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Realizing the presence, promise, and power of the Kingdom of God.
The Week

The Week November 23-29, 2014

Silence, solitude, mindfulness, knowing, and more.

Vision
Poetry and Theology
The late Czeslaw Milosz longed to see poetry resume its rightful place as a vehicle for truth-telling. In his book, The Witness of Poetry, he expressed the hope that a recovery of true poetry might bring with it the restoration of culture and society. In his “Treatise on Poetry” he wrote,

Seasoned with jokes, clowning, satire,
Poetry still knows how to please.
Then its excellence is much to be admired.
But the grave combats where life is at stake
Are fought in prose. It was not always so.

And our regret has remained unconfessed.
Novels and essays serve but will not last.
One clear stanza can take more weight
Than a whole wagon of elaborate prose.

It isn’t clear what poet or poets Milosz may been thinking of in that fifth line quoted above. Certainly the fourth century Syrian Ephrem would qualify. As Sebastian Brock explains in his book, The Luminous Eye: The Spiritual World Vision of Ephrem the Syrian, Ephrem’s hymns and poems were widely received and cherished in his day, even though few know them in our own. He reveals to us a form of Christian belief that is Semitic in its roots, aesthetic in form and expression, and thoroughly Biblical in its view of humankind and the power of the Gospel. Brock shows us a poet of wide-ranging interests and profound insight to the world, one who is orthodox in his teaching but unfettered with the Hellenistic language and ways of thinking that were shaping much Christian thought in his day. Ephrem teaches us many things, Brock insists (and I agree), but one of the most important is that “poetry can prove to be an excellent medium for creative theological writing.” Ephrem offers readers a “profound and powerful theological vision” which “he presents by means of images that are drawn both from the Bible and from perennial human experience...” The Irish missionary/monk Colum Cille (fl. late 6th century) was also a theological poet, and was said to be able to see all the world in a single ray of sun. Ephrem saw the world and then some in his poem, “The Pearl,” which, in my thinking, is his most accessible work for contemporary readers. Here is the first section of the first hymn of that glorious poem:

On a certain day a pearl did I take up, my brethren;
I saw in it mysteries pertaining to the Kingdom;
Semblances and types of the Majesty;
It became a fountain, and I drank out of it mysteries of the Son.
I put it, my brethren, upon the palm of my hand,
That I might examine it:
I went to look at it on one side,
And it proved faces on all sides.
I found out that the Son was incomprehensible,
Since He is wholly Light.
 
In its brightness I beheld the Bright One Who cannot be clouded,
And in its pureness a great mystery,
Even the Body of Our Lord which is well-refined:
In its undivideness I saw the Truth
Which is undivided.
 
It was so that I saw there its pure conception,
The Church, and the Son within her.
The cloud was the likeness of her that bare Him,
And her type the heaven,
Since there shone forth from her His gracious Shining.
 
I saw therein his Trophies, and His victories, and His crowns.
I saw His helpful and overflowing graces,

And His hidden things with His revealed things.

Would that we could all have our vision informed and enlarged by such everyday encounters, and by the theological poetry that conveys them.

Disciplines
Silence
Silence, it turns out, is indeed golden. It’s so good for us, in fact, as Daniel A. Gross reports, that Finland has adopted silence as its national “brand” (“This Is Your Brain on Silence,” Nautilus, August 21, 2014 http://nautil.us/issue/16/nothingness/this-is-your-brain-on-silence). Contrary to what we might think, the brain does not become inactive during periods of silence. It simply becomes active in different and often restorative ways. Noise excites the brain, which alerts and activates the body, producing stress in one form or another: “In the mid 20th century, epidemiologists discovered correlations between high blood pressure and chronic noise sources like highways and airports. Later research seemed to link noise to increased rates of sleep loss, heart disease, and tinnitus. (It’s this line of research that hatched the 1960s-era notion of ‘noise pollution,’ a name that implicitly refashions transitory noises as toxic and long-lasting.).” Silence, thus, has power “to calm our bodies, turn up the volume on our inner thoughts, and attune our connection to the world.” In silence the brain works on memories and can weave old thoughts and experiences into new tapestries of life: “Freedom from noise and goal-directed tasks, it appears, unites the quiet without and within, allowing our conscious workspace to do its thing, to weave ourselves into the world, to discover where we fit in. That’s the power of silence.” Regular investment in silent meditation might prove to be a power for creative problem-solving and life planning. 

Mindfulness
Spiritual growth is the process of being restored in the image of God, as one is transformed, from glory to glory, into the image of Jesus Christ. This is the work of God’s Spirit, with Whom we cooperate by yielding to the Word of God and abiding in Christ’s presence with us by His Spirit. As we grow, our soul is brought into line with the mind of Christ, the heart of the Spirit, and the works of the Law as read and applied by the conscience. Mindfulness is an important part of this work, since by it we become aware of the dispositions of our hearts, the demands of our environment, and the presence and will of God. In his article, “Mindfulness and the Discernment of Passions: Insights from Thomas Aquinas,” Thomas J. Bushlack explains how Aquinas’ discussion of virtue and prudence enlightens the role of mindfulness in sanctification (Spiritus, Fall 2014). Setting aside Aquinas’ notions of infused grace and virtue, he does shed light on what I have referred to as the “dialog of the soul” – the interaction of heart, mind, and conscience – and of the need for achieving harmony in the soul in line with the presence and will of God. Contemplation of God can promote such mindfulness and help us to choose works of love as the outcome of God’s grace at work within us. Believers have the mind of Christ (1 Cor. 2.16), the heart of the Spirit (Ezek. 36.26, 27), and a conscience revived for properly reading the Law of God (Heb. 9.14; Rom. 2.14, 15). Spiritual growth occurs as we increase in each of these and decrease in our own thinking, affections, and valuations. Practicing mindfulness is just one discipline in which we must engage if we are to grow in the Lord as He intends. True mindfulness occurs as we rest in the mind of Christ, think his thoughts with Him, and order our souls accordingly.

