Set Loose Your Power

The hour is striking so close above me,
so clear and sharp,
that all my senses ring with it.
I feel it now: there’s a power in me
to grasp and give shape to my world. 

I know that nothing has ever been real
without my beholding it.
All becoming has needed me.
My looking ripens things
and they come toward me, to meet and be met. 

        - Rainer Maria Rilke, Book of Hours: Love Poems to God

We should pray to hear God.  We should also seek to see, touch, taste, and smell God.  Any way we can experience a bit of what God has created and set loose in the world is good.

It is also good to understand our role in continuing to create with God.  God invites us to receive the gift of relationship, trust how that empowers us to engage our truest selves, and set loose our gifts for the world.  

The world needs to hear, see, touch, taste, and smell ordinary human beings with extraordinary callings.  God worked through smelly fishermen turned disciples; through the sick who trusted in touching Jesus; through Paul who went and was heard by others.  Humans saying ‘yes’ to a power allowing transformation of the world.

Rilke feels the power to co-create with God. When I have been in that place, it has been electrifying.  The sense of possibility is amazing.  I have tried to receive well, which means trusting this great love and acting to honor it.  I have tried to be met - but also to meet.  

In this hurting world, God needs us to ripen things with our look.  God needs us to see and then move toward.  God needs us to grasp and shape.  You have the power to do so.    

But be patient.  You can’t make these hours happen.  They are gifts of relationship.  As you welcome and nurture mysterious relationship with God; as you start paying attention in new ways; as you begin to trust deeply: be ready. Be ready to receive and act. 

And while you wait, support others in paying attention and trusting.  Your power is probably connected to them anyway.  Sensing your power is part of your becoming - and part of our becoming. 

Newspaper or Soul?

Today’s Church of the Saviour Inward/Outward reflection really caught me:

“As human beings our greatness lies not so much in being able to remake the world—that is the myth of the Atomic Age—as in being able to remake ourselves.” (Mahatma Gandhi)

Washington, DC is a place where people try to remake the world.  It is a place where that is possible.  Assuming the change is positive, that is a good thing. 

But we could do even more good by being in touch with ourselves and the change needed within.  What if the energy we expend trying to control things around us, or convincing ourselves we are in control, was applied to inner work that we can better control?  What if we believed that humanity’s greatness does rely on remaking ourselves?  If we focused on our deepest selves with the dedication we bring to understanding the world, there would be good remaking. 

People spend a lot of time reading every word of every available newspaper or website. Knowledge is great and empowers us, but not if it comes at the expense of reading between the lines of our own lives. We often focus so much on knowing the world that we miss opportunities to experience ourselves. Increasing awareness of self can change us and the world - but in ways that are different and less measurable that those we are conditioned to crave.  To trust that is an act of faith.    

We need balance between world and psyche; spirit and soul; light and dark; right and left; upper and lower (Bill Plotkin, Soulcraft).  We need balance between remaking the world and remaking ourselves.  

How is your balance?  Do you believe that nurturing your spiritual, emotional, and mental health can change the world?  What do you need to help you shift?

“Be the change that you wish to see in the world.” (Gandhi) 

It's Not About You, But It Is

Calling can’t be explored without community.  As we journey inward to experience God and self more fully, we must also share outwardly with the world.  That is important for truly experiencing God.    

To be in touch with one’s deepest sense of self is freeing and exciting, but also scary.  Such awareness usually challenges much of life around us, and ways we are told to be and do.  If we are fortunate enough to access some of our truest nature, we have an obligation to share that discovery and the process with others through service, relationship, and witness.  

Last week, I acted on my obligation by supporting 60 men in the five day Men’s Rites of Passage in the West Virginia woods.  I did the Rites a few years ago, and was returning to help others.  At one point, we were reminded that life is not about us - but also that “Your life is hidden with Christ in God.  He is your life, and when he is revealed, you will be revealed in all your glory with him” (Colossians 3:4).

