Presence Presence Quarterly THE
OUR MISSION Inspired by the love of Jesus, we are building the kingdom of heaven, where differing people live in community, serving God and each other.
“WE MAY IGNORE, BUT WE CAN NOWHERE EVADE, THE PRESENCE OF GOD. THE WORLD IS CROWDED WITH HIM. HE WALKS EVERYWHERE INCOGNITO. AND THE INCOGNITO IS NOT ALWAYS HARD TO PENETRATE. THE REAL LABOR IS TO REMEMBER, TO ATTEND … IN FACT TO COME AWAKE. STILL MORE, TO REMAIN AWAKE.”
~ C.S. Lewis
“AND REMEMBER, I AM WITH YOU ALWAYS,
TO THE END OF THE AGE.” ~ Matthew 28:20
DEAR CATHEDRAL,
The word Advent means Coming. In this forgotten season, we wait for the coming of Jesus, and we remember the miracle of his arrival and his presence among us. For once that child was born as God in human flesh, that particular kind of potent presence of God remained with us ever after.
What does it mean that God is present with us? The presence of God is something that can actually be felt and experienced, but it cannot be controlled or manipulated. We prepare the soil of our hearts to welcome that presence, and then we wait. What we are waiting for, when we meditate and pray, is not for God to arrive – for God is already there. What we are waiting for are our own minds and hearts to quiet and open. Like a flower that blooms in its time, with the practices of prayer, giving, service and worship, our hearts will open to God. And we will recognize the Presence of the One who has been with us all along.
This Cathedral Quarterly is about Presence. Open its pages as you would open your heart and mind, for God is with us and will never leave us. God is here.
In Christ’s Love,
LISTEN TO THE LEAVES
by Bishop Steven Charleston
When I was a small child
I would listen for the voice of the Spirit in the trees. The rustling leaves would whisper their messages
But I was not sure I understood them.
Listen some more, my great-grandmother would say Go out and listen some more
And one day you will understand it.
I have been doing as she said for many decades now.
And while I still have a lot to learn,
One thing I do know for certain:
The wind in the trees knows us by name.
If you don’t believe me, go out and listen.
Close your eyes, listen to the leaves,
And hear your name written on the wind.
RESOURCES FOR ADVENT
During the season of Advent (the four-week season of preparation and celebration that leads up to Christmas), we are charged with preparing our hearts and minds for the presence of God through Christ incarnate –remaining “awake” so that we are fully aware of his Coming. It is an ideal time to add to your spiritual practice, perhaps with one of the following free resources:
BROTHER LAWRENCE: THE PRACTICE OF THE PRESENCE OF GOD
Brother Lawrence was a 17th-century Carmelite friar, known for his close relationship with God and his ability to converse with Him at all times. A short compilation of his letters and conversations, The Practice of the Presence of God, is available for free download through the Project Gutenburg website, gutenberg.org. According to the book summary: “Brother Lawrence shares his transformative approach to spirituality based on love and simplicity. His insights highlight the importance of dedicating every action, no matter how mundane, to God, creating a continuous, heartfelt conversation with the Divine.”
JOURNEYING THE WAY OF LOVE
The national Episcopal Church offers a four-session Advent Curriculum, available on its website at www.episcopalchurch.org/advent-and-christmasresources/ that uses the Gospel of Luke as a pattern to understand how we can live the Way of Love as individuals, as family and friends, as a community, and out in the world. The following Advent calendar offers daily suggestions for engaging in seven practices that encompass the Way of Love: turn, learn, pray, worship, bless, go, and rest.
AWAKENING TO GOD’S PRESENCE
by Rev. Kirk Alan Kubicek
Archbishop William Temple said, “The source of humility is the habit of realizing the presence of God.”
We may as well face it, none of us likes to wait. Modern culture demands immediacy. Whatever we want, we want it now. If that’s not enough, we want the newest and the best, we want the latest and greatest, and we want it all right now.
