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This article about the present moment is worth reading just for this one quotation, which I could have written myself:
As a priest, I spend far more time helping people deal with the eradication of false images of God than I do helping them come to grips with the God who is. We are idolaters in the very deepest sense of the word – and we should be the first to acknowledge it.
It is also worth reading for what he says about how we imaginatively (and falsely) construct the past and future and live lies about ourselves and about God.
Read more at Where We Dare Not Go « Glory to God for All Things.
Prayer of St. Nicholas von Flüe
My Lord and my God,
take everything from me that
keeps me from Thee.
My Lord and my God,
give everything to me that
brings me nearer to Thee.
My Lord and my God,
take me away from myself and
give me completely to Thee.
For more information about St. Nicholas, you could read Wikipedia or the Catholic Encyclopedia. Here is a rather extensive source, but it is in German, which is good because that’s the language St. Nicholas spoke.
 Early (German?) painting of St. Nicholas von Flüe from an altarpiece.
One of the most exciting things I have read about prayer in quite a while, and a much-needed corrective to many off-the-mark tendencies in modern American Christian praying.
The simple truth, painful as it is, is that “pray about it” is among the worst spiritual advice ever given to someone. Not that God should not be prayed to – but most people have so little experience in such a reality that “praying about it” is tantamount to asking them to write an algorithm on the topic or express it in terms of quantum mechanics.
There is, properly, a great reverence for prayer in our culture – but very little true experience in prayer….
But there is a much larger question involved in all of this. Should we make decisions, momentous decisions, based on “praying about things?” Is prayer the means to obtain the truth and make proper decisions in the Christian life?
I hope that piqued your curiosity enough to read the whole article at Pray About It « Glory to God for All Things.
I am not saying that your politics, economics, and basic assumptions about life, the universe, and everything are wrong (although, if I were truly preaching as a representative of Jesus that is exactly what I would say). I am saying that if they are still those ideas which came naturally and automatically to you; if your politics, economics, and assumptions are the same as they would be if you were not a Christian; if your assumptions come first and your theology justifies them, then those assumptions are utterly wrong and your theology is damnable. On the other hand, if your theology has altered your opinions and assumptions, especially if it has done so in a way which has made you profoundly uncomfortable, then, though they are quite possibly still wrong, you are at least moving in the right direction.
Jesus’ basic message to us is this: All of our assumptions about life–and that means all of us– are, at best, inadequate, and, at worst, the opposite of the truth. This is the beginning of the wisdom which he teaches. It is the most unpleasant secret I have discovered, and it must become the heart of my life and, God help me, my preaching.
I have a great deal of respect for the work of Robert Funk and the Jesus Seminar, but they too often function as iconoclasts. What we need to ask ourselves now is what was so wrong with what we were doing that has made this kind of iconoclasticism seem so important to us, so informing, so liberating?
from “No Nation Is Christian” (and Phyllis Tickle Knows) | Wittenburg Door.
I often ask myself just that question. Here are some thoughts, in no particular order.
- We have co-opted Jesus into being the main pillar supporting the social and political order of the day. At its worst, you see this in the “Jesus was no Jew” white supremacists. (Oh, good, pick on white supremacists; everybody can get behind condemning them; it’s safe.) At its most pervasive, though, we ignore–sometimes quite deliberately–the inconvenient fact that Jesus called into question even the most basic human institutions, like the nuclear family. His underlying message is that everything which is natural and normal for us is, at best, inadequate.
- Continuing the last point, we de-radicalize Jesus. He really did not value what I value. He did not see the world from the same basic underlying assumptions I have. He did not share my root priorities. When he becomes just a supporter of what I already know and believe, he becomes worthless.
- We turn Jesus into the machine which produces the product “salvation.” This is bad theology and possibly blasphemy. And it makes Jesus very boring indeed.
 Icon of St. Guthlac, by the hand of Ted Hewitt. I am delighted beyond words to have received an icon of saint Guthlac. It was written for me by my friend Ted Hewitt. As you can see from the photo (click it to embiggen), it is truly beautiful. I am feeling somewhat like a new daddy: I didn’t do the work of bringing it into the world, but I am bubbling over with joy and I want to share the glory with everyone.
