Faith & Life Inspirational Message

I got the idea that it probably is possible to do a kind of mapping of our spiritual lives.  I then recalled a book on my shelf by James Fowler entitled, Stages of Faith, which he wrote at the end of the 1970s.  In some ways this is what Fowler does in that book.  I knew Fowler and appreciated his work, although I have not thought about it or used it for some time.  In the process of thinking about this idea of mapping the spirit, I also learned there are a couple other ways people are doing work by this name.  One group of people understand that spirits inhabit certain places and demons occupy other places.  They choose to map the spirit, which is trying to identify those places which are spiritual in order that they may live in those places and cultivate those places.  And obviously, they would want to know the demonic places in order to avoid those places or to battle the demons in those places.  While this sounds like a fascinating area of stu...

I am fairly certain people who only see the title of this inspirational piece will misunderstand what I plan to do.  Typically, we think about shelters in a two-fold way.  In the first place shelters are those designated places people can go to in times of danger.  Hurricanes and tornadoes will send people to shelters.  Often the shelters are schools, maybe the local YMCA or military building.  Shelters are designed to put us in safer places than our houses and work places.  The second meaning of shelters suggests places of incarceration.  It is where we send troubled teens in order to protect the community and the teen himself or herself.  In this piece I don’t have either place of shelter in mind. Instead, I recall the opening line of the Psalm used in the last worship of the day monks have in their Liturgy of the Hours.  The monks call this last worship Compline---which means to complete the day.  For centuries monks followed the su...

Recently, my daughter sent the latest version of their family pictures.  I appreciate having a chance to see countless pictures of her, her husband and the kids.  Probably only my wife and his parents will care about seeing that many pictures of four human beings!  Of course, they look much like last year’s pictures.  In fact, I probably could not tell you the difference between the parents from last year till this year.  But the kids are still young enough that one year makes a difference.  They are still cute, but I know the closer we get to being adults, the less cute most of us become. Fortunately, I have long since come to the place where I would rather see these pictures than pictures of me.  I am no longer cute!  That is assuming I ever was!  But I did use this occasion to think about pictures.  Naturally, pictures have been created by painters for quite some time.  And we know long ago painters painted pictures on the wall o...

A big part of why I continue to read as much as I can is how much it helps me be informed and figure out what I think about myself, God and our world.  I suspect reading is necessary to mental growth.  I know I am growing older---everyone is.  But I don’t want to get stuck or become content with where I am.  There is so much need for new perspectives, new answers and even new questions. I know this is true when I reflect on myself and what I know.  I feel pretty secure in some of the things I know.  I know I love my kids and can’t image anything changing that love.  I know I love my kids, but I also know I have to switch to language of faith when I talk about not being able to control how they think or what they do.  I have faith they will do things in the right way.  I have faith that they will be good parents to their own kids.  In this sense faith is different than knowledge. When it comes to God, I realize that faith is more prim...

In this country we find ourselves at Memorial Weekend.  Clearly, the description of the weekend is unambiguous: memorial means remembering.  It is the “Remembering Weekend.”  There will be parades to highlight the festivities.  The little parade in my suburban town is so quaint and tiny, it is hilarious.  Of course, there are the boy scouts and girl scouts.  There are all the Little League baseball and softball players.  The fire trucks gain attention because the siren going off in your ears at a distance of 15 feet is dramatic!  And finally, there are always the politicians! The other thing that is a staple for Memorial Weekend is the visit to the cemetery.  Now that I am living in a much larger, urban context, I am less aware of folks going to the cemetery.  When I was a kid, I did not really understand this ritual.  No one significant in my life had died.  There was no one “living in the cemetery,” as I once p...

From time to time, it is important for me to write about some standard issues in spirituality.  One of the most standard issues, surely, is prayer.  Certainly in the traditional Western religious traditions---Judaism, Christianity and Islam---prayer is seen to be central to the practices of the religion.  Prayer is commonplace to these traditions, and yet I am sure many followers within these traditions find it difficult to pray on a regular basis.  And many probably don’t even care. I recall the opening words of her chapter on prayer in her book, An Altar in the Word, when Barbara Brown Taylor says, “I know that a chapter on prayer belongs in this book, but I dread to write it.” (175)  I am sure she gets a laugh from her audience when she reads out loud the following couple sentences.  “I am a failure at prayer.  When people ask me about my prayer life, I feel like a bulimic must feel when people ask about her favorite dish.”  She follows this ...

