Richard Rohr on timeless wisdom in Immortal Diamond

January 27, 2013 by

RICHARD ROHR inspires you—even if you don’t recognize his name. From his base in the American Southwest, this Franciscan priest has become a master teacher of other famous teachers, including Rob Bell. In fact, Rob wrote the first review praising Richard’s new book, comparing it to “sitting around the tribal fire, listening to the village elder give words to that which we’ve always known to be true, we just didn’t know how.” Richard wants to reach ordinary men and women like you and me. Ask your friends to list writers who have moved them and you’re likely to hear Richard’s name.

THE MESSAGE of his latest book, Immortal Diamond: The Search for Our True Self: As is usually the case with Richard’s books, the idea can be conveyed in a single sentence: At the core of each life is true, eternal goodness—and the key to a successful life is opening up that true self so that we can compassionately connect with God’s world. After reading that sentence, dozens of questions spill from our lips: You mean, we’re born good!?! We’re not born evil? We’re not trying to deny the deepest truths about ourselves? We don’t need to fear what’s truly and honestly in our heart? So, how do we find that true self? And, why didn’t anyone tell me this before?

Here’s how Richard puts it himself in Immortal Diamond:

CLICK THE BOOK COVER to visit its Amazon page.I am writing this book for secular seekers and thinkers, believers and nonbelievers alike, and that huge disillusioned group in recovery from religion itself. Surprisingly, these are often more ready to see and honor Mystery than many religious people are. I can no longer wait for, or give false comfort to, the many Christians who are forever “deepening their personal relationship” with a very tiny American Jesus—who looks an awful lot like them. I would much prefer to write for those like Jane Fonda, who said recently, “I feel a presence, a reverence humming within me that was, and is, difficult to articulate.” Well, Jane, we are going to try to articulate and affirm that humming here.

Because far too many religious folks do not seriously pursue this “reverence humming within them,” they do not recognize that something within them needs to be deeply trusted and many things must be allowed to die—not because they are bad, but because they perhaps cannot get them where they want to go. Spirituality tends to be more about unlearning than learning. And when the slag and dross is removed that which evokes reverence is right there waiting!

Many religious people seem to think that God, for some utterly unexplainable reson, loves the human past—usually their own group’s recent past—instead of their present or the future of this creation.

Are you muttering something like: Wow? Or, Amen? Or, hey wait a minute! If not, re-read that italic excerpt from Richard’s book and think, again, about how sweepingly he slices through a lot of what passes for organized religion in America. Perhaps a second reading will prompt the: Wow. Or the: Wait! If this has piqued your interest, then Richard already is inspiring you. Please, read onward to enjoy the new interview in which ReadTheSpirit Editor David Crumm talks with Richard Rohr about Immortal Diamond.

One more important truth about Richard Rohr’s work: While Richard’s aim always is to explain simple truths—much like Frederick Buechner has done over many decades—Rohr (also like Buechner) has great depth within his teaching. In his personal life, Richard enjoys puzzles and Buddhist Koans. His new book’s title, for example, is simple on the face of it: In 2 words “Immortal Diamond” describes the good core of our True Selves. But the 2 words also reference one of the most powerful poems by Gerard Manley Hopkins, a 19th-century Jesuit poet beloved by spiritual seekers to this day. And, while Rohr does provide a few lines of Hopkins’ famous poem in the opening pages of Immortal Diamond—if you locate the entire poem, say, in the volume of Gerard Manley Hopkins’ Poems and Prose by Penguin Classics, then you’ll discover the full sweep of Hopkins’ poem, titled: That Nature Is a Haraclitian Fire and of the Comfort of the Resurrection. And next, you may wonder: So, what was this Heraclitian Fire? And, does it relate to that ancient Greek—Heraclitus? Who was he? Well … then—from a two-word title on the cover of Richard’s new book—you’re off and running through an entire weekend of fascinating spiritual reflection.

Welcome, please, Father Richard Rohr in …

HIGHLIGHTS OF OUR INTERVIEW WITH FATHER RICHARD ROHR ON
IMMORTAL DIAMOND, THE SEARCH FOR OUR TRUE SELF

Father Richard Rohr. Coutesy of the author.

DAVID: So far, you’ve written or contributed to more than 30 books. If readers already have a well-stocked shelf of Richard Rohr books—how is this new book unique from the others we’ve enjoyed in recent years?

RICHARD: In many ways, the other books led up to this. Falling Upward was the immediate prequel. All my life, I’ve tried to clarify what’s the Self that has to die—using Jesus language here—and the Self that has to live. This runs through all of my teaching and, now, I have finally put down in writing what has become so clear to me about this over the years.

Here is how this book came to be: I was inspired by all the people in Christian circles who choose some Advent readings before Christmas and some Lenten readings before Easter. But I haven’t found a good set of readings on the period from Easter to Pentecost—resurrection readings. When I presented that idea for a book to Jossey-Bass, they asked: Why don’t you connect that idea to your work on the True Self / False Self? So, this book amounts to a commentary on what Christianity means by resurrection and uses that as a skeleton on which to teach about True Self / False Self.

DAVID: Your writing seems timely as Americans move through an era of lowered expectations. ReadTheSpirit, through the OurValues portion of our online magazine, has reported extensively on issues like the growing wealth gap and the diminished economic expectations for millions of Americans. Your teachings about what truly matters in life seem appropriate for this era in our history.

RICHARD: I’m glad you connect these themes in that way. Yes, this is a time in which so many of us are struggling. We grow up as natural optimists as Americans. My generation of Catholic priests—we were so hopeful as we watched the Vatican II experience. Now, it’s a punch in the belly to see what has happened in the church and the world. Dualistic thinking seems to have taken over the church and our politics to a really neurotic degree. I’m not arguing that my books are the answer for everything that’s wrong in the world, but I do find that a disturbing amount of our liberal-conservative wrangling is still framed in a win-lose, False Self framework. Leading up to the American election in November, we saw a lot of that False Self talking in our public square.