Knowing
The revelation of the angel to Zacharias (Lk. 1.18-20) raises the question of how we may know.  To know is to have confidence in a matter or an assertion, such that one is willing to act on it. Zacharias was seeking some assurance of what the angel had told him, beyond simply the fact of his having been told. The angel believed he should have received the message with faith, so that, from that moment forward, all his plans and actions would have been in line with the Word of God. Knowing is an act of faith. True knowing issues in actions that accord with the divine will, because they are grounded in divine revelation. The Word of God is the foundation of all knowing because it is the revealed truth of God. Our duty is to understand the truth and to ground all our decisions and actions in it. And while the revelation of God is typically general, thus requiring other forms of knowing - trial and error, talking things over with others, timing, etc. - to come into play in our daily lives, still, the more firmly all our decisions and actions can be tethered to revelation, the greater will be the likelihood that we will know truly and thus act in line with the divine will, and secure divine approval and favor in our actions. Thus we must at all times practice the discipline of mindfulness, lest we act only on our emotions or hunches, or by mere reaction. Faith requires that we act in line with truth, which we may know through divine revelation via all its avenues, but especially the Word of God.

Outcomes
Social Media
Social media may be abetting the current decline of participation in religion. As Mark Bauerlein reports (“Prayer in the Age of Facebook,” First Things, December 2014), social media can rob us of time for prayer, both by filling up the time of our lives with other people and by leading us to believe that our fulfillment as human beings is to be found first of all in relationships, be they ever so shallow or remote, rather than in God. Mr, Bauerlein notes the importance Jesus placed on getting away from people so that He could spend time in prayer with His Father. “We are in danger,” he writes, “of losing these replenishing, corrective moments of solitary faith. Silence and seclusion are harder to find, and fewer people seek them out.” People are lonely, he observes, but they are mistaken in thinking that more socialization is what they require: “the more you socialize, the less you follow Jesus into the wilds and prove the psalm’s promise, ‘The Lord is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer.’ You build your life upon sand, and when the sand shifts, you add more sand...and more...” Thus social media may contribute to what Charles Taylor describes as the “disenchantment” of our age: “...more social media means less prayer. People spend fewer minutes alone with God, and, more damaging, they acquire a sensibility less inclined to seek him out.” Mr. Bauerlein calls for more emphasis on prayer and meditation, especially with children and young people. He is correct, of course, but will anyone listen? Will we? http://www.firstthings.com/article/2014/12/prayer-in-the-facebook-age

Climate
We’re messing with the jet stream, and that can only mean more “death and destruction” in the coming years. That, at least, is the view of Jeff Masters, writing in the December 2014 issue of Scientific American (“The Jet Stream is Getting Weird”). Mr. Masters writes as one persuaded of the threat of global warming, explaining that our overuse of fossil fuels and cultivation of too many acres of forest have warmed the earth, melting polar ice, and creating a rise in arctic heat to drive the jet stream crazy. Expect more extremes of weather – heat in the West, cold in the East, and drought throughout the Midwest. Is it so? And if so, what can be done? Mr. Masters commends the usual suspects, primarily, alternate fuel sources. He warns, “we must act swiftly, forcefully and globally to keep warming below the dangerous two degree Celsius threshold.” That “forcefully and globally” is, frankly, more alarming to me than climate change. Many scientists consider that they hold the keys to all true knowledge. Yet they are not always able to persuade the public to change their wonted ways, so their next line of approach is to get government to force us to do what they recommend. And if Congress won’t act, then a Presidential decree or judgment of some court will do. Climate change appears to be real, and it may be that humans need to rethink some of our most taken-for-granted practices. But I would rather be persuaded than forced. And I’d like to hear from more voices in this debate than just those within the scientific community. 

Envoi
Above All Regret

I guess I’ll never traipse through snow soft woods
and fields I call my own, to feel the quiet,
and know the lovely loneliness of God’s

scarce-sin-touched glory. And I guess the night
sky will remain a mystery to me – all
those ancient lamps and blinking, beckoning lights.

And what chance is there that I’ll learn the call
of every local bird? Or know the name
of every plant and tree, the very small

up to the very great? I guess the same
is true for many other things my mind
delights to contemplate. But I’m to blame, 

and no one else. I live so far behind
what I imagine; things I’d like to do
or learn just slip away before I find 

the time or inclination to pursue
them. But the hankering lingers, and the sad
regret of time and wealth that just slipped through

my careless, thoughtless fingers. It’s too bad,
too bad. But all this pointless thinking of
those things I might have learned or done or had

resolves in gratitude for what above
all these is mine: Your love, your wondrous love.

T. M. Moore

T.M. Moore

T. M. Moore is principal of The Fellowship of Ailbe, a spiritual fellowship in the Celtic Christian tradition. He and his wife, Susie, make their home in the Champlain Valley of Vermont.
Books by T. M. Moore

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