Tag: spiritual journey

The Illness of Our Era: What Is It?

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality BlogLeave a comment
Anxiety, by James Callaghan

Our contemporary society focuses primarily on a functional existence. In our pragmatism, we care a great deal about production, the things we can do and produce; and we are attentive of how we appear to others. Western culture is enamored with all things of the outer person that others can see, touch, hear, smell, and taste with physical senses.

The outer person is important. The way in which we present ourselves to the world does have meaning and significance. Yet, so does the inner person.

The Inner Person

I believe the inner person, the true self, the soul, is just as vital, if not more, than the outward displays we give to others. On the inside is where our motives and intents come from. The core of self is of utmost importance; it is the place where our inherent worth is found.

Being aware of this inner person (which I use interchangeably with “soul” and “true self”) gives us a guide for ordering our outer self – our activities, work, and relationships.

If we are unaware of what’s happening deep within us, or pay little to no attention to the soul, our outer person becomes a false self. A gross disconnect then occurs between how we think and feel within, and what we choose to display for everyone.

In paying attention to the inner person, we will likely find that there is a lot of anxiety within us. Anxiety may even transform itself into a despair of self and/or the world.

The Anxiety Within

This anxiety, however, is not all bad. It certainly can lead us to a struggle with life, an experience of strained relationships, and a crippling fear of what will happen. Yet it can also help us become in touch with the soul, and enable us to gain an awareness of what is happening within and what to do about it.

It is my firm understanding and unshakable conviction that if we are to learn anything at all about healthy functioning in this world, it must begin with learning about one’s self – the true self, the inner person, the soul.

Knowing Ourselves

“Without knowledge of self, there is no knowledge of God.”

John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, Vol.1

As we commit ourselves to the journey within, we come to discover our place in the cosmos, and the image of God that is inherent in us. We come to know ourselves as integral to creation.

If we never gain this sense of humanity and of the divine, then we lose our special perspective on reality, and of the vital interconnectedness we have with God and others. Separateness then replaces the unity and oneness which exists. As a result, the person lives without a sense of their true place or function in this world.

Feelings of isolation and estrangement take over. This profound experience of disconnection with God, people, and even self creates a powerful sense of anxiety. Fear becomes a dominant theme. Unconscious emotions and desires drive the anxious person. A belief that my conscious self is all there is to me is a path of denial that leads to abject misery.

Knowing ourselves – before we know anything else – must be our pursuit. Failure to do this is perhaps why we live in such an era of worry, pessimism, and fear.

Addressing Our Fears

Have you ever felt that there is no one to whom you could turn to in your time of loneliness and despair?

Is there a time when you felt as if you were in a deep dark hole of quiet anxiety?

Did you ever brood over your situation in life so much that all of your courage melted like ice cream on a 100 degree day?

Was there a season in your life where you felt the world could not understand your grief?

Has God ever felt aloof to you, with your prayers seeming as if they were bouncing off the ceiling?

Depending upon who we are, the self believes that if I am right enough, help enough, achieve enough, unique enough, know enough, plan enough, party enough, lead enough, or withdraw enough, then I will relieve this bothersome anxiety and fear within me and can get on with life.

Others may seek solace in the finite things of this world. But that approach only exacerbates the existing problem. Believing that freedom from an ethereal illness can come by having more of something you can see only increases the despairing feelings.

Any sickness of the soul must be addressed by means of infinite resources.

The Need For Integration

If we lose ourselves, we are fragmented and in need of integration. The work needed is to bring our spiritual internal parts into a unified whole. This then puts us in a position to experience the grace and peace of God. Indeed, the process itself becomes the divine mercy and settled rest.

We tend to hold onto what we are afraid of experiencing. This very problem often becomes the solution. Our anxiety has the potential to lead us toward the grace of God, or away from it by self-conjured solutions and/or coping mechanisms.

Rather than holding our anxieties and fears close so that we can keep an eye on them, we need to let go of them. This is accomplished by actually feeling our feelings. By holding our emotions loosely, they can express themselves and then fly away.