RICHARD ROHR: PRAISING MATTHEW FOX, ROB BELL & HOPKINS, TOO

CLICK THE COVER to visit the book’s Amazon page.DAVID: This new book offers a strong salute to the teachings of Matthew Fox, the former Dominican priest who got into great trouble with the Vatican for declaring that men and women are born with an original blessing instead of in “original sin.” You write in your new book, that, in the 1980s, Matthew’s book Original Blessing “was groundbreaking for many Christians, and it well deserves to be. … We are all grateful that it was a Dominican who brought this essential truth forward.”

RICHARD: Yes, I think this is Matt Fox’s great contribution. My saying this may seem ironic, because there was this rivalry between Franciscans and Dominicans centuries ago. The Dominicans represented the more cerebral, perfectionist streak. And we Franciscans were known as the laissez-faire God-is-in-everything folks. The Franciscans supposedly were the let’s-be-jolly and let’s-not-worry-so-much-about-sin folks. So, for Matt, as a Dominican, to have raised this so clearly is very important. That book changed many people’s understanding of our Christian message. I could almost say: Forget about reading all of his other books if you want, but make sure you read Original Blessing. Matt and I have met several times. He wrote me just last year. I am thankful for his writings.

DAVID: A lot of readers will take note of Rob Bell’s strong endorsement of your new book. You know that, in the second half of 2012, Rob hit a few disappointing bumps in his own road. He continues to have a huge following—but nothing came of his high hopes for a new TV series on spiritual themes. And, by the end of the year, that venerable historian of American religion, Martin Marty, took a shot at him, publicly warning Rob that he’d better watch out about becoming too independent. Your thoughts?

RICHARD: Rob and I have emailed back and forth. I had lunch with him. We’ve invited him to be one of the faculty in our school along with Brian McLaren and they both have told me that they’re willing to do that. We don’t want our center to be too Catholic. We want to be open to the evangelical world. Frankly, I regard them as two of the best spokesmen for evangelical Christianity. Some evangelicals may disagree with my saying that. And, I know it’s hard for anyone as talented as Rob is to find his way, but I believe that he has a lot to offer the world.

DAVID: So, let me ask about another figure you’re strongly endorsing. We’ve talked about Matt and Rob. Your choice of prominently quoting Gerard Manley Hopkins is striking—leaping back to the 1800s and to a whole different kind of religious reflection, right?

RICHARD: I think Hopkins still has a lot to teach us today. I find myself digging not only into Hopkins and Heraclitus afresh—but also Aldous Huxley and others.

DAVID: And, in that regard, let me put in a plug to our readers for Don Lattin’s newest book, Distilled Spirits: Getting High, Then Sober, with a Famous Writer, a Forgotten Philosopher, and a Hopeless Drunk. I’ve never seen anything quite like this book Don has reported about the spiritual influence of Aldous Huxley, Gerald Heard and Bill Wilson, the co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous.

RICHARD ROHR: EXPLORING A MYSTERIOUS POEM

Poet Gerard Manley HopkinsRICHARD: One of the many reasons I’ve loved Hopkins through the years is that I think he clearly understood the Gospel that we come to God by doing wrong, not by doing right. That’s what Bill Wilson understood, too. One of the great perversions of the Gospel is this private obsession with perfection in which we hide our wounds and our dark side. In Hopkins’ poem, he shows us how to appreciate the broken flaw in the human situation and how to see that God has fallen in love with us because of this flaw.

DAVID: I’ll let our readers get your book and explore these deeper themes on their own, but—just to give them a personal hand along that pathway—let me ask: How do you understand the Hopkins poem?

RICHARD: I think the poem is saying that, eventually, we must fall into that utterly broken, wounded character of the human situation. We might call it the tragic sense of life. In my last book, I called that awareness: Falling Upward. If you live your life with any authenticity, then you experience this more and more. You can react to that flaw in the human situation with massive disillusionment—and some people do that. But, if you get to the bottom of it, you can trust in God or Love and you can reach this point of affirming—as Hopkins does—that “I am all at once what Christ is.”

DAVID: I’m hoping that readers going through our interview will be intrigued by these questions, too, so that they will grab your book and begin exploring these central truths.

RICHARD: I do hope that people realize my book is quite optimistic. For Christians reading this book, we might say that the Paschal Mystery shows us that everything changes form. The cycle of life and death is unstoppable, but death always leads to a transformed sense of life. I am speaking in a hopeful way to people who are afraid of death—and who isn’t afraid of death? By the end of the book, I am urging a cynical world to proclaim with the resurrection that love is stronger than death. And I’m not simply coming at this as a priest telling people: Hey, we have to believe this as Christians. I am arguing that this is true throughout the universe. We start in love—and we will end in love. Huxley called this Perennial Philosophy—the idea of central truths that run throughout our spiritual traditions.

DAVID: Another example of this idea was just expressed in an interview we published with Dr. Matthew Lee, the chief researcher in a major university-based study of congregations. In The Heart of Religion, Lee and his team report that millions of churchgoers are experiencing the compassionate love of God, then they are inspired to share that compassionate love with others. This becomes a virtuous loop of more experience with God leading to more sharing with others. Lee and his team have studied Christians, at this point, but their conclusion sounds like a more universal truth.

RICHARD: What you are describing to me amounts to the first and second commandments for Christians: Loving God and loving our neighbor. So simple and yet, think about it: If that flow of love from God to neighbor isn’t flowing in your life, then you’re just playing with junk religion. What you’re describing in this work by Matthew Lee, it seems to me, is certainly moving toward the core of authentic religion.

RICHARD ROHR: REACHING BACK FOR TIMELESS TRUTHS ABOUT LOVE

DAVID: I don’t want to leave readers feeling that you’re pushing toward something exotic here. One of our authors at ReadTheSpirit, Dr. Benjamin Pratt, has enjoyed some of your books and Ben sent me an email describing your work as “pre-Renaissance.” You’re reaching back for earlier truths about our faith, before things became overly complicated in our modern era. Does that make sense?

RICHARD: I think your friend gets it. I think that’s what Perennial Philosophy is all about. I certainly don’t want us all to move back to living like they did in the 13th Century. (laughs) But I am looking for something timeless that keeps recurring. I am reaching back to truths that, from a psychological perspective, some may describe as a collective consciousness. As a Christian, I say it’s the Holy Spirit moving. In the modern tradition, the danger is that we all select our own little piece of what might be the Perennial tradition and we run off and emphasize these individual elements in our own little corners. I want to bring people together, to bring people to truths that, yes, go back a very long way. Despite our flaws and the inevitable cycle of life and death—I am reaffirming: Love is stronger than death.

