone. She made poetry look so easy; at least what I've read of hers rolls smoothly off the page, opens up the door, invites you outside. One of our teachers recited her poem, "When I am among the trees," during which an old question raised its hand in my head. Is there a discernible line between appreciation of nature and the projection of ourselves onto it?
   I'm heavily skeptical of our definition of nature, our desire to mythologize it, our interpretation of it. Nonetheless I can't resist doing all those things. Today a squad of gnats hovered by a garden chair. Squirrels chomped up cedar seeds and tossed the seed tails down on my head. Sprouting grass (is that liriope?), moss so brightly green - i can't help but stoop down and brush them with my fingers. A hawk perched and preened on the elm branch outside our classroom window, and we all "oohed" and "ahhed." All these things, I think to myself, are theologically and philosophically mute; it's dishonest of us, I say to myself, to "learn" virtues or wisdom from these things (granted, analogies are great for teaching). I just can't shake, or don't want to shake, the belief that they are "significant" in a mystical way.
   Oliver seems convinced both of something mysteriously meaningful about "nature" and of her own projection of benevolence and innocence onto it. "I would almost say that they save me, and daily," she writes of the trees. I understand this to mean - not that the trees could save her but can't quite - but that she experiences something like salvation while walking through the tress, and wants to attribute more agency and spiritual power to the trees than she's willing to. If I remember correctly, that "almost," that hesitancy to dive completely into an animistic or pantheistic world, comes up frequently in the poems that i've read. She wants to see and experience the world "as it is," no demands, no forcing herself into any relationship. However, she can't interpret her experience in any other way than as a gift. She is in relationship, and she receives abundantly. She seems to acknowledge that part of this gift comes from herself, her own projected loving mother nature, but she's never shy about giving voice to nature, hearing voices in nature. She believed in it. How did she balance the two? Did she lean one way or the other? Did it really matter to her?

Old Books New Year

  2019 is here, and the 2018 Jesus read-a-thon continues! For my Ruah saint-report, due next month, I picked Origen, without knowing much about him other than he castrated himself. I figured that meant he was sufficiently crazy. Turns out he might be the ultimate Jesus read-a-thon-er! What I've seen so far - I'm slowly winding through Hans Balthasar's thematic anthology - is a relentless pursuit of Jesus in every nook and cranny of the Bible and to some extent, of philosophy. Origen is convinced that the Christ is Logos is Bible is Wisdom. It's not just that each "jot and tittle" of the scriptures prefigures or is connected to Jesus, it's that their truest meaning is Christ. Somehow, every word and phrase is Christ. Origen's job is to show us how that works.

   I read a couple of books for background.

Manual of Patrology - Rev Bernard Schmid, O.S.B., translated "by a Benedictine"

   I'm not sure I've read anything like this before, except maybe an old Encyclopedia of Basketball I recently gave away. First Schmid lays out some guidelines for who qualifies as a "Father" and who doesn't, how and when the Fathers speak for the Church, and how to safely use or rely on the Fathers. Then he summarizes the life, work, and relevance of about 100 kinda crazy dudes. Not all are "Fathers," some aren't as theologically reliable, so they're called "ecclesiastical writers," and some have been officially upgraded to "doctors" by the church.
   This is a beautiful old book by the way, printed in 1903, in great condition. It smells wonderful.

A Short History of the Interpretation of the Bible - Robert Grant

   It lives up to its title. Accessible and enjoyable. A swift "epoch" style history (except for the Alexandrian and Antiochene chapters, all the chapters define and describe intellectual time periods), lightly peppered with quotations and examples. Perhaps the most helpful new word for me was "typological" - usually referring to the way Christians see Hebrew characters or events as "types" of Christ or the crucifixion-resurrection story. Origen was all about this, as was the early church in general, but somehow he took it much further than many people felt comfortable with. I'm still trying to understand that. It's like a Borges story - I'm cool with the "idea" of a library, or a lottery, or an author - but when Borges lets these ideas run free, they end up in some wild, interesting, and sometimes disturbing places.

The Diatessaron - Tatian, translated from Arabic by Rev Hope Hogg

   I heard this described as a "gospel harmony," so I expected a heavily edited gospel based on the four gospels, like something you might see in a bookstore today. Instead it felt more like layering the gospels on top of each other, or weaving them together. Tatian doesn't seem concerned to weed out all duplications or discrepancies. His running editorial question seems to be, how can the monologues in the Gospel of John best fit into the outline of the synoptics?

