The Eleventh Way: Fire

Day Eleven in "The Journey of the Wise Men: Twelve Days and Twelve Ways to Deepen Your Spiritual Practice" You who walk this way toward Christ---long and fearsome as it may be---who persevere in this difficult inner journey of prayer will come face to face with what you're looking for. Take care though, the life of prayer is not magic---speak the right words, do the right things, and presto, enlightenment. No, you'll never conjure up a mystical experience; the mystical is not magical.

Instead, you'll be lead into the fullness of God (Ephesians 3.19). This fullness is the end of the journey, the goal of all life, the fruit of your spiritual practice. But the moment we say "goal," we're tiptoeing close to danger. The ego loves goals, and talking about the goal of prayer arouses your ego and launches you into the kind of grasping, reaching, and achieving that's the antithesis of true prayer.

So here's what you're to do:

The eleventh way is the way of utter relinquishment. There is no further you can travel. You've come as near to the Light as you can get on your own.  You must now stop and sit still before Christ.  Ask nothing.  Demand nothing.  Accept whatever comes. Open the treasure chest of your heart and keep it open by breathing gently, letting your breath fall into a natural, uncontrolled rhythm.  Offer the three gifts that have carried you here: gold of faith, frankincense of hope, myrrh of love. They're all you have now. And these too you must surrender to Christ. Empty and naked you wait, ready to receive what nothing can buy, earn, or comprehend.

The divine Fire, the Light you've sought from the beginning, will come suddenly and unexpectedly---an exquisite, unexplainable joy. When you no longer care when and how the Fire comes, or what it's like when it does, you're less apt to miss its warmth.

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The Tenth Way: Perseverance

Day Ten in "The Journey of the Wise Men: Twelve Days and Twelve Ways to Deepen Your Spiritual Practice" The light of the star is leading you uphill now. Bethlehem doesn't sit on a plain; it rests on a mountain. The last stage of your journey is a climb---a sweaty, gasping-for-air ascent toward the light of Christ.

Spiritual enlightenment is no walk in the park. You've crossed snow-covered mountains, crossed raging rivers, defeated bandits on the road, overcome thirst and hunger and fear, trudged on in the darkness against the howls of your inner demons. You're thinner than when you set out. Older. Poorer. In pursuit of this great Light, you've left nearly everything along the winding road behind you.

Your lungs burn with each step upward, but as you pause to catch your breath, you become increasingly aware of another sensation within you---pleasure. At first it seems strange, for why should such hard work, such risk, such fear and deprivation and loss result now in pleasure? Then it dawns on you. All you thought you needed, you don't need; all you thought you couldn't live without, you can live without; all you once thought mattered most, doesn't matter. You are free.  You shudder with a brief and exquisite happiness.

You own nothing now but faith, and the two gifts that cannot be separated from it---hope and love. Three treasures available to all, but possessed only by those who persevere in this difficult inner journey of prayer, those who traverse their own interior geography through landscapes as beautiful and challenging as anything on Earth.  Persevere, and Grace will meet you just beyond the next rise. (Romans 5.3-5)

Today, I will persevere in prayer. I'll yield all I once thought I could not live without. I'll breath-in the brief and exquisite happiness of this holy nakedness. Faith, carry me these last few steps. Hope, hold me. Love, fill me.

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The Ninth Way: Darkness

Day Nine in "The Journey of the Wise Men: Twelve Days and Twelve Ways to Deepen Your Spiritual Practice" On Christmas, a Light broke into the darkness of the world's night, and a star---marking the crossroads between East and West, North and South---stood sentinel above the place of Christ's coming. You glimpsed this star while still far way, and awakened by fresh hope, left everything behind, setting out on the one journey that truly matters: find the Light, come hell or high water.

The one thing you underestimated was the darkness---it feels like hell and high water. Out here, between the life you left behind and the Light you seek, it's night. Much of the life of prayer is spent here---in between, in the dark. Here, you have more questions than answers; you feel more of God's absence than God's presence; you've set out for the Light, but it's only gotten darker; you wonder if this wasn't so wise after all.

