Taken from IMAGO DEI:  Mar. 24^th, 2016 by Rob DeCotes

The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable; it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body.
I Cor. 15:42-44

It’s impossible to imagine what our heavenly life will look like, but that has never stopped many Christians from trying, including Augustine, the 4th century bishop of Hippo. He concludes his treatise on The City of God with a profound speculation on the state of our resurrected souls. Considering the many burdens of sin that eternal righteousness will relieve us of, he offers hope that informs our Easter celebrations as we look forward to our own resurrection as well.

Augustine highlights the many experiences of grace that the removal of sin will produce in us. No longer tossed to and fro by every wave of impulse, the absence of temptation will result in a natural and eternal state of peace. Augustine describes the quality of such peace saying,

• In that final peace which is the end and purpose of all virtue here on earth, our nature, made whole by incorruption, will have no vices and experience, no rebellion from within or without. God will hold sway over us, and the soul will hold sway over the body. There will be no need for reason to govern the now nonexistent evil inclinations. And the pure happiness that is found in God’s will will make our obedience sweet and easy. In each of us this condition will be everlasting, and we shall know it to be so.

Set free from all that exasperates the spiritual life, we will now experience the goodness of God’s grace in all we do, and in all we are. Augustine expands on this saying, “Who can measure the happiness of heaven , where no evil at all can touch us, and where no good will be out of reach.”

In heaven we will be in right relationship to all things—all things within us, as well as outside us. Peace and the absence of turmoil will be the fruit of our disinclination to anything other than the will of God. As Augustine puts it, “Perfect peace will reign, since nothing in ourselves or in any others could disturb that peace.” No longer encumbered by evil we will be filled with satisfaction and the good fruit of righteous choices. In Augustine’s words,

• The souls in bliss will still possess freedom of will, though sin will have no power to tempt them. They will be more free than ever—so free from all delight in sinning as to find, in not sinning, an unfailing source of joy.

As promised, the benefits of Christ’s virtue will forever grace us. Whatever God commands we will obey, and the peace of living constantly in the light of truth will be our glory. In this, we will experience the Sabbath rest foretold in the book of Hebrews (Heb. 4:9). Our souls, no longer agitated by the turmoil of life, will now enjoy the stillness of grace.

As Isaiah envisioned, we will rejoice with one another on that day.saying, “Surely this is our God; we trusted in Him, and He saved us. This is the LORD, we trusted in Him; let us rejoice and be glad in His salvation” (Isaiah 25:9). Augustine, too, recognizes the gratitude that will rise up in our worship saying,

• Surely, in all that City, nothing will be lovelier than this song of praise for the grace of Christ by whose blood we have been saved. On that day we will rest and see, see and love, love and praise—for this is to be the end of all our living, the real goal of our present life.

Christ has risen indeed! And so shall we. It is our destiny—the lavish gift that God gives to all who simply believe that Jesus is who He said He was, and that He is able to do all He promised He would. In anticipation of this glorious gift of freedom let us rejoice in the spirit of Dr. Martin Luther King’s favorite gospel song, “Free at last, free at last. Thank God Almighty we are free at last.”

Rob Des Cotes
Imago Dei Christian Communities

FOR GROUP DISCUSSION:

1.         What do you imagine living a life that is “no longer tossed to and fro by every wave of impulse would be like?”  Do you experience glimpses of that peace at times in your present life?  If not, what do you anticipate Christ will free you from that now prevents you from enjoying such peace?

2.         Augustine speaks of a state of soul where “God will hold sway over us, and the soul will hold sway over the body.”  In what ways does your prayer life seem to be leading you in this same direction?

3.         Read Isa. 25:6-9.  How is the personal joy we will experience from the fullness of salvation magnified by the praise that will well up in us corporately as the Body of Christ fully recognizes that that which we have only glimpsed through faith is now a present reality?  What satisfaction and validation of our faith do you anticipate we will experience as we celebrate the fact that “we trusted in Him, and now He has saved us?”

FOR PRAYER:  Imagine yourself in a state of soul where you are “so free from all delight in sinning as to find, in not sinning, an unfailing source of joy.”  Enter that joy in your prayers and rest in the foretaste of the glorious freedom Christ has saved us for (Gal. 5:1).