Thing Explainer: Complicated Stuff in Simple Words - Randall Munroe

   My brother gave this to me a while back, and I'd only every read a little bit here and there. I needed something different. I don't keep up with Monroe's comic strip "xkcd," but his book What If? is one of the most entertaining books I've ever read. Thing Explainer is a big tall book, filled with Munroe's wonderfully inviting drawings of planes and planets and machines and stuff (always with a few little stick figures doing funny things). The catch is: he has to explain the pictures using the 1000 most commonly used English words. So, for example, he can't say "one thousand," he has to say "ten hundred." Or he can't say "microwave," so he says "food heating radio box." It's fun.

Weeks 45-50: Other actions proceed from this

An Ocean of Light: Contemplation, Transformation, and Liberation - Martin Laird
  
 "Letting be what we are entrusted with loosens depression's grip even if it does not go away. Again, the contemplative maxim: we let be whatever is simply because it is. Other actions proceed from this."

   A couple Saturday's ago I had the opportunity to hear Martin Laird, an Augustinian monk and teacher, lecture from his new book, An Ocean of Light. And he said something that really got on my nerves. He encouraged those of us for whom "depression and its friends have claimed squatters' rights" to "get to know the contours of your depression." In his book he frames it this way, "it is important for us to get to know our depression in intimate detail."
   How could we not know our depression? We know it all too well. We've seen it, heard it, smelled it, tasted it, touched it. We've read about it; talked about it; paid good money to understand it and let it go. I don't want to give it any more time and energy than it already has. What is he talking about? 
   I don't know, but over the past two weeks that phrase, "get to know the contours of your depression," has opened up as a window. I've got a little more fresh air. It's cold air, but its fresh.
   In the type of silent prayer he teaches, when we become entangled in a thought or feeling, we gently return to our prayer word or breath, letting that thought or feeling go its merry way. I would have anticipated Laird to advocate a similar approach to living with resistant depression.
   It could be that depression is too close, too intimate and familiar. Too intertwined with daily life to see. Perhaps that is what he's getting at. Perhaps I have on a depression mask, and without a mirror the only part I see is the tip of my mask's nose. If I'm crammed into a box with depression, I can see it, touch it, etc, but it might help to open up the box and give us both a more space and perspective.
   Or perhaps he's questioning the objectification of our experience. Instead of experiencing depression as something happening to me, take time to simply experience myself depressing, or experience myself happening depressively. But don't we do that already? As a friend once said regarding his depression, "my favorite past-time is sitting in my room existing...because it's so hard." I dunno. We'll see. I'm just going to keep going with the silent prayer, thanks be to God for that. "Other actions proceed from this."

The Kingdom Within: The Inner Meaning of Jesus' Sayings - John Sanford
  Not as super cool as I was hoping, but a lot of good stuff. It's a Jungian dream-work approach to Jesus' sayings and parables.

• "In order to lift water up from a well, it is necessary to have a rope long enough to reach the water. The teachings of Jesus are such a rope."
• mysterion - initiated knowledge
• "the kingdom and healing go together"
•  "In our dreams the kind of house we have typically symbolizes our conscious framework."
• "The more we are identified with a mask, the more the unconscious will set up an opposing viewpoint in the form of an inner enemy."
• "we will surely incur inner judgment if we stand in judgment on others"
• "perfect" - brought to fulfillment, complete
• "It's not too much to say that Satan is the archetype of choice."
• "The soul's primary function is relationship" (anima/us, eros)
• "Salvation comes from the Samaritan"
• "We cannot sacrifice what we do not have" (need a strong ego to submit)
• "the kingdom...can only be expressed in symbols"

Things Hidden: Scripture as Spirituality - Richard Rohr
   Rohr rambles. It can be frustrating. I don't even know why he bothers with a table of contents. But that's part of his charm and generosity. Is there such a thing as a Franciscan literary style. Un-self-consious, open, kinda messy, compassionate. He always finds himself somewhere beautiful.

