Category Archives: wesley united methodist church at frederica

Seriously? Condemning Rob Bell Before His Book Comes Out?

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The social media world has been abuzz over Rob Bell’s upcoming book on salvation called Love Wins. The book isn’t even out yet and all anyone has to go by is a brief video clip where Rob Bell discusses some of the big questions about salvation – he doesn’t actually make any statement at all – he just frames a variety of questions about the issue. Check out Christianity Today for the video.


Some guy named Justin Taylor, who most people I’ve talked to have never heard of, wrote in his blog that Rob Bell is a universalist and basically condemned the guy without knowing anything about the upcoming book at all. His blog is here. His first blog entry was so condemning, that he actually had to come back and soften some of his statements a little, which he admits in his updated blog. He still seems to be convinced of the content and teaching of Rob Bell’s upcoming book and basically calls him a heretic and false teacher.

Really? Seriously? There are two really big problems here:

First, it really shouldn’t amaze any of us anymore that Christians seem to be ready to criticize and condemn more quickly than most people. The anger in conversations between Christians (which I intentionally do not call Christian conversation) is disturbing. We still fail to understand that the WAY we talk to each other is as much a witness and WHAT we talk about. I go back to Thomas Merton. In No Man Is An Island, he wrote:
The arguments of religious men are so often insincere, and their insincerity is proportionate to their anger. Why do we get angry about what we believe? Because we do not really believe it. Or else what we pretend to be defending as the “truth” is really our own self-esteem. A man of sincerity is less interested in defending the truth than in stating it clearly, for he thinks that if the truth be clearly seen it can very well take care of itself.
(I realize there will be a large segment of Christians who will condemn me for quoting Thomas Merton – helping to reinforce my point.)

With all of the illustrations of Jesus’ patience and grace in dealing with those who were ‘different’ it amazes me that our Christian leaders more quickly reflect the anger of the Apostle Paul in Galatians, rather than compassion and patience of Jesus Christ to sinners, Pharisess, and Priests. Jesus should be the first and only model of how we live and act. Last I checked, Paul didn’t die on the cross for our sins. Paul was not God incarnate. I wish more Christians, especially leaders, would exhibit the faith, mercy, grace, and patient understanding of Jesus when dealing with others they don’t agree with.

Second, I am glad that John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, prized education so highly. With the advent of the internet, every Christian leader with a pulse has a platform. Many Christian leaders on the internet have no understanding of the history of our faith. They read and interpret scripture only in light of their immediate context – their current reality – which is all they really care about. An appreciation for 2,000 years of Christian teaching doesn’t require an advanced degree – just pull up Wikipedia.

As they assail Rob Bell, who I won’t comment on until I actually read his book, they ignorantly (yes, I said it) proclaim that universalism is not orthodox teaching. While I am personally not a universalist, it doesn’t take but just a little research of the early Church Fathers like Origen (one of the most profound 2nd century Christian leaders who actually helped put together the New Testament) to find out that ‘restorationism’ was taught by several of the Church Fathers. Restorationism, whether you agree with the position or not, claims orthodoxy in that it; characterizes sin as rebellion against God, requires grace as necessary for salvation, and teaches that Jesus Christ is the highest expression of that grace. it also teaches that God, in God’s sovereignty, will ultimately restore all things – bringing all creation under His reign. Orthodoxy and universalism. (Origen viewed hell as temporary.)

As I hear all this back and forth about a book that hasn’t even been published, I am once again troubled by how Christians engage in dialogue. The world is watching us, my friends. How we disagree is just as important as the truth we proclaim.

Stewardship of the Leader: Modeling

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Leading organizations is a great responsibility. The essence of leadership hearkens us back to the parable of the talents in Matthew 25. Jesus tells of a master who leaves three servants (stewards) in charge – the scripture says, “entrusting all of his property to them.” The significance of that one line cannot be understated. When the master entrusts all of his property to these stewards, they literally become the regents of all the master owns. They become significant leaders. We tend to forget that they have responsibility for everything.

Leaders must understand their level of responsibility within organizations. When we are called and set apart to lead, we are entrusted with shaping the culture of the organization – including tending lives of those we lead. This is no small task. Leaders must be willing to grow, learn, and model out of core values of faith and morality.

