Dear brothers and sisters,
Good morning. Thank God for another beautiful day in the Bay Area. God is doing His amazing work within and among us each day. I found myself interacting with God more as I re-read Kelsey’s book on meditation. His sharing made me engage in a deeper level of self examination and soul searching in terms of my relationship with God. God wants us to enjoy our relationship with Him and experience healing within our soul.
Eastern religions try to make the same opening and then give the person specific way to follow without considering the fact that one cannot lay one’s own culture aside and discard it. You may accept the Eastern approach, but you are forced to leave a part of yourself behind. The religion of fear does much the same thing. It cracks the individual open and then submits one to inner and social pressure to go a certain route. If one deviates, one will either be ostracized or condemned to hell. The effects of this kind of training are so destructive that one wonders how a religion supposedly concerned with love could have turned to this method. It defeats love entirely by walling off parts of every personality so that one cannot even know the whole person, let alone love that person. Many people have been scarred for life by the use of this method. They are so damaged by this kind of religion that they never learn the meaning of love or its healing effect on the personality. While a certain amount of fear may be healthy for some individuals, it is almost always destructive to apply any such religious idea wholesale, without considering individual differences.
At one time the survival of Christianity depended upon a fellowship who knew what it was all about. As long as the early Church faced the threat of being wiped out by a hostile empire, every Christian was given three years basic training before being baptized and received into full fellowship. The inner husk of old attitudes and old images was broken down and penetrated by a new reality so that every Christian knew both the need for God and the need for community. All Christians had to have a faith that prepared them to meet death, if necessary. Today, however, the pressures seem to be of a different type.
A great many people, however, find that ordinary religious practice 1 has lost its meaning for them, and they are threatened by pressures from within. They look for meaning and try to find some source of power or of the energy to put their lives in order. In the Church these people often feel only more pressure to art or to be something different from what they are. There is good reason for them to try the inner way of meditation. They have less to fear from being opened up further to the darkness within as they are already seeking something beyond it.
Then there is a group who have little tolerance for any kind of religious way, inner or outer. “These people often project their darkness onto others. Arousing the hatred and anger that lead to war and other violence. They have no approach to reality except through the outer world, and they slip easily into the delusions of psychosis…In addition, there is one group who, without exception, require this experience of direct contact with spiritual reality, both destructive and creative. These are the religious professionals, who undertake to mediate the realities of religion to others, often to people who have lost faith in what the religious institution stands for. Unless there are leaders who know the experiences for themselves, it becomes like the blind leading the blind.
The pressures on people today seem to be directed more and more toward greater consciousness. If the constant drive toward growth and consciousness does express our greatest need and wholeness, then certainly not everyone should be exposed to this experience whether needful of it or not. Many people are getting along with their task of growth quite well as they are, and the place to start growth is by examining their own lives and what their desires and expectations are. After this is decided there comes the need to find a fertile soil, to seek direction, fellowship and encouragement from those who have already gone this way, and, above all, to be sure one is following a serious goal and has some map of the inner world that one is entering. The inner meditative journey is not a weekend excursion to a land of sun and happiness. It is a way of life for people who actually feel a need for it and who have become conscious of their need. In the final analysis this is a way for people who have been unable to find meaning by other methods. It is important to break open the ego to deeper reality but it is nearly impossible to legislate one way for all people and one can only do it on an individual basis and with the greatest care.
I agree that meditation or contemplative prayer is a lifestyle. If it is a lifestyle in terms of how we relate to our Creator God, then it is difficult to confined ourselves to a certain way. Love finds its way to express itself. God created each one of us in a unique manner. He empowers us with ability to interact with Him in according to our unique mindset. By saying this, it does not mean all religious practices eventually reach God. Man-made religions have their limitation. They try to reach out to God through different kind of meditation, but God is beyond their imagination. We need God’s initiative and revelation. The Bible becomes a road map in our spiritual journey to trace back toward the source of revelation. The attitude of submission becomes our fuel or energy in moving forward. We wait upon the Lord in total abandonment of ourselves, and let the Word of God to guide us in our meditation. Once we develop this kind of daily interaction with God through His Word, we become more conscious in how to conduct our lives in every situation that we encounter with attitude of submission to His guideline or principle for life. This kind of meditative lifestyle will truly make us become channel of His blessings to others. Amen.
Have a blessed weekend to come,
Lawrence
Friday, February 11, 2011
Thursday, February 10, 2011
Devotional reading 100211
Dear brothers and sisters,
Good morning. Once in a while, I have this luxury to spend a whole morning in reading and meditation without interruptions. We need time like this to deal with our inner cry for help. Work is good because God intended for us to work. Work becomes bad if we use it to cover up our inner need or craving for God. Satan wants us to be too busy to pray and interact with God.
The teachings of Jesus suggest that we should not wait until we know all about suffering to find our need. We need to be delivered from the source of our inhumanity, Jesus taught, and He told us first of all to pray, “Deliver us from the evil one.” Then in various ways He showed that the task is to look within and to know what is causing the trouble and whether we are nursing anger or harmful desires in our hearts. Our job is not just to wait for evil to happen in the outer world and men try to do something about the pain and agony it causes. Instead, Christians are to recognize the source of evil within themselves so that they can seek help in order to stand outwardly against it.
It is often easy to identify this force within oneself. This force is like a death wish which attacks a person in depression and anxiety, fear and rage as many people find when they turn inward. No matter how much one struggles against it, this force is still there ready to tear the person apart and drag him/her down into icy isolation. None of us escapes its destructive drag entirely. Some people simply give way to outbursts easily, while others bottle up the lousy feeling it arouses and suffer the effects of tension. Either way the effect is uncreative and hostile to love and growth.
The idea that we have outgrown our need to turn to God for help in dealing with evil, or the idea, in fact, that there is no such thing as cosmic evil, would be funny if it did not show such a tragic lack of understanding. This force has to be faced and dealt with or it will keep on turning our homes and our world into a battlefield. We sometimes find it hard to understand why Jesus said that the poor in spirit, the meek and sorrowing are blessed, but per perhaps it was because they are the ones who know they can’t manage their lives by themselves. Once a person realizes that there is a spiritual or psychoid world as well as physical one, that person learns that there are forces of evil more destructive than the simply human ones, and that these spiritual forces of evil are those that the individual cannot deal with on one’s own. They are more powerful realities like the force of gravity or some other force of the universe, than many of the more recent ways of thinking about Satan or the evil one would suggest.
We can be so protected by life that we fail to see the depth and power of evil, and we wonder why all the to-do about something that should require only some real intelligence and reason. This failure to comprehend evil as an autonomous force with a power to affect human life is a kind of unconsciousness that can lead to disaster. As Berdyaev remarked, the powers of evil certainly appear to be at least as intelligent as the powers of light. He made these remarks as he was looking back over his life with the communist revolution and the two world wars, all of which he had survived.
When we do awaken and realize our own helplessness, then the second door is opened to the inward way. The realization of our spiritual poverty and our need for help from beyond ourselves is the moisture that breaks open the seed. This breaking of the husk fulfills the second condition for the practice of prayer and meditation. It takes great courage, however, to enter this door or to seek for this moisture unless life has already done it for us. Once the depth of your soul has been penetrated, you have little choice; either you follow the religious way like a search for rare treasure, or else you must turn back to the ordinary world with resolute detachment and probably despair. At times one wishes one could back up and start over, but consciousness was apparently designed without a reverse gear.
