So today we enter the Easter season...the festal season that lasts for fifty days, but is often seen as one long feast day. Joy!
Like many other Lenten and Easter journeys, Michael Card's songs have been playing through my mind and heart (and sometimes literally playing via CD or digitally). During different years, different ones come to mind most often. This morning, I woke up with "Final Word" spinning on my heart's turntable:
You and me we use so very many clumsy words.
The noise of what we often say is not worth being heard.
When the Father's wisdom wanted to communicate His love,
He spoke it in one final perfect Word.
He spoke the incarnation, and then so was born a Son.
His final word was Jesus, He needed no other one.
Spoke flesh and blood so He could bleed and make a way Divine.
And so was born a baby who would die to make it mine.
And so the Father's fondest thought became flesh and blood.
He spoke the living luminous word, at once His will was done.
And so the transformation that in man had been unheard,
Took place in God the Father as he spoke that final Word.
And so the Light became alive and manna became Man.
Eternity stepped into time so we could understand.
(~Michael Card)
I think this song, like many others, eventually moved onto his recording "The Life," which collected many of the songs that he wrote about the life of Jesus over the years. And I think I have typically thought of it as belonging more to his Advent and Christmas collection than Lent and Easter, since it speaks primarily of the incarnation.
But as my precious daughter pointed out so wisely this Lenten season, as she reflected on her feelings about both seasons, you can't have one without the other. Had Jesus not been born, he never would have experienced death.
In other words, had Jesus never taken on "flesh and blood," had manna not become Man, then there would have been no entry into Jerusalem, no upper room, no death on the cross, no third day and wondrous resurrection!
The song playing in my head yesterday was, not unexpectedly, Charles Wesley's "Christ the Lord is Risen Today." The verse that kept really speaking to me was this one:
Love’s redeeming work is done, Alleluia!
Fought the fight, the battle won. Alleluia!
Death in vain forbids him rise; Alleluia!
Christ has opened paradise. Alleluia!
(~Charles Wesley)
What the Scriptures emphasize for us, over and over, is that Jesus, the incarnate Word, is truth and reality from first to last, from A to Z, Alpha to Omega. He is there from eternity ("He was with God, was God") and he spoke the first word ("Without him was not anything made that was made"). But he also spoke the last word. "It is finished." Which means, "Love's redeeming work is done. Alleluia!"
And yet...isn't it amazing that even after that ultimate, final word on the cross, he spoke again when he rose again in power? The decisive blow had been struck with great finality, and yet what it brought to fruition was a new world order, a new kind of life, a total newness of life that only Jesus could bring. Everything ended, and yet everything began again in a way that would never end.
Why Card can speak of Jesus himself being the "final word" is that no other word was needed. Old Simon in the temple knew it as soon as he saw the baby Jesus. He could finally die in peace because he had seen what he has spent his whole life waiting for: God had sent the promised deliverer into the world.
And Jesus would speak through his whole life, from his first baby cries to the many words he spoke to those he ministered to and mentored, to the last words on the cross. And yes, to the post-resurrection words he spoke to his followers, promising them the Holy Spirit, giving them their charge to go into the world and make disciples. But all those words he spoke were just part and parcel of the reality that he himself WAS the Word, from first to last. The initiating word that spoke the world into being, ("Let there be light!") -- that brought into existence things that were not, to the ending word that brought life where death tried to reign, that made it clear he was the master of death as well as life.
This is the Word we are invited to embrace, to love, to sing, from our own first day to our last. It is so wonderful to know that it is Jesus the Word who has written our lives, created our stories, and breathed his Spirit into us so that we can become living letters, walking-around-epistles, for others.
Sometimes I think of us not just as letters (messages) but as actual letters, as in the letters of the alphabet. I imagine Jesus writing each one of us in beautiful calligraphic lettering, in the alphabets of every tribe and nation. I imagine how God the Father, the author and finisher of our faith, puts together all the millions and millions of individual letters to create words, sentences, stories that make sense, that reflect the true Story, that at their Spirit-soaked best can become miniature loving versions of his Son, the Word from all eternity. The Word of life and power. The Word who became flesh and dwelt among us and helped those who could not speak to speak anew. The Word that spoke at the very beginning and whose words have continued to keep and hold the world in being. The Word who has already spoken the decisive final word on the cross, in the moment when he died, who spoke again when he came out of the tomb, and will speak again at the end when he comes in power and glory to bring his eternal kingdom to total and complete fullness. One day we will see him face to face, and we will know the Story from beginning to end. And we will sing his praises forever.
