Contemplative Christian » Interfaith Dialogue http://contemplativechristian.com Grace and Presence in Prayer Mon, 02 Jan 2012 08:19:32 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.2 Happiness http://contemplativechristian.com/happiness/ http://contemplativechristian.com/happiness/#comments Mon, 08 Nov 2010 02:23:39 +0000 admin http://contemplativechristian.com/?p=1320
My family has recently moved to a small town, 15 miles on a single country road from the city nearby. This is my daily commute…and its quite a drastic change from the bumper to bumper, noisy, crowded trip through the inner city I used to brave each day. Silence and simplicity.

I have a sense of well-being here…a sense of happiness. We’re expecting our first child in December, I’m teaching and loving the joys and challenges of adolescent learners. Life hasn’t always been good…but it is presently quite good. I find myself wondering when the other shoe will drop…when tragedy will strike. Why do I have such trouble accepting, internalizing, the happiness of the moment?

The rain pours on both good and the evil, and so too does the sun shine. This is a mystery that begs for quick and easy answers…we want to hear we have some control over our life. If we’re good…God will be good to us. However, we have no control, and there really is no comfort. Some people suffer greatly, and some do not. What use is it, then, to pray for things to go our way? What use is prayer, one might ask?

Matthieu Ricard, biochemist-turned-Buddhist monk, speaks of happiness:

So, what is happiness? The absence of suffering? The absence of sadness? Or, is there a beauty in the emotional ups and downs life brings…a sense of well-being suspended between peace and heartache, anger and defeat, despair and rapture?

Prayer is the middle way, I think, a foundational place where the experience of the “Other”, existing outside of happiness and pain, outside of emotion and life’s woundedness, can become our own experience…even if only in a limited way. And when I touch that…when in prayer I see through the eyes of Christ, as though through a glass darkly, I do find happiness…or rather, peace that surpasses happiness, surpasses understanding. I inevitably drift away and forget this peace, back in the daily distractions of life. It usually takes pain or passion to call me back again. I admire the discipline of the Buddhists, who give simplicity and silence such a central place in their practice. The western church hasn’t emphasized meditative prayer, but it is exactly this prayer we need. It is the discipline of resting in grace.

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]]> http://contemplativechristian.com/happiness/feed/ 2 Stepping Into Life http://contemplativechristian.com/stepping-into-life/ http://contemplativechristian.com/stepping-into-life/#comments Wed, 21 Jan 2009 21:55:00 +0000 admin http://contemplativechristian.com/?p=747 Stepping Into LifeThere have been so many people speaking Christ to me lately…so many voices merging together into the gentle voice of God.  My mentor and friend Pat is in Liberia right now.  He shared with me how Christ is there in the dusty, crowded marketplace, in the poverty, in the individual desires for recognition among the people.  Many would spiritualize what he’s doing as “more holy”, because he’s living on the edge in a dangerous place…a missionary.  He doesn’t see it that way…his journey there is the same as mine here.  We seek Christ in the present moment, we encounter our own fears and pride, we lose ourselves in devotion…for him, the response to Christ is in Liberia.  For me, the response to Christ is here.

A discussion with another friend led to the topic of fear of change…of the uncomfortableness of uncertainty.  In the midst of a dialogue, the words of Christ come through.  Uncertainty, fear and anxiety belong.  I am uncertain of tomorrow…I have no control, I have no comfort. Yet, right now I respond to Christ…and my response is a letting go, a surrender.  Doubt and anxiety are not weaknesses to hide from or cover over with righteous thoughts…they are gifts, for they call us to surrender again and again to the present.

I used to wonder why God seemed to speak so loudly to certain people, and not to me.  Now I realize certain people just speak loudly, and maybe they’re hearing from God and maybe they’re not.  For me, hearing God has meant stepping into my own life.   I used to relate to my own spirituality as though I were a third person observing.  “Right now I’m praying…good”.  “I went to church today…I feel good now”. ” If I were to pray with these people, what would I say?”  I still slip into this sometimes.

Its as though we’re constantly watching ourselves, measuring our own spirituality against some standard…observers of our walk with God, instead of participants.  I think this habit is easily picked up in the western church, where spirituality can easily become an exercise of saying and doing the right things, instead of a relationship.

Stepping into our own life with God means acknowledging the reality of the present moment, moment by moment, day by day.  It can be raw and real…we’re not always saying and doing the right things, but God calls us to be known anyway.  We don’t always feel spiritual, but acknowledging this is true spirituality.  God doesn’t always do what we want Him to do…and surrendering to this is as real as it gets.

As I’ve stepped into my own life, I’ve been able to respond to God in the present, even when He seems to be silent.  I’m come to accept silence…and as I do, I begin to hear His voice and see His presence in the words of friends, in a dusty crowd of humanity in a foreign world, in the mundane drive to work, in soft moments with my spouse.  Christ is here, and He is not silent.

]]> http://contemplativechristian.com/stepping-into-life/feed/ 0 Christ in the East http://contemplativechristian.com/christ-in-the-east/ http://contemplativechristian.com/christ-in-the-east/#comments Wed, 17 Dec 2008 19:56:23 +0000 admin http://contemplativechristian.com/?p=304 lotus-cross

Cross Emerging from a Lotus Flower

I came across an interesting article by Phillip Jenkins, entitled “When Jesus met Buddha”, and printed in the Boston Globe. It is a poignant discussion of the contemporary collision of Christianity with the other world religions, and what its future might look like in an increasingly global community. Jenkins spends a great deal of time detailing the move of the early Christian faith into Asia and Africa, relatively detached from the main body of the Church which developed in Europe. The Church of the East gave rise to vibrant communities of Christ followers in China, whose cultural expressions of faith naturally commingled and cooperated with Buddhist thought and Confucian culture. The church that emerged there adopted the symbol of the lotus cross, a cross emerging from a lotus flower, two symbols representing liberation and redemption brought together.

The article is a good read, and raises interesting questions about how the predominately European-influenced Christian Church of today will be viewed 1000 years from now. Will it be seen as the righteous holder of Truth it views itself as? Or, will this time in history be considered a dark time in the Christian church, where the essential message of Christ was overshadowed by fundamentalism? I don’t know the answer to this. I do often recognize a great difference between the Christ I encounter in the Gospels and the Christ being proclaimed to the world by the church…the ‘Good News’ doesn’t always sound that good.

Read the full text of the article here –> or  here–>
If you’d like to discuss this issue in more depth, visit our forum topic on Interfaith Dialogue, and start a discussion.

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