Students of Life

Cairn as symbol of guidance along God Faint Path

Jim Finley: Contemplation as a Transformative Path

The patterns of our sharing incarnate how God is one with us in our day to day lives. These sharing heighten our awareness of our life in God. Awakenings come welling up out of the ordinariness of our days. He’s using the metaphor of loving relationship, but it plays out whatever our calling. 

When you are speaking to a therapist, they are listening for the deeper patterns that you may not be conscious of. They invite you to bring out into your conscious awareness an aspect of that hidden pattern, again and again. 

When you are focused on a to do list, it is hard to see God anywhere. If you think you are what you do, and the more you do the more you are, you are just a commodity being used up. Trying to keep up, we realize we are skimming over life. God’s unexplainable oneness with us is buried beneath all this. Suddenly, it comes rising up, and it tends to be overtaken by the demands, but we know it is down deep. 

If we don’t sit and go deeper with the loved one, they won’t feel seen, and wonder if you can see yourself. A lot of the wisdom we learn in life arises from everything we are coping with each day. If you have been quickened like this, it is natural you want to share this. They look at you funny. If you aren’t careful, you can doubt the awakening of your own heart. There is a certain aloneness, and the gift of this conference is sharing of that awakening. There is sadness. God sees that we don’t see the presence God in our life. We are the song God sings. We don’t see it because we are late for the next meeting.

That which is essential never imposes itself. The nonessential always imposes itself. Don’t let yourself be carried of by the details of the day. What is the response of God’s sadness of not recognizing our belovedness. Jesus appeared to walk with us. Jesus meets each person in their unawareness of their preciousness of their lives. He SAW everyone, and infinitely understood. And, that experience is our salvation. 

God freely chooses the vulnerability of waiting for our recognition of God’s presence in our lives. She says, “Before we met, I did not know a love like this was possible. I didn’t even know it existed, this love.” How did it come to pass that you are the man or woman who is sensitive to this? Looking back, you realize you had moments of awakening that set you on a search for more. We find ourselves in the middle of something we didn’t know existed. 

Some get so caught up in the demands of the day, they don’t realize they even have a soul. Being awakened to this gift asks something of us. The fact that we are together like this is proof someone is looking after us. 

She says, ‘It has gotten so deep. It isn’t like we didn’t fall in love. In the wonder of that initial love, we have come to this place of love we would not have even recognized.’ What is a deep thought? Imagine you are at the water’s edge, in the fog you see an island, and you realize in a moment that island is inside yourself. Solitude means you are less and less able to explain it to anyone, including yourself. 

It is a solitude of intimacy. Merton said, in the moment of death, no matter how many surround you, you are alone, and there is an obscure certainty that God is there with you. These matters must be incomprehensibly understood. But you can intimately realize what is incomprehensible. And it is ineffable when you try to express it. Contemplative spiritual direction is two people sitting together trying to say what can’t be said. 

We are called to live God’s life. The spiritual life is how can I be healed from all that keeps us from living God’s life. We subsist in God. You cannot communicate it, but it will communicate it through you. Something deep in the listener will know it is happening. 

If we keep going, it will get deeper. But what does deeper mean? The unforseeability of everything, but you seem to sense the unforseeable. There is no such thing as a forseeable encounter with another person. The things I used to be certain of, I’m no longer certain of. But in this uncertainty, something shines forth, and that I can see. 

“I wonder if we can get to a depth of love where it is no longer possible to getting deeper.’ But her heart knows she can never get to a point where it cannot go deeper. As they make this descent they realize they have opened up into the infinity  bottomless abyss of God, which has no bottom. God is the infinity of the concrete immediacy of God in our oneness. 

As wonderful as this is, they can’t stay there. They have to do the chores. They know how the events of the day can carry us away. A curtain parts and we are fleeting aware of the abyss of God. How can I live in abiding awareness, because I can’t make these moments happen. 

It is true that we cannot make these moments of oneness, but we can stand in places that don’t resist God, and make ourselves available for a rendezvous. The meditative state is any act that takes us to this place of rendezvous. 