The reflection on the reality of evil is very insightful to me. It helps me realize two common reactions toward suffering or unpleasant experience in life: one is aggression and other is avoidance. My natural instinct toward any threat of suffering is to escape. I don’t want to face any helpless situation that involves unpleasant experience, whether it involves myself directly or with others. I would walk away and pretend not seeing it. Or I simply switch channel if it was on TV. Those human tragedy seemed to surface the dark side of my soul or fear that I don’t want to encounter. I would rather avoid to face it – I would prefer comedy or happy ending drama if I were to watch a movie. Any evil story even if it was only a fiction would cause some uneasy feelings or fear within me that was unpleasant. And on the other hand, as Kelsey shared, suffering could stir up evil aggression in return. “An eye for an eye” is human common reaction toward evil treatment just as our Lord Jesus admitted; but his reaction toward the evil one was love. He said, “You have heard that it was said, 'Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven” (Matt 5:43-44). It is certainly not easy to face the reality of evil squarely, and seek God’s help to react in a godly manner with love. We will not be able to learn this kind of love unless we recognize the reality of evil within us. We hope that God will always apply this kind of love to sinners like us. This reality of evil within me surfaced in the form of random aggression in my imagination and dream that totally surprised myself. I hate to see that evil forces within me unleashed when I were to encounter a “prefect” evil environment. We truly need to seek help from God in delivering us from the evil one daily…Amen.
Love you with fear and trembling (Phil 2:12b),
Lawrence
Good morning. Once in a while, I have this luxury to spend a whole morning in reading and meditation without interruptions. We need time like this to deal with our inner cry for help. Work is good because God intended for us to work. Work becomes bad if we use it to cover up our inner need or craving for God. Satan wants us to be too busy to pray and interact with God.
The teachings of Jesus suggest that we should not wait until we know all about suffering to find our need. We need to be delivered from the source of our inhumanity, Jesus taught, and He told us first of all to pray, “Deliver us from the evil one.” Then in various ways He showed that the task is to look within and to know what is causing the trouble and whether we are nursing anger or harmful desires in our hearts. Our job is not just to wait for evil to happen in the outer world and men try to do something about the pain and agony it causes. Instead, Christians are to recognize the source of evil within themselves so that they can seek help in order to stand outwardly against it.
It is often easy to identify this force within oneself. This force is like a death wish which attacks a person in depression and anxiety, fear and rage as many people find when they turn inward. No matter how much one struggles against it, this force is still there ready to tear the person apart and drag him/her down into icy isolation. None of us escapes its destructive drag entirely. Some people simply give way to outbursts easily, while others bottle up the lousy feeling it arouses and suffer the effects of tension. Either way the effect is uncreative and hostile to love and growth.
The idea that we have outgrown our need to turn to God for help in dealing with evil, or the idea, in fact, that there is no such thing as cosmic evil, would be funny if it did not show such a tragic lack of understanding. This force has to be faced and dealt with or it will keep on turning our homes and our world into a battlefield. We sometimes find it hard to understand why Jesus said that the poor in spirit, the meek and sorrowing are blessed, but per perhaps it was because they are the ones who know they can’t manage their lives by themselves. Once a person realizes that there is a spiritual or psychoid world as well as physical one, that person learns that there are forces of evil more destructive than the simply human ones, and that these spiritual forces of evil are those that the individual cannot deal with on one’s own. They are more powerful realities like the force of gravity or some other force of the universe, than many of the more recent ways of thinking about Satan or the evil one would suggest.
We can be so protected by life that we fail to see the depth and power of evil, and we wonder why all the to-do about something that should require only some real intelligence and reason. This failure to comprehend evil as an autonomous force with a power to affect human life is a kind of unconsciousness that can lead to disaster. As Berdyaev remarked, the powers of evil certainly appear to be at least as intelligent as the powers of light. He made these remarks as he was looking back over his life with the communist revolution and the two world wars, all of which he had survived.
When we do awaken and realize our own helplessness, then the second door is opened to the inward way. The realization of our spiritual poverty and our need for help from beyond ourselves is the moisture that breaks open the seed. This breaking of the husk fulfills the second condition for the practice of prayer and meditation. It takes great courage, however, to enter this door or to seek for this moisture unless life has already done it for us. Once the depth of your soul has been penetrated, you have little choice; either you follow the religious way like a search for rare treasure, or else you must turn back to the ordinary world with resolute detachment and probably despair. At times one wishes one could back up and start over, but consciousness was apparently designed without a reverse gear.
The reflection on the reality of evil is very insightful to me. It helps me realize two common reactions toward suffering or unpleasant experience in life: one is aggression and other is avoidance. My natural instinct toward any threat of suffering is to escape. I don’t want to face any helpless situation that involves unpleasant experience, whether it involves myself directly or with others. I would walk away and pretend not seeing it. Or I simply switch channel if it was on TV. Those human tragedy seemed to surface the dark side of my soul or fear that I don’t want to encounter. I would rather avoid to face it – I would prefer comedy or happy ending drama if I were to watch a movie. Any evil story even if it was only a fiction would cause some uneasy feelings or fear within me that was unpleasant. And on the other hand, as Kelsey shared, suffering could stir up evil aggression in return. “An eye for an eye” is human common reaction toward evil treatment just as our Lord Jesus admitted; but his reaction toward the evil one was love. He said, “You have heard that it was said, 'Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven” (Matt 5:43-44). It is certainly not easy to face the reality of evil squarely, and seek God’s help to react in a godly manner with love. We will not be able to learn this kind of love unless we recognize the reality of evil within us. We hope that God will always apply this kind of love to sinners like us. This reality of evil within me surfaced in the form of random aggression in my imagination and dream that totally surprised myself. I hate to see that evil forces within me unleashed when I were to encounter a “prefect” evil environment. We truly need to seek help from God in delivering us from the evil one daily…Amen.
Love you with fear and trembling (Phil 2:12b),
Lawrence
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
Devotional Reading 090211
Dear brothers and sisters,
Good morning. I wished I had brought my camera with me. The San Francisco Bay is so beautiful as I look out from my office. The view of the city and Bay bridge is crystal clear along with a bright blue sky. It is indeed spectacular! Thank God for giving us life to enjoy this wonderful playground that He created for us – our Planet Earth. God uses this earthly experience to point us to something even greater and incredible in the life to come. What a blessing we are to be in the family of God today and forever. Amen.
Most of the time people are able to keen up a good front and appear and often feel confident and satisfied with life. Our society seems to demand and reward this kind of self-sufficiency. But behind the human mask are often pain and hurt which make it possible to experience real confidence and satisfaction in life only by KNOWING that a loving God is there. 1 have found some people who reach this reality through the Church and the rituals that express it in action, and others who have come to it through the practice of meditation. Neither of these ways, however, is easily available to many individuals today, who have lost the reality of the belief system. The experience of recovering it is not one I would wish for any of us, but in all my reading and personal experience I have found no alternative for those who come face to face with a meaningless universe. You can then keep your guard up and perhaps risk going to pieces, or else you must allow yourself to become like the seed and be opened up to new life.
