Who is your audience?

I'm still reading Thomas Merton. His idea that jumped into my heart this week was

"If you write for God you will bring joy to many... if you write for yourself you will hate it and want to die."

Is this statement even true? Is our favorite contemplative monk showing histrionics or does he have a point? I think his statement relates to some of the ideas I wrote about earlier. Whenever we follow a calling to share love, we are not doing it for self aggrandizement because if we are, then we aren't sharing love, we are serving ourselves. Matthew 6:24 says we can't serve two masters, we either love God, or we love money (or ourselves, or the world and its stuff).

If we do everything to show our love for God, why do we bother to share our thoughts and words with others? If we are writing (or speaking or singing etc) for God, why does it need to be in public? Why can't we just make it a part of our prayer life?

It just so happens I have a story about that:

I was sitting in silent worship at my Quaker meeting about 20  years ago.  I suddenly got an idea that made my throat want to explode. I knew that I was either going to stand up and talk or I was going to throw up. Literally the thought was in my heart so quickly and ferociously that I really wasn't sure what words I was going to say. I stood up and said something about forgiveness and how it related to both the message given that day by our pastor and my situation in life at that time. I sat down, and I felt completely normal again, like nothing had ever happened. After the service was over, folks thanked me for sharing, but I honestly couldn't remember what all I had said. I think this is an instance when God meant for me to share a thought with othersf. This instance, and the several others that have come after it, are examples of doing something for God's glory, for God's people, and not for personal gain. If I hadn't gotten up, whether it be from shyness or lack of faith, then I wouldn't have been following God's lead. If I had gotten up with a message about my own interests, I wouldn't have been serving God either.

One of my favorite hymns says that we are God's hands and feet, and though it can mean that we are  part of the body of Christ that is mentioned in Romans 12:5, I also think that we are here to work for God, and working for God means sharing love.

I Have This Feeling Inside Me

When I was five years old, I accepted Jesus as my personal savior. I attended my grandparents' fundamentalist church and began an anxious mental routine through weekly altar calls. Every time we sang Just as I Am and the pastor raised his hands invitingly, I resisted the urge to run down the aisle to him.

During this time, my cousin had a figurine of Jesus on a shelf in her bedroom. Jesus, dressed in drab clothes, was knocking on a door looking very sad. My cousin said he was knocking on the door of my heart. He was sad because I hadn't let him in. I told her I had let him in, and her answer was, "you sure about that?" I lay awake in her room during sleepover visits, anxiously staring at the tiny statue while she slept soundly.

For years I worried every Sunday during the altar call. What if I hadn't gotten saved right? What if my salvation wore off? What if the abuse I had received from a "trusted adult" had somehow negated my salvation, and I really was as bad as I felt? What if I sinned right before the rapture and hadn't cleaned my soul in time to make it to Heaven? 

We moved away when I was starting sixth grade. At my new church in the south, I wasn't a sinner in the hand of an angry God as much as I was a wellmeaning kid who made dumb mistakes. My anxious prayers for salvation subsided. I slept a little better. I didn't clutch the pew in front of me during altar calls. I attended youth group and wrote notes to my friends in church. I graduated from high school and attended a Quaker college.

As a graduate student, I befriended my internship boss, a lifelong Quaker who first acquainted me with the idea of that of God in every person. Many Quakers believe that every person has a measure of the Holy Spirit present in them from birth. That "inner light" needs to be recognized and nurtured and listened to, but it is always there.

What if I had been raised Quaker, assured that the light of Christ was in my heart, ready to teach and guide me? Instead of worrying about whether I had been saved right, I could have been listening to the still small voice of God, who had taken up residence in my heart long ago.

What does God's presence in my heart feel like? I know it is there now, like I know my liver is there; but I can't feel it with my fingers. I can't pinpoint the exact physical location of God in my body. It isn't like that. If I take the time to pay attention, I have a big part of what I need for spiritual fulfillment. I feel the need to listen for God's directions -- not the Bible (though that is part of it), but rather the still small voice that I can feel rather than hear. 

Listening for God takes practice and patience. It takes daring and making mistakes and putting yourself in a position where you may not be comfortable. It puts you in a position to grow, and growth can be painful.

Thinking back on that sculpture in my cousin's room, I wonder if instead of thinking of Jesus as outside my heart asking to come in, if maybe Jesus is actually on the inside of my heart, knocking on the door and saying, "Hey, Jennie, are you up? I have a great idea for you."

Contemplating humility

I am reading Thomas Merton's book New Seeds of Contemplation where one of modern America's thinkers tries to pin down what contemplation is. Merton is pretty up front: contemplation is tricky to describe and even harder to direct. There is a significant fraction of the book describing what contemplation is not, if anyone finds that helpful (I am not even sure if it was helpful or not).

I'm trying to tackle this New Seeds of Contemplation because of my heart (the spriritual one, not the coronary one); I'm trying to grow in a relationship with God. One of the ways I'm trying to grow is to get myself to sit still long enough to listen for God. Some Quakers call it "Waiting Upon the Lord," and many from various faiths call it meditation, but learning about contemplation is fundamental to my understanding of the process. I'm learning to get myself out of the way so I can move forward. So even though I initially took up contemplation, much of my recent work and thought has revolved around humility.

