To truly know Jesus from the interior of our spiritual heart is to live great joy. It is our inward posture of Christlikeness which reveals our heart’s deepest abiding love. It is this deep abiding love which creates within us a foundation of joy. This deep-hearted joy wells up within us and overflows to our thoughts, words, and engagement of others through our action. Does this mean that we will like or even appreciate all the situations and circumstances of human life that we may experience? Probably not.
And beyond the exterior circumstances in life which we may or may not like, there is often junk (doubts, resistances, fears, jealousy, anger . . .) that we must walk through before we truly feel abiding joy in love of Jesus. It is going through, not trying to push down or pretend that difficult things don’t exist by ignoring the elephant in the room, that lead to inward formation. As we journey through the storms of life we are shaped differently by God’s constant presence and encouraging breath of life. What is it to be shaped differently by God? Sometimes that lives like a stronger core or agency of self. It means that we become even more like the image of God into which we were formed at our conception and physical birthing.
Abiding joy for me is not the fleeting kind of emotion that sweeps over us when life is great and everything is going our way. Abiding joy comes from surrendering one’s self to the ways of the desert storms of life. It is looking the strife of life in the eye and trusting God to lead us through. Surrendering is not a giving up to be swept away by the storms of life, saying “O well, I cannot do anything about this.” The surrender which leads to trust and reliance upon Jesus is what transfigures strife beyond circumstance into Jesus’ joy.
When we surrender self-will, desire for control, and persistent pesky thoughts within our heart and mind to God, Jesus truly does have the power, strength, gumption, love, and desire to become the foundation of our life. It is through, not side stepping or skirting around the difficult moments of life, feelings, or memories that lead us through the desert times into new possibilities of life. This is not just any old possibility of life. Jesus opens the way for the most tenacious, awesome God gifted-life we are called to live. As we embrace this God energy and Divine leading personally, we become joyful at the foundational level of life. Is this an easy journey? No usually. Sometimes it even takes the assistance of trained counselors or therapies such as EMDR. (EMDR is Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing therapy which helps one through emotion, physical, and spiritual trauma.) The healing that comes to us by sojourning through distress and anxiety leads us to become fruitful for the Kingdom of God as Amma Theodora states.
“Amma Theodora said, ‘Let us strive to enter by the narrow gate. Just as the trees, if they have not stood before the winter’s storms cannot bear fruit, so it is with us, this present age is a storm and it is only through many trials and temptations that we can obtain an inheritance in the kingdom of heaven.’”[2]
How do we prepare for this kind of resurrection possibility? What creates an unshakable foundation of Divine presence through all storms and gentle rains of life, so that abiding joy is lived and shared among us?
The Scripture
Today’s scripture comes from the Revised Common Lectionary, the Sunday before Ash Wednesday. The scripture from the Gospel of Luke 9 bridges the Light of Epiphany (the season which began 12 days after Christmas) and Lent. In the Roman Lectionary and as an alternative Gospel reading in the Revised Common Lectionary, it is read on the second Sunday of Lent. For us, this is the ideal scripture for entering further into desert spirituality.
WOW! What a mountain prayer experience Jesus had in the transfiguration story! It empowered and sustained him for his 40-day trek through the desert and into ministry. His appearance shimmered with the glory of God! I wonder how this transfiguration anchored Jesus even more deeply in the heart of God. This time away at prayer for Jesus created within him a glowing sense of God’s Divine presence. Have you ever felt so anointed by God’s presence and prayer? Do you have a mountain top prayer experience that anchors your life in the heart of God for everyday living through the joy, junk and into Jesus?
I remember my first year in seminary. It was in the middle of the second semester when I received the phone. It was Monday, the day after Easter. It was the evening before I began my weekly commute from Rhode Island to my classes in Boston. That was the phone call telling me that my beloved grandfather’s transition into eternal life had just occurred. With that call a peace settled upon my heart. I knew even while making plans to fly back to Ohio for the family funeral with two small children, that God’s glory was about to shimmer within my life.
That was also the time in seminary during which I had fallen into a routine of rising very early, about 3:00 a.m. to prepared for classes and beat the rush of the traffic on my commute to Boston. Even after the phone call of grandpa’s death on that Monday, I knew in my heart that I must continue my routine and arrived at the seminary about 6:30 a.m. to meet a classmate for a study breakfast. I was compelled to make my trek to our study breakfast that Tuesday morning so long ago, even though I would not be staying for classes.
Upon my arrival to our study breakfast, my classmate took one look at me and wanted to know what was different. I embraced the reality of my grandpa’s death and told the details. Instantly my classmate rose from our breakfast table and stated, “We are going to the chapel for prayer.” Time slipped away as we sat in chapel and prayed that morning. The Holy Spirit washed over me in a way I had not yet at that time experienced. Instead of feeling broken and grieving with my grandpa’s death, I became empowered by the presence of God. That mountain top prayer time gave formed my inward being with peace, comfort, strength, and clarity of heart. It also provided me with Holy Spirit words for me to speak as I assisted at my first funeral, my grandfather’s funeral.
Invitation for Contemplation and Journaling
Today you will ponder the insightful and powerful presence of God as you consider “joy, junk and Jesus” and your mountain top prayer experiences. Today’s journaling experience focus is upon insights and wisdom gleaned from the Scripture reading from Luke 9 and the desert wisdom from Amma Theodora.