Working with people at all levels of our society has brought home to me how often the greatest misery and pain occur along with great wealth. These people have no outer problems important enough to keep their attention diverted from the emptiness of their own being. With no outer problems, they are exposed to the reality of the inner or spiritual world. They feel as though they are naked and alone and are usually guided only by fear of what might be found if they looked within for meaning. This is the reason for making almost a fetish of bridge clubs and bingo parties. If one is busy enough it isn’t necessary to look within. Anyone who is stripped in this way and forced to look inward usually faces fear and agony. Like solitary confinement, this exposes us to the depth of our own blackness. We often find whatever meaning we have known disintegrating; there is fear of finding only a void, fear of death and dissolution (particularly in this time when so few people see any place for an after-life), and the threat of condemnation.
In working with college students, particularly over the past six years. Have found that their neurotic problems spring far more often from a refusal to deal with religious reality than from ordinary pathology. For them neurosis is often the “sacred illness that forces them to seek meaning. Few of them have suffered any other trauma than comfortableness. Their pain and suffering result from being cut off, for one reason or another, from their religious roots. Many of them are aware of their need for meaning, and they are usually perceptive enough to realize that they will not find it until they encounter a new level of inner reality. Some of them are willing to take the time and effort for the inner way, rather than merely shopping around for an easier behavioral answer to their problem.
Indeed, sickness in all forms is one of the most common ways unconscious need shows up in our society today. With all the improvements in medical treatment, a larger percentage of people require care for illness than ever before. Repressed fear and anxiety can interfere with our resistance to bacteria or to cancer cells and can literally destroy our bodies in dozens of ways. Medicine has come to recognize the deadly potential of this kind of stress.
There is no more effective way for Christians to realize their own needs and to help deal with the needs of others than by sharing in the work of healing. They can do this, first by knowing their own fears and anxieties and helping others to become aware that they have these emotions, and then by helping to reveal and share the base of real meaning which gives people the security and courage to deal with fear rather than letting it build up in unconscious tensions. In the process, some healing miracles do happen, and sometimes this process also gives an individual gradual healing. As people face and handle their problems, they often find complete health of body, mind and soul. By using prayer and meditation much as the early Church did to bring hope and healing to people, we open both ourselves and others to the healing reality of the loving God…In addition, the medical profession is suffering today from more than a century of separating physical healing from its spiritual and emotional base. As a profession, doctors themselves show more problems with drugs and alcohol, neurosis and divorce, as well as a higher suicide rate, than any other profession…The detached medical attitude does not work very well when a doctor must deal constantly with human misery and suffering and fear of death. The patient is not satisfied and the doctor develops unconscious guilt. On the other hand, the physicians who relate to patients with empathy and understanding need some belief in a pervading meaning to it all—some experience of the Other who gives meaning when nothing else does—if they are to deal with these things day after day and not go under themselves.
If our need for meaning is to open us up to the reality that can give this meaning, however, first of all it has to be recognized. Whether one is a doctor or a theologian, lawyer or politician, or simply a layperson who depends on these Other human beings for an approach to the realities of life, the first step is simply to acknowledge that one has tried to depend just on human resources and that this leaves a great deal to be desired.
I appreciate the transparency of this writer who shared about his own healing experience from depression, and how prayer and meditation pointed him back to the Greatest Healer of his body and soul. I cannot agree more with his observation. In my own pastoral ministry and personal growth as a Christian, I am fully convinced that body, soul and spirit are one interconnected being. If we separate them in dealing with our health problem, we will not experience a sustaining recovery. Our physical and psychological illness may remind us of a deep seated need for spiritual healing – this healing can only be experienced by first recognizing our needs for God’s help, and secondly by abandoning our souls and spirit to His surgery (His cut and mold in making us whole again). There is no quick fix “spiritual surgery.” It takes place daily and gradually in our soul as we return to Him with expectation in prayer and meditation. In another word, reading a short devotional like Daily Bread, is not good enough. It takes time to allow the Holy Spirit to do His surgery within us. The Bible said, “For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. Nothing in all creation is hidden from God's sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account” (Hebrews 4:12-13). The Word of God is truly an invasive and intrusive procedure to bring healing to our whole being. And this healing God happens to be our Loving Heavenly Father, who operates in us with His tender loving kindness. Praise the Lord!!
Sharing from the same healing in Christ,
Lawrence
Good morning. I wished I had brought my camera with me. The San Francisco Bay is so beautiful as I look out from my office. The view of the city and Bay bridge is crystal clear along with a bright blue sky. It is indeed spectacular! Thank God for giving us life to enjoy this wonderful playground that He created for us – our Planet Earth. God uses this earthly experience to point us to something even greater and incredible in the life to come. What a blessing we are to be in the family of God today and forever. Amen.
Most of the time people are able to keen up a good front and appear and often feel confident and satisfied with life. Our society seems to demand and reward this kind of self-sufficiency. But behind the human mask are often pain and hurt which make it possible to experience real confidence and satisfaction in life only by KNOWING that a loving God is there. 1 have found some people who reach this reality through the Church and the rituals that express it in action, and others who have come to it through the practice of meditation. Neither of these ways, however, is easily available to many individuals today, who have lost the reality of the belief system. The experience of recovering it is not one I would wish for any of us, but in all my reading and personal experience I have found no alternative for those who come face to face with a meaningless universe. You can then keep your guard up and perhaps risk going to pieces, or else you must allow yourself to become like the seed and be opened up to new life.
Working with people at all levels of our society has brought home to me how often the greatest misery and pain occur along with great wealth. These people have no outer problems important enough to keep their attention diverted from the emptiness of their own being. With no outer problems, they are exposed to the reality of the inner or spiritual world. They feel as though they are naked and alone and are usually guided only by fear of what might be found if they looked within for meaning. This is the reason for making almost a fetish of bridge clubs and bingo parties. If one is busy enough it isn’t necessary to look within. Anyone who is stripped in this way and forced to look inward usually faces fear and agony. Like solitary confinement, this exposes us to the depth of our own blackness. We often find whatever meaning we have known disintegrating; there is fear of finding only a void, fear of death and dissolution (particularly in this time when so few people see any place for an after-life), and the threat of condemnation.
In working with college students, particularly over the past six years. Have found that their neurotic problems spring far more often from a refusal to deal with religious reality than from ordinary pathology. For them neurosis is often the “sacred illness that forces them to seek meaning. Few of them have suffered any other trauma than comfortableness. Their pain and suffering result from being cut off, for one reason or another, from their religious roots. Many of them are aware of their need for meaning, and they are usually perceptive enough to realize that they will not find it until they encounter a new level of inner reality. Some of them are willing to take the time and effort for the inner way, rather than merely shopping around for an easier behavioral answer to their problem.
Indeed, sickness in all forms is one of the most common ways unconscious need shows up in our society today. With all the improvements in medical treatment, a larger percentage of people require care for illness than ever before. Repressed fear and anxiety can interfere with our resistance to bacteria or to cancer cells and can literally destroy our bodies in dozens of ways. Medicine has come to recognize the deadly potential of this kind of stress.