What is at the heart of a rendezvous? 

• To find your practice and practice it. This practice is in two levels. One is Lectio Divina, which is a receptive openness of beauty unrecognized. Deep listening. Find that person who awakens your hear to this great wave. 
• Know God is infinitely interested in everything you say, because God is in love with you. Prayer is desire, to have a deepened desire. 
• Find your teaching and follow it. It offers guidance on the path.
• Find your community. One other person who knows you deeply. You realize life is our teacher, breaking us open in new and unexpected ways. Community is humanity. The face of the next person you meet. 

You hear a talk about the spiritual life, it seems like an incredible feat. You exhaust yourself in all your ordinariness, and you cannot reach the place. Then God enters, lowers the bar to the ground, and you trip over it and fall into God. That is experiential salvation!

Reading the mystics is like listening to music. You ride the waves of awakening. When I write in the morning, longhand. I try to make it as clear and accessible as possible. It is like the discipline of the poet. Therapy is a process of finding the words to help unpack the mystery of their own life

We have these patterns that hinder us, and glimpses of patterns of wholeness. In moments of despair, go deeper. How? The how happens in the vulnerability of you being sincere in the moment trying to express what your heart is trying to say. There is no HOW. 

Richard joins the conversation

Working on a project, a new book. The path of the prophets is to go deeper when they despair. There’s been an immense loss to Judaism, that they did not take the prophets seriously, but thank God they included them. None of us know what to do with them. The teaching of the prophets was a key part of every Living School teaching. They begin as angry men and women. There are seven women who were called prophets, but they weren’t writers, because the patriarchal culture didn’t listen to them.

So, we get to read the writing of angry men. Some wait to the very end to reverse engines, and move beyond the raging and yelling and convicting sin. If you can’t hear that, you just turn it off. That remained the image of the prophet, right down to John the Baptist. He was an incomplete prophet, who never gets beyond his anger at the collective sin of the nature of Israel.

Evil exists not in the individual, but in the culture. Prophets start with anger. Then, somewhere in the text, there is a transiting, a doubt, self questioning, God questioning. Then, they move into lamentation, particularly Jeremiah. The movement from anger to tears is the essential transitioning of the prophet. Collective issues of violence, deceit are held by the whole culture. They are the only scriptures that had the courage to include these books that accuse them of being the problem. No one else has self-corrective literature. That was the lineage of Jesus. He is in the direct lineage of the Jewish prophets. He only weeps twice, for the individual Lazarus at this death, and over Jerusalem. 

The reason we watered down Jesus, was because we didn’t see him as a Jewish prophet. Meg Wheatley came to visit. She considers herself a prophet, very courageous and very true. In her later years, she has come to accept her vocation as prophet. They appear first as an early warning system for any culture at risk. If you don’t correct these attitudes of racism, sexism, materialism beyond belief. How can you do anything but weep. Many think they are speaking of retribution, but they are speaking of restoration. Most of us have attributed the Gospel with hell and punishment. that is not the worldview of the informed prophets.

Jim, Our job is to keep tender heartedness towards ourselves as we move along this journey.

Richard, in my men’s rites of passage, the one thing I said to them, “Many of you think of yourselves as angry, but I want to tell you a truth about yourselves, you are sad.” Men were not taught to feel sadness or cry. I am not an angry man as much as a sad man. With Ukraine, Gaza, recognizing it brings us great sadness. 

What wisdom do you have to offer us in the path of the prophet, in this moment, in all that it asks of us in gratitude and life.

Jim, How we do this is to continue to do what we are all doing collectively in the communal sincerity of the openness to all that is happening.

Richard, First of all, plead ignorance, don’t plead certitude. We were not taught the way of unknowing unless you were taught in the mystical way of each religion. We were taught to reach for certainty. The opposite of doubt is certitude. What is the end of the Universe? Who is this God? He has to be bigger than the Universe. Hubble telescope taught us humility, because it can never reach the end of the Universe. Too many people are arrogant in the certitude of their beliefs. Exploration not Explanation.

