Jan 31, 2010 - ...Of Mystery and Majesty

Theme: Type #3 spirituality includes an inward contemplative experience that is often manifested in worshipping the Creator outdoors in creation.

Psalm 42  “As a deer longs for flowing streams, so my soul longs for you, O God. 
²My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and behold
   the face of God? ³My tears have been my food day and night, while people say to me continually, ‘Where is your God?’ 

⁴These things I remember, as I pour out my soul: how I went with the throng,  and led them in procession to the house of God, with glad shouts and songs of thanksgiving,
   a multitude keeping festival.  ⁵Why are you cast down, O my soul,  and why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him,  my help ⁶and my God. 

My soul is cast down within me;  therefore I remember you from the land of Jordan and of Hermon, from Mount Mizar. Deep calls to deep at the thunder of your cataracts;
all your waves and your billows  have gone over me. By day the Lord commands his steadfast love,  and at night his song is with me,  a prayer to the God of my life. 
⁹I say to God, my rock, ‘Why have you forgotten me? Why must I walk about mournfully
   because the enemy oppresses me?’ ¹⁰As with a deadly wound in my body, my adversaries taunt me, while they say to me continually,  ‘Where is your God?’ 

¹¹Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my help and my God.

The sanctuary at Dan was located in the northernmost region of Palestine in the foothills beneath snow-covered Mount Hermon.  King Jeroboam established this place of worship when the Northern Kingdom, Israel, broke from its neighbors in the south. Instead of going to Jerusalem in the Southern Kingdom to offer sacrifice, the Israelites made pilgrimage to the shrines at either Bethel or Dan.  The psalmist longs to make this journey. But, for some unexplained reason, he is unable to travel. This loss is grievous to him. “My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.” He remembers the joy of gathering on the holy hill overlooking the Sea of Galilee. “I led them in procession to the house of God, with songs of thanksgiving, the multitude keeping festival.” 

Near the sanctuary at Dan, he remembers how the head waters of the Jordan River spring like a fountain from deep within the mountain, flowing in torrents down the steep slopes like during the spring run-off in the Rockies. “Deep calls to deep”, he sighs.  His soul hungers for God’s presence, just as the Jordan longs for the sea.

For the type 3 spirituality, hearing from God has more priority than speaking to God. The aim of this spirituality is union with the Holy. When Moses listens and speaks to God in Exodus chapter 3, God is mysterious and majestic – beyond human understanding.  God’s statement to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM” makes perfect sense to type-3 person.

Creation images, silence, and inner contemplation are native to type #3 spirituality.  At some point, we all experience moments like this, when God moves us through a nature scene or sunset. Yet it’s the mystic persons who really depend on these moments to renew their soul and replenish their spirit. Moments of wonder – feeling the awesomeness of Creator overseeing creation and its creatures – that relieves us from having to carry the world on our shoulders.

Many of us are so fond of Western Colorado creation.  Our long-time members, Bob and Joann Young, help us today through their book “Colorado West: Land of Geology and Wildflowers”. As I share a paragraph from their book, listen – not with your mind – but with your spiritual imagination: “This vast area embracing that portion of Colorado west of the Continental Divide, is truly a land of beauty and contrasts. Its beauty lies in the magnificent handworks of nature which seem to abound on every side – the mountains cloaked in rich shades of green to brown and topped-off by jagged snow-capped peaks of the higher ranges, the varicolored and intricately sculptured cliffs casting their shadows across the desert lowlands or upon well-watered valleys at their bases, and the seemingly endless variety of wildflowers occupying specific habitats ranging from the lowest desert valley to the highest barren mountain top.”

Some of us are able to practice the presence of our magnificent Creator in contemplation like the psalmist who says, “be still, and know that I am God” (Ps. 46.10). 

For others, it’s a need – yet a struggle. I was never more aware of this than the five day immersion experience at a Trappist monastery in Southwest Missouri.  You see, trappists believe that silence is a gift. Therefore, only speak when it improves upon the silence.

So there I sit with the other seminary students – 3 hours cutting cherries to go in fruitcakes – and not a word is spoken!

A year and a half into seminary, and this was completely foreign to me – yet desperately needed for my spirit. Because I had learned to study the scriptures from historical and exegetical perspectives, yet forgotten how to do lectio divina; to read it devotionally, to lose myself in its stories, to rest in the lap of God within its pages.

