BOOK OF THE MONTH: THE REVELATIONS OF DIVINE LOVE

Posted on by Lisa Deam

Week Two: Seeking God or Seeing God?

All Shall Be Well

In her spiritual classic, The Revelations of Divine Love, English anchoress Julian of Norwich has some amazing insights about how we experience God. In one section of the book, Julian explores the tension between having God and yearning for God; between seeking God and seeing God.

Often these two states occur at the same time, she says. But it’s nothing to worry about. Julian makes the point that seeking God is our job, while seeing God is up to God.

 

All this made me realize that during this time that we suffer on Earth, seeking is as good as seeing. Leave your awareness of the Divine Presence up to God, in humility and trust, to reveal to you as God wants. Our only job is to cling to God with total trust.

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God is pleased when we seek the Divine Presence continually, even if from our perspective, we do nothing but seek and suffer. We see with clarity that we have found God only when the Spirit’s special grace reveals this to us. It is the seeking, with faith, hope, and love, that pleases our Protector, while it is the finding that pleases us and fills us with joy.

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When this [Holy] Presence comes to us, it comes out of the blue, with such speed that we are startled—and God wants us to trust and wait for this Divine Jack-in-the-Box. For God is utterly kind, and the Holy Presence welcomes our hearts with total hospitality. Blessed may God be!

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Julian of Norwich (1342 – c. 1416) was an English visionary, mystic, anchoress, and writer. Read about her here.

I’ve been enjoying the Divine Revelations in a modern translation entitled All Shall Be Well.

For reflection:

Julian of Norwich - week 2

FRIDAY FAVORITES FOR PRAYER AND WRITING

Posted on by Lisa Deam

Each Friday I share some of my favorite finds related to praying or writing. If I think it could help you pray or write better, or just “be” better, I’ll include it below. This week’s finds tend more toward spirituality than writing; some weeks are just like that.

Do you have someone else’s article or post to share? Join the Contemplative Writers Facebook group, comment on today’s post on my Facebook page, or follow me on Twitter (@LisaKDeam) to nominate your favorite articles, blog posts, and books by Thursday at noon each week.

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12 Best Practices for Finding Time, Energy, and Inspiration to Write + A Prayer for Writers via Sarah Bessey (notes from Sarah’s workshop at the Princeton Theological Seminary’s Frederick Buechner Writer’s Workshop)

Franciscan Spirituality: Week 1 via Richard Rohr (on St. Francis, a “second Christ”)

Putting on the Mind of Christ via Chuck DeGroat (what is “unknowing” and how does it relate to putting on the mind of Christ?)

The Wonder Of It All via Sharon Brani (finding God in the beauty of the cosmos; after you read this essay, check out the entire June issue of The Redbud Post on finding God in creation)

Meditation Monday: Rest In The Peace Beyond Understanding via Christine Sine (how to journey peacefully amidst life’s challenges)

Exploring Summer Sabbath via Whitney R. Simpson (soul care tips for your summer)

Books Can Keep You Stitched Together via Velynn Brown (on the power of story and books as friends)

 

CONTEMPLATIVE PROFILE: WALTER HILTON

Posted on by Lisa Deam

In last week’s post, we saw that the English mystic Walter Hilton likened prayer to fire. He continues this analogy in a letter to a layperson. He writes a beautiful description of what he calls the “mixed life:” a life marked by a rhythm of labor and prayer.

[T]he will and desire you have toward God is like a little coal of fire in your soul. It gives you a certain amount of spiritual heat and even light, but it is quite little, and threatens to grow cold in idleness and want of fuel. At that point it is good that you should put against it some sticks of wood—good labors of the active life. And if it seems for a time that these duties shroud or overshadow the coal of your desire, that it does not burn as cleanly and fervently as you would want, then do not be fearful, but rather be patient awhile.

 

Then blow at the fire—after doing your proper duties and service, go alone to your prayer and meditation, and lift up your heart to God, praying him of his goodness that he will accept the work that you have done as unto his pleasure.

I’m encouraged by Hilton’s conviction that the active life is a way to serve God.

Source.

Walter Hilton (c. 1340 – 1396) was an Augustinian canon and a mystic. He was the first person to write a treatise on mysticism in the English language.

WEEKLY PRAYER

Posted on by Lisa Deam

A prayer from St. Ignatius of Loyola (1491 – 1553)

Take, Lord, and receive all my liberty,
my memory, my understanding
and my entire will,
All I have and call my own.

You have given all to me.
To you, Lord, I return it.

Everything is yours; do with it what you will.
Give me only your love and your grace,
that is enough for me.

Source

 

BOOK OF THE MONTH: REVELATIONS OF DIVINE LOVE

Posted on by Lisa Deam

Week One: Clinging to God’s Goodness

All Shall Be WellIn the late 14th century, the English anchoress Julian of Norwich wrote her influential book, The Revelations of Divine Love. The book is based on a series of visions Julian received, and its stated purpose is to reveal the divine will, which is to love and know God. The Revelations has become a Christian classic for its unique theological and spiritual insights into God’s love.

In her book, Julian has many things to say about prayer. In the first revelation, Julian writes that prayer is more of an attitude than a set of techniques. I find this encouraging, because it means that we don’t have to approach prayer with a lot of bells and whistles. Clinging to the fullness of God is, Julian says, the “truest form of prayer.”

