A simple case of habit.

Brother Lawrence 1611-1691 Excerpts from The Practice of the Presence of God

There has been so much written about Brother Lawrence's Practicing the Presence of God. I decided I  am not going to dwell on the technicalities, but this is what struck me about it.

Firstly Brother Lawrence as he is known only spent 25 of his 80 years as a Carmelite Lay Bother. His other 55 years were spent as a soldier and a servant. I believe these had as much influence on him as the following 25. You see I believe it was in these years he journeyed to a place of simplicity. Travelling toward God in those years to make initial decision to join the monastery. 

 Some Winnie the Pooh Wisdom

Brother Lawrence spent his latter life determined to  experiment into how to be in a habitual state of communion with God. Brother Lawrence was simply "trying to do life with God". I find this interesting that when I tried to find  a picture of  Brother Lawrence most of the images portrayed him as a scholar, but he had no formal education and did not come into the monastery till he was 55. The kitchen of the monastery was one of the smelting crucibles that God chose to refine him.

I find it encouraging that in his story he tried and failed so many times as he journeyed into spending his conscious time with God. This man like me was no super saint. He was a man my 21st century mentality can cope with. He spent his days alone with pots and pans and learnt to find God there.

I know that I do my devotions as we talked about last week, but it can be many hours before God comes into my consciousness again. I am easily distracted, as well as being totally absorbed which may seem an oxy-moron, but let me explain. When I am supposed to be with God  I can be so easily distracted.  While at work or at play I am absorbed in what I am doing.

My take away on this is a simple plan:

I have a frozen shoulder which requires stretching every 20 minutes to continue healing. I use a timer on my phone to remind me. So every time I stretch, I will also pray. Maybe I can begin to  become more aware of being with my Heavenly Father as Brother Lawrence did. By developing a habit of acknowledging my Father on a regular basis.  As Pooh said" today is my favourite day" ................... a chance to try again!

Until next time Paul

Be thou my vision- A simple truth



In Honour of those ANZAC Troops who gave their lives in devotion and honour to their King and Country.
May we do the same.

This week the reading was by Lancelot Andrews one of the finest minds of his time. The excerpts were from his private devotions in the form of written prayers.

What crabbed me in this process was that he understood what it was to be devoted to God. This was not just an exercise. He was truly God and others focussed. In an "its all about me" saturated 21st century that is quite impressive.

I have done my stint at Bible College and it was duly impressed upon me that anyone who has done anything significant for God has done their morning devotions. Thinking back this did not create the right impression because the part I grasped was that it was about working at it because you should if you wanted to anything significant for God. Now I have done my devotions with varying degrees of success for over twenty years. But I may have not completely grasped the point. It is not so much about the what and the how as it is about the WHO! It is about me and God! As I try and begin to match my level of devotion for him to the amazing level of devotion he has for me.

 If am not knowing my Heavenly Father better rather than just  learning about him, I am short changing myself. It is the moving from the formal knowledge of a  Father to the intimate knowledge of Abba (papa/daddy). Much as one develops the intimacy in a marriage it is a life long process.

There is a place for all that I do read and pray scripture, soak in worship, generally pray, and reading devotional material. I need to learn about God and to do things and with God.

However  after this week what I really want is to learn to be with God . Just as my wife and I can travel in silence with complete connection and understanding after 30 years. I aspire to that connection with my Heavenly Father............ just being together.

I want to be at home with my Abba. As someone once prophesied over me,"Abba Father" would become very important to me. I need to fully grasp my place as a son to be fully devoted.

I read this quote this week, it summed it up for me:

"If you want to build a ship don't drum up people to collect wood and don't assign them tasks and work, but rather teach how to long for the endless immensity of the sea.
Antoine de Saint -Exupery

I pray you can long for a devoted and intimate relationship with your Heavenly Father, your Abba.

The Gift of illness - a strange thought!

Julian of Norwich (1343-1413)

 

Julian was a Benedictine Nun despite the name. She named herself after Saint Julian who was the Patron Saint a church close to where she lived in Norwich. Julian was probably the first successful woman author. Julian is certainly one of the most popular English Mystics.

Image of Julian Of Norwich

These are some of the Revelations from her Book  Divine Love
I am going to give you her basic premises in there simplest form. Her theology is too a large extent based on her mystical experiences.

She believed God gave her a three fold revelation  she refers to revelation as a gift.

1.  The first "gift"was a deep recollection of his passion. Which I guess we would translate passion for love in our terms. This is fairly straight forward as a deep understanding of God's love for her.
2. The second "gift"was a bodily sickness. Now this to 21st century Christian would seem to be quite wrong. How could the sickness come from God. I may be able to understand God using the sickness that nearly brought her death. But to suggest that God afflicted her so he could make a point, I find  a little difficult.
3. The third "gift"is the 3 Wounds in her life. The wound of true Contrition; the wound of loving compassion; and the wound of longing with my will for God.  These would seem self explanatory! Although why use the term wound?

