Beasts of the Southern Wild

Beasts of the Southern Wild is an upcoming film (hopefully coming to a city and theatre near you), that portrays a humanity and creation of connectedness.  The film shows that there's an underlying spirituality to everything that connects us all - land, water, animals, men, and women.  The film looks beautiful and adds an element of childlike fantasy, that I hope will resonate with many!  Check it out...



Peace,
Ross

Contemplative Prayer (PART VII - The End)

Contemplative prayer is a powerful tool that leads to a lifestyle of stability and interruption that are vital to our lives as followers of Christ.  Contemplative prayer exposes our selfish wants and desires, and moves us toward an understanding that simply being with God is more than enough.  Contemplative prayer is antithetical to the ways of our culture: hyper-creation, productivity, entertainment, and consumerism.  Contemplative prayer solidifies our identities to Christ, and makes everything spiritual, holy, and potentially good. 

As we continue our journeys, I hope that we will make this a priority.  I hope that you have been encouraged by the truths of scripture, the example of Jesus and the early Church, and the hope of an aligned future with our Creator.  Please strive to live life “in the river.”  God is doing incredible things in this world and we must have hope to reclaim the essence of being with and seeing God face to face, through contemplative prayer.

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Thanks so very much for reading this series.  I hope its provided some insights and will help you in your journey.

Peace,
Ross

Contemplative Prayer (PART VI - Practice)

Saying that “we do not find our own center; it finds us…we do not think ourselves into new ways of living.  We live ourselves into new ways of thinking” is one thing (Rohr 2003, 19).  But getting to a place were we both believe and actively practice it is difficult.  It requires a departure from the thinking of culture, from Plato, from Aristotle, even the Church at times.  To become stable in our interruptions and to live lives of contemplative prayer takes time, effort, and change in perspective.
   
To enter into contemplative prayer in 2012, several practices help to create the necessary stability, interruption, and change to reorient how we see and perceive things.  First, it is important to practice silence and solitude.  Both are difficult.  They are contrary to the hyper-paced world of consumerism and productivity, but are vital components to the contemplative prayer life. Thibodeaux argues that “I can have silence without solitude, but I cannot have solitude without being silent” (Thibodeaux 2001, 41).  Slowing down and ridding oneself of distraction take practice, time, and dedication. 
   
To aid the practice of silence and solitude, “ready-made prayers” become increasingly helpful (Thibodeaux 2001, 55).  To repetitively pray, “God’s will be done,” or The Lord’s Prayer, the individual can begin to focus on God more intimately and escape the to-do lists and other tasks and thoughts that distract from silence and solitude.  Over time, these prayers seep into all thoughts, leaving the individual with a practice that allows a more continued silence, solitude, and prayer, which is now part of the natural flow of one’s day.  God is on our lips and in our minds, and becomes the filter for which life is now lived. 
   
Another effective prayer is, “I am God’s subject…what does my King expect of me?  What do I expect of my King?  How far will I go in service to Him?  How loyal am I?  How loyal do I want to be?” (Thibodeaux 2001, 56).  This is another centering prayer that, over time and practice, becomes the filter to how all of life is lived.  We enter into relationships seeking what God’s will, would be.  We complete our mundane tasks in light of them being a service to God.  This truly changes everything.  There is no longer a segment of life with God, and a segment with the world.  This prayer relishes the scriptural truth that “The earth is the Lord’s and all that is in it,” and that everything we say and do, have Kingdom implications.  The contemplative prayer is now a regular piece that connects everything. 
   
Finally, to practice a contemplative prayer life that provides stability and interruption, leads us to Thibodeaux’s conclusion, that “When I finally painfully turn my eyes away from my own reflection and look upon the face of God, I am so struck by God’s beauty that I never look upon myself again” (Thibodeaux 2001, 145).  Left to our own devices, we feel the need to justify time and efforts spent with God in contemplative prayer.  Our culture tells us that in all things there is a return on investment, and that through this time of contemplation we should gain an actionable plan or an awareness that betters us in such a way that validates the time and effort put out.  However, as we practice contemplative prayer, we understand that God’s purposes are not necessarily the world’s purposes, and that being with Him is sufficient enough.  God is more than enough.  The contemplative prayer shows us that over and over again. 

Peace,
Ross

p.s. tomorrow will be the final PART to this series!

Contemplative Prayer (PART V - Stability & Interruption)

Stability

One way in which we can begin to move toward a healthy understanding of contemplative prayer (and life) that the scriptures points us towards, is to practice stability.  Jonathon Hartgrove writes, “the practice of stability is the means by which God’s house becomes our home…the ground of stability is always God’s grace.  But the stability God invites us into is a practice that entails a way of life.  To dwell in the house of God is to be transformed into people who know the ways and means of God” (Hartgrove 2010, 17).
   
Stability is not economic provision, secure health care, and properly functioning cars.  Stability deals much more closely with the notion that “we are suspended between heaven and earth on a ladder that promises communion with God but is also planted firmly on the ground…it is a commitment to trust God not in an ideal world, but in the battered and bruised world we know” (Hartgrove 2010, 24).  Stability cannot overlook community.  It is attached to community because it’s in the house of God that we create a home, a foundation for our faith, and we ultimately put our trust in God to sustain us in that community.

                                                 Interruption
The individual that seeks a contemplative prayer life must practice interruption.  He/she must become aware that out of a contemplative prayer life, transformation happens, reorients, creates new realities, and challenges assumptions.  This might sound the opposite of stability, but instead is a foundation for stability and contemplative prayer.  As Christians, we are participating in a faith that at its genesis is about transformation, change, restoration, and renewal.     
   
