Love Bleeds

Last Saturday was Valentine's Day.  It's not my favorite holiday.  Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against giving tokens of affection to one's significant other.  As far as I'm concerned, the more opportunities we have to say I love you, the better.  My objection to the annual February love-fest is that Valentine's Day love is so one-dimensional.  If one took one's definition of love only from what we see on Valentine's Day one would think love was all romance and roses, blushing cheeks and hearts going pit-a-pat.  Love is so much deeper than that.  Real love bleeds.

Real love is a husband and wife working hard to stay in touch with each other and being sensitive to each other's needs long after the first flush of romance is past.  Love is parents pouring their lives into their children and then, when the time comes, biting their tongues and giving those children the room to be independent adults.  Yes, love is beautiful, but love is also painful.  We make ourselves vulnerable when we love another person.  Our love may not be returned or it may be used against us.  It's the willingness to risk the pain that gives love its beauty.  The difference between real love and imitation love is the difference between real roses and imitation roses: Real roses have thorns.

God knows what kind of thorns go along with real love.  He created human beings to be the objects of his love and experiences the pain of rejection when we turn away from him in sin.   Even then his love for us is so great that his Son went to the cross for us.  Jesus Christ died so that we might know the love of God.  Our heavenly Father wrote his valentine to the world in the blood of his only begotten Son.  Today, Ash Wednesday, we enter into Lent, a season given to the contemplation of the daunting love letter from God.  By the Lenten disciplines of prayer, fasting and almsgiving may we be drawn closer to the heart of God which bleeds in love for us.

Step 22: Faith, Hope, and Love

“And now at last, after all that has been said, there remains that triad, faith, hope, and love, binding and securing the union of all.”

--St. John Climacus

“Whoever loves me will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our dwelling with him.”

--John 14:23

One of the things that I like most about The Ladder of Divine Ascent is this last step.  It’s here that the humanity of Climacus is revealed most clearly.  Some ancient writers talk about contemplation of God as the ultimate spiritual goal. Others talk about a mystical union with God.  Climacus is a little more down to earth than that.

Climacus talks about love.  And while he says that this kind of love is hard to put into words (what kind of love isn’t hard to put into words?), he’s not afraid to try to describe it.  Some mystics said that it was incorrect to compare the bond of love between God and the believer with plain old love between human beings.  Not Climacus; “There is nothing wrong about offering human analogies for longing, fear, concern, zeal, service, and love of God.  Lucky the man who loves and longs for God as a smitten lover does for his beloved.”

For Climacus, as for Jesus, love of God is tied to love of neighbor, “He who loves the Lord has first loved his brother, for the latter is proof of the former.”  Love of God means becoming like God, and God is love.  In part that means that the love between God and me cannot stay just between us.  It overflows.  The channel between me and God is not deep enough to hold the great outpouring of God’s love and so it spills over into my other relationships.

Another thing that I appreciate about Climacus is that he doesn’t let the method of spirituality overshadow the goal of spirituality.  He doesn’t get hung up on technique.  Sometimes a particular practice works, sometimes it doesn’t.  What’s important is that we come to love God and reflect his image in the world.  That’s a good thing to remember.  Being a Christian does include living in a particular way.  There are things that Christians do, ways we pray and worship, ways we conduct ourselves, things we consider right and wrong, but these things are not ends in themselves.  “So faith, hope, love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love (1 Corinthians 13:13).”  At its heart, Christianity is about the free flow of love between God and us, his creation.

Prayer:

O God,  you indeed are love, and to you be praise, dominion, power.  In you is the cause, past, present and future, of all that is good forever and ever.  Amen. (St John Climacus)

St. John Climacus, pray for us.

Step 21:Dispassion

“Dispassion is an uncompleted perfection of the perfect.”

--St. John Climacus

“I have been crucified with Christ; it is not longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me; and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”

--Galatians 2:20

This step on The Ladder is about as monkish as Climacus gets.  He says of dispassion, “Its effect is to sanctify the mind and to detach it from material things, and it does so in such a way that, after entering this heavenly harbor, a man, for most of his earthly life, is enraptured, like someone already in heaven, and he is lifted up to the contemplation of God.”

Dispassion is not so much a step in itself as it is the fruit of all the previous steps.  When we get our priorities straight, when we confront our own sinfulness and mortality, bring our emotions, our tongues, and our desires under control, when we leave behind fear and vanity, then we will achieve this perfect communion with God.  And that, some of you may be thinking, will be the day pigs fly.

Achieving this spiritual perfection seems impossible.  That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try.  The very opposite is true.  Impossible goals are the most important ones to strive for.  We may never attain them, but we are better for having made the attempt.