God loves lavishly, soaking creation with life, and the joyful freedom of God’s love traces the horizon of our joy. That is why the joy we know in the company of God is not dependent on immediate circumstances such as good health, fair wealth, or amiable fellowship. Joy reflects a divine care so broad it enfolds the whole creation, yet so sensitive it registers the fall to earth of a single sparrow (Matt. 10:29). Joy draws its color and intensity from a palette of grace far more splendid than the muted hues that dapple the surface of daily experience.

It is acquaintance with this palette that prompts James to say, “Count it all joy” (James 1:2, RSV). This robust embrace of all facets of experience reveals that the spiritual life is a journey into the fullness of joy, a joy as complete as the love between Jesus and his Father (John 15:9-11; 16:16-24). The author of Hebrews reminds us that “for the sake of the joy that was set before him [Jesus] endured the cross” (Heb. 12:2). So encompassing is this joy that, like a desert sunset, it sheaths in’ gold every stony hour of suffering, every bony tree of our endurance. Paul recalls an experience among the Christians in Macedonia that graphically- portrays the power of joy to transfigure a human land- scape: ”during a severe ordeal of affliction, their abundant joy and their’ extreme poverty have overflowed in a wealth of generosity on their part” (2 Cor. 8:2). Our companion, guide, and comforter on the great journey into joy is the Holy Spirit. At the outset, it is the Spirit who inspires joy when grace has opened us to receive God’s word (1 Thess. 1:6). Across the years, when life’s perplexities impoverish us, it is the Spirit who, working through the gift of joy, removes all boundaries to our hope (Rom. 15:13).

——]ohn S. Mogabgab, “Editor ’s Introduction,” Warming»: (November/December 1993

With any loss, be it the loss of a loved one, of an opportunity, of material possessions that were dear to us, or of a capacity you no longer have, we naturally experience grief. We have enjoyed a certain gift of life in these areas and now it has been taken away from us, leaving an empty space that, seemingly, nothing can fill.

But there is another spirit that accompanies any grief over a loss, it’s the spirit of gratitude—gratitude for the gifts God gave you through these now-gone features of your life. And both these spirits—loss and gratitude—can find expression simultaneously as part of any grieving process.

Our sense of loss, of course, needs to be acknowledged and be given freedom to find expression in us. But gratitude for the gift of whatever has been lost should also be a part of this expression. It will be the ascending spirit that remembers all the goodness that God has blessed us with in the time we enjoyed His gift.

Our gratitude will redeem our loss from the potential of becoming a deep open wound in us. Instead it will serve as a springboard of praise to God for all that we have received through this temporary gift, as well as the ongoing gifts that can continue for the rest of our lives as we remember the blessings the Lord gave us throughout these.

To remain exclusively in a disposition of loss can possibly lead to a desolation where the natural expressions of grief become inordinately focused on the self and on my personal sense of loss. The obvious antidote to prevent this is the consolation of gratitude which turns our attention more to God than to self.

There is nothing wrong with personal grief unless it becomes our sole disposition. Gratitude for God’s gift to us in the things we have lost will ensure that we see our losses from both sides. And this interplay of grief and gratitude will widen our experience, allowing us to include God more fully as we negotiate our grief.

Rob Des Cotes
Imago Dei Christian Communities

FOR GROUP DISCUSSION:
How do you generally experience loss? Do you find a healthy balance of gratitude and grieving? Or do you find yourself imbalanced in one of these directions?

How might an overfocus on loss lead to a desolation where you become more and more self-focused as a result?

How does gratitude widen the experience of grief to include praise for God? How does it allow that which was lost to continue to minister to you?

FOR PRAYER: Take time to consider some loss in your life where you only have regrets for that which, seemingly, has been taken away from you. Seek and explore expressions of gratitude for the gifts He also provided you with through this same object of lost.

“I am the Way.”    John 14:6

As many of you know I was diagnosed a few years ago with neuroendocrine tumors, a rare, slow-growing and incurable form of cancer (see Neuroendocrine tumor).  It has been a merciful journey so far and I have often had to remind myself that my body is afflicted in this way.  Things have changed however over the past few months and the realities of the evolution of this disease are much more evident to me than in the past.  Fatigue, digestive complications, bronchospasm are all symptoms that I am learning to live with.  I am sharing this because of something important I learned in negotiating this new phase that I think might be of help to others.

