The Examen (Midweek Message)

The Examen

Fr. Tony’s Midweek Message

July 31, 2019

Today is the Feast Day of St. Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Society of Jesus. Originally a young soldier of fortune seeking honor and glory in war, but finding God and a call to be a peaceful “soldier for Christ” during lengthy hospitalization for a severe war injury, Ignatius rooted much of his spiritual life in the energetic use of the imagination.  The Spiritual Exercises, the heart of the Ignatian Retreat, take as their ground the practice of vivid mental recreation of passages of scripture after they have been read, with contemplatives often seeing themselves as characters in the story.   The practice of Examen, the Examination of Consciousness, as a daily practice also grounds itself in imagination. 

The Daily Examen has basically five steps, which can be done in as short as 20 minutes.   1) We begin by asking God for light, since we want to see these things through God’s eyes, not ours.  2) We continue by giving thanks for the day that is past, and drawing a vivid mind picture of all the good we enjoyed.  3) We then review the day, looking carefully at what happened, paying particular attention to how we felt about things, using what and how deeply we feel as points of entry into what is going on inside us.  Again, the point is to try to get God’s viewpoint, not simply replay ours.  4) With clear images of the day and our feelings before us, we then face what went wrong in the day, including our own shortcomings.  5) Finally, we look forward to the day to come with sincere petitions to God to help us in specific areas in our lives. 

I invite everyone to try Ignatian Examen as a regular practice, whether you have not done so before, or perhaps set it aside for a season.  I have found it very powerful, and believe it might be useful to you.   It does help sort out feelings and attunes us to God’s call for us. 

Grace and peace,  Fr. Tony+

James Son of Zebedee

 

James Son of Zebedee
Homily prepared for the Feast of St. James the Greater
25 July 2019
Parish Church of Trinity Ashland, Oregon

The Very Rev. Fr. Tony Hutchinson, SCP, Ph.D.

Jer 45:1-5, Psa 7:1-10, Acts 11:27-12:3, Matt 20:20-28

 

God, take away our hearts of stone
 and give us hearts of flesh. Amen.

We have often heard the story of Jesus calling the Twelve:  “I will make you fish for people.”  What we don’t often don’t realize is why Jesus chooses that particular image.  Peter and Andrew, of course, were fishermen on Lake Tiberius, as were the sons of Zebedee, John and James.  But why dwell on this any more than the profession of others so called?  After all, he did not say to Matthew, “I will make you collect spiritual taxes,” or to Simon the Zealot, “I will make you work for a Spiritual Revolution.”  Some came from agricultural pursuits, to be sure, and he calls them all to work in “the harvest, for the field is ripe.”  But the reason “fishers of people” becomes the main image is found in Jeremiah 16, where the prophet talks of the day of the Lord when all that is lost will be found again:     

“Therefore, the days are surely coming, says the Lord, when it shall no longer be said, As the Lord lives who brought the people of Israel up out of the land of Egypt, but As the Lord lives who brought the people of Israel up out of the land of the north and out of all the lands where he had driven them. For I will bring them back to their own land that I gave to their ancestors. I am now sending for many fishermen, says the Lord, and they shall catch them; and afterwards I will send for many hunters, and they shall hunt them from every mountain and every hill, and out of the clefts of the rocks. For my eyes are on all their ways; they are not hidden from my presence...” (16:14-18) “Therefore I am surely going to teach them, this time I am going to teach them my power and my might, and they shall know that my name is the Lord.” (16:21).    

When Jesus calls people to fish for people, he is saying, “the day of God’s setting things right has come, and we must be part of the work he has promised to accomplish.”

This is a very different take on the coming of God’s Realm.  John the Baptist demanded repentance and promised God’s winnowing fork and burning of the chaff.  People had to come out to meet him.  The Dead Sea Scrolls community nearby called people to come out of corrupt Babylon (Jerusalem) into the Spiritual Damascus (the mother house at Qumran).  But this was a preface not to a Day of Hope and Joy, but to a great battle between the Sons of Light and of Darkness.  

The Qumran community was led by a group of Twelve elders representing the Lost Tribes and Kingdoms that Jeremiah promised God would restore.  Within these Twelve, there was a ruling council of Three elders who ensured conformity to proper interpretation of Mosaic Law.    

Jesus too called Twelve.  But he also called Seventy, sent out broadly to find people where they were (Luke 10:1).  And he also had a close inner circle of three in his leadership, all originally fishermen:  Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, James and John.  