• "We all need forever what Jesus described as the beginner's mind of a curious child."
• "...one of God's favorite and most effective hiding places - humility"
• "Love is the true goal, but faith is the process of getting there, and hope is the willingness to live without resolution or closure."
• "Jesus offers himself as 'way, truth and life,' and suddenly it has all become the sharing of our person instead of any fighting over ideas."
• "...in a position to read the Scriptures in a humble, needy, inclusive and finally fruitful way..."
• "Why do we not use Peter's power of the keys to unbind the world in this way, and to offer it the full victory of God's love? Why do we prefer binding to unbinding"

The Words of Jesus: A Gospel of the Sayings of our Lord - Phyllis Tickle
   In the beginning I wasn't a fan of the way she frames Jesus' words. For example, "Jesus, upon being told that His mother and siblings were in the crowd and desired His attention, said..." 
  I would have kept "Jesus said" as an inseparable unit. On the other hand, having "Jesus" be the first word in every segment is cool too. It grew on me.
   Her introduction is more memoir than analysis, fyi. I love this as an exercise - copy and group all of Jesus words, or parables, or sayings, or what have you. I started my personal "sayings gospel" back in March, but never finished. It's not too late!


Little Russion Philokalia: Vol 1. St Seraphim - Translated by Hieromonk Seraphim Rose

•  "becoming so immersed in God's word that one learns to 'swim in the law of the Lord'" (Rose)
• "the works of faith are: love, peace, long-suffering, mercy, humility, rest from all works, bearing the Cross, and life in the Spirit.
• "a man who has taken upon himself to travel the path of internal mindfulness must have above all the fear of God, which is the beginning of wisdom
• "Reverent carefulness is necessary here because this sea - that is, the heart, with its thoughts and desires, which one must cleanse by means of mindfulness - is great and vast, and there are numberless reptiles there
• "Those who have truly decided to serve the Lord God should practice the remembrance of God and uninterrupted prayer to Jesus Christ, mentally saying: Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner.
• "all saints...have spent their whole lives in weeping...
• "As fire purifies gold, so the sorrow of longing for God purifies a sinful heart.
• despondency, straightness of soul, a foretaste of hell, delirium, anxiety, temptation, etc...for there is one treatment for all this...meekness of heart
• "for where humility issues forth, there the glory of God abounds
• revived by patience
• "most of all one should occupy oneself with reading the New Testament and the Psalter, which one should do standing up
• "though Satan might produce also visions of light, he is entirely unable to produce a blessed effect; which is the well known sign of his works.
• "one should not undertake ascetic labors beyond one's measure, but one should strive to make our friend - the flesh - faithful and capable of performing virtues.
• "perhaps one has eaten too much, or done something similar to this which is natural to human weakness - do not be disturbed at this, and do not add injury to injury; but bestir yourself to correction and at the same time strive to preserve peace of soul
• "In whatsoever I find you, in that will I judge you (Jesus via St Justin)
• "trade with those [virtues] which give you the greatest profit
• "the wisdom of God, which seeks our salvation and embraces everything
• "...This knowledge [which does not puff up], which is full of love for God and for our neighbor, builds up every man for his salvation
• "He who walks around the canal with prayer and 150 Theotokos and Virgin Rejoice, for him this place will be Athos, Jerusalem and Kiev

Weeks 40-44

King Lear
read this to overlap the "Bootleg Shakespeare" version Quill Theater put on last month. Quill turned the absurdity into hilarity! they had us rolling in the aisles.

The Desert Fathers - Helen Waddell
wow can't get enough of the sayings or of Waddell's comments. what else of hers can I find at the library?

Unspoken Prayer in Spiritual Formation: Tool or Trouble - Wayne Lewis
this was Wayne's doctoral dissertation! so cool. i could hear his voice through the whole thing.

Seeking God: The Way of St. Benedict - Esther de Waal
read for Ruah, second time through. brother Terry recommended it to me early on in my time at richmond hill. i think "Balance" is my favorite chapter. if you want balance, you need to balance good things, like mercy and justice, work and rest, yin and yang. in my life, I try to "balance out" the bad with good - resentment with mercy, selfishness with justice, greed with generosity, etc...that's not working out too well

Centering Prayer: Renewing an Ancient Christian Prayer Form - Basil Pennington
another Ruah book, another second time around


Hermits: the insights of solitude - Peter France
where did i find this? i think in someone's donation of books to richmond hill. it's too bad Josh and I couldn't stay for dinner with the monks in Chora way back when! France sets the scene for his book in Patmos, and finishes with a interview of fellow Patmos lover Robert Lax. that island leaves an impression.

the curious incident of the dog in the night-time - mark haddon
the armstrong leadership program planned to see the dramatic version of this, and i was going to drive the bus, but then remants of hurricane michael came flying through and canceled all plans. so i read the book instead. loved it