Let me focus on one aspect of leadership stewarding that is critical – modeling. Modeling is the most important shaping force of the leader. Leaders who don’t understand modeling and the power it has in shaping the culture of organizations do a disservice to those they lead. These leaders also violate the basic principles of biblical stewardship because they do not understand the great ‘talent’ they are called to invest.

I use the term modeling, but it has broad meaning. Edgar Shein in Organizational Culture and Leadership uses the term “primary embedding mechanisms” and he lists the following: what leaders pay attention to, measure, and control regularly; how leaders respond to critical incidents; how leaders allocate resources; how they teach and coach; how they allocate rewards and status; and how they recruit, promote, and excommunicate. I see all of these mechanism connected. Effective leadership must understand the shaping forces and how important they are. The leader models through these mechanisms and communicates significant information that defines who the organization is and how it goes about its work.

All leaders model all the time. They must be aware of this and they must be conscious of the messages they send. Leaders must also be adept enough to recognize the defensive routines at work in their organization. All organizations (congregations are organizations) have defensive routines. Defensive routines are behaviors and attitudes that inhibit learning and growth. Defensive routines may be violations of formal policies, but usually they are more subtle. Defensive routines are subtly found rooted in any mismatch between what the leader proclaims is important and how the leader actually engages in action (espoused value vs. theory in use, Shein). This type of disconnected modeling actually works against the formation of the very culture the leader is attempting to craft. When the leader’s actions of promotion, rewards, coaching, and excommunication don’t line up with what they have told us are core values, increased stress is introduced in the organization as people try to make sense of the mixed messages. Learning is stifled and natural defensive postures appear.

What is required to confront defensive routines? Two things must occur for the leader.

First, the leader must be push to become more self-aware in understanding why they do what they do. They must understand it, but understanding it alone is not enough. The leader must also be able to articulate their understanding. Without the communication component, they once again fail to model learning and positive change in the culture. The articulation of self-awareness and growth is modeling. Think for a moment how powerful it is when a leader fails, reflects on the failure to understand their role in it, and then has the ability to articulate their learning to their team. There is a sense of confidence that the leader has the capacity to learn and grow and they model this for their team.

Second, the leader must allow his/her managerial team to give feedback regarding their modeling. We are unable to see our modeling objectively. Without a willingness to hear from those who help guide the organization, the leader may not realize the mixed messages that are sent. By allowing the managerial team to assist with the leader’s self-discovery, the leader not only learns, but the leader once again models organizational learning.

If they leader is not willing to hear critique because of embarrassment or threat, then once again there is a mismatch in modeling. These issues and events become ‘undiscussable’. As the level of undiscussable items grows, the inconsistent messages grow. The managerial team is not allowed to discuss freely this disconnect with the leader. The organizational culture begins to reflect this distortion of mixed messages. Ineffective decisions of mismatch become covered up and obfuscated as the leader and managerial team attempt to make sense of the mixed messages to others in the organization. The rest of the managerial team begins to model like the leader, teaching the values yet acting differently. As this process grows and reinforces itself, cover-ups begin to be covered-up even though one of the core values may be openness. Next, the undiscussable previous actions now cannot be discussed. Chris Argyris calls this the “undiscussability of the undiscussable.” The managerial team begins to collude to keep the mixed messages covered-up. The managerial team now expects others to distort and manipulate as well. A new sub-culture is born.

Finally, the leader who sincerely believes he/she is utilizing their gift of stewardship for the good of the organization will find a deep and disturbing set of defensive routines in place that promote ineffectiveness, rather than effectiveness. Dysfunctional managerial teams are created. The leader becomes frustrated with outcomes without realizing why the outcomes are there. The leader fails to see and accept that the organization is learning to function in the same way as the leader and managerial team. The leader is subconsciously reinforcing the defensive routines through rewarding/promoting a managerial team that respect the “undiscussability of the undiscussable”. All the while, the leader doesn’t see he/she is rewarding such behavior. If we return to the parable in Matthew 25, we find now a leader who truly believes he/she is investing their five talents for the master’s return, while in reality they have buried the true talent and are doing the work of the Kingdom with monopoly money – nothing of value, nothing that lasts.