This inner circle, Peter, James and John, were invited by Jesus on several occasion to enter into and behold great mystery:  the Transfiguration (Matt 17:1, Mark 9:2, Luke 9:28), the healing of Peter’s mother-in-law (Mark 1:29), the raising from the dead of the daughter of Jairus (Mark 5:37, Luke 8:51), and Jesus’s agonized prayers in Gethsemane the night he was betrayed (Matt 26:37, Mark 14:33). 

These three at times seem to miss the point of being called to fish for people.  Peter tells Jesus to not think that the Messiah must suffer; Jesus tells him “get behind me Satan!”  Peter denies knowing Jesus three times.  Peter may be the Rock, but he is a flawed man whose ultimate success in fishing for people comes from putting aside his expectations and pretentions.  

James and John too were flawed: their fiery disposition led Jesus to nick-name them “Sons of Thunder,” that is, “noisy” or “angry children.”  James and John ask Jesus to call down fire from heaven on the Samaritans who decline to offer him hospitality (Luke 9:54); Jesus rebukes them.  Another time, they get their mother to ask Jesus for a special place beside him in his kingdom (Matt 20:20-23, Mark 10:35-41), irritating the other apostles in the process.   Jesus replies by asking them if they really want a seat at his table, “Are you able to drink the cup I drink, or be immersed in the waters I will go beneath?”    The “cup of God’s wrath” was a symbol of the bitter and befuddling drunkenness experienced by a person made to drink whatever God sent him.  Similarly, “sinking into the flood,” or “floundering in deep water or the mire” was a symbol of the afflictions some felt God had sent upon them.  Jesus is thinking of his own likely bad end:  you want to be near me, but that means you’ll have to suffer like me.  Can you take it?”  “Oh yes, Jesus, it’s just what we want!” they reply innocently, having no idea of how ironic their words will appear once they have deserted Jesus at the first sign of trouble during Holy Week.  

James got his wish in AD 42, just before Passover (Acts 12).  King Herod Agrippa I—grandson  of Herod the Great (the baby-killing villain of Matthew 2), nephew of Herod Antipas (who beheaded John the Baptist [Mark 6] and interrogated Jesus just before his death [Luke 23]), and father of Herod Agrippa II (who ironically told Paul “you’re almost making a Christian out of me!” in Acts 26:28)—Herod Agrippa I had James beheaded in order to ingratiate himself with the crowds of people flocking to Jerusalem.  James is thus the first of the apostles to suffer martyrdom, a fate that was shared by Peter just a few years later.  

Today’s saint James is often called James the Greater, to distinguish him from other James’s in the New Testament, including another member of the Twelve, James of Alphaeus, called James the Lesser, and James the Just (the brother of Jesus) and the author of the Epistle of James.  

Early tradition said that James the Greater before his death went on a missionary journey to Spain in his fishing for people.  After his return to Jerusalem and his martyrdom, his remains were taken—miraculously or otherwise—to his former missionary field, and were supposedly buried in Compostela (either from the “apostle’s field” campus apostolicus or the “field of stars,” campus stellarum, a description of the night sky in Northern Spain).  

James is an English form of the name Jacob, which shows up in Spanish as Diego, or Iago: Saint James is thus variously San Diego or Santiago. Thus Santiago de Compostela became the patron of Spain, the name of the basilica built over his grave, the end of the lengthy Medieval pilgrimage trail starting in the South of France that is walked to this day.    Because recovering this site was a key objective of Spanish armies seeking to drive out the Moors from the Iberian Peninsula, Santiago de Compostela was the battle cry of the Cid and his cohorts.  His sigil is a scallop shell, that natural object found on beaches in the North of Spain and presumably used by James to baptism those for whom he fished. 

Saint James, son of thunder who became the first martyr among the apostles, took seriously the call to fish for people.  And he finally understood that having a seat at Jesus’ side means sharing in Jesus’ woes.  The fact is, following Jesus means sharing Jesus’ sufferings.  It means being present for and with Jesus in his passion, from the garden and on to the cross and tomb.  But it also means living with the consequences of following his teachings and manner of life:  the craziness and utter counter-cultural rejection of the world and its power and pomp, and acting as if God’s Realm has already come, as if God is already fully in charge, right here and now.  

In the name of Christ, Amen. 