I had not seen this phrase since graduate school days.  Unlearned ignorance is a phrase from the late-medieval theologian, Nicholas of Cusa.  Nicolas was a bridge figure---culminating the end of the medieval period and representative of the emerging Renaissance and Reformation period.  And unlike much of medieval theology, Nicholas still has something to say to us in the twenty-first century.  I met up with him again in an article I was reading in a periodical I routinely read.  The article was called, “Nurturing the cosmic perspective of learned ignorance,” by Alex Mikulich. This article fits in with my quest to continue to learn more about the world of science and, thus, to be a reasonable conversationalist with my contemporary scientists.  Too often, people of faith are incredibly ignorant of the science of our day and, therefore, increasingly irrelevant to important discussions going on in our world.  And too often, people of faith arrogantly dis...

Occasionally, I realize I can read and read and wonder if it is like “binge reading.”  I realize this is probably not fair to those folks with an eating disorder and I mean no disrespect.  Of course, I think reading is good, healthy, etc.  I can’t imagine a life in which I could not read things.  I remember the liberation that comes from being able to put various letters together to get words and, then, watch the magic of sentences as multiple words combine to make deeper meanings.  For example, the simple word “cat” is barely interesting in itself, but put it in a sentence with a verb and that cat starts doing amazing things!  My interest in the cat soars. But I also realize I can read things and never do anything with the ideas, advice and suggestions.  Learning with no application may not be adequate.  Surely this is true in the life of faith and in our spiritual journeys.  Faith is not simply an intellectual exercise.  As important...

If we pay attention, we are very aware how significant change is in our lives.  In fact, I suspect it can be fairly claimed that change is the name of the game.  Of course, we are tempted to think there are some things immune to change.  There are some things that seem unflappable in the face of the assault of change.  This resistance to change comes in obvious places, such as the materiality of things around us.  For example, the earth itself seems pretty much the same day by day.  And the material things that are part of our everyday life seem unchanging. The chair on which I sit, the table, my car and the list goes on of things that seem never to change.  And yet, if I get serious, I know my chair, table and car once did not exist.  Once there was a tree that yielded the table.  And the same goes for the wood in my chair.  And clearly, the car was pounded into being from some metal and plastic.  And some day I will trade in my ...

I have thought about forgiveness and have written about it in earlier inspirational reflections.  But with a topic this big, it is not unusual to come at it with a different angle or to have new experiences that give you a fresh perspective.  In my case I have just read the short piece on forgiveness in poet, David Whyte’s book, Consolations .  Whyte chooses a number of ordinary words and offers very trenchant reflections and amazing insights.  The book has become a goldmine of ideas, challenges and encouragement. Whyte almost always comes up with an angle to a word which I had never considered.  That opens up meanings that are fresh and helpful.  He usually captures my attention with his first line of comment on a word.  For example, here is his opening line for his dinky chapter on forgiveness.  “Forgiveness is a heartache and difficult to achieve because strangely, it not only refuses to eliminate the original wound, but actually draws us clo...

I have just seen a review of a new book by one of the nation’s best religious thinkers, Benedictine nun Joan Chittister.  Her book is entitled, The Time is Now: A Call to Uncommon Courage .  The book review is by Dana Greene, whom I have never met, but have read some of her writings.  I am glad to share some tidbits from the review, which contain some of Chittister’s own words.  Hopefully, soon I can read the book and share some of my own impressions.  But her work and words are too important to wait until I have read the book. I am not surprised by the focus nor the title.  Chittister has a regular column in the National Catholic Reporter, so I have been seeing some of her perspective there.  She is clear she thinks our nation is going through a period of social disintegration.  I agree there are some depressing signs.  Perhaps that is true of every era in a nation’s history, but I also think most folks would agree the political split, rheto...

Sometimes I run across a line that arrests me for the moment.  I am caught up and forced to reflect on what I just read.  That is always fun and funny.  I read quite a bit.  Every day I read newspapers, essays, religious stuff, etc.  It would be fun to know how many sentences per day I read.  So when I hit one of those sentences that arrest me for the moment, I am grateful.  Something about a sentence is so profound that I cannot go on.  I am stopped for the moment and for a reason.  I need to reflect---to take in and process what I have just read. I hit one of those sentences again when I was re-reading one of my favorite books by Richard Rohr, Everything Belongs .  I like Rohr because he is a Catholic and, therefore, has a different upbringing than I did.  He grew up in a fairly conservative Kansas Catholic family.  We are about the same age, so we have been through similar periods of history.  We both have become ecum...

There have been many ways to talk about Jesus.  In fact, one of the special areas in theological studies is called Christology.  Christology basically focuses on how people talk about Jesus, particularly Jesus the Christ.  It is normal to hear it simply put as “Jesus Christ.”  This slightly alters the way I put it, namely, “Jesus the Christ.”  While my rendition doubtlessly will sound strange in most Christian ears, it probably comes closer to the way Jesus and the early disciples would have understood it.  But of course, I recognize when I say it this way, it sounds a trifle arrogant! It certainly does not mean that “Jesus Christ” is wrong.  Surely it is not.  But at the same time, we need to be clear about what we are doing and what we are affirming.  Let’s put a couple simple affirmations on the table.  The first affirmation boldly assumes Jesus was a real guy---a human being.  We can leave off to the side right now whether he ...

