The Merton Prayer

The Merton Prayer

http://www.mertoninstitute.org/aboutThomasMerton/TheMertonPrayer/tabid/64/Default.aspx

 

In Thoughts in Solitude, Part Two, Chapter II consists of fifteen lines that have become known as "the Merton Prayer."

 

MY LORD GOD, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it. Therefore I will trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.

- Thomas Merton, "Thoughts in Solitude"
© Abbey of Gethsemani 

 

 

 

Frank Peabody, artist

The Merton Institute Board

 

 

About Thomas Merton http://www.mertoninstitute.org/aboutThomasMerton/tabid/57/Default.aspx   Thomas Merton's remarkable and enduring popularity indicates that he touches the hearts of people searching for answers to life's important questions. For many, he is a constant spiritual companion; for others, his writings provide guidance through life’s difficult moments. He takes people into deep places within themselves and offers insight to the paradoxes of life. He shares how to be contemplative in a world of action while offering no quick fixes, no ten easy steps to a successful spiritual life. At the core of Thomas Merton's spiritual writings is the search for the "true self" and our need for relationship with God, other people, and all of creation. He finds that when we are apart from God, we experience alienation and desolation. Merton believes that we must discover God as the center of our being. It is in this center that all things tend and where all of our activity must be directed. Merton's writings were prophetic; they highlight the major issues that confronted society in his time and still confront society today. They illustrate the growing alienation of humanity. Whether it is war, social and racial injustice, violence, or religious intolerance, the source of the problem is that man "has become alienated from his inner self which is the image of God." The degree of humanity's alienation is reflected in the unrelenting violence of our time. Wars and acts of nations around the globe caused the death of more than 500 million people in the 20th century. Closer to home, schoolchildren kill their fellow students in schools, and incidences of racial and domestic violence and child abuse occur with appalling frequency. The violence surrounds us. We must change direction or perish. This requires a social conversion, a turning away from destructive behavior and a turning toward a relational way of being. The first step in this turning is a transformation of consciousness. Thomas Merton is a preeminent guide in this first step and throughout the journey. There is in the world today athirst for God. People are seeking a reversal of the trends toward consumerism and materialism, prejudice and violence. They are discovering that what one does must be a means of both self-fulfillment and service to others. Throughout history, the role of spiritual master has been recognized and valued. Thomas Merton is a spiritual master whose influence crosses generations and religious affiliations. His message offers us bracing and brotherly advice on how we can be conscious and attentive to God in order to hear the answers to the difficult questions in our lives. Thomas Merton's message and life helps us build a new paradigm for living, one that integrates the contemplative in each of us with our external activities. His message is a source of deep change in a culture of superficial solutions, a window through which we see the possibilities for a peaceful and just world.

 

 

 

Thomas Merton (1915-1968)
A Brief Biographical Sketch

Thomas Merton is one of the most influential American spiritual writers of the twentieth century. His autobiography, The Seven Storey Mountain, has sold over one million copies and has been translated into twenty-eight languages. Merton wrote over seventy other books and hundreds of poems and articles on topics ranging from monastic spirituality to civil rights, nonviolence, and the nuclear arms race.

After a rambunctious youth and adolescence, Merton had his first experience with Roman Catholicism at the age of sixteen in a church in Italy. On December 10, 1941, he entered the Abbey of Our Lady of Gethsemani, a community of monks belonging to the Order of Cistercians of the Strict Observance (Trappists), one of the most ascetic Roman Catholic monastic orders.

The twenty-seven years he spent in Gethsemani prior to his untimely death in 1968 stimulated profound changes in his self-understanding. This ongoing transformation impelled him into the political arena, where he became, according to Daniel Berrigan, the conscience of the peace movement of the 1960's. Referring to racism and peace as the two most urgent issues of our time, Merton was a strong supporter of the nonviolent civil rights movement, which he called "certainly the great example of Christian faith in action in the social history of the United States." For his social activism Merton endured severe criticism, from Catholics and non-Catholics alike, who assailed his political writings as unbecoming of a monk.

During his last years, he became deeply interested in Asian religions, particularly Zen Buddhism, and in promoting East-West dialogue. After several meetings with Merton during the American monk's trip to the Far East in 1968, the Dalai Lama praised him as having a more profound understanding of Buddhism than any other Christian he had known.

It was during this trip to a conference on East-West monastic dialogue that Merton died, in Bangkok on December 10, 1968. He was the victim of an accidental electrocution. By a sad coincidence the date marked the twenty-seventh anniversary of his entrance into Gethsemani.

 

 

 

"Thy Stedfast Love Shall Not Depart from Me, O Lord"

For the mountains may depart and the hills be removed,

but my steadfast love shall not depart from you,

and my covenant of peace shall not be removed,”

says the LORD, who has compassion on you.

                                                                          - Isaiah 54.10

When Man Meets The Mountains from Robbie Zwalua on Vimeo.