Interruption then works hand-in-hand with stability, because at our root of stability is the yearning for change and transformation.  This becomes our goal.  We are seeking the face of the God that transforms and doesn’t leave His children unaffected.  As we participate in contemplative prayer, we notice God in each situation and scenario as moving its participants in a direction.  Contemplative prayer enables us to holistically interrupt status quo and participate more fully in His kingdom, by knowing the heart of God. 
   
This is not an easy task.  We often enjoy uninterrupted stability in our jobs, our homes, and relationships.  But in Christ, we cannot stand still.  Part of culture’s lie is that our identities are tied to the ladders we climb.  How high we can get tells our story and defines us.  However, in contemplative prayer we are satisfied that our identities are in Christ alone, that we proclaim a new metric for whatever “success” may be, and that being with God is more important than becoming one. 


Peace,
Ross

Contemplative Prayer (PART IV - Now & Into the Future)

If contemplative prayer is such a counter-cultural spiritual discipline, how does one begin the practice?  Richard Rohr explains that we must begin living lives of contemplative prayer by “living and fully accepting our reality” (Rohr 2003, 18).  He continues to explain that “we do not find our own center; it finds us…we do not think ourselves into new ways of living.  We live ourselves into new ways of thinking” (Rohr 2003, 19).  Our lives circling the circumference cannot be escaped – they are our stories.  But the path around the circumference can indeed lead us to the core reality, “where we meet both our truest self and our truest God” (Rohr 2003, 19).  It is true that we do not know what it means to be human, unless we know God, because we are created in His image.  Thus, we cannot know God unless we know our own brokenness and suffering. 
   
The notion that Plato and Aristotle posited of knowledge leading to our ability in controlling nature, we have reworked our societies to prosper in this way.  We have even turned our spirituality into a results-based-faith.  The lie is that successful churches are mega-churches, and that the same economies of the world echo God’s economies.  But “spirituality is about seeing.  It’s not about earning or achieving.  Its about relationship rather than results or requirements” (Rohr 2003, 33). 

You don’t need to push the river, because you are in it.  The life is lived within us, and we learn how to say yes to that life.  If we exist on a level where we can see how everything belongs, we can trust the flow and trust the life, the life so large and deep and spacious that it even includes its opposite, death.  We must do this, because it is the only life available to us, as Paul wrote to the Colossians, “You have died [the small ego self], and the life you new have is hidden with Christ in God [the Godself].  When Christ is revealed – and he is your life – you too will be revealed in all your glory with him” (Col. 3:3-4)  (Rohr 2003, 34-35).

So if we are to truly believe that we are in Christ, we must assume that the totality of life’s experiences is contained in contemplative prayer.  We must work to align our hearts and minds to this truth.  We must accept that every moment is spiritual, that all ground is holy, and that every interaction has eternal significance.


Peace,
Ross

LOST & the Story of God

ALPHA.

Last night was the LOST season finale. Kate and I have been devotees for the past few years; watching, dissecting, and postulating every single episode. As the final scenes unraveled we truly felt like we were losing someone (or at least something profound - maybe our time commitment...maybe more).

The story line has primarily been a spiritual/faith epic, from each characters perspective. And last night we got to see how it ended.

Consider this...in most historical faiths, we know the beginning and the end (metaphorically at least). Its the middle though, that gets blurry. Its blurry because that's the part we reside in. Its riddled with doubt, belief, disbelief, mystery, struggle, joy, suffering, etc.

So as the story of LOST came to close last night, not every question from the blurry-middle was answered. But perhaps that's the point. Perhaps we need to struggle through the beginning and end just enough to help our struggle in the blurry-middle. Perhaps we're supposed to wrestle with the uncertainties because it draws us to (if not mandates) community.

LIVE TOGETHER or DIE ALONE...

Another theme from the show, not set apart from faith or spirituality - the communal aspect is as vital to the journey as the personal. I believe with all my heart that without true community, any sort of spiritual journey is a walk toward failure. Its not how we were created. And its not how the story ends.

Are there questions? YES
Will they ever be answered? MAYBE YES, MAYBE NO
Is that ok? ABSOLUTELY (if not even the point)

Faith and spirituality is not, and has never been, about empirical data and proof. It has always been about the rise and fall of community, remembrance, mystery, and faith.

OMEGA.

Book Entry #2 (a quick preview)

Here's another quick preview at one of the books I'm currently writing. I hope (with all my heart) it causes a stir...

Consider the implications of Outsourcing. From a business perspective, outsourcing typically refers to the third party subcontracting of a service, product, or manufacturing. Outsourcing usually takes place in order to lower costs, free up time, and energies. Most basically, outsourcing involves the transfer of a task to an external service provider...

...By now, this attitude of expectancy, commodification, and consumerism has engulfed the church and plays out no different than private companies. Our “church shopping” culture has somehow forced the hands of leaders to play into the power of the executive business models, where we now treat ministry as an assembly line. The more people we can turn on and turn out, the better off we are, the more successful our ministry, the bigger our steeple. It’s a numbers game, and quantity seems to be the driver.

The church, unlike the rest of the world, has often turned the vision and call of being Jesus’ hands and feet to the world, into an executable machine, with certain 10-step programs guaranteed to grow your congregation, grow your collection plate, and if there’s money left over at the end of the month, we’ll even supply the visitors with Jesus mints.

But this isn’t completely a get-rich-quick scheme of the church. Its not an evil plot sought out by seedy church leaders. It’s a deep and interconnected problem that society expects and the church caters to.

I do not intend to solely put the weight of this in the hands of church leaders either– in fact, many found themselves in this mess without even realizing. I do however mean to lay out some ideas and hopefully start a broader dialogue that can shift this culture away from its consumerist tendencies and begin to weave a new way of how ministry and true life change is brought about.

More to come later,
Ross