Friday, March 5, 2010 at 7:14 am

Fearing Emptyness

Posted by Abbie Smith | Comments (2) |

We are afraid of emptiness. Spinoza speaks about our "horror vacui," our horrendous fear of vacancy. We like to occupy-fill up-every empty time and space. We want to be occupied. And if we are not occupied we easily become preoccupied; that is, we fill the empty spaces before we have even reached them. We fill them with our worries, saying, "But what if ..."

It is very hard to allow emptiness to exist in our lives. Emptiness requires a willingness not to be in control, a willingness to let something new and unexpected happen. It requires trust, surrender, and openness to guidance. God wants to dwell in our emptiness. But as long as we are afraid of God and God's actions in our lives, it is unlikely that we will offer our emptiness to God. Let's pray that we can let go of our fear of God and embrace God as the source of all love.

-Henri Nouwen 

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Friday, March 5, 2010 at 3:48 pm

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Tuesday, February 23, 2010 at 3:11 pm

Laying Down our Masks

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My greatest war is the war against my own heart. I don’t lie because I want to; I lie because I’m not accustomed to spaces I can trust. I don’t cheat because I dislike my current state; I cheat because I dislike myself. I don’t steal because I need something; I steal because I don’t know what I have. I don’t kill because I hate them; I kill because I hate me. I like to be polished on the outside and lend no hint of needing help. On the rare occasions of one too many Merlots, or a trustworthy late-night chat, you might barrow my flimsy walls. And once there, you inevitably find needs, pleas, and most notably, me. Rarely will I let one in by choice though. “It feels too weak, or isn’t worthy of your time. When you ask if you can pray for me, I’ll go on to convince you to focus elsewhere…God has to handle everyone else’s problems, right? (Plus inner dialogue of, “What would they think if they actually knew what I was thinking)?” In short, in my weakest states, I hide. I hide my thirsts, inabilities and insecurities, thereby protecting myself from ever being truly seen, heard, or known.

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Tuesday, February 23, 2010 at 3:07 pm

Laying Down our Masks

Posted by Abbie Smith | Comments (0) |

My greatest war is the war against my own heart. I don’t lie because I want to; I lie because I’m not accustomed to spaces I can’t trust. I don’t cheat because I dislike my current state; I cheat because I dislike myself. I don’t steal because I need something; I steal because I don’t know what I have. I don’t kill because I hate them; I kill because I hate me. I like to be polished on the outside and lend no hint of needing help. On the rare occasions of one too many Merlots, or a trustworthy late-night chat, you might barrow my flimsy walls. And once there, you inevitably find needs, pleas, and most notably, me. Rarely will I let one in by choice though. “It feels too weak, or isn’t worthy of your time. When you ask if you can pray for me, I’ll go on to convince you to focus elsewhere…God has to handle everyone else’s problems, right? (Plus inner dialogue of, “What would they think if they actually knew what I was thinking)?” In short, in my weakest states, I hide. I hide my thirsts, inabilities and insecurities, thereby protecting myself from ever being truly seen, heard, or known.

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Tuesday, February 16, 2010 at 1:26 pm

Doubting Restoration

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Just opened a daily email reflection from Henri Nouwen, sharing on 1 Corinthians 15 and how if the resurrection wasn’t a reality, Jesus is a waste of our time. Restoration, in other words, is a waste of our belief. If the words of God are true, though, it is always His will to restore all things, even in things and scenes and circumstances we cannot understand. It is always in His will to make new, writing restoration into every waking moment of our existence. But I don’t believe this right now. Heartbreak and pain seem far more tangible.

Talked with a friend who’s serving in a remote village with a lifespan of approximately sixteen. Then passed a homeless child and his mother looking cold and fatigued on run-down street-corner. Then thought of the webs of pain, confusion and hurt clinging to family and friends this hour. Then tuned-out, finding more comfort in my overcast window and steam brewing from my tea, than attempting to understand God.

At some point I started emptying my mind onto paper. Unleashed a few phrases, and then seemingly without conscious doing, watched ink stain itself onto the page in the shape of the word “restoration.” My eyes welled-up, unable to connect with such a characteristic of God. Why this word, Lord? I don’t know what it means. I don’t know how it correlates with me, or You, or us this hour.” I don’t know how to believe this aspect of Your Being. Wrote and rewrote the word...until two pages of loose-leaf found themselves covered with questions, anger, desire to believe, but recognition of my disbelief toward this fierce, eleven-letter word.