Yet, recent research on economic success suggests that delayed gratification may lead to more sustainable innovation and success. The study is based on parking habits: Do you park head-in to a parking space, or do you back in, making it easier to pull out when you leave? Brain research has long concluded that hard work and persistent effort helps to “grow the brain.”
That is, we can make ourselves smarter and more successful through hard work. It is called neuroplasticity – the brain’s capacity to always, throughout life, make new connections, new neural pathways, to make us smarter and more aware.
So someone researched national parking habits in countries around the world, correlated with economic innovation and success, and concluded that since backing in to a parking space tends to take more work and persistence, countries in which that is the predominant parking method tend to be more productive and successful.
What does all this have to do with bridesmaids, Jesus and keeping awake?
Anthony De Mello, a Jesuit priest, psychologist and retreat leader made a career out of teaching us that the main task of the spiritual life is to wake
up. Despite our over-stimulation with electronic devices, addictions to the Internet and social media, and our endless quest for the newest, the best and the most, we tend to make our way through life sleepwalking. We remain somehow unaware of the spiritual dimension of our lives. Like all of the bridesmaids, we let that part of our life wait. There will be time for that later, we say to ourselves.
Or worse still, we see the life of the spirit as something we need to acquire or earn. We buy and consume books, DVDs, we watch TV shows, read blogs and whatever we can get our hands on. But none of these activities quench our desire and need for an awareness of our spiritual self. In the midst of all this working on our spiritual life, we are still distracting ourselves from experiencing it. De Mello and Jesus both knew this and call us to wake up! And once awake to stay awake!
Since we know that we can grow our brains to develop new habits and awareness, what will be the spiritual equivalent of filling our lamps with oil and trimming our wicks?
Let’s first address wick trimming, since lamps and candles burn slower when we regularly trim the wick. It is similar with fruit trees – they produce more fruit when we do the work of pruning. Just as it is easier to get out of our parking spaces head first, Jesus is always extolling the value of doing the upfront work so that we can reap the dividends more easily when the fruit comes in. So trimming and pruning our lives, reducing the amount of distractions, would seem to be the No. 1 lesson for those of us who aspire to be bridesmaids for Christ when he comes. The paradox is that doing less can also help us to awaken to the presence of the Spirit in every breath we take. Doing less can help us to wake up and stay awake for the presence of Christ here and now.
As to filling our lamps with oil, doing less points us in the right direction. For it turns out that another way to encourage and promote neuroplasticity is to do nothing – not just less, but nothing. All religious traditions have some form of mindfulness meditation, centering prayer and contemplation as a religious or spiritual practice. Sadly, it is rarely found in church, where we tend to relentlessly work our way through the liturgy without pause so we can get to the end. And then what? Go to coffee hour, “the 8th sacrament”? Or go watch the ball game?
Contemplative prayer or mindfulness meditation helps us to create an empty space within. This has two immediate benefits. It gives God and the Spirit a point of entry into our otherwise busy and sleepwalking lives. Once we prepare a place within for the God to dwell within us, we become more aware and awake to the fact that God has been and is always with us. We recognize that the work of spiritual growth is, in fact, no work at all.
Also, as it turns out, letting the brain rest promotes neuroplasticity. When we emerge from our prayer or meditation, we are made new, re-wired and more aware of not only who we are but whose we are.
THE GERMAN THEOLOGIAN MEISTER ECKHART IS QUOTED AS SAYING, “GOD IS AT HOME. IT IS WE WHO HAVE GONE OUT FOR A WALK.”
So what are we waiting for? Are we to spend our time like the bridesmaids, waiting for Christ to come? Or are we to heed our Lord’s final imperative in the story: Keep awake!
