A GIVENNESS NOW to lifting my eyes 09/08/2010
 What do I have a GIVENNESS NOW to? Lifting my eyes. "I will lift up my eyes to the mountains. Where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord." Psalm 121:1 God, my God, I cry out, Your beloved needs You now. God, be near, calm my fear, and take my doubt. Your kindness is what pulls me up. Your love is all that draws me in. I will lift my eyes to the Maker of the mountains I can't climb. I will lift my eyes to the Calmer of the oceans raging wild. I will lift my eyes to the Healer of the hurt I hold inside. I will lift my eyes, lift my eyes, to You. God, my God, let mercy sing her melody over me. God, right here, all I bring, is all of me. Your kindness is what pulls me up. Your love is all that draws me in. I will lift my eyes to the Maker of the mountains I can't climb. I will lift my eyes to the Calmer of the oceans raging wild. I will lift my eyes to the Healer of the hurt I hold inside. I will lift my eyes, lift my eyes, to You. Cause You are and You were and You will be forever the Lover I need to save me. Cause You fashioned the earth and You hold it together, God, so hold me now. I will lift my eyes to the Maker of the mountains I can't climb. I will lift my eyes to the Calmer of the oceans raging wild. I will lift my eyes to the Healer of the hurt I hold inside. I will lift my eyes, lift my eyes, to You. I will lift my eyes, lift my eyes, to You. God, my God, I cry out. Your beloved needs You now. Insurmountable. Raging. Hurt. This is exactly where and how and when and why I know God. These lyrics from I Will Lift My Eyes, by Bebo Norman, are raw, but relevant. Maker. Calmer. Healer. Lift my eyes. I have a GIVENNESS NOW to lifting my eyes. ____________________________________________________________________  What do I have a GIVENNESS NOW to? The cavernousness of loving (in hell?) "Even if I made my bed in hell, still there you would find me" Psalm 139:8 What if you made your bed in hell? Would I go even there to find you? Have you ever felt that you had been to hell? I had the past few days. I just never imagined there were so many caverns in hell. I felt like I had just been to most of them. What did I find in them? Emptiness and more emptiness. I shared this with my friend and brother, Eddie Cook, yesterday. He told me that although it may have felt like hell... it wasn't hell. When I asked him why, he simply responded by telling me: "There is an absence of love in hell. There is no absence of love in you. If there was, you wouldn't have gone to hell to find the one you so love...would you? No, you wouldn't." There's a cavernous feeling when love has been emptied and exhausted. The remaining void can be mistaken as hellish. Until I am found there. There? Not where God can be felt...but where God can still be felt. And only in the absence. I have a GIVENNESS NOW to the cavernousness of loving (in hell?) ___________________________________________________________________  What do I have a GIVENNESS NOW to? Sanctification without isolation. "Very few men are sanctified in isolation. Very few become perfect in absolute solitude. Living with other people and learning to lose ourselves to the understanding of their weakness and deficiencies can help us to become true contemplatives. For there is no better means of getting rid of the rigidity and harshness and coarseness of our ingrained egoism, which is the one insuperable obstacle to the infused light and action of the spirit of God. Even the courageous acceptance of interior trials in utter solitude cannot altogether compensate for the work of purification accomplished in us by patience and humility in loving other men and sympathizing with their most unreasonable needs and demands. There is always a danger that hermits will only dry up and solidify in their own eccentricity. Living out of touch with other people, they tend to love that deep sense of spiritual realities, which only pure love can give. Do you think the way to sanctity is to lock yourself up with your prayers and your books and the meditations that please and interest your mind, to protect yourself with many walls, against people you consider stupid? Do you think the way to contemplation is found in the refusal of activities and works which are necessary for the good of others, but which happen to bore and distract you? Do you imagine that you will discover God by winding yourself up in a cocoon of spiritual and aesthetic pleasures, instead of renouncing all your tastes and desires and ambitions and satisfactions for the love of Christ, who will not even live within you, if you cannot find Him in other men? Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation Isolation is oppositional to the Incarnation. Sanctification is inseparable from selflessness. Rid me of rigidity. Have me hate my harshness. Cut the coarseness from my soul. Can I find You in other men? I have a GIVENNESS NOW to sanctification without isolation. ___________________________________________________________________  What do I have a GIVENNESS NOW to? Hoping to hope for You to know what You are doing. "...Not a day before, I'll show up and take care of you, as I promised, and bring you back home. I know what I'm doing. I have it all planned out - plans to take care of you, not abandon you, plans to give you the future you hope for." Jeremiah 29:11 Hope? Imagine taking a bible to read, while you wait to post bond for someone you love who has been arrested. And prior to the the prehearing, you open to this passage from the prophet Jeremiah. Will God show up? Will God take care of you, as He promised? Will God bring you back home? Does God have it all planned out? Does God have plans to take care of you? Will God not abandon you? Does God have plans to give you the future you hope for? And not a day before? Does God know what God's doing? What am I to hope for? Hope. I have a GIVENNESS NOW to hoping to hope for You to know what You are doing. ____________________________________________________________________  What do I have a GIVENNESS NOW to? Become a cloth hung to up dry. Ever feel like you've been hung to dry? "As Christ dies on the cross, his skin resembles a 'sagging cloth', and then in the cold wind that she imagines accompanying the crucifixion (a familiar feature, this, of the dry chilly East Anglian climate) she sees it as 'hung in the air, as a cloth is hung to dry', until eventually it is 'like a dry board when it has been scorched'. If God relinquished his transcendence to take on human flesh, it was not to step boldly on to the cross as a liberating warrior but to become a cloth hung up to dry..." Is this my posture? It is of the crucified Christ, as seen by Julian of Norwich, and introduced by A.C. Spearing, in Julian of Norwich, Revelations of Divine Love. What becomes of this cloth hung up to dry? The cloth becomes distorted or distinguished...decreased or defined. Whenever I feel the scorching Arizonan sun on my skin, I'll try to remind myself of what the gloomy clouds of England may have reminded Julian: This cloth isn't done drying. I have a GIVENNESS NOW to become a cloth hung up to dry. _____________________________________________________________________ A GIVENNESS NOW to longboard theology 09/03/2010
 What do I have a GIVENNESS NOW to? Longboard theology. What are the physics of skateboarding? Shortboards may allow quick acceleration for close commutes, but also require extensive effort and are vulnerable to concrete cracks. Longboards are designed to go farther, turn smoothly, cruise ceaselessly, with great momentum and a much better ride, as the wider base brings balance and the soft wheels reduce vibration. What are the physics of faith? The physics of skateboarding. The rites of religion have relevance in relationship. Do this. Wear this. Say this. Obey this. Sit. Stand. Knee. Pray. What is "the way"? Zach's shortboard was fun, when he was 12 years old and trying to perform tricks while riding a half pipe. But now that he is 19 years old, and a sophomore at Arizona State University, he needs what a longboard brings to a college student at a secular school. Zach feels every crack with a shortboard. With no way to avoid them. Zach wants longboard stability...versatility...reliability. Rites of religion having relevance in relationship. And Old Testament law having relevance in New Testament life. The first believers in the Acts of the Apostles, who were known as "The Way", would be known as "The Longboarders" today. Longboard, not shortboard, theology. In Tempe. In Theology. Racer...Dancer...Cruiser...Freeboard...Schlong...Carver...Speedboard...Mini...Pintail ...or Old School. Ride? Ride on. I have a GIVENNESS NOW to longboard theology. ____________________________________________________________________________  What do I have a GIVENNESS NOW to? Downpours deluging the desert. "Come, let us return to the Lord...for He comes to us like the heavy rain." Hosea 6:1, 3 Rain is rare in the desert. Showers saturate. Downpours deluge. It is infrequent but intense. And even violent at times. What does the desert smell like after a monsoon rain? Of any scent in the world, it is, without exception, the most favorite of my kids. There is a poignancy to it's aroma. What was seemingly dormant and dead...is amazingly awakened and alive. Much anticipate storms...not only in the Arizona desert. Heavy rains of repentance. Gushing gallons of grief. Baptismal beliefs. Where do I return to the Lord? Here. Where does the Lord come to me? Here. Here. Where the desert of my soul is deluged by such downpours. Chance of precipitation in the forecast? Rain. Heavy "Hosea" rain. I have a GIVENNESS NOW to downpours deluging the desert. ____________________________________________________________________  What do I have a GIVENNESS NOW to? Dying before dying in the lazarusness of life. "In the larger-than-life people I have met, I always find one common denominator: in some sense, they have all died before