Mountains

http://www.bible-topics.com/Mountains.html

• The elevated parts of the earth.
  Genesis 7:19-20 And the waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth; and all the high hills, that were under the whole heaven, were covered. Fifteen cubits upward did the waters prevail; and the mountains were covered.
• GOD
• Formed.
  Amos 4:13 For, lo, he that formeth the mountains, and createth the wind, and declareth unto man what is his thought, that maketh the morning darkness, and treadeth upon the high places of the earth, The LORD, The God of hosts, is his name.
• Set fast.
  Psalms 65:6 Which by his strength setteth fast the mountains; being girded with power:
• Gives strength to.
  Psalms 95:4 In his hand are the deep places of the earth: the strength of the hills is his also.
• Weighs, in a balance.
  Isaiah 40:12 Who hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and meted out heaven with the span, and comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance?
• Waters, from His chambers.
  Psalms 104:13 He watereth the hills from his chambers: the earth is satisfied with the fruit of thy works.
• Parches, with draught.
  Haggai 1:11 And I called for a drought upon the land, and upon the mountains, and upon the corn, and upon the new wine, and upon the oil, and upon that which the ground bringeth forth, and upon men, and upon cattle, and upon all the labour of the hands.
• Causes, to smoke.
  Psalms 104:32 He looketh on the earth, and it trembleth: he toucheth the hills, and they smoke.
  Psalms 144:5 Bow thy heavens, O LORD, and come down: touch the mountains, and they shall smoke.
• Sets the foundations of, on fire.
  Deuteronomy 32:22 For a fire is kindled in mine anger, and shall burn unto the lowest hell, and shall consume the earth with her increase, and set on fire the foundations of the mountains.
• Makes waste.
  Isaiah 42:15 I will make waste mountains and hills, and dry up all their herbs; and I will make the rivers islands, and I will dry up the pools.
• Causes, to tremble.
  Nahum 1:5 The mountains quake at him, and the hills melt, and the earth is burned at his presence, yea, the world, and all that dwell therein.
  Habakkuk 3:10 The mountains saw thee, and they trembled: the overflowing of the water passed by: the deep uttered his voice, and lifted up his hands on high.
• Causes, to skip.
  Psalms 114:4 The mountains skipped like rams, and the little hills like lambs.
  Psalms 114:6 Ye mountains, that ye skipped like rams; and ye little hills, like lambs?
• Causes, to melt.
  Judges 5:5 The mountains melted from before the LORD, even that Sinai from before the LORD God of Israel.
  Psalms 97:5 The hills melted like wax at the presence of the LORD, at the presence of the Lord of the whole earth.
  Isaiah 64:1 Oh that thou wouldest rend the heavens, that thou wouldest come down, that the mountains might flow down at thy presence,
  Isaiah 64:3 When thou didst terrible things which we looked not for, thou camest down, the mountains flowed down at thy presence.
• Removes.
  Job 9:5 Which removeth the mountains, and they know not: which overturneth them in his anger.
• Overturns.
  Job 9:5 Which removeth the mountains, and they know not: which overturneth them in his anger.
  Job 28:9 He putteth forth his hand upon the rock; he overturneth the mountains by the roots.
• Scatters.
  Habakkuk 3:6 He stood, and measured the earth: he beheld, and drove asunder the nations; and the everlasting mountains were scattered, the perpetual hills did bow: his ways are everlasting.
• Made to glorify God.
  Psalms 148:9 Mountains, and all hills; fruitful trees, and all cedars:
• CALLED
• God's mountains.
  Isaiah 49:11 And I will make all my mountains a way, and my highways shall be exalted.
• The ancient mountains.
  Deuteronomy 33:15 And for the chief things of the ancient mountains, and for the precious things of the lasting hills,
• The everlasting mountains.
  Habakkuk 3:6 He stood, and measured the earth: he beheld, and drove asunder the nations; and the everlasting mountains were scattered, the perpetual hills did bow: his ways are everlasting.
• Perpetual hills.
  Habakkuk 3:6 He stood, and measured the earth: he beheld, and drove asunder the nations; and the everlasting mountains were scattered, the perpetual hills did bow: his ways are everlasting.
• Everlasting hills.
  Genesis 49:26 The blessings of thy father have prevailed above the blessings of my progenitors unto the utmost bound of the everlasting hills: they shall be on the head of Joseph, and on the crown of the head of him that was separate from his brethren.
• Pillars of heaven.
  Job 26:11 The pillars of heaven tremble and are astonished at his reproof.
• Many exceeding high.
  Psalms 104:18 The high hills are a refuge for the wild goats; and the rocks for the conies.
  Isaiah 2:14 And upon all the high mountains, and upon all the hills that are lifted up,
• Collect the vapors which ascend from the earth.
  Psalms 104:6 Thou coveredst it with the deep as with a garment: the waters stood above the mountains.
  Psalms 104:8 They go up by the mountains; they go down by the valleys unto the place which thou hast founded for them.
• Are the sources of springs and rivers.
  Deuteronomy 8:7 For the LORD thy God bringeth thee into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and depths that spring out of valleys and hills;
  Psalms 104:8-10 They go up by the mountains; they go down by the valleys unto the place which thou hast founded for them. Thou hast set a bound that they may not pass over; that they turn not again to cover the earth. He sendeth the springs into the valleys, which run among the hills.
• Canaan abounded in.
  Deuteronomy 11:11 But the land, whither ye go to possess it, is a land of hills and valleys, and drinketh water of the rain of heaven:
• Volcanic fires of, alluded to.
  Isaiah 64:1-2 Oh that thou wouldest rend the heavens, that thou wouldest come down, that the mountains might flow down at thy presence, As when the melting fire burneth, the fire causeth the waters to boil, to make thy name known to thine adversaries, that the nations may tremble at thy presence!
• MENTIONED IN SCRIPTURE;
• Ararat.
  Genesis 8:4 And the ark rested in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, upon the mountains of Ararat.
• Abarim.
  Numbers 33:47-48 And they removed from Almondiblathaim, and pitched in the mountains of Abarim, before Nebo. And they departed from the mountains of Abarim, and pitched in the plains of Moab by Jordan near Jericho.
• Amalek.
  Judges 12:15 And Abdon the son of Hillel the Pirathonite died, and was buried in Pirathon in the land of Ephraim, in the mount of the Amalekites.
• Bashan.
  Psalms 68:15 The hill of God is as the hill of Bashan; an high hill as the hill of Bashan.
• Bethel.
  1 Samuel 13:2 Saul chose him three thousand men of Israel; whereof two thousand were with Saul in Michmash and in mount Bethel, and a thousand were with Jonathan in Gibeah of Benjamin: and the rest of the people he sent every man to his tent.
• Carmel.
  Joshua 15:55 Maon, Carmel, and Ziph, and Juttah,
  Joshua 19:26 And Alammelech, and Amad, and Misheal; and reacheth to Carmel westward, and to Shihorlibnath;
  2 Kings 19:23 By thy messengers thou hast reproached the Lord, and hast said, With the multitude of my chariots I am come up to the height of the mountains, to the sides of Lebanon, and will cut down the tall cedar trees thereof, and the choice fir trees thereof: and I will enter into the lodgings of his borders, and into the forest of his Carmel.
• Ebal.
  Deuteronomy 11:29 And it shall come to pass, when the LORD thy God hath brought thee in unto the land whither thou goest to possess it, that thou shalt put the blessing upon mount Gerizim, and the curse upon mount Ebal.
  Deuteronomy 27:13 And these shall stand upon mount Ebal to curse; Reuben, Gad, and Asher, and Zebulun, Dan, and Naphtali.
• Ephraim.
  Joshua 17:15 And Joshua answered them, If thou be a great people, then get thee up to the wood country, and cut down for thyself there in the land of the Perizzites and of the giants, if mount Ephraim be too narrow for thee.
  Judges 2:9 And they buried him in the border of his inheritance in Timnathheres, in the mount of Ephraim, on the north side of the hill Gaash.