Contemplative Experience
Please plan a two-step approach for each daily devotional. First, read the devotional and mentally review the reflection questions. This could be your morning devotional time. That way you can contemplate on the material throughout your day. The questions are simply to prime the heart’s creative imagination in preparation for writing your Love Letter to God and your imagined response from God. Your Love Letter portfolio is your gift of this process. It is to be a written record of how you and God companion one another through this season. It is the inward formational journey of these six weeks during which you may find yourself becoming God’s Love Letter to others through your daily life.
At the end of the day, center yourself before God in silence and solitude for writing your Love Letters. To begin, enter your sacred space and invite God into your awareness. This invitation may begin with the repetition of your favorite name for God silently in your mind. This may look like focusing your mind and heart upon the name Jesus: Jesus… Jesus… Jesus…Take an intentional breath slowly in through your nose as the Divine presence of the risen Christ breathes into you. Let that breath of Jesus float slowly down your throat, into your lungs and imagine it going into each cell of your body. After a moment – exhale slowly and let the air escape through your slightly parted lips. With this exhale let the stale air carry away resistances and busyness of your day, so that you may come fully into God’s presence. Repeat this breathing invitation to God several times before moving to the next step of contemplation and journaling.
Morning: In preparation for writing your Love Letters, mentally consider the following queries. There is no need to write responses unless that is helpful for you to focus in writing your Love Letter to God.
- Remember a time of mountain top prayer for you. If you have not yet experienced this kind of anointing by God’s Holy presence in prayer, begin to pray for this experience as you imagine:
- If you have experienced God’s mountain top transfiguring prayer: When was it? If you have not yet had this experience, how do you imagine God yearns to invite you into deepened prayer and what could it be like for you to be anointed by God?
- Who was/ or could be there with you?
- How did you experience God? Or how do you imagine God would come to you?
- What Words were whispered to your heart? Or what do you imagine God desires to whisper to your heart?
- Often when we have a mountain top experience of God’s presence and prayer shinning with God’s glory in our personal prayer life, we are reluctant to descend the mountain and leave that holy space. Much like Peter, we yearn to build booths and capture or restrain God’s glory from fading from our consciousness.
- How will or has this mountain top experience become a sustaining or foundational touchstone of God energy for your life?
- How can you bring that God energy either from your experience or imagination into your desert trek through the remaining weeks of Lent?
- What is God inviting you to do or be through your contemplation about mountain top prayer encounters with God’s glory?
- What questions arise for you around your word from scripture as God invites you into this season of Lent?
Writing your Love Letter to God
Evening: Continue your time of prayer in the evening after a contemplative day with pen in hand and imagination open before God. Today’s Love Letter to God focuses on your thoughts that you discerned from scripture and the desert wisdom. Consider:
- How will you address God? Maybe you will use “Dear God”, possibly something more extravagant such of “To my Heart’s Love.” Be as creative and free in expression as your soul desires as you write to God.
- What do you imagine that you could whisper to God about the Scripture and your discerned word? Maybe your Love Letter to God will focus upon how you are being transfigured by God’s resounding Word. Are there fears, joys, concerns that you would like to express to God?
- How will you close your letter. Might you close in gratitude, humility, or another posture of love?
Next write the imaged response letter from God to you. This may take a leap of faith. Possibly a conversation with a spiritual director may be helpful to open imagination for how God whispers to your heart. Consider your image of God. Is God a judge, a Shepherd, inclusive Love, or perhaps the Vine to your branches? How does your image of God influence your imagined response letter from God.
What do you imagine God longs to whisper to your heart in response to your Love Letter to God?
- How does God feel about what you have written?
- How does God embrace and care for your concerns, or celebrate your joys?
- Sit silently and listen. Imagine how God desires to write a letter back to you. How does God address you in the greeting of the letter? What feelings are expressed within the letter from God to you? Try to look at yourself through God’s eyes and heart. Remember in your imagination that God looks upon the inward nature of those whom God loves. Your image of God will shape how you imagine God would respond to your Love Letter.
- How does God close this Love Letter to you?
With these two letters, the one you write to God and God’s imagined response to you, you begin your portfolio of becoming a living Love Letter to God. You may desire to create a cover page for your love letters so that you can store them in a binder or possibly create a folder upon the computer just for your Lenten love letters. Upon completion of your letters, pause for a moment of silent thanksgiving for God’s resounding Word and love in life.
After giving thanks for uncovering God’s presence through your word discovery and writing your Love Letters to God and to you from God, re-read your own words. Be gentle with yourself. You are not evaluating what is written. Simply come to the text with the wonder if God has any other wisdom or words to share with you through this archeological reading of your words. If you discover any further insight from God, you are free to add to your portfolio with additional resounding Words of wisdom.
When you have completed praying, place your Love Letter portfolio on your altar table or in the absence of a table, bring it to your heart in an embrace. Offer a prayer of gratitude for all the gifts of God’s insights. You may use this prayer or one of your own.
Dear Jesus, you have gone to the mountain and taken your disciples with you for prayer. We are humbled for being included in this sojourn to the top. Thank you for bringing me into your life-giving glory. May this time of prayer, these next few weeks through the desert become for me a life transfiguring season. Where I have resisted your leading, make my heart pliable in your heart of love so that I may surrender my grip upon thoughts, actions, motives and attitudes that separate my heart from yours. Anoint me Jesus, just now in this moment that I may truly have a felt sense of your life-giving water filling my life to overflowing grace and love. I offer all I am and all I do for your blessing. May my life’s work be a blessing to you and too many. Amen.
[1] This title, Joy, Junk, and Jesus came to me from a Lutheran pastor friend of mine.
[2] Paintner, Christine Valters, Desert Fathers and Mothers: Early Christian Wisdom Sayings, (Woodstock, Vermont, Skylight Paths Publisher), 2012, page 19.