I’ve always enjoyed physical activity like swimming, cycling and long walks but, recently, I started noticing how depleted I felt after any strenuous activity.  Dismayed as I was by this sudden change in my energies I found myself scurrying for answers.  Was I doing anything wrong that was contributing to this? Did I need to change my diet?  My medications?  My lifestyle?  In other words, what could I do to get back to “normal?”  As the doctors were not able to give me any conclusive reason for this change I was left with an array of my own theories of what might be causing this and what I might do to “fix” it.

What I am describing here, of course, is the way any of us might feel in this situation, and the likely process we would find ourselves in as we tried to get to the bottom of any deterioration of our health.  But the effect that this type of reasoning was having on me was making me feel more and more alone with this disease.  I was, of course, praying and asking God for help, but more in a way that presumed it was my problem and difficulty to bear rather than something I shared with God.

It was only after seeing my spiritual director that I realized how my obsession with trying to manage this new reality was, in fact, distancing me from God.  The foundational relationship of my life had shifted away from the Lord and was now being established mostly between me and the disease, and what I must do about it.  God, of course, was still part of this narrative but more as an outsider to my problem.

With this helpful reminder I was now able to re-establish the first axis of my life with God and then, together with the Lord, to form a relationship to whatever is going on in my body.  And that has made a world of difference in my relationship to the “problem” I face.  I suspect that this insight regarding the relationships we form with our problems might have many applications for other people.  We can easily establish our first relationship as between us and the trials we face, with God more on the periphery of our dilemma.   Shifting that first axis back to God allows us to approach our difficulties no longer alone, but together with the Lord.

With regards to the changes happening in my body I am now in a much freer posture to either search for a solution, or to accept this as the new norm of my life.  I suspect that, like all of us, I will have to negotiate many other such stages of deterioration in the future.  But I hope I remember this lesson well—that rather than face such threats alone, I do best to remain yoked with Jesus, who walks with me through every strait of life as my moment-to-moment Way.  Today, I once again hear His assuring words, “You are never alone Rob, for we are living every moment of this life together—I in you and you in Me.”

Rob Des Cotes
Imago Dei Christian Communities

FOR GROUP DISCUSSION:

1. In what ways might your obsession with managing your problems be actually distancing you from God?  What signs in your spirit would indicate that this is happening?

2. How do you relate to the posture I describe of “praying and asking God for help, but more in a way that presumed it was my problem and my difficulty to bear rather than something I shared with God?”  What do you lose by imagining God more as an outsider to your problem?

3. What helps you to walk more yoked with the Lord rather than on the periphery of your dilemma?  How can you live more consistently in the truth that Jesus is your Way—that He is walking together with you, through every strait of life?

FOR PRAYER:  Examine the problems you are presently facing and ask the Lord to highlight the ones where you might be obsessing or over-managing to the point of excluding God.  Hear the Lord say to you as well, “You are never alone, for we are living every moment of this life together—I in you, and you in Me.”

So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.   
1Cor. 10:31

If you read enough books by Jesuit authors you will sooner or later come across the acronym A.M.D.G., which stands for Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam. It is a Latin phrase meaning “for the greater glory of God,” which is a key notion of Ignatian spirituality.
The concept itself is easy enough to understand: that everything we do, think or say should be for the increase of God’s glory on earth. But what exactly do we mean by this?.  And how do we know which options truly lead to God’s greater glory on earth?”
Living according to the “greater glory of God” is not necessarily understood as more works, projects or undertakings, but rather as whatever will produce a “greater” dividend for the advancement and deepening of God’s kingdom in us, and in the world.  It is not about how much I can accomplish for God, but more how God can increasingly live and take initiative in and through me.  As such, it implies more surrender on my part, more submission, more availability and more obedience to God’s immediate will in my life.  The Jesuits refer to this as making yourself more “disposable” to God’s action in and through you.