• Gerizim.
  Deuteronomy 11:29 And it shall come to pass, when the LORD thy God hath brought thee in unto the land whither thou goest to possess it, that thou shalt put the blessing upon mount Gerizim, and the curse upon mount Ebal.
  Judges 9:7 And when they told it to Jotham, he went and stood in the top of mount Gerizim, and lifted up his voice, and cried, and said unto them, Hearken unto me, ye men of Shechem, that God may hearken unto you.
• Gilboa.
  1 Samuel 31:1 Now the Philistines fought against Israel: and the men of Israel fled from before the Philistines, and fell down slain in mount Gilboa.
  2 Samuel 1:6 And the young man that told him said, As I happened by chance upon mount Gilboa, behold, Saul leaned upon his spear; and, lo, the chariots and horsemen followed hard after him.
  2 Samuel 1:21 Ye mountains of Gilboa, let there be no dew, neither let there be rain, upon you, nor fields of offerings: for there the shield of the mighty is vilely cast away, the shield of Saul, as though he had not been anointed with oil.
• Gilead.
  Genesis 31:21 So he fled with all that he had; and he rose up, and passed over the river, and set his face toward the mount Gilead.
  Genesis 31:25 Then Laban overtook Jacob. Now Jacob had pitched his tent in the mount: and Laban with his brethren pitched in the mount of Gilead.
• Hachilah.
  1 Samuel 23:19 Then came up the Ziphites to Saul to Gibeah, saying, Doth not David hide himself with us in strong holds in the wood, in the hill of Hachilah, which is on the south of Jeshimon?
• Hermon.
  Joshua 13:11 And Gilead, and the border of the Geshurites and Maachathites, and all mount Hermon, and all Bashan unto Salcah;
• Hor.
  Numbers 20:22 And the children of Israel, even the whole congregation, journeyed from Kadesh, and came unto mount Hor.
  Numbers 34:7-8 And this shall be your north border: from the great sea ye shall point out for you mount Hor: From mount Hor ye shall point out your border unto the entrance of Hamath; and the goings forth of the border shall be to Zedad:
• Horeb.
  Exodus 3:1 Now Moses kept the flock of Jethro his father in law, the priest of Midian: and he led the flock to the backside of the desert, and came to the mountain of God, even to Horeb.
• Lebanon.
  Deuteronomy 3:25 I pray thee, let me go over, and see the good land that is beyond Jordan, that goodly mountain, and Lebanon.
• Mizar.
  Psalms 42:6 O my God, my soul is cast down within me: therefore will I remember thee from the land of Jordan, and of the Hermonites, from the hill Mizar.
• Moreh.
  Judges 7:1 Then Jerubbaal, who is Gideon, and all the people that were with him, rose up early, and pitched beside the well of Harod: so that the host of the Midianites were on the north side of them, by the hill of Moreh, in the valley.
• Moriah.
  Genesis 22:2 And he said, Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of.
  2 Chronicles 3:1 Then Solomon began to build the house of the LORD at Jerusalem in mount Moriah, where the LORD appeared unto David his father, in the place that David had prepared in the threshingfloor of Ornan the Jebusite.
• Nebo, (part of Abarim).
  Numbers 32:3 Ataroth, and Dibon, and Jazer, and Nimrah, and Heshbon, and Elealeh, and Shebam, and Nebo, and Beon,
  Deuteronomy 34:1 And Moses went up from the plains of Moab unto the mountain of Nebo, to the top of Pisgah, that is over against Jericho. And the LORD shewed him all the land of Gilead, unto Dan,
• Olives or mount of corruption.
  1 Kings 11:7 Then did Solomon build an high place for Chemosh, the abomination of Moab, in the hill that is before Jerusalem, and for Molech, the abomination of the children of Ammon.
  2 Kings 23:13 And the high places that were before Jerusalem, which were on the right hand of the mount of corruption, which Solomon the king of Israel had builded for Ashtoreth the abomination of the Zidonians, and for Chemosh the abomination of the Moabites, and for Milcom the abomination of the children of Ammon, did the king defile.
  Luke 21:37 And in the day time he was teaching in the temple; and at night he went out, and abode in the mount that is called the mount of Olives.
• Pisgah, (part of Abarim).
  Numbers 21:20 And from Bamoth in the valley, that is in the country of Moab, to the top of Pisgah, which looketh toward Jeshimon.
  Deuteronomy 34:1 And Moses went up from the plains of Moab unto the mountain of Nebo, to the top of Pisgah, that is over against Jericho. And the LORD shewed him all the land of Gilead, unto Dan,
• Seir.
  Genesis 14:6 And the Horites in their mount Seir, unto Elparan, which is by the wilderness.
  Genesis 36:8 Thus dwelt Esau in mount Seir: Esau is Edom.
• Sinai.
  Exodus 19:2 For they were departed from Rephidim, and were come to the desert of Sinai, and had pitched in the wilderness; and there Israel camped before the mount.
  Exodus 18:20 And thou shalt teach them ordinances and laws, and shalt shew them the way wherein they must walk, and the work that they must do.
  Exodus 31:18 And he gave unto Moses, when he had made an end of communing with him upon mount Sinai, two tables of testimony, tables of stone, written with the finger of God.
• Sion.
  2 Samuel 5:7 Nevertheless David took the strong hold of Zion: the same is the city of David.
• Tabor.
  Judges 4:6 And she sent and called Barak the son of Abinoam out of Kedeshnaphtali, and said unto him, Hath not the LORD God of Israel commanded, saying, Go and draw toward mount Tabor, and take with thee ten thousand men of the children of Naphtali and of the children of Zebulun?
  Judges 4:12 And they shewed Sisera that Barak the son of Abinoam was gone up to mount Tabor.
  Judges 4:14 And Deborah said unto Barak, Up; for this is the day in which the LORD hath delivered Sisera into thine hand: is not the LORD gone out before thee? So Barak went down from mount Tabor, and ten thousand men after him.
• A defence to a country.
  Psalms 125:2 As the mountains are round about Jerusalem, so the LORD is round about his people from henceforth even for ever.
• Afford refuge in time of danger.
  Genesis 14:10 And the vale of Siddim was full of slimepits; and the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah fled, and fell there; and they that remained fled to the mountain.
  Judges 6:2 And the hand of Midian prevailed against Israel: and because of the Midianites the children of Israel made them the dens which are in the mountains, and caves, and strong holds.
  Matthew 24:16 Then let them which be in Judaea flee into the mountains:
  Hebrews 11:38 (Of whom the world was not worthy:) they wandered in deserts, and in mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth.
• Afforded pasturage.
  Exodus 3:1 Now Moses kept the flock of Jethro his father in law, the priest of Midian: and he led the flock to the backside of the desert, and came to the mountain of God, even to Horeb.
  1 Samuel 25:7 And now I have heard that thou hast shearers: now thy shepherds which were with us, we hurt them not, neither was there ought missing unto them, all the while they were in Carmel.
  1 Kings 22:17 And he said, I saw all Israel scattered upon the hills, as sheep that have not a shepherd: and the LORD said, These have no master: let them return every man to his house in peace.
  Psalms 147:8 Who covereth the heaven with clouds, who prepareth rain for the earth, who maketh grass to grow upon the mountains.
  Amos 4:1 Hear this word, ye kine of Bashan, that are in the mountain of Samaria, which oppress the poor, which crush the needy, which say to their masters, Bring, and let us drink.
• ABOUNDED WITH
• Herbs.
  Proverbs 27:25 The hay appeareth, and the tender grass sheweth itself, and herbs of the mountains are gathered.
• Minerals.
  Deuteronomy 8:9 A land wherein thou shalt eat bread without scarceness, thou shalt not lack any thing in it; a land whose stones are iron, and out of whose hills thou mayest dig brass.
• Precious things.
  Deuteronomy 33:15 And for the chief things of the ancient mountains, and for the precious things of the lasting hills,
• Stone for building.
  1 Kings 5:14 And he sent them to Lebanon, ten thousand a month by courses: a month they were in Lebanon, and two months at home: and Adoniram was over the levy.