Despising the World (midweek message)

Fr. Tony’s Mid-week Message

“Despising the World” and the “Vanity of Affections”

July 24, 2019

Today is the feast day of Thomas à Kempis. (died July 25, 1471; his feast was moved forward to avoid competition with the Feast of the Apostle James son of Zebedee).  Kempis was a priest and monk in the Order of the Brethren of the Common Life.  He wrote or compiled the great classic of late medieval spirituality, The Imitation of Christ, the second most widely translated and published book after the Bible.

The Imitation is somewhat less popular as a devotional classic today than it was a generation ago.  Much of this stems from its apparent pessimism:  cultivate penitence, love Christ and no one else, despise the world and its vanities (including works of devotion and charity done to please the ego). 

But what we often miss as moderns looking at the Imitation is this:  its pessimism is a jaded reaction to all the systems of devotion, courtesies, and disciplines of the late Medieval Church and Monastery.  Following the “New Devotion” (devotio moderna) of the Brethren of the Common Life, the Imitation is a foretaste of the Renaissance Humanism of Erasmus of Rotterdam and the focus on grace and surrender of the Protestant Reformation.    When Kempis says “love Jesus, and no one else,” he means love Jesus above all, because whatever love you put before Jesus will be taken from you.  Again and again in the Imitation, you hear hints of the joys and loves in everyday life that will be consecrated and enriched if our love of Jesus comes first.   For Kempis, “despising the world” was a dramatic way of saying “get your priorities straight.”  “The world” here means that which separates us from God, not the creation of God around us that God declared “Good, very good!” (Gen. 1:31). 

The beginning of book three of the Imitation expresses the idea clearly, all the while keeping the “despise the world” language: 

“Blessed is the soul who hears the Lord speaking within her, who receives the word of consolation from [God’s] lips. Blessed are the ears that catch the accents of divine whispering, and pay no heed to the murmurings of this world. Blessed indeed are the ears that listen, not to the voice which sounds without, but to the truth which teaches within. Blessed are the eyes which are closed to exterior things and are fixed upon those which are interior. Blessed are they who penetrate inwardly, who try daily to prepare themselves more and more to understand mystery. Blessed are they who long to give their time to God, and who cut themselves off from the hindrances of the world.”

Grace and Peace,

Fr. Tony+

Neither Domestic Nor Dragon-slayer (proper 11c)

Neither Domestic nor Dragon-slayer
Homily delivered the Sixth Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 11C)
21 July 2019; 8:00 a.m. Said and 10:00 a.m. Sung Mass
Parish Church of Trinity, Ashland (Oregon)

The Very Rev. Fr. Anthony Hutchinson, SCP, Ph.D.
Readings: Genesis 18:1-10a; Psalm 15
Colossians 1:15-28; Luke 10:38-42

God, take away our hearts of stone
 and give us hearts of flesh. Amen.

When Elena and I met in college, we were taking a full-time survey of world literature class.  I was really struck by the joy she brought to her hard-working, quiet competence.  I heard her say in a class that she sympathized with Martha rather than Mary.  At that moment, my heart was hers, though it took me a while to realize it. 

Luke’s story about Mary and Martha touches raw nerves.  Few passages of the Gospels seem to draw so many complaints, almost all from women.  “Why is Jesus tolerating that lazy sister Mary?”  “Why does he come down so hard on Martha?”

The early and medieval Church took the story to contrast Chrisian action and service, seen in Martha, with contemplative study, seen in Mary.  An early legend says that later in her life, Martha went to the south of France, where she confronted a dragon that had been ravaging the country.  Unlike St. George, the patron saint of soldiers and England, Martha does not slay the dragon with a sword.  She charms it with her hospitality and the word of God so that it can be chained and controlled.  That is why in medieval representations of St. Martha, she holds a cross and stands over a dragon. 
 

Modern approaches to this story base their approach in the social customs in the story.  Martha is fulfilling a very traditional role endorsed by the religion and culture of the time.  Mary, on the other hand, appears to abandon what was a woman’s work and role by opting for religious study and discussion, seen as the domain of men.  Martha honors her duty and behaves decently; Mary shamelessly crosses a gender barrier.    

Some commentators say that Jesus here endorses the transgressive sister engaged in inappropriate activity and chastens the conventional sister.  He thus favors liberation and rejects structures of oppression.   Others are less sanguine:  they say Jesus, though indeed endorsing broader roles for women, values primarily the actions, roles, and perspectives traditionally seen as male and thus devalues traditional female ones.  He thus implicitly buys into the oppression of women and rejects autonomous womanhood. 