If we never experience anxiety, worry, discouragement, fear, depression, or despair, then we internally see no reason whatsoever to pursue transformation of life – to go after that which is immortal and invisible.

The Apostle Paul’s Struggle

At the end of a frustrating litany of anxiety over his inability to control the trajectory of his inner self, the Apostle Paul concluded:

So I find it to be a law that, when I want to do what is good, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God in my inmost self, but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind, making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched person that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! (Romans 7:21-25, NRSV)

Sin presupposes itself through anxiety. And anxiety awakens the awareness of needing freedom and deliverance. Worry is not our master. Anxiety has no authority over us. Fear merely exists for us to pay attention to something.

In Christianity, that something is a someone: Jesus. Christ is the Deliverer from sin, death, and hell. The oblivious and lonely darkness we find ourselves trapped within has a way out, or rather, up. A divine hand reaches from above to snatch us from our inky hole.

If humanity never had a need of God, people would not know themselves. They would fail to realize that there is immortality in their very souls.

Taking the Journey Within

It takes bravery to engage in a journey within, down into the core of one’s being. It’s neither a vacation nor a weekend adventure. The path unfolds slowly over time; it is circuitous, and often frustrating. Yet, when we find the incredibly bright blue diamond at the center, we immediately know every part of the journey was worth it.

The illness of our era is that we are soul-sick with anxiety, even despair, and most of us don’t know it. But why?

Like a cancer lurking unaware within the body, the years of ego construction has smothered the image and likeness of God within.

Anxiety becomes the initial symptom that something is askew with us. We’d better get checked out and find what the root problem is.

Are you up for the discovery of yourself, and thus, of God?

Second Sunday of Advent – Prepare the Way (Luke 3:1-6)

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year CLeave a comment
The Call from John the Baptist to Repent, by Renier de Huy, 12th century

In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was ruler of Galilee, and his brother Philip ruler of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias ruler of Abilene, during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness. He went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, as it is written in the book of the words of the prophet Isaiah,

“The voice of one crying out in the wilderness:
‘Prepare the way of the Lord;
    make his paths straight.
Every valley shall be filled,
    and every mountain and hill shall be made low,
and the crooked shall be made straight,
    and the rough ways made smooth,
and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.’ ” (New Revised Standard Bible)

In this Christian season of Advent, we are reminded that God is not only high above us, transcendent, far away; God is also close to us, immanent, and with us.

We remember at this time of year that God does not remain distant, but entered our time and space at a particular moment in history, for a distinct purpose.

The Roman Empire was powerful, large, and very much in control of every place where it existed. The litany of imperial rulers and authorities which the Gospel writer Luke listed is meant to give us a feel of the Roman weight, and how much Roman might was ensconced in Judea.

The world at the turn of the common era was under the dominion of powerful people with lots of influence. But God did not come to any of them. Instead, God came to a loner – a man who spent his time out in the wilderness. His name was John, the son of Zechariah. We know him as John the Baptist.

With God coming to John at a precise point of time in a particular place, that made John a prophet with a singular message. John was born for this. (Luke 1:76)

It is fitting that a man hanging out on the fringes of society all by himself would be the one to prepare the way for Messiah.

After all, Messiah’s message would be one of bringing good news to the poor, proclaiming release to prisoners, and freeing those who are oppressed. (Luke 4:18-19; Isaiah 61:1-2)

God’s prophetic calling for John was one of preparation. John was to prepare the way of the Lord. He was to get the people ready to receive Messiah.

John went about his ministry of preparation by calling folks to repent, to change their minds and amend their ways, so that there might be forgiveness.

In a reference from the prophet Isaiah, Luke alluded to Jewish exiles returning from their Babylonian captivity. The actual physical road from Babylon to Jerusalem was a hard journey due to the distance and topography.

The “road” or the “way” in Holy Scripture is also a metaphor for the spiritual journey we take in this life. And that road has a lot of challenges to it. The very act of walking as a pilgrim over a long arduous journey changes a person.

