Theo's is Moving

 

Theo's has migrated to Awakened Heart.

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A Soul on Fire

 

 

I recently finished reading St. Teresa of Ávila’s The Book of My Life in a superb translation by Mirabai Starr.  Starr’s rendering conveys the personality, vitality and humor of this 16^th century Spanish mystic.  It is a delight to spend time with this blessed saint. 

 

It is easy to become fascinated by the visions, locutions, and miracles St. Teresa experienced, but what is most important is the fruit that it bore in her life.  The through-line of her story that deserves our attention is the gradual transfiguration of her interior life, the dispossession of the self, that she undergoes.  Although the details of her experience are particular, the basic structure or progression of this transfiguration is remarkably congruent with the witness of mystics before and after her. 

 

St. Teresa sounds like Evagrius or Cassian (4^th century monks) when she writes about the relinquishment of egocentricity through the healing of stuck emotions, obsessions, and compulsions.   These are surrendered to God, seemingly dropping of their own accord when we realize the truth that they no longer serve us very well.  We don’t strive to let go of these things (that just keeps us locked in self-preoccupation), so much as they are lifted from us when we are willing to trust God’s presence and action in our life. 

A soul who has been given mastery of her own desires has a huge advantage.  But she does not bequeath this dominion to herself.  It is a gift from God.  Someone who does not have this kind of detachment cannot understand what it’s like.  It is not a matter of self-control; it comes naturally, without any labor on our part.  God does it all.  And he does it by revealing truths in such a way that they are imprinted on our souls.  It is obvious to us that this detachment is a divine gift, because we never could have acquired it so quickly and easily on our own. (p. 312)

Teresa is describing the ideal of apatheia, freedom from disordered passions and attachments, that leads to metanoia, a larger consciousness in which the soul becomes transparent to the divine energy of agape.  The fruit of the awakened heart is truly creative action in conformity with the invitations to love made possible by a new clarity of vision (purity of heart).  We no longer receive our identity from the story we tell ourselves about ourselves, or our attachments to external sources, but from God.

It’s amazing!  When we are united with this fire, it annihilates the old self, with all her cravings and faults, her insipid misery.  We are like the phoenix, which is completely burned and then rises again from those same ashes.  And so the soul, once she is consumed by the fire of love, becomes something altogether different.  She has new desires and tremendous fortitude.  She is not what she was before, and she follows the way of the Lord with new purity.  (p. 333)

St. Teresa combines a rare humility with a bold affirmation of the endless possibilities for the evolution of human consciousness.  Our Beloved desires such wonderful things for us.  By grace we can become so much more than we think we are capable of becoming.  We can become a living flame of love (as St. Teresa’s friend, St. John of the Cross, would say). 

Prayer of the Heart

 

Prayer of the Heart Retreat Participants, The Bishop's Ranch

I feel sorry for people who only have books to rely on.  It’s amazing how different what we think we understand is from what we learn later through experience. - St. Teresa of Avila

I'm a person who loves - LOVES - books.  Some of my best and longest-standing friends are books!  I've drawn sustenance from them and even a kind of energetic vibration that resonated within me while reading them.  Even so, there are some things we can only learn through direct experience, and that is certainly true in the life of prayer. I've just finished leading a two-day intensive Centering Prayer retreat with a half-dozen beautiful souls, who embraced the intimacy and transfiguring power of shared silence and holy conversation. I'm so grateful for their vulnerability, wisdom, and desire for God.

The focus of our time together was the practice of Centering Prayer, which Cynthia Bourgeault describes as "The prayer of the heart in meditation form."  It is a method of meditation that brings the mind into the heart, awakening the heart's capacities as an organ of spiritual perception beating in rhythm with the heartbeat of God.  It fosters what Jesus called metanoia - transcending or expanding the mind to embrace a larger consciousness that perceives the divine energies suffusing all of reality in love.  "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God."

St. John of the Cross perhaps best describes the experience of the awakened heart.