How does all this change? Unfortunately, it is difficult to change. Since defensive actions are so highly skilled, they are executed without hesitation and they are automatic. The defensive routines are enacted without any reflection. Chris Argyris states that at our core, our defensive actions come from our early life and are ingrained in us. It is how the leader learned to deal with embarrassment or threat. When the leader uses these defensive routines, they model this behavior in the organizations they lead. The organizational culture then begins to follow the model of the leader and adopt these defensive routines. Then, once the leader sees the ineffectiveness of the organization, the blame goes to the organization itself as the leader assails all the organization’s defensive routines. It becomes, as Argyris concludes, a “circular, self-reinforcing process, from the individual to the larger unit and back to the individual.”

The only remedy I can point to is the importance of “ruthlessly, compassionate truth-tellers”. If the leader has the capability for self-reflection and learning (or even if they do not), the repeated lifting up and naming of the defensive routines can be helpful in changing the culture. Think of how Jesus consistently shed light on the inconsistencies of his day. The difficulty is in the character of the leader who may decide it is too difficult to listen to how their modeling contributes to the problems they are attempting to overcome. If the leader can trust the managerial team to assist them, change can occur. This also requires self-awareness and maturity of the managerial team, which is another issue altogether.

So let us pray for all our leaders. Let us pray that they may be self-aware. Let us pray that they would receive feedback from us all and listen carefully. Let us pray for their spirituality. Let us pray for their talents – that what they invest in the Kingdom may be valuable and eternal.

Murky Water and the Means of Grace

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There is an ancient story told by the Desert Fathers, early Christians who lived in the desert of Egypt that goes something like this: There were three friends, serious men, who became monks. One of them chose to make peace between men who were at odds, as it is written, ‘Blessed are the peacemakers’ (Matt. 5:9). The second chose to visit the sick. The third chose to go away to be quiet in solitude. Now the first, toiling among contentions, was not able to settle all quarrels and, overcome with weariness, he went to him who tended the sick, and found him also failing in spirit and unable to carry out his purpose. So the two went away to see him who had withdrawn into the desert, and they told him their troubles. They asked him to tell them how he himself had fared. He was silent for a while, and then poured water into a vessel and said, ‘Look at the water,’ and it was murky. After a little while he said again, ‘See now, how clear the water has become.’ As they looked into the water they saw their own faces, as in a mirror. Then he said to them, ‘So it is with anyone who lives in the turbulence, he does not see his sins: but when he has been quiet, above all in solitude, then he recognizes his own faults.’

Means of grace are “signs, words, or actions, ordained of God, and appointed for the purpose of conveying to humanity preparing, accepting, and sustaining grace”. Any expression or action that makes clear God’s grace is an act of the means of grace.

There are interior means of grace. John Wesley called them Works of Piety and they are simply spiritual disciplines. Interior means of grace communicate God’s preparing, accepting and sustaining grace to US. Prayer, searching scripture, fasting, the sacrament of Holy Communion are the primary means by which God’s grace clearer. Prayer clears the murky waters by bringing us close to God’s heart. Scripture gives us a clarity of who God is. Fasting causes us to separate from our selfishness through self-denial and gives greater clarity to who we are and our need of God. Holy Communion is the means by which God’s grace is actually communicated in the bread and wine. These personal means of interior devotion are important in helping us to continue toward holiness and sanctification.

I love this quote of Thomas Merton. It helps me to understand why the interior means are so important. He wrote, “Every man becomes the image of the God he adores. He whose worship is directed to a dead thing becomes a dead thing. He who loves corruption rots. He who loves a shadow becomes, himself, a shadow. He who loves things that must perish lives in dread of their perishing. The contemplative also, who seeks to keep God prisoner in his heart, becomes a prisoner within the narrow limits of his own heart, so that the Lord evades him and leaves him in his imprisonment, his confinement, and his dead recollection. The man who leaves the Lord the freedom of the Lord adores the Lord in His freedom and receives the liberty of the sons of God. This man loves like God and is carried away, the captive of the Lord’s invisible freedom. A god who remains immobile within the focus of my own vision is hardly even a trace of the True God’s passing.”

There are also exterior means of grace. John Wesley called these Works of Mercy. They are works of service and action that communicate God’s preparing, accepting, and sustaining grace to OTHERS. When we help those in need, work to feed, clothe, and support the poor and needy, when we actually take physical and tangible steps to help those around us and show God’s grace – we engage in exterior means of grace.