There is no more effective way for Christians to realize their own needs and to help deal with the needs of others than by sharing in the work of healing. They can do this, first by knowing their own fears and anxieties and helping others to become aware that they have these emotions, and then by helping to reveal and share the base of real meaning which gives people the security and courage to deal with fear rather than letting it build up in unconscious tensions. In the process, some healing miracles do happen, and sometimes this process also gives an individual gradual healing. As people face and handle their problems, they often find complete health of body, mind and soul. By using prayer and meditation much as the early Church did to bring hope and healing to people, we open both ourselves and others to the healing reality of the loving God…In addition, the medical profession is suffering today from more than a century of separating physical healing from its spiritual and emotional base. As a profession, doctors themselves show more problems with drugs and alcohol, neurosis and divorce, as well as a higher suicide rate, than any other profession…The detached medical attitude does not work very well when a doctor must deal constantly with human misery and suffering and fear of death. The patient is not satisfied and the doctor develops unconscious guilt. On the other hand, the physicians who relate to patients with empathy and understanding need some belief in a pervading meaning to it all—some experience of the Other who gives meaning when nothing else does—if they are to deal with these things day after day and not go under themselves.
If our need for meaning is to open us up to the reality that can give this meaning, however, first of all it has to be recognized. Whether one is a doctor or a theologian, lawyer or politician, or simply a layperson who depends on these Other human beings for an approach to the realities of life, the first step is simply to acknowledge that one has tried to depend just on human resources and that this leaves a great deal to be desired.
I appreciate the transparency of this writer who shared about his own healing experience from depression, and how prayer and meditation pointed him back to the Greatest Healer of his body and soul. I cannot agree more with his observation. In my own pastoral ministry and personal growth as a Christian, I am fully convinced that body, soul and spirit are one interconnected being. If we separate them in dealing with our health problem, we will not experience a sustaining recovery. Our physical and psychological illness may remind us of a deep seated need for spiritual healing – this healing can only be experienced by first recognizing our needs for God’s help, and secondly by abandoning our souls and spirit to His surgery (His cut and mold in making us whole again). There is no quick fix “spiritual surgery.” It takes place daily and gradually in our soul as we return to Him with expectation in prayer and meditation. In another word, reading a short devotional like Daily Bread, is not good enough. It takes time to allow the Holy Spirit to do His surgery within us. The Bible said, “For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. Nothing in all creation is hidden from God's sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account” (Hebrews 4:12-13). The Word of God is truly an invasive and intrusive procedure to bring healing to our whole being. And this healing God happens to be our Loving Heavenly Father, who operates in us with His tender loving kindness. Praise the Lord!!
Sharing from the same healing in Christ,
Lawrence
Monday, February 7, 2011
Devotional reading 070211
Dear brothers and sisters,
Good morning. It is great to have a day off after preaching in a weekend retreat. Praise God for speaking through me to this gathering of believers. Pray that God will continue to do His mighty work in the lives of these brothers and sisters that they will shine for Jesus in wherever they are. Praise the Lord!
Meditation is the laboratory of the soul. Like the physicist studying the atom, or a biologist working with the cell, or the psychologist trying to understand a complex, the person who turns inward learns about the realities that are found there, their patterns and how to relate to them. While this comes by experience, still one does not start from scratch, any more than a scientist would blithely forget everything in textbooks and try to reconstruct it all every time an experiment is performed. The scientist and the explorer in the spiritual world both need the accumulated wisdom of the past, even when it has to be questioned and sometimes brought up to date.
But one great difficulty in learning about the spiritual world today is that we have forgotten how to use much of the wisdom that is available to us. It often seems that the only place to go for guidance is to the Eastern religions which, it is true, can tell us much about our inner world. But when it comes to the practical effect of meditation on the things that are important in Western life, Eastern thought leaves a real gap. We are then faced with an undesirable choice. We can accept the Eastern idea that the outer reality of life is transitory or illusory and of no great value, or we can turn back to the standard values of our own world and go on leaving spiritual realities out of our calculations about the world that matters to us right now. What we in the West generally fail to realize is that we have another choice, although a difficult one, and that our task is to learn what our own tradition says about this question and then go ahead and try it out.
There are a few things, however, that all of us probably need to realize at die outset. First of all, a strong ego, a strong consciousness is indispensable if a person is to find relation to the spiritual world through meditation. Having an ego is not bad. It refers to having a strong and stable center of one’s personality. To go upon this way one has to give up the ego or self, and one cannot very well give up something that one does not have. The person who has never become established in the outer world is in no position to turn resolutely to the Risen Christ and allow Him to take direction. Our first obligation is to sink roots and find our point of view so that we are able to st? on course and take this kind of direction.
Much nonsense has been written about the spiritual world by people who were trying to open themselves to this realm before they were ready for it, without realizing that they were courting disaster. The most extreme example of this is the psychotic who encounters the spiritual realm…The psychotic has just as great religious experiences as anyone else, just as valid ones, but the problem is that he/she is not able to do anything about them except talk, having no life of his/her own into which such experiences could be integrated.
In taking this inner way of meditation, however, even the person with the strongest ego needs to realize that there are dangers, that one faces a vast world of contrasting and often conflicting realities. One might say that the mountains are higher, the oceans deeper, die colors even more vivid than in the physical world. Certainly the forces of light and darkness stand out far more clearly than we are accustomed to. And in the spiritual world we find not only greater beauty and creativity than in the physical one, but also the reality of destructiveness and ugliness, of evil itself.
One of the saddest misconceptions of the modern world is the notion that something which is spiritual must necessarily be good. In reality something can be truly evil through and through only when it is spiritual. It is usually in the spiritual world that such evil takes shape, when a subordinate or partial good takes over, pretends to be the central or the essential good, and becomes unmitigated evil. And there such evil is encountered, naked and direct, as the author of Ephesians described clearly when he wrote about putting “on all the armor which God provides, so that you may be able to stand firm against the devices of the devil. For our fight is not against human foes, but against cosmic powers, against the authorities and potentates of this dark world, against the super human forces of evil in the heavens” (New English Bible, Eph. 6:1).
The inner way, the way of meditation is dangerous. Any practice which brings us into contact with forces from the spiritual world in this way puts us into the middle of a mighty struggle. To enter this arena for curiosity or diversion can be disastrous. Indeed there is only one thing more dangerous than entering upon this way, and that is not entering it (assuming you have a developed ego), for you then allow the destructive forces free play. If you do not get into the battle yourself and try to stay in touch with the forces of light, you become a blind target. You allow the forces of destructiveness to enter and eat away at your own soul, or else you project them upon other colors or classes of persons. other races or other nations. Whomever the darkness seizes in this way becomes an instrument of destruction and cruelty, sometimes even sucking a whole nation into cruel and bloody acts.
I know of no way that this danger can be met and overcome except by the way of meditation, and this is not child’s play…the message of Christianity is that we will first try the inner way—dangerous as it is—and seek the kingdom God, we will find help on the road ahead. The way of Christianity, as we shall see, provides solutions, hope, and victory, and the Good News is for both outer world and the one we can find within…The spiritual world can be discovered and experienced by anyone who really wants to find it. One acquires this knowledge by making the same hypothesis that other have made, and then experimenting with life. Faith, on the other hand, is given; it is a gift of trust that one does not stand alone against the forces of darkness in that world, but will find them already in flight from the Powers of the Risen Christ. Faith is what gives one the confidence to go ahead and learn about the reality of that world, to use the practice of prayer and meditation to open oneself to it.
