Thomas Merton: Inspiration for a monastic day

I started watching Merton: A Film Biography (1984) last night and finished it this morning. Perfect beginning to my day alone. I have some tasks I wish to complete so I will get this journal entry done so I can keep moving. Maybe the problem with my monastic days is my laziness, it is good to have a chore to complete.

I am looking out into the backyard from the kitchen table; the persimmon has less than a dozen leaves. The sun is still low at 9:30 AM so the shadows are long. Weather.com says 59 degrees. Good weather to feel contemplative, it is the closest to the feeling of the fall days the rest of the country enjoys we will have in southern California.

Near the beginning of the film, one person mentioned how when you start reading Merton, you want to read more and more of his books. That is how it was for me in college and the years that followed. I enjoyed and remembered a lot of the readings they used in the movie. I wanted to get out my Merton books and start reading. That will probably wait for retirement.

There were lots of threads also such as the Dalai Lama or Thich Nhat Hanh talking about there meeting and relationship with Merton. I wrote down where I think they were quoting Merton that the path of all great traditions was to transform human consciousness through spiritual discipline. The one thing he wanted to be remembered from his last talk in Asia was that we can't rely on structures, we stand on our own feet. That coincides with my current situation where I am not feeling that supported by the Methodist Church but I am not attracted to switch since I don't think it will be that much better or at least not appropriate at this time.

Unity Movement

I quote Bishop Spong way to much but I enjoy reading his views as he answers questions sent to him. In a recent letter he says, "Mysticism is a powerful movement, which fascinates and attracts me. I do not, however, believe everything that goes under the general banner of mysticism."

He adds, "I am attracted to the Unity Movement on many levels and have found wholeness of both body and mind in their congregations. Their quest for knowledge is impressive. Their joy in life aids wholeness. Their concentration on what Matthew Fox called "original blessing" rather than on original sin is a welcome relief. I think their emphasis on the enhancement of life rather than the denigration of life must be found in the Christianity of the future. I call Unity my second spiritual home."

I don't know much about the Unity Movement but I know I am not excited about being in an "anything goes" theology church. At this point, I don't have a spiritual home where I can talk openly about the things I do here. The church I am in though is a good community. I enjoy teaching classes and leading congregational worship. I always make sure it is meaningful to me but I don't "protest" or talk openly about the differences. I enjoy leading the classes with lots of discussion. I can slip in my views along with everyone else since it is not a stand up and lecture class.

Congregational Prayer on Lay Sunday (2009)

Loving God,

You are the one in whom we live and move and have our being. You are our salvation. We are wounded yet you heal the roots of our existence. We hear your message of love and seek to practice that love here and when we leave this service.

Prayer is a way we consciously enter into a relationship with you. Prayer is also the way we nurture that relationship.  Moments in which we drink deeply from the source of meaning are moments of prayer. There is no human heart that does not pray, at least in deep dreams that nourish life with meaning.

We pray for those who we remember now.

We take time for prayer but help us to pray without ceasing.
We are being transformed by your love, We are being transformed by our prayers, we are transformed by an intentional relationship with You. Thank you for satisfying our hunger, Thank you for satisfying our thirst. Help us to be intentional about our life with God each day of the week.

How shall we do your will this week? Will it be in acts of praise, in gifts shared, in prayers lifted? Who will you lead us to serve? Help us trust you. Help us listen. bless this community as we leave. Encourage us, comfort us, unite us, make our joy complete.

Gratefulness from our grateful heart can help us pray without ceasing.

In Christ's name we pray, Amen.

Dr. Samir Selmanovic New book

Author traces a spiritual odyssey to a personal encounter with God

A convert from Islam to Christianity has concluded that a personal encounter with God can be powerful enough to transcend any one faith tradition. "It's not really about any one religion or belief system," writes Dr. Samir Selmanovic, co-founder of Faith House Manhattan and author of It's Really All About God: Reflections of a Muslim Atheist Jewish Christian (Jossey-Bass, A Wiley Imprint, $24.95). "It's really all about God, who is about all of us and cannot be owned by any of us."

This press release popped up as I recently set a google news alert to Marcus Borg. He commented on the book by calling it "a remarkable book that combines memoir, insight, wisdom, passion and compassion."

did you see and respond to the presence of God in another human being

" . . . in Matthew's parable of the judgment (Mt. chapter 25), Jesus says the criterion for eternal life is not what you believe but how you respond to the presence of God in another human being, especially those regarded as the least of our brothers and sisters. In that parable neither the sheep nor the goats are ever asked what creed they say. They are asked "did you see and respond to the presence of God in another human being." It was the Epistle of John that states that if you cannot love your neighbor whom you have seen, how can you expect to love God whom you have not seen?"

Bishop Spong

Our job as Christians - Spong

"The Bishop of Rome turned the power of his location in that capital city of the known world into the ability to define Christianity and to limit the understanding of the past to his particular interpretation of the past.

Second, we need to recognize that the New Testament never speaks of Christianity as a majority movement. The Fourth Gospel has Jesus pray that "they all may be one," which clearly implies that they were not one or the prayer would not have expressed this hope. The New Testament expresses the idea that in the vast darkness of the world, the Christians are to be a lighted candle, in the soup of life the Christians are to be the salt, and in the lump of dough, the Christians are to be the leaven that makes the bread edible.

Our job as Christians is never to conquer or to dominate the world, but to give the world a new quality. That is all I seek to do today. I want to be a light shining in both the darkness of the world and of the church. I want to be the seasoning that makes the soup tasty or the leavening agent that causes the loaf to rise. " John Shelby Spong

Always interesting when I find the words to express how it is for me. Interesting also to have Spong cite Bart Ehrman as a good reference. I have been enjoying the Fresh Air interview with him from my podcast archive on CD.

From an essay of "On Leaving the Garden" in The Fragrance of God by Vigen Guroian:
"I have said on occasion that I think gardening is nearer to godliness than theology. … True gardeners are both iconographers and theologians insofar as these activities are the fruit of prayer 'without ceasing.' Likewise, true gardeners never cease to garden, not even in their sleep, because gardening is not just something they do. It is how they live."

I seem to be more aware of the chirping birds, the rising sun, and the new growth of wild plants lately. The past couple of mornings there has been a bird with a loud distinctive call in our redwood tree when I went out to get the newspapers. I want to remember to be outside in the morning and evening hours more often.