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Book of the Month: Thoughts in Solitude

Posted on August 1, 2016August 1, 2016 by Ed Cyzewski

Week One: The Cost of Neglecting Solitude

Thomas Merton makes me want to take a walk in the woods for a week. At a time when we have no shortage of words, we desperately need the wisdom and insight that comes from extended periods of solitude. Just by virtue of his beautiful prose, Merton makes solitude desirable.

Via the book’s description: “Thoughts in Solitude addresses the pleasure of a solitary life, as well as the necessity for quiet reflection in an age when so little is private.”

Here are a few quotes from Merton to consider:

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“When society is made up of men who know no interior solitude it can no longer be held together by love: and consequently it is held together by a violent and abusive authority.”

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“God’s plan was that they [the Israelites] should learn to love Him in the wilderness and that they should always look back upon the time in the desert as the idyllic time of their life with Him alone.”

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Learn more about Thoughts in Solitude…

For Reflection

Contemplative Profiles: Brother Lawrence

Posted on June 23, 2016June 21, 2016 by Ed Cyzewski

We best know Brother Lawrence as an unassuming monk who worked hard in a monastery kitchen doing menial chores. It was hardly a step up from his previous occupation in the army, which he only joined because he had grown up in poverty. While serving as a soldier he had a spiritual experience that eventually sent him to a monastery.

Lawrence spent his days contemplating the love of God while washing pots and pan, running errands, and cleaning the kitchen. I have personally benefitted from his writings since I’m the person who washes the dishes in our home, but his example of inviting God to join him in the simplest of tasks is a powerful reminder of how to practice God’s presence today.

This profile in Christian History includes the following quotes from Brother Lawrence:

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Lawrence writes, “Men invent means and methods of coming at God’s love, they learn rules and set up devices to remind them of that love, and it seems like a world of trouble to bring oneself into the consciousness of God’s presence. Yet it might be so simple. Is it not quicker and easier just to do our common business wholly for the love of him?”

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“We can do little things for God; I turn the cake that is frying on the pan for love of him, and that done, if there is nothing else to call me, I prostrate myself in worship before him, who has given me grace to work; afterwards I rise happier than a king.”

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“As often as I could, I placed myself as a worshiper before him, fixing my mind upon his holy presence, recalling it when I found it wandering from him. This proved to be an exercise frequently painful, yet I persisted through all difficulties.”

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Contemplative Profiles: Pope Gregory I

Posted on June 16, 2016June 10, 2016 by Ed Cyzewski

The divide between the “professional” religious people and the lay people is nothing new for Christianity. In fact, Pope Gregory I struggled with the urgency of his ministry as Pope and his inner desire to make more time for contemplative prayer. He spent considerable time bridging the divide between the Christians who attempted to elevate the office of monk over the ministry of lay people.

His words remain helpful for us today as we seek to join our contemplation with action and to guide our action with contemplation.

Here are a few highlights from a recent profile:

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Gregory (ca. 540-604) was a contemplative mystic at heart who struggled all of his days with the conflict between busyness and intimacy with Christ. And this struggle gave him great pastoral sympathy for a group of people who had become “second-class citizens” in Christendom: married layfolk. His meditations on the busy life—the life he associated both with Jesus’ friend Martha and Jacob’s wife Leah—led him to formulate a spiritual theology that blasted monastic elitism and freed busy laypeople to enjoy the contemplative life.

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[While Pope] He wrote, “I am being smashed by many waves of affairs and afflicted by the storms of a life of tumults.” But whatever the dangers to his soul, the new pope felt obliged to spend himself in labor for his people, healing and calming whom he could among a populace battered by war, plague, and famine. His heart still aching for the contemplative life of the monastery, the shepherd devoted himself to his sheep.

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…The contemplative life equips us for the active life, and the active life grounds us in acts of love to our neighbors, to keep us from floating off into spiritual pride and irrelevance.

