Tag Archives: kataphatic

Who are you at work?: Which way of Jesus are you missing?

A life in the Spirit, Spiritual direction, , , , , ,

If you are just keeping your nose above water, trying to be a Christian at work somehow, this post might help. It is about how we learn to relate to God in real time, not sometime or some-other-time-when-I-have-time, but all the time.

At the center of the classic dialogue Jesus followers have been having about prayer is the duality of physical and spiritual, the same duality Jesus masters for us. I think the old words “cataphatic” and “apophatic” have been well-used to describe the more physical/right brain/positive practices and the more spiritual/left brain/negative practices that help us connect with God. The two words also describe two ways of thinking (and doing theology) that might be affecting how you do your job – or survive it.

Oversimply put, a cataphatic approach to God (and life) looks at what can happen in a given time and place. I see it as “doing my best with what I’ve got.“ Maybe it is what “the glass is half full” kind of people do. People often use the word “positive” to explain this way, or moving along the via affirmativa. So when we describe God from this view we see what God is (e.g., “God is love,” “God is omnipresent”).

Likewise, oversimply put, an apophatic approach to God (and life) looks at what is NOT happening in time and place at all, because things about God are beyond us. I see it as looking for what is best because I am not there yet. God is pouring out whatever can be in a glass and I want to be a vessel which can be filled. People often use the word “negative” to explain this way, or moving along the via subtractiva. So when we describe God from this view, we see what God is not, recognizing how God transcends human comprehension (e.g. “God is not evil,” “God is not limited by human notions of what is good”).

Very few people who deliberately seek God practice exclusively along a positive or negative way. But you may lean one way or another. If this discussion helps you see yourself more clearly or open a door to living a richer life, I’ve hit the mark.

Cataphatic ways

Cataphatic thinking focuses on positive attributes, using words, images, and concepts to describe God. It emphasizes that we can know God through revelation and creation.

So my hero, Francis of Assisi, is well known for wandering through the Umbrian countryside seeing the depths of God in a leaf and communing with Brother Sun and Sister Moon. Walk into most Catholic or Orthodox church buildings and it is a cataphatic explosion: statues, bells, incense and a focus on the Eucharist. I think Pentecostal churches take it a step further, emphasizing the power of God in the here and now.

So if your job is a pain or you’re bored with it, you might try on some cataphatic thinking when you arrive. In every person and every task there is some kind of beauty to be found; Jesus is present in the people and in the moment. That’s why we can do all things to the glory of God! Plus, you are there at work with Jesus by your side. Your aliveness is a gift to give and God-with-you is ready to love and serve.

Apophatic ways

Apophatic thinking focuses on denying any limited human concept of God. It argues that because God is infinite, positive statements are inherently inadequate, leading people to “strip away” any images or thoughts in order to experience God’s transcendence.

Many of us have been taught to meditate by emptying ourselves to make space for God’s Spirit. I agree that God is deeply met in silence. When you walk into many Protestant church buildings, they are stripped of ornamentation that might distract from God’s transcendence. They are empty spaces where God and his people represent the Spirit and not spaces full of imagery which traps God in time. The emphasis is on the word coming from the outside, not inside. Like Martin Luther says: “This life is not godliness but the process of becoming godly, not health but getting well, not being but becoming, not rest but exercise.” (I tried to talk about the excesses of this last week).

So if your job is a pain or you are bored with it, you might try on some apophatic thinking while you are there. At times it makes sense to take a break and return to silence somewhere, even if it is in a bathroom stall. After finishing a task you could rest in God’s presence, if even for ten seconds, letting everything go before you pick something up again. You could put a post it somewhere with a quote that reminds of you who you really are. How about, “Nothing in all creation will be able to separate me from the love of God in Christ Jesus”? All the monks centered their day on this process: work and prayer.

This discussion is also common sense

Some people might say I’m describing the different ways extraverts and introverts approach life. And that may be true. Extraverts lean into relationships and the present moment to feel alive, and introverts need alone time to rejuvenate. Nobody is just one thing or another, I don’t think (or I could positively say “I think,” right?). If you are an extravert, you might need to make a few friends at work and not get isolated. If you are an introvert, you might need to find a park nearby to have lunch alone.