The soul feels its ardor strengthen and increase and its love become so refined in this ardor that seemingly there flow seas of loving fire within it, reaching to the heights and depths of the earthly and heavenly spheres, imbuing all with love. It seems to it that the entire universe is a sea of love in which it is engulfed, for conscious of the living point or center of love within itself, it is unable to catch sight of the boundaries of this love.

Centering Prayer helps us to stabilize our identity with this living center of love within ourselves, which is our true identity in the imago Dei.  When we do so, we begin to love others as our selves because they are: we begin to radiate the energy of agape, of self-emptying love.  

The practice of Centering Prayer literally reconfigures our brains - metanonia written in neural pathways that increase our capacity for wisdom and compassion, as contemporary neuroscience is beginning to discover.  

What we do matters.  How we pray matters.  It matters for the development of human consciousness, which may be an evolutionary imperative for the healing of the earth.  "The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth."  May it be so, in us. 

The Way of Wisdom

 

St. George's Chapel, The Bishop's Ranch

Do not forsake her, and she will keep you; love her, and she will guard you. The beginning of wisdom is this: Get wisdom, and whatever else you get, get insight. - Proverbs 4:6-7

 

For Jews ask for signs and Greeks desire wisdom, but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to gentiles, but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.  - I Corinthians 1:22-24

 

Drawing on Hebrew scripture's image of Divine Wisdom as a preexistent feminine figure through whom God created all things, the New Testament describes Christ as the Wisdom or Sophia of God.  She is incarnate in Christ.  This image is taken up in the prologue of John's Gospel and in St. Paul's letters (see John 1:3 and Colossians 1:15-15).  In later tradition, we see Anselm of Canterbury referring to Christ our Mother in his Prayer to St. Paul, and St. Julian of Norwich, too, in her Revelations of Divine Love, refers to Christ as our True Mother.  They are implicitly referencing and transposing this biblical image of Sophia onto Christ. 

 

We often reserve the "divine feminine" to Mariology, if we honor it at all, but that does not do full justice to the range of images in Christian tradition.  How delightful, then, to worship at St. George's Chapel at the Bishop's Ranch yesterday, and pray in these words written by Father Brendan Williams, CSR, the chaplain at the Ranch:

Almighty God, whom truly to know is everlasting life: Grant us so to perfectly know your Divine Wisdom, embodied in our living Master, Jesus Christ, that we may steadfastly follow her steps in the way that leads to illumination, and thereby attain to eternal life; through the same Divine Wisdom, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit: One God, now and forever.  Amen.

And to affirm our commitment to the Way of Wisdom, in this Affirmation of Faith also authored by Father Brendan:

You, O God, are supreme and holy.

You are absolute Being, Consciousness, and Bliss,

from before time and forever.

You continually give birth to the world,

and give life to all beings.

Like waves on an ocean,

in and from you all things arise,

and, in your time, they return to you.

 

You, O God, are infinite Love,

and goodness beyond all measure.

You have revealed your compassion for all Creation

in Jesus Christ, the embodiment of your Wisdom,

who lived and died and rose again.

 

You, O God, are ever living, eternal,

birthing all things in the breath of your Spirit.

May we know your Truth and be freed

from every error and illusion.

May we be one and whole,

united forever with your Life,

in which there is no death.

Amen.

 

Father Brendan's liturgical innovations, rooted in Eastern Christian tradition and enriched through encounter with other Eastern Wisdom traditions, skillfully and poetically weave together themes of creation, incarnation, and the divine feminine that we desperately need to recover to heal our fragmented world.  They give fresh expression to the Mystery of God, who is calling us into a future that requires us to deepen our capacity for imagination and compassion.  A deep bow to Father Brendan, with thanksgiving.

On Burning Down the House

This is Andrew Harvey commenting on Rumi:

Desperation, let me always know

How to welcome you

And put in your hands the torch

To burn down the house.