This foundational objective of Ignatian spirituality is perhaps best summarized in the two prayers that follow.  The first was written by Kirk Roberts, a student at Jesuit High School in Tampa, Florida.  It expresses the basic premise of his life, as well as his need for God’s help in order to live that life to which he feels called.  He prays:

Life is given to me for one reason:
That I might live for the greater glory of God.
Yet I spend most of my life unconcerned with this;
I waste it on petty things.
God, please grant me clear vision,
The vision to work for the greater glory of your name.
Please help me to wake up each morning with this in mind.
Help me to clear my mind of minor details that only distract me from my purpose.
Keep away the indifference that fogs humankind.
Point me to where your people need help
So that your vision for me may be fulfilled.

Such radical “disposability” to God’s action is exemplary for any of us.  We see a similar disposition expressed in Ignatius’ “Suscipe” (“receive”) prayer found at the end of The Spiritual Exercises.  It is a prayer of self-offering—the victorious prayer of someone who has conquered within themselves all resistance to God’s claim on their life.  Giving himself as fully as he can to God’s service Ignatius prays,

• Take, Lord, and receive all my liberty, my memory, my understanding, and my entire will. All I have and possess, you have given to me.  I return it all to you and surrender it wholly to your will. Give me only your love and grace for that is sufficient for me.

How given are we to God’s initiatives in our day?  How do we love?  How do we serve?  And how do we allow God to extend, through us, His presence in the world?  In other words how are we living our lives “ad majorem dei gloriam?”  These are good questions with which to begin the new year.  Let them provide opportunity for us, at the threshold of this new chapter, to renew our act of offering as we give our lives more fully, through Christ, “for the greater glory of God.”

Rob Des Cotes
Imago Dei Christian Communities

FOR GROUP DISCUSSION:

1. What choices have you made in the past year that were motivated by a desire to do whatever was “for the greater glory of God?”  What choices perhaps diminished the possibility of God’s initiative in or through you?

2. How can you, in the coming year, make yourself more “disposable” to God’s action in and through your life?  What changes would you have to make in order for this to be so?

3. Take time, alone or in a group, to write a prayer of self-offering to God, acknowledging both your desire as well as your need for God’s help in order to live the spiritual life you feel called to.

FOR PRAYER:  Use the two prayers in this meditation as the basis for your own prayer—one that expresses your desire and needs, the other that represents the radical self-offering of your life to God.

Lord, when you favored me,
    you made my royal mountain stand firm;
but when you hid your face,
I was dismayed.
                                    Psalm 30:7

Praying each day gives us the best perspective from which to learn about the ever-changing landscape of this relationship.  We get to build today upon things the Lord taught us yesterday as we grow, in an accumulating way, according to the “lessons” of prayer.  We also learn about the fluctuating experiences of feeling lost and found in prayer, and how God uses both these experiences to form us.

Prayer comes quite easily to us on some days.  The moment we close our eyes we somehow fall into the slipstream of the Spirit and feel carried and buoyed by the obvious presence of God.  It is very easy at such times to feel we have a handle on this business of praying—that we finally know how to do this.  Our new-found ease at prayer seems to suggest that we have come to a different level of maturity.

But there are other days when we are more in a state of fog.  There seems to be a wall blocking our access to God or to ourselves.  Perhaps we feel rushed, or impatient, or are carrying more doubts or anxieties than we realized.  For whatever reason, we are unable to rest in the invitation of prayer.

The Psalmist recognizes both these experiences of prayer as normal—from the delight of God’s favour to the dismay we feel that God might have hidden His face from us.  What marks our spiritual maturity though is not which side we experience most often, but more how we interpret what we are experiencing in light of our relationship with God.

When the Psalmist is unable to find God as he had hoped, he is dismayed.  He doesn’t overly analyze his situation.  Nor does he blame himself, or assume that this is a situation he can change.  He simply expresses his dismay to God.  His very disappointment becomes his prayer—a lament that expresses his feeling of being lost, exiled as it were from God’s presence.

On the other hand, the Psalmist is just as quick to acknowledge the experience of his “mountain standing firm” as resulting from the Lord’s favour (v. 7).  He sees this blessing purely as gift.  There is no sense of personal achievement here.  No self-congratulation is warranted.  It is simply and solely the favour of the Lord that has granted him, on this particular day, the relationship that he longs for in prayer.