There’s also another way of looking at this step of dispassion.  At the beginning of a long trip there is a period of adjustment to being on the road.  If it’s a long hike, your leg muscles have to get warmed up and you have to get used to the weight of your backpack.  If it’s a car trip, it’s getting everything situated in the car so that what you need is near at hand, the seat and mirrors in the right position, the right CD in the player.  And you have to get used to your traveling companions, find the right divisions of labor, the right balance between talking and silence, make your compromises for each other’s comfort.  Eventually, you find your rhythm.  Your legs loosen up and you hit your stride or you settle in for the long haul.  You get comfortable with your fellow travelers and work together with them to make the trip successful. Climacus’ idea of dispassion is kind of like this.

Eventually as we make our pilgrim way through life, spirituality becomes less of a struggle.  We may hit rough patches, but as we progress we learn how to deal with them.  We find the rhythm of life lived on the way to God.  Praying and serving, holy living and awareness of God’s presence become more natural to us.  We find our place in the community of God’s people and God becomes a friend.  For most of us dispassion is the confident assurance that we are on the right trail with the right equipment, with a few miles of experience behind us and a good guide in front of us.

Prayer:

O God, bring us to the place where we can rest in you.  Help us to keep living the Christian life until it becomes as natural as breathing for us and your way becomes truly ours, through Christ our Lord.  Amen.

St. John Climacus, pray for us.

Step 20: Prayer

“Prayer is by nature a dialog and a union of man with God.  Its effect is to hold the world together.”

--St. John Climacus

“Therefore, I tell you, all that you ask for in prayer, believe that you will receive it and it shall be yours.”

--Mark 11:24

Climacus speaks so beautifully about prayer in this step on the ladder that I’m going to let him speak for himself today:

“Pray in all simplicity.  The publican (Luke 18:9-14) and the prodigal son (Luke 15:11-22) were reconciled to God by a single utterance.”

“But heart-felt thanksgiving should have first place in our book of prayer.  Next should be confession and genuine contrition of soul.  After that should come our request to the universal King.”

“In your prayers there is no need for high-flown words, for it is the simple and unsophisticated babblings of children that have more often won the heart of the Father in heaven.”

“Try not to talk excessively in your prayer, in case your mind is distracted by the search for words. …Talkative prayer frequently distracts the mind and deludes it, whereas brevity makes for concentration.”

“If it happens that, as you pray, some word evokes delight or remorse within you, linger over it; for at that moment our guardian angel is praying with us.”

“However pure you may be, do not be forward with God.  Approach him rather with all humility, and you will be given still more boldness.”

“Make the effort to raise up, or rather, to enclose your mind within the  words of your prayer; and if, like a child, it gets tired and falters, raise it up again.  The mind, after all, is naturally unstable, but the God who can do everything can also give it firm endurance.”

“After a long spell of prayer, do not say that nothing has been gained, for you have already achieved something.  For, after all, what higher good is there than to cling to the Lord and to persevere in unceasing union with him?”

“Get ready for your set time of prayer by unceasing prayer in your soul.”

“We are not all the same, either in body or soul.”

“You cannot learn to see just because someone tells you to do so.  For that, you require your own natural power of sight.  In the same way, you cannot discover from the teaching of others the beauty of prayer.  Prayer has its own special teacher in God, who “teaches man knowledge” (Psalm 93:10).  He grants the prayer of him who prays.  And he blesses the years of the just.”

Prayer:

Lord, teach us to pray, through Christ our Lord.  Amen.

St. John Climacus, pray for us.

Step 19: Discernment

“Among beginners, discernment is real self-knowledge; among those midway along the road to perfection, it is the spiritual capacity to distinguish unfailingly between what is truly good and what in nature is opposed to the good; among the perfect, it is a knowledge resulting from divine illumination, which with its lamp can light up what is dark in others.”

--St. John Climacus

“Do not conform yourself to this age but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and pleasing and perfect.”

--Romans 12:2

Discernment comes after humility on The Ladder of Divine Ascent because discernment requires teachability.  Wisdom is only found by those who are humble enough to know they need it.

Climacus subdivides the step of discernment into three levels.  The first and most basic is discernment concerning the state of my own soul.  In the tradition, in the shared life of the community and by the leading of the Spirit God reveals what is good.  In applying that knowledge I begin with myself.  I need to get to know myself.  That’s not as easy as it might sound.  It takes courage and insight to do honest self-appraisal.  It involves knowing my weaknesses and the temptations that are most troublesome for me as well as my strengths and talents.  Most of us are neither as good nor as bad as we think we are.  That may sound strange but it’s true.  Discernment begins by being able to take inventory of what God and I have to work with.