But darkness is the one great necessity in the spiritual life. The saints will all tell you this. Your ego loves daylight, but night unsettles, even unseats it. The ego---the little self-manager within you---doesn't know how to function in the dark. When you can see, your ego knows just what to do. But in the darkness all your mental faculties are disoriented, and you have only your heart of faith to guide you. (Isaiah 50.10-11)

True prayer must take you by the dark path. Only so can you come to the true Light that is true God and not some projection of your ego. In the darkness you must let go of all but faith---all props and pretension, all assumptions and preconceptions.  In the darkness you will be tempted to turn back and return to lesser lights. But if you press forward, blind to all but the faint light of faith, you will find what you're looking for.

Too long I've feared the darkness. Today, I will embrace it as grace---a severe but liberating mercy. I will walk through the darkest valley, and I will be afraid. May my fear strengthen my faith until faith is all I have.

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The Eighth Way: Humility

Day Eight in "The Journey of the Wise Men: Twelve Days and Twelve Ways to Deepen Your Spiritual Practice" You seek God, but the further you go in this journey the more you keep bumping into yourself.

Let's say you decide to take a few minutes and enter the quiet of prayer; you descend into your heart and journey further toward the intimacy with God you desire. But the moment you do, a riot breaks out within you. Your mind jumps to life and your thoughts leap around inside your brain like a bunch of monkeys on crack. You've come face to face with your ego.

The ego is not pride; rather it's the self-managing faculty within you whose job it's been to take care of you all these years. The ego's not bad; it just thinks it's God. So when you begin to seek God in earnest, it's not amused. It doesn't mind you being religious---if you're religious, it's still in charge telling you how to be good, condemning when you're not, and reminding you of the rules.

So long as the ego still rules the roost, you'll never really know God; your ego can know all about God but that doesn't mean you know God. To advance in the spiritual life your ego must be humbled, and that's no easy task. "Humility," someone's said, "is not thinking less of yourself; it's thinking of yourself less." But that's precisely what the ego can't handle. When you seek God earnestly, it will holler and scream at you, and will try to distract you with a parade of ugly thoughts, fears, even the most beautiful things in the world.

When it does, don't give up; you're moving in the right direction. Concentrate on the light you seek. You're humbling your ego; you're un-selfing yourself. Behind the idol of your humbled ego waits God. Humility, then, is the beginning of wisdom. But know this: it will get darker before it gets lighter; you'll feel more like a fool before you feel wise. You've entered the narrow gate and the way is hard. Only a few walk this way. (Matthew 7.13-14)

Today, rather than just letting my thoughts rule the roost, I'll take a few moments and watch them without following where they want to take me. That ought to infuriate my ego.

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The Seventh Way: Words

Day Seven in "The Journey of the Wise Men: Twelve Days and Twelve Ways to Deepen Your Spiritual Practice" You will, of course, want to pray along the way---that is, you'll find yourself wanting to speak words to God and about God. Prayer, you think, is about words, and yes, you're right. It is about words, there's no escaping that. But prayer is so much more than words.

In truth, you've been praying all along---from before you awakened to your deep desire or desperation to follow this star to the End. Prayer is not merely asking God for things. It's not just using nice words to massage the Divine. It may include these things, but prayer is essentially your awareness of God. It's not merely the mind or mouth in motion; prayer is an awakened heart, an interior awareness of God. This is why the Bible often shows how the mind and mouth are made dumb---stone silent---when God shows up (Habakkuk 2.20 and Mark 9.7 are just two of many examples).

The problem with words is that we tend to become hypnotized by them. First, we form them and then they form us. We think that once we've attached a label to something we know what it is.  But consonants and vowels can't explain a flower, let alone its Maker. I think that's why God played coy with Moses and gave him a riddle for the divine name rather than a label. "I'm not going to give you a label by which you can think you've got Me figured out," said God, "Just call me 'I Am Who I Am," (Exodus 3.14).

Of course, you must use words, and words have a beauty of their own. The trick is not to be tricked by them. You must not misuse them or attach too much to them, to over-identify with the words themselves.

So when you speak to God or about God, take up a Psalm or little twig of Scripture and lay it on the fire of your growing love for God. "But take care," says God, "and don't misuse the Book; its only aim is to light the way to Me."

Today, I'll not heap up empty phrases. Instead, I'll light a small fire on the hearth of my heart. A few sacred words are all I'll need for kindling.

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