Only through a daily familiarity with the ebbs and flows of prayer can we come to appreciate how God uses both these experiences to form us and to purify our desires for Him.  Both are gifts that can edify us.  In the one—the experience of dismay—the Lord increases our longing, and our prayer becomes a lament.  Through the other—His favour alone—He satisfies it, and our prayer becomes one of gratitude for the gracious gift of God’s presence that we have received.

Rob Des Cotes
Imago Dei Christian Communities

FOR GROUP DISCUSSION:

1. How does God use your practice of daily prayer to teach you not only through His presence, but also through His seeming absence?  What patterns do you see in your response to these two experiences?

2. When prayer comes easy to you do you feel it is because you have done something right?  When prayer is difficult do you presume it is your fault?  How can you receive both these experiences more as gifts than as the result of achievement or failure?

3. Consider the fact that when the Psalmist feels that God has perhaps hidden His face, “he doesn’t overly analyze his situation.  Nor does he blame himself, or assume that this is a situation he can change.  He simply expresses his disappointment to God.”  How is this different from how you react to a similar experience in prayer?

FOR PRAYER:  Present yourself to the mystery of prayer, not knowing whether prayer today will be easy or hard for you.  Prepare yourself beforehand to accept either experience as from God, anticipating that, at the end of your prayer, you will either be thanking Him for His favour, or you will be expressing your longing for Him through the dismay of not having been able to be with your Lord as you had hoped to.

For more from Imago Dei go to  www.imagodeicommunity.ca   

There is a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing.  Eccl. 3:5

One of the things I love about church services is the way God often catches me by surprise with new twists I wasn’t expecting.  I am used to thinking theologically throughout my week as I study and write about Scripture, but this very discipline can also limit my understanding.  Like any pastor or teacher I risk developing a theology overly based on “the gospel according to me.”  But the wider expressions of a church service offer a safeguard against this by providing fresh images, concepts, wordings and interpretations that I would’ve never thought of myself.

Anne Smith, the pastor at the Church at Southpoint, is one of my favourite sources for such fresh imagery.  She is very good at finding memorable metaphors in everyday life.  As part of a recent call to worship, Anne spoke about watching kids at Crescent Beach jump off the end of a pier into the water below.  The current there is strong enough that by the time you have resurfaced from your dive, it has carried you a few yards away from where you first entered the water.

Anne observed how kids sometimes hold onto the pier and let the current lift their legs until they are horizontal to the water.  She shared how that reminded her of the way we sometimes have to hold onto God when there are strong currents pulling us downstream.  We can all relate to such times when life is a blur and we find ourselves reaching for a much needed spiritual anchor.  But then Anne flipped this metaphor around and had us consider the possibility that perhaps God was not the pier, but the current.  Sometimes it’s the pier we are holding onto that we have to let go of in order to let ourselves be taken by God’s current in life.  What we need to exercise at those times is not tenacity but the virtue of trust.

Anne concluded her call to worship by inviting people to identify where they presently are in relation to these two metaphors.  “Perhaps you are desperately trying to return to God right now, while life seems to be pulling you away,” she said.  “Or perhaps the Lord is inviting you instead to let go of the pier you are holding onto for security and to trust that He will carry you in the current of His love.”

The two metaphors describe well the gamut of spiritual direction that we all go back and forth in—the tension between form and freedom that we live with.  There are times when we are straying and that the Lord calls us to re-anchor ourselves in Him.  At those times we are to lash ourselves more securely to the mast of Christ lest the draw of the world, or of our fears and worries, pull us even farther from God.  But there are other times when the very things we are holding onto are themselves the problem—perhaps it is our circumstances, our expectations or our entrenched concepts.  They curtail our freedom as we cling to them, rather than God, for our security.  At those times the Lord encourages us to loosen our fear-based grip and to allow ourselves to float more trustingly according to the flow of His guidance.

Two metaphors with two very different applications.  It is good to know which direction the Lord is indicating as you read this today, as either one might well be the corrective you need.

Rob Des Cotes
Imago Dei Christian Communities

FOR GROUP DISCUSSION:

1. To what extent do you think your theology might be based more on “the gospel according to me” than it should be?  In what ways have you seen God use the diversity of creative expressions in a church service to offset this hazard?

