Tag Archives: contemplation

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Getting a Grip vs. Letting Go

Making time to write is difficult, and I don’t just mean on this blog. For me, Wonderstuff is just a slice of the pie I would like to bake everyday, but the specific ingredients (time and energy) aren’t always in ready supply. Couple that with the fact that the oven, at times, is already in use for another dish that requires extra attention (the oven, in this lame metaphor, is life in general).

I was talking with a student today about finding a quality time during the day to spend time in prayer. I explained some ancient practices of worship and prayer, specific devotional disciplines, monastic offices, and even the neo-traditional “quiet time” structures in an effort to hone in on not only how to pick a time of day to commune with the Other, but how to stick to it as well. Unfortunately, even for a guy who’s been “doing ministry” for over ten years, I don’t have a clear answer. I have much the same problem with this as I do with maintaining a writing schedule. Despite what The Stones would have us believe, some days time is not on our side.

So what are we to do? How are we to practice a desire for daily discipline (be it prayer, reading, writing, or even spending quality time with the person you love) when our lives rarely lend themselves to undeviating order and unfluctuating structure. I’m always jealous when I read about authors who preserved a perfect writing schedule day after day after throughout their career, or the philosophers and priests and such who found time to spend not just minutes but multiple hours in prayer and contemplation. The film About a Boy even suggests that life can be divided up into thirty minute increments that can easily function as a kind of currency when it comes to arranging one’s day. Well, I don’t buy it.

The truth is, our lives tend to spin out of control at times. We exist as much in chaos as we do in categorization, and until we recognize this truth, we will continue to be frustrated by the undulating nature of our lifestyles. I tell people that I’m still working on getting a grip on all this stuff, but it occurs to me that perhaps seeking to “get a grip” is one of the problems.

Letting go … now that’s something different. It’s hard, it seems careless, and it reeks of unproductivity.

But it might be worth a shot.

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The Journey Lately – Part Two

In my last post, I began an in-depth focus on three specifics elements of Christian worship to which I have been drawn within the last few years. I defined and discussed the first element, liturgy, and related how, as I waded into my twenties, the typical liturgy of my evangelical upbringing and faith communities no longer assisted me in the way it once had. I had become wearied by what I felt to be a bland consistency to these church services and gatherings. Part of the time that I was experiencing these frustrations, I was working for a small Baptist church in Waco. One day, while talking about specific church music selections with the woman who helped “lead the singing,” she described praise and worship music as “7/11 songs.” When I returned her a puzzled look, she elaborated. “A song with seven words that you sing eleven times through.” It was funny, I realized later, because, in many instances, it was true.

But the sheer amount of time in a worship service dedicated to guitar-driven and percussion-laden P&W choruses was not the only thing with which I had issue. In fact, I’m still partial to acoustic guitar, and there are moments when a drum of some sort would not be out-of-place in my preferred worship – often it can be a way to outwardly represent the beating of a heart. No, the main problem I was experiencing during all this was that, for whatever reason, the common liturgy of P&W-style worship (joined together with long and winding messages accented with PowerPoint and film clips) no longer enraptured or edified me. Instead, participating in them only left me feeling empty, like a perfunctory chore I was obligated to accomplish. In essence, the very purpose of worship was lost on me.

For several years, I blamed myself for this. I was certain that the reason I had soured to worship was that I no longer performed by quiet time with as much dedication. That I wasn’t praying enough. That I had neglected to continue in Scripture memorization. I didn’t recognize it at the time, but this assumption was simply another side to the spiritual insecurity that has plagued me my whole life, the same insecurity that led me to walk a half-dozen youth camp aisles every summer hoping this time I would really be saved and all my doubts and temptations would finally cease.

I even spent the first year of seminary privately pining for a renewal to the things that had once interested me. I had participated in the entire OneDay 2003 Passion event earlier that summer, and I immediately bought tickets to the Passion Tour when it came through Austin. I taught my youth group the few worship songs I knew how to play on guitar. I did my best to lose myself in the “high-energy worship” at their camps. I kept buying the newest P&W albums.

The problem was, I couldn’t shut off my mind. No matter what kind of service I attended, it seemed I was addicted to analyzing the lyrics of each song, and what the Scripture passage and theme of the speaker/preacher’s message had to do with what we had sung about for the last hour. I began noticing that the only time I truly felt as if I had entered into genuine worship was during the occasional observance of the Lord’s Supper, or when the worship leader had beckoned us all into a time of silent reflection. There was something in those things that moved me. It was not long before I came to realize that what I had been missing in my worship experiences was the practice of contemplation. This was what my mind and spirit had been seeking all along, but much of the worship I was engaging in served only to distract rather than facilitate contemplation.

For me, contemplation is the second element, next to liturgy, that drives my worship these days. However, these two go together. As I stated in my last post, everyone practices some sort of liturgy when they worship. I found that the liturgy that spoke to me was one that catalyzed and encouraged a contemplative spirit.

