Worship on the Journey - Compassion

St. Paul, possibly the earliest Christian writer, suggested that compassion is the test of true spirituality. As Eugene Petersen, in The Message, translates Paul’s letter to the church at Corinth:

“If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don’t love, I’m nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate. If I speak God’s Word with power, revealing all his mysteries and making everything plain as day, and if I have faith that says to a mountain, “Jump,” and it jumps, but I don’t love, I’m nothing. If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don’t love, I’ve gotten nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I’m bankrupt without love.”

Mahatma Gandhi was of a like mind saying, “It is easy enough to be friendly to one's friends. But to befriend the one who regards himself as your enemy is the quintessence of true religion. The other is mere business.”

Compassion is not, however, myself, or you, feeling sorry for someone else. It’s not an us and them proposition. It is we. Pema Chödrön remarked that “Compassion is not a relationship between the healer and the wounded. It's a relationship between equals. Only when we know our own darkness well can we be present with the darkness of others. Compassion becomes real when we recognize our shared humanity.”

To be compassionate, to experience compassion, is a simple act of holiness. It is a simple act of holiness that can transform the world into the kingdom of God. The very kingdom of God that Jesus said is at hand. The moment is now. To practice compassion means that we are engaging in the ongoing creation of life and choosing the path of love we were intended to live right now.

To enter into a relationship with others and intentionally try to understand and love them is not an easy path however. Henri Nouwen warned not to “underestimate how hard it is to be compassionate. Compassion is hard because it requires the inner disposition to go with others to the place where they are weak, vulnerable, lonely, and broken. But this is not our spontaneous response to suffering. What we desire most is to do away with suffering by fleeing from it or finding a quick cure for it.”

Nouwen observed that “Compassion asks us to go where it hurts, to enter into the places of pain, to share in brokenness, fear, confusion, and anguish. Compassion challenges us to cry out with those in misery, to mourn with those who are lonely, to weep with those in tears. Compassion requires us to be weak with the weak, vulnerable with the vulnerable, and powerless with the powerless. Compassion means full immersion in the condition of being human.”

What does it mean to live a life of compassion: As Matthew relates Jesus telling the story it means we will be interacting with God and achieving our full potential:

“Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’

“Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’

“The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’”

We are all intimately connected to each other by a power greater than all of us, our connection to that power and to one another is grounded in love and compassion. Practicing compassion causes that sacred synapse to energize our moments bringing a sense of perspective, meaning and purpose to our lives.

Consider this thought as you walk, run, or simply sit and meditate: “How would your life be different if you stopped making negative judgmental assumptions about people you encounter? What if you look for the good in everyone you meet. Not only looking for the good but looking for the holy in each person and respecting their journey. What if you respond to everyone with compassion?

Worship on the Journey is a short outdoor worship followed by a mindful run or walk. It is a ministry of Journey Church in Coralville, Iowa.

Running With The Mind of Meditation

Sunday was the first  worship run/walk for a new church, called Journey Church, I am starting in the Coralville/Iowa City/ North Liberty area. It started with a 15 minute worship and communion experience followed by people walking or running together mindfully and meditating on the morning message.

Here is what I offered for a thought:

Allow me to share a reading from the Hebrew Psalms with you. This is from Psalm 111:

Hallelujah! I give thanks to God with everything I've got— wherever good people gather, and in the congregation. God’s works are so great, worth a lifetime of study—endless enjoyment! Splendor and beauty mark his craft; His generosity never gives out. His miracles are his memorial— This God of Grace, this God of Love. The good life begins in the love of God— Do that and you’ll know the blessing of God. His Hallelujah lasts forever!

Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche, author of Running with the Mind of Meditation: Lessons for Training Body and Mind, shares five lessons that I think hold value for us in every moment of this experience called life.  They are:

·      Mindfulness; Being present with where we are gives us energy and vitality.

·      Appreciation that brings joy; It is important to allow ourselves to appreciate what we are doing -- and enjoy it.

·       Challenge; There will always be challenges. Rather than see them as problematic, we can regard them as new frontiers for growth and strength.

·       Purpose; Whether we are meditating or running, having purpose is essential because it gives the mind a way to orient itself.

·       Worthiness; By connecting with our own worthiness, we connect with the worthiness of all humanity.