In Eastern mysticism or religious practices, we realize how the evil forces are at work in human souls. Without the power of the Risen Lord, genuine religious practitioners fell into the evil trap. The power of the evil forces are real and attractive to these practitioners. They appeal to the ego of human souls like Satan’s temptation to Eve in her first encounter of this spiritual reality, “once you eat this forbidden fruit, you will receive super-natural power like God.” Through prayer and meditation, we witness the reality of this kind of temptation battling within our inner world, but find assurance that the power of our Risen Lord has won the ultimate victory. We learn to submit to His Lordship and follow His guide, so that we can realize the beauty of our inner world in Christ that help shape our outer being. Praise God for His abiding presence that energizes our whole being each day.
With love in His victorious name,
Lawrence
Good morning. It is great to have a day off after preaching in a weekend retreat. Praise God for speaking through me to this gathering of believers. Pray that God will continue to do His mighty work in the lives of these brothers and sisters that they will shine for Jesus in wherever they are. Praise the Lord!
Meditation is the laboratory of the soul. Like the physicist studying the atom, or a biologist working with the cell, or the psychologist trying to understand a complex, the person who turns inward learns about the realities that are found there, their patterns and how to relate to them. While this comes by experience, still one does not start from scratch, any more than a scientist would blithely forget everything in textbooks and try to reconstruct it all every time an experiment is performed. The scientist and the explorer in the spiritual world both need the accumulated wisdom of the past, even when it has to be questioned and sometimes brought up to date.
But one great difficulty in learning about the spiritual world today is that we have forgotten how to use much of the wisdom that is available to us. It often seems that the only place to go for guidance is to the Eastern religions which, it is true, can tell us much about our inner world. But when it comes to the practical effect of meditation on the things that are important in Western life, Eastern thought leaves a real gap. We are then faced with an undesirable choice. We can accept the Eastern idea that the outer reality of life is transitory or illusory and of no great value, or we can turn back to the standard values of our own world and go on leaving spiritual realities out of our calculations about the world that matters to us right now. What we in the West generally fail to realize is that we have another choice, although a difficult one, and that our task is to learn what our own tradition says about this question and then go ahead and try it out.
There are a few things, however, that all of us probably need to realize at die outset. First of all, a strong ego, a strong consciousness is indispensable if a person is to find relation to the spiritual world through meditation. Having an ego is not bad. It refers to having a strong and stable center of one’s personality. To go upon this way one has to give up the ego or self, and one cannot very well give up something that one does not have. The person who has never become established in the outer world is in no position to turn resolutely to the Risen Christ and allow Him to take direction. Our first obligation is to sink roots and find our point of view so that we are able to st? on course and take this kind of direction.
Much nonsense has been written about the spiritual world by people who were trying to open themselves to this realm before they were ready for it, without realizing that they were courting disaster. The most extreme example of this is the psychotic who encounters the spiritual realm…The psychotic has just as great religious experiences as anyone else, just as valid ones, but the problem is that he/she is not able to do anything about them except talk, having no life of his/her own into which such experiences could be integrated.
In taking this inner way of meditation, however, even the person with the strongest ego needs to realize that there are dangers, that one faces a vast world of contrasting and often conflicting realities. One might say that the mountains are higher, the oceans deeper, die colors even more vivid than in the physical world. Certainly the forces of light and darkness stand out far more clearly than we are accustomed to. And in the spiritual world we find not only greater beauty and creativity than in the physical one, but also the reality of destructiveness and ugliness, of evil itself.
One of the saddest misconceptions of the modern world is the notion that something which is spiritual must necessarily be good. In reality something can be truly evil through and through only when it is spiritual. It is usually in the spiritual world that such evil takes shape, when a subordinate or partial good takes over, pretends to be the central or the essential good, and becomes unmitigated evil. And there such evil is encountered, naked and direct, as the author of Ephesians described clearly when he wrote about putting “on all the armor which God provides, so that you may be able to stand firm against the devices of the devil. For our fight is not against human foes, but against cosmic powers, against the authorities and potentates of this dark world, against the super human forces of evil in the heavens” (New English Bible, Eph. 6:1).
The inner way, the way of meditation is dangerous. Any practice which brings us into contact with forces from the spiritual world in this way puts us into the middle of a mighty struggle. To enter this arena for curiosity or diversion can be disastrous. Indeed there is only one thing more dangerous than entering upon this way, and that is not entering it (assuming you have a developed ego), for you then allow the destructive forces free play. If you do not get into the battle yourself and try to stay in touch with the forces of light, you become a blind target. You allow the forces of destructiveness to enter and eat away at your own soul, or else you project them upon other colors or classes of persons. other races or other nations. Whomever the darkness seizes in this way becomes an instrument of destruction and cruelty, sometimes even sucking a whole nation into cruel and bloody acts.
I know of no way that this danger can be met and overcome except by the way of meditation, and this is not child’s play…the message of Christianity is that we will first try the inner way—dangerous as it is—and seek the kingdom God, we will find help on the road ahead. The way of Christianity, as we shall see, provides solutions, hope, and victory, and the Good News is for both outer world and the one we can find within…The spiritual world can be discovered and experienced by anyone who really wants to find it. One acquires this knowledge by making the same hypothesis that other have made, and then experimenting with life. Faith, on the other hand, is given; it is a gift of trust that one does not stand alone against the forces of darkness in that world, but will find them already in flight from the Powers of the Risen Christ. Faith is what gives one the confidence to go ahead and learn about the reality of that world, to use the practice of prayer and meditation to open oneself to it.
In Eastern mysticism or religious practices, we realize how the evil forces are at work in human souls. Without the power of the Risen Lord, genuine religious practitioners fell into the evil trap. The power of the evil forces are real and attractive to these practitioners. They appeal to the ego of human souls like Satan’s temptation to Eve in her first encounter of this spiritual reality, “once you eat this forbidden fruit, you will receive super-natural power like God.” Through prayer and meditation, we witness the reality of this kind of temptation battling within our inner world, but find assurance that the power of our Risen Lord has won the ultimate victory. We learn to submit to His Lordship and follow His guide, so that we can realize the beauty of our inner world in Christ that help shape our outer being. Praise God for His abiding presence that energizes our whole being each day.
With love in His victorious name,
Lawrence
Friday, February 4, 2011
Devotional Reading 040211
Dear brothers and sisters,
Good morning. It was a blessing to have a longer quiet time before the Lord in reading and meditation this morning. I look forward to join a retreat in Pacifica with brothers and sisters from a East Bay church. This is the second time I speak to this congregation. Pray that the Holy Spirit reveals His Word to all of us, and nurture us with His own very presence.
Most religions believe that humanity is in touch with a nonphysical or quasi-physical realm of reality. We are in touch with a physical world of rocks and trees and enemy tribes-people. We are also in touch with a spiritual world inhabited by the spirits of the dead, by demonic and angelic power. Religious ritual, prayer and meditation were once ways that people used to deal with this spiritual reality, and being able to deal with that realm made a lot of difference about how life went with them... If there is no such realm, meditation at best is only talking to oneself, and at worst it verges on stupidity and illusion or outright madness. It is very difficult to open materialistic Western people’s eyes to the reality of the spiritual world. There is no way to find this reality except by trying something which they have been taught leads nowhere. This is one of the reasons why it so often requires desperation to get secular persons to try opening themselves to this reality which is new to them.