St Talbot’s poem.

Contemplation: Past, present and future, Panel Discussion

Even learned theologians might not have experienced the depths. It is pointless to praise the light if no one else can see it. Contemplation is a long, loving look at the real. 

The creation of contemplation begins with the contemplation of creation. 

Randy Woodley, everything is part of the community of creation, and God breathes into those things. We were taught we were the crown of creation, but as I look at people, they don’t seem to be the crown of creation. Our role as human beings is to tend to creation, to keep the harmony and balance. We hold that responsibility out of all the creatures that live. All of tending is about our role as servants. When we see things go awry, we have to step in. Creator shows Creator self through the Creation. If we want to understand who Creator is, we have to spend time in creation, listening and learning. The narrrative that the creation is there to serve us is exactly backward, it is the furthering of the empire. We must weave through the lies that have been told, that support so many oppressive things. Earth is going to be all right, not sure we are going to be all right. See the reality of the illusion of the narrative we have been encultured to believe.

Mirabai Starr, It is amazing to find how many mystics find their way back to the maternal, the divine feminine. The feminine and female people by necessity are connected to the earth. There is a tolerance for now knowing in the feminine space that allows the experience of the sacred. There is a tolerance for ambiguity and mystery that comes from our direct experience of the divine. This is an experience that lives in people of all genders that recognize the oneness that connects us all. There is an abundance of wonderful women mystics that feed the aquifer of the divine feminine soul. Is this the darkness of the tomb, or the darkness of the womb, where the new future will be birthed. It seems to be both. Something is dying, and we are midwifing into the new reality. It is a space of both darkness and refuge. 

Carmen Acevedo Butler. The story of contemplation is also the contemplation of story. You can argue policy, but you cannot argue the reality of someone’s experience. Story comes from an ancient root that means ‘to see.’ Contemplation is a temple where we stand to see. Story is about to how to see. Recovery of memory and story are essential to healing. We have our stories to not feel alone. We tell our stories to heal the world. 

Brian McLaren. We go thru life like inexperienced canoeists, going one way and another trying to go in a straight line. When we work without reflection, to ever question it, to wonder about it, to see the downside of it. Then, we move to contemplation without action. Both are solutions to a problem that then become a problem. Holding onto reflective action. Why did the Christian tradition flatten out the experience of the prophets? The words keep popping up from being flat, to becoming 3 dimensional. They can’t keep silent to say the law and the priests don’t have all the answers. The land does not belong to us, we belong to the land. The work of the prophets is to help us find a new way to live. 

Jim Finley. The practice of contemplation comes from the contemplation of practice. The desert fathers and mothers became experimental laboratories for finding the contemplative way. When I sat with Thomas Merton for spiritual direction, he asked three questions: 

• How is life going here?
• How’s it going in the surrender to the mystery that transforms your heart?
• How’s it going in discovering the way the second question bubbles up in the first question? 

Learning the complexities of the unfolding of our own heart. And, the way we can light the way for others seeking this path. So many of the practices do offer us healing, and our personal healing is in service of the world. Trauma means a wound or a source of suffering. The foundation is not what those traumatizing things have done to traumatize us. The depth dimension is discovering our belovedness, beyond the darkness of this world. Once I’ve tasted this oneness, this nothingness without the love of God. Now, I must be present to the suffering that still goes on. I have to draw near to the hurting place and touch it with love so that it might dissolve. Then I must back away to ground myself.  Then return to the hurting place again, over and over. Slowly I am transformed. Be present with the trauma without being traumatized. When we risk what hurts the most with someone who will not abandon us, we are on holy ground. Under the layers of hurt is the light of the preciousness of who we are.

Carmen Acevedo Butler. How does telling our stories heal us as well? There is the element of witness. I share my story, I’m not rejected. In sharing my story, I’ve seen my trauma through the lens of my joy. In telling my story, I am sustained. We are all talking in the dark, and don’t really know what it means until someone hears it. We get healed in community. Others hear, and affirm the experiences. The peace comes back to us, and our suffering and joy are connected to a larger story.