Notes

King Lear

• Let it be so, thy truth then be thy dower!
• yet he hath ever but slenderly known himself
• upon the gad
• the quality of nothing hath not such need to hide itself
• This is the excellent foppery of the world, that when we are sick in fortune, often the surfeits of our own behavior, we make guilty of our disasters the sun, the moon, and stars...
• Let me, if not by birth, have lands by wit/All with me's meet that I can fashion fit
• That which ordinary men are fit for I am qualified in...
• Beat at this gate that let thy folly in
• Blasts and fogs upon thee!
• Thou shouldst not have been old till thou hadst been wise
• How far you eyes may pierce I cannot tell/ Striving to better, oft we mar what's well
• Some time I shall sleep out, the rest I'll whistle...
• No, rather I adjure all roofs, and choose/ to wage against the enmity o th air
• O reason no the need! Our basest beggars/ Are in the poorest thing superflous./ Allow no nature more than nature needs,/ man's life is as cheap as beast's
• contending with the fretful elements...unbonneted he rus, and bids what will take all
• the art of our necessities is strange, and can make vile things precious
• shake the superflux to them, and show the heavens more just
• how light and portable my pain seems now, when that which makes me bend makes the king bow. He childed as I fathered
• I have no way, and therefore want no eyes; I stumbled when I saw...
• and worse I may be yet. the worst is not/ so long as we can say "this is the worst"
• he has some reason, else he could not beg
• as flies to wanton boys are we to th gods; they kill us for their sport
• that will not see because he does not feel
• bear free and patient thoughts
• the usurer hangs the cozener
• the bounty and benison of heaven to boot, and boot
• and take upon's the mystery of things/ As if we were God's spies
• List a brief tale
• the strings of life began to crack
• I pant for life. Some good I mean to do, despite of mine own nature
• he hates him that would upon the rack of this tough world stretch him out longer

Desert Fathers

• Let the rest go bat-fowling for letters and syllables: do you seek for the sense (Evagrius)
• a mighty silence and a great quiet among them
• The root of the quarrel between the humanists and the Desert is not the exact length to which the branding of the flesh may legitimately go. What ailed Rutilius and Gibbon and Lecky is the Roman civic conscience...
• Verily, this is love's road
• the extravagance of their lives is the extravagance of poetry
• I remember crying out until day became one with night
• how amid swords and deserts and wild beasts, chastity never was captive
• the beasts speak Christ and thou dost worship monsters in room of God
• without whom no leaf lights from the tree
• no one in this world ought to be despised
• they are men of letters, cursed with a feeling for prose
• as a fish must return to the sea, so must we to our cell
• so should the monk forever have grief in his heart
• the body of a woman is fire
• the remedy is not so much in man's anxious thought as in God's compassion
• for nothing so dispirits the demon of lust than when his assaults are revealed
• the treasure house of the monk is voluntary poverty
• his soul fell into a weariness and confusion of thought
• ...Why didst thou will to be a monk?...Believe me, I have been in this habit seventy years, and not for one day could I find peace: and thou wouldst have peace in eight?
• perseverance in his cell brings the monk to his calling
• i shall return to the community, for in all places there is need for struggle and for patience and above all for the help of God
• give thy body in pledge to the wall of they cell
• the cell of a monk is the furnace of Babylon...it is also the pillar of cloud
• thou hast not yet found thy ship, nor put thy baggage in her, nor begun to sail, and art thou already in the city whither thou hast planned to come?
• my sins are running behind me and I do not see them, and I am come today to judge the sins of another man
• if thou dost not hold thy tongue wheresoever thou goest, thou shall be no pilrgim. but control thy tongue here, and here thou shall be a pilgrim...unless thou shalt first amend thy life going to and fro amongst others, thou shalt not avail to amend it dwelling alone
• If we dwell upon the harms that have been wrought on us by other men, we amputate from our mind the power of dwelling on God
• all these things did the great old men bring to proof: and they found that is good to eat a little every day, and on certain days a little less: and they have shown us this master road, for it is easy and light
• if there be three in one place, and one of them lives the life of holy quiet, and another is ill and gives thanks, and the third tends them with an honest heart, these three are alike, as if their work was one
• the fragrance of the Holy Ghost
• But then came the generation that now is, and wrote them on papyrus and parchments, and laid them idle in the windows
• is the lamp injured in aught, that thou hast lit the others from it?
• if he be diligent, he can every day and every hour begin the good life anew
• nay, but i shall repent today; tomorrow, may the will of God be done
• but if there is war in thy soul, add, "Help me"
• though fasting be indeed useful and necessary, it is a matter of our own choosing: but love in its fullness the law of God requires at our hands
• but grant me this, Lord, in Thy tender mercy, to have at least the beginnings of right living
• what is contempt?...to be below the creatures that have no reason, and to know that they are not condemned
• that with our neighbor there is life and death
• saw the old man as it were one flame
• verily i know not if i have clutched at the very beginning of repentance
• i sold that same word that ever used to say to me, sell that thou hast and give to the poor
• every labor of the monk, without humility, is vain
• do thou weep and seek the comforting of God, for we are all deceived
• whatsoever things are from God, have their spring in humbleness: but such things as spring from authority and anger and strife, these are of the Enemy
• for it behoves them that serve God to be straitened in themselves
• having this hope that my brother's gain will bring forth fruit
• there is no stronger virtue than to scorn no man
• a contrite and humble heart
• progress in patience and humility by their steadiness at work
• without working with his hands a monk cannot endure to abide in his place
• unless he persist in renouncing them daily
• these to whom religion was not the mask of desire, but the countenance of that eternity which ever doth besiege our life
• of the beauty and the loveliness of her there could be no wearying for a world of men
• i have heard of thy God, that He bowed the heavens and came down to earth, not for good men's sake, but that He might save sinners
• He will loosen the load of my wrongdoing
• it is no new thing to fall in the mire, but it is an evil thing to lie there fallen