I beg to differ with this view.   

It is clear that in this story, Jesus legitimates a woman taking on the role of a man in the ordering of the early Christian community.  He does so, however, not because he thinks man’s roles and perspectives are better.  It is because, as seen in so many other passages of the Gospels, he believes that God’s kingdom is breaking into our lives, and as a result, there is no place for oppression, no place for bondage.  Roles based on boundaries are thus suspect.  Roles that oppress are part of the evil world the kingdom of God will replace. 

Again and again we see in the New Testament Jesus lives out what Saint Paul later puts into words:  “There is no longer Jew or Gentile, neither free or slave, or male or female, for all are one in Christ Jesus” (Gal. 3:28).  

Today’s story talks about why such divisions don’t matter.  The contrast between Martha and Mary is not about the roles we play, but rather about we each react to them.   God didn't create us to fulfill roles. God made us for love -- to be loved by God, to love God, and then to love one another and show this love in service.  

Martha is the home-owner and mistress, with no apparent husband around.  (Her name in Aramaic, Mar’etha, in fact, means “Boss Lady” or mistress of the house.)  Mary is not the only woman stepping out of traditional roles. 

The contrast is also not between the active and the contemplative life.  Mary sits at Jesus’ feet, totally lost in his words.  This is the language of discipleship.  This describes a focused student of the master’s words.  Buddhists would say that she is “in the moment,” or “fully present.” 
Martha, however, is “worried, distracted by her many tasks” in being hospitable to Jesus.  The point here is not her service, but rather the distraction it has caused her. 

Martha’s complaint is perfectly reasonable.  Mary as family also has an obligation of hospitality to Jesus.  If anything, Martha is a little too gentle.  She doesn’t confront her sister and say bluntly “Sis, hate to break in on this, but you are not carrying your weight here, so get with the program, and get to work.  Let’s talk with Jesus while we set the table.” Martha realizes that Mary is totally absorbed listening to Jesus. 

So she asks Jesus to intervene.  She is pretty confident that he is a fair-minded fellow who will remedy the situation with no hurt feelings or loss of face to anyone.
  
Jesus’ answer, while totally unexpected from Martha’s viewpoint, is similarly kind-hearted.  The double use of the name, “Martha, Martha,” is a clear sign of gentle chiding, not harsh criticism. 

“You are busy with many things,” he says.  He is sensitive to Martha’s plight—she has planned just too grand a dinner, in the great Middle Eastern tradition of mezze, and forgotten how complicated it was to do so many dishes. 

But then he surprises her.  “You only really need one thing.”  Jesus seems to be telling the hostess how to do her business.  “Stressed from trying to serve too many dishes?   Well then simplify and only serve me one.”    “Simplicity.” Jesus might have been talking 2,000 years ahead of time to Martha… Stewart!  “Simplicity.”

 
But that’s not the kind of simplification Jesus is really talking about, as becomes clear in his next phrase.  “Mary has chosen the best bit. I won’t take that away from her.”  It’s not the number of mezze dishes at issue here. 

The point is not that Martha chose the bad part, or even the less good part.  The point is that being lost in hearing God’s word is what we were made for, and what gives our service and love direction and meaning. 

Jesus knows that such moments of hearing God have come and will come for Martha.  But he is not going to break the moment of communion with God that Mary is experiencing for the sake of a few more dishes on the table, especially when they are for him to eat. 

Martha’s complaint brings to mind two of Jesus’ parables.   In one, an older brother gets angry at the mercy shown by his father to a wayward younger brother and bitterly complains (Luke 15:12-38).  In another, a group of laborers who have worked a hard, long day almost riot when latecomers are paid the same wage (Matthew (20:1-16).  

The two parables make the point that we shouldn’t begrudge the grace given to others.  And so it is here.  Martha’s desire for simply fair division of labor has stepped onto holy ground.   Jesus won’t criticize her complaint, but he won’t grant her request, either, and ruin the moment for Mary. 

There are many, many ways of begrudging the grace given to others.  We can belittle the grace, and say it isn’t God at work, despite the clear goodness before our eyes.  We can point out how different this is from how we received grace, as if to say that God can work with others only in the way he worked with us.  We can point out that the recipient is unworthy, as if grace were something that comes from deserving.  There are many, many ways of begrudging the grace given to others.

