I must decrease - part two

Yesterday I shared a reflection on surrender using the words of Cynthia Bourgeault, Rumi and St. John the Baptist in the fourth gospel: I must decrease so that he may increase. Today I want to play with those words in a more personal manner. After being dreadfully ill for a few weeks - with plenty of time to pause, pray, and ponder - let me be the master of the obvious: the work of surrender, relinquishing, or acceptance is a multi-layered commitment that never ends. During my sick time, I revisited a number of passages from the Scriptures that have been friends to me over the years. Perhaps you too have found texts that take on new significance over time. As my heart opened, new insights were revealed and I grasped what had once been unimportant or mysterious. One such text comes at the close of St. Paul's treastise on love in I Corinthians 13:

When I was a child, I spoke like a child, thought like a child, and reasoned like a child. When I became an adult, I put childish things away. For now we see as through a mirror darkly, later we shall see face to face. Now I know only in part, then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. Now faith, hope and love abide - and the greatest of them is love.

My paraphrase of this text began by consulting a Greek New Testament lexicon to see how I might make it my own: "When I was young, I chattered a lot just as I wandered about searching for satisfaction without a clue as to where I should go. Now I seek what is quiet - needing stillness each day - for as I  matured, I ripen and let go of some of the childish distractions that once felt so important. In the quiet, my heart can focus on what the way of love feels like rather than accumulating more facts. Now I know that my vision and knowledge will always be incomplete so I trust the path of love without reservation. For me I Corinthians 13 connects me to something Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount: 

You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, 'Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven.' For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous. If you love only those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? So be perfect - that is mature - as is your heavenly Father. (Matthew 5: 43-48)

Maturity is different from perfection, right? Maturity takes place over time. It requires patience, sorting out our experiences, learning to listen more than speak, balancing action with reflection, and trusting love and softness more than rigidity and judgment. Both Jesus and St. Paul say that the way of the Lord is built upon a surrender that strengthens maturity. During my down time I spent a lot of time with I Corinthians 13: 11-13 as a passage of Scripture that has fed me for decades. I also remembered these passages that have also brought a measure of order and grace  into my life:

+ Matthew 11: 28-30:  Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly. (The Message)

+ Romans 5: 3-5: We celebrate in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because hope is God’s love being poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit.

+ Romans 12: 1-2: I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect/mature.

+ Isaiah 55: 6-13: Seek the Lord while he may be found, call upon him while

he is near.... For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return there until they have watered the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and succeed in the thing for which I sent it. For you shall go out in joy, and be led back in peace; the mountains and the hills before you shall burst into song, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands. Instead of the thorn shall come up the cypress; instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle; and it shall be to the Lord for a memorial, for an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off.

+ Psalm 46: 10: Be still and know that I am... God.

+ Psalm 131: O Lord, my heart is not lifted up, my eyes are not raised too high; I do not occupy myself with things too great and too marvelous for me. But I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with its mother;
my soul is like the weaned child that is with me. O Israel, hope in the Lord
from this time on and forevermore.

+ Luke: 1:37-39: "Nothing will be impossible with God” said Gabriel. Then Mary replied, “Behold. Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.” And the angel departed from her.

+ Psalm 37: 1-7: Do not fret because of the wicked; do not be envious of wrongdoers, for they will soon fade like the grass, and wither like the green herb. Trust in the Lord, and do good; so you will live in the land, and enjoy security. Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the Lord; trust in him, and he will act... Be still before the Lord, and wait patiently for him; do not fret over those who prosper in their way,over those who carry out evil devices. Refrain from anger, and forsake wrath. Do not fret—it leads only to evil.

Traditionally, before the disease of fundamentalism turned the Bible into a tool of bigotry and shame there were always layers of wisdom: 

1) There was a consideration of the literal meaning of the words including word study and grammar;

2) There was also an appreciation for the metaphorical, symbolic, or poetic insights of any passage;

3) Further, knowing how the words of Scripture were used in tradition was believed to be essential, too making Bible history and context vital; and

4) The devotional, personal, or mystical use of a text - what came to be known as lectio divina - was how the living Word remained fresh for believers.

Each of these layers mattered then - and matter now. For without doing due diligence and wrestling with a text, letting it teach and form us, we remain as a child when the invitation asks us to ripen and mature. Some four years ago, I found that the words of St. Mary took on new significance for me as I moved from my public and professional life into one that was more inward and private. The Annunciation shows us Mary responding to the "good news" of the angel Gabriel saying: "Behold... here I am." Her confession became my guide as I regularly asked: what is God already doing in my world that I might honor if I had the eyes to see? In time, I thought of this as a call to behold, a call that led me back into gardening and listening for the holy within nature. Almost half a decade later I realize I am still a novice in such beholding yet I trust that as I gaze upon this mirror darkly now, in time more light shall be revealed later.

One clue from this beholding that has been gathering shape and form over the past nine months is God's invitation for me to decrease so that God's love might increase. Most of my life has been shaped by big and public projects: standing in opposition to the war in Vietnam as a Conscientious Objector, organizing with Cesar Chavez for farm worker justice, challenging the Reagan administration's cruel policies in Central America, anti-nuke peace work including travel to the former Soviet Union, advocating for LGBTQ equal rights, migrant justice in the Southwest, environmental concerns, river clean-ups, solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement, feminism, publicly challenging the racism of the current regime, and empowering local democracy. I know how to do big projects and am drawn to hard public engagement. 

But that's not what this season of life is asking of me. Rather, like Ecclesiastes 3 teaches: this is a time to let go of what I know and rest into the unforced rhythms of grace. Nearly two years ago I wrote a song, "Small is Holy," and only now I am starting to learn what that means. There isn't a week that goes by these days when I don't think of some big project I might start. Or join. Or support. But those big efforts don't feel tender, soft, or even right for me. They feel rigid. That is why the decrease/increase text has assumed such vibrancy: now is not my season to be big. I must decrease - rest, trust, follow the flow into love, becoming softer rather than more strident and demanding - so that God's grace might mature within me. This is my time to be even more private and focused and far less ego driven for as Cynthia Bourgeault's made clear at the close of her Wisdom School:

Although there are any number of spiritual practices both ancient and universal to bring a person into a state of permanent inner "yieldedness," the most direct and effective one... is simply this: In any situation in life, confronted by an outer threat or opportunity, you can notice yourself responding inwardly in one of two ways. Either you will brace, harden, and resist, or you will soften, open, and yield. If you go with the former gesture, you will be catapulted immediately into your smaller (false) self, with its animal instincts and survival responses. If you stay with the latter regardless of the outer conditions, you will remain in alignment with your inner most (true) being, and through it, the divine being can teach you. Spiritual practice at its no-frills simplest is a moment-by-moment learning not to do anything in a state of internal brace. Bracing is never worth the cost. (Cynthia Bourgeault, The Wisdom Way of Knowing, pp. 74-75)

As we in the US head into Thanksgiving and then the Christian season of waiting known as Advent, I anticipate more quiet, more letting go, and more looking into the mirror darkly. At this stage in life, I am ready.