Unspoken Prayer in Spiritual Formation: Tool or Trouble

• The primary ingredient of all these tools of Christian spiritual growth is prayer.
• Just how much of Christianity is exclusively Christian?
• Exodus 14:14
• Lamentations chp 3
• The heightened joy at the nearness of a spouse is similar to the experience of the spirit in unspoken prayer.
• Jesus is the evidence that God is ready and desirous for the flame of relationship to burn brightly in all humans.

Seeking God: The Way of St Benedict

• in exploring the Rule we find that this is a description of day-to-day living which revolves around Christ
• the Word of God is directly addressing the reader or listener
• to listen closely, with every fibre of our being, at every moment of the day
• St. Benedict makes obedience his ascetic practice
• the air a staircase/ for silence (RS Thomas)
• a continuing process of holding on against all odds
• our stability is a response to that promise which reassures us that he is faithful and steadfast and that we should 'never lose hope in God's mercy.'
• conversatio morum - obedience and perseverance to the lifelong process of being transformed as he follows Christ
• the younger monks are to be called 'brother' but for the older he has chosen a particularly gentle but pleasing word 'nonnus'
• the real definition of pride is the desire to control
• Grace evokes our acts, supports them and fulfills them
• prayer + study + manual work = all three should command respect and all three should equally become a way to God
• we are essentially rhythmic creatures
• the sense of God's presence can be mediated through daily work and not destroyed by it
• the means of continually reminding myself of God's presence
• work, held in low esteem, has become a common bond amongst his monks
• I cannot become a good host until I am at home in my own house
• my primary relationship is with Christ: it is through him that I forge my link with others
• rid your heart of all deceit
• every human face is an ikon of Christ, discovered by a prayerful person
• we can only be healed through forgiveness, and we can only gain freedom through it
• work to keep my peace of mind and pay attention to my own morale
• 4 principles of common life: solidarity, pluralism, authority, subsidiarity
• It [prayer] is at the same time root and fruit, foundation and fulfillment
• scripture - basis of a continuing dialogue with Christ
• psalms learnt "by heart"
• the work of God in uninterrupted prayer, which is the search for God in all things

Centering Prayer

• ...we teach spiritual things spiritually
• some of the saints have called attention the safe-keeping of the mind; others, the guarding of the heart; yet others, sobriety; yet others, mental silence, and others again by other names. but all these names mean the same thing
• it is most important to realize that prayer is always God given
• not even our own thoughts can be considered our own (during c. prayer)
• how much of our prayer seems to be just so much spaghetti
• in teaching centering prayer, the simpler the presentation the better