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God Loves Imposters

Posted on June 1, 2016June 1, 2016 by Ed Cyzewski

Healthy spirituality and writing doesn’t require particular accomplishments or milestones in order to be accepted. While the fear of failing or being exposed as an imposter can drive us to do excellent work, we won’t find the peace of God or develop a healthy relationship with our work over the long term with that driving us. .

Christian spirituality teaches us that we are already loved by God, whether or not we are exposed as imposters. In fact, John focused his ministry on repentance because exposing our failures is the only path to freedom. We have to face our worst fears of being imposters and surrender ourselves to the generous, forgiving love of God.

The following article on the imposter syndrome offers some helpful tools for identifying imposter syndrome and ways to manage it.

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Studies show impostor syndrome is related to anxiety and intense fear of failure. So you race to keep up the facade… but when you work hard to make sure you’re not found out, it only reinforces the impostor belief.
You fooled them again. But next time you might not be so lucky.

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But now not only are you feeling bad and overworking but you’re also alone. You can’t tell anyone your “secret.” You feel like you can’t ask for help because you’ll look incompetent.
In the end, it’s exhausting. Working hard, afraid of being “found out” and not being able to turn to anyone is enormously stressful. Eventually you may see self-sabotage as the only way out.

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Focusing on improvement means you know you’re not perfect but you know you can get better. With that attitude, you can. And if you fail, hey, you learned something.
But focusing exclusively on performance goals means anything less than perfect is death. That’s incredibly stressful and pushes you to do things that are extreme, unhealthy and maybe unethical.

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Swarthmore professor Barry Schwartz says “good enough” is the secret to happiness and neuroscience studies agree.

Instead of doing everything to keep up this illusion that you’re perfect, accept that you’re not. Don’t build self-confidence, build self-compassion. Forgive yourself when you screw up. Research shows increasing self-compassion has all the benefits of self-esteem — but without the downsides.

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Featured Contemplative Book: The Ragamuffin Gospel

Posted on May 30, 2016May 28, 2016 by Ed Cyzewski

Week One: Receiving God’s Love

Author Brennan Manning touches on a mystery that has long been a struggle in my Christian faith: How do I begin to love God?

So much of my evangelical background focuses on emotions and passion, being on fire for God and committing to a relationship with all sincerity. If you aren’t “feeling it,” it’s hard to know what to do next.

I learned the hard way that you can’t learn your way into loving God or make yourself love God out of duty or obligation, because this is what good Christians do.

Manning’s solution is striking, simple, and the best kind of news: we love God because he first loved us (see 1 John 4:19). In fact, the foundation of Christianity, the cross, and healthy Christian religious practice and spirituality is the love of God that preempts all of our best efforts.

While I could recommend several Manning books, including The Furious Longing of God, we’re going to feature his popular book The Ragamuffin Gospel this month:

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We must go out into a desert of some kind (your backyard will do) and come into a personal experience of the awesome love of God. Then we will nod in knowing agreement with that gifted English mystic Julian of Norwich, “The greatest honor we can give Almighty God is to live gladly because of the knowledge of his love.”

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In essence, there is only one thing God asks of us—that we be men and women of prayer, people who live close to God, people for whom God is everything and for whom God is enough. That is the root of peace. We have that peace when the gracious God is all we seek.

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Do you really believe that the Father of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ is gracious, that He cares about you? Do you really believe that He is always, unfailingly present to you as companion and support? Do you really believe that God is love?

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For Reflection

Contemplative Profiles: Teresa of Avila

Posted on May 26, 2016May 25, 2016 by Ed Cyzewski

Teresa of Avila (1515 to 1582) is remembered as a practical mystic whose combination of contemplation and service make her a particularly friendly guide for Protestants seeking an introduction to contemplative practices. Her writings on spirituality, the soul, and spiritual direction are viewed as classics, and she used her considerable leadership abilities to found 14 Carmelite convents–a point that made her less than popular among the defensive men leading the church throughout Spain during her lifetime.

