"Show Us the Father!" said Phillip the Lesser

Thank you to those who have e mailed me on my Feast Day today, which I share with St James. I am just getting through this afternoon with my retreat at the Cistercian Abbey near Sparta, WI. I need a day or so to process some of the very complex facets of our retreat with Sister Meg Funk. Then I will share some of the insights which came from our time with this beautiful woman of God. However, I WILL say, though, that my own meditations have centered around continued search for the Father, expressed so well in that plantive cry of the apostle Philip in John Chapter 14: Show us the Father!

Of course, Jesus responds lovingly that the Father is already present to the Apostles in Christ himself. Philip's eyes only need to be opened to that Light and Presence. So do mine.

One bit of news I will share, however, is my plan to be received as an Oblate of the Cistercian Abbey at First Vespers of the Feast of St Benedict in July. I have been an oblate of St John's Abbey in Collegeville, MN for the past eight years. So, this is really more of a transfer than a true first time oblation. However, I feel very peaceful about the move and will blog more about the details between now and July. Suffice it to say for now that the focussed Cistercian atmosphere at Sparta and the smaller community are what I need at this point in my life.

Thoughts about Dejection

Finally returning to my work with Meg Funk's book Thoughts Matter this weekend. The next section is on dejection. I am certainly not in that "space" right now, although I have been in the past. When I was, it seemed nothing external, (change of scenery, anesthetic use of alcohol and relationships) or internal (prayer, looking on the bright side) could help ease the pain, or, in severe times, numbness.

So, I gladly hear these words again from Meg Funk, and I put them away for later reference when needed. If you need them now, then know you are being prayed for tonight:

Cassian insists that we will all experience the thought of dejection that comes from resentment, disappointment, or loss, or even from an unknown disturbance of mind.... Detachment, not indifference, should be my preferred pattern of thinking. Sorrow will always be with me. But Christ has overcome all evil, sadness, and even death itself. It is important to realize that just as I am not my thoughts, neither am I my moods or feelings....

To stay in the middle, renunciation by controlling my thoughts is more than getting over depression or letting go of a lifestyle that is sinful. It is being aware moment by moment of the true nature of reality.

Anger Matters: Virginia Tech

While I have been thinking about my post on Anger for a while, today's stunning news from Virginia Tech has pushed me to do so today. I am not sure of any details about what happened today, but of this I am quite sure.

The source of our mistaken relationships, the fountain of anger begins within ourselves, and then lashes out toward or against others. In the end, however, as I have learned through my own bitter experience, it is ourselves we hurt the most when we fail to deal with our anger.

It is a failure to love, and that failure is death to the soul.

One key to dealing with anger, is to discern one's own thoughts. Specifically, when anger arises, we have the opportunity to look carefully at our souls and how we relate to God through others. Failure to do so results in blindness of the most complete kind.

Conversely, anger provides us the opportunity to practice vigilant discernment over our own thought life, and to recognize humbly our need of outside help, whether that be grace from God or simply the counsel of a wise elder to help us clear the air. In fact, in writing this I realize that the latter is perhaps the best way to achieve the former.

It is hard work.
It is interior work.
It is work helped along by the realization that such a road is also the road
trod by our Lord and His disciples.

From Cassian, as quoted by Meg Funk:

"We should constantly search all the inner chambers of our hearts lest, unhappily, some beast related to the understanding, either lion or dragon, passing thorugh, has furtively left dangerous marks of his track.

And so, daily and hourly, turn up the ground of our hearts with the gospel plough, i.e. the ocnstant recollection of the lord' cross. By doing so, we shall manage to stamp out from our hearts the lairs of noxious beasts and thel urking places of poisonous serpents."

Conf 1.22.2

So, no matter how many news analyses you see about what happened out East today, the most productive question for us to ask is this, "why is this happening to us as humans now?"



What in our own lives allows such anger to build up, lash out, and overtake our society and our individual lives?

Things matter: What's in YOUR cell?

Continuing through the topics covered in Meg Funk's fine book, Thoughts Matter, I have been thinking about "things." It's one of eight areas of thought life discussed by the Desert Fathers, specifically listed in Cassian's Conferences.

I was surprised to find in Meg Funk's book an emphasis on the importance of letting go of "things" in the vowed monastic life. I had assumed, wrongly, that because vowed religious give up ownership of things as part of their vowed existence, that ownership simply wasn't important anymore.

Foolish me.