Care to read more?

GET THE BOOK: Click on the book’s title, Immortal Diamond, or click on the book cover above to visit the book’s Amazon page.

LEARN MORE ABOUT HOW RICHARD INSPIRES PEOPLE: We suggest, today, that you simply ask friends who enjoy spiritual reading—and you’ll likely find stories about Richard’s work. Also today, ReadTheSpirit is publishing a column from the Rev. John Emmert, a semi-retired Episcopal priest in Pennsylvania who is one of Richard’s ordinary readers nationwide.

SHARE AN ANCIENT PRAYER: Richard Rohr helps us share a centuries-old Christian prayer, focusing on the hope for resurrection.

ENJOY OUR EARLIER COVERAGE OF RICHARD ROHR: In 2011, we published a review of Richard’s earlier book, Falling Upward. We also published a joint interview with Brian McLaren and Richard Rohr on the spiritual challenges of aging in America.

SEE RICHARD IN ONE THE MOVIE: Richard appears in one of the most-talked-about feature-length documentaries about spirituality, a movie called simply ONE. In 2012, when the movie ONE was booked to air on Oprah’s TV network, we published several film clips from the film—including a video of Richard.

VISIT HIS WEBSITE: His Center for Action and Contemplation website includes a box on the right-hand side of the opening page where you can sign up for Richard’s free Daily Meditations emails.

Originally published at readthespirit.com, an online magazine covering religion and cultural diversity.

Richard Rohr: Anam Cara, soul friend, to thousands

January 27, 2013 by

In this photo, Richard talks with a group in person. However, he speaks to far larger crowds via daily digital messages.RICHARD ROHR greets thousands of friends via his Daily Meditations. Visit his Center for Action and Contemplation website and you can join those friends via the Daily Meditations sign-up box—on the right-hand side of the webpage. To convey the importance of this aspect of his ministry, ReadTheSpirit invited the Rev. John Emmert, a semi-retired Episcopal priest from Pennsylvania to describe what these short messages from Richard represent in his life. John follows his own discipline of prayer, meets regularly with friends and colleagues to talk about faith and occasionally serves in local parishes. Richard’s notes have made a difference in all of those phases of John’s life. Here’s how …

Small Differences:
Thanking Richard Rohr

BY THE REV. JOHN EMMERT

ALTHOUGH RICHARD ROHR is a prolific writer, I must admit I have never read one of his books. I know him only through his daily messages from his Center for Contemplation and Action. I no longer remember exactly who brought these daily gems of inspiration to my attention, but they have become anticipated touchstones of theology and thoughtfulness that I would miss more than my morning coffee.

They are short—never more than a paragraph or two: an idea, a reminder of a Christian season or celebration, a reflection on a sentence or two of scripture, development of a weekly theme. A few words that set a tone or raise an issue—personal, ecclesiastical, vocational, life-style—that more often than not lead to small changes of thinking and living. The impact of his wisdom accumulates quite significantly. I cannot count the number of times these inspirational pieces “coincidentally” touch a theme I am pondering with a friend or colleague, and influence our discussion, a decision and an action.

They are pithy, but practical. I’ve tried to think of a general descriptor, but none is quite adequate: “Where-the-rubber-meets-the-road” theology? A coincidence of exegesis and praxis? Where heart-mind-body-and spirit/Spirit touch? Where presence and Presence animate one another?

They are Catholic, in the very best sense of that word (as we use it in the creeds). They are also beyond Catholic. They reach for the Mystery that all religious language and experience aspires to touch, yet never quite adequately does—except that not to have tried would be so much the worse.

They are “old”—vintage, richly aged and time-tested truths. But “new” and fresh and re-born, with a twist or side-ways glance, that either opens my eyes (or narrows them), as I try to see more clearly, more deeply yet again.

CLICK THE IMAGE to visit the website for Richard’s Center.Sometimes they are visual, as the picture of a “Young Madonna” to illustrate “Mary, the Prepared One.” The Daily Meditations used that striking photo of a young Mexican girl each day for a week in Advent. I pulled it up on my I-pad, and passed it around the congregation as we contemplated the image of a teen-age Mary, offering herself as Theotokos.

I have tried to find a niche for Richard—a person I’ve never met, who yet now occupies a place of Anam Cara, soul friend, in my life. I think he reminds me of Merton, even more Nouwen. I recall another Advent piece on “Learning to Receive” in which Richard remarked on Mary’s “fertility and fruitfulness” in contrast to our culture’s productiveness, a theme I first heard many years ago from Nouwen. So, Gordon Cosby, Madeline L’Engle, Elizabeth O’Connor, Eugene Peterson, Jim Wallis, Steven Charleston—name your own roster of speakers and livers of Truth and Wisdom. So, thanks be for such Grace-bearers and sharers; Richard is now included in my list.

Originally published at readthespirit.com, an online magazine covering religion and cultural diversity.

Richard Rohr: Ancient prayer of hope for Resurrection

January 27, 2013 by

CLICK THE BOOK COVER to visit its Amazon page.IN RICHARD ROHR’S new book Immortal Diamond, he ends with a prayer from an ancient liturgy used by Christians on the eve of Easter—the church’s great celebration of resurrection.

Rohr introduces the final prayer this way:

Many Christians begin Lent on Ash Wednesday with the signing of ashes on their forehead and the words from Genesis 3:19, which is just the first shocking part of the message: “Dust you are, and unto dust you shall return.”

But then we should be anointed (“Christed”) with a holy oil on Easter morning with the other half of the message: “Love is always stronger than death, and unto the love you have now returned.”

Then, Rohr adds these ancient lines, which are spoken as if God is calling the dead to new life:

O Sleeper,
to Awake!

“I ORDER YOU, O SLEEPER, to awake!
I did not create you to be held a prisoner in hell.
Rise from the dead, for I am the life of the dead.
Rise up, work of my hands, you were created in my image.
Rise, let us leave this place, for you are in me and I am in you.
Together we form only one person and we cannot be separated!”

Care to read more?