It is rarely the destination that makes a person; it’s the journey itself which leads one to a changed life of thinking differently, and seeing things from a perspective we’ve never seen before.

The smoothing out of the road is a way of saying God is making it easier for people to return to the Lord, to get them ready for a new life with promises fulfilled and unexpected joy.

In other words, valleys raised and mountains flattened represent God’s efforts at helping us experience a complete transformation of life. The Lord will do everything possible to make renewal and restoration happen for us.

The Lord will set things right. In our contemporary world that is now largely controlled by powerful oligarchs and the super-rich, God will turn it upside-down. All of the world’s current powerful people will find themselves looking up, not down.

It would be nice and reassuring if I could give you certainty about the journey ahead. But I cannot do that. Yet, what I can do is assure us of what is at the end of the road. Look beyond the current days of self-centered leadership and popular ignorance, and understand that all flesh shall see the salvation of God.

Prepare the way of the Lord. We do that by how we go about walking the road. Each step we take every day is important and makes a difference. And when we stumble, there is plenty of grace to help get us back on our feet and moving forward.

We are all collectively journeying together to Bethlehem. And as we daily move and walk, at the end of our journey, Jesus is there.

But when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, in order to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as children. (Galatians 4:4, NRSV)

And nothing can stop us or separate us from the love of God that is in Jesus Christ our Lord.

For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:38-39, NRSV)

The journey may be arduous. You might feel like giving up. But Jesus is our Immanuel, God with us. In him, is our hope and our joy.

O Holy One of Israel, out of the embrace of mercy and righteousness, you have brought forth joy and dignity for your people. Remember now your ancient promise; make straight the paths that lead to you, and smooth the rough ways, so that in our day we might bring forth your compassion for all humanity. Amen.

Trust vs. Trickery (Genesis 30:25-36)

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year ALeave a comment
Jacob and Laban, by Pietro da Cortona (1596-1669)

After Joseph was born, Jacob said to Laban, “Release me from our agreement and let me return to my own country. You know how hard I’ve worked for you, so let me take my wives and children and leave.”

But Laban told him, “If you really are my friend, stay on, and I’ll pay whatever you ask. I’m sure the Lord has blessed me because of you.”

Jacob answered:

You’ve seen how hard I’ve worked for you, and you know how your flocks and herds have grown under my care. You didn’t have much before I came, but the Lord has blessed everything I have ever done for you. Now it’s time for me to start looking out for my own family.

“How much do you want me to pay you?” Laban asked.

Then Jacob told him:

I don’t want you to pay me anything. Just do one thing, and I’ll take care of your sheep and goats. Let me go through your flocks and herds and take the sheep and goats that are either spotted or speckled and the black lambs. That’s all you need to give me. In the future you can easily find out if I’ve been honest. Just look and see if my animals are either spotted or speckled, or if the lambs are black. If they aren’t, they’ve been stolen from you.

“I agree to that,” was Laban’s response. Before the end of the day, Laban had separated his spotted and speckled animals and the black lambs from the others and had put his sons in charge of them. Then Laban made Jacob keep the rest of the sheep and goats at a distance of three days’ journey. (Contemporary English Version)

Jacob left home by himself and went to his mother’s family. After twenty years away, he had two wives and twelve sons by four different women. He had worked for his father-in-law Laban for all that time – all to Laban’s advantage. During those twenty years, there was plenty of complicated and awkward family drama.

Now Jacob was ready to be done with all that. He wanted to move on and go back to the place of his family origin. But, of course, Laban had a good thing going and did not want Jacob to leave. So, he did his best to convince him to stay. Jacob was able to set his own terms. And there was some space put between his burgeoning family and his in-law’s.

But returning is a lot more difficult than leaving. When I left home as a young man I had all my worldly possessions in a ’74 Chevy Vega. And when I returned to the land of my origins, it was in a large rental truck with a wife a three kids. There was a lot of logistics involved, not to mention all the relationships we left.