When you are desperate, it is often a clue that you need to leave an old way of being, and old way of life, an old understanding.  Often, we smother that desperation, we cuddle it, we comatize it.  But Rumi says, "Have the courage of your desperation" and put in the hands of your desperation the torch, the flame of Love and insight, and burn your house down.  Allow desperation to be a Master instead of something that drives you deeper into coma.

We are at a desperate moment in human history.  The world is in terrible denial of what is actually going on, because people are simply afraid of the level of desperation that they would feel if they faced what is going on.  The point is that we have to face what is going on and allow that desperation to rise in us, and we have to follow that desperation right to its home which is in Divine initiation, Divine transformation.  We have to let that desperation "take a torch and burn down" all our concepts, limits, fantasies, and banal solutions, because it is far too late and none of them are going to work.

Light the incense!

You have to burn to be fragrant

To scent the whole house

You have to burn to the ground.

Incense is made out of all sorts of dark things, just like the ego.  If you want the incense to scent the house, you have to light it, light the ego.  In disappearing, it releases the Divine perfume everywhere.  If you want to scent the whole universe as Rumi did, you have to burn away.  That is the Law.                    

 

 - Andrew Harvey, The Way of Passion: A Celebration of Rumi (New York: Penguin Putnam Inc., 1994), p. 70 -71 

 

Or, as Jesus said, "Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain, but if it dies it bears much fruit. Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life." - John 12:24-25

Clearing the Path

 

Outdoor labyrinth at the Bishop's Ranch

I am currently on a three-month sabbatical, and am spending the first month as the Prayer Resident at the Bishop's Ranch.  In exchange for leading Morning and Evening Prayer preceded by a period of silent meditation, I receive room and board.  It is a wonderful program, allowing me to enjoy the peace and beauty of this remarkable camp and conference center that I have been visiting regularly for 26 years.

When I arrived at the Ranch, I noticed that the outdoor labyrinth had become overgrown.  Many of the rocks marking the path were completely covered with moss-like soil, and the path itself was filled with branches and weeds.  I decided I needed some labora (work) to go along with my ora (prayer).  I spent the past three mornings patiently clearing the path.  It was close work, much of it on my hands and knees.  

I found the work to be contemplative, focusing my attention on the present moment.  Rake the path.  Remove weeds.  Rake the path again.  Remove what you missed.  Place weeds in a bucket.  Dump in the refuse pile for composting.  Repeat.  I was like the Karate Kid:  "Wax on, wax off."  It took me about nine hours over three mornings to clear the path.  It was tiring, but satisfying.  

weed pile

Spiritual practice is about clearing the path.  We are all on a journey toward wholeness.  We all desire to live from the center, from the realization of our true identity as manifestations of divine love.  The truth is that this center is everywhere.  As Cynthia Bourgeault describes it, it isn't so much a place to which we go as it is a place from which we come.  We carry it with us in the awakened heart. 

The problem is that we forget our true identity.  We lose sight of the path, overgrown with anxiety, compulsions, and attachments like so many weeds.  We become identified with the story about ourselves, and the related emotional repertory, that we have internalized over many years.  It requires patient work to dis-identify with this familial and cultural identity.  We have to clear the weeds so that we can see the living stones that mark our path to the center.  

For me, the spiritual practice is Centering Prayer.  Twenty minutes every morning, twenty minutes every evening.  Wax on, wax off.  Those damn weeds keeping popping up, no matter how many times I rake the path!  But as I clear the path, gently letting go of the weeds (which really are nothing other than good compost for spiritual growth), I find my way back to the center. 

Clearing the path isn't easy.  Sometimes, it literally drives us to our knees.  It requires a posture of humility and a willingness to persist in our spiritual practice.  It isn't a one-and-done experience.  It is an iterative process, moving us ever more deeply into the depths of divine love that flows from the awakened heart.  With time and practice, we begin to stabilize our capacity to live from the center.  Having removed the log from our own eye, we can now see how to aid our neighbor in removing the splinter in their eye.  We mirror the divine light shining through them, so that they can find their way to the center too.