When folks ask me to describe Quaker spirituality, I always begin with the phrase I often heard when I was growing up as a Quaker in Indiana.  This phrase comes from the oft-cited founder of Quakerism, George Fox.  The phrase claims there is “that of God in every person.”  I am sure as a kid more interested in basketball, that phrase did not have much meaning to me.  But I recall, when life became more serious as a college student facing the tumultuous 60s, that phrase became important and meaningful.  It became both a comfort and a challenge. And it continues to be both a comfort and challenge to this day.  Let me unpack that, first by sharing what that phrase means to me and, then, why it is still a challenge.  In sharing this, I trust others from different Christian traditions can relate to it from your own tradition.  And even those interfaith brothers and sisters, I hope, can find a way to relate to this Quaker phrase.  We are, after all...

I am for social justice.  If asked whether I am for social justice, of course I would answer positively.  Even those who are against it----or who don’t care---probably would say they are for it.  It is easy to conclude it would be un-American to be against social justice.  In fact, I would guess that most of us think social justice is actually about us.  We are for social justice because we claim it is important to be just.  And part of that claim is society should treat us justly.  It is our right---our human, American right. But I also know there are plenty American citizens who are quite sure there are some in this country who are being denied social justice.  And they are sure some of us are more privileged and that we are the ones who are not aware of social injustices.  No doubt, I know I am one of the privileged.  In fact, I have many markers or privilege: race, sex, education and so on.  I am set up for things to go my way...

Recently Jean Vanier died.  Among the contemporary spiritual people and writers, he was a giant in my mind.  I never met him.  I know about his call to found the L’Arche communities for disabled people. That French word, Arche, means “ark.”  He established these communities and then would ask abled mind and body people to move into the community and help care for those apparently less fortunate people.  As so often in the world of the Spirit, ironies abound.  Those who assumed they were normal and would be the caregivers and helpers wound up being cared for in ways they could not imagine.  And they were helped beyond belief. Many of us who think about things spiritual follow Kristi Tippett’s offerings in her On Being program.  I had forgotten that she had done an interview with Vanier back in 2007.  So I took this opportunity to go back to that earlier time and see what Vanier was thinking and shared with Tippett.  In Tippett’s opening t...

A modern saint has died.  Jean Vanier, founder of the L’Arche communities, has died at age ninety years old.  For those who don’t know, the L’Arche communities were a string of places where the disabled folks were cared for by those who were abled, but had a calling to be with children of God who had been shortchanged when it comes to the world’s definition of normal.  However, as with most things where God gets involved, the tables are often turned and the ones designated as care-givers wound up being cared for.  I never met Vanier.  He is a fairly prolific author and I certainly have read some of his stuff.  I came to know of Jean Vanier through the writings and, then, from personal contact with Henri Nouwen.  Nouwen as a well-known figure in the late twentieth centuries.  His books introduced a huge non-Catholic audience to the world of spirituality.  Nouwen was a bit like Thomas Merton.  Both guys were from Europe, moved around a gre...

Twice a year I have the privilege of reading papers from students in my spirituality classes.  That may not sound like much fun.  But the papers are so personal, I cannot help but appreciate the effort the students put into them.  I understand there may be cynics who probably think students can make up stuff and I would never know.  That is doubtlessly true.  But I am willing to say that does not hurt me.  It is sad for them to choose to lie about something that should be authentic.  Most of the time, I choose to believe what I am reading is the truth. I try to get to know the students during the semester.  After all, I am teaching spirituality.  It should be about life, meaning, purpose and even truth.  Of course, I recognize that some of life is trivial.  Not everything I do or say is profound.  And the same is true for my friends in class.  But if life has no depth or meaning, then life is probably not worth living....

I was reading my Franciscan friend, Dan Horan’s, recent column in a Catholic periodical when I hit upon this phrase, “friend of God.”  He was writing a tribute to the African-American theologian, Shawn Copeland, who is retiring as a professor at Boston College.  She is a world-class theologian.  As a black woman, she can think theologically like most of us cannot do.  She has experiences that most Catholic theologians---and even Quaker theologians---do not have.      I can imagine she even experiences God in a way I never could.  I would like to think that her God and my God are, indeed, the same God, but surely we experience, know and relate differently to that same God.  I am not sure humans are sufficiently aware that our own make-up as persons affects the way we experience the world---including God.  Rather than be saddened by this, I am grateful. I can learn more about my God from Shawn Copeland.     Horan gets t...