These parables are tricky. We tend to treat them as doctrinal treatises or allegories, assigning parts to each character in the story. But what if Jesus
meant to simply shock us with details such as closing the door on the foolish ones only to deliver the real message: Keep awake! One suspects Jesus really did not want us spending hours of Bible study dithering over questions such as “How could Jesus do that? Why would he close the door on anyone?” when we already know the answer is that he closed the door on no one. Not prostitute, not tax collector, not sinner. His door is always open. The disciples to whom this little tale is told know that and have witnessed it every day. And like them, we ought to be those who recognize that what seems like his coming again is simply our awakening to the very real Good News of Jesus, that he is with us always to the end of the age. No waiting required. He is here. Forever and always. We might even say forever and all ways.
What is Jesus calling us to do? Wake up and keep awake! The time and effort put into doing less and doing nothing will awaken us to the clever truth buried deep within this tale of lamps and oil and bridesmaids:
HE IS HERE. HIS DOOR IS OPEN TO ALL AT ALL TIMES OF DAY AND NIGHT. WHEN WE WAKE UP TO THIS TRUTH ALL THINGS ARE MADE NEW – INCLUDING MOST IMPORTANTLY WE OURSELVES.
OFFERING
by Cynthia Briggs Kittredge
The angels didn’t feed the hungering one, rather they distracted the adversary by flashing their bright feet drawing light arcs in the sky.
The multitude groaned for food and from woven bags covered with scarlet birds they offered loaves and minor fish.
They kept him now also by looking and seeing, beholding the place he was laid, so they could remember and return to minister again.
BUTTERFLY ANGEL | Bruce
Conner
FAITH IN DIVINE PRESENCE
by Adam Bucko
When I think of this Gospel passage [John 6:1–14, Jesus feeds 5,000], I often think of my time of working with homeless youth. I spent years building skills and . . . felt that I would become a capable professional armed with therapeutic skills and techniques that could fix people’s lives. Deep down, I really believed that I was there among the homeless fixing their lives. Until one day I realized that what I was doing was not really working. Kids were going through our programs and still ending up on the street. They were still just one step from being hurt or even killed by a drug dealer or pimp. That is when I was forced to change. I started feeling helpless, and my confidence was shattered. All that I was left with was faith . . . [and] trust that I was where God was calling me to be.
As a result of the crisis I underwent, my work evolved from a highly praised, solution-oriented, and evidence-based practice into something much more intuitive. It really moved into prayer. And when I say prayer, I don’t necessarily mean that I was saying prayers with people. Instead, I started showing up for every person who needed my help in the same way that I was showing up for prayer. Gathering all my knowledge and tools and entrusting them to God. Saying to God, “I think you’re calling me to do something here. This is what I come with. I offer it to you. Take it. Change it. Make it useful. Because I feel so small and useless here.” I would just be there with homeless youth in a state of not knowing and trust. Paying attention to what was, bearing witness to their pain, helping them to hold their pain, and often breaking with them as a result of what I was witnessing.
What I began discovering is that every time I allowed myself to feel at a loss in the face of the pain I witnessed, every time I touched my own irrelevance, there was this energy of God that would begin to emerge in our midst. All I had to do was say yes to it. The presence of God was there, always ready to pick up the broken pieces from the floor and re-assemble them into something good. When that happened, I realized that my skills were not useless. I just needed to first surrender them to God, so God could use them however God wished. So right words could come. So right ways of being present could manifest. It was often not clear who was helping whom. Because in each of those sacred moments I received just as much as I was giving, if not more.
MOTHER TERESA AND THE MYSTERY OF GOD’S ABSENCE
from the Internet Monk Archives, inspired by the book Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light
Critics – atheistic, fundamentalist, truly reformed and those too correct to be labeled – will probably go completely bonkers with pleasure at the revelation that Mother Teresa struggled with the dark night of the soul much of her life and ministry. In letters kept after her death, her doubts and struggles confided to spiritual directors and confessors tell a story of lifelong struggle with a sense of God’s presence and the certainties of faith. Time Magazine’s detailed quotes from an upcoming book and sympathetic story and analysis will only feed those who already consider Mother Teresa to be a phony, over-rated, medieval throwback and Roman Catholic myth.
