The heart of Christianity

Many today are ignorant of the treasures of Eastern Orthodoxy. But much of what I write here on this blog simply mines those treasures, making them available to modern people, and in particular, Prostestants---all who seek a deeper and richer experience of God. In this short video interview, Bishop Kallistos Ware of Oxford, talks about what Protestants (especially evangelicals) can learn from the Orthodox, and the Orthodox from Protestants.

Ware winsomely explores our inner experience with Christ in the Holy Spirit . . . that Christianity is not an ideology or philosophical system, dogma or a list of moral rules, but an experiential reality.

You'll enjoy this delightful little interview:

I've referred to Kallistos Ware elsewhere and heartily suggest his writings, especially his little book, The Power of the Name (listed here on my Recommended Books page).

A good guide to the life of prayer

I've stumbled upon a book that parallels my own teaching on prayer.  And since my own book is bogged down or delayed, I suggest you pick it up.  John Main (deceased) and I've read much the same historical material and come to similar conclusions and practices drawn from the wellspring of historic Christian spirituality. From the Amazon.com review:

This is his classic book on how to practice contemplative prayer, or Christian meditation. Stepping aside from the busyness of our daily lives and being still in the presence of God is the key to discovering our true selves and knowing God as 'the ground of our being'. This book offers a twelve step programme in learning meditative prayer, but as the author says, it is not so much about mastering a set of techniques, or escaping from life's challenges and difficulties, or cultivating a self-conscious piety. Its purpose is to teach us how to be at peace with ourselves in order that we might let the presence of Christ flood our whole lives and our relationships.

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The wireless device as tyrant

The wireless device, a morally ambiguous piece of equipment, has become a tyrant. What Thomas Merton said in 1961 is eerily prophetic: "This becomes a kind of religious compulsion without which people cannot convince themselves that they are really alive, really 'fulfilling their personality.' They are not 'sinning' but simply making asses of themselves, deluding themselves that they are real when their compulsions have reduced them to a shadow of a true person" (New Seeds of Contemplation, p. 85-6). The modern person doesn't live by text alone, but the continuous stream of texts, Facebook updates, and tweets suggest that many, too many, of us believe that WiFi is the very air we breathe.

How many meetings are interrupted now by coworkers glancing at an incoming text? How many romantic evenings are botched by a screen lighting up? How many people must die before we learn to turn things off?

Get free.

Put the thing down for awhile.

Be human.

If you can't, name it for what it is, an addiction, and get help.

The power of solitude in the midst of a busy life

To discern the emptiness, and the vain pursuits of those who are strangers to Love, you need space, real freedom . . . solitude, silence. Not solitude that is a flight from all this in order to escape into some peaceful realm.  Rather, a cleft in the rock, a place to take your stand for the sake of others---for Love---rather than against them in judgment of them and their empty pursuits (which frankly, are often your own).

This is the path of the "peacemaker" Jesus wills you to be (Matthew 5.9)---who you really are when you are free from such spiritually alien compulsions.

This solitude is most of all a condition of the heart, and inner disposition and can be embraced anywhere with practice---though it needs the support of real solitude; a lonely place you habitually go where no one and nothing can disturb or call on you for awhile; a place where you can let go, unplug . . . be.

Says Thomas Merton: "it is in this loneliness that the deepest activities begin.  It is here that you discover act without motion, labor that is profound repose, vision in obscurity, and, beyond all desire, a fulfillment whose limits extend to infinity" (New Seeds of Contemplation, p. 81).

On prayer to the saints: why neglect so great a band of intercessors?

Regarding prayer to the saints---we Protestants aver. Why?

If  we "believe in the holy catholic church, the communion of saints," (which we do), and if we can appeal to another human being for prayer on our behalf (which we also do), then why neglect so great a community of hallowed disciples as intercessors?

Unless we really don't believe or understand what we confess.

These to whom we appeal are not run-of-the-mill humans---they are saints, whose form of life is simple, humble, kind, holy--with whom God is in greater communion by virtue of their proven sanctity, their abandonment to God.

It's not sufficient to deny prayer to saints because it's "too Roman." We must think better than that. More biblically. More theologically. More mystically. We must not be taken captive by our "Protest" and our uncritical immersion in Enlightenment rationality.

And if we can appeal to the saints gone before us and bridge the thin barrier between worlds, what then of Mary, mother of our Lord? She is not divine, not confused with Christ, or a rival of the Trinity.  But she is one whose virtue makes her particularly efficacious in her prayers and intercession and guidance.  Further, is she one who, by the grace she begs from our Lord on our behalf, can give birth to a broader transformation of our lives, the formation of Christ in us?

Of course!  Pray to the Holy Trinity with fervor.  But don't neglect the grace that may come to you through the intercession of one of God's special ones, especially if they're special to you and you to them.