Health experts talk about positive and negative approaches without God in them at all. For instance, think about dieting. Positive approaches to dieting talk adding nutrient-dense foods (vegetables, fruits, whole grains) to crowd out less-healthy options. They call for mindful eating — paying attention to hunger and fullness cues rather than following rigid, external rules. They encourage forming sustainable habits, making small, consistent changes, and having self-compassion — viewing setbacks as part of the process rather than a failure. They’re behind the Health at Every Size (HAES) discussion.

My pastor is a “health at every size” kind of Christian. He especially likes to help us see God in every person. Sometimes even I think he could be less about what we feel and more about what we think.

Negative approaches to dieting are all about limiting food or eliminating entire food groups. They organize schedules for eating, like “intermittent fasting.”  They talk about “good” or “bad” eating, demonstrated by all the eating plans you can buy even geared to your body type. They often motivate with an eye on perfection, like a perfectly fit Pelaton coach cheering you on from the screen.

I’ve had more pastors like Martin Luther, who see life as a struggle against sin and a constant effort to know God. Those folks sometimes create church members accustomed to being motivated by criticism.

So the ancient Christian practices of prayer either come from common sense or created it. You decide. Regardless, which way do you lean? It is probably making a difference at work.

Who are you at work?

I got to thinking about all this because I spoke with someone who treated their job in an apophatic way. When they went home and had their “real life” they were one person, but at work they were “on the job” and felt constrained to act like a job person. They were on an unconscious via negative:

  • At work I am what I am not.
  • Work is what I am not.
  • God is not in the work but I need the money.

One of my older acquaintances was talking about the challenge they felt when training new, younger workers to replace those who were on the way out. At one point they were looking for one of these new employees because their team was trying to solve a client’s problem before the day ended, as they had promised to do. They asked someone where she was and they told him, “Oh. She left. She goes home at 4:30.” The boss was finding some meaning and life in the job, the team, and their success. The new hire saw the job as limited, unfulfilling, only worth so much time. One was more cataphatic and one more apophatic.

I think most of us are apophatic when it comes to the job. We see it as what it is not. And we generally see it as a place where God is not. As a result, we end up not something, ourselves. Maybe we are a good employee. But we are an employee and not ourselves. We’ve got to be “on” at work but our hearts are often “off” and that hurts.

Last Friday, on Howard Thurman day, he gave us a good way to balance out the negative and positive way. He said:

There is a quiet courage that comes from an inward spring of confidence in the meaning and significance of life. Such courage is an underground river, flowing far beneath the shifting events of one’s experience, keeping alive a thousand little springs of action.

When I go to work, I need to operate out of an “inward spring of confidence” that flows from my experience of God with me. That experience is going to take some apophatic practice through which I have created a space where I can meet God no matter what is happening, because I met God when nothing was happening.

That spring of living water welling up in me keeps “alive a thousand springs of action.” Every day is full of the sights, sounds and loves of God. The “shifting events” of the workplace are full of cataphatic opportunities to love, tell the truth, and be exemplary. If Jesus were wandering around your workplace in the guise of a boss or a new hire, he would certainly find someone to love. And he would see the beauty all around him – you’d be there, after all.

I told my beautiful, challenged acquaintance their workplace in their giant company was a vast territory where they could meet God in hundreds of ways every day. Even their suffering at the hands of godless capitalists could have meaning if they were not just NOT at work. You might have different advice. I recently fixed my comments function, so now you can let us all know what you feel and think, if you like.

 

Group meditation: A development story

A life in the Spirit, Spiritual direction, , , , , , , , , ,

The men have jumped into our newly-formed spiritual direction group. Month by month our capacity to listen to God with and for each other is growing. We are encouraged and challenged. We are also learning we are as different in character as we are together in purpose, and that seems just right.

Chronos and Kairos

Some of us are more tuned into linear or “chronos” time. (Chronos and Kairos in Greek Thought). If you are an engineer or scientist of some kind, you’re probably prone to emphasizing sequential, goal-oriented and, perhaps, scarce or developing time — maybe you are even wearing a chronometer! Your orientation to time might be as it is because you are more attuned to left brain processes, along with much of the Eurocentric world (Left and Right Brain Thinking). I’m not sure this always follows, but maybe you will be more aligned with an “apophatic” approach to meditation (Apophatic and Kataphatic Meditation). I told the group I would be in big trouble if I were not linked with people who lean this way, since I pretty much lean the other direction.