Hermits

• how many things there are I do not want!"
• i can see your vanity peeping through the holes in your cloak
• paracharatein to nomisma (altering the currency)
• for the desert fathers, solitude was not merely an escape from distractions; it was a teaching presence
• if he is not edified by my silence, he will not be edified by my words
• the gift of the starets: a gift for revealing thoughts...sees behind the mask
• "the prophet king david says, first depart from evil, then do good. but with modern men the situation is just the opposite
• "it is a great relief when, for a few moments in the day we an retire to our chamber and be completely true to ourselves. it leavens the rest of our hours
• the way of discrimination and the way of devotion
• zaouia - hospitality houses
• "it is a deepening of the present" (solitude)
• "i'm just a writer who writes what is in his mind"
• "take the five books you'd take to a desert island and keep rereading them"
•  

Weeks 31-39 - Reset Button

War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy

Spiritual Direction: Wisdom for the Long Walk of Faith - Henri Nouwen (Michael Christensen and Rebecca Laird)

The Gentle Art of Spiritual Guidance - John Yungblut

Holy Listening: The Art of Spiritual Direction - Margaret Guenther

The Rule of St. Benedict


   I don't know how effective this practice is, but now and then, maybe twice a year, I'll call in sick and push my reset button. It's on the bottom of my left heel, slightly off center toward the instep. Since it's invisible and untouchable, more of a theoretical point than a button, I have to whisper an elaborate, nonsensical incantation and twist and turn several times in bed in order to "push" it, like some kind of Rube-Goldberg magic trick.
   As a result I sleep at least until noon, and then sit around a lot, preferably in the sun. No tv, youtube, or news. A little reading and writing and music are ok. Exercise is ok, if I feel like it. No deadlines allowed. As little talking as possible. No answering the phone if I can help it. If I'm sad I'm sad. If I'm happy I'm happy. "Lord Jesus have mercy on me."
   Today is a reset day. Truly a luxury and a privilege.

War and Peace
   Sometimes you read a book that is so tightly knit, so perfectly tied together, that it seems impossible to imagine leaving out any part of the story... or it seems impossible to imagine the story being other than it is. War and Peace had the exact opposite effect on me. Almost nothing seemed necessary or essential; almost everything seemed gratuitous. Gratis, grace, freely given, etc..
   I could imaging cutting every other chapter and still having a brilliant, coherent story. Or I could imagine splicing and expanding the story into a dozen or so equally epic novels. As you wish! And yet the characters, the narrator (with increasingly annoying repetition), and I the reader are constantly caught between the daily weather of free will and the mysterious climate of Destiny. How is it possible that such heavy, ominous subject matter could feel so loose and free? I mean, Pierre, Ellen, Prince Andrey, Dolohov, Natasha, Princess Marie, can you imagine a more lead-weighted cast of characters? Everything is so serious and important! Nonetheless just as often they are as funny and friendly as you like.
   I decided to read it after Granddaddy David told me he'd started earlier this summer. I hoped to have finished by the end of my bike trip, so that we could talk about it when I arrived...but I hadn't even started the book by the time I left Richmond. It's true what they say about it: it's a long book!

Ruah reading for the 1st retreat
   These three lovely books about spiritual direction, plus the Rule of St Benedict, got us started into year one of Ruah XVII (you know the roman numerals add dignity, solemnity, lol).
   Nouwen's book isn't exactly his book - it was put together after his death by two friends of his from various papers, class notes, and selections from other Nouwen writings. Nouwen makes it clear that he felt various calls in his life - Christian, priest, teacher, writer, etc - but in one passage he claims that his call to Daybreak in Toronto was the first time he'd felt called. I really want to hear more about that.
   Yungblut deeply loves Jung and Teilhard, and for some reason I don't love them, so it took me a minute to get over that, but once I did his book was charming. He offers helpful suggestions about how to prepare oneself for being a spiritual guide and the mechanics of meeting with someone (where to meet, how to talk, how to sit, etc). They're only suggestions, though; he is always clear that each guide and each guide-ee will find their own ways, and that they must both always look to the Holy Spirit as the true guide to "self and Self."
   Guenther's Holy Listening felt the most "real" to me, as in - based mostly on her years of experience as a spiritual director. I loved her use of psalms, and the way she incorporated anecdotes and mini-case studies. What else has she written? All three authors strongly advise that the desire and call to be a spiritual director must begin with an experience of God's love. An anchor in God's everlasting love enables the director to listen without judgment, to serve without the need to please or control, and to love without unhealthy attachment.
   How many times have I read the Rule? Not that many. Certainly not so many that the pages have ceased to spark, or chafe, or sing, or drone. I absolutely love the modern commentaries and interpretations (Chittister is amazing!), but their goal is to make the Rule easier to comprehend and practice in daily life, which necessarily softens the shock. It helps to feel the strangeness of the Rule, from time to time, I think. Beyond the shock you might find a the prick of absurdity, the little dash of insanity. Benedict wants nothing to do with the eccentricity of Simeon Stylites, but even amidst his mild manners, sensible judgment, and "nothing harsh, nothing burdensome," you get glimpses of Benedict atop some crumbling ancient column, a free and blessed old fool for God. Also I always appreciate the reminder not to wear a knife to bed.