  

Martha and Mary also show up in the Gospel of John.  When Lazarus dies, Mary stays inside mourning quietly, while it is Martha who goes out to confront Jesus about his delay in coming, in her mind the cause of her brother’s death.  “You can still do something,” she says.  Jesus replies Lazarus will come forth from the dead.  Martha replies, in effect, “Yeah, yeah, we’ll all be raised from the dead one day.  That’s not very satisfying right now, is it?”  It is at this moment that Jesus tells her, “I am the resurrection and the life,” and then proceeds to bring Lazarus back from the dead.  In that story of glorious mystery, Martha affirms her faith in Jesus, well before the miracle (John 11:17-44).
 
It is clear that Martha and Jesus had the kind of relationship where she felt she could tell him exactly what she was thinking and feeling, and not be afraid.  Jesus clearly felt the same way.  Oh that we could all have such a relationship with Jesus, and freely tell him what is really on our hearts and minds!

In closing, God did not create us for roles.  God did not create Martha to be a mere domestic, nor a dragon-slayer.  He intended a loved and a loving child, at peace with herself and others. It is clear from Luke’s portrayal that Martha loved Jesus, loved others, and served, and served, and served.   It is clear from that story in John that Martha herself at times had moments like the one of Mary.  

Those moments, where we sit at Jesus’ feet, listen hard, and truly hear are rare enough that we need to treasure them, and value when they happen to others.  Let us not begrudge the grace that others experience, even when it seems unfair, or appears to put us at a disadvantage.   Grace is unwarranted, unbidden love.  And love, after all, is what ties all of us, and all things, together as one.

In the name of Christ, Amen. 

God at the Beach (midweek)

God at the Beach

Fr. Tony’s Midweek Message

A Repost from January 2019

Fr. Tony and Elena are on vacation at the Long Beach Peninsula just north of Astoria and will be back for Sunday.   

“For what can be known of God is plain… Ever since the creation of the world, his eternal power and divine nature, invisible though they are, have been understood and known through the things He made” (Rom. 1:19-20). 

Earlier generations, based on this passage, used what they saw as the rationality and economical ordering of nature as an argument for a powerful, rational, and providential Deity.  After Darwin and the discoveries of modern geology and paleo-biology, theologians have increasingly shied away from such “natural theology” because of what they see as the randomness of genetic drift and the great wastefulness of natural selection and mass extinctions.  But both the earlier use of Romans to seek attributes of God from nature and the later denial of God from nature miss the key bit in Romans:  it is about awe at the beauty, complexity, and utter strangeness of nature. 

I have three experiences where nature up close totally left me speechless and in awe. All happened at the beach. 

  

When we were living in Beijing the first time, the family and I a couple times a year would make the four hour drive to the beach at Beidaihe, on the Bohai, a large inlet of the Pacific Ocena north of the Shandong Peninsula and west of Korea.  One year, we were snorkeling with masks in the cold, somewhat murky algae-filled waters.  I saw on the bottom a clamshell the size of my palm. I picked it up to inspect it more closely.  Though closed, it had little tentacles peaking out.  When I put it back in the water, it relaxed, and I could see that inside, a small octopus had taken up housing in the shell, holding it together with her arms.   

Then it relaxed more, and I noticed it was embracing a cluster of small pearl-like pear shaped eggs—dozens of them.  And then the translucent eggs began wiggle and then to burst: tiny fully formed octopodes began to swim into the water about my hand.  I showed Elena and the children.  We were witnessing an octopus birthing.  The amazing process lasted about a half hour.  It was jaw-droppingly awesome!  I was stunned at the unlikelihood of finding an octopus in these shallow and crowded waters, let alone witnessing the hatching of octopus eggs.  I later learned that this was a fully grown female Octopus Minor, held as a great delicacy in Japanese and Korean cuisine.  They often seek refuge in such clamshells, and barricade themselves there to protect their eggs as they mature and hatch, often starving themselves to death in the process. 

Another year, Elena and I were on vacation at Hilton Head SC.  On an early morning run on the beach, we looked down randomly, and about us saw dozens of little tiny sea turtles breaking out of half-buried leathery eggs and then crawling, flopping on tiny flippers, to the water.  We stopped and watched for an hour, again in awe.  The profligacy of nature astounded us: a wider view saw hundreds of these little babies, only a few of which would reach adulthood, surrounding us.  I learned that the beach area where we were was later declared off-limit for a week or two each year to protect the hatchlings. 