In Acts 2, we see exterior practices of the disciples of the early church that not only helped those in need, but communicated God’s grace to those around them. So much so that everyone else spoke well of them and others were added to their numbers –“they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need. Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having the goodwill of all the people. And day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.”

As we live our lives of faith, let us utilize the means of grace to help make God’s grace clearer to ourselves and to a world in need.

Thomas Merton: Being and Doing, Part 3

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I continue to be amazed at the insight Merton had on the human soul. In this final reflection on “Being and Doing”, Merton pushes all of us to reflect on work and rest, sound and silence, being and doing. His line, “If we strive to be happy by filling all the silences of life with sound, productive by turning all life’s leisure into work, and real by turning all our being into doing, we will only succeed in producing a hell on earth.” My prayer is that our lives will not be a hell on earth. -JES

Matthew 12:1-6
At that time Jesus went through the cornfields on the sabbath; his disciples were hungry, and they began to pluck heads of grain and to eat. 2When the Pharisees saw it, they said to him, ‘Look, your disciples are doing what is not lawful to do on the sabbath.’ 3He said to them, ‘Have you not read what David did when he and his companions were hungry? 4He entered the house of God and ate the bread of the Presence, which it was not lawful for him or his companions to eat, but only for the priests. 5Or have you not read in the law that on the sabbath the priests in the temple break the sabbath and yet are guiltless? 6I tell you, something greater than the temple is here.

From Thomas Merton’s No Man is an Island, Chapter 7: Being and Doing (Part 3, pp. 127ff)
• One who fails well is greater than one who succeeds badly. One who is content with what they have, and who accepts the fact that the inevitably miss very much in life, is better than one who has much more but who worries about all he may be missing. Happiness is not a matter of intensity but of balance and order and rhythm and harmony. Music is pleasing not only for the sound, but because of the silence in it: without the alternation of sound and silence there would be no rhythm. If we strive to be happy by filling all the silences of life with sound, productive by turning all life’s leisure into work, and real by turning all our being into doing, we will only succeed in producing a hell on earth. If we have no silence, God is not heard in our music. If we have no rest, God does not bless our work. If we twist our lives out of shape in order to fill every corner of them with action and experience, God will silently withdraw from our hearts and leave us empty. May we learn to pass from one imperfect activity to another without worrying too much with what we are missing. It is true that we make many mistakes, but the biggest of them all is to be surprised at them: as if we had some hope of never making any.
• The relative perfection which we must attain to in this life if we are to live as children of God is not the twenty-four hour a day production of perfect acts of virtue, but a life from which practically all the obstacles to god’s love have been removed or overcome. We have this selfish anxiety to get the most out of everything, to be a brilliant success in our own eyes and in the eyes of others. We can only get rid of this anxiety by being content to miss something in almost everything we do. We cannot master everything, taste everything, understand everything, drain every experience to its last dregs. If we have the courage to let almost everything else go, we will probably be able to retain the one thing necessary for us – whatever that may be. If we are too eager to have everything, we will almost certainly miss even the one thing we need. Happiness consists of finding out precisely what the “one thing necessary” may be, in our lives, and in gladly relinquishing all the rest. For then, by a divine paradox, we find that everything else is given to us together with the one thing we needed.

On Being and Doing: Thomas Merton

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Continuing to struggle with Merton, pushes me deeper to discover who I am and how I understand my vocation and calling. Merton’s great, probing reflection for me in these thoughts from his work, “No Man Is An Island”, is “The deep secrecy of my own being is often hidden from me by my own estimate of what I am. My idea of what I am is falsified by my admiration for what I do. And my illusions about myself are bred by contagion from the illusions of other men. We all seek to imitate one another’s imagined greatness.” May we always struggle to be only who God calls us to be (I wish that were always easy).

Isaiah 58.13-14
13If you refrain from trampling the sabbath, from pursuing your own interests on my holy day;
if you call the sabbath a delight and the holy day of the Lord honourable;
if you honour it, not going your own ways, serving your own interests, or pursuing your own affairs;*
14then you shall take delight in the Lord, and I will make you ride upon the heights of the earth;
I will feed you with the heritage of your ancestor Jacob, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.