 He suggests that,

“When we relate to our mind and body and allow them to harmonize, we feel more alive and strong. Even though mind and body are natural, we have to relate with them both on a daily basis. If we train only the body and ignore the mind, the body is getting in shape while the mind is being neglected. We are not relating with mental stress and worry. Conversely, if we focus only on the mind, then the body is neglected, and we feel the ill effects of our stagnant physical demeanor.”

I would suggest that being a spiritual person is a striving to be in balance. When we intentionally relate our mind and body and creation and our craving for a relationship with others and  a relationship with "The Other," we are living as spiritual persons. When we engage in the moment as spiritual persons we gain strength for the journey in front of us.

One of the writings found in the New Testament of the Bible known as the Epistle to the Hebrews shares a long list of people who struggled with balance in their own spiritual journeys and the relevance it has for us in this moment:

Do you see what this means—all these pioneers who blazed the way, all these veterans cheering us on? It means we’d better get on with it. Strip down, start running—and never quit! No extra spiritual fat, no parasitic sins. Keep your eyes on Jesus, who both began and finished this race we’re in. Study how he did it. Because he never lost sight of where he was headed — that exhilarating finish in and with God — he could put up with anything along the way: Cross, shame, whatever. And now he’s there, in the place of honor, right alongside God. When you find yourselves flagging in your faith, go over that story again, item by item, that long litany of hostility he plowed through. That will shoot adrenaline into your souls!

And, long before Rinpoche or the unknown author of Hebrews offered their insights for a balanced life, years before they shared tools that can fill us with energy, the prophet Isaiah spoke this thought into existence:

Don’t you know anything? Haven’t you been listening?

God doesn’t come and go. God lasts.

    He’s Creator of all you can see or imagine.

He doesn’t get tired out, doesn’t pause to catch his breath.

    And he knows everything, inside and out.

He energizes those who get tired,

    gives fresh strength to dropouts.

For even young people tire and drop out,

    young folk in their prime stumble and fall.

But those who wait upon God get fresh strength.

    They spread their wings and soar like eagles,

They run and don’t get tired,

    they walk and don’t lag behind.

This morning I invite you to discuss with others (or silently meditate) as you stay here or walk or run, the balance that defines your spiritual journey. It might mean that you simply meditate on the word “balance.” It might mean that you share with someone the ways you find balance or your desire to experience balance. 

Know that it is my prayer that every one of you experiences, in this moment, the spiritual balance that God so wants for you. 

In The Beginning

There might have been things I missed, but don't be unkind 
It don't mean I'm blind 
Perhaps there's a thing or two I think of lying in bed 
I shouldn't have said 

But, there it is 

You see, it's all clear 
You were meant to be here from the beginning 

Maybe I might have changed and not been so cruel 
Not been such a fool 
Whatever was done is done - I just can't recall 
It doesn't matter at all 

You see, it's all clear 
You were meant to be here from the beginning
                      -Emerson, Lake, and Palmer

Remember these things, I have made you, I will not forget you. I have swept away your offenses like a cloud, your sins like the morning mist. Return to me, for I have redeemed you. This is what the LORD says— your Redeemer, who formed you in the womb.
                    -God, through the voice of the prophet Isaiah

Mindful of the One Reaching For You

Onto a Vast Plain
You are not surprised at the force of the storm—
you have seen it growing.
The trees flee. Their flight
sets the boulevards streaming. And you know:
he whom they flee is the one
you move toward. All your senses
sing him, as you stand at the window.

The weeks stood still in summer.
The trees' blood rose. Now you feel
it wants to sink back
into the source of everything. You thought
you could trust that power
when you plucked the fruit:
now it becomes a riddle again
and you again a stranger.

Summer was like your house: you know
where each thing stood.
Now you must go out into your heart
as onto a vast plain. Now
the immense loneliness begins.

The days go numb, the wind
sucks the world from your senses like withered leaves.

Through the empty branches the sky remains.
It is what you have.
Be earth now, and evensong.
Be the ground lying under that sky.
Be modest now, like a thing
ripened until it is real,
so that he who began it all
can feel you when he reaches for you.

-Rainer Maria Rilke

Perspective

Poet and novelist, James Dickey, in an essay titled “How to Enjoy Poetry,” suggests a way for neophyte interpreters to begin their encounter with the word:

As for me, I like the sun, the source of all living things, and on certain days very good-feeling, too. ‘Start with the sun,’ D. H. Lawrence said, ‘and everything will slowly, slowly happen.’ Good advice. And a lot will happen.