Another time, when we were living in West Africa, Elena and I would regularly run on the beach early Saturday and Sunday mornings.  One Sunday, on a particularly drastic low tide, we came around a corner.  The beach was covered with at least a thousand gulls and terns, all ravenously devouring the shellfish and kelp beds so rarely exposed.  When they sensed us, they all rose up, as one, and took to the air.  The bright morning equatorial sun, the mists and splashes of seawater, and the light breeze all worked to make the scene magical, if not downright mystic.  The birds were massed, and their undulating movement as a single body looked almost like murmurations of starlings or swifts.  They swept back and forth a few meters above the beach, unwilling to abandon their rare feast, and then settled back down immediately after we had passed.  Elena and I paused, looking up at such beauty, and wept. 

We may want to impose our human percepts and values on such scenes, be they rational order or violent chaos.  But we are so made that we invariably react to them in awe.  And I think that is where the heart of a true natural theology lies. 

Grace and peace,  Fr. Tony+

A Rule of Life (Benedict of Nursia)

A Rule of Life
Homily delivered on the Feast of St. Benedict of Nursia
11 July 2019 12 noon Healing Mass
Parish Church of Trinity Ashland, Oregon

Prov 2:1-9, Psa 119:129-136, Phil 2:12:16, Luke 14:27-33

The Very Rev. Fr. Tony Hutchinson, SCP, Ph.D.

God, take away our hearts of stone
 and give us hearts of flesh. Amen.

Today is the feast day of the founder of the great monastery at Monte Cassino Italy and the author of the Rule of St. Benedict, a guide to monastic living and community that served as the basis of the largest stream of community monasticism in the European Middle Ages.  

Benedict was from a noble family, and as a university student disgusted with the dissipation, inattention, and sometimes cruelty he saw in his fellow students in Rome, made the decision to leave his life behind to live in the faithful poverty, prayer, self-supporting work, and loving service he saw the Jesus of the Four Gospels calling us all to.   His twin sister Scholastica became a nun.   

The spirit and gist of Benedict's Rule is summed up this way by John McQuiston in his book, Always We Begin Again: The Benedictine Way of Living:

“Live this life and do whatever is done in a spirit of thanksgiving. Abandon attempts to achieve security, they are futile. Give up the search for wealth, it is demeaning. Quit the search for salvation, it is selfish. And come to comfortable rest in the certainty that those who participate in this life with an attitude of thanksgiving will receive its full promise.” (pp. 17-18)

Sr. Joan Chittister, (in her book A Spirituality for the 21st Century, The Rule of Benedict), tells us that St. Benedict directed the reading of the psalms in monastic liturgy of the hours (Morning and Evening Prayer) as he did to remind us, “that life is not perfect, that struggle is to be expected, that the human being lives of the brink of danger and defeat at all times”, And that, “having lived through everything life has to give that week, the community bursts into unending praise for having survived.”

Reciting the Psalms daily tells us something about ourselves.  There is no way around it:  though many of the Psalms are exquisite, some of them are horrible.  We have: “Cast your burden upon the Lord and he shall sustain you.  He will never suffer the righteous to fall.  He is at your right hand.”  But we also have:  “Defend me from my enemies, God! Kill them. Make their children orphans and their wives widows. Put them in prison never to be set free.  May they be buried alive!”  The emotions here—sometimes raging and out of control—are ultimately a side show.  The point is that no matter how hard life is, regardless of our feelings, we still are in relationship with God, beneath it all, sustaining the good and the right and pushing us on to glory.  It’s okay to feel emotions.  What matters is what we do with them.

If you feel you are spinning your wheels, or just getting by in your spiritual life, you may want to consider to try a rule of life.  A rule of life is a way to focus our energies and efforts. 

Winston Churchill is famously quoted as saying, “My rule of life prescribed as an absolutely sacred rite: smoking cigars and also the drinking of alcohol before, after and if need be during all meals and in the intervals between them.”

The idea of a rule of life, a set of practices and observances with which we seek to order our lives on a day-to-day, or even hour-to-hour basis, is at the basis of all monastic life and programs of spiritual growth.   A Rule of Life establishes a rhythm in our daily activities conducive to opening up to the Holy Spirit and its healing and transforming power. 