I came to this particular realization during a visit to a place that initially terrified me. In fulfillment of the requirements of a seminary course called Wilderness Theology, my professor took the handful of students in the class to spend a week at a Benedictine monastery, the Christ in the Desert community in Abiquie, New Mexico. Of course, I grew up staunchly evangelical to the point that even Methodism and Episcopalianism were considered iffy. Catholicism? That was synonymous with hell. I’m ashamed to confess that such assumptions didn’t change until after I’d spent some time working as a Baptist missionary in New England, where I got to know several students from the College of the Holy Cross and found them to be some of the most devout young Christians I had ever encountered.

Still, the monastery made me uncomfortable, at least at first. I struggled to understand the purpose of chanting in Latin. While I could perceive the significance of the liturgical hours of prayer, I did not grasp the purpose. And praying to St. John the Baptist during lunchtime made me very uncomfortable. The first few days I spent observing these monks – some of them hardly older than me – and silently judging them. How could they think they were serving God by tucking themselves away in this remote canyon and praying for over half the day? It seemed almost delusional, if not arrogant.

After day four and day five, however, something changed. My seminary professors had taught me to open my mind in more ways than I was comfortable at first; I had always found what I learned exciting, even refreshing. I forced myself to attempt the same thing here. Almost immediately, I was afforded a glimpse, or, more accurately, a series of glimpses into the deep purposes of ritual liturgy and contemplation. I began to catch parts of the Latin. My avidly analytical mind began to dissect the creeds and communal prayers, and I found the theology wrapped up within them to be enlivening. The week shifted from worthless to restorative.

Even on the van ride home, I began making plans to implement contemplation into my life. I was far too wimpy to become a monk, but I wanted to practice contemplation and so much more. It seemed the monks at Christ in the Desert lived a kind of seasonal, cyclical life. They recited the Psalms over and over, they worked the same gardens, stacked the same amount of wood and ate the same basic meals again and again. But there was nothing tedious or unstimulating in these rituals. Rather, this worship-and-work liturgy seemed to foster a consistent sense of renewal. I wanted this. Deep down, I knew this was what I had been looking for all along.

In attempting to include such elements into my life, I found that this only opened up new pathways for me. Words like mysticism, contemplation, meditation and monasticism no longer frightened me or made me assume I was being deceived by demons touting principles of evil Eastern religions. I recognized that what mattered most in worship was expanding my heart and mind and taking God out of the box in which I had kept him stuffed for so many years. This God was my life-giver and was not willing to be nailed down by specifically denominational definitions. This God was interested in freedom, but freedom that challenges and changes rather than comforts and consoles.

I would go on to see this God at play “in ten thousand places,” as Hopkins writes. Because what came next was an expansion of understanding that continues to stretch me, daring me to follow the Spirit into places I never expected to find him before. This is the real journey – the one I constantly encourage my students to take even in the midst of their larger “faith journeys.” Next week, I will conclude this blog series with an examination of what this unnerving journey looks like…

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The Journey Lately – Part One

In the last few weeks, I have been asked about my interest in Anglicanism and the liturgical church three times, I have sat down with two colleagues to discuss what draws me to liturgy and ritual in worship, and I even had a singer/songwriter of “liturgical rock” recommended to me by a friend familiar with my journey. I have fielded questions about this particular aspect of my spiritual life before, but never with this much frequency. It’s coincidence, to be sure, but while I believe in coincidences, I also believe that sometimes there is a connection to the Holy within them, even if such a connection is forged when we simply stop to consider the why of it all.

To clarify, all this takes place after the events described in the “Faith Journey” piece I wrote in 2005, which can be read by clicking on the Faith Journey page at the top right of this blog, or by clicking here.

The first thing that must be understood before one sits down to write about his or her faith journey is that everything matters. There are thousands of moments that I can point to – some obviously more significant than others – that came together to form the person I am today, physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually… Therefore, I cannot begin with the typical “It all started when…” line, because the reality is that everyone has a backstory and what affects a person at different points along his or her journey ultimately propel us in certain directions, with certain preferences and inclinations effecting changes in our particular interests. In other words, I count myself part-Anglican now due largely to a particular seminary class trip to a Benedictine monastery, but, in the same way, my experiences at Christ in the Desert were influenced by the specific Southern Baptist tradition and subculture in which I came of age. As Richard Rohr reminds us, “Everything belongs.”

My Anglican leanings are simply a manifestation of something much deeper that has been going on inside me for some time. I am not drawn to Anglicanism as much as I am moved by three specific aspects of worship that happens to drive much of Anglican-style observance. Those three things are liturgy, contemplation and religious symbolism. I will examine the first one in this post, and the next two in subsequent posts.