Giving up something outwardly is only the first step, according to Cassian. The real battle, and the real value, is found in giving up the inner attachment. Here's is Meg Funk's take:

"We cannot put an end to our desire for things by having a large or small sum of money. We can only do that by virtue of renunciation and [Cassian] urges us to root out the desire to acquire as well as the wish to retain. No number of things can satisfy the grasping, greedy impulse of avarice."

How true. Visually this came to me as a question: what's in your cell?

I have my fellow blogger Antony H. to thank for a recent reminder of the cell's importance. The picture above, Cell of the 6th hermit St. Cyriac at Sousakim, south-west of Jerusalem fairly close to the shore of the Dead Sea, comes courtesy of Antony also.

The cell is defined as the place where the monastic meets God, where he or she wrestles with day to day living, hidden away from the world's observation.

I looked into my cell. What did I find there?

A variety of "things" and concern about "things." Looking at these concerns and cares was very healthy. It granted me a new freedom to get outside myself, outside my daily practice, outside my work and my "mission and ministry" to see aspects of my life which usually go tooling on their merry way unexamined.

A tres healthy process to go through for the spirit.

But a greater surprise to me was that in my cell there were also people.... and when it comes to discernment, those people are also "things." I'm not talking about "using" people or the evil of "objectifying" others as foils for our own desires, fears etc. That's sin.

Instead, I observe that people by their very nature, like physical things, have a spiritual force field, a gravitational attraction, if you will. This "pull" of people in my life makes them as much in need of a good discerning examination as the other physical "things" of which our lives are made.

After it was over (this round at least) I called this process a Spring Cleaning. It fits because right now here in Minnesota we are beginning to emerge from our wintry cocoons to take stock of the house, the yard, the garden and get ready for the riotous few months of outdoor pleasure which God grants the true Minnesotan.

In societal terms, this time is a perfect companion to the Lenten journey, which is its spiritual counterpart.

More from Meg:

"When we consent to a serious relationship with God, grace follows. Cassian notes that none of us has to do all the practices of the spiritual life. But many who answer the inner light begin, through inclination after inclination, to make choices from a discerning heart. Over time, this practice becomes a lifestyle."

What's in YOUR cell?

Thoughts About Sex

Continuing on in the book "Thoughts Matter" the second specific area of concern addressed by the Desert Fathers is thoughts about sex.

My own journey along this path has taken a number of different turns over the years.... through superheated teenage years, searching twenties, settling thirties, and life defining forties. My most recent stage began about 4 years ago when I read a definition of chastity on a website. It described chastity as "the use and control of sexual desire by faith and right reason." That definition struck me as odd at the time.

I realized for the first time that chastity is not some mental belt of negation which I put on because I am a Christian. Instead, that definition alllowed me to begin seeing chastity as a positive good, based on and flowing out of specific virtues of the Christian life. I went from just saying 'no" to sex to saying "yes" to a much larger framework of virtuous desires and patterns, all based on the intense desire for God.

A second awakening occured as a result of attending a conference on John Paul II's "Theology of the Body." I heard Christopher West talk about the concepts of chastity in marriage and in the vocation to religous life. It took a while for me to internalize my acceptance of that concept. But once I began to experience the spiritual power of chastity for myself, it became much more clear to me and infinitely more attractive.

Which leads me to Meg Funk, and the Desert Fathers.... They described this harnassing of sexual energy in much the same way as I have experienced it... a no to the lesser in order to say yes to the Greater. Along wth that decision comes great energy and freedom.

Here Cassian's ideas proves helpful. The state of no sex, he says (according to Meg Funk), has all the benefits of sex and more. "The mind attains a subtle purity and will experience an increase of devotion that is difficult to describe or narrate." He's right, and I won't attempt to describe it further here. Go read Meg Funk or Cassian himself to find out more

I will say, though, that if you haven't yet discovered the joy of this gift yet, I'd urge you to try it. I started the pursuit of chastity three years ago as a Lenten project. And it's been a continuing and growing journey ever since, a journey I have yet to regret setting out on.

Food for "Thoughts Matter"

Food.

Many people around the world still find gathering or producing it a focus of daily concern and effort, much more so than we in the first world. Today the Drudge Report noted that someone in New York is marketing a $1000 pizza. Grotesque.

But, we Christians pray about it every day, when we ask for our daily bread. It's the first topic of conversation on the regular afternoon phone call: what's for supper? So why wouldn't food be important to our spiritual journey? And so it is, according to Meg Funk. It's the first of the eight areas of thought-life on which the Desert (wouldn't it be fun to mis-spell it Dessert?) Fathers focussed. And for good reason.