Showing posts with label feast days. Show all posts
Showing posts with label feast days. Show all posts
Monday, April 17, 2017
Sunday, April 16, 2017
Christ is Risen!
The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!
*******
I have been doing a good bit of reading this Lenten season, and thought I would come here and quote something appropriate for Easter day. But all that is playing through my tired mind (and I am struggling with a great deal of tiredness right now) is the traditional, joyful Easter greeting. May you know and feel its truth today, and may your Easter be filled with blessings!
Another day and I will post some quotes from my devotional reading. This year I've mostly been reading from Bread and Wine: Readings for Lent and Easter by Orbis Books, and The Undoing of Death: Sermons for Holy Week and Easter by Fleming Rutledge. Less we forget, we've got a 50 day Easter season starting, so still plenty of time to contemplate God's marvelous gifts through the cross and resurrection!
*******
I have been doing a good bit of reading this Lenten season, and thought I would come here and quote something appropriate for Easter day. But all that is playing through my tired mind (and I am struggling with a great deal of tiredness right now) is the traditional, joyful Easter greeting. May you know and feel its truth today, and may your Easter be filled with blessings!
Another day and I will post some quotes from my devotional reading. This year I've mostly been reading from Bread and Wine: Readings for Lent and Easter by Orbis Books, and The Undoing of Death: Sermons for Holy Week and Easter by Fleming Rutledge. Less we forget, we've got a 50 day Easter season starting, so still plenty of time to contemplate God's marvelous gifts through the cross and resurrection!
Friday, January 08, 2016
The Martyrs of Ecuador
It was sixty years ago today, on January 8, 1956, that Jim Elliot, Ed McCully, Roger Youderian, Pete Fleming, and Nate Saint entered into glory. They were killed while attempting to reach the Waodani tribe of Ecuador with the gospel. Amazingly and powerfully, their wives stayed on in the wake of their deaths and continued to share the gospel, which transformed the tribe.
In honor of their legacies today, I thought I would repost my review of Steve Saint's book End of the Spear. I originally posted this on Epinions.com back in 2007. Steve was the son of the martyred Nate Saint, and his own dealings with the Waodoni were wondrous. So thankful for all the amazing ways Jesus works in our world.
*****************
"Bringing your family, we say come and live here." In 1994, these were words spoken bluntly to Steve Saint, a North American businessman, by Dawa, a member of the Waodani tribe in the Amazon jungle. What had brought these people together? Why would she suggest to him that he and his family should relocate to the Amazon and live with her family?
Steve Saint wasn't your typical North American businessman. This was not his first time in the Amazon jungle. Far from it. He had, in fact, grown up in Ecuador. His parents, Nate and Marj Saint, were missionaries there in the 1950s. His father Nate was a first-rate pilot who flew for Missionary Aviation Fellowship. When Steve was only five years old, his father Nate and four other missionaries, while attempting to establish friendly contact with a violent, stone-age tribe, were brutally speared by members of that tribe. That tribe was the Waodani, the same tribe now asking Steve, not quite forty years later, to come and live with them. How could this be?
End of the Spear is Steve Saint's moving memoir of his relationship with the Waodani tribe, a group of little known, often misunderstood, and powerfully transformed people. What makes this memoir such a fascinating and riveting read is that the main part of the narrative, the Waodanis' invitation to Steve and his family and their subsequent move to the Amazon, is just one piece of a much larger and complex story, parts of it going back many years. By the time Dawa asked Steve this question, much had happened in both the hearts of the Waodani and the heart of Steve Saint.