For twenty years, Jacob and Laban did a weird relational dance. They were both tricky dudes, and were continually attempting to maneuver and outmaneuver the other. Yet, Jacob mostly got the brunt of unfairness.

In reality, Jacob owed Laban nothing. He had agreed to work for him fourteen years in total. But he could take nothing with him except his family – which would leave him with no means of support. And Laban was not about to give his son-in-law any support outside of his fatherly-in-law control.

Jacob came up with a strange set of terms concerning the flocks of sheep. Laban logically calculates that Jacob is unlikely to gain much profit from the plan, and can still keep the status quo going. So it becomes a done deal.

In a typical relational dynamic which they have become accustomed to, Laban himself sorts the flock, removes all the spotted and speckled sheep to a safe distance, and leaves Jacob with the rest.

So, if Jacob is to acquire any flock of his own, he needs to discover a way of breeding multicolored sheep from monochrome ones – a task which seems to be improbable if not impossible. But that’s exactly what Jacob does in the end, and that is yet the subject of another Old Testament lesson….

So, exactly what is today’s lesson? Life is anything but a nice, neat trajectory upwards toward achieving goals. Rather, life is a series of twists and turns, leading us to often take three steps forward and two steps backward in a herky-jerky sort of journey. Yet, behind it all, the Lord’s promises are still there, still in effect, still being worked out, in order to be fully realized. Nothing and no one is going to derail the plans and purposes of God.

Sometimes we need to be reminded that God is the giver of prosperity, and not anyone or anything else.

When you become successful, don’t say, “I’m rich, and I’ve earned it all myself.” Instead, remember that the Lord your God gives you the strength to make a living. That’s how he keeps the promise he made to your ancestors. (Deuteronomy 8:17-18, CEV)

To the person who pleases him, God gives wisdom, knowledge and happiness, but to the sinner he gives the task of gathering and storing up wealth to hand it over to the one who pleases God. (Ecclesiastes 2:26, NIV)

If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you. (James 1:5, NIV)

We may, at times, feel the need to acquire what we want through trickery or manipulation. However, there is a God in heaven who sees and who cares. The Lord delights is being generous and giving to us, that is, if we are aware and attentive enough to ask. We might not get what we want immediately, and it likely won’t be easy, but we shall nonetheless receive it. We only need to trust.

Heavenly Father, source of all life, we thank you for the many ways in which you have blessed and enriched our lives: Keep us from possessiveness and greed, and lead us into the greater joy of sharing your gifts with others, through Jesus Christ, in whom is perfect peace. Amen.

Psalm 122 – A Spiritual Journey

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year CLeave a comment

I was glad when they said to me,
“Let’s go to the house of the Lord.”
Our feet are standing inside your gates, Jerusalem.
Jerusalem is built to be a city
where the people are united.
All of the Lord’s tribes go to that city
because it is a law in Israel
to give thanks to the name of the Lord.
The court of justice sits there.
It consists of princes who are David’s descendants.

Pray for the peace of Jerusalem:
“May those who love you prosper.
May there be peace inside your walls
and prosperity in your palaces.”
For the sake of my relatives and friends, let me say,
“May it go well for you!”
For the sake of the house of the Lord our God,
I will seek what is good for you. (God’s Word Translation)

The spiritual life is a pilgrimage—a journey of constant growth, sacrifice, and faith in what we cannot see. As both pilgrims and disciples, we continually move and learn.

The biblical psalms of ascent (Psalms 120-134) were sung by worshipers as they made the journey to Jerusalem for the annual feasts, and up the temple mount to unite together in worship.

Many pilgrims spent hours and/or days walking to the holy city. In the great anticipation of collective worship, the people quoted and sang the several psalms of ascent together. They enjoyed the journey.

I once spent some time reading the journals of several medieval Christian pilgrims who went to various holy sites in Europe, and some who even made the trek all the way to Jerusalem – on foot. Early in their journals, they mostly wrote about the anticipation of reaching their destination. These pilgrims went into great detail about the hospitality they encountered, and friends made along the way.

