Sh'ma By the River: Loving God with One’s Body

As I walked the riverbank, I was thinking about the water versus the stones. Stones look a lot stronger than water. Water is so changeable, shimmering and glimmering around all over the place. A baby can shove it aside. A bug can walk on it. Fish even breathe it. Water is weak, right?

Stone, on the other hand, seems eternal. There it stands, holding firm, immovable. Big boulders and earth form the banks and boundaries of the water. Layer upon layer of smaller stones make up its bed, hold it on its way, keep it from sinking back down under the strata. Stone is strong.

The problem, of course, is time. The river, like all water, “seeks the path of least resistance,” but while it merrily chuckles on its way, it patiently and oh so constantly wears away at its banks, polishes the stones, grinds small ones smaller, and smallest ones into sand.

Once, people maintained this river. Among other things, they kept a channel dug, so salmon could get through easily. Now, the Crown doesn’t allow any modifications at all. So the river was taking out large chunks of pasture every year. The owners of the cabin got special permission to dump 90 square metres of big stone along the bank on the curve. So that’s how the big stones that hold the bank got here in the first place. Otherwise, the river would have changed its course again, as it has so many times.

Water is stronger than stone, after all.

Thou shalt love the Lord with all thy. . . strength. . . and thy neighbor as thyself.

In my analogy du jour, the water represents my mind. We’ll talk more of that next week. The earth and stone represent my body. And so it is, that the mind can wear away the body, if you let it. If you don’t maintain the body.

It seems to me that the first piece of loving God with one’s body—first in order, not in importance—is loving the body itself—taking care of it, nourishing it, feeding it, keeping a clear channel within it that leads to the ocean of God’s love. (Which of course means that love from and to God came first, after all. Can’t love this body unless I recognize that it’s God’s treasure, made by, and yes, loved by the Creator of all.)

Lately, rather to my own surprise, I’ve realized that morning grooming, and breakfast, and so on, are a real part of morning worship. I am loving God with my body when I take care of it. Or, more properly put perhaps, I am making my body strong and healthy, ready for use in loving.

The next piece is loving others as we love ourselves, which can’t mean in the same exact ways (unless the other in question is a baby or child or ill person whom we do actually feed, groom, and dress) but means loving others as much as we love ourselves. It’s been a hard lesson for me and many others to learn that the limit to our ability to love others lies, in part, in the limits we set on loving ourselves. Those limits can be set at either end of the spectrum, of course—true love is neither neglect nor overindulging.

I can use my body to love others by hugging them, listening to them, helping them, cooking for them, making things for them, and many other ways. May I have eyes to see the opportunities.

First, last, and always, comes love of God. In the ways in which we choose to show love to ourselves, we are loving God. In the ways in which we choose to show love to others, we are loving God. But we must also express our love direct to God, not through others. Do we use our bodies enough to do that?

I can use my body to show love to God by singing, using different positions in prayer, even dancing. I remember a story—you’ve probably heard it—about a child dancing and twirling around her back yard. Her mother asked what she was doing, and she replied happily, “I’m dancing with God!”

When was the last time you danced with God?

What are some of the ways you use your body to love God, others, and yourself?

What are some of the ways you maintain your body in good shape for that work of loving?

Sh'ma by the River

I have been considering the depths of the ancient prayer known as the Sh’ma for several years now. There is a great deal to consider, just in the first two lines.

Sh’ma Yis’ra’eil Adonai Eloheinu Adonai echad.

V’ahav’ta eit Adonai Elohekha

b’khol l’vav’kha

uv’khol naf’sh’kha

uv’khol m’odekha.*

Hear, O Israel! The LORD is our God, the LORD is one!

You shall love the LORD your God

with all your heart

and with all your soul

and with all your might.

In Luke 10: 27, answering the question of the lawyer, Jesus added “with all your mind.”

"You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind.” (NASB)

I’ve been considering what it means to love God with all those elements of my whole self. We Westerners are very good at the mind part. So were the Jews. They and we love to debate and study and exegete. Lots of Christians enjoy the same today. And there’s nothing wrong with that. But it may not be particularly devotional.

This morning, by the river, I stood in the current (in my high boots, you understand!) and considered the mind and how it’s like the river. And I decided to do a series. It might ask more questions than it answers, but that’s okay. My hope is that it will raise emotions, too, not just brainwaves. (Well, not just beta waves, anyway. I suppose all our emotional states show up in our brainwaves.)

This week is the introduction. Here are the preliminary questions to consider:

How do you, personally, practice the deep love of the One God:

                --with all your heart?

                --with all your soul/spirit?

                --with all your mind?

                --with all your strength?

Each of the next four weeks, I’ll be pondering by the side of my borrowed river, and I’ll share my thoughts and questions with you. I hope you’ll share yours with me, too.

*http://www.jewfaq.org/prayer/shema.htm

Be, Like a Tree

I climbed a hill today and leaned in the arms of an old silver birch. Neil Diamond’s Be, from Jonathan Livingston Seagull was floating in my mind, and I thought,

Be

Like a tree

Stand patiently through whatever weather comes

Reach always for the sky, but also ground yourself deep

Even when the soil is being washed away beneath you

Withstand insect attack, woodpeckers, and disease…

Heal around the wounds, if you can…

Let go the lovely leaves you’ve worked so hard on

Wait silently through winter

Grow new, little ones

When the time comes

Fall gently

Still reach for the sky while you can

Nurture those coming after you

Like a tree

Be

Somebody said, “To learn patience, cultivate the friendship of trees.

Compass for a Soul

This week, in chapter 18 of The Monastery of the Heart, “A Listening Heart,” I am struck mute by the clarity and beauty of the first few paragraphs. I shall add nothing.