Notes

Spiritual Direction

• -For Henri, a spiritual director simply was someone who talks to you and prays with you about your life. Wisdom and direction emerge...
• -disciplines of the Heart, the Book, the Church
• -I had raised a question from below and that she had given an answer from above
• -discipline to ask, seek, knock until the door opens
• -Once pain or confusion is framed or articulated by a question, it must be lived rather than answered
• -Without a question, an answer is experienced as manipulation or control. Without a struggle, the help offered is considered interference. And without the desire to learn, direction is easily felt as oppression.
• -One of the main objectives of spiritual direction is to help people discover that they already have something to give
• -the lion in my heart recognized the lion in the marble
• -To listen with obedience to the voice of God requires building up a resistance to all the other voices that compete for our attention
• -We can't always see God's activity by ourselves
• -Self-rejection can show itself in a lack of confidence or a surplus of pride
• -Becoming the Beloved means letting the truth of our Belovedness become enfleshed in everything we think, say, or do
• -No, no...I just wanted you to know that Jean Vanier sends his greetings
• -my heart started to burn, and I started to recognize the presence of Jesus in a radical new way
• -1cry out to God, 2turn everything into conversation with God, 3meditation and contemplation
• -Anger and hatred, which separate us from God and others, can also become the doorway to greater intimacy with God
• -Prayer is primarily a 'useless' hour to be with God, not because I am so useless to God, because I am not in control
• -This relationship is called Spirit
• -hear the word: 1Living Word, 2Scripture and written word, 3spoken word, 4writing the word
• -a willingness not just to read but to be read
• -the Bible does not speak to us as long as we want to use it
• -Word from silence and back to silence
• -Silence gives strength and fruitfulness to the word
• -Even after many years of writing, I experience real fear when I face the empty page
• -Writing is a process in which we discover what lives in us. The writing itself reveals to us what is alive in us
• -Solitude greets solitude and community is formed. It's remarkable that solitude always calls us to community.
• -Community life opened me up to the real spiritual combat: the struggle to keep moving toward the light precisely when the darkness is so real
• -It's so important that we keep forgiving one another - not once in a while but every moment of life
• -Henri, you give good advice. Why don't you read some of your own books?
• -It's an incredible mystery of God's love that the more you know you are loved, the more you will see how deeply your sisters and your brothers in the human family are loved
• -Mutuality in ministry can be characterized by two words: gratitude and compassion
• -Compassion and gratitude in ministry are possible through the twin disciplines of downward mobility and voluntary displacement
• -the Heart, the Book, the Church, and the Body

Gentle Art of S.G.

• the art of discerning "that of God" in another and helping that individual be true to this divine spark
• remaining intensely alert to all the shadow manifestations brought into play by this intolerably heavy persona, one is to commit one's self into God's keeping, knowing that appropriate humility will flow only from sustained consciousness of the love of God, to which the very first intimation of calling was already a response
• the call to serve as a spiritual guide...always begins with the experience of being loved by God
• developmental stages: purgation, illumination, unitive life
• Jung - "autonomous complex" - creates independent orbit of its own within psyche...tends to pull into its orbit other parts of the psyche
• How can there conceivably be any discontinuity? (between prelife and life)
• convergence of Jung's myth of the psyche (individuation) and Teilhard's myth of cosmogenesis (universe evolving toward more and more consciousness)
• Teilhard, "radial" meeting, from center to center, as distinct from tangential meeting
• A "meeting for spiritual guidance" must be an occasion for communion if it is to realize its full potential.
• Doctor, it's turtles all the way down
• a mutual discernment of the way forward
• anyone who would presume to practice this vocation must also have a spiritual guide of one's own
• there is the haunting suspicion that, though long dead, the author somehow knows me, is strangely nearer to the real me than I have been for some time
• Caryll Houselander
• praise, thanksgiving, confession, intercession, petition
• EmD, "identity is a hound that all to readily slips its leash"
• no gift should be allowed to atrophy without the recognition that this puts in jeopardy one's whole psychic health
• Fox, "Go cheerfully over the face of the earth, answering to that of God in everyone"
• If one does not sufficiently identify with the counselee, one cannot help. Neither can one help if one over-identifies
• Retracing the golden thread of continuity...The most significant events are the mystical experiences of the love of God
• ...the rule paradoxically bestows a new freedom for spontaneity
• ongoing, sustained, corporate experience of the love of God