Brian McLaren. When people tell their story and it is minimized or pushed aside, it adds to the wounding. 

Randy Woodley. Sometimes the story was so grievous that we cannot hear it. Often the response is I don’t hear your pain because I don’t know what to do with it. That is why native people tell there stories among our own. They don’t know how to hear, to listen. Just stay at the table and listen. God is the ultimate one who tells a story that many don’t have time to listen to. 

Mirabai Starr: How do we learn to sit with suffering, in our pain and with others? The path of contemplation is human. We can only learn to listen by listening. Sitting in contemplation lets us process what we have heard in community. The silence we hold for each other is the most powerful spiritual practice, being silent witness of story. We are so conditioned to fill the space with words. Contemplative practice gives us the fortitude to meet the suffering of the world. A contemplative heart strengthens us to not turn away. The next step is to move closer to the fire. 

One of the most powerful books about story is Crisis Contemplation by Dr Barbara Holmes.

Randy Woodley, Drumbeat is the heartbeat of creation. It is a sacred thing we partake in. When you dance to the drums, every step coincides with the drum beat, everything rising up together to the divine. You are connecting with your ancestors and representing your whole community, and oneness that is going on with everything in the Powwow. 

Dr B: When you’re running in wet cement, keep going.

There is so much learning and unlearning. We get alone to learn how to be together. 

Randy Woodley Creation Care

The only thing stable is adaptation.

Nature’s adaptation may well be human extinction, spitting out the inhabitants to protect the garden. Human beings were created to keep harmony on the earth. A closed system will be overtaken by an open system as nature adapts.

Happiness is what we are taught to do. Happiness is what we get for ourselves. Wellbeing is about what we get for ourselves and others. Common Good. When we work for the wellbeing of others, we get happiness as a by product. 

Donald Bryant: Cultivating Joy

Dr Barbara Holmes colleague and podcast co host. They were working on a podcast on Cultivating Joy. She was so optimistic up to the end. She embodied joy. There is a childlike joy in people like Dr B, Richard and Jim. 

Got a call on October 14 from Dr B’s husband, saying she had only five days left. She passed at midnight the same night. When she lived in Miami, she worked as a public defender. But it was not her passion. She would go into the city and find homeless people and bring them home to live. Her sisters told her she was crazy, she said, “God will protect me.” Her was in the hospital room the day she died. He started playing some meditation music, when she woke up and said, “Is that you Jesus?” her last piece of advice, “Tell everyone to forgive everybody always.” When she talked about ancestors, I was not comfortable. I get it, now that she has transition to become an ancestor. I still hear her voice every day telling me, “I’m going to co author a book with you.” Her husband was a reflection of her joy. Joy is contagious.

When you think about humor, not to take yourself to seriously, your successes, you realize we are all from the same substance (hummus).

‘The moan is a birthing sound, the first response to oppression.” Dr B

How do we prepare, condition, nurture the soil so joy can grow? Perhaps joy is intrinsic, primal, whom we really are. Maybe the contemplative journey helps us become aware of who we really are. Maybe there is a choice to be made. 

Eight Pillars of Joy from Desmond Tutu and the Dalai Lama, The Book of Joy

• Perspective: our social conditioning influences our perspective. It’s something we don’t often think about. Challenging sometimes the way you see is critical.
• Humility: Not being too attached to your ideas, surrender. To relinquish control is faith. Kenosis is the gently letting go. 
• Humor
• Acceptance
• Forgiveness Is critical to experience true joy
• Gratitude: Barbara was grateful for life. 
• Compassion
• Generativity

There is a becoming to cultivating joy, but it is also a return and awakening to our beginnings. You begin to recognize what is really real, and tapping into it creates a mirroring of divine joy. Rejoice, coming back to joy. Zephaniah 3:17, a picture of God rejoicing with gladness. Joy as homecoming. The circle of joy is eternal. Death is not the last word. Dr B’s work is still reverberating in our lives today. 