What is more fascinating than a rock, if you really feel it and look at it, or more interesting than a leaf?

Horses, I mean; butterflies, whales;

Mosses, and stars; and gravelly

Rivers, and fruit.

Oceans, I mean; black valleys; corn;

Brambles, and cliffs; rock, dirt, dust, ice …

Go back and read this list — it is quite a list, Mark Van Doren’s list! — item by item. Slowly. Let each of these things call up an image out of your own life.

Think and feel. What moss do you see? Which horse? What field of corn? What brambles are your brambles? Which river is most yours?

Perhaps there would be some merit to approaching the poetry of God with a similar injection of ourselves into the Word? Think and feel.  

The Story of the Lost Son  Luke 15:11-32 The Message (MSG)

Then he said, “There was once a man who had two sons. The younger said to his father, ‘Father, I want right now what’s coming to me.’ “So the father divided the property between them. It wasn’t long before the younger son packed his bags and left for a distant country. There, undisciplined and dissipated, he wasted everything he had. After he had gone through all his money, there was a bad famine all through that country and he began to hurt. He signed on with a citizen there who assigned him to his fields to slop the pigs. He was so hungry he would have eaten the corncobs in the pig slop, but no one would give him any.

That brought him to his senses.

Ahhh…, isn’t that what an experience of God does; brings us back to our senses, all of them?

Think about it. Use the imagination that God gifted you with to enter into the story through one of the familiar closet doorways of your life. Get in touch with that memory tucked haphazardly in the recesses of your soul perhaps smothered under far too many similar memories. 

You remember: Your father, or your mother, or both, giving you, what my family called “the stink eye,” a withering glance of disgust as a response to a request or action or inaction that you thought entirely reasonable.  

The son told his father that he wanted his inheritance now! In the culture of the time the son basically told his father, “Dad, you’re dead to me.” 

Can you feel it? The pain? To everyone’s essence?

Explore the Word further; it is much more than waking up knee deep in it and recognizing that life is just not what you expected. Yes, it is about the son. It is also about the parent, and the older sibling, and it is that residual piece of each of them that resides in you as a reflection of loss or guilt or shame or jealousy.

More to the point, it is the recognition that any and all of the potential soul destroying moments of your story are rendered impotent because God simply loves you and accepts you and desires to be a part of you. God simply wants you to think, and feel, and come to your senses.

Attitude

Faith is not just a theological principle; it is a mental and emotional muscle. It is an aspect of consciousness, a function of the mind. With every attitude we demonstrate faith – either faith in what can go wrong or faith in what can go right. Our problem is that we tend to have tremendous faith in the power of our disasters and far too little faith in the power of miracles.

Our faith itself is a potent force: we increase a thing’s power by increasing our belief in its power.

           Marianne Williamson – The Law of Divine Compensation 

I believe in miracles. Not the law of physics changing, mountain moving, once in an eternity miracles. No, not the impossible. I believe in the possible. I believe in the every moment of creation miracles. I believe in the miracle of: bees dancing in pollen; pelicans migrating in the spring; hummingbirds suspended in the earth’s breath; first seeing my sons’ vernix covered faces 34 and 30 years ago; falling in love over and over from age 15 to 58 with the same, different woman; running on a trail for 15 miles and having the desire do it again; feeling The Presence and knowing I am not alone.

I choose to have faith in the power of this moment’s miracle.

Another Meditation Moment

On Pilgrimage

Reading my friend Lori Erickson's blog caused me to reflect on my childhood pilgrimage:

Growing up on gravel roads I can understand the allure of rural road pilgrimages. Time slows down. The snake grass, cattails, and red wing blackbirds that play together with the milkweed and sand burrs in the ditches come into focus. The flat Iowa roads are experienced as undulating, nuanced, and desiccated tributaries that lead to civilization.

The air inspired is at times purified, even rarefied, while occasionally clouded by the intrusion of a faded green mechanical behemoth pulling a dirt destructor or grain gatherer.  Even the sounds of no-thing touching the senses are amplified as the grasshoppers thunderous leaps accentuate the laughter of the Brome grass being tickled by the breeze.

One need not become a recluse for days on end to experience the benefits of a spiritual quest, simply sojourn on the gravel nave of God's cathedral, allow the moment to permeate your soul and refresh you.