READ OUR INTERVIEW WITH RICHARD ROHR: This prayer’s theme is central to Richard Rohr’s newest book—and you can learn much more about Immortal Diamond in our inteview with him.

READ THE ENTIRE ANCIENT TEXT: The Vatican website publishes the entire much-longer reading in a slightly different English translation, that traditionally is used on Holy Saturday. The portion Richard Rohr excerpts appears as the fifth paragraph of the longer Vatican text.

Adam English digging back to the real St. Nicholas

December 1, 2012 by

Adam English (left) and a good friend.Our annual Holiday Best Books list named Dr. Adam English’s The Saint Who Would Be Santa Claus No. 2 out of the 12 books on the “best” list. We also featured research from his new book in our annual Feast of St. Nicholas Holiday column.
Now, ReadTheSpirit Editor David Crumm interviews Adam English:

HIGHLIGHTS OF OUR
INTERVIEW WITH
ADAM C. ENGLISH
ON ‘THE SAINT WHO
WOULD BE SANTA’

DAVID: We know very little about the original St. Nicholas. You describe him, at one point in your book, as “a vaguely historical personage.”

ADAM: Yes, the record on Nicholas is thin because he left no volumes of his own theology or poetry or sermons. We have nothing written in his own hand. We have nothing written by his immediate contemporaries, either. The earliest historical records that mention his name come from a couple of hundred years after his death. That’s always troubling to a historian who, of course, would rather have first-hand accounts.

DAVID: When I’ve heard people preach about St. Nicholas, they like to say he attended the famous Council of Nicaea that was convened by Constantine the Great and developed one of the earliest Christian creeds. But that’s a historical point open to some debate, right?

ADAM: The lists of those who attended Nicaea are not consistent. The questions historians face is: Why do these lists differ? Did some scribes later add people who they thought should have been at Nicaea? Lists range from 200 to more than 300 people in attendance, so that shows you the wide variety. The earliest lists name only about 200, but those could have been partial lists that were made to show some of the most prominent bishops in attendance. The consensus of scholars now is that there were closer to 300 bishops at Nicaea. In the larger lists, Nicholas’s name appears; he’s not in the shorter lists. That’s where the ambiguity lies. He is not named in all lists, so there is room for doubt.

DAVID: People are familiar, thanks to novelist Dan Brown and others, with the extensive Christian archives at the Vatican—and in other parts of the world, as well. But there is no such thing as an archive of documents from Bishop Nicholas’s reign.

ADAM: No. So far, historians have uncovered nothing from his lifetime. Then again, if you’re evaluating historical figures by the surviving works in their own hand—Jesus didn’t leave any written works, nor did Socrates.

DAVID: Excellent point. Still, I want readers to understand how painstaking you had to be in sifting various layers of the historical record to prepare this new biography. Among the claims you had to sift: Where is Nicholas buried today?

NICHOLAS’S BONES TRAVELED THE WORLD

Statue of St. Nicholas in Bari, Italy. Photo courtesy of Adam C. English.ADAM: By and large, Nicholas is buried in Bari, Italy. There are fragments of his bones that have made it to Venice and other places. His bones were moved from Turkey to Italy in 1087 and, a few years later, some Venetian sailors came and took some fragments of the bones. There are finger bones and other relics that have made appearances in churches around the world, claiming to be authentic. But the bones in the tomb in Bari have been analyzed on multiple occasions. Today, he’s mostly in Bari, Italy.

DAVID: In my world travels, I’ve never made it to Bari—but I’m fascinated by the annual collection of liquid from Nicholas’s tomb. They call it myrrh, you point out in your book, even though real myrrh is something different—a resin from a thorny tree. So, what’s the deal with this seeping miracle?

ADAM: This is one of the more fascinating and curious parts of this story that is unknown to most Americans—even people who may know that there was a real historical person named Nicholas. From very early on in the history of Nicholas’s relics—and to this day—his tomb secretes this clear watery liquid. They call it myrrh or oil. If you visit Bari, you can purchase little vials of it. It’s collected once a year in a big celebration. One of the ministers goes in and collects a vial of it, then it’s diluted and mixed with water and oil and they prepare tiny samples of it for pilgrims. It may sound unique and it’s little known in this country, but Nicholas is not the only one from the Middle Ages whose tomb secretes liquid.

DAVID: Describe Bari, Italy, for our readers.

ADAM: Today, Bari is a large modern port city on the eastern side of Italy and cruise ships come in and out. But the old town of Bari where you’ll find the Basilica of St. Nicholas is an enclosed, medieval-style area. The streets are labyrinths. Houses are built on top of houses. The locals will say this was done on purpose so that if a raiding party descended on the town, they would get lost in the maze-like bowels of the city. But there is a plaza that opens up and the basilica is there. It’s an imposing, gray, blocky building and you can go inside. The basilica was built around the year 1100. Nicholas’s body is underneath the main altar in a crypt. You take the side stairs down into this darkly lit chamber. There’s a simple gray tomb. Most of the time, the people who are there are either tourists or Russian pilgrims. Nicholas is still very popular with the Russians. Nothing in the basilica would remind an American visitor of Santa Claus—no sleighs or reindeer or any of the images we associate with Santa Claus.

You can see the tomb through a grate, but you cannot see the bones inside it. One of the fascinating things to watch is that on certain days one of the Dominican fathers who maintains the basilica will go behind the grate and—especially for the Russian pilgrims who are there—they will pass their prayer cloths or Bibles through the grate to the Dominican who will lay it on the tomb for a blessing and then hand it back.

ST. NICHOLAS’S LIFE, DEATH AND LEGACY

CLICK THE COVER to visit the book’s Amazon page.DAVID: We’re not entirely sure about the dates of his birth and death, even though his feast day of December 6 is based on the officially regarded date of his death in the year 343. Wikipedia says he was born in 270 and died Dec. 6, 343, but your book says there may be some debate on that chronology among historians.

ADAM: The standardized dates are the ones given in Wikipedia. The death date is very specific in 343, and it now marks the feast—but even that date came from a historical source in the 12th century, hundreds of years after Nicholas lived and died. In terms of his birth date? There are many guesses and we don’t have any concrete historical record to settle the question.