Of course, many of us will recognize in Mother Teresa’s words the familiar story of our own faith and the faith of others we revere and seek to emulate. While none of us are cut from identical cloth or have identical experiences of God’s presence or absence, there is a familiar aire to what Mother Teresa writes. Many of us have been there; some of us for years; some for a season; some of us for longer than we can recall. If you are familiar with the stories of the spiritual journeys of other honest human beings, you will recognize in Mother Teresa a fellow pilgrim down what is often a dark road.
Christianity’s promises of the present presence and apprehension of God are not simple. In many ways, it seems to me that neither scripture nor recorded experience gives a coherent, teachable view of the subject. (Anyone out there heard a sermon or teaching series lately on the Experience of God’s Presence? It takes some pretty confident Charismatics to go there.)
What we do know is that from Job to David to Jesus to Teresa to Jack Lewis to Michael Spencer, those who belong to God and have His Spirit go through times, even entire chapters of life, where God’s presence does not
come in simple, “felt” ways. God seems to be hiding; to be purposely staying out of reach and out of touch. To what end? For what purpose?
Such questions do not have simple answers, and even if someone were to undertake a survey of the most eloquent writers on their own experience of God’s absence, I dare say that no two would be so alike and instructive that any of us would be able to avoid the experience. We would be affirmed that we are not unique, atheists would be encouraged to announce the death of God, and religious bigots and bullies would put their targets on our backs and fire away.
It is interesting to me that Teresa’s experience seems to be, in some way, tied to the same personality that worked tirelessly and cared endlessly. We learn, according to the excerpts, that at the times she was the most devoted and sacrificial, God’s face was often hidden from her. Of course, those who point at Teresa’s experience of darkness might want to look at the testimony of joy and divine presence that is part of the story of many other Christians. We are not, in any way, cut from the same cookie-cutter spiritual material.
I remember the depths of my own dark night in September of 2001. I was at the point of breaking down and being unable to preach or teach, a condition I had never faced before. I was as far from God as it was possible to be, and I felt myself in the grip of despair. But I came to work every day. I taught. I preached–with unparalleled fear and shame–and I ministered to others. In my community of faith, these daily activities filled in the empty places, and in these moments I experienced the mixture of despair and faith that the Psalms report to us again and again. Where are you, God? I cannot see you or sense you, but you are there. In the very absence, there is a different and sustaining kind of presence. This was not a certain absence–which so many flippantly assume–but a mysterious presence, entirely congruent with what I know of myself and of the God of the Bible.
The lived spiritual life is a frequent contradiction. I reject the kind of “victorious life” formulaic teaching I grew up hearing in fundamentalist circles, and I must also reject the kind of consumeristic emotional junk food that is found everywhere in evangelicalism as a substitute for the presence of God. As much as I count myself a Christian hedonist, I am suspicious that “Delight yourself in the Lord” is often deeply and significantly misunderstood.
The assurance of God’s presence and the certainties of answered questions are not the same thing. I find far more rational certainty in the resurrection than I do existential experience of the presence of Jesus. Spiritual experience takes the shape of the incarnation itself, with God inhabiting a fallen world where human beings have become insensitive, fearful and callous to the glory of God that pours forth from every crack of the universe. If the fall is true, then none of us are “in tune” with the presence of God, and particular theologies of God’s presence may let us down profoundly.
The kinds of doubts that I read in Mother Teresa’s memoirs make me wonder what kind of expectations of God’s presence are made in the Roman Catholic theology of religious vocation? What kinds of stories of God’s presence are collected around the theology of the Eucharistic presence of Christ? I am not the person to answer these questions, but I know my own tradition has its own collection of promises and mythology that ignore the typical experience of human nature.
WHERE DO I LOOK FOR THE PRESENCE OF GOD?
