themessymystic.com

Athletes are always wanting to be better, to swing better, catch the ball better, hit it straighter, whatever it is the athlete wants to always do more. In rural East Texas and I am sure everywhere else, this very common sense saying exists: “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”. That seems obvious but is it?

We are all like this you know, we just want a little more, to be a little better, to do something that “matters”, or make a little more money. Whatever it is, we always want a bit more. And then the day comes when we have a new question to ask ourselves, how much is enough? The society we live in, that secular world, would have us believe that more is better but what happens when we get to the end of more?

If you stop and think a minute, you suddenly realize two things. The first is that the world is lying to you, you do not have to keep “fixing it”. We still try to though. I believe we do this because we have internalized the idea that we are not good enough and never will be, so we keep trying to fix it, fix ourselves. This leads to the second realization and that is that quite often, the sermons that we hear are rife with this idea, the one that says you aren’t good enough, you sin all the time, you will never be good enough, but you must keep trying to repent.

The good news for us all is that we are indeed good enough, just as we are, just as you are at this very moment. You already have and are enough. You are a beautiful and divine creation. You are not something that needs to be fixed, you are not (as some of my Presbyterian brothers and sisters might say) utterly depraved! The good news is that we have always been good enough for God, who delights in us.

So, what shall we do with all this extra time when we stop trying? Just be! When we rest in the Creator of the Universe we soon discover that we have wasted our time trying to fix what is not broken. That is our moment of “salvation”, that moment when we realize how broken we are without the Living Christ in our lives and then…….to realize that that very presence has always been there.

This saying has been attributed to the great ballplayer, Satchel Paige: “Sometimes I sits and thinks and sometimes I just sits.” So there you have it dear ones, Just Sit! Just Be! And for heaven’s sake stop trying to fix what ain’t broke.

TMM

I will confess that when people say “back in the day” I think about a long time ago, say 50 or more years. So here we go: back in the day, my brother and I would play outside until it was one step beyond dusk. Yes, we had electricity and lights but outside was……well outside and boys really do hate to come in before dark. In those twilight hours, my brother and I could be found playing baseball, basketball in the back yard and even an occasional pick -up football game. It would be getting hard to see and still, we kept playing.

It was always a real possibility to get hit by the ball because we never saw it coming or miss making a basket because we misjudged the distance in the dark. All of that is really familiar and those memories provide a warm feeling all of these years later. Those twilight times taught us not to be afraid of the dark and taught us to look more closely and see more clearly. Still today, I tend to notice things at twilight that others miss.

This is also a description of the spiritual life. We all fear the darkness when it comes to our interior spiritual life. We want to be sure, to know what is right, to have proof but that is not faith. Just like playing ball at twilight, as you become comfortable with less light, your vision improves. And so it is with this spiritual life we all crave. We fear not knowing, of being uncertain and yet, when we embrace the “darkness” we embrace a deeper faith. A faith that is not only comfortable with not knowing but actually feels relieved by not having to know. This is the faith that is expressed by the old saying, “faith is walking to the very edge of all of the light you have and then taking one more step”.

As I write this, it is the beginning of Advent. That time when the physical world rushes to its darkest and shortest days. We are all moving into darkness but it is the darkness of anticipation, of hope, and yes, growing faith that at the end of these weeks of Advent, the Light of the World will once again come to us all. Instead of getting caught up in avoiding the deepening darkness by shopping, noise, and continuous movement, what if we all worked on our night vision? What if we all welcomed and embraced the dark as simply the other part of life? That place where we have no choice but to look and listen more carefully. This is Bethlehem for each of us, the place where faith is born, the place where the light in our lives begins to shine in the darkness and the darkness does not understand it.

TMM

“Quit being so materialistic”. That command seems, on its surface, to be a good command to be spiritual, not material in life. It is fascinating that we separate the two and yet, in the New Testament times, it was assumed that it was all one thing. Then the belief was that if you were holy, the sign of that was your wealth that represented God’s favor.

The church, in Western society still believes it. Enter the misuse of Calvinism and the result is a clear separation of material from spiritual. Out of this idea rose the Protestant work ethic that says we know who is blessed by their good works and their prosperity. This could never have been written by a poor person. Only someone writing from a privileged place could conceive that God’s love is clear in the things you have.

This ability to separate the material from the spiritual is how you can have a free market system that represents the need to produce more and more and to have more and more. Remember the young rich man who asked Jesus how to get eternal life. He asked what he could “do”, not how he should be. Jesus shut it all down in a sentence, “go sell all that you have and give it to the poor”. The issue was not wealth but ego, of believing what his faith had taught him, that wealth represented God’s favor.