DAVID: One of the historical details you describe in the book is the overall prevalence of the name “Nicholas” in the ancient world. Prior to the 4th century, the name was not well known. After the 4th century, the name was spreading around the world. That’s an indication that something famous happened with a man by that name in the 4th century.

ADAM: It’s a circumstantial piece of evidence. I can’t find records of people named Nicholas before the 4th century, but after that it’s a prevalent name throughout Asia Minor.

ST. NICHOLAS: SORTING TRUTH FROM MYTHS

DAVID: You tell readers that there are many legends that were associated with St. Nicholas in the centuries after he lived and died. But, the one heroic story that probably was based on historical fact was Nicholas helping three poor girls to avoid slavery, or worse. (For more on that story, see our Feast of St. Nicholas column.)

ADAM: This story of his anonymous gifts to the three maidens really stands out. There are also early references that attach Nicholas as a patron saint of sailors, but I think it’s this story of helping the three maidens that jumps off the page. He learns that these three girls are destitute and on the brink of being sold—then, one by one, he provides bags of gold that become dowries so they can marry, instead. There’s nothing exactly like that story from other saints in that era. At that time, the most popular saint stories involved martyrdom in which the saint would die in some gruesome way. Or, there were stories of rigorous monks who went out in the desert and denied themselves in heroic ways.

But here was a story about Nicholas anonymously giving something to these three poor girls—girls who no one else in that era would have cared about. He is truly taking the biblical command to look out for “the least among you” to heart in a serious way. He does something that is purely generous and purely good—for people who weren’t the concern of society in that era—and he does it without any hope of reward.

That story lit up people’s imagination. He becomes a gift giver, a patron saint of young maidens, newlyweds and anyone in dire distress. You’re down to your very last crust of bread, but watch the window: Nicholas may yet appear to save you. That story of the three maidens was his ticket to fame.

DAVID: There are other legends I keep encountering each year around St. Nicholas Day. One of them involves three boys who were chopped up by a criminal—and St. Nicholas restores them to life. You say: Probably didn’t happen during the real Nicholas’s life.

ADAM: That story of the boys being chopped up comes from deep in the Middle Ages many hundreds of years after his life. His first biographers knew nothing of this story.

DAVID: But the story about Nicholas and sailors? That goes way back, right?

ADAM: It goes back to the earliest versions of his life we can find. There were numerous stories of Nicholas rescuing sailors or helping out on the high seas. The references come from the 500s, when he already was connected with sailors, especially when they were crying out for help. It’s also why his fame spread through trade routes around the world. In Greece, they sometimes picture Nicholas’s clothes soaked in brine, his beard dripping sea water, and his face covered in sweat precisely because of this association.

ST. NICHOLAS: AN EARTHY SAINT WHO STILL DRAWS THOUSANDS

Velikoretsky Icon of NikolaiDAVID: Beyond our Western Santa Claus, the real St. Nicholas remains hugely popular to this day, as you point out in your book.

ADAM: You only have to look at the tradition involving the Icon of St. Nikolai at Velikoretsky, Russia. The tradition of Nicholas’s pilgrims forming a procession to Velikoretsky goes back a long, long time. It became quiet and fell off in numbers during the Communist era—then, afterward, it was publicly reinstated and gets bigger and bigger each year. The procession in June drew 35,000 pilgrims, but there was nothing I saw in the American media.

DAVID: You’re right. It’s virtually unknown over here. There is information on this pilgrimage of the icon on websites in Russian and other Eastern European languages, but nothing I can find in English on the processions. (Here is a Romanian-Orthodox website with photos of a procession.)

ADAM: Nicholas is popular all across Europe. In the United Kingdom alone, there are more than 500 churches that bear the name Nicholas. He’s venerated in Netherlands, Germany, Austria—a very European saint.

His continuing popularity lies in the stories that are told and retold. One of the stories I tell in the book is about Nicholas having drinks with other saints up in heaven. He keeps nodding off. Someone nudges him and says he’s missing out on the party. And he says: I’m sorry but I’m just back from helping more sailors in trouble get back to their port. That’s the kind of story that still is passed around. He’s a saint who is earthy. He’s a laborer. He’s not afraid to get messy to help people.

Originally published at readthespirit.com, an online magazine covering religion and cultural diversity.

St Kateri Tekakwitha opens Native American spiritual vistas

October 23, 2012 by

The canonization of the first Native American saint by Pope Benedict XVI means that more than 1 billion Christians around the world now are encouraged to learn more about Native American spiritual vistas. These insights are poignant because this deep religious wisdom was opened to the world even as tribes were decimated by the collision of American and European cultures. Today, while millions of native men and women across the North American continent maintain only their ancient spiritual traditions, millions more blend both their ancient cultures and Christian spiritual traditions.

What St Kateri Tekakwitha’s Canonization Means

In declaring the sainthood of the 17th-century convert Kateri Tekakwitha, Benedict is telling all Catholics around the world that she is, indeed, a heroic saint worthy of spiritual reflection and inclusion in prayers of the saints in any congregation. Her influence also extends far beyond the Catholic church into other Christian communities and national cultures. Some criticism remains of ongoing Christian evangelism among Native populations, but St. Kateri’s canonization is widely celebrated as an honor for all Canadians and all Native Christians.
In his declaration, Benedict said: “Leading a simple life, Kateri remained faithful to her love for Jesus, to prayer, and to daily Mass. Her greatest wish was to know and to do what pleased God. Saint Kateri, Protrectress of Canada and first Native American saint, we entrust to you the renewal of faith in the First Nations and in all of North America! May God bless the First Nations!”

Bringing Native American spiritual wisdom into your congregation

One way to bring this discussion to your congregation is through the spiritual memoir of Odawa teacher Warren Petoskey, called Dancing My Dream. Visit the book page for Warren’s memoir to learn more about how Warren weaves his own deep American Indian traditions through his conversion to Christianity. You will come away from Warren’s story inspired and humbled by the tragedies his family suffered and the soaring spiritual insights he shares with all of us today.

Care to learn more about St. Kateri? You’ll enjoy Stephanie Fenton’s column about her, marking her saint’s feast day earlier this year.

