Tag Archives: prayer

Lent: Going Deeper

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Progressive Christian Social Action

Lent:  Going Deeper

This post was published at the beginning of Lent in 2017 as “A Lenten Call to Resist.”  It is the first post of a Lenten series that offers a progressive Christian understanding of Jesus’ life, death, and post-death appearances.   The links to the other posts in the series are below.

We enter the season of Lent at a time of peril in our nation and world.  People are rising up, some emboldened by the presidency of Donald Trump and the ascendancy of the alt-right, and some determined to stand in the way of injustice and oppression in all its forms.  Christians have a particular responsibility, since without the high turnout of white Evangelical voters Trump would probably not be president today.

As Christians, where we stand politically has a lot to do with how we understand the meaning of Jesus’ death.  “The word of the cross” is at the heart of Christian faith.  We might prefer going from the glory of Transfiguration Sunday to the joy of Easter without reflecting on the drama that leads to Jesus’ suffering and death.  But as Dorothee Solle said,

“Naturally one can develop a theology that no longer has the somber cross at its center.  Such an attempt deserves criticism not because it bids farewell to Christianity as it has been, but because it turns aside from reality, in the midst of which stands the cross.”

The execution of Jesus was not a one-time thing.  Christ continues to be crucified as today’s ruling Powers enlist human beings in their service, subject the most vulnerable to abuse and oppression, wreak violence around the world, and plunder the earth for their own gain.  Our goal during Lent is to remember the path Jesus walked and accompany him on his way to the cross, to fully surrender to God as he did, and to act in solidarity with those who are being crucified on the cross of Empire today, as he was so long ago.

My blog postings during this season focus on how people who seek to follow Jesus can throw off despair and complacency, expose disempowering and hate-filled teachings that claim to be Christian, and reclaim the gospel (good news) as a force for peace, justice, and the healing of the earth.  If you follow this blog, please post your comments.  I look forward to hearing your thoughts.

This series, A Lenten Call to Resist, includes the following posts:

Resisting Cultural Possession

Rejecting Theological Sadism

Jesus Was Not Born to Die

The Subversive Jesus

The Suffering God:  Where Humanity is Crucified

Creation Crucified:  The Passion of the Earth

Conventional Wisdom:  The Wisdom of This Age

God’s Restorative Justice

Good Friday:  Contemplation and Resistance

Holy Saturday:  Following Jesus

Resurrection:  The Mind of Christ

Beale with crosses

Good Friday at Beale, 2015

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Good Friday: Contemplation and Resistance

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Good Friday 2014 at Beale Air Force Base

Today is Good Friday, the darkest of days, when Christians remember the crucifixion of Jesus and stand by him in his suffering.  It is also a dark season in the world, with the Trump Administration dropping the “mother of all bombs” in Afghanistan, threatening North Korea, bombing Syria and Yemen, targeting immigrants, abandoning climate legislation, dismantling the social safety net, eviscerating education, and unleashing corporations to wreak unregulated havoc on the earth.

I grieve.  I enter and face the darkness.  I resolve “to know nothing but Jesus Christ and him crucified,” as Paul did when he visited the Corinthians (1 Cor. 2:2). This has been my ongoing spiritual practice during this season of Lent.

Contemplating the death of Jesus in prayer and holding space for that story throughout the day grounds me in the painful reality of Jesus’ time and of ours.  It helps me to face and bear what seems unbearable—that the evil powers of this world, the “rulers of this age” (1 Cor. 2:8), seem to have the upper hand, and are crucifying what is precious, destroying our hopes and dreams and everything that we hold dear.  But the ability to bear this apparent reality—that the dominant institutions and systems of our world are moving us toward global death—depends on my determination to resist.  Otherwise, how could I simply “accept” this cruel, unjust, and unspeakable state of affairs? That would be consent and complicity.  Instead, I choose to stand in solidarity with the crucified Jesus and all other victims of Empire, to follow him in nonviolent resistance to the Powers, and to risk the same fate.

For me, contemplation and resistance go together.  In contemplation, we assimilate actions that we have taken in the world and receive clarity and inspiration for further actions of mercy, justice, and nonviolent resistance to the Powers.  In our actions in the world, we express the love and insight that we have received in contemplation. Contemplation and resistance go together.

Reflecting on the cross, the death of Jesus, and all the other deaths throughout history can bring us face to face with our complicity and our rock-bottom poverty of spirit.  We may even experience what seems to be the absence of God, as Jesus did as he hung on the cross, crying out: “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” As we reflect on our own personal failings and our participation in unjust systems, we discover our moral bankruptcy, emptiness, and inability to control the outcome of events.  We recognize that our wisdom and strength are inadequate to the task of personal and social transformation, and so we surrender ourselves, our very being, to God, whose wisdom and power are hidden in mystery.  Our ego stops trying to justify and defend itself.  We die to ourselves.  We enter the darkness, the depths, the journey of emptiness and loss and letting go, the dark night of the soul, trusting beyond trust, where trust has been betrayed, hoping beyond hope, where all hope is gone.  Paradoxically, it is by entering this very darkness that light dawns and hope is reborn.  “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”  The mystics call this the Via Negativa, the way of nothingness.  It is the Way of the Cross.