Is it wrong to have much? No! In truth having great wealth does demonstrate God’s favor. This is not to say one person with money is better than another, only that all that we have is given by God. The point of the story is that unless your entire life is in balance, you are not on the “narrow” path. We need to quit separating material from spiritual and make life whole again. All that we have, all that we are, is because of God’s grace. It is only a problem when our ego tells us differently.

I believe this was the problem for the young rich man, his ego would not let him see himself without his wealth, without his material blessings. It was about him, not about how blessed he was. In our society, we are always keeping score by our stuff. Maybe it is time to keep score by who we are and how we love.

TMM

The word politics has been a source of fighting for hundreds of years. We are not allowed to talk about politics (or religion) at family gatherings, church fellowships or most anywhere. It just upsets people and starts arguments. No one wants to fight with Uncle Bill with turkey about to be served!

Therein lies the problem. If we cannot talk about religion and politics with our family we have a real problem. The real problem is we refuse to talk about controversial things that make us uncomfortable and we do not want to hear someone disagree with us. This makes us modern Pharisees and Sadducees. When we don’t discuss things that matter, things that impact millions of people, we are not following Christ.

Let’s be honest here, Jesus was put to death because he dared to point out the politics of his day, the religious who were conspiring with Rome. In political terms, Jesus was what is called a radical. Not a conservative, neo-conservative, liberal, neo-liberal or even libertarian. Jesus was beyond that scope. Gandhi, Mandela, King, these were radicals because they did not care about who was right, they didn’t care to punish those who oppressed, all of them were so radical that the goal was reconciliation.

What does the Gospel call us to do? To feed the poor, heal the sick, love the oppressed, take care of the widows and love our enemies. Now that is radical! Jesus was clearly a socialist in that from day one, everyone shared and everyone was their brother’s or sister’s, keeper. It is irrelevant as to the label given this behavior. It is called being a follower/disciple of Christ. We don’t want to talk about these things because it exposes us for who we really are instead of who we say we are.

Until we can (as my college students might say) “Speak truth” to one another in love, more will continue to go hungry or be sick or be oppressed. Jesus spent 33 years standing up for the oppressed, both spiritually and politically. He was not afraid to talk about the issues and to point out where the people in power of his time got it wrong and what it would take to fix it. With a few exceptions noted in Scripture, they refused to listen, kept the “party line” and when they had heard enough and seen enough, they murdered him. Make no mistake, Rome put this rabble-rouser to death and the Jews sat back and approved of it.

Today, in this world, are we not doing the same? Christians across this country are standing idly by, not talking about what is going on and letting people go hungry, die without healthcare or sleep on the streets. From the very beginning, God put humankind in charge of all of creation, to tend it as the Good Shepherd tends it, to love it, to honor it and to hold it Sacred. Maybe it is time we became the shepherds and vinedressers Jesus used in so many parables. Maybe it is time to embody love by standing for those who cannot stand for themselves and speak for those who cannot speak for themselves.

TMM

Silence is one of those spiritual disciplines that we often take for granted and yet rarely experience it. We have a hard time unplugging from the world we live in and we feel guilty if we are not doing something “meaningful” every moment. I think most of the time we don’t spend time in silence because we are afraid of what we will find there.

Instead of silence, we fill our lives with talk and music and even “white noise” to blot out all of the other sounds. There always seems to be something to interrupt the silence. Now, silence in this sense does not mean absolute quite. In the mornings when I spend time in silence, the furnace cuts on and off and the air cleaner rattles a bit as it is running. No, it is not totally quiet but it is silent in that I have disconnected from the usual noisy world.

The first time I went on a retreat to an abbey, I had some concerns about being in silence. It is a mistaken notion that monks take a vow of silence, trust me they do not. One of the funniest people I know is a monk and has been for almost 50 years. He loves to laugh and has a delightfully twisted sense of humor. And, yet, when I am with this monk, there is a peaceful silence between us.

You see, quieting your very heart is to move into silence. When I am at peace, my heart is in silence. I do this driving to work each morning, praying for all using my prayer rope. The road noise is still there and the orchestral music is softly playing, but it is silent in my soul. I have learned to love silence and I have learned that if I don’t have some once in a while, I the worse for it.

It is okay to sit on your porch and listen to the world as it really is and experience the silence of your soul. You see, when you take away the have tos and the musts of your life, the world becomes a lot quieter. And, when you can finally get past the guilt and shame of your own life, you are in silence with the One who loves you most. Pogo was right, “We have met the enemy and he is us!”

So, let go of the have tos, let go of the self-consciousness and step into the silence of your very soul. It does take some effort and practice, but imagine what even five minutes per day of having a silent soul might do for the health of your soul.

