A humbling quote…

” A saint is not someone who is good but who experiences the goodness of God.”

- Thomas Merton

untitled poetry

I started up the engine

having stripped myself of rage

opened up the chords of longing

simply to stare at a blank page./

Crisping through the melodies

to find a song for you

infest my mind of all the thoughts

of playing it in tune./

But I need you to pen the words

if the song is to be played

’cause in the end it won’t make sense

emptied of your aid.

Spiritual Formation and the Church

Kyle has been leading Rivendell into a tour de force of the spiritual disciplines, and much of what we have discussed has been enlightening for us as a community. Touching on these subjects not only puts oneself under the microscope, it also shows the structure of a group of people and how they live out their lives. So far, we have covered disciplines like scripture memorization, prayer, Sabbath, lectio divina, the Jesus prayer, and fasting (Kyle, if I missed something let me know!). Yesterday, as we were entering our time of commmunion, Lindy spoke about the difficulty of practicing these things. He was honest about his own struggles, about how it is much easier to consume ourselves with discussions about spirituality without really having to do the grunt work of it all. And I think that is key, because many of us so often think that spirituality is something that is easy. The problem occurs because so much of the terminology we surround the already loaded word ’spirituality’ is usually synonymous with ease. Think about it. Rest, peace, tranquility, communion, these are just a few of the words that get used frequently when we talk about spiritual issues. These things are conflated together often, and it is easy to see why.

But to face the silence, to open up the scriptures, to rest for a day, to withdraw yourself from others or to abstain from eating is a direct challenge to our everyday routines. We rarely encounter the mystery of God on a daily basis, we are so busy with ourselves and with managing our accounts, making sure the barista gets our coffee order right, hedging our bets on whether or not we can gain affection from others. We work terribly hard to distance ourselves from any abruption to our schedules, emotions, or our passions. We are both the taskmaster and the slave wrapped into one package, and if we feel that our product is not making us rich enough, we enslave ourselves even more to get what we want.

Today I started rereading one of my favorite books of all time, Henri Nouwen’s The Return of the Prodigal Son. Throughout the book, Nouwen reflects upon his life in conjuntion with Jesus’ parable about the lost son who returned home to his father. Nouwen sees himself as the prodigal, the elder son whose resentment has made him depart from home in an emotional way, and finally as the father who welcomes home those who were once lost. I think that is a healthy analogy for Christian communities, for we have all been both sons at certain times in our lives. We have lived as if our father does not exist, we have also resented our father when he did not give to us as we thought he should, and yet we have been called to come home, to eventually take on the characteristics of the father and shepherd other lost sons and daughters. Nouwen says that this journey starts in prayer, and I want to extend that to the spirital disciplines in general, to the formation of Christians who are trying to follow in the father’s footsteps. Lindy is right, this only starts with us actually doing these things, praying the prayers, silencing ourselves to hear God better, fasting and reading the text to shape us into people who long for the love of God to be shown in this world. My prayer is that we allow the Spirit of God to invade our territories, to move in us and form us in ways we could not imagine.

In the News: Raucous Old Men Invade Beloved Coffeehouse (other updates included)

posted by pilgrimramblings, unofficial news reporter 

Tulsa –  A much heralded and artist friendly coffeehouse in the Cherry Street district of Tulsa, Oklahoma was invaded by a verbose and fulminating group of older men. The noise level reached so high that one witness said that she could no longer hear herself think.

The Coffeehouse on Cherry Street, normally a safehaven for aspiring artists and writers and an oasis for the caffiene-addicted, was abruptly transformed from a quiet and peaceful gathering of coffee drinkers into what one observer said ”resembled a Friday night bingo tournament”. Daniel Sharples, a resident of Tulsa and frequent visitor to the shop, stated that he had never experienced such a troubling event in his entire life prior to today’s incident. “I am a writer, and usually I can deal with distractions in my given environment, but what happened in there was a cacaphony of sounds that I never want to hear again. The noise was penetrating, it ruined all my attempts to write today.”

All attempts to subdue the men failed, various customers glanced angrily at the congregation, others cleared their throats multiple times to convey that they were annoyed. At one point, the owner of the store walked over to the group and appeared to admonish them for their disruptive behavior, only to be observed moments later contributing to the noise. Sharples also said that other patrons were visibly frustrated and began to leave. The perpetrators appeared to be aloof of their actions, laughing and conversing about meaningless subjects, all the while well-intentioned artists tried to master their craft. “It eventually became too much, I just lost it and gathered all my belongings and left. I had planned on being there for a couple of hours but it ended up being just fifteen minutes!” continued Sharples. When asked if he would return to the coffeehouse, Sharples said that he would have to think cautiously about it before going back.

It is believed that the aforementioned group of men have departed from the coffeehouse, but no one interviewed knew if the men would return.

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more news:

• Daniel Sharples claims he will update blog more frequently…
• Paris Hilton shows off prison tattoo to uninterested crowd…
• George W. Bush states that he loves the English Channel, but doesn’t have cable television…