It’s not about you, but it is.    

That speaks to the mysterious, intimate connection between God, self, and other that is a huge part of the spiritual journey.  It speaks to how much God loves us and wants us to grow - and how that is entwined with Christ and the journeys of others.  We should always be asking if we have the right balance between focus on self and others.  

I returned to this year’s Rites to help hold space for these men and to pray for them.  But other men planned for nearly a year to make these Rites happen. These are men who are serious about their own inner work, who accept the challenges of seeing life differently, and who lead by serving others who want to trust, stretch, and grow.  

These elders exemplify community born of experience and journey, and knowing how important it is to help others go deeper.  Engaging God in nature, silence, and ritual is not just about the individual.  It’s also about others.  In helping others, the insight, connection, and support we need is often revealed.  

It’s not about you, but it is.        

You are on a journey.  Wherever you are and whatever you need, your quest is important.  But don’t forget that it can’t be separated from others.  Calling needs community, and community needs calling.  Because the journey is never finished, don’t be surprised when those you have served in the past serve you. Don’t be surprised if those who helped you back then need your help now. Perhaps that is your true life revealed in Christ.      

It’s not about you, but it is.  

Don't Just Knit

“The Scream” is a well known painting by Edvard Munch.  Whether you think it scary, unnerving, confusing or something else, it presents an element of real life.  Real emotion.  Real being.  Real experience.  

Earlier in his life, the death of Munch’s father was followed by a period of depression and melancholy.  As he came out of that period, he had his artistic manifesto:     

“People will understand what is sacred in them and will take off their hats as if in church.  I will paint a number of such pictures.  No longer shall interiors be painted with people reading and women knitting.  There shall be living people who breathe and feel and suffer and love.”(Munch At The Munch Museum, Arne Eggum)

Munch seems to have responded to life experience by sharing something deep inside himself with the world.  He understood his offering as something very different from other painters.  In developing as an artist, he had learned about his gifts.  Now he knew more about how to focus them.  He knew what he wanted to offer others.  It caused him to risk being different.    

Saying yes to calling is similar.

If we pay attention to life, we learn what nature and gifts God has given us. We can take that core - our basic essence - and develop as unique persons and co-creators.  We can open to how the world converges with us in both exhilarating and heartbreaking ways.  And we can make decisions about how we want to impact the world by honoring God’s gifts and relationship.  Each of us are called in different ways, and most paths are not clear or easy.

Munch’s work and tough subjects speak to me because he goes places we often need to go - but don’t want to.  He speaks to me with his clarity about what he offered the world because of his experiences, perspectives, and gifts. He was acting out of his uniqueness to honor the sacredness - deep emotion and need - of life.        

How does your “yes” to calling honor the sacredness of life?  Or, how does the sacred shape your calling?           

Big Words Don't Work

“Vocation is just there,” said Dr. Emilie Townes.  She was speaking to a group of us gathered to explore helping young adults in intentional communities understand vocation.  She then asked, “How do we recognize it?”

Defining vocation is hard.  We can put big words to it, but really its the kind of thing that is defined by how a life is lived.  Having thought a lot about vocation and calling, I have words I can use.  But I find that what makes it most real is being around people who understand their vocation so deeply that living into it provides them a grace and authority by which something bigger than themselves flows through them.  

They have learned to be just there; to be who they are; to do what faith demands.  The Spirit flows through them, making fancy words seem less relevant.  

Vocation is not primarily about definitions, templates, and arrival.  It is, rather, a never ending process of being, receiving, and giving.  It is about that very spiritual stuff that should just be there if we are seeking to love and serve in community.  

How is vocation there with you?  If you don’t know, fear not.  Be patient.  Look around for someone with the grace and authority that makes you think: they are living their vocation.  Get closer to them.  Recognize and be recognized.  After all, vocation is not just about you.  It is also about community.