TMM

What am I to be mindful of exactly? I don’t know about you but across the years I have been asked (more often told) to “keep this in mind”. Or other variations: keep in mind, just remember this, be reminded, well you get the idea. My experience is that this is said when negative consequences could be just around the corner.

What is this mindfulness we are supposed to keep? The ever-present Wikipedia says that it is: the psychological process of purposely bringing one’s attention to experiences occurring in the present moment without judgment. So, let me examine this: first and foremost it is a process, something to learn and to be practiced. That makes sense, we all have to be mindful of what we are doing, seeing, hearing, experiencing. Another way to say this is to be “living in the moment”.

However, there is another part here that is so very easy to overlook and that would be the without judgment part. This is the part that matters and that is so very difficult to deal with. We are, quite often, not judgmental of those experiencing the moment with us. We are often incredibly judgmental of the very one experiencing the moment – ourselves. To be able to live in the moment is not what we have been taught, we must lay judgment aside and take in the moment.

Here’s the thing, I struggle with laying judgment aside. It is hardest to lay aside my judgments about the things occurring in the moment and most of all, my judgments about myself and how I fit into that moment or if I even deserve to be having that moment. And this is what makes praying difficult. To pray is to be “in the moment” with God, without any judgment. How can we love our enemies? By being totally in the moment without judgment.

There is a larger question here, though. The real question we all struggle with is being in that very moment with the Creator of the Universe, the All-Knowing God, the Most High. That brings to mind the very judgment we are supposed to lay aside. Why is it so hard for us to remember that we are called to be “in the moment” with the Lover of our soul, the Creator that looked at us and said, “it is good”.

Contemplation is to be mindful, to be in the moment with God. It is a place to live from, but it takes practice. You have to ease into living aware of all without judgment. This path seems frightening because we are being called to let go of all that we have preconceived and been taught and live in the moment with God. Think for a second: this is true freedom. I don’t have to judge anyone or anything, I don’t have to decide, I just have to be in this moment and experience Grace.

TMM

Have you ever heard the phrase “get real”? Most often it is a phrase of disbelief, somewhat akin to “tell the truth”. We often realize that what we are hearing just doesn’t sound with what we think reality actually is. And, quite often we believe that reality is the same as truth.

In a famous quote from the Harry Potter movies, Harry askes an ethereal Dumbledore, “is all this real or is it just in my head?” The immediate answer is “of course it is in your head, does that make it any less real?” And in that short exchange is a wealth of wisdom. Consider the impact perspective has on reality. We cannot escape the perspective of our own lives and beliefs on what we expect to be real or what we believe is real.

Across so very many years, I have been asked more often than I care to remember if what I believe is real. It used to be a bit of annoyance to try to answer this question about the God I believe in being real or not. I have learned to answer those questions with a resounding, it is what I believe. For me it is real. Now, that answer serves me well, perhaps you too, but there is a fundamental danger in this perspective.

The danger is that people believe that their own reality (their perspective of it) is the only one. It is just not true, reality is ever unfolding and always in process. Just as the universe is ever-expanding, so too is reality. If the Jesus/God you believe in today is exactly the same as the One you believed in yesterday, you have missed the point. Yes, God is the same now and forever, as scripture says, but we are not the same forever. When we become static and stop growing, we are no longer people of faith.

Instead, when we become static, set in our ways, faith is no longer necessary because we “know” what we believe. If you are the same today as you were ten years ago, heck ten days ago, I would suggest that you are not really living. It is scary to deal with the unknown, the “gray areas” that are all around us. I sometimes wish it was just one way or another, but life is not just one way.

Faith means to celebrate what we do not know, that is its very definition, of things “hoped for” and “unseen”. I do not trust people who have all of the answers. Life without mystery is a stale reality. It is why I choose mysticism, it is why the name of this blog is the messy mystic. My prayer for you is that you are ever-growing and ever-changing and open to all of the mystery we call life.

I do like to dance. I might not be great at it but I love to follow the rhythms and the music. There is just something in me that makes me want to move, to follow the rhythm and to let it happen.

This is important because I learned from my pagan friends and Native American spirituality that Mother Earth has a rhythm and if we listen closely, it can inspire us and lead us to good places. Does this sound foreign to you? If you look deeply within, you will feel and hear and sense the rhythm. And what about scripture? Isn’ this all pagan superstition? No, it is deeply sacred. Have you not read the Psalms?

We have abandoned the “faith of our fathers” as we might say in church. The world of the Christian New Testament was holistic and spirituality, the earth, the stars, and God were all one wholistic reality. Our rational world has long since led us away from that eternal awareness that is all of creation.