From Thomas Merton’s No Man is an Island, Chapter 7: Being and Doing (Part 2, pp. 120ff)
• It is useless to try to make peace with ourselves by being pleased with everything we have done. In order to settle down in the quiet of our own being we must learn to be detached from the results of our own activity. We must withdraw ourselves, to some extent, from effects that are beyond our control and be content with the good will and the work that are the quiet expression of our interior life. We must be content to live without watching ourselves live, to work without expecting immediate reward, to love without instantaneous satisfaction, and to exist without any special recognition.
• Our Christian destiny is, in fact, a great one: but we cannot achieve greatness unless we lose all interest in being great.
• When we are truly ourselves, we lose most of the futile self-consciousness that keeps us constantly comparing ourselves with others in order to see how big we are.
• We do not live just to “do something”. We must engage in a wise alternation of activity and rest. We do not live more fully merely by doing more, seeing more, tasting more and experiencing more than we ever have before. On the contrary, some of us need to discover that we will not begin to live more fully until we have the courage to do and see and taste and experience much less than usual. Everything depends on the quality of our acts and expressions. There are times, then, when in order to keep ourselves in existence at all we simply have to sit back for a while and do nothing. And for a man who has let himself be drawn completely out of himself by his activity, nothing is more difficult than to sit still and rest, doing nothing at all. The very act of resting is the hardest and most courageous act he can perform: and often it is quite beyond his power.
• The value of human activity depends almost entirely on the humility to accept ourselves as we are. The reason why we do things so badly is that we are not content to do what we can.
• The fruitfulness of our life depends in large measure on our ability to doubt our own words and to question the values of our own work. The man who completely trusts his own estimate of himself is doomed to sterility. All he asks of any act he performs is that it be his act.
• The deep secrecy of my own being is often hidden from me by my own estimate of what I am. My idea of what I am is falsified by my admiration for what I do. And my illusions about myself are bred by contagion from the illusions of other men. We all seek to imitate one another’s imagined greatness. Perhaps if I only realized that I do not admire what everyone seems to admire, I would really begin to live after all. I would be liberated from the painful duty of saying what I really do not think and of acting in a way that betrays God’s truth and the integrity of my own soul.

Thomas Merton on Being and Doing, Part 1

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During Wesley staff meetings each week, we wrestle with the writings of Thomas Merton who challenges us to BE in God more than to DO for God. This week, Tommy directs us to examine how we understand our being and if it is tied negatively to our doing.

Genesis 2.2-9
2And on the seventh day God finished the work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all the work that he had done. 3So God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it, because on it God rested from all the work that he had done in creation.
4 These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created.
In the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens, 5when no plant of the field was yet in the earth and no herb of the field had yet sprung up—for the Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was no one to till the ground; 6but a stream would rise from the earth, and water the whole face of the ground— 7then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground,* and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being. 8And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east; and there he put the man whom he had formed. 9Out of the ground the Lord God made to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food, the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