There can be little question about the way Jesus of Nazareth believed. He expressed quite clearly His understanding that we are in contact with two different worlds. This is seen in one after another of the parables where He often used some description of the physical world to illustrate what He was revealing about another realm of reality. It is seen in His various references to the angelic realm and in His teachings about the evil one, as well as in His understanding and healing of the one possessed by the demon, and also in His own experience on the Mount of Transfiguration. While Jesus certainly showed a thorough appreciation of the outer material world in all that He said and did. He also wanted men to know their relation to the world of spirit. This is assumed in all His teachings about prayer, which make sense only within such a framework. It is strange how seriously we take Jesus’ moral ideas and then ignore His world- view. Yet, if Jesus really was the incarnation of God, He probably has something to tell us about philosophy as well as morals.
The most vivid experience of the early Church was that of the Risen Christ. For these earliest Christians the experience was so real that when it came to setting down the record about Jesus Himself, they sometimes confused the teachings received by the Church from the Risen Christ with those that Jesus had given to the original disciples. The reality was so close to them that they did not even realize they were creating a problem…The great Fathers and Doctors of the Church who gave us our Trinitarian Christianity continued to express their knowledge of humankind as a bridge linking two worlds. They saw humanity with one side joined to the physical world of matter, and the other immersed in the nonmaterial but even more real world-of-spirit, and the human soul or psyche as the instrument of communication between the two.
Meditation is the practice, the art of letting down the barrier that separates one’s rational consciousness from the depth of one’s soul. In Christian meditation one is trying to come into touch with the spiritual world in a way that will open one’s whole being to the reality of this creative and integrating center, or the Risen Christ. The purpose is to allow the Christ to bring the split-off, conflicting parts of one’s being into fruitful relationship, and at the same time deliver one from destructive evil which seeks to keep the person fragmented and operating unconsciously. In this way one is brought together and given the single eye – that new center of being which allows a person to operate at more nearly full potential, creatively and freed from giving in to destructive impulses.
In reality, Christian prayer and meditation make sense only within some such framework. Unless we find a power like this beyond ourselves, we would do better to stay as conscious and rational as possible and try not to fool ourselves. But if prayer and meditation are what I have suggested, then few things that we can do are more important for our lives. Only in this way are we able to reach out to the reality that can make us whole and bringing us to maturity. This is the way we grant full reality to our sonship through Christ.
The “one eye” that Kelsey talks about is based on the teaching of Christ in Matthew6:22-23, “The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are good, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!” God grant us the eye to the non-materialistic world, which is the ultimate reality of the world. The Western world believes human reality lies only on what we see. But Christians believe human reality lies on what is unseen to our human eyes. This “one eye” (human consciousness or spiritual perception) enables us to realize the reality of our whole being. Paul prayed for spiritual illumination for the Ephesians in similar way, “I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is like the working of his mighty strength, which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age but also in the one to come. And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way (Ephesians 1:18-23). We will not be able to see the glorious reality of Christ if we do not exercise our “spiritual eyes” through meditation and prayer. This is not imagination per se but conscious awareness of this hidden reality through imagination or meditation. Hope your spiritual eyes will be enlightened by your deliberate abandonment of your whole being to the work of the Holy Spirit.
Have a blessed weekend,
Lawrence
Good morning. It was a blessing to have a longer quiet time before the Lord in reading and meditation this morning. I look forward to join a retreat in Pacifica with brothers and sisters from a East Bay church. This is the second time I speak to this congregation. Pray that the Holy Spirit reveals His Word to all of us, and nurture us with His own very presence.
Most religions believe that humanity is in touch with a nonphysical or quasi-physical realm of reality. We are in touch with a physical world of rocks and trees and enemy tribes-people. We are also in touch with a spiritual world inhabited by the spirits of the dead, by demonic and angelic power. Religious ritual, prayer and meditation were once ways that people used to deal with this spiritual reality, and being able to deal with that realm made a lot of difference about how life went with them... If there is no such realm, meditation at best is only talking to oneself, and at worst it verges on stupidity and illusion or outright madness. It is very difficult to open materialistic Western people’s eyes to the reality of the spiritual world. There is no way to find this reality except by trying something which they have been taught leads nowhere. This is one of the reasons why it so often requires desperation to get secular persons to try opening themselves to this reality which is new to them.
There can be little question about the way Jesus of Nazareth believed. He expressed quite clearly His understanding that we are in contact with two different worlds. This is seen in one after another of the parables where He often used some description of the physical world to illustrate what He was revealing about another realm of reality. It is seen in His various references to the angelic realm and in His teachings about the evil one, as well as in His understanding and healing of the one possessed by the demon, and also in His own experience on the Mount of Transfiguration. While Jesus certainly showed a thorough appreciation of the outer material world in all that He said and did. He also wanted men to know their relation to the world of spirit. This is assumed in all His teachings about prayer, which make sense only within such a framework. It is strange how seriously we take Jesus’ moral ideas and then ignore His world- view. Yet, if Jesus really was the incarnation of God, He probably has something to tell us about philosophy as well as morals.
The most vivid experience of the early Church was that of the Risen Christ. For these earliest Christians the experience was so real that when it came to setting down the record about Jesus Himself, they sometimes confused the teachings received by the Church from the Risen Christ with those that Jesus had given to the original disciples. The reality was so close to them that they did not even realize they were creating a problem…The great Fathers and Doctors of the Church who gave us our Trinitarian Christianity continued to express their knowledge of humankind as a bridge linking two worlds. They saw humanity with one side joined to the physical world of matter, and the other immersed in the nonmaterial but even more real world-of-spirit, and the human soul or psyche as the instrument of communication between the two.
Meditation is the practice, the art of letting down the barrier that separates one’s rational consciousness from the depth of one’s soul. In Christian meditation one is trying to come into touch with the spiritual world in a way that will open one’s whole being to the reality of this creative and integrating center, or the Risen Christ. The purpose is to allow the Christ to bring the split-off, conflicting parts of one’s being into fruitful relationship, and at the same time deliver one from destructive evil which seeks to keep the person fragmented and operating unconsciously. In this way one is brought together and given the single eye – that new center of being which allows a person to operate at more nearly full potential, creatively and freed from giving in to destructive impulses.
In reality, Christian prayer and meditation make sense only within some such framework. Unless we find a power like this beyond ourselves, we would do better to stay as conscious and rational as possible and try not to fool ourselves. But if prayer and meditation are what I have suggested, then few things that we can do are more important for our lives. Only in this way are we able to reach out to the reality that can make us whole and bringing us to maturity. This is the way we grant full reality to our sonship through Christ.
The “one eye” that Kelsey talks about is based on the teaching of Christ in Matthew6:22-23, “The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are good, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!” God grant us the eye to the non-materialistic world, which is the ultimate reality of the world. The Western world believes human reality lies only on what we see. But Christians believe human reality lies on what is unseen to our human eyes. This “one eye” (human consciousness or spiritual perception) enables us to realize the reality of our whole being. Paul prayed for spiritual illumination for the Ephesians in similar way, “I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is like the working of his mighty strength, which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age but also in the one to come. And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way (Ephesians 1:18-23). We will not be able to see the glorious reality of Christ if we do not exercise our “spiritual eyes” through meditation and prayer. This is not imagination per se but conscious awareness of this hidden reality through imagination or meditation. Hope your spiritual eyes will be enlightened by your deliberate abandonment of your whole being to the work of the Holy Spirit.