Holy Listening

• Alan Jones, true spiritual direction is about the great unfixables in human life
• host, someone who offers a temporary home as a place of rest and refreshment
• the first task is one of housecleaning, of creating our own inner order
• I always disconnect the telephone and hang a Do Not Disturb sign
• a good host gives the guest the sense that there is all the time in the world
• less is frequently more
• about ten minutes before the time is up, I manage to interject, "We'll have to stop in a few minutes"...the most important material of the session may be introduced...It is tempting to extend the time when these "doorknob manisfestations" occur
• story-telling needs to be unhurried and unharried
• simple, direct questions that cut to the heart of the matter are part of the spiritual tradition
• "I, too, am a sinner"
• amateurs who aspire to reflect Christ's love
• help connect the individual's story to the story
• this story must reach into the future. spiritual direction is about hope, and there is always a next step
• preparing for a "good death"
• thoughtful self-disclosure is one way of remaining grounded and human, although it must be intentional and judicious
• gentle, non-intrusive humor has a way of restoring perspective, or reducing our inflated selves to manageable proportions
• the Holy Spirit is the true director
• a learner and teacher of discernment
• Jesus helps the woman (at the well) to look into herself deeply and discover her thirst for God
• Amma Theodora on the attributes of a teacher
• (don't let desire to be liked keep you from speaking hard truths)
• a good teacher encourages play
• I am constantly struck by the proximity of play and pray
• a merry candor
• the director needs to combine gentleness with candor and expect commitment and hard work
• a good teacher is always hopeful
• a good teacher asks questions, but they must be the right questions - ones that open doors, invite the directee to stretch and grow
• to live the questions is to be willing to persevere in peering into the empty tomb
• a good teacher is willing and able to evaluate progress
• a good teacher is vulnerable
• a good teacher is always a learner
• a good teacher (like a good parent) educates for maturity
• the desire for help in shaping and structuring the daily routine is implicit in almost every case
• hurray for Shiphrah and Puah
• Yet if I were to name my own most profound spiritual or theological experience, without hesitation I would cite the birth of my three children
• a long period of waiting and uncertainty
• the onset of labor...this can be sudden or slow and gradual
• labor itself (director - presence, patience, waiting)
• she intervenes only when necessary and helpful, never for the sake of "doing something"
• she is capable of a loving detachment, but at the same time feels solidarity with the one giving birth
• transition...the birthgiver is gripped by tremendous force and feels that she has somehow lost control
• the second stage begins in the midst of the chaos of transition...the time of active work
• celebration...it is impossible to describe the joy that fills the room at the birth of a child. A midwife friend tells me that the excitement of welcoming new life never grows old.
• it is a time for rejoicing and celebration, even when the midwife knows that this is just the beginning, the first of many births. sooner of later, the whole process must begin again
• Weil, the action that follows are just the automatic effect of this moment of attention. the attention is creative
• there is the danger of becoming a spiritual voyeur, of using and feeding upon the other
• the unquestioning and tenacious love of mothers
• a ministry of compassionate presence
• If we believe with Julian that, in spite of everything, it will be alright, we need not say these words. We will embody them.
• the directee must be taken seriously, even when she seems not to take herself seriously.
• self-contempt is a loveless field that offers prime growing conditions to other sins, among them false humility, envy manipulativeness, and sloth.
• my two favorite questions - "what do you want?" and "where do you hurt?"
• but there is one thing you must do, and I will keep at you about it: value yourself!
• yet at all times the director needs to be credulous. we are still suffering from Freud's failure to believe the real world experiences of upper-middle-class girls in turn-of-the-century Vienna.
• joyously attentive to those small annuciations that don't always seem like good new