A STRANGE & BIZARRE JOURNEY

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My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end.

Thomas Merton

Spiritual Exercises/ Ignatius

• Founder of Jesuits/ Society of Jesus (e.g., Pope Francis)
• Conversion from arrogant/ ambitious soldier to follower of Jesus
• Spiritual Exercises = silence + meditation upon Gospels
• For priests and lay people
• (b. 1491 Spain - d. 1556 Italy)

Spiritual Exercises

• Week 1: Our sin & God's grace
• Week 2: Birth & life of Jesus
• Week 3: Suffering & death of Jesus
• Week 4: Resurrection of Jesus

30 days of silence

• 6-8 hours of silence/day
• 3-4 at home office/day
• 3-4 at Memphis Botanic Garden or other

Scarritt Bennett Center, Nashville TN

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Lipscomb University, Nashville TN

Memphis Botanic Garden

We interrupt this moment of silence...

Shelby Farms, Memphis TN

Herb Parson Lake, Memphis TN

St Columba, Bartlett TN

Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, Memphis TN

Baptist Women's Hospital, Memphis TN

Baptist Cancer Center, Memphis TN

The Upper Room, Nashville TN

#1 GOD SHOWS UP WHEN WE SHUT UP

Silence was my dominant experience

The Value of Silence

"The day will come when we will have to fight noise as inexorably as cholera or the plague."


Nobel-prize-winning bacteriologist Robert Koch

"There's noise everywhere!"

"Today silence has become an endangered species."

- Gordon Hempton & John Grossman

Loud talkers, loud sleepers, loud music

Noisy v quiet

George Prochnick NYT op-ed:

• Noise causes health problems
• Silence leads to healthier lives/organizations

The sacred value of silence...

Is it possible that noise is harming us/our churches?

"Distraction is the primary spiritual problem of our day."

Richard Foster

Silence helped me focus more on God

Silence Lets the Sediment Settle

Silence is more productive than any work

#1-god shows up when we shut up

• Ps. 4:4 "ponder in your own hearts on your beds and be silent"
• Ps. 23:2 "He leads me beside quiet waters"
• Ps 37:7 "Be still before the LORD and wait patiently for him"
• Ps 46:10 "Be still and know that I am God."
• Ps 62:1 "For God alone my soul waits in silence"

O LORD, my heart is not lifted up; my eyes are not raised too high; I do not occupy myself with things too great and too marvelous for me. But I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with its mother; like a weaned child is my soul within me."

Ps 131:1-2

The 4th Prayer

• Talking AT God (rote prayers)
• Talking TO God (conversational)
• Listening to God (contemplation)
• Being WITH God (silence)

For me, silence is the #1 Discipline

Three Ways I'm Practicing Silence

• Simple Silence: add silence to current activities, use the Jesus Prayer
• Single-Minded Silence: bring a matter to God and sit in silence
• Serious Silence: spend 10-20 minutes in silence. (see Laird's "Silent Land"

Noise is killing our churches. It's killing us Christians. Do we have faith enough to believe that stillness and quietness may be the most productive and fruitful practice we can restore in the contemporary church?

#2 THERE'S NO CHRIST WITHOUT COMMUNITY

It's easy to get the impression that practicing silence/ the contemplative life is a solitary experience--just you and God.
But it's not.

In 1534 Ignatius gathered with 6 other students from the University of Paris and formed what would become the "Society of Jesus."
Not the "individual followers" of Jesus.
Not the "monks & mystics living in isolation" with Jesus.
But the "society" of Jesus.

Whoever desires to serve as a soldier of God beneath the banner of the Cross in our Society, which we desire to be designated by the Name of Jesus, and to serve the Lord alone and the Church, his spouse...should, after a solemn vow of perpetual chastity, poverty and obedience, keep what follows in mind. He is a member of a Society founded chiefly for this purpose: to strive especially for the defence and propagation of the faith and for the progress of souls in Christian life and doctrine...Moreover, he should show himself ready to reconcile the estranged, compassionately assist and serve those who are in prisons or hospitals, and indeed, to perform any other works of charity, according to what will seem expedient for the glory of God and the common good.

Christ was to be pursued within a society.
And this society served the church.
Note that the church did not exist to serve them.
They existed to serve the mission of the church.
There was thus no Christ without community.