they died. At some point, they were led to the edge of their private resources, and that breakdown, which surely felt like dying, led them into a larger life. That's it! They broke through in what felt like breaking down. Instead of avoiding a personal death or raging at it, they went through a death, a death of their old self, their small life, and came out the other side knowing that death could no longer hurt them. On some real level, all truly great people have faced "the big one" and their greatness consists in knowing, as my father, Francis of Assisi, did, that any "second death could do them no harm." This experiential knowledge of death's lack of final power is the essence of every true initiation experience. Such people live in a different realm beyond our usual fears, an alternative reality, different than the one we take for granted. If you can somehow make that passover, you are initiated. You cannot fake it by any mere belief system, any moral performance, the reassurance of belonging to a group, or any heroic endurance contest. Paul brilliantly lists all of these as the usual counterfeits for love (1 Corinthians 13)." Richard Rohr, Adam's Return Have you died yet? Quite a few of my friends and family have these past few years. They live different now. Initiated by the passover. Not counterfeited lovers. Did they avoid or rage at these personal deaths? No different than I. Surely they felt like dying. But it led them into a larger life. The "lazarusness" of life. How does Caravaggio's Raising of Lazarus define death before death? I must mime Lazarus' hands - one extending to the emancipated Christ, the other in stillness and submission to the servant Christ, present the posture of Lazarus - in the poverty of the crucified Christ, and I must reflect the relationship of Lazarus - recognizing the resurrected Christ. Knowing, and experiencing, that the "second death" could do no harm. Liberating. Like Lazarus. I have a givenness now to dying before dying in the lazarusness of life. ____________________________________________________________________  What do I have a GIVENNESS NOW to? The art of losing myself from the inside out. A thousand times I've failed Still your mercy remains And should I stumble again Still I'm caught in your grace Everlasting, Your light will shine when all else fades Never ending, Your glory goes beyond all fame My heart and my soul, I give You control Consume me from the inside out Lord Let justice and praise, become my embrace To love You from the inside out Your will above all else, my purpose remains The art of losing myself in bringing you praise Everlasting, Your light will shine when all else fades Never ending, Your glory goes beyond all fame My heart, my soul, Lord I give you control Consume me from the inside out Lord Let justice and praise become my embrace To love You from the inside out Everlasting, Your light will shine when all else fades Never ending, Your glory goes beyond all fame And the cry of my heart is to bring You praise From the inside out, O my soul cries out My soul cries out to You My soul cries out to You to You, to You My heart, my soul, Lord I give you control Consume me from the inside out Lord Let justice and praise become my embrace To love You from the inside out Everlasting, Your light will shine when all else fades Never ending, Your glory goes beyond all fame And the cry of my heart is to bring You praise From the inside out, O my soul cries out Everlasting, Your light will shine when all else fades Never ending, Your glory goes beyond all fame And the cry of my heart is to bring You praise From the inside out, O my soul cries out From the inside out, O my soul cries out From the inside out, O my soul cries out. Hillsong United, From the Inside Out A thousand times I failed? How about a gazillion times. ...Still your mercy remains. Should I stumble again? How about when I stumble again. ...Still I'm caught in your grace. The art of losing myself. The cry of my heart... The cry of my soul... For a God who would consume me. Inside. Out. I have a GIVENNESS NOW to the art of losing myself from the inside out. ___________________________________________________________________  What do I have a GIVENNESS NOW to? An earthly paradise as an earthly purgatory. "Our abbey is an earthly paradise, because it is an earthly purgatory." Thomas Merton There is a humusness or humanness in the places where God dwells. An abbey. My home. A place where we're defined not by our wrongs, but by the reconciling and restoring of our relationships when they have been wronged. The purgation of us. The readying of redemption. The salve of salvation. Refined in relationship. Home sweet home. I have a GIVENNESS NOW to an earthly paradise as an earthly purgatory. ___________________________________________________________________ | AuthorTheodore Allan Telepak writes from the very "givenness" of life. ArchivesSeptember 2010 CategoriesAll |
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