Books we can do without. Sex we can do without. Recognition from others we can do without.

But without food we die.

So I have learned from the book "Thoughts Matter." Because of its centrality in human experience food becomes the arena out of which we first learn how to practice moderation. It is the locus where we can begin to examine thoughts as they arise, and then deal with them.

How much food is enough? How much is too little? How much is right for me?

The answer to those questions are as individual as you are.... and, like the rest of our daily lives, food is a reflection of the in-carnal-ity of our spiritual lives. Food matters, not because the food itself is important, but because it is a cause for celebration of creation and for submission to the Creator.

So, the next time you think about eating, or begin to eat, or make a comment about eating (your own or someone else's) stop yourself. Pause, pick the thought up and ask where it comes from and where it leads. I think you'll find the result most interesting.

Next time: Thoughts and Sex

Thoughts Do Matter

Thoughts do matter. Last summer a good friend and spiritual advisor, Father Cyril Gorman (now aka Father Tony) suggested that I read a book by Sr. Mary Margaret Funk, OSB. The book is entitled Thoughts Matter and it covers the eight areas of thought life discussed by John Cassian in his Conferences. These are food, sex, things, anger, dejection, acedia, vainglory, and pride.

Now it's been a year and I am returning to the book once again during Lent in order to walk with some brothers who are using this book for their own Lenten table reading. Sometimes it's great to return to familiar books, because it gives one a better idea of how far you have, or in some cases, haven't come.

In this case, a lot has transpired since I devoured that book basically in one weekend while at St John's Abbey last year. Coming back to it I can see now how important thoughts are. I also perceive how much of the progress I've made this past year in discernment and holy living has come from being aware of and directing my thought processes consciously toward God.

By no means have I come very far, but the reality is that my interior landscape began to change with the recognition that my inner dialogue was a conscious part of my spiritual life. Over time I'll be blogging about the eight areas as I cover them over the next 4 weeks of Lent, leading up to my Lenten retreat just before Holy Week.

Here is one quote from the introduction to the book. I hope it will entice others to pick it up and read it:

"To renounce one's thoughts may seem out-of-date to a casual observer- harsh, foreboding, even unrelenting. Yet, the theory about this, developed 2,000 years ago, is being rediscovered and reappropirated in our time by both mystics and scholars. A mind at peace, stilled, available for conscious thinking at will is of major value for those of us who confront chaos, confusion, noise and numbness as we move into the third millenium."

How true. Most of the men I know struggle, consciously or unconsciously, with a bombardment of images and information about sex, food, power and other enticements which seems to be taken for granted by our society. This caustic environment can't be escaped, at least not totally. So, resources to deal with it must come from within. John Cassian and his modern interpreter, Meg Funk, have given us those resources.

As some have said more eloquently than I, the place of struggle, the modern desert, for spiritual seekers, is not a place apart, it's right here, within our own culture. In this place we wrestle our demons to the ground and dash them against Christ, the Rock.

A Quiet Time, with Tools

What a marvelous day.... I went to Mass this morning at Visitation Convent, had coffee with a priest friend, then came home and read, prayed quietly and put up the last three of nine outdoor lights on our house (a bone chilling 10 degrees out.... but warmer than it has been or shall be soon here in MN) I also had the chance to sit by the fire and read and just think.... a luxury indulged in all too infrequently.

I am striving to finish up Meg Funk's book Tools Matter... for Practicing the Spiritual Life. The entire book has deepened my hunger for alone time with God. She has a fine sense about her writing, not really a "how to" manual, but very practical, and steeped in Benedictine/ Monastic/ Spiritual Practice Wisdom.

Here is a little slice which I hope will encourage you to pick it up and read more.....

"How can we tend the garden of our souls? Are there any tools? How do
these tools work? This book is a brief presentation of tools foundin the
Christian tradition and how they worked for the early monks and nuns.
These monastics were people like you and me, They felt the same
impulse we do-- they needed help.

To find that help they went to visit the early hermits, quiet dwellers in the
desert, and asked them, " and asked them "How do you do it?" "How do I do it?"

These wise persons taught them to guard their hearts, to watch
their thoughts, to spend time in vigils, to fast, to confess, to practice
ceaseless prayer, to practice prayer of the heart, and to do manual labor,

to name a few of the recommended practices."