The priority of community is also expressed in the importance given in Jesuit spirituality to Spiritual Direction.
The Jesuits rely upon the aid of trained & experienced mentors called Spiritual Directors.

SPIRITUAL DIRECTION

• My 30 days were not in isolation
• Daily contact with Spiritual Director
• Diagnosis: How's your soul?
• Prescpription: Stay v Move/ Texts & Tools
• (Spiritual Canticle, Suscipe, Prayer Beads)

#2-There's No Christ Without Community

• "Always we begin again" Benedict
• We are always beginners in need of help from others

#2-There's No Christ Without Community

• "Into the uncharted land of prayer we bring a false map"
• Martin Laird
• We need others to help us see our false maps

#2-There's No Christ Without Community

• Phil. 1:3-11
• "partnership" = koinonia
• Forms of this word are used in each chapter
• partnership in the gospel = shared ministry
• partakers with me of grace = shared mercy

#2-There's No Christ Without Community

• Instruct o/a (Rom. 15:14)
• Comfort o/a (2 Cor. 13:11)
• Forgive o/a (Eph. 4:32)
• Teach o/a (Col. 3:16)
• Encourage o/a (1 Thess. 5:11)

#2-There's No Christ Without Community

• Exhort o/a (Heb. 3:13)
• Stir o/a to love/good works (Heb. 10:24)
• Confess your sins to o/a (Jas. 5:16)

And this leads me to ask two questions:

Are our churches fostering the type of fellowship among Christians that leads to deeper knowledge of/ experience of Christ?


Are we pursuing this type of relationship with other Christians?

#3 GOD USES IMAGINATION FOR REVELATION

For finite humans to grasp the infinite God, God must reveal himself. He does this in two ways.
General Revelation is general in content and universally accessible. It includes nature and history.
Special Revelation is specific in content and accessible to particular people. It includes visions, dreams, Scripture, etc.

The Variety of Special Revelation:
Long ago God spoke in many different ways to our fathers through the prophets, in visions, dreams, and even face to face, telling them little by little about his plans.
But now in these days he has spoken to us through his Son to whom he has given everything and through whom he made the world and everything there is.
Heb. 1:1-2 TLB

Imagination

• God also reveals through imagination.
• Imagination is not imaginary/ pretend.
• Imagination is seeing with our mind/heart
• This applies specifically to how we engage Scripture.

Kevin O'Brien writes that "Ignatius was convinced that God can speak to us as surely through our imagination as through our thoughts and memories."

This way of reading Scripture is called "Ignatian contemplation" and is especially suited for the Gospels.
It is a way of accompanying Jesus through his life by imagining scenes from the Gospel stories.
("The Ignatian Adventure").

#3 GOD USES IMAGINATION FOR REVELATION

• Contemplative reading means imagining yourself in the story
• Take the place of one of those in the story
• What do you see, hear, smell, taste, touch?
• What do you feel--consolation or desolation?
• What is God saying through all of this?

#3 GOD USES IMAGINATION FOR REVELATION

• Lk 15 Prodigal Son
• Imagine self as son: see? hear? taste? touch? smell?
• Feel? Consolation or desolation?
• Imagine self as father: see? hear? taste? touch? smell?
• Feel? Consolation or desolation?

I am in desolation when:

• I am EMPTY of faith, hope, love
• the sense of God being close,
• When I am FILLED with restlessness/ agitation;
• boredom/apathy; fear/worry; and secrecy.
• God may speak through these feelings.

I am in consolation when:

• I am filled with faith, hope, love;
• the sense of God's closeness;
• peace and tranquility; great desires;
• transparency.
• God may speak through these feelings.

Conclusions reached during contemplative reading...