Two quotes from Merton made me rethink humility. I used to think I had humility when I deflected a compliment or deprecated my accomplishment. Merton says, "In humility is the greatest freedom. As long as you have to defend the imaginary self that you think is important, you lose your peace of heart." My accomplishments or others' thoughts about my activities doesn't really matter in Merton's treatment of humility here, because I'm still dealing with my "imaginary self", the person I present to others for acceptance or rejection. It reminds me of how my teenagers constantly add ugly filters to any picture of themselves. "It's a joke," they say, but I think they are self deprecating to defend themselves from outside attack. They aren't being humble; they are just building walls. We aren't here to build walls, we're here to build God's kingdom. Building a kingdom is going to require us to listen to God without our hangups making too much noise.

As a monk, Merton ejected himself from wider society, presenting himself to God for acceptance or rejection; my understanding (which is limited) thinks this withdrawal from society frees Merton up for living an inner life that strives to connect to God without worrying about the societal hangups. In fact, my other favorite Merton quote (for today, anyway) speaks to humility in regards to visible virtue. He says, "Sometimes virtuous men are also bitter and unhappy because they have unconsciously come to believe that all their happiness depends on their being more virtuous than others." Merton got himself (and everyone else) out of the way in his seeking God. Many of us may hear clearly that our mission is to be among others, but we have to remember that we are not in competition with others for anything spiritual. We are around others to share God's love and learn from each other. When we put ourselves in the way, we pervert it into an ego trip that serves self.

I get in my own way all the time. During prayer time I get tied up in worrying about my stress instead of taking it to God in prayer. I would rather look at time killer activities rather than settle my mind and body to listen for God's message to me that day. I neglect important reading of the Bible and other texts I use to grow spiritually. Sometimes I sleep through the time I normally spend listening for and praying to God. 

Given this informal confession, I think humility would dictate that I just get back to practicing what I know is right -- no histrionics, no drama. Practice makes better, not perfect. If there is a visible difference in my life, I would hope that it would be in wisdom and a loving patience for my students, my friends, and my family. Humility is going to take a lot of practice, but I think it can take closer to where I want to be.

God said hi and wants to catch up

I have a list of wondrous things in my phone

Turns out, my list isn't really wondrous all the time. Some of the items are pretty magnificent (like the snow on the tree this morning -- I had to get a picture because it was so pretty), but sometimes whatever gets my attention seems amazing and deep but it is really just ordinary or dumb, and my hyper mind is running in fifth gear at 6 am when I'm walking the dog and notes like "the mystery yard on 5th Avenue" seems intriguing until I realized that my dog meditates there every morning not because of a mystical force, but rather because a rat terrier lives in the first floor apartment just past that yard. I'm pretty sure rat terrier neighbor and my dog are leaving each other messages through their pee (stuff like "this is my yard -- get out" and "I'm ten times bigger than you, but I think we can still be friends" because my dog doesn't observe social boundaries).

I have a note on my phone that says "No one speaks to God like you do." It blows my mind a little every time I see it. I guess I was listening to a podcast or a spiritual development book when I heard it. I tried googling it, but it isn't exactly an original thought, so I just ran through a few dozen Christian pop lyrics without finding a familiar source. I can't remember who said it, but I was standing in the middle of Chestnut Street in the dark when I typed it into my phone. Cody the black lab was tugging on the leash, impatient to get to a grassy vacant spot she investigates regularly, and I was gobsmacked. Why hadn't I ever thought of speaking to God before? Why do I keep forgetting it since I heard it that first time?

I believe that God can speak to me anytime and anywhere. I don't believe his only communication is through the Bible; I think he uses anything around us to reach us. For example, I was walking my dog (a different dog, a long time ago) down the street, pondering a really difficult decision when I heard a neighbor shouting into his phone. He said, "I brought you this far, do you really think I'm going to let go now?" In my mind I knew he was talking to someone on the other end of the phone, and I have no idea what the conversation was about. In my heart I know that message was for me and had nothing to do with my neighbor.

I have always known about prayer, which for decades I considered my only way of speaking to God, but I've been thinking more about getting in touch with God in different ways, and here is what I've decided: anything I do because of my love for God or because of my love for God's people is my speaking to God. If my mind is in the right spot, I'm dropping love notes to God all the time.

In other words, when I make up nicknames for my students at school, I am showing love in a way only I can. I don't mean I'm the only one who can think of a name for a funny fourth grader, but I'm the only one who calls her Dimples at school, and that is the way Dimples wants it. I love this kid because I ask God about five times a week to give me a love for all my students, many of whom are tough but all of whom deserve to be loved and respected at school. I am showing Dimples the love in a way only I can, and I'm also sharing that love because I'm following God; I'm not trying to make a connection for self gain or to "be cool" (like that could happen with a Zoomer -- she literally thinks I'm 88).

When I do something nice to make myself look good or whatever other selfish reason I can conjure, it usually falls flat, and I deserve that. My reason for being wherever I am needs to be that of servant to God and servant to my neighbors. Even when I'm out with friends or family, finding the kind thing, the listening thing, the friendly thing to do is what shows love, so that is what I'm called to do.

Looking for God's messages all around me, and sending God messages through loving acts has caused me to pray more often (frequently in the ladies faculty restroom at school, so the prayer is pretty short), and it helps me remember why I'm here (on Earth).  I am here to share love. That is all.

So that phone list gets longer, and then shorter. I deleted the line about the mystery yard, but I still keep the one about talking to God, because I can't be reminded of that often enough.