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What came to mind next was the way we pray: in our ignorance and incomprehension of love, we use many methods for asking God what we want. But I realized now that God is worshiped—and delighted—when we simply turn to the Divine One, trusting totally in that Unity* and clinging to Divine grace.

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Even if we were to practice all the prayer techniques ever used, they would never be enough to connect our souls to God with utter wholeness and fullness, for God’s goodness is the entire whole of reality, a unity that lacks absolutely nothing. By focusing our attention here—on the absolute Unity that never fails—we achieve the truest form of prayer.

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Resting in this Unity is the highest prayer, and it reaches down to our deepest needs. It brings our souls to life; it brings us more of life’s fullness; and our lives expand with grace and strength.

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*Note: In this edition of the Revelations, Julian’s word “goodness” is translated as “unity” to express the idea of the fullness of God, the way he encompasses every part of creation.

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Julian of Norwich (1342 – c. 1416) was an English visionary, mystic, anchoress, and writer. Read about her here.

I’ve been enjoying the Divine Revelations in a modern translation entitled All Shall Be Well.

For reflection:

Julian of Norwich - week 1

FRIDAY FAVORITES FOR PRAYER AND WRITING

Posted on by Lisa Deam

Each Friday I share some of my favorite finds related to praying or writing. If I think it could help you pray or write better, or just “be” better, I’ll include it below.

I found so many good articles and posts this week: some deeply spiritual, some funny, some practical — the internet was on fire, it seemed! If you have someone else’s article to nominate, be sure to let me know next week before noon on Thursday.

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Laser Listening: Paying Attention from Inside Out (an interview with author Adam S. McHugh)

Liturgical Meditations: Pentecost (a video meditation from Fuller Studio)

I want to be all flame via Morgan Guyton (on becoming overwhelmed by the brilliance of God)

This Is the Place via Carolyn Arends (a video reflection on the intersection of spirituality, music, and songwriting)

Prayer for a New Day of Promise and Opportunity via April Yamasaki (“The day lies before us like a page waiting to be written . . .”)

Finding God in Fairytales via Tanya Marlow (how stories, imagery, and faraway worlds help us connect with God)

Getting to the Core of Your Distractions via C. S. Lakin (identifying what most distracts you and keeps you from being productive)

The Writer’s Process via Hallie Cantor (hilarious . . . because if you don’t laugh, you’ll cry)

CONTEMPLATIVE PROFILE: PRAYING WITH WALTER HILTON

Posted on by Lisa Deam

I love the vivid images medieval mystics use to describe God and prayer. A case in point is the writing of the English mystic Walter Hilton. In his treatise providing instruction on prayer and the contemplative life, Hilton writes a beautiful passage likening prayer to fire:

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If you pray in this way, you can pray well: for prayer is nothing else than a mounting desire of the heart into God through withdrawal from every earthly thought. And this is why it is compared with a fire, which by its own nature mounts from the earth, always up into the air. In just the same way, your desire in prayer, when it is touched and illumined by that spiritual fire which is God, by nature always mounts to Him from Whom it came.

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Notice that Hilton, in the last line of the passage, emphasizes that our desire to pray to God always comes from God.

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Source.

Walter Hilton (c. 1340 – 1396) was an Augustinian canon and a mystic. He was the first person to write a treatise on mysticism in the English language.

 

WEEKLY PRAYER

Posted on by Lisa Deam

This week’s prayer is from the Liturgy of St. Mark (2nd century):

O Soverign and almighty Lord, bless all thy people, and all thy flock. Give thy peace, thy help, thy love unto us thy servants, the sheep of thy fold, that we may be united in the bond of peace and love, one body and one spirit, in one hope of our calling, in thy divine and boundless love.

Source.

BOOK OF THE MONTH: BEFRIENDING SILENCE

Posted on by Lisa Deam

Week Four: The Community of Prayer

Befriending Silence

Reading Carl McColman’s Befriending Silence, I found the two biggest takeaways to be the importance of living a life in community and a life of prayer. These two ways of life might at first seem like opposites. Contemplative prayer, after all, is often undertaken in solitude. If we happen to be writers, we spend even more time alone!

Yet McColman reminds us that prayer, even silent prayer, makes us part of a larger community. This is a gift and, for non-monastics, sometimes a challenge. Here’s what McColman has to say about community:

The Cistercian way of life rests on the idea that spirituality needs community.

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Monks and nuns enjoy the support of a community that prays together multiple times every day, where everyone is expected to take part in the liturgy in a public way. Those of us who are not monastics . . . do not have an abbot or abbess who will check up on us if we start skipping prayers, so we have to be truly intentional about our decision to make prayer a priority.

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Christian prayer always has a communal or social dimension to it, even when we pray in solitude . . . Prayer makes a difference in our lives, not just in terms of personal spiritual growth but also as a means by which we discover God’s love and compassion expressed for the world.

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When we pray for our family, friends, neighbors, coworkers, our community and nation, as well as our adversaries, enemies, competitors and opponents, the space to slowly, gradually grow in compassion and love opens within us.

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Read more here.

For reflection:

McColman Week 4