2. Which metaphor best describes your usual relationship with God: do you usually see God as a “pier” that you hold onto, or as the current that you wish to freely abandon yourself to?

3. What are the “piers” that secure you in life?  Which ones represent the security of holding onto God?  Which ones might be false securities that the Lord would rather you let go of?

FOR PRAYER:  Hold both these metaphors as possible images of your present relationship with God.  Ask the Lord to apply them to the many relationships of your life.  Pray for tenacity if that is what the Lord is indicating, or for trust to release whatever false security He is asking you to let go of.

My wife and I recently returned from our seventh excursion on the Camino de Santiago (or the Chemin de St. Jacques as it is called in France).  We have become quite familiar with the spiritual exercise that this pilgrimage walk affords and know more than ever how to participate internally with the type of incarnational prayer that walking 20-25 km each day inspires.  We have also become much more accepting of the many states of souls that such a discipline produces in us.  If nothing else the Camino is a profound school where one learns how to walk with equanimity through the desolations and consolations of life.

Like an ever-changing weather system, each day on the Camino features very marked periods of darkness and light—times of wonderful freedom and well-being as well as times of desolation when you just want to quit and go home. Everything seems amplified under the microscope of solitude and silence.  “I’m tired…it’s getting too hot….not another hill….not another blister …my back is sore…my feet are sore…I hardly slept last night…how much longer?”  The “noon-day devil” shows up in both the literal and figurative heat of the day.  It takes the wind out of your sail.  You wonder why you ever took this on in the first place.

But there are also many consolations in a day that are just as unpredictable and fleeting.  A sudden cool breeze, the shade of a tree you walk under, the taste of grapes you’ve picked from a vineyard along the path, the fresh smells of an early dawn, the precious silence where the only sounds you hear are those of your own footsteps, and the well-being you feel throughout your body as, climbing many steep hills in the course of a day, your heart and lungs are fully exercised.

And then there are the many unexpected thoughts and visions that come to you with a rare quality of spiritual enthusiasm, joy and hope about your life and future.  There are also those fresh gusts of courage that, for no explicable reason, suddenly show up as a spring in your step in spite of having walked wearily for the past 5 kms.  And most significant are those wonderful and unexpected waves of inner freedom that grace you as a gentle infusion from God—what Ignatius of Loyola calls “consolations without cause.”

The main thing these quickly changing spirits teach you is the temporary nature of both consolations and desolations.  How they suddenly show up in your day and, unless you fixate on them, they just as quickly disappear.  To accept them all rather than chase the one and try to avoid the other, I think, is part of the art of walking our life pilgrimages well.

Through physical pilgrimage I have learned that it is not the hardship of the road that discourages me as much as the narrative I tell myself about those hardships.  Our negative inner dialogue can exhaust our spirits much more than the outside stresses of our day do.  Instead of digging deep for the courage to persevere, we find ourselves resentfully dreaming of alternatives to the life we are living.  And we end up defeating ourselves by overly fixating on our discontent rather than simply accepting the desolations of a day as a normal part of life.

Jesus taught us that each day will have trouble of its own (Mt. 6:34). Who knows what today will bring—what weather we might be given, how many hills we might face, what people will unexpectedly cross our paths, or how our bodies and spirits will hold up to the demands ahead of us?  Whatever the day brings, Psalm 118 reminds us that “this is the day that the Lord has made”.  And it is in this day, not in the day we might prefer, that we are called to rejoice and be glad.

1. Which response are you more prone to resort to when you face a desolation: digging deep for the courage to persevere, or spending time dreaming of alternatives to the trials you face?

2. Consider Abbot John Chapman’s comment that “we refuse God’s will if we are constantly dissatisfied with what we get from Him.”  How can you more fully embrace “the day the Lord has made” and learn to rejoice and be glad in all that it entails?

3. How does the way you speak to yourself about your desolations make them more difficult to bear?  Instead of compounding your desolations with this additional layer, how might you better approach the hardships you face in terms of the inner dialogue they inspire in you?

FOR PRAYER:   Take opportunity one day this week to keep a journal of every consolation or desolation that you experience.  Note the ones that have identifiable causes, but especially note the ones that come to you “without cause.”  In your prayer, ask God to help you accept both desolations and consolations as a normal part of how He works each day in your life.