  1 Kings 5:17 And the king commanded, and they brought great stones, costly stones, and hewed stones, to lay the foundation of the house.
• Forests.
  2 Kings 19:23 By thy messengers thou hast reproached the Lord, and hast said, With the multitude of my chariots I am come up to the height of the mountains, to the sides of Lebanon, and will cut down the tall cedar trees thereof, and the choice fir trees thereof: and I will enter into the lodgings of his borders, and into the forest of his Carmel.
  2 Chronicles 2:2 And Solomon told out threescore and ten thousand men to bear burdens, and fourscore thousand to hew in the mountain, and three thousand and six hundred to oversee them.
  2 Chronicles 2:8-10 Send me also cedar trees, fir trees, and algum trees, out of Lebanon: for I know that thy servants can skill to cut timber in Lebanon; and, behold, my servants shall be with thy servants, Even to prepare me timber in abundance: for the house which I am about to build shall be wonderful great. And, behold, I will give to thy servants, the hewers that cut timber, twenty thousand measures of beaten wheat, and twenty thousand measures of barley, and twenty thousand baths of wine, and twenty thousand baths of oil.
• Vineyards.
  2 Chronicles 26:10 Also he built towers in the desert, and digged many wells: for he had much cattle, both in the low country, and in the plains: husbandmen also, and vine dressers in the mountains, and in Carmel: for he loved husbandry.
  Jeremiah 31:5 Thou shalt yet plant vines upon the mountains of Samaria: the planters shall plant, and shall eat them as common things.
• Spices.
  Song of Solomon 4:6 Until the day break, and the shadows flee away, I will get me to the mountain of myrrh, and to the hill of frankincense.
  Song of Solomon 8:14 Make haste, my beloved, and be thou like to a roe or to a young hart upon the mountains of spices.
• Deer.
  1 Chronicles 12:8 And of the Gadites there separated themselves unto David into the hold to the wilderness men of might, and men of war fit for the battle, that could handle shield and buckler, whose faces were like the faces of lions, and were as swift as the roes upon the mountains;
  Song of Solomon 2:8 The voice of my beloved! behold, he cometh leaping upon the mountains, skipping upon the hills.
• Game.
  1 Samuel 26:20 Now therefore, let not my blood fall to the earth before the face of the LORD: for the king of Israel is come out to seek a flea, as when one doth hunt a partridge in the mountains.
• Wild beasts.
  Song of Solomon 4:8 Come with me from Lebanon, my spouse, with me from Lebanon: look from the top of Amana, from the top of Shenir and Hermon, from the lions' dens, from the mountains of the leopards.
  Habakkuk 2:17 For the violence of Lebanon shall cover thee, and the spoil of beasts, which made them afraid, because of men's blood, and for the violence of the land, of the city, and of all that dwell therein.
• Often inhabited.
  Genesis 36:8 Thus dwelt Esau in mount Seir: Esau is Edom.
  Joshua 11:21 And at that time came Joshua, and cut off the Anakims from the mountains, from Hebron, from Debir, from Anab, and from all the mountains of Judah, and from all the mountains of Israel: Joshua destroyed them utterly with their cities.
• Sometimes selected as places for divine worship.
  Genesis 22:2 And he said, Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of.
  Genesis 22:5 And Abraham said unto his young men, Abide ye here with the ass; and I and the lad will go yonder and worship, and come again to you.
• Often selected as places for idolatrous worship.
  Deuteronomy 12:2 Ye shall utterly destroy all the places, wherein the nations which ye shall possess served their gods, upon the high mountains, and upon the hills, and under every green tree:
  2 Chronicles 21:11 Moreover he made high places in the mountains of Judah, and caused the inhabitants of Jerusalem to commit fornication, and compelled Judah thereto.
• Proclamations often made from.
  Isaiah 40:9 O Zion, that bringest good tidings, get thee up into the high mountain; O Jerusalem, that bringest good tidings, lift up thy voice with strength; lift it up, be not afraid; say unto the cities of Judah, Behold your God!
• Beacons or ensigns often raised upon.
  Isaiah 13:2 Lift ye up a banner upon the high mountain, exalt the voice unto them, shake the hand, that they may go into the gates of the nobles.
  Isaiah 30:17 One thousand shall flee at the rebuke of one; at the rebuke of five shall ye flee: till ye be left as a beacon upon the top of a mountain, and as an ensign on an hill.
• ILLUSTRATIVE
• Of difficulties.
  Isaiah 40:4 Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low: and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain:
  Zechariah 4:7 Who art thou, O great mountain? before Zerubbabel thou shalt become a plain: and he shall bring forth the headstone thereof with shoutings, crying, Grace, grace unto it.
  Matthew 17:20 And Jesus said unto them, Because of your unbelief: for verily I say unto you, If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you.
• Of persons in authority.
  Psalms 72:3 The mountains shall bring peace to the people, and the little hills, by righteousness.
  Isaiah 44:23 Sing, O ye heavens; for the LORD hath done it: shout, ye lower parts of the earth: break forth into singing, ye mountains, O forest, and every tree therein: for the LORD hath redeemed Jacob, and glorified himself in Israel.
• Of the church of God.
  Isaiah 2:2 And it shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the LORD'S house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow unto it.
  Daniel 2:35 Then was the iron, the clay, the brass, the silver, and the gold, broken to pieces together, and became like the chaff of the summer threshingfloors; and the wind carried them away, that no place was found for them: and the stone that smote the image became a great mountain, and filled the whole earth.
  Daniel 2:44-45 And in the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed: and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand for ever. Forasmuch as thou sawest that the stone was cut out of the mountain without hands, and that it brake in pieces the iron, the brass, the clay, the silver, and the gold; the great God hath made known to the king what shall come to pass hereafter: and the dream is certain, and the interpretation thereof sure.
• Of God's righteousness.
  Psalms 36:6 Thy righteousness is like the great mountains; thy judgments are a great deep: O LORD, thou preservest man and beast.
• Of proud and haughty persons.
  Isaiah 2:14 And upon all the high mountains, and upon all the hills that are lifted up,
• (Burning,) of destructive enemies.
  Jeremiah 51:25 Behold, I am against thee, O destroying mountain, saith the LORD, which destroyest all the earth: and I will stretch out mine hand upon thee, and roll thee down from the rocks, and will make thee a burnt mountain.
  Revelation 8:8 And the second angel sounded, and as it were a great mountain burning with fire was cast into the sea: and the third part of the sea became blood;
• (Breaking forth into singing,) of exceeding joy.
  Isaiah 44:23 Sing, O ye heavens; for the LORD hath done it: shout, ye lower parts of the earth: break forth into singing, ye mountains, O forest, and every tree therein: for the LORD hath redeemed Jacob, and glorified himself in Israel.
  Isaiah 55:12 For ye shall go out with joy, and be led forth with peace: the mountains and the hills shall break forth before you into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.
• (Threshing of,) of heavy judgments.
  Isaiah 41:15 Behold, I will make thee a new sharp threshing instrument having teeth: thou shalt thresh the mountains, and beat them small, and shalt make the hills as chaff.
• (Made waste,) of desolation.
  Isaiah 42:15 I will make waste mountains and hills, and dry up all their herbs; and I will make the rivers islands, and I will dry up the pools.
  Malachi 1:3 And I hated Esau, and laid his mountains and his heritage waste for the dragons of the wilderness.
• (Dropping new wine,) of abundance.
  Amos 9:13 Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that the plowman shall overtake the reaper, and the treader of grapes him that soweth seed; and the mountains shall drop sweet wine, and all the hills shall melt.