There is a magnet in a seeker’s heart

whose true north is God.

It bends towards the Voice of God

with the ear of the heart

and, like sunflowers in the sun,

turns all of life toward

the living of the Word.

This listening heart is pure of pride

and free of arrogance.

It seeks wisdom—

everywhere, at all times—

and know wisdom by the way

it echoes

the call of the scriptures.

The compass for God implanted

in the seeker’s heart

stretches toward truth

and signals the way to justice.

It is attuned to the cries

of the poor and oppressed

with a timbre that allows

no interruption,

no smothering

of the Voice of God

on their behalf.

Kissing Vikings

Chapter  17 of The Monastery of the Heart is on this rule of hospitality. Perhaps we can gain some ideas from it, in the context of visitors to our own homes and churches. Perhaps, we could even gain some insights about growing our church membership.

Chittister says:

It is possible, of course,

to make community

out of “our kind of people,”

out of people who look like us

and think like us

and have the same backgrounds as we do.

But that is not

the kind of community

the ancient Rule

has in mind. . .

In many churches, it’s not that we expect people to have the same backgrounds (though we like it); it’s that we think that, given time and prayer and instruction, they’ll become just like us in looks, word, and deed.

When Benedict of Nursia began

his new way of living

in wild, licentious, sixth-century Rome,

he turned that world upside down. 

He took into his monastic community

the rich and the poor,

the slave and the free,

the young and the old,

artists and craftsmen,

peasants and noblemen.

It was a motley crew.

I wonder if he’d read Galatians 3:28?

And then, as if that weren’t enough,

he opened the doors

of the monastery

to anyone who came,

at any time,

to anyone who knocked,

no matter who they were

or where they had been in life

along the way.

Hmm. I wonder if he’d also read Hebrews 13:2?

Benedictine monasteries are perhaps best known for their hospitality. They take seriously the injunction to “welcome strangers, for in so doing, you may entertain angels unaware.” Wherever you are in the world, if you are in need of shelter, you can go to a Benedictine monastery and they will take you in. (Speaking for myself, I’ve found that to be true of Adventists, too, in general, even though we don’t have a specific rule about it.) In the 9^th century, when Vikings were raiding the British Isles, the story is that at Martyrs Bay, Iona, the reason so many monks, along with their abbot, were slaughtered is that they were still trying to keep Benedict’s Rule that the entire community must welcome any and all guests “as Christ,” with prayer and a kiss of peace. They well knew the Vikings had not come in peace, or with any idea of being Christ-like. But they wanted to be Christ-like.

So do I. I’m not sure I’d be that brave about it. . .

When was the last time you greeted a Viking raider with a kiss of welcome and peace? Metaphorically speaking. Or not. . .

Care for Others and Spiritual Growth

 Joan Chittister’s book, The Monastery of the Heart, which we’ve been exploring in this devotional series, is an exploration of the Rule of Benedict in order to see that the principles of godly spirituality which it espouses are available to all humans, not just to those in physical monasteries and convents. Jesus clearly taught and demonstrated that we are to live our lives in the world, though not of it, seeking to act out the love of God to all who come in our way.

This chapter, “Loving Service,” is a particularly touching one. It speaks of the special care which Benedict required monastics to give to the elderly, infirm, and young. We have already seen in past chapters that the Benedictine model is different from many medieval monasteries in its decision to seek the middle ways rather than demanding extreme asceticism, self-punishment, and so on, such as Martin Luther experienced in his Augustinian order.

Chittister writes:

There is in Benedictine spirituality

a deeply compassionate heart

that neither glorifies the suppression

of human feelings

nor denies the reality of human needs.

Nowhere is that clearer than in

the attention the Rule gives

to the needs of the elderly, the sick,

and the children of the monastery.

Already we see a difference—how many monasteries would have had any children in them? Benedictines, then and now, are required to offer hospitality to all who come to them, believing that is what God, in Hebrews 13:2, had in mind.

She goes on:

We are here to enable one another

to go further.

We are here to learn from the insights

of the other.

We are here to bring all of humanity

to fullness of life.

The Rule is clear about the lengths

to which a Benedictine goes

to sustain the elderly,

to heal the sick,

to support the young in the community. . . .

Suffering is not glorified in this Rule;

Loving care is its norm. . . .

No amount of special asceticism

can equal the amount

of spiritual growth

and human maturity

that comes with care for others.

I believe that “we” in the first line of this passage means me. Means you. Means all of us who claim to follow the Way of the Christ.

Equality in the Spirit

Equality in the Spirit

Chapter 9 in The Monastery of the Heart is titled “Equality.” In it, Chittister begins by saying that we like to think equality is the characteristic of our age—that we are all equal now, with equal importance and respect, and equal opportunities. But, she contends that in fact “inequality is the greatest sign of our time.”

. . . it is also our world

that enslaves the poor to the drudgery

of survival, that ranks women as lower human beings

than men,

that distributes the goods

 we produce

according to race,

that worships at the feet

of the gods of money,

and lives in gated communities

in order to keep

the rest of the world out.

To this world,

Benedictine spirituality says clearly,

“No.”

She points out that elders, who have lived longer in the heat of life are considered as elders or wisdom figures, as signs that

. . . life grows sweeter with time,

 . . . holier with experience,

 . . .richer of heart

as the heart grows deeper into God.

But age and seniority

are also not its gods.

 . . .”the Spirit often reveals what is better

to the younger.”

The principle is a clear one:

“The Spirit blows where it will.”

We cannot damp down

the fire of the Spirit

on the basis of anything

but the greater movement

of the Spirit itself.

I find it noteworthy that Chittister does not say “We must not.” She says “We cannot.”