From Thomas Merton’s No Man is an Island, Chapter 7: Being and Doing (Part 1, pp. 117ff)
• We are warmed by the fire, not the smoke of the fire. We are carried over the sea by a ship, not by the wake of a ship. So too, what we are is to be sought in the invisible depths of our own being, not in outward reflection in our own acts. We must find our real selves not in the froth stirred up by the impact of our being upon the beings around us, but in our own soul which is the principle of all our acts.
• My soul is hidden and invisible. It is hidden from us. We cannot see our own eyes, but we know they are there because we can see. Our soul can reflect in the mirror of its own activity, but what is seen in the mirror is only a reflection of who I am, not my true being. Much depends on how the soul sees itself in the mirror of its own activity.
• Our soul only finds itself when it acts. We must act. Stagnation brings death. I do not need to see myself; I simply need to be myself. I must think and act like a living being, but I must not plunge my whole self into what I think and do, or seek always to find myself in the work I have done. The soul that projects itself entirely into activity and seeks itself outside itself in the work of its own will is like a madman who sleeps on the sidewalk in front of his house instead of living inside where it is quiet and warm.
• Being means nothing to those who hate and fear what they themselves are. They must struggle to escape their true being. They verify a false existence by constantly viewing what they themselves do. They keep looking in the mirror for reassurance, but they do not expect to see themselves. They are hoping for some sign that they have become the god they hope to become by the means of their own frantic activity – invulnerable, all powerful, infinitely wise, unbearably fruitful, and unable to die.
• When we constantly look in the mirror of our own acts, our spiritual double-vision splits us into two people. We strain to see and we forget which image is real. In fact, reality is no longer found either in himself or in his shadow. The substance has gone out of itself into the shadow and he has become two shadows instead of one real person. Then the battle begins. Instead of one shadow praising the other, it accuses the other. The activities that were meant to exalt us now condemn us. We can never be real enough or active enough. The less we are able to BE the more we must DO. We are now our own slave driver – a shadow whipping a shadow to death, because it cannot produce reality out of our own nonentity. Then comes fear. We who “are not” become terrified by what we cannot do. We had illusions of power and sanctity, but now tidal waves of nonentity, powerlessness, hopelessness surge up in us with every action we attempt. The shadow hates and judges the shadow who is not a god and who can do absolutely nothing.
• In order to find God in ourselves, we must stop looking at ourselves, stop checking and verifying ourselves in the mirror of our own futility, and be content to BE in God and to do whatever God wills, according to our limitations, judging our acts not in the light of our own illusions, but in the light of God’s reality which is all around us in the things and people we live with.

Thomas Merton on Asceticism and Sacrifice, Part 2

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2 Thessalonians 3:6-15
6 Now we command you, beloved, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, to keep away from believers who are living in idleness and not according to the tradition that they received from us. 7For you yourselves know how you ought to imitate us; we were not idle when we were with you, 8and we did not eat anyone’s bread without paying for it; but with toil and labor we worked night and day, so that we might not burden any of you. 9This was not because we do not have that right, but in order to give you an example to imitate. 10For even when we were with you, we gave you this command: Anyone unwilling to work should not eat. 11For we hear that some of you are living in idleness, mere busybodies, not doing any work. 12Now such persons we command and exhort in the Lord Jesus Christ to do their work quietly and to earn their own living. 13Brothers and sisters, do not be weary in doing what is right.
14 Take note of those who do not obey what we say in this letter; have nothing to do with them, so that they may be ashamed. 15Do not regard them as enemies, but warn them as believers.

From Thomas Merton’s No Man is an Island, Chapter 6: Asceticism and Sacrifice (Part 2, pp. 106ff)
• The real purpose of asceticism is to disclose the difference between the evil use of created things, which is sin, and their good use, which is virtue. We must gain possession of ourselves, by asceticism, in order that we may be able to give ourselves to God.
• The only sacrifice of ourselves that God accepts is the purity of our love. Any renunciation that helps us to love God more is good and useful. In order for us to spiritualize our lives and make them pleasing to God, we must become quiet. Peace of the soul does not depend on physical inactivity – some people are perfectly capable of tasting true spiritual peace in an active life. Our culture does not provide ideal conditions for entering ourselves. Everything in modern life is calculated to KEEP us from entering into ourselves and thinking about spiritual things. The whole mechanism of modern life is geared for a flight from God and from the spirit into the wilderness of neurosis. There is a world of difference between work and agitation. Work occupies mind and body and brings peace to the soul that has a semblance of order and spiritual understanding. Agitation, on the other hand, destroys the spiritual usefulness of work and frustrates its physical and social purpose. Agitation is a fruit of tension in a spirit that is turning dizzily from one stimulus to another and trying to react to 15 different appeals at one time. Work leads to peace (if there is balance). Agitation leads to the death of the interior life.
• Good habits are only developed by repeated acts – we cannot discipline ourselves to be consistent with any degree of intelligence unless we go about it systematically. We must have structure. To desire the spiritual life is to desire discipline.
• Asceticism is utterly useless if it turns us into freaks. The cornerstone of all asceticism is humility, and Christian humility is first of all a matter of supernatural common sense. It teaches us to take ourselves as we are, instead of pretending (as pride would have us imagine) that we are something better than we are. Pride makes us artificial, humility makes us real. In II Thessalonians 3, work and supernatural acceptance of ordinary life are seen by the Apostle as a protection against the restless agitation of false mysticism. We are to work and live in simplicity, with more joy and greater security than others, because we do not look for any special fulfillment in this life. We are to live in peace among transient things. It is supreme humility to see that ordinary life, embraced by perfect faith, can be more saintly and more supernatural than a spectacular ascetical career. Such humility dares to be ordinary, and that is something beyond the reach of spiritual pride. Pride always longs to be unusual. Humility not so. Humility finds all its peace in hope, knowing that Christ must come again to elevate and transfigure ordinary things and fill them with his glory.
• God is more glorified by one who uses the good of things of this life in simplicity and with gratitude than by the nervous asceticism of someone who is agitated about every detail of his self-denial.

