down, day 4

Come to Stillness: Take a few minutes to allow your mind and heart to be still before God.

Opening Prayer:
Lord, how great is our dilemma! In Thy Presence silence best becomes us, but love inflames our hearts and constrains us to speak. Were we to hold our peace the stones would cry out; yet if we speak, what shall we say? Teach us to know that we cannot know, for the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God. Let faith support us where reason fails, and we shall think because we believe, not in order that we may believe. In Jesus’ name. Amen. (Knowledge of the Holy by A. W. Tozer)

Psalm for the Week: Psalm 138

Scripture for the Day: Mark 8:31-38

Reading for Reflection:

In Luke’s gospel passage in which Jesus tells us, “It is an evil and adulterous generation that wants a sign” (Luke 11:29), he then says that the only sign he will give us is the sign of Jonah.  As a good Jew, Jesus knew the graphic story of Jonah the prophet, who was running from God and was used by God almost in spite of himself.  Jonah was swallowed by the whale and taken where he would rather not go.  This was Jesus’ metaphor for death and rebirth.  Think of all the other signs, apparitions, and miracles that religion looks for and seeks and even tries to create.  But Jesus says it is an evil and adulterous generation that looks for these things.  That’s a pretty hard saying.  He says instead we must go inside the belly of the whale for a while.  Then and only then will we be spit upon a new shore and understand our call.  That’s the only pattern Jesus promises us.  Paul spoke of “reproducing the pattern” of his death and thus understanding resurrection (Phil. 3:11).  That teaching will never fail.  The soul is always freed and formed in such wisdom.  Native religions speak of winter and summer; mystical authors speak of darkness and light; Eastern religion speaks of yin and yang.  Seasons transform the year; light and darkness transform the day.  Christians call it the paschal mystery, but we are all pointing to the same necessity of both descent and ascent.

     The paschal mystery is the pattern of transformation.  We are transformed through death and rising, probably many times.  There seems to be no other cauldron of growth and transformation.

     We seldom go freely into the belly of the beast.  Unless we face a major disaster like the death of a friend or spouse or loss of a marriage or job, we usually will not go there.  As a culture, we have to be taught the language of descent.  That is the great language of religion.  It teaches us to enter willingly, trustingly into the dark periods of life.  These dark periods are good teachers.  Religious energy is in the dark questions, seldom in the answers.  Answers are the way out, but that is not what we are here for.  But when we look at the questions, we look for the opening to transformation.  Fixing something doesn’t usually transform us.  We try to change events in order to avoid changing ourselves.  We must learn to stay with the pain of life, without answers, without conclusions, and some days without meaning.  That is the path, the perilous dark path of true prayer. (Everything Belongs by Richard Rohr)

Reflection and Listening: silent and written

Prayer: for the church, for others, for myself

Song for the Week: How Great is Our God

The splendor of the King clothed in majesty
Let all the earth rejoice, All the earth rejoice

He wraps himself in Light and darkness tries to hide
And trembles at His voice, trembles at His voice

How great is our God, sing with me
How great is our God and all will see
How great, how great is our God

Age to age He stands and time is in His hands
Beginning and the end, beginning and the end

The Godhead three in One, Father, Spirit, Son
The Lion and the Lamb, the Lion and the Lamb

How great is our God, sing with me
How great is our God and all will see
How great, how great is our God

Name above all names
Worthy of all praise
My heart will sing
How great is our God

Closing Prayer:
Lord Jesus, give us the grace and the strength and the courage to follow your invitation downward—to the place where there is only you and nothing else. In your name and for your sake we pray. Amen. (JLB)