Benedict in his Rule notes the importance of gentleness is establishing a Rule:  “In drawing up its regulations we hope to set down nothing harsh, nothing burdensome.  … Do not be daunted immediately by fear and run away from the road that leads to salvation.  It is bound to be narrow at the outset.  But as we progress in the way of life and faith, we shall run on the path of God’s commandments, our hearts overflowing with inexpressible delight of love” (tr. Joan Chittister). 

Benedict understood that his Rule was simply a means to an end, a tool in a larger kit of life growing from and into the Great Mystery, and not an end in itself.  A Rule of Life, whether communal of personal, should help us to feel the love of God more, and should never be a mere technique or trick for supposedly earning points with God or impressing others.   Thus the traditional term “rule” here may be misleading.  It is more like a rhythm or musical score, a course curriculum, or a strategy for change and progress. 

Christians living in today’s world have many means of adopting appropriate rules of life.    Practices can be as simple as a commitment to give on a regular basis a certain amount to the poor or the Church (many of us give 10% of our income, the biblical “tithe”), or a commitment to a regular schedule of prayer and meditation.  The reciting of Daily Morning and Evening Prayer (BCP pp. 74-136) might be a difficult starting place.  The more simple “Devotions for Individuals and Families” (BCP pp. 136-40) perhaps is an easier starting commitment.  More focused and community-based commitments include participation in regular retreats, spiritual direction, and affiliation as associates or oblates with such groups as the Cowley Fathers (the Society of St. John the Evangelist), the Order of St. Julian of Norwich, the Anam Cara Fellowship, the Community of the Resurrection, the Community of the Holy Spirit, or the Third Order of St. Francis. 

In trying to design a Rule of Life, it is helpful to reflect on various areas, evaluate where you are now and then design steps—small ones at first—for  growing in each area:   

1)  The Holy Eucharist—how often do I attend and receive Communion?  Every Sunday, a couple times a month?  What about during the week?  Am I willing to share the Eucharist with others, either by inviting them to Church or becoming a Eucharistic Minister or Visitor?

2)  Prayer—when and how often do I pray?  In the morning? The evening?  Before I sleep?  Do I use the Daily Office or the shorter Prayers for Individuals and Families, or some other prayer cycle as a way of making my reflection on holy things systematic? Do I have quiet time where I pour out my hopes and fears and thanks to God? 

3)   Bible and other spiritual reading—when and how often am I going to read the Bible?  Each day?  As a study with notes, or devotionally as part of Daily Prayer?  Do I use lectio divina?  Do I do it as part of a prayer or study group? 

4)   Giving—how much can I commit to giving to others?  A tithe?  Will I divide this between the church and other charities?  When do I review my giving?  Can I make a small commitment to increase my giving as a percentage of my income, and then gradually grow it? 

5)   Confession—will I make sacramental confession to a priest?  Will I talk to someone else about my own spiritual journey?  How often?  Will I find and then regularly talk with a spiritual director?  

6)   Mission—how often do I share my hope and faith with others?  In action?  In words? 

7)   Retreat—will I make a spiritual retreat once each year?  For a day, a weekend, or longer? 

8)   The creation—how will I be a good steward of the natural world God has entrusted to me?  How can I honor the earth and care for her?  How can I better care for my body?  More exercise?  Better habits in eating and drinking? 

9)   Family and friends—how much time will I commit to other people?  How will I keep in touch with those I seldom see?  How can I keep my relationships alive and healthy?  

10) Rest—How will I take my rest?  How much sleep do I need?  How do I treat my body with respect?  (adapted from Lift up Your Hearts (SPCK, 2010).  

Think about it and see what you come up with.

In the name of God,  Amen.   

Basic Standards (Midweek Message)

 

Courtesy, The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and Time Magazine

Basic Standards

Fr. Tony’s Midweek Message

July 10, 2019

“The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you; you shall love the alien as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God” (Lev 19:34).

 “[T]here shall be for both you and the resident alien a single statute, a perpetual statute throughout your generations; you and the alien shall be alike before the Lord” (Num 15:15).

“He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” (Micah 6:8). 

“Treat others as you would want to be treated” (Matt 7:12). 

In the 1662 Prayer Book, the Holy Communion rite begins with a congregational recitation of the Ten Commandments, each followed by the refrain, “Lord, have mercy upon us, and incline our hearts to keep this law.”    While repetitive and perhaps focusing too much on “keeping commandments” as the be all and end all of a good relationship with God, such regular recitation did have one very salutary effect: it reminded the worshippers that there are bottom line standards and requirements of behavior, and warned us against clever self-justifications of acts that have been shown again and again to harm our relationship with God and our neighbor. 

