chris erdman

From my journals, Friday, November 23, 2007

I’m reading the Cloud of Unknowing. The medieval teacher urges me to attach (adhere) to God:  ”in a manner take hold of our God by devoutly taking hold of his feet.”

I recall family systems therapist, Edwin Friedman, in his book of therapeutic fables, writing about attachment and detachment. There, I learned that detachment from what is unhealthy or unholy is only possible because of a corresponding or counter balancing attachment to something health-giving or something Holy. Utter detachment is devastating—a leap into the abyss. Attachment to God as the safest, securest primary caregiver makes letting go of every lesser thing possible.

Continued from previous posts:

So, when you come to the Wall, you will need to cooperate with the crisis as a gift of grace, as painful as it may be, as demonic as it may seem. For behind it (while not necessarily orchestrating it) is the Hand of God, guiding you to a new awakening to your life in Christ.

Again, as in Stage Four (in fact, all the higher or deeper stages), you will need guidance, spiritual direction from a competent friend, counselor, or pastor—someone who’s not threatened by your questions and frustrations, who won’t try to fix you, but who knows there’s a mystery at work within you and who can hold you in faith as you journey forward past your fears into the newness of God. But here at the Wall, it’s your spiritual practices, especially interior prayer, meditation, and contemplation that will see you through to the new you that awaits you on the other side.

When you emerge from this confrontation stripped down, leaner, cleaner, and more open to love—and if you have found a way to release your need for control and to play God—you will be able to say: “What I thought, I needed I don’t really need. What I was sure I couldn’t live without, I can live without. With God alone I am content.” You will be able to say with Jesus, “Lord, not my will but yours be done” (Luke 22.42), and with Mary, “Let it be with me according to your word” (Luke 1.38). This is true spiritual freedom and readies you for the new outward engagement with mission and ministry that is Stage Five.

Facing the Wall doesn’t mean that you’re now free from the impediments and distractions, the temptations and seductions that hinder your relationship with God. But it does mean that you now know how to face them when they come.

to be continued . . .

Continued from previous posts

At some point, usually initiated by a personal crisis or some other challenge, you will be brought face to face with a confrontation between your will and God’s. Some have called this experience, “The Wall” (see Janet Hagberg and Robert Guelich in their book, The Critical Journey).

In this confrontation, a subtle idolatry is exposed—an idolatry you’ve been able to cover up until now, that’s remained hidden from your eyes, thought you’ve been bumping into it for quite some time. The idolatry is this: you want God so long as you can have God on your terms, so long as you really don’t have to change in the deep places of your life, so long as you ultimately remain in control. This is, in St Paul’s words, “Having a form of godliness but denying its power” (2 Timothy 3.5). It is the avoidance of the Cross of Christ. You can believe in all the Cross teaches about sin and salvation, but mere belief isn’t what the Cross is all about. The Cross aims at your salvation, your transformation, your death and resurrection spiritually. You must experience the Cross yourself.

When you hit the Wall spiritually, the Cross is no longer an idea or doctrine, something that happened to Jesus long ago. You are united with Christ in his death, and you—if you walk the way of the Cross—will be united with him in his resurrection. Here you release your ego, your false and fallen self, which has tried to play God for too long now. And if you do, you will awakened to a face of God that you’ve not known up to this point, a depth of intimacy you’ve only longed for.

to be continued . . .

Contemplative prayer may sound a bit escapist or even elitist. It’s not. Far from it. The word itself is comes from the Latin, contemplatio, which refers to “the act of looking deeply”. The word is made up of two Latin roots, con-, which means “with” or “together”, and -tempore, which refers to the “moment”.

So contemplative prayer is prayer that, in its most basic form, is rooted deeply in the present—in daily, ordinary life . . . nothing elitist or escapist at all.

Instead, it aims to bring all of you “together with” all that’s happening in the “moment.”

And when you’re all here—all now—then you’re present to all of God and God is present to all of you.

Awareness is about being where you are, not some place else. Trouble is, most of us live mostly in our heads, absorbed in our thought-life and the emotions our thoughts trigger. But the truth is, what’s going on in our heads is mostly fiction most of the time. What you’re thinking maybe about a real event yesterday or one that’ll come your way tomorrow, but right now, the thought is only a thought. It’s not real . . . not really. So, take a guess: how much time do you think you spend fantasizing about life and not living it?

So, how do you increase your awareness and the pleasure that comes from it?

Click here for a link to a concrete exercise for practicing awareness: Auditing Your Time: A Spiritual Practice