Such wonderful lessons from Moses: embracing the shadow and learning to love the whole self, transformation comes gradually, refusing to judge the other, and I love that final poem from Steve Garnaas-Holmes! It definitely made it into my sermon last week!
It’s interesting to me how common the pattern is of replacing some vice with prayer and meditation only to find out that one is approaching prayer and meditation in the same way! I think it was Thomas Keating who had to eat ice cream while everyone else fasted because he was trying to “fast everyone under the table.”
Also, there’s one (maybe two) typos in this paragraph: “This occurred when a guy from whom Moses stole some sheep hired thugs to *thief down. This drove Moses deeper into the desert than he’d ever been. After several days running, *thirty, hungry, cold, verging on collapse...”
Funny you should say this because I was just writing an entry for a couple days from now, about Beatrice of Nazareth, and this was an issue for her too. I think it's very common in all times and places...this over-complication of spirituality, an idea that one must perform Olympic feats of religious devotion. For those who pursue that, this often just means making an "idol" of devotion or practice. That's why I think Brother Lawrence was such an inspiration. He is the antidote to what I think of as "athletic" spirituality.
Such wonderful lessons from Moses: embracing the shadow and learning to love the whole self, transformation comes gradually, refusing to judge the other, and I love that final poem from Steve Garnaas-Holmes! It definitely made it into my sermon last week!
Steve is a bottomless well of wisdom. I'm always saving or printing out or copying down his poems.
Indeed! Me, too!
It’s interesting to me how common the pattern is of replacing some vice with prayer and meditation only to find out that one is approaching prayer and meditation in the same way! I think it was Thomas Keating who had to eat ice cream while everyone else fasted because he was trying to “fast everyone under the table.”
Also, there’s one (maybe two) typos in this paragraph: “This occurred when a guy from whom Moses stole some sheep hired thugs to *thief down. This drove Moses deeper into the desert than he’d ever been. After several days running, *thirty, hungry, cold, verging on collapse...”
Oh, and thanks for catching those typos. I've now fixed them.
Funny you should say this because I was just writing an entry for a couple days from now, about Beatrice of Nazareth, and this was an issue for her too. I think it's very common in all times and places...this over-complication of spirituality, an idea that one must perform Olympic feats of religious devotion. For those who pursue that, this often just means making an "idol" of devotion or practice. That's why I think Brother Lawrence was such an inspiration. He is the antidote to what I think of as "athletic" spirituality.