 

David Frenette on The Path of Centering Prayer

September 27, 2012 by

In Part 1 of our series this week, we introduce two authors who are breaking Christian boundaries and are inviting men and women to find the deep riches in the Christian tradition. In Part 2, we interview Chris Haw, who talks about his odyssey from the Willow Creek evangelical megachurch to a Catholic parish in a poor neighborhood. Today, ReadTheSpirit Editor David Crumm talks with David Frenette in …

HIGHLIGHTS OF OUR INTERVIEW
WITH DAVID FRENETTE ON
THE PATH OF CENTERING PRAYER

Click the book cover to visit its Amazon page.DAVID CRUMM: Let’s start by describing the history of “centering prayer.” Readers probably know that it’s an ancient form of contemplative prayer—something associated with monasteries. But, there’s a very important part of this history we should mention: In the 1970s, three Trappist monks decided to teach these traditions to modern people in practical ways. They were Father Thomas Keating—your mentor who writes an introduction to your new book—plus Father William Meninger and Father M. Basil Pennington. So, tell us how you connected with these teachings. I know that you were raised in a family with no real religious practices. Then, you studied Eastern religions for quite a while. You’re trained in psychology. Tell us more.

DAVID FRENETTE: I first met Father Thomas Keating in 1982. At that point, I had become a Christian, and from earlier studies I already knew a lot about Buddhist and Hindu and Sufi practices of meditation. So, when I met Father Keating—here I was listening to a talk from a Christian master in this kind of meditation. I felt an immediate connection with him as a teacher and as a spiritual mentor.

Then, I exchanged a letter or two with Father Keating. I was wondering about becoming a monk but I wasn’t feeling called to a permanent monastic cloister. I got this card back from him that said, “Dear David: I understand what you’re talking about.” That line struck my heart. I felt even more of a connection. Here was someone who understood the journey I was on. I went to another workshop of his and then on a retreat that he gave and that retreat was really the beginning of my own more formal public ministry in centering prayer.

I’m trained as a therapist particularly in the transpersonal field of psychology. It’s been around for some time now as a school within psychology. I’ve worked as a psychotherapist in the past, but these days I’m primarily working as a spiritual director and a teacher.

CRUMM: If readers turn to the opening pages of your book (see Part 1 of our series), they will find a short excerpt of Father Keating’s own words that help you to complete this mini-history. Clearly, Keating seems to be anointing you as someone he hopes will keep the centering prayer movement going. He even describes your own work as the next wave of “contemplative research and development.” So, how do you describe to newcomers the range of this practice? In your book, you suggest it could run all the way from the Quakers’ meditative silence to more Eastern practices of meditating with a focus on one’s breathing, or on a single word that is repeated.

FRENETTE: The instructions and the contemplative attitudes I describe in this book are taken from small-group teaching and retreats on what we call “centering prayer.” In our practices, we do encourage people to choose sacred symbols or sacred words to use in this form of prayer. So people may find connections with practices in a number of traditions, but what I am describing in this book come from the centering prayer communities where I have worked. I lived for 10 years in a centering-prayer retreat center.

DAVID FRENETTE: Experiences that go beyond words

David Frenette (left) with Father Thomas KeatingCRUMM: Given your years of living, as a lay person, in a centering-prayer community, you know that this practice normally is taught in person. It’s taught in a retreat or it’s developed one-on-one with a spiritual director. Are people really going to pick up that much from reading about it in a book?

FRENETTE: This is a good question. This book really comes out of the deepening needs of our communities. How do we help more people to learn about these practices? You’re right that the heart of the Christian contemplative life is one that always has been awakened and transmitted in settings with other people. This goes all the way back to the ancient Desert Fathers, where we find the first recorded teachings on how to live the contemplative life. Those teachings arose in small communities and often between an elder—a father or a mother—and a student. Trying to share more widely these kinds of personal encounters, Thomas Merton and Thomas Keating both used books to convey these ideas. Merton’s books are a good example of written words that help to form and shape something that goes beyond the words for readers. (chuckles) But, you’re right! Any book on contemplation is really in the service of something that cannot be articulated in words.

DAVID FRENETTE: Turn 180 degrees. Start with ‘Amen.’

CRUMM: In your instructions for prayer, you deliberately reshape our use of words—drawing from ancient, worldwide traditions of using words as doorways to deep medtiation. I encourage people to read the whole book to understand the full scope of this. But let’s give just one example. You flip around the almost-ignored last word in most prayers, “Amen,” and turn it 180 degrees to begin a new form of prayer.

FRENETTE: “Amen” is the word that ends most Christian prayers. It’s the end of the Our Father. But, “Amen” also is a disposition that goes to the heart of contemplative prayer. The word means “so be it” or “let it be.” In contemplative prayer that’s an important truth. We don’t have to go out and search. God is there already. We are opening ourselves up to God and receiving God. So, at one point in the book, I write about that contemplative attitude of “Amen” as a way to show that even the word that ends traditional Christian prayers is actually an opening to deeper meditation. I’m trying to show people that we’re really talking about an orientation of prayer that stems from what we already experience in traditional prayer.

CRUMM: This is important. Centering prayer isn’t taking people away from orthodox Christianity. I know that some strict evangelicals are suspicious of this form of prayer. But, the truth is: This form of prayer arises right out of the New Testament teachings of Jesus.

FRENETTE: That’s right. Contemplative prayer and the whole tradition of Christian meditation goes back to the teachings of Jesus in Matthew Chapter 6 where Jesus is asked how to pray. He says to start by going into your inner room, closing the door and praying in secret. Then, Jesus tells us, our Father who sees in secret will reward you. Jesus goes further to instruct the prayer we call the Our Father, which is a prayer about daily life—forgiveness and relationships, temptation and difficulties with other people.

DAVID FRENETTE: From an inner room—into the world

CRUMM: One of the myths about contemplative prayer is that it carries people away from daily life. It’s a way of fleeing from the needs of our families, our communities, our world. While there are some famous locked-away communities of contemplatives, the movement you’re describing in your book always takes us back out into the world, right?

FRENETTE: The words of the Our Father focus on very practical things—like our daily bread. Yes, you can see this in the sequence Jesus presents to his followers in Matthew. He doesn’t instruct the Our Father first. He says, first: Go to your inner room and pray in secret. That passage is one of the great sources in the gospels for contemplative prayers.