Joy is a choice. I’m going to choose to recognize joy is who I am. The contemplation of joy is the joy of contemplation.

Richard Rohr: my form of prayer today is gazing.

Earlier forms included glaring, ready to mistrust, the mind ready to pounce. It can’t get you there. It might take years to let go of it. You realize it is a dishonest way of approaching the moment. Then there was glancing, where we superficially look at everything. To see something, you have to allow it to awaken you. Probably the worst way of seeing is grabbing, lust. You look for what you deserve, and you grasp it. If it isn’t beautiful by your standards, you pay no attention to it. The little flower does not have the power to change you.Then there is grinning. It is the opposite of glaring. Ones have to learn how to grin, at its simplicity, being predisposed to delight, to see the beauty, the color, the shape. Watch for that wonderful experience of the edges slipping away. God will eventually to gazing. I sit on my front porch and gaze for an hour or more. You gaze until it becomes beautiful. The desert fathers needed a new word for prayer. It took on a utilitarian meeting. Gaze until you’re content. Gaze until what is in front of you satisfies you. ‘The older you get, more of what you knew and loved has gone away. All eventually passes over to the other side. Some are more ready, some are less ready. 

Mike Petrow. If you are on a spiritual journey, you will fail, and others will fail you. Origen calls it the great grounding. Those cracks that are so painful will let the light in. Dr B told asked me: How much holy chaos can you handle on the path of descent? We are supported by the one we cannot see. It is a crowded path, and it will feel like you have been abandoned. It forces you to examine the places of hurt, woundedness, ways we have wounded others. The gold can only be reached if you go deeper and deeper to God. The path of descent is a crowded path. 

Carmen Acevedo Butcher. Sometimes we feel like a nobody, but we aren’t. We tell our stories because every has been through difficult times. My life has been shaped by living into the reality of two of Jim’s quotes: God is the presence that spares us from nothing, but sustains us through everything. Only love can speak who you really are. 

My both/and started at age 7 when a Southern Baptist preacher came and preached on praying without ceasing. That started a longing in me that became a question I could live. My first teacher and healer was nature. Howard Thurman said Earth is always giving me space. I went on long walks and felt God’s love. 

Panel: Carmen Acevedo Butler, Mirabai Starr, Jim Finley

Carmen: I’m an accidental mystic. My dyslexia made all reading Lectio Divina, because it came so slowly. Learning to let go graciously is the path. Letting go means letting go of trying to do practice right. 

Mirabai: Put out a new book, Ordinary Mystics. Now writing a book about grief as a spiritual path. How does ordinary mysticism sustain us in the path of descent through difficult times. Allow every single moment to become sacred, even through the pain of the world, is this desire to do something to alleviate the pain. You dig into the pain, you don’t turn away. Give me the courage to not turn away. You’re not in trouble. I have to tell myself that all the time. We do something wrong, and we feel we are wrong. If something is going wrong in my life, I must have done something wrong is such a strong undercurrent. You aren’t doing it wrong. You are not in trouble.

Jim Finley: What does it mean that God protects us from nothing, but sustains us in everything? The truth is laid bare in the sharing of our story. When you share yourself, you are baring yourself. There is a tenderness that rises up during painful times and sustains us. At the heart of every person, there is a hurting place. Not everyone finds the light during their life. 

Jim Finley: The depth of the pain is proof of the depths of love. When someone reminds us of death, we are in someone’s presence who is able to touch our grief and pain. Just as there is multigenerational grief, there is also multigenerational transformation. 

Dr Barbara Holmes: Do you know your roots, your ancestors, the land that nurtured them? It’s good to have a grasp of where you sprang from. Who are your communities of nurture, which challenge you, which support you in your difficult journey. What is your spiritual lineage? What traditions helped shape your values and your spiritual journey? I am a evolving reality. In crisis contemplation, I challenge the idea that contemplation is peaceful. The jagged path of descent, downs and ups and downs again. Forgive everyone for everything.