Have a blessed weekend,
Lawrence
Thursday, February 3, 2011
Devotional reading 030211
Dear brothers and sisters,
新年快樂、Happy Chinese New Year! Hope you and your household will have a fruitful and blessed year to come 恩福滿堂. Our staff will have special hotpot lunch together in our own cafeteria. The weather outside is just gorgeous…no complaint and purely grace. It is indeed like spring time everywhere proclaiming the beauty of God 新春報喜.
Living things need an appropriate climate in order to grow and bear fruit. If they are to develop to completion, they require an environment that allows their potential to be realized. The seed will not grow unless there is soil that can feed it, light to draw it forth, warmth to nurture and moisture that unlocks its vitality. Time is also required for its growth to unfold.
Meditation is the attempt to provide the soul with a proper environment in which to grow and become…How, then, do we provide the right environment? What are the conditions for the soul which are equivalent to the sun and rain, the soil and warmth for the seed.? First of all, the soul requires a spiritual environment with which it can react and in which it can grow and mature. This is the reality of contact with a spiritual world. Then it must be prodded from within by human need, the moisture that makes the seed swell and burst its own limits and so start upon the growth process. Until we realize that we need something beyond our own humanness, neither prayer nor meditation become a reality.
And then there is the reality of love which seeks out and desires to touch us and bring us to itself. This unique Christian understanding of God is the light of the sun which draws us forth. Christians have been entrusted with the knowledge that God is like the loving, caring Jesus of Nazareth who cared enough to die for any individual, even if that person had been the only one. This understanding gives us the assurance that there is nothing to fear in the ultimate confrontation. Instead, it means allowing oneself to be open to this almost incredible love. But this still requires one more condition for the reality of continued meditation.
It is this final step of allowing our lives to be expressions of that love in outer action that provides the warmth needed to encourage the seed to grow. The expression can take innumerable forms. One person may express that love by attempting to change a rotten social structure that warps and deforms human souls, another by making love more real to those one already loves, letting more of one’s concern become apparent. It can be expressed by visiting a crotchety old neighbor with a cup of warm soup, or on a battlefield by lifting some water to the lips of a dying man. And these things are not only the highest good in themselves; they also keep our feet on the ground, guarding us from the danger of becoming so involved in spiritual things that we lose our humanness and our touch with outer reality.
For both the seed and the soul, these things all take time. In both cases there is need for patience. Most of us know enough not to poke at the seed to see if it is sprouting, or try to hurry it along with too much water or fertilizer of cultivation. The same respect must be shown for the soul as its growth starts to take place. Growth can seldom be forced in nature. Whether it is producing a tree or a human personality, nature unfolds its growth slowly, silently.
It is so difficult for human beings to understand that more than one condition may be needed to realize some possibility. We seem to have an insatiable desire to make things simple, to reduce every complexity to one cause. It is difficult for us to adjust to the world around us as it is. While there is no harm in trying to simplify things enough to understand them, too often we try to force reality to fit some rigid pattern of our own ideas. Where meditation is concerned, we need to realize two things. Meditation is simple and natural, like a seed growing and becoming a tree. At the same time it requires the right conditions not provided by the secular world today. If meditation is to touch reality, we must seek out the right climate. Amen.
In Christ,
Lawrence
新年快樂、Happy Chinese New Year! Hope you and your household will have a fruitful and blessed year to come 恩福滿堂. Our staff will have special hotpot lunch together in our own cafeteria. The weather outside is just gorgeous…no complaint and purely grace. It is indeed like spring time everywhere proclaiming the beauty of God 新春報喜.
Living things need an appropriate climate in order to grow and bear fruit. If they are to develop to completion, they require an environment that allows their potential to be realized. The seed will not grow unless there is soil that can feed it, light to draw it forth, warmth to nurture and moisture that unlocks its vitality. Time is also required for its growth to unfold.
Meditation is the attempt to provide the soul with a proper environment in which to grow and become…How, then, do we provide the right environment? What are the conditions for the soul which are equivalent to the sun and rain, the soil and warmth for the seed.? First of all, the soul requires a spiritual environment with which it can react and in which it can grow and mature. This is the reality of contact with a spiritual world. Then it must be prodded from within by human need, the moisture that makes the seed swell and burst its own limits and so start upon the growth process. Until we realize that we need something beyond our own humanness, neither prayer nor meditation become a reality.
And then there is the reality of love which seeks out and desires to touch us and bring us to itself. This unique Christian understanding of God is the light of the sun which draws us forth. Christians have been entrusted with the knowledge that God is like the loving, caring Jesus of Nazareth who cared enough to die for any individual, even if that person had been the only one. This understanding gives us the assurance that there is nothing to fear in the ultimate confrontation. Instead, it means allowing oneself to be open to this almost incredible love. But this still requires one more condition for the reality of continued meditation.
It is this final step of allowing our lives to be expressions of that love in outer action that provides the warmth needed to encourage the seed to grow. The expression can take innumerable forms. One person may express that love by attempting to change a rotten social structure that warps and deforms human souls, another by making love more real to those one already loves, letting more of one’s concern become apparent. It can be expressed by visiting a crotchety old neighbor with a cup of warm soup, or on a battlefield by lifting some water to the lips of a dying man. And these things are not only the highest good in themselves; they also keep our feet on the ground, guarding us from the danger of becoming so involved in spiritual things that we lose our humanness and our touch with outer reality.
For both the seed and the soul, these things all take time. In both cases there is need for patience. Most of us know enough not to poke at the seed to see if it is sprouting, or try to hurry it along with too much water or fertilizer of cultivation. The same respect must be shown for the soul as its growth starts to take place. Growth can seldom be forced in nature. Whether it is producing a tree or a human personality, nature unfolds its growth slowly, silently.
It is so difficult for human beings to understand that more than one condition may be needed to realize some possibility. We seem to have an insatiable desire to make things simple, to reduce every complexity to one cause. It is difficult for us to adjust to the world around us as it is. While there is no harm in trying to simplify things enough to understand them, too often we try to force reality to fit some rigid pattern of our own ideas. Where meditation is concerned, we need to realize two things. Meditation is simple and natural, like a seed growing and becoming a tree. At the same time it requires the right conditions not provided by the secular world today. If meditation is to touch reality, we must seek out the right climate. Amen.
In Christ,
Lawrence
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
Devotional reading 020211
Dear brothers and sisters,
Good morning. We are so blessed with such beautiful weather in the Bay Area, while the rest of this nation suffers in snow storm. We certainly don’t deserve this blessing. It is purely the grace of God. Amen? Thank you for your prayer for my study. I past through the first reader (The Chair of my dissertation committee), and my dissertation is now in the hand of second reader. I will still have one more reader to do evaluation before my dissertation is finally done for graduation on April 30th at Portland campus. It was truly a miracle that I could finish my degree program in less than two years, which were packed with heavy workload and traveling schedule. When I look back to this one and a half year, it was purely God’s grace to me again. Praise the Lord!!
Let’s continue our reading on The Other Side of Silence…
It is important to realize that each type of person has to take his/her own avenue to find and explore his/her relationship with God. God is found in many different ways. The important thing for me as an individual is to find a way that will get me there, into that relationship, so that I can begin to grow. For teachers of the religious way the important thing is to learn how to encourage different ways of responding, to discover how they differ from their own, and how others can develop their own relationship. They also need to study the language and the expressions of others. Most of the devotional manuals were probably written by introverted intuitive (as they would usually be the only ones who would care about writing them) and so they must be translated to be understood by other types.