I HAVE LEARNED THAT LOOKING FOR SUCH SIGNS IN A SPIRITUALITY OF ISOLATION IS POINTLESS. FOR ME, THE PRESENCE OF GOD MEETS ME IN COMMUNITY. IN WORSHIP. IN NARRATIVE. IN STORY. IN COMMUNAL PRAYER. IN THE IMITATION OF JESUS IN SERVING OTHERS. AT TIMES, IT ARRIVES WITH SURPRISE, AND DEPARTS ABRUPTLY.
The wind blows where it will, and we are pilgrims in the life of prayer and faith. We are not called to be pretenders of certainties that do not exist in our experience.
Because my tradition devalues the sacraments, I can rarely look for the presence of God there, but I surely would come to the Lord’s Table as often as possible, not for a magic dispensation of awareness of God, but entirely because God does meet me in the places where He promised to be present,
even if I am not emotionally registering that presence. The life of faith is exactly that: the silent moment of believing the promise of a God who may overwhelm, or hide; come near in glory or hide in darkness.
Mother Teresa will become a more human fellow pilgrim through this book, and that can only be good. We do not need saints unlike us, but saints like us, including those voicing questions, doubts, and lament in the context of prayer to Jesus whom we do not see, but who gives our lives meaning.
THE ISRAELITES PASSING THROUGH THE WILDERNESS, PRECEDED BY THE PILLAR OF LIGHT | William West
LISTENING
by Stephen Searcy
The shadows climb over the ridge. It’s almost time.
Under the bridge, a message from the water’s edge, a throbbing drum that asks and asks: What will come?
The world of masks and boxes churns with countless tasks. The moss and fern are meshed in prayer. A song returns to charm the air— a clear, deep chime that’s hardly there.
“IT IS NOT THE OBJECTIVE PROOF OF GOD’S EXISTENCE THAT WE WANT BUT THE EXPERIENCE OF GOD’S PRESENCE. THAT IS THE MIRACLE WE ARE REALLY AFTER, AND THAT IS ALSO, I THINK, THE MIRACLE THAT WE REALLY GET.”
~ Frederick Buechner
ALTAR SCULPTURE AT HADEN INSTITUTE | Julie Holtz
WHAT IS SPIRITUAL DIRECTION?
from Columbia Theological Seminary
Spiritual Direction, often called spiritual companioning or spiritual friendship, is an intentional relationship between a person seeking spiritual guidance and a trained individual (the spiritual director).
It’s the decision to explore the inner self, the opportunity to accompany someone while they do it, and the invitation to lean deeply into God. Sacredness, presence and listening are key components in Spiritual Direction.
Sacredness
The space shared between the spiritual director and the person seeking spiritual direction should be cherished throughout the relationship of accompaniment. “Parker Palmer talks about the soul as a ‘shy wild animal’ that stays hidden in the woods near an open meadow.” Both companions should respect the relationship by holding whatever is shared in the safety of the sacred space.
Presence
Aside from being welcoming, affirming, and genuine, spiritual directors should always lead their companions to God. As former Associate Director of Spirituality Programs, Debra Weir said, “Spiritual directors are witnesses who affirm the presence of the activity of the Holy Spirit in the life of the other.”
Ultimately, the goal of the spiritual director is to sojourn with their companion and help them discern their next steps as they offer feedback, prayer, and support along the way.
Listening
Active listening is crucial in Spiritual Direction. Its posture is acute and humble as it takes in what another person is saying in an effort to point the person in the direction God may be leading them. Spiritual directors listen for God, trusting that life’s deep mysteries will be revealed in time. The practice of deep listening cultivates an “experience of intimacy and relationship with the living God.”
If you are interested in finding out more about spiritual direction, contact Owene Courtney at ocourtney@jaxcathedral.org.
PRAYER OF MUTUAL PRESENCE
by Tilden Edwards
Authentic prayer is opening to God’s gracious presence with all that we are, with what Scripture summarizes as our whole heart, soul, and mind (Matthew 22:37). Therefore, prayer is more a way of being than an isolated act of doing.