For most people the trajectory of Christian contemplation is to develop a daily practice, supplemented by going on retreat once in a while, then the contemplative practice is expressed through the commitments we make in daily life. Jesus teaches this in that same chapter, Matthew 6. Jesus says that giving in compassionate ways to people in need should be done in secret—so your left hand doesn’t know what your right hand is doing. He’s saying that we shouldn’t do this driven by a hidden agenda. Jesus is teaching us to cultivate a contemplative form of prayer, then have it expressed in life through service in practical ways as a natural expression of daily living.

DAVID FRENETTE: Discovering that we are home, already

CRUMM: As I was reading your book, I kept thinking of the writings of Frederick Buechner, one of my own life-long inspirations. Among my favorite Buechner books is The Longing for Home: Reflections at Midlife. What you describe in this whole practice of contemplative prayer feels like what Buechner tries to describe as a longing for home. Is that a fair connection to make?

FRENETTE: Coming home or realizing that we are home—that’s a wonderful image that lies at the heart of the contemplative life. Unfortunately, we seem to be alienated from our true home in God—our true home in the deepest sense of who we are as men and women created in the image of God. We are distracted in so many ways in our daily lives. These days, there is so much technology stimulating us, drawing our attention. Yet, God is closer to us than we are to ourselves—that’s also one of the great teachings of the contemplative life.

We don’t have to search for God—rather, we allow ourselves to be loved by God. When we quietly sit and pray at the start of the day, even for 20 minutes, we are brought into an awareness of the divine presence. As we cultivate this, we remain aware of this presence throughout our day. We discover that we don’t have to be in a monastery or a church to be at home with God. We can be at home with God while driving a car, working at a desk or doing dishes in the evening. What we are talking about is the awareness that: Wherever we are, home is possible.

CRUMM: So, last question: Is this movement of prayer growing? Or fading?

FRENETTE: I see Christian forms of contemplative prayer and meditation moving in waves. The explosion of interest we saw in the 1970s settled in the 1980s and ‘90s. Now, I think it’s deepening further. Meditation practices from Asian traditions are going deeper now. Today, people talk about the development of a uniquely Western or even a specifically American form of Buddhism. Reaching that point shows real spiritual depth in these movements.

For American Christians, the first wave of contemplative prayer came in the 1950s and ‘60s with writers like Thomas Merton. Then in the ‘70s and ‘80s there were those Trappist monks led by Thomas Keating offering practices like centering prayer to people outside monastic cloisters. Then, in the current generation I think the wave is more widespread, moving in more subtle ways that may be more difficult to see as easily. But, people are developing more teachings. New small groups are forming in many places. Now, we’ve reached a point where contemplative prayer practices are available in many different Christian denominations—and even to people who start this practice saying that they’re from no specific religious tradition. More and more people are recognizing that God is working in their lives and they want to actively cooperate with that through centering prayer and practice. I hope that this book helps to spread that good news.

Care to jump back and read Part 1? It’s a story that introduces Chris Haw and David Frenette as two important barrier breakers in Christianity. In Part 2, we talk with Chris Haw.

Want the book? You can order The Path of Centering Prayer: Deepening Your Experience of God—from Amazon.

Care to learn more about Centering Prayer? In 2009, ReadTheSpirit interviewed Father Thomas Keating about his decades of teaching contemplative, centering prayer.

Please help us to reach a wider audience

We welcome your Emails at [email protected]
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Originally published at readthespirit.com, an online magazine covering religion and cultural diversity.

Chris Haw tells his story From Willow Creek to …

September 26, 2012 by

Chris Haw talks with a crowd while barnstorming the country with Shane Claiborne in the Jesus for President tour.In Part 1 this week, we introduced two emerging authors who are breaking down Christian boundaries—not to discard Christian traditions but to clear the way for men and women to find the true riches that often are hidden in that worldwide community. Later this week, we will publish an interview with David Frenette on centering prayer. Today, ReadTheSpirit Editor David Crumm talks with Chris Haw in …

HIGHLIGHTS OF OUR INTERVIEW
WITH CHRIS HAW ON HIS BOOK
FROM WILLOW CREEK TO SACRED HEART

DAVID: In 200 pages, you take us with you on your odyssey from Willow Creek—a famous evangelical megachurch—to the poor neighborhood where you now live and worship as a Catholic. It’s an inspiring and challenging personal story. You admit at the end of your book, “Writing this book has changed me.” So, the opening question is: How did you wind up at Willow Creek in the first place?

CHRIS: I was born in Dayton, Ohio. Mother was Catholic and Dad was of the Protestant variety of people who kind of vanished from the church. He didn’t really attend at all. So, by default, I was baptized Catholic and ended up going to Mass. When I hit my teens, my mother said the youth group at our Catholic church was virtually nothing. She said, “I want my child to have some youthful interaction with the faith.” She started looking around.

DAVID: So, you’re not a born-and-raised Protestant becoming a Catholic. You were raised by an actively Catholic mother and now you’re returning to that faith, right?

CHRIS: Yes, my mother was active in the church. She taught CCD classes for the young kids at our Catholic church, but ultimate she saw the Catholic programs for youth as flat. By the time I was a teenager, we had moved to the Chicago area and she saw that Willow Creek was the exact opposite of what she had seen. In contrast to the chronic problems with young people not showing up for things at a Catholic church, Willow Creek was almost over hyped, over excited and the problem was too many people showing up for things. So my parents initially took me to Willow Creek.

DAVID: Was it an immediate success from your point of view?

CHRIS: No, it took a while for the experience to grow on me. I was more interested in playing in a punk rock band as a teenager. It took me a while to warm up to Willow Creek. My interest in playing guitar in a punk band turned to playing music in worship services. I got very active in Willow Creek’s music; I was active in leading small groups. I got involved in stuff like taking sandwiches and blankets to people who needed them. I got very involved in serving the church and serving the community.

CHRIS HAW: That Kind of Emotion Wasn’t Traditional

Click the book cover to visit its Amazon page.DAVID: I would say that you almost bend over backwards in this book to praise Willow Creek for the good ways it shaped your life. But you’ve also got a very strong critique of that church, which is one of the best-known of the big seeker churches in this country. One of those strong criticisms is that Willow Creek puts too much emphasis on getting people emotionally excited.