Let’s not make an “either/or” distinction, here. But the “other direction” is being more tuned into “kairos” time. I think fewer people “land” here these days (pun intended). The disposition seems out-of-date. Not too many of us are farmers, but if you are, you probably tune into the seasons and see things according seeds sprouting and crops ripening “when the time is right.” Like a farmer, you may feel an immediacy about time, like “right now,” like “It rained last night and it is the right time to plow.” You might have expectations of time based on intuition or your experience. You might orient this way because you are more attuned to right brain processes. Maybe you are more of an artist, an ardent listener, or a seeker of timeless things. Or maybe you are searching like the mother in Everything, Everywhere, All at Once — I don’t agree meaninglessness is at the heart of the universe like that movie does, but I respect their right brain pursuits. I’m not sure this always follows, but if you’re built in this way, you might have more of a “kataphatic” approach to meditation.

Le prophète Isaïe — Marc Chagall (1968)

It started with a story

All those thoughts and links above come from the story I now carry about how our group gathered. I enjoyed listening to the interplay of all those dispositions as we prayed, sang, and took each other seriously. Several of us offered a story about a loss we had commonly experienced. We were in varying degrees of being unsettled or moving on. It was moving to share such a profound subject with someone, in which our deepest loves and suffering were surfacing.

I won’t tell you the substance of our dialogue, of course. But one of us named what they were doing to themselves as a “purity test.” This jogged another person to describe a scene in the Bible in which God purified someone’s mouth with a live coal during a vision in the Temple (later noted as Isaiah 6). This caught my attention because I had just that day been singing along with an old song on YouTube about that scene:

In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lofty, and the hem of his robe filled the temple. Seraphs were in attendance above him; each had six wings: with two they covered their faces, and with two they covered their feet, and with two they flew. And one called to another and said,

“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts;
the whole earth is full of his glory.”

The [doorposts] on the thresholds shook at the voices of those who called, and the house filled with smoke. And I said, “Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, yet my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!”

Then one of the seraphs flew to me, holding a live coal that had been taken from the altar with a pair of tongs. The seraph touched my mouth with it and said, “Now that this has touched your lips, your guilt has departed and your sin is blotted out.” Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” And I said, “Here am I; send me!”

Of course Isaiah’s story has been repeated for centuries and music has been written for the angel’s to sing! If we have not had such an experience ourselves, yet, we long to!

Left brain folks focused on the prophet’s lips

Everyone had their own way to enter into our mutual discernment.

Some were more “left-brained.” If you have a linear mindset, which is characteristic of left-hemisphere processes, then what is past is lost and what is not yet realized can be disappointing in that you don’t have what you need.

The specificity and constraints of language are instigated in the left brain, so it is no wonder some people noticed and were most were moved by which words were spoken in the story above: “Woe is me, I am lost,” and then by the Lord speaking, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” The left brain is where wild thoughts go to be tamed and abstractions go to become projects.

We were listening together, and some people leaned more into apophatic mediation. It is a wordless and imageless way. As you become empty of what distracts or upsets you (usually the energies of left-brained processing), you become one with the love of God you seek. When teachers help us to do this, they often start by helping us find a centering word or phrase that supersedes the din of our inner dialogue and the many voices that lead us to judge ourselves and which assign us self-improvement projects. That kind of meditation helps us stop our endless self-examination and self-centeredness (An example from Martin Laird).

Right brain folks having their own revelation

Others were more “right-brained.” If you tend to experience the world with your heart and senses first, your instinct is to seek the thin places and turn into them.

The experience of the prophet in the temple was eternal; it has that sense of “kairos” even if you just read it for the first time a minute ago. It happened in God’s time, so much so, it feels fresh to people reading about it 3000 years later. It is a promise, not just history. As our group met, we made a thin place and we entered into that eternal now. Our thin place experiences do and should have a staying power like Isaiah’s. I was very happy to be reminded that. Even though I felt the loss of my previous spiritual experience, it was good to accept how amazing it was for the season it lasted. Whatever touched eternity in it could not be lost. What is gone is still beautiful in kairos time; it flowered in is season.