I was struck, however, with the profound lack of space and detail devoted to visiting the actual holy site – especially when they returned home and reflected on their experiences. The vast majority of pilgrims had the journey itself as their most memorable time.

Of course, we all can worship individually and personally anywhere and anyplace. Yet, if we want to have worship experiences which truly shape our spiritual lives, then we will need to have plenty of corporate encounters with fellow pilgrims on the same path as us.

Within today’s psalm, we are told that part of Israel’s decree in approaching the Lord is to give thanks. The Jewish pilgrims were to have an attitude of gratitude when they came to Jerusalem and the house of God. Each pilgrimage to Jerusalem was to have a marked expression of thanksgiving to God for giving them a place to worship and a land to dwell within.

I cannot help but wonder if attending church services would be much more appreciated and impactful if we took the mental and emotional posture of gratitude when approaching worship. 

Within some church buildings and sacred spaces there is a flight of stairs that one must ascend to reach the sanctuary. Slowly going up the stairs, we can give thanks for one thing in each step. Even if you attend a church with a zero entry, you can still give thanks to God while walking from the parking lot to the building. 

The point is that the worship of God needs some thought and intent behind it. Simply showing up and flopping down in a seat – almost daring the worship leaders and/or pastor to bless them – is far from the imagination the psalmist had for approaching a sovereign God.

Pilgrimage is about more than a long walk. It’s about the soul in community with others and God.

One way of being a pilgrim close to home is through walking a Labyrinth – an ancient practice of the Church meant for spiritual centering, contemplation, and prayer.

Entering the serpentine path of a Labyrinth, one walks slowly while quieting the mind and focusing on a spiritual question or prayer. A Labyrinth is not a maze. It has only one winding path to the center and back out. 

The wisdom of the Labyrinth is that it reflects the way life actually is – that our lives are not about the destination but about the long circuitous journey. The Christian life is consistently described in the New Testament as a road or a way. We walk with Jesus.

Labyrinths can be found within some church buildings, on church grounds, in hospitals, or park spaces. There are also “finger” Labyrinths. Rather than physically walking, the pilgrim can slowly trace the path on a paper or small Labyrinth object with a finger. 

You might also get creative and make your own homemade Labyrinth within a space of your home or out in the yard. labyrinthsociety.org has free printable Labyrinths, as well as a virtual Labyrinth walk.

The Labyrinth is not meant to be a race to the center; it only “works” if we move at a pace which enables us to meditatively pray, paying attention to what God is doing within us. Generally, there are four stages to the walk:

  • Releasing on the way toward the center – letting go of all that weighs us down in the Christian life.  “Let’s throw off any extra baggage, get rid of the sin that trips us up, and fix our eyes on Jesus, faith’s pioneer and perfecter.” (Hebrews 12:1-2, CEB)
  • Receiving in the center – accepting the love God has for you. Jesus said, “Ask and you will receive, so that your joy may be complete.” (John 16:24, NRSV)
  • Returning through following the path back out – integrating what you have received for the life of the world. “I will give them a heart to know me, God. They will be my people and I will be their God, for they will have returned to me with all their hearts.” (Jeremiah 24:7, MSG)
  • Responding to the love of God through gratitude – thus finding joy, even in the most troubling of circumstances. “O give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; his steadfast love endures forever!” (Psalm 118:1, NRSV)

The penitent heart will resonate deeply with the psalms as worship liturgy. This is because liturgical practices impress the spirit and bring spiritual freedom.

Walking together in a common spiritual journey is like going through a gate into a new reality and rejoicing with all the other redeemed pilgrims who are walking the road to Jerusalem.

Lord Jesus Christ, you call me to follow you, and I choose to walk with you. Open the eyes of my heart to see my life in a new way. With each step I take, help me to be open to change. As I walk this pilgrimage, give me the grace to journey deliberately and patiently. Amen.