The image is based on the oldest known depictions of him, the pictures in the Guthlac Roll (more images from the Roll are available at the Western Saints Icons Project). There are no known portraits of him, but those pictures, and this icon, show his spirit very well.
St. Guthlac was a hermit. If I were a real hermit, he would be my inspiration. As it is, I am a want-to-be hermit, and he is still my inspiration. I could give you a summary of his life, but you would be better served by reading the Catholic Encyclopedia entry about him. You might also want to read this insightful essay about him (PDF, will open in new window).
As is true of many of the great saints, Guthlac is not just an historical figure to read about as history. More than that, he is a mythic figure who shows us what the life in Christ is all about. In him, we can see out own struggles mirrored and modeled. His life tells us something profound about the pursuit of wisdom, about answering God’s call, about firm intention with humility, about holiness not as an abstract pastel pious idea but as flesh-and-blood struggle day after day.
I am grateful for the actual person Guthlac, and I am grateful for the lessons God teaches through his life and example. I am joyful to be assured of his prayers for me, and I am tickled to have this new icon of him.
Those of you who are members of St. Ita’s will have a chance to see the icon and to venerate it. I will have it blessed and then I want to have an exposition and festival at church.
Please pray for me, that I will be able to respond to God’s call through St. Guthlac, and pray for Ted the iconographer.
Watch this video. It’s about the Jesus I know.
Broken Open
I want my church to be all about that Jesus.
Follow the link and find out why I’m feeling so special today.
Pithless Thoughts: 100… Still 200 Shy of the Spartans.
Pithless Thoughts is a fun blog, sometimes with deceptively pith-full thoughts and many funny cartoons about the Christian life from an Orthodox perspective.
It has been a hot couple of days around here, so I thought to remind myself of what it is like when it isn’t hot. Here’s a puzzle for you to do. It shows my back yard in winter. Continue reading Beat the heat with a puzzle »
The Adjutorium is a prayer which presupposes and fosters great trust in God.
Although it goes without saying that we will always call upon God in our needs and ask him to remedy those needs in specific ways (e.g. “Heal my brother-in-law,” “Help me get this job,” “Teach me patience and humility,” etc.), it seems that the more we mature as Christians the less confidence we place in our own ability to know what is best for us. The more we know our need for God and the more we trust him to run things for the greater good. He loves us and does not want us to be little puppets, and so he wants to hear the deepest concerns of our hearts, poured out honestly. But as we grow in trust-of-God and distrust-of-self, the less we feel the need to give God specific directions in prayer. Ultimately, we wind up with the Adjutorium: “O God, come to my assistance; O Lord, make haste to help me!”
This is perfect trust. We show our needs to God, we speak to him as someone who loves us, and we trust him to do what is best, to know best. We trust him to have our best interests at heart and the interests of those around us. The Adjutorium can be prayed truly only by those who really believe in God’s absolute care and love. Another way to say this is that the Adjutorium can be prayed truly only by a humble person.
And what if we are not there yet? What if we still feel the need to tell God what to do? What if we really do believe that he will pull a fast one on us if we are not precise in our requests to him? Well then, praying the Adjutorium teaches us to get over that silliness.
Have you heard the phrase “Act as if”? This is said by many people, but I have heard it often in the context of 12 step programs, especially from my recovering alcoholic friends. It means that after you come to believe in the head that something is true but your guts don’t get it yet, you choose to act on the truth even though you don’t feel it, even though it is scary to do so, even though it is not natural for you yet. And eventually, it becomes real, natural, automatic. It becomes real by practice.
The Adjutorium can act this way for us. By praying as if we truly trust God, we learn to trust him. By praying as if we really believed in his love and wisdom, we really do work around to believing it. And that produces a life lived with confidence and boldness since God really is in charge. Best of all, it produces humility, which is the result we are all striving for as Christians.
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