While we would do well to remember the writings of Teresa, another aspect of her legacy may provide particular encouragement. Her first 20 years in a convent were largely unproductive as she wavered with her commitment and struggled with sin. It took a dramatic spiritual encounter with Christ to finally propel her into deeper spiritual practices.

How many of us have worried about missing opportunities to draw near to God or struggling with sins for years? Teresa reminds us that there is always hope.

The Interior Castle is one of her best-known books on prayer, but this brief profile in Christian History offers a helpful introduction:

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“Whoever has not begun the practice of prayer, I beg for the love of the Lord not to go without so great a good. There is nothing here to fear but only something to desire.”

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The Interior Castle describes the soul as a “castle made entirely of diamond or of a very clear crystal, in which there are many rooms.” Some are above, some below, some to the sides, “and in the very center and middle is the main dwelling place where the very secret exchanges between God and the soul take place.” Teresa wanted to teach her readers how to enter this castle, that is, how to pray, so that they might commune more intimately with God.

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For Teresa true suffering comes from being in the world and serving others. Spiritual progress is measured neither by self-imposed penance nor by the sweetest pleasures of mystical experiences but by growth in constant love for others and an increasing desire within for the will of God.

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For Reflection

How have your attempts at prayer been stifled by fear?

Why We Need Solitude, Especially for Creativity

Posted on May 25, 2016May 24, 2016 by Ed Cyzewski

Solitude and giving ourselves short breaks throughout the day for our minds to wander aren’t just healthy for our spiritual practices. They can also help us with our creative work. The following article from LifeHacker explores the research behind creativity, and the ways that we can nurture creative thinking.

The short version is that taking a walk can be extremely good for both your prayer practices and for your creative project!

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“What Barron found was that the most creative thinkers all exhibited certain common traits: an openness to one’s inner life; a preference for ambiguity and complexity; an unusually high tolerance for disorder and disarray (and vodka and orange juice if we’re talking about Capote); and the ability to extract order from chaos.”

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“From a social, cultural, and scientific standpoint, creativity seems to come more freely when we’re able to utilize the parts of our brain that are less connected to reality and more free flowing in nature.”

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“In almost every ‘system’ of creativity devised, the most important part of the process involves a letting go of your consciousness to let the deeper parts of your mind come in and make connections. Without incubation—that space away from direct thought—there is no Eureka!”

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“One of the traits that Barron found during his creativity study was that creative people are more introspective. But not only in the sense that they have an increased level of self-awareness, but that they also have a familiarity with the darker and more uncomfortable parts of their psyche.

You’ve probably read about the creative benefits of daydreaming, but one of the things that is rarely mentioned in these essays is the importance of uninhibited daydreaming—not letting your brain filter the thoughts coming into your head.”

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Contemplative Profiles: Margery of Kempe

Posted on April 28, 2016April 27, 2016 by Ed Cyzewski

Some of the most important reforms (or attempts at reforms!) in the history of the church came from women who not only held themselves to far more rigorous standards than men but who were rarely trusted. In fact, many female contemplatives were threatened with death, exile, or imprisonment.

Margery Kempe was one of the spiritual leaders of the Medieval Church who predated many of the critiques leveled by the Reformation, calling Christians to love and devotion to Christ rather than relying on external practices.

Today’s contemplative profile of Margery Kempe comes from a list of Women in the Medieval Church featured in Christianity Today:

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“Accused by her contemporaries of fraud or heresy, and often ridiculed by later scholars as hysterical or even crazy, Margery Kempe was born in Lyon, England, c. 1373, and died after 1438. She was an illiterate laywoman turned religious enthusiast who dictated her spiritual autobiography, The Book of Margery Kempe. It is the earliest known autobiography in English…”

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“Margery’s message is the exhortation to a simple, direct relationship with Christ based on unconditional faith and fervent love. She repeatedly downplays the importance of externals (such as fasting and the wearing of hair shirts), which, as Christ teaches her, are nothing compared to fervent love and devotion.”

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Reflection

In what ways can external practices become a substitute for devotion to Christ today?

Take 5 minutes to receive the love of Christ for you without precondition or limits.