The Transforming Love of God in a Violent Culture
The Waodani, once referred to by the denigrating name of "Aucas" (a term that surrounding tribes and other Ecuadorans used to denote their savagery) had almost killed themselves into extinction by the 1950s. Living deep in the jungle, their only communal rules had to do with vengeance and retribution. Tribal vendettas and ancient customs (such as burying one's live children with you if you were speared by another warrior) had claimed the lives of so many of their people that they numbered only in the hundreds. The tribe was also running into trouble with greedy Western oil companies in the 1950s, who wanted their lands. Nate Saint and his four missionary companions felt a sense of urgency to reach the "Aucas" with the good news of the gospel, realizing that time quite literally was running out for this tribe.
Their seeming failure (the brutal murder of all five men on a jungle river bank in 1956) might have been the end of the story. But God was not through moving in the lives of the tribe or the lives of the missionary families of the slain men. As Saint makes clear as he weaves his beautiful narrative, which is part theological reflection as well as memoir, the most painful moments of the story can now be seen in retrospect as part of an unfolding plan, far more beautiful and amazing than anyone might have guessed on that tragic day in his boyhood.
One Waodani woman named Dayumae, who had left the tribe and gone to live in the city of Quito, met Rachel Saint, Steve's Aunt (the older sister of his slain father Nate). She became a Christian, or as the Waodani would later term it, she "began to follow God's trail." Dayumae and Rachel became spiritual sisters, and Dayumae began to help Rachel learn the Waodanis' language. Since theirs was a completely oral culture, Rachel not only had to learn the sounds but find some way of transcribing them and turning them into writing. Once she had a Waodani alphabet, she could begin to work on translating the Scriptures, or "God's markings" into their language. In fact, Rachel dedicated her entire life to this task and became much beloved of the Waodani.
That's because Dayumae, following the massacre of the missionaries, helped bridge the chasm between the missionary families and her former tribe. Some of the widows of the slain men actually took their children and went into the jungle with Rachel and Dayumae, determined to continue the work their husbands had died doing. God used these courageous women to reach out to the Waodani with love and tender forgiveness. To a culture that believed in vengeance, it was unthinkable that a family whose members you had speared would not come after you with spears of their own. Instead, the women and children came vulnerably, wanting to live with them and befriend them. No wonder "God's markings," the story of the Bible, came stunningly to life for the Waodani! They saw its message embodied and lived right in front of their very eyes.
All of this is back story, prelude to the main story that Steve Saint sets out to tell. But he weaves it skillfully into the narrative. He himself was one of the children who went to live with the Waodani. He spent most of his boyhood and early adolescence with the tribe. Many of the Waodani (their name for themselves) embraced the gospel and became God followers. The result was an amazing turnaround in the lives and culture. Steve was adopted as one of them, learning to hunt and fish and survive in the jungle. As a young teenager, he and his sister were actually baptized in the same river where their father had been killed. Some of the warriors who helped to baptize them, who had become their elder brothers and fathers in the faith, had actually been amongst the spearing party that day.
Saint eventually moved back to the United States for college. He discovered the difficulty of learning to bridge cultures and how ill at ease he felt in his "own" culture. But he adjusted. Eventually he got married, started a family, and became a successful businessman with dealings in Ecuador. But he never forgot the Waodani and they never forgot him. When he went back in 1994 to bury his Aunt Rachel (who had lived with them her whole life) their expectation was that he would naturally want to continue the deep ties between the tribe and the Saint family. Of course he and his wife and children would come to live with them.
"Now I See It Well..."
End of the Spear is the story of how they did just that. It's an amazing story for the testimony it provides to God's faithfulness and leading in people's lives. It's also a humble story, the story of a man who didn't always see his own role clearly in the greater plan that he sensed was being woven by the God he loved. Part of the wonder of following along in Saint's journey is seeing how he finally realizes how his skills can benefit the Waodani in a precarious season of their tribal life. For by the 1990s, the Waodani could no longer avoid contemporary culture, which had begun to penetrate their own culture more and more.