Prayer is aimed at our deepest problem: our tendency to forget our liberating connectedness with God. When this happens, we become lost in a sense of ultimate separateness. From this narrow outside-of-God place rise our worst fears, cravings, restlessness, and personal and social sinfulness. Prayer also arises from our deepest hope: for the abundance of life that comes when we abide in our deepest home, our widest consciousness. Prayer is our bridge to Home.
Active prayer is present where our wills normally shape our opening to God, with faint or strong promptings from deep within. Intercession, petition, confession, thanksgiving, and praise are forms of active prayer. These are forms of prayer that most of us learn as children and find reinforced in corporate worship and Scripture. Their content and shape rise naturally out of our daily lives and evolving spiritual life.
Quiet, contemplative prayer happens when we are still and open ourselves to Christ’s Spirit working secretly in us, when we heed the psalmist’s plea: “Be still and know that I am God” (Psalms 46:10). These are times when we trustingly sink into God’s formless hands for cleansing, illumination, and communion. We are in a state of quiet appreciation, simply hollowed out for God. At the gifted [that is, graced] depth of this kind of prayer we pass beyond any image of God and beyond any image of self. We are left in a
mutual raw presence. Here we realize that God and ourselves quite literally are more than we can imagine.
Such contemplative prayer finds us in what Scripture calls our “hearts”: our deepest, truest self in God, the self that is deeper than our normal sense of mind and feelings, yet includes these in a transfigured way. Here is the “home” of God in us, where we are most together, “I pray that Christ will dwell in your hearts through faith” (Ephesians 3:17). It is the core dimension of our being where we most realize our divinely gifted nature, indeed, where we sense ourselves being intimately breathed in and out by God continually. In the placeless place of the spiritual heart, we are in touch before thoughts, beyond thoughts. We can bring into that inner sanctuary only our naked trust and longing.
If the fundamental spiritual discipline is prayer, opening to God, then the fundamental discipline of prayer is turning to our heart and inviting a sustained mutual presence.
NEW ZEALAND LANDSCAPE | Lily Pittman
PRESENCE
by Philip Booth
That we are here: that we can question who we are, where; that we relate to how deer
once small have grown bold in our back garden; that we can ask, ask even ourselves, how
to the other we may appear, here in the always near place we seem to ourselves to inhabit, who sleep toward and wake from steeped hills, the sea opening into our eyes the infinite possibility of infinity
we believe we’re neither beyond nor shy of, here as we are, without doubt, amid then, there, and now, falling through dark into light, and back, against which we cannot defend, wish as we might, as we do.
Still, as the physicist said, the mystery is that we are here, here at all, still bearing with,
or borne by, all we try to make sense of: this evening two does and a fawn who browse
the head lettuce we once thought was ours. But no. As we chase them off mildly, and make an odd salad of what they left us, the old stars come casually out, and we see near and far we own nothing:
it’s us who belong to all else; who, given this day, are touched by, and touch, our tenderest knowing, our lives incalculably dear as we feel for each other, our skin no more or less thin than that of redwing,
rainbow, star-nose, or whitethroat, enfolded like us in the valleys and waves of this irrefutable planet.
A BLESSING FOR PRESENCE
by John O’Donohue
May you awaken to the mystery of being here
And enter the quiet immensity of your own presence.
May you have joy and peace in the temple of your senses.
May you receive great encouragement when new frontiers beckon.
May you respond to the call of your gift
And find the courage to follow its path.
May the flame of anger free you from falsity.
May warmth of heart keep your presence aflame and anxiety never linger about you.
May your outer dignity mirror an inner dignity of soul.
May you take time to celebrate the quiet miracles that seek no attention.
May you be consoled in the secret symmetry of your soul.
May you experience each day as a sacred gift, Woven around the heart of wonder.
CATHEDRAL QUARTERLY EDITORIAL BOARD
Owene Courtney
Laura Jane Pittman
The Rev. Dr. Linda Privitera
ADVISOR
The Very Reverend Kate Moorehead Carroll
jaxcathedral.org