When I was a U.S. diplomat working in China, I conducted many programs on the U.S. constitution and system of political economy, including our standards of constitutional and civil rights.  Defenders of the Chinese Communist Party would often criticize such informational programs as a sideways effort at promoting what they called “bourgeois liberalism” to subvert their rule.  They said that Chinese culture and history were so different from those of the West that the U.S. experience had little application for the Chinese: arguing for “universal human rights” was in this view an act of imperialism and cultural colonialism and needed to be rejected.  Besides that, U.S. failure to live up to its own stated values meant that the values were nothing more than anti-Chinese propaganda.   

We found that the best way of undoing such a jaundiced view was to openly discuss areas where we Americans had not lived up to our stated values and law, and how and whether we had made progress.  In these programs, we often made reference to the standards of the United Nations:  the 1948 Universal Declaration on Human Rights, the 1976 Convention on Civil and Political Rights, the 1951 Convention and 1967 Protocol on the Status of Refugees, the 1990 Convention on Rights of the Child, and the 1979 Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women.   Reviewing these documents had a similar effect on my audiences—it reminded us of bottom-line, basic standards and helped short-circuit self-justifying reasoning. 

In recent months, I have heard with disturbing regularity voices echoing those Chinese Communist claims that because their nation is exceptional, international standards should not apply.  But these voices are those of my own fellow Americans.  They often see international law as a violation of U.S. sovereignty and constitutional principles, and point to the imperfections and incongruities of the United Nations as a reason for not feeling constrained by any of its rules.  They argue that America, Winthrop’s “City on a Hill,”  should be making the rules for other nations, not vice versa.  While the unusual exemplary role the U.S. often plays and the hope it has given many through history are undeniable, claiming exceptionalism as a reason for not being bound by universal rules is just plain wrong.   It is a self-deceiving justification of the worst sort.    The U.S. has played an important role in drafting and approving these documents of International Law.  The 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights is rightly seen as a gift of Eleanor Roosevelt to the world.  But all these documents were collaborative, and the U.S. has on several occasions availed itself of the same arguments as other nations wanting to get off the hook of abiding by their high-minded standards.  In this, we are not exceptional at all.   

In the recent discussion on how we treat people applying for refugee status on the Southern U.S. border, the U.N. Commissioners for Human Rights and for Refugees have said the U.S. is in gross violation of International Law and the most basic standards of humanity.  One mid-level administration official from the Department of Justice replied by saying that international law allows us to defend our sovereignty and that under U.S. law, we have no obligation to keep children with their parents or to provide basic necessities like soap and toothpaste to those being held against their will.  The performance was reminiscent of the justifications of mid-level German officials at the end of World War II, what Hannah Arendt called “the banality of evil.” 

I repeat here a few of the affirmations made in these documents.  Like repeating the Ten Commandments in Holy Communion, I hope such repetition will disabuse us of self-deception and self-justification.  What is good for the goose is also good for the gander. 

·      [T]he inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world...

·      Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms... without distinction of any kind, such as race, color, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status.

·      Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.

·      No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. 

·      Everyone has the right to recognition everywhere as a person before the law. 

·      No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile.

·      Everyone charged with a penal offence has the right to be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to law in a public trial at which he has had all the guarantees necessary for his defense. 

·      No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honor and reputation.

·      Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state.

·      Everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution.

·      No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality nor denied the right to change his nationality.

·      No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his property.

·      Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favorable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment.

·      Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family.

·      Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance. All children, whether born in or out of wedlock, shall enjoy the same social protection.

·      Everyone has the right to education.

·      In the exercise of his rights and freedoms, everyone shall be subject only to such limitations as are determined by law solely for the purpose of securing due recognition and respect for the rights and freedoms of others and of meeting the just requirements of morality, public order and the general welfare in a democratic society.

·      States shall not impose penalties on refugees who entered illegally in search of asylum if they present themselves without delay. 

This matter, as all law, is complicated.  But the intention of these documents when read through a broad lens seems clear.  That intention—treating others as we would want to be treated, paying special attention to those most vulnerable—should be the standard of how we as a nation behave, not self-justifying appeals to our internal law and political opinion.   It is only thus that we can show just how exceptional we are.  It is only by pursuing our better values that we can show our nation’s greatness. 

Grace and Peace, 

Fr. Tony+

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