Although their numbers had increased dramatically, they were now in danger of becoming dependent on "outside" culture and losing their own indigenous identity and skills. Steve Saint began to realize that he was uniquely placed, because of his own abilities to walk within both cultures and because of the deep spiritual bond between them, to help the Waodani learn to master skills they would need to survive and flourish. He didn't want to go in and give them "things." As they had once taught him how to navigate in a new world, he now wanted to help teach them to navigate in a new world. He would help them to learn to do things for themselves (flying a plane, running a store and pharmacy, becoming health promoters) so they could have a viable economy and maintain their own identity and dignity as they learned to care for themselves and their people. He knew that although they could not read or write, they were intelligently and highly skilled within their own environment. Much of the narrative explains how he began to explore technologies and ideas that would work in the jungle and would be things he and others could teach the Waodani to do.
End of the Spear is a book that can be read on so many levels. It's a theological reflection, one that looks long and hard at the violence at the heart of all of us, and one that delves deep into the providence and sovereignty of a loving God. It's a tribute to the lives of Saint's missionary family, and a tribute to the ancient and yet still emerging and changing culture of the Waodani. It's a love song to God's love and power. It's a reflection on cross-cultural relationships, taking a humorous look at the mistakes and misunderstandings that can happen when people of disparate cultures try to work together. It's a testament to deep friendships, especially the friendship of Steve with Mincaye, an elder of the tribe and a devout God follower, and the one who actually killed Steve's father. It's an adventure story about what it's like to live in the Amazon (eating monkeys and avoiding snakes).
Taken all together, it's a riveting story, told simply and well by a man who lived it...and is still living it today. It's seldom that one book makes me laugh, cry, and think as much as this one did. I highly recommend it.
End of the Spear
by Steve Saint
SaltRiver, an imprint of Tyndale House Publishers, 2005
ISBN 0842364390
Note: "End of the Spear" was made into a feature film in 2006, following a documentary "Beyond the Gates of Splendor" made in 2005. Both are good, but understandably much more narrow in focus than the book, telling only snippets of the overall story. I'd almost recommend seeing the feature film first as it provides visuals of the jungle and gives one some clues as to the pronunciation of Waodani names.
In honor of their legacies today, I thought I would repost my review of Steve Saint's book End of the Spear. I originally posted this on Epinions.com back in 2007. Steve was the son of the martyred Nate Saint, and his own dealings with the Waodoni were wondrous. So thankful for all the amazing ways Jesus works in our world.
*****************
"Bringing your family, we say come and live here." In 1994, these were words spoken bluntly to Steve Saint, a North American businessman, by Dawa, a member of the Waodani tribe in the Amazon jungle. What had brought these people together? Why would she suggest to him that he and his family should relocate to the Amazon and live with her family?
Steve Saint wasn't your typical North American businessman. This was not his first time in the Amazon jungle. Far from it. He had, in fact, grown up in Ecuador. His parents, Nate and Marj Saint, were missionaries there in the 1950s. His father Nate was a first-rate pilot who flew for Missionary Aviation Fellowship. When Steve was only five years old, his father Nate and four other missionaries, while attempting to establish friendly contact with a violent, stone-age tribe, were brutally speared by members of that tribe. That tribe was the Waodani, the same tribe now asking Steve, not quite forty years later, to come and live with them. How could this be?
End of the Spear is Steve Saint's moving memoir of his relationship with the Waodani tribe, a group of little known, often misunderstood, and powerfully transformed people. What makes this memoir such a fascinating and riveting read is that the main part of the narrative, the Waodanis' invitation to Steve and his family and their subsequent move to the Amazon, is just one piece of a much larger and complex story, parts of it going back many years. By the time Dawa asked Steve this question, much had happened in both the hearts of the Waodani and the heart of Steve Saint.
The Transforming Love of God in a Violent Culture
The Waodani, once referred to by the denigrating name of "Aucas" (a term that surrounding tribes and other Ecuadorans used to denote their savagery) had almost killed themselves into extinction by the 1950s. Living deep in the jungle, their only communal rules had to do with vengeance and retribution. Tribal vendettas and ancient customs (such as burying one's live children with you if you were speared by another warrior) had claimed the lives of so many of their people that they numbered only in the hundreds. The tribe was also running into trouble with greedy Western oil companies in the 1950s, who wanted their lands. Nate Saint and his four missionary companions felt a sense of urgency to reach the "Aucas" with the good news of the gospel, realizing that time quite literally was running out for this tribe.