Rich Mullins once said in an interview that liturgy is something that you “give yourself over to.” It is a thing that “you voluntarily participate in in order to identify yourself with a certain group of people.” He went on to explain that when he visits with a certain group of friends, they must play a particular card game. Why? Because, if they don’t, it does not feel as if they have really met together. In other words, liturgy is the traditions – some obvious, some subtle – that are automatically manifested within an activity or event. In this way, liturgy is not exclusive to older church traditions, or even any religious tradition at all. Families that come together for Christmas or Independence Day participate in liturgy.

However, liturgy as an aspect of religious observance has become very important to me. These days, I am drawn to a specific liturgy because the traditions inherent within it resonate in my heart and mind in ways that nothing else can emulate.

Growing up, I attended a small Southern Baptist church in a small town. The sanctuary was small, the classrooms were small and the youth group was small. The church participated in a specific liturgy in its gatherings. There was always the singing of hymns, the gravely-throated muttering of a deacon’s prayer, a worship service that built up to the sermon, the sounds of a piano and an organ, and, at least a few times each month, the invitational strains of “Just as I Am.” Additionally, there were potlucks in the “Fellowship Hall,” felt-board lessons in Vacation Bible School, and annual gatherings on the church lawn to celebrate the new Sunday School year (which followed the local schools’ year, beginning in late August and closing in early June). This was our liturgy and, as far as the whole community of faith was concerned, there was nothing lacking.

During my teenage years, my youth group became interested in praise and worship music, beginning with songs like “His Strength is Perfect,” “From the Rising of the Sun,” and “Lord, I Lift Your Name on High,” but following the movement close enough to adopt anthems like “Shout to the Lord” and “Did You Feel the Mountains Tremble?” into our repertoire. Some of the kids learned to play guitar. Sunday School-like Bible studies became “praise and worship services,” or sometimes we would call them “concerts of prayer.” You didn’t always have to bring your Bible because eventually PowerPoint provided a way to project not only lyrics but Scripture texts as well. During the lengthy stretches of music, you could stand, your could lift up your hands and sway, or you could curl up in a fetal position and weep if the emotion of “The Heart of Worship” affected you in just the right way.

I encountered and engaged in this outpouring of emotion and devotion in college as well. College group gatherings had formed their own liturgy, or, perhaps, it had formed them. Music, music, music, announcements and welcome, music, music, music, prayer, slower music, speaker or group discussion, soft music while emotional speaker intoned a convicting challenge or prayer, music a little bit faster now, a little bit faster now, a little bit faster now…

Go to any evangelical church today, especially one known for its high numbers of twenty- and thirty-something attendees, and odds are that you will encounter a liturgy similar to this. Lately, hymns have been making their way back into worship – albeit with a little P&W funk rubbed on them (thanks, David Crowder and friends) – so you may hear the singing of “Come, Thou Fount of Ev’ry Blessing,” “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross,” or even the “Phos Hilaron,” which some credit the Passion movement for bringing back.

So, what is wrong with this?

Nothing, really. For some people, the emotional kick of the music (be it three songs or thirty songs in a row) is what they’re craving. Combine that with a challenging message (the word “sermon” is out, and don’t even think about using the word “homily”) and the satisfaction of worshipping together with other people close to your age who also dig the music and the look of the place, and you’ve got yourself the makings of a genuine community of believers. Whether you do it up big (Lakewood, Prestonwood, North Point, Mars Hill) or on a smaller scale, the liturgy found in the majority of evangelical churches is not phony. It may very well begin to feel stereotypical, but the thing about liturgy is that what makes the guided experience of it genuine is the person who participates in it. Sure, there are plenty of folks who simply show up and go through the motions of the liturgy they follow, but there are also others who, as Rich Mullins says, give themselves over to it. They allow it to move them.

So, why have I rejected the liturgy described and illustrated above?

Because I spent years participating in it and found that, over time, I was struggling more and more to genuinely connect to God and to the other worshippers in my various communities of faith. While some people were having amazing experiences singing “We Fall Down” and “I Could Sing of Your Love Forever,” I felt as if I was colliding with walls, not communing with the Almighty. I felt that I might actually have to sing of His love forever if the “worship leader” didn’t wrap it up. For a while, new praise anthems captured me, but eventually, it did not matter if the song was new or old, chorus or hymn – I felt empty. I was not moved emotionally. I was not drawn in spiritually. I was even beginning to have theological hang-ups with some of the lyrics. I did not feel connected to other Christians despite the closeness that my fellow worshippers seemed to be experiencing in the same service.

Simply put, I could find no depth to this brand of liturgy. I was tired of it, and I knew that I would have to find something different if I was going to maintain any sense of devotion to God.

It was at this point that several providential events occurred. At first, I did not see the connection in them, but in the last few years I have begun to recognize their relationship to one another as if it was all some grand conspiracy with me as the pawn. I found another form of liturgy that I could embrace in ways I was never able to assimilate the praise and worship service brand of my youth. It is a liturgy similar to that which is observed in many Anglican, Episcopal and Catholic churches today. It is driven by contemplation and religious symbolism. It is a kind of worshipful magnetism that I will expound on more in my next post…