The Power of a Spiritually Awakened Life

When you awaken to a vibrant spiritual life you're entering the fullness of life. You're not hiding yourself away in some interior cul de sac, avoiding the demands of daily obligations and roles. Spiritual transformation is not a dead-end street nor is it a private party. The heart is the abode of God . . . not exclusively, of course. The whole earth is full of the glory of God. But our bodies, our beings, our lives are a shrine. And when the light of God shines from within us, all things around us are affected.

The Butterfly Effect, or the ripple effect a single butterfly's wing movements on the whole cosmos, is now common science.  It shouldn't surprise us then to hear St. Seraphim of Sarov say, "Acquire inner peace, and thousands around you will find their salvation." It's one thing to hear such words coming from a monk. It's quite another to hear them coming from someone like Dag Hammarskjold, General Secretary of the United Nations (1953-1961), and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize (1961).

Hammarskjold said, "Understand through the stillness. Act out of the stillness. Conquer in the stillness."

This was spoken by someone deeply involved in global politics and who lived a very busy and demanding life.

"Acquire inner peace." St. Seraphim of Sarov

"Act out of the stillness." Dag Hammarskjold

"The kingdom of God is within you." Jesus

There is no action more powerful than the action arising from a single spiritually awakened life.

Prayer and Time: Starting Fires with the Christian Seasons Calendar

I’m sitting in the outdoor food court called 7+Fig.  It’s in the Ernst and Young Plaza at Figueroa and 7th in downtown L.A., and it's Farmer's Market day.  A marvelous setting in the midst of a teeming city.  It’s early afternoon and most folks here are finishing a late lunch, some anxiously glancing at the time on their iPhones and Blackberries . . . or for messages.  They’re clearly aware of the few moments they have left before hustling back to offices that ring this plaza like the pigeons watching the scene from high above, anxious for a scrap or two. We all have a relationship to time, but most of us blow through it without much thought given to the kind of time we’re living.

I’m watching a young couple, dressed to the nines in power attire.  I’m sure they’re married.  They’re both wearing a wedding band.  And they’re sitting alone, but clearly take each other for granted.  Work associates would be engaged with each other.  But this couple is bored . . . or tired.  They have this little squeeze of time, but aren’t alert to it.  Not present to it.  Or to each other within it.  They’re elsewhere.  The past. The future.  But not here, in the present.  Failing the time they have now, they’re failing each other, and they're failing love.

We spend the large part of our lives with minds hooked by the past or lured by the future.  But we can’t meet God in either of those places.  Only here.  Only now.  There is no other time but the present.

This is why I celebrate a time-healing project by a small congregation in Vancouver, British Columbia.  What started out as an effort by a handful of disciples to dwell in the present time with full awareness of its meaning, the Christian Seasons Calendar has become a global phenomenon.  Says Eugene Peterson, “This calendar brings fresh awareness to the essential sacredness of what is so easily profaned by hurry or sloth.”

Most people in this plaza live their lives by calendars—paper or electronic.  But few of those calendars tell them anything about the sacredness of the day or season they’re living.  Right now it's the long season after Pentecost for Christians (or Kingdomtide) and daily we live alert to the mischief of the Spirit, Who might come down on us like a pigeon diving for food . . . or Who could just as surprisingly kindle within in this couple a new flame of love.

Time-keeping is revolutionary in big and small ways.  Right now, I’m wishing this dear couple before me was more alert to the sacredness of what’s so easily profaned by the tediousness of the calendar they’re forced to live by.  Not only would they live more alert to God, they’d love each other more fully as well.

I pray to see their eyes connect for just a flash, their hands touch . . . and fire fall right here and now at the corner of 7th and Fig.  If not now, maybe tonight when they fall into bed.