Their seeming failure (the brutal murder of all five men on a jungle river bank in 1956) might have been the end of the story. But God was not through moving in the lives of the tribe or the lives of the missionary families of the slain men. As Saint makes clear as he weaves his beautiful narrative, which is part theological reflection as well as memoir, the most painful moments of the story can now be seen in retrospect as part of an unfolding plan, far more beautiful and amazing than anyone might have guessed on that tragic day in his boyhood.
One Waodani woman named Dayumae, who had left the tribe and gone to live in the city of Quito, met Rachel Saint, Steve's Aunt (the older sister of his slain father Nate). She became a Christian, or as the Waodani would later term it, she "began to follow God's trail." Dayumae and Rachel became spiritual sisters, and Dayumae began to help Rachel learn the Waodanis' language. Since theirs was a completely oral culture, Rachel not only had to learn the sounds but find some way of transcribing them and turning them into writing. Once she had a Waodani alphabet, she could begin to work on translating the Scriptures, or "God's markings" into their language. In fact, Rachel dedicated her entire life to this task and became much beloved of the Waodani.
That's because Dayumae, following the massacre of the missionaries, helped bridge the chasm between the missionary families and her former tribe. Some of the widows of the slain men actually took their children and went into the jungle with Rachel and Dayumae, determined to continue the work their husbands had died doing. God used these courageous women to reach out to the Waodani with love and tender forgiveness. To a culture that believed in vengeance, it was unthinkable that a family whose members you had speared would not come after you with spears of their own. Instead, the women and children came vulnerably, wanting to live with them and befriend them. No wonder "God's markings," the story of the Bible, came stunningly to life for the Waodani! They saw its message embodied and lived right in front of their very eyes.
All of this is back story, prelude to the main story that Steve Saint sets out to tell. But he weaves it skillfully into the narrative. He himself was one of the children who went to live with the Waodani. He spent most of his boyhood and early adolescence with the tribe. Many of the Waodani (their name for themselves) embraced the gospel and became God followers. The result was an amazing turnaround in the lives and culture. Steve was adopted as one of them, learning to hunt and fish and survive in the jungle. As a young teenager, he and his sister were actually baptized in the same river where their father had been killed. Some of the warriors who helped to baptize them, who had become their elder brothers and fathers in the faith, had actually been amongst the spearing party that day.
Saint eventually moved back to the United States for college. He discovered the difficulty of learning to bridge cultures and how ill at ease he felt in his "own" culture. But he adjusted. Eventually he got married, started a family, and became a successful businessman with dealings in Ecuador. But he never forgot the Waodani and they never forgot him. When he went back in 1994 to bury his Aunt Rachel (who had lived with them her whole life) their expectation was that he would naturally want to continue the deep ties between the tribe and the Saint family. Of course he and his wife and children would come to live with them.
"Now I See It Well..."
End of the Spear is the story of how they did just that. It's an amazing story for the testimony it provides to God's faithfulness and leading in people's lives. It's also a humble story, the story of a man who didn't always see his own role clearly in the greater plan that he sensed was being woven by the God he loved. Part of the wonder of following along in Saint's journey is seeing how he finally realizes how his skills can benefit the Waodani in a precarious season of their tribal life. For by the 1990s, the Waodani could no longer avoid contemporary culture, which had begun to penetrate their own culture more and more.
Although their numbers had increased dramatically, they were now in danger of becoming dependent on "outside" culture and losing their own indigenous identity and skills. Steve Saint began to realize that he was uniquely placed, because of his own abilities to walk within both cultures and because of the deep spiritual bond between them, to help the Waodani learn to master skills they would need to survive and flourish. He didn't want to go in and give them "things." As they had once taught him how to navigate in a new world, he now wanted to help teach them to navigate in a new world. He would help them to learn to do things for themselves (flying a plane, running a store and pharmacy, becoming health promoters) so they could have a viable economy and maintain their own identity and dignity as they learned to care for themselves and their people. He knew that although they could not read or write, they were intelligently and highly skilled within their own environment. Much of the narrative explains how he began to explore technologies and ideas that would work in the jungle and would be things he and others could teach the Waodani to do.