At  30 she had a life threatening illness, during which she was read the last rites ready for her imminent death. She was however healed and went on to live for another 34 years. During this experience she received an vision of God placing something small in her hand. It is classically stated as a hazelnut but that is irrelevant to her understanding of the vision.

In this she saw three properties in the Hazel Nut:

1. God made it
2. God loves it
3. God preserves it

This week and this reading have coincided with some events in my life that have brought questions, but few answers.
Last weekend a guy we have known socially for a few years suddenly had a small heart attack and then a massive one in the ambulance on the way to the hospital which killed him. I suppose the first shock for me was he is only slightly older than me and seemed pretty healthy. I guess I am confronted with my mortality and I am entering a life zone where  the death of my peer group will become more common.  This is part of the aging process but it seems premature.


The second major for me was the diagnosis of a close friend with cancer. My Friend has had cancer of this type before and received a miraculous healing from God, 10 years ago.  The diagnosis presents itself as inoperable and by my friends own admission he is entering  into miracle territory. As I write I am unsure where I sit with healing. It is not that I have no experience with healing and healing prayer. I have prayed for people and seen them healed. I seen members of my family healed in a way that can only be God. I have also seen many who are not. Healing can seem and feel quite random!!

My wife has a debilitating Auto Immune disease that is incurable............. but God. I pray for her  regularly as part of my devotions. I believe there will come a time when she will be healed it has unfortunately not been yet. As I with others gather around my fiend with cancer to uphold in his time of need. I know he will be saturated in prayer and we will see what happens.

I must say I find it difficult to see illness in any of these cases as a gift!

Yet I can agree with these 3 principles:

1. God made it
2. God loves it
3. God preserves it

There are so many questions and not so many answers, but I still believe in the power of prayer.
 

5 Good Pieces of Advice About Meditation

Section Two: The Prayer Filled Life

Thomas Merton 1915 -68
Excepts from Contemplative Prayer

Meditation:

1. Meditation should not look like a method or a system but an attitude or an outlook in prayer. There are ways to go  in meditation but one should not expect to magical systems which will make all the difficulties go away.
2. Meditation is sometimes quite difficult.
3. Merton suggests that certain temptations and delusions are to regarded as a normal part of the life of prayer. I find this fact quite concerning, especially when he says that it can in some instances put us in spiritual danger if we go off the right track.
4. For this reason he suggests we need to be open to sound advice. A Spiritual Director is someone who is capable guiding the beginner in prayer while detecting signs of misguided zeal and wrong effort. He  suggests that the results of direction will probably be more focussed on developing humility and patience in developing our insight through our difficulties.
5. Merton suggests one can  begin to face the real difficulties of our life of prayer and meditation unless one is perfectly content to be a beginner and really experience the fact one knows little or nothing about the subject and is prepared to be desperate to learn the bare rudiments. 

My own experience with meditation has been erratic and reasonably undisciplined. I totally agree that meditation can be difficult for a 21st Century Christian. Being a child of "The Age" I wanted to grab the skill, master it and move on. Well let me suggest that I did move on without much success. So that is the state of the play, I do not have a great degree of success in meditation. I may however  be accomplished in moving on!!

However what this article did do, was remind me hat I had a Spiritual Director for a couple of years who walked me through a difficult phase of my spiritual life. As the picture below suggests it did not always make the water smooth............................................... but there was a path to follow.

Maybe it is time to look at going back to my Spiritual Director.

 Definitely a worthwhile insight with or without meditation..

True Power

St Augustine ( 350-430AD)
Excerpts from Confessions

The excepts from the book talked mainly about Augustine's struggle during his conversion experience with being double minded about whether he chose to believe God or not. This was not however what struck me. The thing that finally made the difference was scripture.

Augustine choose to believe scripture. And that made all the difference.

What I need to do more of is to believe the Word of God. It will stop me being double minded. There are so many things that I can try to reason out that are facing me as modern Christian!!

What does the word of God say. Do I believe that and if not why not?

I have taken to praying a lot more scripture these days. I pray some psalms on a regular basis: Psalms 16, 23 and 51. I pray out Lords Prayer. It cements the Word of Truth in my mind and ultimately in my life. I am far from having it altogether but it gives a reference point. I may not like or understand everything the word says but it must be my starting point.

 

This is the last week in the initial section on" Preparing for the Spiritual Life". I think for me it is the thoughts of Bernard of Clairvaux and the  revelation God gave me with it that has had the most impact on my life. I now have a totally different view of my own self care and what that may look like for others in my coaching. If you are not sure what I am thinking about read the blog "Love brings depth"

We step into section on The Prayer-filled Life section.

May God richly bless you and yours