As we were listening together, some people leaned more into kataphatic meditation. It is a image-rich way to pray. As you connect with the eternity of this present moment, you become united with the Creator in creation. The experience of God’s grace grounds you in the One who was and is and is to come. When teachers help us do this, they often start with a story or a metaphor, not a principle or a manual. Visual, musical, or literary art, a statue, a tree, a sunset, etc. are all aids (like the icon, below) all help us connect. Jesus is the best example of this kind of mentoring. He leads us to know God beyond our arguments for or against such knowing. He helps us to become an “I am” in love with “I am” (An example like Ignatius of Loyola).

Both/and “Trinity” by Andrei Rublev (ca. 1411). Click for info.

We are both/and beings

Obviously, we all have left and right hemispheres to our brains, barring some catastrophe. But if you are an American or under 35, you are probably more oriented to the left brain.  One of the reasons we love the character Data so much in Star Trek: Picard is because he is succeeding in developing his right brain, too; he is becoming fully human, like we want to be.

By nature, we are both/and beings, right and left, spirit and material, time-bound and timeless. If we live in love, we can be a big help to each other as we find our own way into wholeness. We often see ourselves best when someone who loves us sees us. When we seek God together, we rarely end up oriented the direction we began. Our various starting points often combine to lead to a startling and encouraging new place.

In our group the other night a deeply felt problem, a focus on woe and a snippet from a story about a vision left me moved to turn again today and find joy in the presence of God in me and around me. I hope my story helps you find the hope in your own.

The contemplative prayer of imagination: Resist and restore

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What if you want to use Lent to get out of your head and into your heart? What if you want to explore the depths of your life: mind, heart, soul, strength and have a meaningful life that resists the forces that try to consume it? Last Saturday during our retreat, one of the answers was: learn to pray — and learn to use your imagination. Life in Christ is bigger than such an “answer” of course. But developing a spiritual life is the key to meaning, key to surviving.

Morton Kelsey offered a checklist for venturing inward. It is a good one, since it does not skip to “what I can do on my own,” but attends to our context and community, which are so crucial. To venture inward: 1) attend to the regular disciplines of your community (cell, Sunday meeting, team), 2) keep a spiritual journal, 3) talk about your inner life, 4) receive spiritual direction (could be formal or friendship), 5) learn to become quiet, 6) unleash your imagination.

peering into the inner life

Be quiet. Contemplation is the core prayer

Prayer takes many forms. In every form it is communing with God, relating Spirit to spirit. We intercede and move God. We worship and praise God. We confess and reconcile with God. We have conversations that are full of complaining and questioning. But until we learn to be quiet and find out what is on the other side of silence, our prayer is a bit superficial and missing the deep experiences of connection we crave. The core prayer we need to learn might be summed up with the word contemplation: the basic yearning of our hearts turned to seeking, our innate spiritual capacity stepping toward connection.

Via negativa contemplation

There are two intertwining roads in contemplative prayer; one is often emphasized more by one group than another. First, there is the via negativa, the apophatic way, (the word means “other than speaking,” or “denial”). This way stresses how God is best known by negation, elimination, forgetting, unknowing, without images and symbols, and in darkness. God is other than humanity. God is “not this, not that.”

On this way all images, thoughts, symbols, etc. must be eliminated, because, as St. John of the Cross points out, “all the being of creatures compared with the infinite being of God is nothing. Nothing which could possibly be imagined or comprehended in this life can be a proximate means of union with God.” We enter this nothingness to meet God.

Learning to be quiet needs to travel on this way, since we need to turn away from our self-controlled, world-controlled existence to meet God. In prayer, we need to deal with the distractions that inhibit our solitude.

Via affirmativa contemplation

The other road is the via affirmativa, the kataphatic way, (the word means “much speaking,” or “affirmation”). This way underscores how we can find God in all people, in all experiences, in all things.

It emphasizes a definite similarity between God and creatures. We are made in God’s image, male and female. The world is an expression of God’s character. As Paul taught the Athenians:  “In God we live and move and have our being.” God can be reached by creatures, images, and symbols, because the Lord is manifested in creation and salvation history. The incarnation of God in Christ forces us to take our own experiences as relevant, symbolic and part of an ongoing story of salvation. We are God’s workmanship and Jesus not only symbolizes this blessing, He remains with us to bring about its fullness.

The goal of contemplation is love

All humans are made to seek. We are lonely for God. So very few are spirituality-free. In most Hindu and Buddhist practices, people are taught that the universe is, ultimately, impersonal mind (as in “may the force be with you”). Jesus-followers see the universe as lover. God is so interested in the created world that s/he became incarnate, so interested in humans that Jesus died for us. God enables us to be companions and fellow workers by meeting us Spirit to spirit. The context of our meeting is love; the ultimate goal of meditation is love, even when it is apophatic.