Whether we are directing our own lives or others’ it is wise to realize that our type structures can change as life changes within and around us. Thus, practices which may be very meaningful at one time will not be as important at another period of our lives. Real life is fluid and ever changing, and so are real people, particularly in their relationship with the center and core of reality. When we are “stuck in cement” and cannot change our meditational lives, they suffer just like our relationships with other human beings. Creative human beings keep changing and adjusting to the complexities and varieties of life, to new experiences and new people, and also to God.
Each of us becomes the artist as we allow ourselves to be open to the reality of the Other and give expression to that encounter either in words or paint or stone or in the fabric of our lives. Each of us who has come to know and relate to the Other and expresses this in any way is an artist in spite of himself/herself. The reason for the tragedy and futility of so much of modern life is that it has lost this dimension. The art which reflects only the barrenness of life shares in the meaninglessness and absurdity. In the deepest sense religion, in which the individual has not been touched by the center of which we speak, is cold and unfeeling. It does not know the fire and expression of art. Art, which has not touched the same center, either is bravado in the darkness, despair, or debases itself into entertainment. In the final analysis meditation is the art of living life in its fullest and deepest. Genuine religion and art are two names for the same in- credible meeting with reality and give expression to that experience in some manner. The experience of this reality demands expression. This is part of the experience. Those who have been badly hurt or disappointed or perhaps recover something of the reality by seeing the process of meditation and prayer as the final and sublime art form and the most creative way of living out a life.
It is only dangerous to view meditation as art when we do not take art seriously and so refuse to see that real art is working one’s salvation out with fear and trembling. When art is seen merely as one’s attempt to reach aesthetic perfection, then it loses its seriousness and becomes a plaything and not a reality. But this is only possible in a world which does not know the reality of the spiritual world and so sees art merely as a human product and not a revelation of more than human harmony and meaning.
Humankind stands as a bridge between two worlds. Our greatest moments are when we have met, nakedly and face to face, the reality that saves and transforms, and then express this as part of our assimilating the experience. Our records of such experiences give us a further step on the road. They also give others light to find the path they must follow. Everyone’s encounter and record brings more light and consciousness into this world and allows the forces of darkness to be beaten back.
Meditation is an art. It is not a formula we use to deepen our relationship with God. We may wish for a quick fix way to grow our lives by like swallowing a pill. I am sure many young parents wished their kids grow instantly, so that they don’t need to change diapers, enduring sleepless nights, worrying about their baby’s health problem, and so forth. Somehow God does not design human life to grow faster than other animal species. On a contrary, human baby grows slower than poppy. Moreover, God designs each baby to be unique and different. Parents need to grow their babies each in an unique manner, and that is a form of art. Relationship building is an art, no matter how scientific an approach we want it to be. Artistic expression is shaped by a lot of different factors like personality and culture. God is our ultimate reality. He remains unchanged to all cultures and personalities. But our experiences of Him may vary from one to another. The bottom line is we all want to grow in this relationship with God. And when we share our intimate experiences with God in fellowship with one another, we grow as one Body in Christ.
In the bond of His love with you,
Lawrence
Good morning. We are so blessed with such beautiful weather in the Bay Area, while the rest of this nation suffers in snow storm. We certainly don’t deserve this blessing. It is purely the grace of God. Amen? Thank you for your prayer for my study. I past through the first reader (The Chair of my dissertation committee), and my dissertation is now in the hand of second reader. I will still have one more reader to do evaluation before my dissertation is finally done for graduation on April 30th at Portland campus. It was truly a miracle that I could finish my degree program in less than two years, which were packed with heavy workload and traveling schedule. When I look back to this one and a half year, it was purely God’s grace to me again. Praise the Lord!!
Let’s continue our reading on The Other Side of Silence…
It is important to realize that each type of person has to take his/her own avenue to find and explore his/her relationship with God. God is found in many different ways. The important thing for me as an individual is to find a way that will get me there, into that relationship, so that I can begin to grow. For teachers of the religious way the important thing is to learn how to encourage different ways of responding, to discover how they differ from their own, and how others can develop their own relationship. They also need to study the language and the expressions of others. Most of the devotional manuals were probably written by introverted intuitive (as they would usually be the only ones who would care about writing them) and so they must be translated to be understood by other types.
Whether we are directing our own lives or others’ it is wise to realize that our type structures can change as life changes within and around us. Thus, practices which may be very meaningful at one time will not be as important at another period of our lives. Real life is fluid and ever changing, and so are real people, particularly in their relationship with the center and core of reality. When we are “stuck in cement” and cannot change our meditational lives, they suffer just like our relationships with other human beings. Creative human beings keep changing and adjusting to the complexities and varieties of life, to new experiences and new people, and also to God.
Each of us becomes the artist as we allow ourselves to be open to the reality of the Other and give expression to that encounter either in words or paint or stone or in the fabric of our lives. Each of us who has come to know and relate to the Other and expresses this in any way is an artist in spite of himself/herself. The reason for the tragedy and futility of so much of modern life is that it has lost this dimension. The art which reflects only the barrenness of life shares in the meaninglessness and absurdity. In the deepest sense religion, in which the individual has not been touched by the center of which we speak, is cold and unfeeling. It does not know the fire and expression of art. Art, which has not touched the same center, either is bravado in the darkness, despair, or debases itself into entertainment. In the final analysis meditation is the art of living life in its fullest and deepest. Genuine religion and art are two names for the same in- credible meeting with reality and give expression to that experience in some manner. The experience of this reality demands expression. This is part of the experience. Those who have been badly hurt or disappointed or perhaps recover something of the reality by seeing the process of meditation and prayer as the final and sublime art form and the most creative way of living out a life.
It is only dangerous to view meditation as art when we do not take art seriously and so refuse to see that real art is working one’s salvation out with fear and trembling. When art is seen merely as one’s attempt to reach aesthetic perfection, then it loses its seriousness and becomes a plaything and not a reality. But this is only possible in a world which does not know the reality of the spiritual world and so sees art merely as a human product and not a revelation of more than human harmony and meaning.
Humankind stands as a bridge between two worlds. Our greatest moments are when we have met, nakedly and face to face, the reality that saves and transforms, and then express this as part of our assimilating the experience. Our records of such experiences give us a further step on the road. They also give others light to find the path they must follow. Everyone’s encounter and record brings more light and consciousness into this world and allows the forces of darkness to be beaten back.
Meditation is an art. It is not a formula we use to deepen our relationship with God. We may wish for a quick fix way to grow our lives by like swallowing a pill. I am sure many young parents wished their kids grow instantly, so that they don’t need to change diapers, enduring sleepless nights, worrying about their baby’s health problem, and so forth. Somehow God does not design human life to grow faster than other animal species. On a contrary, human baby grows slower than poppy. Moreover, God designs each baby to be unique and different. Parents need to grow their babies each in an unique manner, and that is a form of art. Relationship building is an art, no matter how scientific an approach we want it to be. Artistic expression is shaped by a lot of different factors like personality and culture. God is our ultimate reality. He remains unchanged to all cultures and personalities. But our experiences of Him may vary from one to another. The bottom line is we all want to grow in this relationship with God. And when we share our intimate experiences with God in fellowship with one another, we grow as one Body in Christ.
In the bond of His love with you,
Lawrence
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