Previous blog post:  God’s Restorative Justice

Next Post:  Holy Saturday:  Following Jesus 

This post is part of Sharon’s series, A Lenten Call to Resist.

Follow Sharon’s blog by clicking the “Follow Sharon Delgado” button at the right or by “liking” Sharon’s Facebook Page.

 

On Our Way to Standing Rock

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on-the-way-to-standing-rock

Here we are having lunch at a park in Rawlins, Wyoming, on our way to Standing Rock.  Tonight my good friends and I are staying in Spearfish, South Dakota, planning to get up early so we can check in at the camp in time for the nonviolence training at 2 p.m. tomorrow.  We are ready to do what we can.

I recently read This is an Uprising, How Nonviolent Revolt is Shaping the Twenty-First Century, by Paul and Mark Engler.  They write about the “whirlwind,” those times in history when things come together in a new way that makes possible what seemed impossible before.  Standing Rock is such a time.  Many people around the world are recognizing that respecting the rights of Indigenous people and learning from them about honoring the creation are at the center of what needs to happen if we are to get through this historic time in a way that leaves hope for a habitable planet.

I’m here for the sake of the children and for future generations.   Ready to enter the whirlwind.

Why I Don’t Make New Year’s Resolutions

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The nearby trail I'll be walking on again as soon as my knee heals.

The nearby trail I’ll be walking on  again with Guari as soon as my knee heals.

A glorious day- sunny, cold, beautiful.  Guari and I are here enjoying the fire, enjoying this first day of the New Year.  I’m grateful that I didn’t wake up with a hangover—from alcohol, excess food, or emotional or relationship distress.  I am at peace.  It is well with my soul.

It hasn’t always been like this, and I don’t take it for granted.  I’ve hit many “bottoms” in my life, usually because I talk myself into thinking that I’m on the right path, then I run into a dead end.  Fortunately, I know where to find help.  I have friends who lovingly help to orient me, stand me up on my feet, remind me who I am, and point me in the direction of healing and wholeness.  Ultimately that means letting go of behaviors and patterns that interfere with my well-being or with the well-being of others.  This I have never been able to do on my own strength alone.

I don’t make New Year’s resolutions because the ongoing transformation that I seek doesn’t always happen the way I think it should, and it’s not the result of me trying to establish control.  I’ve never been able to just whip myself (or others) into shape.  Oh, I’ve given it a good try—that used to be my solution to life’s problems—but now I have a humbler and more realistic view of my powers.  I know now that only by listening and waiting for the movement of the Spirit will I find the inner resources to enable me to change old patterns and to be deeply transformed.

I can also set my intention and pray for the willingness and the power to be able to live into the fullness of who I am and who I am called to be.  This works best for me if I renew my intention one day at a time.  This coming year I intend to enjoy my family and friends, and do what I can to make this world a more loving place.  I have lots of projects waiting.  But I have to take time to “watch and pray” so that I’m not thrown back into old, self-defeating patterns.

I’m so grateful to have shared a path of recovery with my mother, Ruth, for many years before her death.   I set my intention today by starting this day and this year with one of her favorite prayers, which I have shared in a previous post, Thoughts that Bless:

 “Morning Prayer” by Ella Syfers Schenck:

Lord, in the quiet of this morning hour

I come to Thee for peace, for wisdom, power

To view the world today through love-filled eyes;

Be patient, understanding, gentle, wise:

To see beyond what seems to be, and know

Thy children as Thou knowest them; and so

Naught but the good in anyone behold;

Make deaf my ears to slander that is told;

Silence my tongue to aught that is unkind;

Let only thoughts that bless dwell in my mind.

Let me so kindly be, so full of cheer,

That all I meet may feel Thy presence near.

O clothe me in Thy beauty, this I pray,

Let me reveal Thee, Lord, through all the day.

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The Silence of God

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I believe that the great challenges of our time require deep inner work as well as courageous outer action.  If we stay on the surface of things, it feels natural to act in ways that are approved by the dominant culture.  Contemplative prayer, meditation, and other spiritual practices can help equip us for resistance to forces that would have us conform to the status quo.

Often in prayer what I hear when I listen is silence.  People sometimes interpret God’s silence as the absence of God.   Not me.  I understand God as the Ground of Being, as Love itself, in whom we live and move and have our being, so there’s nowhere for God to go.  I have let go of expectations.   Spending time with Spirit is enough.   Settling into darkness–listening to the silence of God.

Sometimes I feel the love or gain an insight or find clarity about some decision or sense a nudge in a particular direction or feel moved to make a course correction.  But the most familiar answer to my prayer and my most familiar form of prayer is immersion in silence.

It is here, in the silence, that I hear the still, small voice of God, a barely discernible movement of Spirit almost below the level of consciousness, a dynamic darkness, a pervasive sense of peace, an invitation to stay awake and pay attention to what’s going on below the surface, a reminder to live life at its depths.  An answer to prayer:  the silence of God.