• Should be shared/clarified with mentors like a spiritual director
• Should be shared/clarified with spiritual companions
• Should be consistent with 2,000 years of church teaching

3 Ways I engaged imagination:

• Imaginative readings of biblical texts
• Imaginative conversations with the Trinity
• Imaginative settings/places

Imaginative reading of Isaiah 6

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Imaginative reading of Ps. 139

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Imaginative reading of Luke 4 - Nazareth

Imaginative reading of Luke 15

At each turn, I repeated Lk 15:18-19

Imaginative reading of Last Supper

Imaginative reading of Way of the Cross

#3 GOD USES IMAGINATION FOR REVELATION

• Began with letters to Father, Son and Spirit...
• ...about what I wanted from sabbatical.
• Then wrote their responses to me.
• My "God's Letters From Philippi" are similar
• Similar to "Jesus Calling" by Sarah Young

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Imagined wedding to Trinity

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Imagined self/Jesus on stage

Imagined Jesus as King

Imagined rocking with Jesus

TWO WAYS TO ENGAGE IMAGINATION:

• Lectio Divina: Listening imaginatively
• Examen: Reflecting imaginatively

Lectio Divina

• Read
• Reflect
• Respond
• Rest

Examen:

• Recognize
• Request
• Review
• Resolve

The greatest command is to love the Lord with our heart, soul, mind and strength. I, like many, have focused largely on loving God with my mind. An intellectual faith. A faith that uses logic and reason. I, however, like many, need additionally to be called to love the Lord with my heart and my soul. An emotional and affecting faith. A faith that feels and imagines. A faith that believes God speaks through our emotions and experiences not in spite of our emotions and experiences.

#4 WE NEED THE FORGOTTEN GODS

#4 WE NEED THE FORGOTTEN GODS

• First word that comes to mind with "Father"?

#4 WE NEED THE FORGOTTEN GODS

• First word that comes to mind with "Jesus"?

#4 WE NEED THE FORGOTTEN GODS

• First word that comes to mind with "Spirit?"

#4 WE NEED THE FORGOTTEN GODS

• Sabbatical began: "How do you view God? Jesus? Spirit?"
• Realized I had strong/healthy view of Father
• Weaker view of Jesus (past hero; not present companion)
• Impersonal view of Spirit
•  (he was a power not a person with whom I interacted)

#4 WE NEED THE FORGOTTEN GODS

• Modalism: One person/three forms
• Denies the interpersonal relationships among 3 real persons
• I had a form of of this: never thought of 3 in community
• Mostly thought of God as Father only

#4 WE NEED THE FORGOTTEN GODS

• Gen. 1:26 "Let US make man"
• Matt. 3:16-17 Jesus baptized; Spirit descending; Father's voice
• Matt. 28:19 Name of the F, S, HS
• 1 Cor. 12:4-6 Same Spirit, Lord, God - different gifts
• 2 Cor. 13:14 Grace of Jesus, love of God, fellowship of Spirit

#4 WE NEED THE FORGOTTEN GODS

• 1 Pet. 1:2  foreknowledge of Father, sanctification of Spirit, obedience to Jesus
• Spirit as personal/person - John 14-16

#4 WE NEED THE FORGOTTEN GODS

• Perichoresis
• Gk term used by Church Fathers
• "around" + "go forward"
• "dance or flow around"

Within God is a community of persons pouring glorifying, joyful love into one another.

Timothy Keller
"The Reason for God" 217

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God did not create in order to be loved, but rather, created out of the overflow of the perfect love that had always existed among Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Kevin DeYoung

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#4 WE NEED THE FORGOTTEN GODS

• Arianism: deny full deity of Jesus/ Spirit
• Jesus/ Spirit somehow subordinate to Father who created them
• I had a form of this: Father's work/presence greater than others'
• Spirit not personal (= not truly God)

#4 WE NEED THE FORGOTTEN GODS

• God is love/ spirituality is about love
• God is community/ spirituality is about community
• God is self-less/ spirituality is about self-lessness
• God is joy/ spirituality is about joy
• Each of the 3 offers something unique to us

#4 WE NEED THE FORGOTTEN GODS

• John of Damascus
• "cleaving together"
• each embraces the other, enter into the other
• permeates the other, dwells in the other

#4 WE NEED THE FORGOTTEN GODS

• Each of the divine persons centers upon the others.
• None demands that the others revolve around him.
• Each voluntarily circles the other two,
• pouring love, delight, and adoration into them.
• Tim Keller, The Reason for God, 215.

#4 WE NEED THE FORGOTTEN GODS

• Father, Jesus, Spirit then revolve around us.
• They place us at their center.
• Sin is placing ourselves at the center.
• We are invited to repent and join the dance.
• Tim Keller, The Reason for God.

God did not create us to get the cosmic, infinite joy of mutual love and glorification, but to share it. We were made to join in the dance.

Tim Keller,
"The Reason for God."