Monks' Corner
Diocesan Press Service. September 13, 1974 [74240]
(Monks' Corner is a monthly spiritual column prepared exclusively for the diocesan publications -- please do not print this material in any other publications.)
Article No. 1 (Suggested for October issues)
LED BY THE SPIRIT
Robert E. Campbell, O.H.C.
That is how St. John Baptist was led. That is how our Lord was led. Led into the wilderness. That is how Christians of all ages are led.
There is nothing static about the Life of any of us. We always must keep moving, either in the worldly surroundings, or in the spiritual. There can be no standing still, unless we want to roll backwards. In school we must either pass and be promoted or fail. In business we must work in order to sell whatever we have for sale. Nor is the life of the Spirit any different.
The greatest thing in the world is not material success, or social prominence, but rather the life in the Spirit. It is so dramatic, really, for ever fresh vistas are opened to us day by day, new challenges to prayer and action as well. All the material things we have will fade away one by one. Only the life in God will amount to anything in the end. The world passes, and all its glory.
How are we led by the Spirit? It may be, as was our Lord, to the desert, to learn that the strength of our God is stronger than that of Satan. Perhaps it is to a busy life in the world that God is leading us, to manifest His love and power to all with whom we come in contact. But we must remember, the spiritual life, while most important, is not all. We must translate our prayer into acts of charity and compassion. Not every one is suited to the life of contemplation and quiet, though it is a privilege to try to rise up to the inner call of the Spirit to tarry in the exploration of the mysteries of God.
Led by the Spirit indeed. All life is motion. Some choose the broad way, downhill and easy. But our Blessed Lord warns us against any such pampering the bodily appetites. Narrow is the gate and steep the way that leads to life. God grant that we may be led to that small gate and have the courage and power which He gives to abide with Him. For, that is where the Spirit is leading us, even though we may not realize it.
Pray then for the heavenly guidance. We can easily lose our way in the wilderness ; we can get all awry in the affairs of the world; or of the church; but the gate to heavenly life is for our Lord to show us. He is after all the Good Shepherd who leads his flock in and out and calls them by name.
Article No. 2 (Suggested for October issues)
IMAGELESS PRAYER
by The Rev. Thomas Schultz, OHC
God spake these words, and said : I am the Lord thy God; thou shalt have none other gods but me. Thou shalt not make to thyself any graven image, etc.
I can remember these words being spoken in the coolness of the early morning at a celebration of the Holy Communion, and thinking smugly to myself, "Well, that's one I'm safe on! " Of course, at that time I had no idea of the depths of that seemingly simple command, and how easily it could be broken.
If I were to ask you, "When was the last time you willfully made an idol or 'graven image ", you would probably have a very difficult time remembering. Some more sophisticated would say they had made idols out of money, status, position, etc. This would be a valuable insight, for we do this in varying degrees.
I want to share some thoughts with you on the idea of making idols and images, not of things in opposition to God, but of God Himself.
The 1940 Hymnal is a fertile ground of images of God, some of which are good, and adequate, and some of which are not.
Images are necessary in the beginning of our relationship with God in prayer. Images protect us, and in some instances, comfort us. There are a few that threaten us. All images of God don't necessarily come from God. Some can be downright evil images designed to break the relationship with God in prayer, and these are bad for us and harm us. An example of such an image would be that of a fickle tyrant who lashes out with anger indiscriminately.
One thing we must always keep in mind is that an image can only describe an aspect of God and no one image can describe God totally. God is far greater than any one or number of images we can come up with.
I think one of the reasons we hear that all the "mystery " has gone from the liturgy is not because of the change of form or language, but because the images we had of God which seemed to fit the old format and language, and the society it came from, became inadequate for the present life. God hasn't changed, nor has His mystery or majesty. If we persist in defending and protecting our images of God, we will lose the reality of His presence and find ourselves in idolatry and never know how we got there.
It is not surprising that the greatest breaker of idols is God Himself. In prayer, He comes in His loving presence, and asks us to give up our limited self-constructed toys, for the limitless reality of His love and life in us.
I am coming increasingly to see prayer in its most positive, simple and humble form as a silent, receptive, sitting in the presence of God, and experiencing His presence when He wills it. This involves letting Him deal with the wandering thoughts and distractions, and with His help, destroying the self-constructed idols of Him which I have made. It sounds simple, but really it takes effort to change the habits of mental conversations and intellectual stimulation which I have labeled as prayer in the past. In coming to know God in prayer and not just to know about Him or know about a relationship with Him, we are faced with the inadequacy of our mental idols and are confronted with a living reality -- mysterious, loving and all powerful. Prayer can be a loving, frightening relationship when the idols crack and we are faced with Him.
Our immediate reaction is then to construct a new idol to protect ourselves and to intellectually label and box Him; otherwise we lose control of the situation, lose some of the " absolute " answers we had to struggle for in the past, and avoid the one humble phrase, "I don't know ", when asked technical questions about Him.
" I don't know how, all I know is -- He is." What a powerfully real statement!
In recent years, a growing appreciation of Orthodox Spirituality in the writings of Archbishop Anthony Bloom and Fr. Thomas Hopko have given us a gift of great worth in the tradition of imageless prayer. Two standard western texts, both drawing on the Eastern tradition, are The Practice of the Presence of God by Br. Lawrence of the Resurrection, and The Cloud of Unknowing.
In our present day, being bombarded with images, symbols, analogies, etc., the experience of God's life within us through this form of prayer, for an increasing number of people, is the anchor that gives stability and meaning to all images, symbols and analogies; and in the process, transforms us and His world into what He created it, creates it, and will continue to create it to be. Not a world in opposition to Him but a world in Him and we in Him. We penetrate this world and may see it for the first time in Him in imageless prayer.