Suffering Changes Everything

My Faith: Suffering my way to a new tomorrow
http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2011/02/13/my-faith-suffering-my-way-to-a-new-tomorrow/

By Rob Bell, Special to CNN

February 13, 2011

Editor's Note: Rob Bell is the Founding Pastor at Mars Hill Bible Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan. His latest book and DVD are called Drops Like Stars.

One Friday evening in the fall of my senior year of college I got a headache.

I took some aspirin, laid on the couch, and waited for it to go away. But it didn't; it got worse. By midnight I was in agony, and by 3 a.m. I was wondering if I was going to die.

As the sun rose, my roommate drove me to the hospital where I learned that I had viral meningitis. A neurologist explained to me that the fluid around my brain had become infected and was essentially squeezing my brain against the walls of my skull.

So that's what that was.

The doctor informed me that it would take a number of weeks in bed to recover.

This didn't fit with my plan.

I was in a band at the time. We'd been playing shows in the Chicago area for a while and had just landed our biggest club dates yet in the city - all of them scheduled over the next several weeks.

We had to cancel all of them.

As this reality hit me, laying there in that hospital bed miles from home with a brain infection, I distinctly remember asking no one in particular "Now what?"

I was devastated. This was not how it was supposed to go. The band was my life, my future, my singular focus. We had just canceled our biggest gigs ever. Eventually I recovered enough to return to school but things weren't the same. Whatever had been driving us in the band wasn't there like it had been before and so we came to the mutual conclusion that it had been great while it lasted and now it was time for the band to come to an end.

I don't think I'd ever felt more lost. I had no idea what I was going to do with my life. I had all this energy and passion and I wanted desperately to give myself to something that mattered, but I had no plan.

I would walk around campus in a daze, muttering the same prayer over and over, which took the form of "Now what?"

Do you know that feeling when you're playing soccer and you lunge for the ball but you aren't fast enough and the player on the other team has already kicked it quite hard and the ball travels with ferocious velocity and force into your groin region and you keel over, gasping for breath, your voice several octaves higher?

It was like the existential version of that.

And then, things took a strange, beautiful turn.

In the days and weeks following the band's breakup, people I barely knew would stop me out of the blue and say things like, "Have you thought about being a pastor?" Friends I hadn't talked to in months would contact me and say, "For some reason I think you're going to be a pastor."

Me, a pastor? Seriously?

The idea began to get a hold of me and it wouldn't let go. A calling welled up within me, a direction, something I could give myself to.

I tell you this story about what happened to me 19 years ago because I assume you're like me - really good at making plans and plotting and scheming and devising just how to make your life go how it's "supposed" to go.

We are masters of this. We know exactly how things are supposed to turn out.

And then we suffer. There's a disruption - death, disease, job loss, heartbreak, betrayal or bankruptcy.

The tomorrow we were expecting disappears. And we have no other plan.

Suffering is traumatic and awful and we get angry and we shake our fists at the heavens and we vent and rage and weep. But in the process we discover a new tomorrow, one we never would have imagined otherwise.

I have interacted with countless people over the years who, when asked to identify key moments, turning points, and milestones in their lives, usually talk about terribly difficult, painful things. And they usually say something along the lines of "I never would have imagined that would happen to me."