St. Francis and Franciscan theology understood/understand this. We are all part of creation, we are creation. Our redemption, our salvation if you will, comes the moment we awaken to the Spirit of a Living God, that has been right there inside of us all the time. The African people of the Diaspora knew this. Barbara Holmes is an African American writer and theologian who writes about the first slaves in this country. They came from a wholistic belief that creation and spirit are one.

Dr. Holmes points to what every slave knew, the music and the rhythm lead to freedom. Many of the “spirituals” that were sung by the slaves were actually road maps to freedom. “Wade in the Water” and “Follow the Drinking Gourd” are but two songs that pointed the way. We have much to learn from the African American culture and about the God we all follow.

Listen! Can you hear the rhythm? Can you tune in to the song of all of Creation? Can you hear it in the Psalms? This is why, when the monks chant the Psalms, peace, and calm always arise. This Sacred song and rhythm are waiting for you to start dancing.

TMM

Waterfalls are beautiful, inspirational, and awesome (in the true sense of that word). There are tiny waterfalls that may dry up during hot summer months and there are enormous waterfalls like Niagra Falls that are continuous and powerful. They are wonderful to watch, the power that is involved and the interplay of light, sound, motion, and sensation are truly an experience to be savored.

I think there is something else about waterfalls that we do not often consider. Every waterfall comes from a stream of some sort. Small creeks to powerful rivers can all produce waterfalls and this makes me think that there is something to be learned in these natural wonders. The ancient philosopher, Heraclitus, said that “no man steps into the same river twice, for it is not the same river and he is not the same man”. The river is, of course ever changing, as it flows.

A waterfall represents the breaking up of the stream into millions of drops of water as it flows from higher to lower stream beds. If we think of streams as metaphors for life itself, we have something to learn. First, that life is not all that it seems at the surface. Below the surface, there is a flow going on that is never at rest. Second, life like the stream is ever changing. Life continues to move forward, with or without us wanting to go. Third, water itself has enormous power and can be used to wear away even the largest mountain.

If you live life long enough, the flowing stream we call life is going to fall and be broken into millions of little pieces. It is just not possible to stop it from happening. Someone beloved dies, relationships end and we are broken into millions of pieces. And yet, if you stand at the bottom of the waterfall, you will find a stream that flows away from the falls, with all of its pieces back in place.

We fear the waterfalls of life. Death is overwhelming, break ups are crushing, and still the stream flows from one level to the next. What gets us (and the stream) to the next level is the waterfall. We have to believe that at the end of the day, all of the water drops come back together in a stream that once again becomes more peaceful and calm.

Don’t fear the waterfalls in life. Like the stream, life might break into a million little pieces, but life will come back together and flow at a new level. Holding back the water never works, so don’t try to stop the flow of life. Instead, be confident that no matter how high the waterfall, at the bottom, there is a new stream.

TMM

This phrase, “dance with who brung ya” is familiar to people in Texas who were around when Darrell Royal was the University of Texas football coach. The meaning is pretty clear, you are usually better off using the players and plays that got you to where you are now.

Most people do exactly that, dance with who brung ’em. We keep doing what we have always done. The danger with this is that there comes a point when being loyal turns into failure. A colleague of mine (and I am sure he didn’t coin this) loved to say, “If you keep doing what you have been doing, you are going to get what you have always got”. Isn’t this a definition of insanity? You keep doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result.

The sad thing is, we keep doing the same thing in our spiritual lives. We simply do what we have always done: go to church, go to Sunday school, tithe, and attend Wednesday night services. We expect that this will make for a strong spiritual life, but it doesn’t. Quite often we are not really invested in what we are doing, we are just checking things off our to do list. We keep “dancing” with a very basic and childish idea of what faith and spiritual life is and expect that we will be blessed.

In the letter to the Corinthians, we read that Paul wanted to feed these new Christians solid food, but they were only ready for milk. His point to them (and us) was they were not growing, they were choosing to be stuck at the infant stage of the spiritual life. They kept dancing with who brung em. This might work for football, it does not work in the spiritual life.

Richard Rohr speaks of us being in an ever changing dance, as we see in the Trinity. The dance steps continuously change, but the dance goes on, to new places. Sometimes scary places, but we dance together. The Trinity is Father, Son and Spirit. I believe our dance is us, God, and our spiritual community. If any one of the partners is missing, there is no balance, we are dancing alone!

Thomas Merton said, “dance in this sun, you tepid idiot”. He was referencing the idea that we have discovered that God has “found” us, that we have always been with God and that all we really need to do is dance the Holy dance with our Creator. The steps don’t matter, just let God lead and let’s dance with the one who has always been our Partner.

TMM