Life's three big questions

One day it occurred to a certain emperor that if he only knew the answers to three questions, he would never stray in any matter.

1. What is the best time to do each thing?

2. Who are the most important people to work with?

3. What is the most important thing to do at all times?

The emperor issued a decree throughout his kingdom announcing that whoever could answer the questions would receive a great reward. Many who read the decree made their way to the palace at once, each person with a different answer.

To be continued . . .

This post is part of a short series of postings taken from Tolstoy's short tale, "The Emperor's Three Questions."

The tale is a remarkable meditation on mindfulness, the awakened life, the practice of living from a prayerful center. Along with other Russian literary giants, Tolstoy wrote from inside nineteenth century Russia which experienced a revival of the Jesus Prayer among ordinary peasants who sought to live well in hard times.

I see Tolstoy's tale as a popularization of the spirituality of the Jesus Prayer for ordinary people. Reviving this story during our tumultuous century may serve to give us guidance for living well in the midst of the new challenges facing our daily lives.

Take time to ponder this little section of the tale and seek for ways it might guide your day today.

Don't hurry, there is real gold here.

You might also enjoy the award winning 2006 Russian film, The Island, which explores the ethical impact of 19th century Russian spirituality, and in particular, the Jesus Prayer, on our modern world.

The spirituality of Trinity or Why you'll be glad to be Trinitarian

Some of you have suggested posting a link to my recent sermon on the Holy Trinity. The Trinity is largely ignored except by those who like to debate doctrine.  But the Trinity is much less about ideas than about direct experience.  In this message I not only explore the ways people have thought about the Trinity, but more importantly  invite us into a trinitarian spirituality that enriches all of life.

If the Trinity has baffled you, confused you, bored you, or even repelled you, you might find yourself opening to the mystery of God as Three, and reveling in a richer spirituality of daily life.

Listen to it or download it here.

Holiness is done bodily

The holiness of daily life; the sacredness of this place, this moment, this body of yours; practices that open you to see and embrace the presence of God here, now. That's what this site is about.

In her book, An Altar in the World: A Geography of Faith, Episcopal priest and college professor, Barbara Brown Taylor, summons us to that life and gives guidance for embracing it. I love the way she calls to us with the voice of Holy Wisdom (Proverbs 1.20-21):

"What is saving my life now is the conviction that there is no spiritual treasure to be found apart from the bodily human experience of human life on earth.

In a world of too much information about almost everything, bodily practices can provide great relief. To make bread or love, to dig in the earth, to feed an animal or cook for a stranger---these activities require no extensive commentary or lucid theology. All they require is someone willing to bend, reach, chop, stir. . . .

In a world where faith is often construed as a way of thinking, bodily practices remind the willing that faith is a way of life. . . .

So welcome to your priesthood, practiced at the altar of your own life. The good news is that you have everything you need to begin."

A window on an active person deep in prayer

Here's a helpful description of an active person at prayer. It's from George Eliot's Adam Bede. Dinah's a Methodist minister. She's getting ready to leave the community where she's cared for people for quite awhile. Eliot shows her sitting by her bedroom window thinking of the people she's loved through good times and bad.

"The pressure of this thought soon became too strong for her to enjoy the unresponding stillness of the moonlit fields. She closed her eyes, that she might feel more intensely the presence of a Love and Sympathy deeper and more tender than was breathed from the earth and sky. That was Dinah's mode of praying in solitude. Simple to close her eyes, and to feel herself enclosed by the Divine Presence; then gradually her fears, yearning anxieties for others, melted away like ice-crystals in a warm ocean" (quoted in Martin Laird's, Into the Silent Land: A Guide to the Christian Practice of Contemplation, p. 31).

I'm guessing a number of you pray this way and know this experience. There are others who have tasted once or twice, but don't think it's real prayer. It is real prayer---the deepest, highest kind.

Facing depression this Holy Saturday

This site focuses on awakening the spiritual life.  Frankly that's easier said that done.  Sometimes there are forces at work in us that make awakening on our own pretty damn tough, if not downright impossible. Holy Saturday seems an apt time to reflect on the nature of depression and the spiritual life.  We live most of our lives somewhere between Good Friday and Easter Sunday.  And for millions of people clinical depression can make us feel so far from Easter that it's announcement of life's triumph over death seems little more than whistling in the dark.

The recent and tragic death of a cherished friend has made me more more aware and sensitive to the effects of depression, as well as the dangerous and debilitating stigma we still attach for mental illness.  We must work much harder to remove this stigma, and find ways to stand with and support suffers and their families so that clinical depression is no longer a hidden and isolating disease.

Here's a link to a remarkably candid and healing interview on Speaking of Faith---one of my favorites podcasts (you can download the MP3 or just listen to in on your computer; see the links under the photo banner; it reads like this: SOF OnDemand: » Download (mp3, 53:18) ¦ » Listen Now (RealAudio, 53:00) ¦ » Podcast).  If you prefer, here's a link to the written transcript.

In it Krista Tippet not only engages a few remarkable people who explore their own experiences with depression from a spiritual perspective, but she shares her own journey through the darkness.

I commend it to all with the prayer that a thin ray of Easter's light may break in upon us and help us find healing---both in us and through us.