Imagined is a significant word here. Suffering, it turns out, demands profound imagination. A new future has to be conjured up because the old future isn't there anymore.

Now I realize that what happened to me - the fluid around my brain swelling up and squeezing it against the walls of my skull – is nothing compared to the pain and tragedy many people live with every day.

But that experience irrevocably altered my life. Nothing was ever the same again. My plans fell apart, which opened me up to entirely new future.

This truth, about the latent seeds of creativity being planted in the midst of suffering, takes us deep into the heart of the Christian faith. We are invited to trust that in the moments when we are most inclined to despair, when all appears lost and we can't imagine any way forward - that it is precisely in those moments when something new may be about to be birthed.

Jesus hangs naked and bloody on a cross, alone and abandoned by his students, scorned by the crowd, and yet defiant, confident, insistent that God is present in his agony, bringing about a whole new world, right here in the midst of this one.

This is a mystery, and one we are wise to reflect on it, because of the countless disruptions we experience all the time.

God is in those moments, grieving with us, shedding tears with us, feeling that pain and turmoil with us, and then inviting to trust that something good can come from even this.

So keep your eyes and your heart open. Be quick to listen and slow to make rash judgments about how it's "all going to turn out," because you never know when you'll find yourself miles from home, laying in a hospital bed with a bad case of brain squeeze, all of your plans crashing down around you, wondering how it all went wrong, only to discover that a whole new life is just beginning.

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Rob Bell

Me and A.W. Tozer

One of the first really profound books I ever read about God (besides the Bible!) was A.W. Tozer's, The Knowledge of the Holy. I must've been 21 at the time and still don't remember how I had discovered this poignant book unless it was at the Christian book store I worked at from time to time to help with my apartment rent. I had been attending the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor for the last three years, having begun my freshman year of university training at the conclusion of the Vietnam War era, where I was studying math and engineering, which wouldn't have been unusual except that it was I who was mostly out-of-place.

 

 

You see, my brothers and I were the last of six generations to live on the family farm, which was one of the earliest homesteads to the Paris Township district of southeast Grand Rapids, Michigan... having become little more than a place to house disused farm equipment, tools and assorted paraphernalia. Our farm was operational for the first part of my early life while also having the great benefit of grandparents living next door... whose friends and relatives came in a steady stream to share stories of the early 1900's. Speaking occasionally in hushed tones, or in raucous laughter, of farming life, work and play, schooling and family reunions - my ever attentive grandmother collected them all. For she was our family's historian who patiently taught us our family's rich oral legends all the way back to the early 1800's - how our family came to the area from Canada and New York; their survival against a wilderness still populated by Indians and bears; how our ancestors created orchards from pocket seed, and fields from dense swamps and thick forests; and how a ready axe could build fortified cabins, barns and homes. And with Grandma's passing many years later came with it the thunderous passing of 200 years of local lores and legends gathered from the lips of that stream of humanity that had entered her hallowed residency over the long years of our early lives.

 

 

It was in my eleventh year of life that our country school would close; where my brothers and I would complete five generations of Slater's and Patterson's that had been in attendance at this clapboard building (or its earlier log-school-rendition until hit by lightening and burned down after 20 years of faithful service). A school built by our earliest descendants 135 years earlier in a time when there were few inhabitants. There, we were given the rich blessings of a very high, and personally interactive, education in a one-room school bearing 19 students from grades K through 8th - which made my class sometimes two and sometimes three in valiant number. But it was to my greatest disappointment that I never graduated from that warm little school setting up upon a distant hill several fields away from our farm. And was thrust into public high school like my father had experienced, and like my aunts and uncles had done a lifetime earlier. But they had the one thing I never had... the opportunity to graduate from this little one-room school. Even as their aunts and uncles had graduated before them, and theirs before them, going back five generations in antecedal time. But until my dad's day, none of their generations before his brothers and sisters had gone forward into high school, because in reality, 8th grade was about as far as any country kid would necessarily go who was needed to help on the family farm. Nor would I have the pleasure of listening to my mother play Pomp and Circumstance as we paced our small, studied, steps from the back of the school to the front before the dozen or so parents and relatives gathered to greet us in regal applause and wide smiles underneath the large framed portraits of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln.

 

No, the school was forced to close - and with it my golden aspirations - at the end of my fifth grade year after six blissful years of attendance. Our little country school had become part of a much larger city that adopted us into its own seething cauldrons of discontent and malediction. I was now to be inducted into the ways of public education through means of indoctrination at the behest of a very large middle school with hundreds of rowdy kids who liked to have gang fights at noon recess ringed around by hooligans howling for more teeth and blood until tardy, overweight, teachers ran out into the back fields and sandlots to break the savage fights up. My next middle school a year later, and the high schools (there were two - an old one, and then a new one) that I would attend two years after that, provided a decent enough education to a country boy who was still discovering what it was like to live in a foreign and unknown era called the modern era that held little evidence of the close-knit farming community I had grown up in. I played in the marching band, won a place on the baseball team (infield), and collected friends as best as I could. But I also knew that I was socially misplaced, and stood at the outer fringes of my new school's social circles. I had lived too far out in the country - and for too long - to have any possibility of close friendships over the years, and grew content in finding what I could in those thin days of social living. And so, being ill-prepared for my next step into the much larger world of university training and war rallies (though I grew up with the Vietnam War prominently displayed in nightly melodrama on our black-and-white television set) my next stage of life would shortly begin to both my loss and my gain. My loss, in that my past life was about to close forever even as my dad's days of farming and community were ending; and my gain, in that I would become enculturated to modernity. And though I did not know it, I was to participate in this abysmal Vietnam war in some small way to be soon discovered even though I had turned down a governmental appointment to the United State Air Force Academy the summer before.