The next step after learning the good and knowing myself is to discern what is good for me.  By that I mean what is the good that God wants me to do.  There are lots of good things a person can do.  I can’t do all of them.  What role does God have for me with my unique combination of strengths and weaknesses (you can see now why self understanding is important)?  The guidance of the Holy Spirit helps us.  He speaks through prayer and meditation.  Getting input from mature Christians that we trust is also very important.  And listen to your desires.  Don’t be afraid to entertain the possibility that what you want to do is what you should do.  That’s not always the case, but often it is.

Climacus reserves the last step, discernment concerning others, only for “the perfect.”  There is nothing more rewarding than walking with others as they discern God’s will for them, but we need to do so with great humility and caution.  Some of us find it hard to mind our own business and fight the temptation to avoid offering unsolicited advice.  Even when someone asks our opinion it’s usually better to just listen and ask questions and resist the urge to make pronouncements.

Discernment is a virtue that requires a great deal of cultivation.  It takes time spent with Scripture and in prayer.  It takes practice and there are no shortcuts.  The good thing is that God promises to help us.  If we seek, we will find.

Prayer:

O God, show us your ways.  Lead us in the path you would have us follow so that your will might be done.  Renew us and use us to renew the world, through Christ our Lord.  Amen.

St. John Climacus, pray for us.

Step 18: Humility

“Friend, remember that corn and the fruit of the Spirit will stand high in the valleys.  The valley is the soul made humble among the mountains of labors and virtues. …Repentance lifts a man up.  Mourning knocks at heaven’s gate.  Holy humility opens it.”

--St. John Climacus

“Humble yourselves before the Lord and he will exalt you.”

--James 4:10

I once heard someone try to summarize the Old Testament in one sentence, “There is only one God and you are not him.”  I don’t know if that’s really a good summary of the Old Testament, but it’s certainly a good thing to remember.  Humility is the prerequisite for holiness.  It is the only soil in which God is able to grow godly people.  Humility comes with remembering who I am, who God is, and who I am in God.

First I remember that I am not perfect.  I make mistakes.  I sin.  When I confess my sins, God forgives them.  He even forgets them, but I don’t.  We shouldn’t beat ourselves up over them.  God has dealt with them, but it’s a healthy thing to remember that I am not the person that I want to be.  I need help. And I need to be humble enough to ask for it.  That’s when I remember who God is.

God wants to help me be the person I should be.  From the time he created the universe God has been bending over it like a parent teaching a toddler to walk, holding us up, coaxing us forward, encouraging us with outstretched arms to come to him.  Reading the prophets, Hosea for example, one gets a sense that God yearns for us intensely.  It’s almost embarrassing that the Lord of all creation loves us so much.  It’s definitely humbling.

God loves us so much that he became one of us so that we could become like him.  The purpose of the life, death, and resurrection of Christ was to raise us up to be with him where he is.  In Christ, I have a place in the household of God.  There is nothing I could do to earn that place.  God gives it to me freely, out of love.  And all I can do is accept it humbly and try to live up to the generosity that God has shown me and the grace that he has given to me.  When it comes to the capacity for love, there is only one God and I am not him.  Not even close.

Prayer:

O God, who are we that you should love us so much?  What have we done to merit the blessings you give so freely?  In humility we offer ourselves to you, recognizing the smallness of our offering and the greatness of your gift, through Christ our Lord.  Amen.

St. John Climacus, pray for us.

Step 17: Poverty

“The poor monk is lord of the world.”

--St. John Climacus

“Look at the birds in the sky; they do not sow or reap, they gather nothing into barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them.  Are you not more important than they?”

--Matthew 6:26

Strange, isn’t it, how God’s values are often the opposite of the world’s.  Yesterday we looked at the way that wealth can become a problem.  Today we look at the way that poverty can be a blessing.  If we look at poverty as a healthy indifference toward our possessions, it doesn’t matter if we have a little or a lot.  We can all benefit spiritually from a spirit of poverty.

Yesterday I said that wealthy people are not, as some Christians think, necessarily bad people.  Poor people are not necessarily good either.

Climacus says, “A man who is poor for no good reason falls into a double misfortune.  He goes without present goods and is deprived of these in the future.”  I think that what he means is that there is no virtue in not having things.  Being poor and bitter means that one is poor both materially and spiritually.  But if I learn from my poverty how to be grateful for what I do have and how to rely on God, then in the end, I will come out a richer man for it.

I don’t have to be poor economically to learn these lessons.  Poverty often comes in the form of illness, grief, family conflict.  Any time our own resources; material, emotional, or spiritual, are not enough and we are dependent on the charity of God and others, that is an opportunity for us to learn the lessons of gratitude and faith that poverty teaches.

Prayer:

Heavenly Father, give us the grace of knowing that if we have you, we have enough, through Christ our Lord.  Amen.

St. John Climacus, pray for us.