Our communion with God in prayer is, in itself, resistance to the forces that attempt to usurp God’s proper place in the world and on our lives. If you are alone in solitude with God, that relationship has an impact, even if you don’t take much action as a result. It is likely we will take action, however,  since our contemplation regularly gives us our direction and stokes our courage to act. Contemplation allows us to fight evil that arises in us and outside us. We each do this in our own way, but in similar fashion. One’s experience of the world of the Spirit depends on their psychology, which can be understood and developed, and on their world view, which can change. So contemplation is unique to each one who practices, but is unified in the One who meets each of us where we are beginning today.

The kataphatic prayer of imagination

On Saturday, we offered two suggestions for praying in a more “kataphatic” way, making full use of symbols, dreams and the art of imagination.  One way to experience inner meaning is meditating on your inner experiences: coming to silence, going back into the images of your dreams and fantasies, first consciously, then allowing them to go as they will. We noted that most of our spiritual guidance comes from our conscious experience, which is the tip of the iceberg of us. We were trying to learn more about how to receive direction from our inner experience of what is normally unconscious. Many people avoid this territory because it seems vast and dark. But we are not to be absorbed into it, we are to encounter love in it. We have a basic direction for our contemplation – Jesus describes God as the loving father of a returning prodigal. It is clear who is the object of our prayer and who we are.

God’s character

So our conscious minds can lead us and our unconscious, our dreams, can lead us. When people describe their unconscious experience it is as varied as they are. But for everyone, using our imaginations to explore our inner depths starts with two simple things: 1) one must be convinced that thinking and feeling in images is important, 2) one must spend enough time to break away from the concerns of the waking realm. We explored this path in two ways last Saturday. I thought you might like some of the teaching to encourage your journey through Lent.

Ignatius and praying the Bible. 

Try Ignatius of Loyola‘s approach to praying the Bible through imagination and entering into a deeper connection with God as a result.

Matthew 19:13-15 – Jesus and the children

Allow twenty to thirty minutes for the exercise.

  1. As the passage is read for the first time, try to hear it as if it is fresh and new—as if you are hearing it for the first time. Read Mt. 19:13-15 slowly
  2. As the passage is read for the second time, enter in to the event Place yourself as a child in the scene as it is read. Read passage again in a slow, meditative manner
  3. Answer the following questions: How do you feel as you walked through the crowd? Are you warm? Do you feel a breeze? Can you feel the hand of your parent or adult as you walk toward Jesus? What do you hear? Birds? Animal sounds? The voice of Jesus? The disciples trying to send you away? What do you smell? Is it a dusty day? Can you smell the animals? The body odor of the crowd? What do you see? Can you see the legs of the people in front of you? Can you see Jesus? The other children?
  4. Go to Jesus and hear him tell the disciples that he wants to be with you
  5. Climb up in the lap of Jesus or sit beside him and let him embrace you
  6. Experience the deep love that is offered to you a. Let it wash over you and rest in the places that you are experiencing some type of emotional pain Let it be a balm to the rejection or abandonment that you have experienced Let it be to you the love that you desire, yet have never experienced to this extreme. Rest in that love for a while
  7. If you want to talk with Jesus, you may
  8. Otherwise, just sit and let Jesus embrace you.

Morton Kelsey and the prayer of waking dreams

Try Morton’s Kelsey’s explanation of imaging prayer.

In The Other Side of Silence (and elsewhere), Morton Kelsey points out when we are still, images will appear naturally, as they do in our dreams. There is a vast, mostly unexplored territory in our unconscious, that impacts us deeply. It is a territory where God is much needed and very available. We can follow the revelations in our literal dreams or our waking dreams, listen to them, and find meaning in what they reveal about our deep places where God is relating to us Spirit to spirit. On the way to being quiet, we will need to dismiss many distractions. But we can recognize deeper images that arise from a place where we are communing with God.

God be with you on the journey! It is a step by step process and each step along the way is moving through eternity. God is with us and we are learning to become fully present to God. Your way is uniquely your own,  but it is also connected to everyone alive with the Spirit, and deeply connected to our Creator.