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Tuesday, February 9, 2010 at 1:45 pm

Seen By God

Posted by Abbie Smith | Comments (0) |

A.W. Tozer said, “What comes to our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us,” falls in a similar vein. And based on some recent experiences, I’d add an addendum saying, “What we think comes to God’s mind when He thinks about, or sees us” is similarly important.

Some of my favorite minutes of the week have become a Sunday evening Compline service, held from 9-9:30pm at an old Episcopalian church in town. The candlelit ambiance is quiet, dark and patient. Voices sing from a choir-pit above, and a stain-glass window of Christ peers from ahead. At one point congregants stand, but otherwise, it’s an entirely passive thirty minutes, whereby aside from showing-up and staying open to how I’m experiencing God and myself, nothing is asked of me. That’s the good news.

 

The bad news, or agonizingly difficult news, is that Compline is an entirely passive thirty minutes, whereby aside from showing-up and staying open to how I’m experiencing God and myself, nothing is asked of me. Nothing of my doing is asked its opinion. Just my being is—just my simple noticing of where I find myself. And each week, such a finding is entirely unique.

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Tuesday, February 2, 2010 at 7:19 am

Being Merciful with Ourselves

Posted by Abbie Smith | Comments (0) |

We need silence in our lives. We even desire it. But when we enter into silence we encounter a lot of inner noises, often so disturbing that a busy and distracting life seems preferable to a time of silence. Two disturbing "noises" present themselves quickly in our silence: the noise of lust and the noise of anger. Lust reveals our many unsatisfied needs, anger or many unresolved relationships. But lust and anger are very hard to face.  What are we to do? Jesus says, "Go and learn the meaning of the words: Mercy is what pleases me, not sacrifice" (Matthew 9:13). Sacrifice here means "offering up," "cutting out," "burning away," or "killing." We shouldn't do that with our lust and anger. It simply won't work. But we can be merciful toward our own noisy selves and turn these enemies into friends. -Henri Nouwen

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Friday, January 29, 2010 at 12:11 pm

What if Lust was a Gift?

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Consider the following conversation with a college student recently:

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Saturday, January 23, 2010 at 9:50 am

Holy Flesh

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Sometimes lines of the Bible will strike me as odd, or flat-out antithetical to what I imagine God was trying to say. Psalm 145:22 (NAS) recently realized itself as one these: My mouth will speak the praise of the LORD, and all the flesh will bless his holy Name for ever and ever (various other translations say “my flesh”).

I’m okay with the first part, but the second part jolts me to question the Psalmist’s theology, and sobriety. “David, I think you mixed-up your thoughts here, bud. You’re right-on with “speaking God’s praises and blessing His holy Name for ever and ever,” but then you throw-in this flesh part. Flesh can’t bless anything but itself. It defines the “bad, ugly, fallen, sinful, wretched man am I” category. And it hates God and is rightfully opposed to blessing.

Right?”

Yes, according to most pulpits and popular thought, but no, according to the whole of God’s word.

Most of my days begin with The Divine Hours, joining myself to fixed prayers practiced throughout the ages.* And about the time I started wrestling with David’s seeming inebriations, the Hours had me repeating this appointed prayer for the week: O God, who wonderfully created, and yet more wonderfully restored, the dignity of human nature: Grant that we may share the divine life of him who humbled himself to share our humanity, your Son Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

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Monday, January 18, 2010 at 10:16 am

Light in Darkness

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http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/18/world/americas/18church.html?ref=globa...

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Wednesday, January 13, 2010 at 10:29 am

Book Review: "The Cloister Walk"

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Just finished-up, The Cloister Walk, by Kathleen Norris, and would highly recommend it.  It’s not easy to write about monastic living in a way that’s attractive to the average reader, but she’s found a way to do so—exceptionally so, in fact.  Introduced to Kathleen’s work through, Acedia and Me (another highly recommended read), I would say Norris is of modernity’s most adept, well spoken and unknown of Christian theologians.  She’s a Benedictine oblate who writes poetically enough to draw color into the morose, and technically enough to maintain lines of conviction in her professed Christian faith.

The Cloister Walk travels with ease between worlds of academia and theology, while yet the distinct voice of a poet.  “Scholars speak with authority,” she says, “and they must, as they are trying to convince the reader that they have a worthwhile point of view.  On the other hand, poets speak with no authority but that which the reader is willing to grant them.  Our task is not to convince but to suggest, evoke, explore.  And to be a poet, which at its root means “maker,” to be a maker of phenomena, speaking without reference to authority but simply because the words are given you, is not necessarily welcome in the academic world” (p 37). 

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