So there I was, stuck in silence and in a cell 10ft. by 6ft. with nothing to entertain my restless spirit, nothing.  Then, in the moments between 4:00 and 6:00 a.m., sitting at the desk too tired to read, yet not allowed to sleep, God comes; comes as a companion comes to sit quietly with the one they love; comes when I had nothing to give God in return.  And the Lord transforms my being – like breaking through dry cracked earth to reveal a spring beneath it’s surface; the Creator gifts it’s creature with discovering the Inspirational Presence in the pages of God’s Word. And the Spirit begins to re-build faith’s foundation.

For your own sacred reading, A lectio divina (sacred reading) tool has been provided in today’s bulletin (page 2) for your spiritual growth.  Each of the modes help us experience the scriptures in a different type on the spiritual wheel.

The wordless contemplation is something that those who enjoy mystic spirituality of # 3 experience in church through silent prayer and through meditation.  In the realization that God is both very near and familiar and yet beyond all knowing, we can rest for a while – as sitting still with a silent companion – enjoying one another’s friendship.

There is nothing to “do” while contemplating. It is merely an attentive waiting or being present. This is challenging because we want to know what to strive for while we are “doing” contemplation. It’s hard for many of us to expect nothing and to be satisfied with whatever happens or doesn’t happen.  If it’s a goal that we need, then the goal of contemplation is quietly to listen and receive; even to receive silence.

A favorite word of mystic type is journey. They are questers that never arrive at the destination – after all, it’s the journey that’s important.  The gift is that this type can see deeper than the surface and can engage in a “deeper sort of knowing”.  For this type, being is more important than doing, because the doing will conclude, yet being is eternal: human beings vs. human doing.

Giving oneself permission to retreat and to seek solitude will be renewing. Silence through a walk in the woods or journaling by a river may be refreshing.

Our Ute brothers and sisters believe that people need to set aside time and space to meditate on why they’ve been created and what they must do with their lives. Otherwise, they are like birds that have not yet learned to fly; All the parts of the bird are present, but something is still missing. To be a whole person is to be alive in a physical, emotional, mental and spiritual way.

Many indigenous tribes use the medicine wheel as an instrument of prayer.  Praying in the four directions as part of their meditations.  For the Ute nation, the direction West represents deep inner thoughts, contemplation, being alone with one’s self, and becoming more aware of our spiritual nature.

For just a moment, remember an outdoor setting that you have visited; scenery that brings positive peaceful memories to mind.  Now, close the eyes just for a matter of seconds, to be in that outdoor setting. Inhale and exhale slowly. Notice if anything in the scene draws your attention.  And feel free to wonder what message Creator may have for you.  Now open eyes – no sleeping during the sermon – haha.

Type 3 people are often by nature introspective, intuitive, and focused on an inner world as real to them as the exterior one. The gift of mystic spirituality is the ability to move past what is physically seen and heard, and to engage in a “deeper sort of knowing”. Being is more important than doing, because doing will pass away. A life of austerity is appealing, because simplicity quiets outside distraction and enables one to attend more fully to the inner voice.  When you meet a Type 3 whose spirituality is well developed, you may feel as if you are at the eye of the storm where all is calm within the chaos.

Here in the West, many of our skiers, ranchers, fishermen, hunters, and hikers tend toward Type 3. Those who give up conveniences of the city to gladly reside in desert or mountain places.  Author - Gretel Ehrlich calls it, “spirituality of open space”.  Badger Clark, a cowboy poet expresses western mysticism nicely in his famous, “Cowboy Prayer”:

“Oh Lord, I’ve never lived where churches grow.  I love creation better as it stood

That day You finished it so long ago and looked upon Your work and called it good.

I know that others find You in the light that’s sifted down through tinted window panes,

And yet I seem to feel You near tonight in this dim, quiet starlight on the plains.

I thank You, Lord, that I am placed so well, that You have made my freedom so complete;

That I’m no slave of whistle, clock or bell, not a weak-eyed prisoner of wall and street.

Just let me live my life as I’ve begun and give me work that’s open to the sky;

Make me a pardner of the wind and sun, and I won’t ask a life that’s soft and high.

Let me be easy on the man that’s down’. Let me be square and generous with all.

I’m careless sometimes, Lord, when I’m in town, But never let ’em say I’m mean or small!

Make me as big and open as the plains, as honest as the (horse) between my knees,

Clean as the wind that blows behind the rains, freed as the hawk that circles down the breeze!

Forgive me, Lord, if sometimes I forget. You know about the reasons that are hid.

You understand the things that gall and fret; You know me better than my mother did;

Just keep an eye on all that’s done and said, and right me, sometimes, when I turn aside,

And guide me on the long, dim, trail ahead that stretches upward toward the Great Divide.”

Amen.