End of the Spear is a book that can be read on so many levels. It's a theological reflection, one that looks long and hard at the violence at the heart of all of us, and one that delves deep into the providence and sovereignty of a loving God. It's a tribute to the lives of Saint's missionary family, and a tribute to the ancient and yet still emerging and changing culture of the Waodani. It's a love song to God's love and power. It's a reflection on cross-cultural relationships, taking a humorous look at the mistakes and misunderstandings that can happen when people of disparate cultures try to work together. It's a testament to deep friendships, especially the friendship of Steve with Mincaye, an elder of the tribe and a devout God follower, and the one who actually killed Steve's father. It's an adventure story about what it's like to live in the Amazon (eating monkeys and avoiding snakes).
Taken all together, it's a riveting story, told simply and well by a man who lived it...and is still living it today. It's seldom that one book makes me laugh, cry, and think as much as this one did. I highly recommend it.
End of the Spear
by Steve Saint
SaltRiver, an imprint of Tyndale House Publishers, 2005
ISBN 0842364390
Note: "End of the Spear" was made into a feature film in 2006, following a documentary "Beyond the Gates of Splendor" made in 2005. Both are good, but understandably much more narrow in focus than the book, telling only snippets of the overall story. I'd almost recommend seeing the feature film first as it provides visuals of the jungle and gives one some clues as to the pronunciation of Waodani names.
Thursday, April 02, 2015
Holy Week and Easter
"He became naked so that we might be clothed; he who was truly fit to rule took all our dishonesty and unfitness to rule upon himself; he rose from the utter dependence of death with an imperishable body, "more fully clothed," so that we, too,clothed in his merciful robe, might be fully knowing and fully known in love's full embrace. Like God. As we were meant to be."
~Andy Crouch, Playing God: Redeeming the Gift of Power
A blessed end of Holy Week, and a joyous Easter!
~Andy Crouch, Playing God: Redeeming the Gift of Power
A blessed end of Holy Week, and a joyous Easter!
Tuesday, December 07, 2010
Belated St. Nicholas Day & Second Week of Advent Already!
Yesterday was the feast day of St. Nicholas. This one always sneaks up on us, and given how sick 2/3 of us are, we didn't do much yesterday beyond remembering it was his day during our regular Advent prayers around the wreath. The sweet girl drew us a couple of quick pictures and put them in our shoes/slippers, which was very sweet. Next year, my plan is to have us make some special cookies/treats and take them to friends.
One reason we've come to love St. Nicholas is because of the wonderful story about him in Bob Hartman's Early Saints of God. I know I've sung the praises of this book before: it's our family "go-to" book during November, and we often go back to it in December and January too. We always bring it out on All Saints and begin to read through it again. We usually get through it a couple of times during fall/winter months, and it's always a treat to revisit these beautiful stories and the reflections they inspire.
I was happy to see find this link for the St. Nicholas Center via Karen Edmisten this morning. I must say I love the St. Nicholas traditions they have in Karen's family, especially the socks and chocolates. We may have to borrow those for next year too!
It's second week of Advent already, and I can't believe how quickly the season is passing. Despite illness and tiredness, we're enjoying our nightly time around the Advent wreath. This year we're using a couple of small booklets we ordered from The Printery House. One is a booklet called "Happy Birthday Jesus All Over the World" and details Advent/Christmas traditions from different countries. We're having fun marking each place on a big laminated world map as we talk about those traditions. We're also using the "Gifts of Love" Advent Sticker Book, and placing a sticker each night on a little cardboard centerpiece (instead of using an advent calendar this year). You can see both of those booklets and some other advent resources, for adults and children, at the Printery House page here.
Happy St. Nicholas day (a day late) and Happy Second Week of Advent!