Thomas Merton on Ascetism and Sacrifice, Part 1

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I’m continuing to post thoughts from Thomas Merton that we are using for our time of spiritual formation at Wesley staff meetings. Tommy always causes deep reflection and a lot of discussion in our time together.

Romans 8:1-10
There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. 2For the law of the Spirit* of life in Christ Jesus has set you* free from the law of sin and of death. 3For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do: by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and to deal with sin,* he condemned sin in the flesh, 4so that the just requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.* 5For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit* set their minds on the things of the Spirit.* 6To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit* is life and peace. 7For this reason the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law—indeed it cannot, 8and those who are in the flesh cannot please God.
9 But you are not in the flesh; you are in the Spirit,* since the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. 10But if Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit* is life because of righteousness.

From Thomas Merton’s No Man is an Island, Chapter 6: Asceticism and Sacrifice (Part 1, pp. 96ff)
• The spiritual life is not merely a negation of matter. When the New Testament speaks of the “flesh” as our enemy, it takes the flesh in a special sense. When Christ said, “The flesh profits us nothing,” in John 6:64, he was speaking of flesh without spirit, flesh living for its own ends, not only in sensual but even in spiritual things. As long as we are on the earth, our vocation calls us to life spiritually while still “in the flesh.”
• We cannot become saints merely by trying to run away from material things. To have a spiritual life is to have a life that is spiritual in all its wholeness – a life in which the actions of the body are holy because of the soul, and the soul is holy because of God dwelling and acting in it. When we live such a life the actions of our body are directed to God by God Himself and give Him glory, and at the same time they help to sanctify the soul. The saint, therefore, is sanctified not only by fasting when he/she should fast but also by eating when he/she should eat. He/she is not only sanctified by his prayers in the darkness of the night, but by the sleep that he takes in obedience to God, Who made us what we are. Solitude not only contributes to union with God, but also God’s supernatural love for friends and relatives and those with whom we live and work.
• It gives God great glory and pleasure for a person to live in this world using and appreciating the good things of life without care, without anxiety, and without inordinate passion. In order to know and love God through His gifts, we have to use them as if we used them not – and yet we have to use them. To use things as if we used them not means to use them without selfishness, without fear, without afterthought, and with perfect gratitude and confidence and love of God.
• Self-denial is sterile and absurd if we practice it for the wrong reasons or, worse still, without any valid reason at all. Therefore, although it is true that we must deny ourselves in order to come to a true knowledge of God, we must also have some knowledge of God and our relationship with Him in order to deny ourselves intelligently. First of all, our self-denial must be humble. Otherwise, it is a contradiction in terms. It must also be supernatural – ordered not only for our own perfection or the good of society, but ordered to God.
• Although the grace of the Holy Spirit teaches us to use created things “as if we used them not” – that is to say, with detachment and indifference, it does not makes us indifferent to the value of things in themselves. On the contrary, only when we are detached from things can we really value them as we should. It is only when we are “indifferent” to them that we can really begin to love them. The indifference of which I speak must, therefore, be an indifference not to things themselves but to their effects in our own lives.

Reflections on Suffering by Thomas Merton, Part 4

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The staff at Wesley is continuing to struggle with the writings of Thomas Merton in our spiritual formation time. Wanted to share some of it with you.