 

 

And this is how I came to be daily walking through the heart of the University of Michigan's central campus during aggrieved hippie sit-ins, strident war demonstrations, boisterous peace rallies, mass marijuana protests by the tens of thousands, and inhaling the thick acrid smell of acid and weed floating throughout West Quad's dorm hallways (I lived in Wenley House for 2 years. Taking the stairs to the fourth floor my first year; and my own spacious corner room on Thompson Avenue and East Madison the next). Also discovered (not!) were the ever-stimulating athletic jock parties by weekend sybaritists whose alcoholic binges culminated in the weekly destruction of our very small lounge and rec room where I and my friend would enjoy competitive ping-pong when needing a much needed break from our 18-hour days of demanding studies. And, as one of my last inconsequential memories, we had a national insurrection group known as the Black Panthers bomb our dorm’s public toilets and showers six doors down from my dorm room. Other than making life inconvenient for me and my dorm mates for the remainder of our spring semester (it required us to hike up two stories to use the other available men’s facilities) I little understood the purpose of this mindless destruction of hedonism and personal angst. Nonetheless, I had gotten use to the craziness that enveloped America's college campuses during the late 1960s and early 1970s, having myself witnessed its last year of ebbing war demonstrations at a major university slapped with the label the Berkley-of-the-Midwest. And yet, in many other ways, I have very fond memories - both pleasant and vivid - of my days at college.... Made more so because of excellent professors, phenomenal studies and research, youth's many exquisite adventures of curiosity and fun, several rec teams and intramural squads, great Christian fellowships (IVP, Navigators, Campus Crusade) and church, and the early days of first love. Each experience was personally formidable and enhancing in ways I would never had received if still at home.

 

 

And so, it was at this point in my third year of study that I was now living on the second floor of an old church rectory on the other side of campus which was shared with seven other young Christian men between its collection of five antiquated rooms (mine was wrapped in burlap cloth on the walls). That bore a closed-off porch room at the end of the rectory's second story hallway serving as a local residence for a family of raccoons that liked to rummage amongst its forgotten and dusty contents of ancient years gone by. Which housed a small, but well stocked, academic bible bookstore on the floor below and quietly laid off main street near to the student stores, pubs, pizza joints and community centers. Next door was a very old, Episcopalian style church, laid in by cut masonry and large stones, and housing a very large sanctuary where a hundred-or-more Black Pentecostal worshipers would gather on Sunday evenings in folding chairs and large Cadillacs parked fender to fender outside. Within its bowels lay a large, stainless, kitchen from which we ate our weekly starvation rations; an unused basketball court I daily played upon beneath very high, and very large, stain windows holding back the sun's dark rays; and a wooden steeple resting in the shadows of Michigan's Bell Tower off State street rising o'er the autumnal blooms of fall before ushering in fell Michigan snows bringing howling drifts and colder walks to the distant campus. This very old church had grown-up, and in a manner, died, as its earlier pioneering families came-and-went-and-passed away. And next door lived a little old woman who blessed my heart as I listened to her faith stories weekly. As with all things, my evangelical church (Grace Bible) purchased it for use before outgrowing its sturdy premises and moving to the outer fringes of Ann Arbor's city boundaries, there to become a much larger assembly of virulent believers driving family sedans and soccer vans, to be pastored by a much beloved, and bespeckled, Jewish pastor from Johannesburg, South Africa, steeped in fiery elocution and a passionate love for Jesus.

 

It was impossible not to be absorbed into Grace Bible Church's gregarious evangelical culture preaching Jesus and His amazing love Sunday to Sunday while ministering astringently to my campus on the other. Our college youth group of many hundreds strong, held evangelistic campus rallies and fascinating missionary Sundays. Flocked to noisy Michigan Stadium to watch Bo Schembechler football. Sang popular Campus Crusade songs on Sunday morning bus rides out to the placid church perched five miles away. Held lunches and suppers with the church's many open-hearted families and senior adults. And hosted fun college fellowships on any given weekend - complete with food for hungry college kids living out on their own. In a way, a sense of balance was being restored to me for the many years that I had missed, but it was not because I craved Christian fellowship (though I did) but because I hungered for a humanity withheld from my earlier country wanderings, having few neighbours and fewer friends. Nor did I ever feel uncomfortable with non-Christian friends or my campus' university surroundings, its programs and wide-variety of opportunities for student involvement. I participated in all of it as studies allowed while little noticing an unsettling disenchantment beginning to worm its way into my soul requiring my eventual displacement at great distress to those I loved. Still, even to this day, I much prefer a non-church environment to that of a closed-cultural Christian setting. More probably because I enjoy people, listening to their stories, and having the chance to befriend any-and-all whenever possible. Which I suppose harkens back to my childhood and teen years when nary a soul my age could be found in its stark isolations and bleak solitudes.

 

 

For it was in those early days of itinerant preachers visiting a little one-room country school, and attending Sunday Schools once a week in my growing Baptist church, and perceiving in a first blush of realization that Jesus' gospel of love and salvation was meant for me, though eleven years of age. Whereto, many years later, I was to discover the depths of A.W. Tozer's blessed little book, opening my eyes to the majesty and transcendency of a holy God who was my Father, my Savior, my Redeemer-Protector. Who was wholly-other than I myself, and who became wholly incarnate man to share with me my turmoils, strifes, guilt and shame. And as I read and studied the Bible I found a spiritual rejuvenation and astonished illumination as a young, growing Christian, that somehow led me to Tozer's little book towards a higher, clearer understanding of God, that to this day does not dim, nor rings in my heart's chambers less true, than before all other bells that have rung and gone silent in their ringing.

 

And it is to this well-thumbed book that I would encourage devotional readings for any would-be converts. For me, it proved a difficult book to grasp, and required of me to read and re-read its passages until I understood what it was saying. It stretched my youthful mind and soul in ways previously unknown. And continues to amaze me before its sturdy little passages when contemplating the newer disciplines of post-modernism, relational and open theism, and emergent, postmodern Christianity. And though I doubted this country boy could ever have left his early 1900s agrarian roots from a post-industrial era - from a land and community I deeply loved and grieved - I have with the Spirit's help attempted at first to wear modernism's casual change of clothes, and now, post-modernism's radical hippie colours, knowing that the revelation of God revealed by His very personage and divine presence is relevant for all time, all seasons, and all circumstances. Where someday I may change whatever attire I may be found for a fresh pair on whitened garments ironed in the glistening rays of the dazzling Son of Man. My Lord. My Savior. My King.

 

Thou hidden love of God, whose height,

Whose depth unfathomed, no man knows,

I see from far Thy beauteous light,

Inly, I sigh for Thy repose;

My heart is pained, nor can it be

At rest till finding rest [at last] in Thee.