One reason we've come to love St. Nicholas is because of the wonderful story about him in Bob Hartman's Early Saints of God. I know I've sung the praises of this book before: it's our family "go-to" book during November, and we often go back to it in December and January too. We always bring it out on All Saints and begin to read through it again. We usually get through it a couple of times during fall/winter months, and it's always a treat to revisit these beautiful stories and the reflections they inspire.
I was happy to see find this link for the St. Nicholas Center via Karen Edmisten this morning. I must say I love the St. Nicholas traditions they have in Karen's family, especially the socks and chocolates. We may have to borrow those for next year too!
It's second week of Advent already, and I can't believe how quickly the season is passing. Despite illness and tiredness, we're enjoying our nightly time around the Advent wreath. This year we're using a couple of small booklets we ordered from The Printery House. One is a booklet called "Happy Birthday Jesus All Over the World" and details Advent/Christmas traditions from different countries. We're having fun marking each place on a big laminated world map as we talk about those traditions. We're also using the "Gifts of Love" Advent Sticker Book, and placing a sticker each night on a little cardboard centerpiece (instead of using an advent calendar this year). You can see both of those booklets and some other advent resources, for adults and children, at the Printery House page here.
Happy St. Nicholas day (a day late) and Happy Second Week of Advent!
Saturday, August 28, 2010
Augustine of Hippo (d. 430)
It's the feast day of Augustine of Hippo (not to be confused with Augustine of Canterbury, another Augustine of particular significance in the Anglican tradition).
I recently finished David C. Downing's book Into the Region of Awe: Mysticism in C.S. Lewis. I was hoping to have a chance to review it this week, but thus far that time has eluded me! But I thought I'd make a couple of brief comments on his sections on Augustine, the "prince of mysticism." Downing sees Augustine's influence on Lewis, by the way, particularly in Till We Have Faces.
One of the most interesting things I learned from Downing about Augustine is that Augustine's account, in his Confessions, of a deeply mystical experience is:
I loved this thought for two reasons:
1) It seems fitting that Augustine and Monica would share such deep spiritual closeness, especially given her deep love for son, and her tears and prayers that availed so much in moving Augustine toward God's path for his life.
2) Once again, I am unutterably grateful for the radical availability of God's grace and love, which flows so freely to all and is not reserved for a special few or some mysterious "initiates" who possess great wisdom, learning and secret knowledge. God welcomes all to his table, all to his family, regardless of their background or status. Worldly prestige and honor matter not a whit. In fact, God seems to rejoice in choosing the lowly and those of "no account" in the eyes of the world.
"...For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God."
I recently finished David C. Downing's book Into the Region of Awe: Mysticism in C.S. Lewis. I was hoping to have a chance to review it this week, but thus far that time has eluded me! But I thought I'd make a couple of brief comments on his sections on Augustine, the "prince of mysticism." Downing sees Augustine's influence on Lewis, by the way, particularly in Till We Have Faces.
One of the most interesting things I learned from Downing about Augustine is that Augustine's account, in his Confessions, of a deeply mystical experience is:
"remarkable in several respects. It is the earliest account of the actual stages of mystical transport: from contemplation to a sense of leaving behind the material world to entering the quiet sanctuary of one's own soul to momentarily glimpsing eternal truth. Augustine's description is typical in that the rapturous experience is transitory and it seems to occur in distinct stages. But the account is also highly unusual in that it seems to occur communally, not individually, and that one of those caught up is both uneducated and a woman. In the mystery religions of the ancient world someone like Augustine's mother, however devout, would not be an initiate and would not be considered qualified for mystical experiences."
I loved this thought for two reasons:
1) It seems fitting that Augustine and Monica would share such deep spiritual closeness, especially given her deep love for son, and her tears and prayers that availed so much in moving Augustine toward God's path for his life.
2) Once again, I am unutterably grateful for the radical availability of God's grace and love, which flows so freely to all and is not reserved for a special few or some mysterious "initiates" who possess great wisdom, learning and secret knowledge. God welcomes all to his table, all to his family, regardless of their background or status. Worldly prestige and honor matter not a whit. In fact, God seems to rejoice in choosing the lowly and those of "no account" in the eyes of the world.
"...For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God."
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