2 Corinthians 12:1-10
It is necessary to boast; nothing is to be gained by it, but I will go on to visions and revelations of the Lord. 2I know a person in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven—whether in the body or out of the body I do not know; God knows. 3And I know that such a person—whether in the body or out of the body I do not know; God knows— 4was caught up into Paradise and heard things that are not to be told, that no mortal is permitted to repeat. 5On behalf of such a one I will boast, but on my own behalf I will not boast, except of my weaknesses. 6But if I wish to boast, I will not be a fool, for I will be speaking the truth. But I refrain from it, so that no one may think better of me than what is seen in me or heard from me, 7even considering the exceptional character of the revelations. Therefore, to keep me from being too elated, a thorn was given to me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me, to keep me from being too elated. 8Three times I appealed to the Lord about this, that it would leave me, 9but he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.’ So, I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. 10Therefore I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities for the sake of Christ; for whenever I am weak, then I am strong.

From Thomas Merton’s No Man is an Island, Chapter 5: The Word of the Cross: On Suffering (Part 4)
• When is suffering useless? When it only turns us in upon ourselves, when it makes us only sorry for ourselves, when it changes love into hatred, when it reduces all things to fear. Useless suffering cannot be consecrated to God because it is fruitless and rooted in sin. Sin and useless suffering increase together.
• But the grace of Christ is constantly working to turn useless suffering into something fruitful after all. How? By suddenly stanching the wound of sin. As soon as our life stops bleeding out of us in sin, suffering begins to have creative possibilities.
• The great duty of the religious soul is to suffer in silence. Too many people think they can become holy by talking about their trials. The awful fuss we sometimes make over the little unavoidable tribulations of life robs them of their fruitfulness. It turns them into occasions for self-pity or self-display, and consequently makes them useless. Be careful of talking about what you suffer, for fear that you may sin. Job’s friends sinned by the pious explanations they gave of suffering: and they sinned in giving Job a superficial explanation. The only decent thing is silence – and the sacraments.
• In order to face suffering in peace: Suffer without imposing on others a theory of suffering, without weaving a new philosophy of life from your own material pain, without proclaiming yourself a martyr, without counting out the price of your courage, without disdaining sympathy and without seeking too much of it. We must be sincere in our sufferings as we are in anything else. We must at once recognize our weakness and our pain, but we do not need to advertise them.
• We cannot suffer well unless we see Christ everywhere – both in suffering and in the charity of those who come to the aid of our affliction.

On Suffering, Part 3: From Thomas Merton

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2 Corinthians 4:8-11
We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh.

Each Tuesday, our Wesley UMC staff engages in time of spiritual formation. We have been journeying through Thomas Merton’s, No Man is an Island. I’m posting the excerpts from Merton as we discuss suffering, which has always been difficult for me to process and understand. Maybe, as Merton points out, I’m too selfish.

Excerpts from Thomas Merton’s No Man is an Island, Chapter 5: The Word of the Cross: On Suffering (Part 3)
• Heroism alone in the face of suffering is useless, unless it is born of God. Divine strength is not usually given us until we are fully aware of our own weakness and know that the strength we receive is indeed received: and that is a gift. The fortitude that comes is from God. It is God’s strength, which is beyond comparison and not complicated by pride.
• To know the Cross is to know that we are saved by the sufferings of Christ; to know the love of Christ who underwent suffering and death in order to save us. To know God’s love is not merely to know the story of His love, but to experience in our spirit that we are loved by Him, and that in His love the Father manifests His own love for us, through the Holy Spirit.
• The effect of suffering upon us depends on what we love. If we love ourselves selfishly, suffering is merely hateful. It must be avoided at all costs. It brings out the evil that is in us. The person who loves only themselves will commit any sin and inflict any evil on others merely in order to avoid suffering himself/herself. Worse, if one cannot avoid suffering, they may even take perverse pleasure in suffering itself – showing that they love and hate themselves all at the same time. If we love ourselves selfishly, suffering brings out selfishness. Then after making known what we are, suffering drives us to make ourselves worse than we are.
• If we love others and suffer for them without the love of God, we may gain a certain nobility and goodness. It may bring out something fine in us and even give glory to God, but in the end a natural unselfishness cannot prevent suffering from destroying us along with all we love.
• But, if we love God and love others in Him, we will be glad to let suffering destroy anything in us that God is pleased to let it destroy, because we know that all it destroys is unimportant. If we love God, suffering does not matter. Christ in us, His love, His Passion in us: that is what we care about. Pain does not cease to be pain, but we can be glad of it because it enables Christ to suffer in us and give glory to His Father by being greater, in our hearts, than suffering would ever be.