                               - Gerhard Tersteegen

R.E. Slater

September 1, 2011
revised, August 6, 2013
 
A.W. Tozer - The Knowledge of the Holy

 
 
 

A Note from Karl Barth on Collecting Books

Collecting books? A note from Karl Barth

http://www.faith-theology.com/2007/09/collecting-books-note-from-karl-barth.html

by Ben Myers

September 15, 2007

Kurt Johanson kindly sent me a copy of his delightful new volume, The Word in This World: Two Sermons by Karl Barth. And he included a facsimile of an inscription which Barth wrote in Klaus Bockmuehl’s copy of Against the Stream, back in 1954.

It’s such a nice inscription that I thought I’d reproduce it here – a timely reminder to all of us who like collecting books!

Meaning of life?
Collecting books? No, read them!
Reading them? No, think about!
Thinking about? No, do something for God and for your neighbour!

- Karl Barth, Basle, 2.11.195

Spirituality Requires Good Doctrine

Rethinking Spirituality Through Doctrine and Doctrine Through Spirituality

http://homebrewedchristianity.com/2011/08/07/rethinking-spirituality-through-doctrine-and-doctrine-through-spirituality/

by Deacon Hall

August 7, 2011

 

As the old saying goes, “when it rains, it pours.” And somehow, the world has been pouring spirituality down on me as of late! I have to admit, I’ve rather enjoyed it. Currently, I’m reading a book by a Benedictine Sister named Joann Chittister called The Rule of Benedict, and it reinterprets the Benedictine Rule for contemporary living. Furthermore, my church will be offering itself up to Stillpoint, a wonderful organization that offer spiritual formation courses for those who want to enter more deeply and lovingly into a relationship with the divine. I will even meet with, and learn from, a spiritual advisor in the coming weeks (a position that I must honestly confess I didn’t know existed until I joined the Episcopal Church).

Despite this pouring out of spirituality in my life, I’ve noticed a theme emerge in these spiritual formation courses and opportunities that need not be there. Often times, spiritual organizations “market” (for honest lack of a better term) themselves in such a way that they will help you to get “deeper” into the divine than any silly dogmatic, doctrinal, or intellectual statement could ever bring you; they’ll help you to enter into God more personally. While the latter clause certainly presents a good goal, I simply wonder whether the former method—getting beyond doctrinal statements and properly reflective thinking—is necessary to it.

The unfortunate view that we moderns and “post-moderns” have adopted with regard to intellectuality is that we tend to think of it as somehow “neutral,” “unaffected by the world around it,” “objective,” and after truths for which we have no feeling. (“Postmoderns,” if this word means anything in particular, would generally deny that we are neutral but tend to uphold neutrality as something like an ideal for perfected reason). So we conceive of the height of intellect in terms of calculative procedures: hypothesizing, experimenting, verifying, and tabulating. We’ve defined thinking, in other words, by the empirical method that emerges from the Enlightenment and its focus on the natural sciences. I actually don’t think this is such a bad view of intellect in certain situations, but I do think it constitutes a reduction of the intellect and its ideality such that, with this notion in mind, it is no wonder that talk of getting beyond intellect for getting deeper into the divine emerges in this context.

Yet, intellectualism has not always been thought of in this way. Take Plato. For Plato, the intellect is something like another desire. That is, in the same way that a hungry stomach desires food, the intellect desires truth. Indeed, for Plato, the intellect is given over to an erotic drive to reach the Truth, the entirety of which I need not get into. The point being thus: the intellect is far from a neutral observer of things that merely conveys ideas through words to a detached mind. The intellect is passionate, directed, and “in love.” The intellect is our movement through the real to God in God’s self, at least for Plato.

We can see this Platonic principle at work, too, in a myriad of Christian mystics and thinkers, namely, the idea that the intellect does not merely hinder our relationship with the divine, but is a properly spiritual avenue for expressing that relationship. Such an understanding has been generally called “faith seeking understanding.” One need not go any further than Anselm, the founder of this saying, to understand the true context of this saying. His Monologion especially is an intellectual appropriation of a prior faith given to him by the spirit and expressed in words. It is a prayer, or an intellectual reflection on his prayers, that grasps at doctrines such as the nature of God’s Trinitarian being and Goodness, among other things.

This isn’t to say that Anselm believes himself to understood or thought through his faith fully, which is why there is a sense in which “going beyond intellect” holds some sway in spirituality. Rather than “getting beyond” intellect, I think the better way to think through the issue is in the following ways. On the one hand, one cannot properly think through the being of God without being centered in God’s being pre-cognitively; on the other hand, if one is brought into the being of God pre-cognitively, then thinking is a perfect expression of one’s spirituality and one of the major means through which we come to, worship, and exist in relationship to God.

In other words, thinking through doctrine such as the nature of the being of the God-man, the Trinity, the idea of salvation, etc., is anything but a hindrance to entering into a deeper spiritual relationship with God. I would at least claim that, as a Christian, thoughtful reflection on precisely these doctrines allow us to draw ever nearer to the divine and the divine’s love for us, found for us on all sides of the cross. The key, then, is to simply not accept the statements dogmatically—as calculative beliefs that, should we ascent to them, allow us entrance into heaven or, should we reject them, send us straight to hell. Nor should we accept such doctrines as somehow objectively and empirically verifiable, able to be found without God bringing us specifically into God’s own being such that these become meaningful doctrines in the first place. Rather, these latter two types of thinking are the ones that today’s spirituality promises to get us beyond—and rightly so!

But let’s not throw the baby out with the bathwater. Doctrinal statement is already a part of spirituality, for one can only write it and utter it with any form of seriousness by already being within the spirit.

All this said, I’m working through these spiritual disciplines and books, and I will definitely continue to do so. I’ve benefitted greatly from them. However, I would also like the chance to more deeply engage in a spirituality of the Cross, a spirituality of the Resurrection, a spirituality of Trinitarian relations or of the Spirit intimately involved with all these movements and events, even known only as such in and through them. Obviously, such spiritualities are out there, and it would probably, at most, take some light googling to find spiritual exercises focused in such doctrines. But it is worth noting that, however such spiritualities and spiritual formation courses would be put together with such an emphasis, they would need to retain a deep intellectual content to them—a content that neither takes one away from doctrinal formulation nor from spiritual depth but pushes one deeper into both.

Such spiritualities would require that we change our manner of thinking about what thinking is and is supposed to do. Rather, we would need to take seriously the statement found in the picture at the beginning of this post—a saying of Heidegger’s posted at the beginning of a trail in the Black Forest dedicated to him. The sign says something like, “in thinking is each thing long and slow.” That’s probably good spiritual advice.