CHRIS: One of the deeper things I began to question about the general form of worship at Willow Creek is that it puts a big emphasis on personal sincerity. You’re supposed to have Jesus as your personal savior in an emotional way. They want you to have this breakthrough Christian moment of emotion and sincere connection with Jesus. All of that hand raising and closing of eyes that I did as a worship leader at Willow Creek—I realize that isn’t valued at all in traditional Christian liturgy.

DAVID: Today, you’ve come to realize that the ocean of Christianity is a whole lot bigger than you once thought. What’s more, you describe in the book how you’ve come to realize that Willow Creek isn’t as neutral as it may seem.

CHRIS: I’m now encouraging people to learn more about Christian history and traditions. When we do, we question that Willow Creek could be “nondenominational.” I have come to realize there is no such thing as nondenominationalism, no matter what Willow Creek and others may claim. Willow Creek reaches out to people who are sick of the traditions and hierarchies that they have seen around them. But it’s a mistake to think that we can escape into some sort of neutral Christian philosophy. Willow Creek claims that’s what they’re giving people: a nondenominational Christianity. But it’s really evangelical Protestant Christianity posing as neutrality.

DAVID: A fascinating middle portion of your book revolves around the big differences in these religious traditions. For example, as you write about the Catholic Church, you push readers toward new kinds of urban reflections on the Mass. You see it as a sacrament of hope in tragically violent corners of the world—and some of your meditations on the Mass, in this book, are pretty edgy and inspiring. So, there’s a lot to spark individual thinking in this book—and spirited discussion in small groups, too.

But let’s continue talking about this question of emotion in worship—one distinctive part of your story.

CHRIS HAW: Relaxing and letting liturgy shape us

CHRIS: Comparing worship at Willow Creek with the Mass, it’s almost like the emotion flows in entirely opposite directions in the two experiences. In the Mass, it doesn’t come from inside us and flow outward. It comes from outward and flows inward. It was a breath of fresh air to feel that I didn’t need to express this outward emotional experience in worship every week. As a Catholic, worship now becomes more about relaxing and letting the liturgy shape me.

DAVID: That’s an insight most Americans never get, because most of us remain in our religious camps. We don’t tend to cross the Protestant-Catholic barrier in huge numbers. So, talk more about that.

CHRIS: Take the practice of rebaptizing people—as if it didn’t work the first time you were baptized somewhere else, so you’d better get baptized again. This gets to be ridiculous. People think they are taking charge of their own faith, so they start to think that they should get baptized about every five minutes. The idea behind that is that we’re trying to follow Jesus and trying to take charge of our faith. But, this winds up putting people in an antagonistic relationship with older folks and older traditions and the older church. It’s like we’re thinking of those things as crusty old traditions. What I want to do now is find the best in the traditions and become part of the ongoing refurbishing and renewing of those traditions.

CHRIS HAW: Finding hope even in a dysfunctional church

DAVID: I won’t ask you about individual issues in the Catholic church that give you pause, right now. You write about some in your book. But we should be clear that you’re certainly not saying the Catholic Church is the best church on the planet, right?

CHRIS: When I say that I’m a Catholic now, I don’t know how that could ever mean that I’m choosing the “best” church. The Catholic church is really a terribly dysfunctional church and there are crappy things about it, but it is a broad and numerous community around the world. Catholics have a lot of opportunities to express themselves personally while also being Catholic. For example, if I wanted to be more Pentecostal in my worship, the Catholic Church is not opposed to that. If I want to have prayer nights or Bible studies or other forms of worship, I can find them in the Catholic Church. But also, on Sundays, I join to the larger body through the Eucharist. We are joined through the sacraments as Catholics, but that doesn’t cut off a lot of different emphases and expressions of the faith we can explore, as well.

CHRIS HAW: Coming to the Catholic Church is like Yellowstone

DAVID: That’s an insight I’ve heard from Catholics around the world over many years. I remember visiting Singapore a few years ago and, even though Singapore is infamous as a strict police state, the religious life was vibrant. The liveliest place I found was a huge Catholic community of young people. I’m a veteran religion writer and I was surprised to see that!

CHRIS: I often think of a national park when I think of Catholicism. It’s enormous and wide. This church isn’t just one river or one mountain or one sacred place. It takes you a long time to even imagine the lay of the land in the church around the world. Coming into the Catholic Church is like coming into Yellowstone. It’s that huge and diverse. It’s not one thing; it’s many things around the world tied together by a certain mode of connection in the sacraments.

CHRIS HAW: Turning away form the Protestant-Catholic feud

DAVID: Beyond finding connections among Catholics, you really want to tear down the barriers between Protestants and Catholics. Am I understanding that correctly?

CHRIS: When we identify ourselves as Protestants, we’re identifying with this movement that historically said: We are protesting what the Catholics are doing until they change X, Y or Z. Of course, I never thought much about that history—until I began to spend time with Catholics. Then, I realized that I actually carried a lot of this anti-ness within me. Finally, I came to realize: I don’t believe in this Protestant-Catholic feud anymore.

DAVID: I always ask prophetic writers to close with a glimpse of the future. If what you’re writing makes sense, then what does your personal odyssey say about the horizon for Christianity?

CHRIS: I think we are going to see more people wanting a much deeper path of engagement. I don’t know whether everybody is going to follow suit with me—but in this book I’m telling the story of the path I followed. It’s what I needed. I’ve told the story honestly. Others may follow.

Care to jump back and read Part 1? It’s a story that introduces Chris Haw and David Frenette as barrier breakers in Christianity. Or go on to Part 3, our interview with David Frenette.

Want the book? You can order a copy of From Willow Creek to Sacred Heart: Rekindling My Love for Catholicism from Amazon.

Care to learn more about the Jesus for President tour and the related book-video set that’s great for groups? Here’s our earlier interview with Shane Claiborne.

Please help us to reach a wider audience

We welcome your Emails at [email protected]
We’re also reachable on Twitter, Facebook, Amazon, Huffington Post, YouTube and other social-networking sites. You also can Subscribe to our articles via Email or RSS feed.
Plus, there’s a free Monday morning Planner newsletter you may enjoy.

Originally published at readthespirit.com, an online magazine covering religion and cultural diversity.