Dreaming Beneath the Spires

Anita Mathias's Blog on Faith and Art

Honesty Is the Narrow Gate to the Spiritual Life: Learning from My Daughter, Irene

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honesty_anita_mathias

So I signed my daughter Irene up for a ministry called “LieBusters” at the David’s Tent worship festival.

Five minutes in, her “LieBuster” asks her, “What is God saying to you?”

Irene sits there, taken aback, and then tears stream down her face.

“Nothing. I can’t hear a thing. I didn’t know it was going to be interactive.”

The leader: “Oh my goodness. What did you expect?”

Irene: “I don’t know. My parents signed me up.”

The leader: “Oh my goodness! Do you know Christ? Or do your parents expect me to bring you to Christ too?”

Irene: “I know Christ.”

Leader: “Well, you never know. Some parents expect me to convert their children. Parents can be mean.”

* * *

The leader then prays for her to be able to hear God’s voice, and reader, she does.

“I heard God loads, mum, in words, and in pictures too. Mainly pictures.”

She was radiant with happiness.

* * *

Now, reader, while Irene was going through her session, I was going through a LieBuster session of my own.

And every few minutes, the leader asked, “What is the Lord saying to you? What do you see?”

And like an eager, overachieving student, I felt an answer was expected of me.

And so I rummaged at the outer rim of consciousness–Had I seen something? Had I heard something? The back of the Lord as he passed, as Moses saw? The hem of his garment? And I shared the vaguest hints of impressions. Sometimes, they were platitudes, oh yes. And sometimes, I clothed in words something nebulous, numinous, that I was just about seeing or hearing.

* * *

I did get something out of my LieBuster session. Yes, I believe I did.

But not as much as if I had, with simple honesty, said, “I don’t hear very much. I don’t see very much. I need more time” and had accepted prayer for my spiritual senses to be sharpened. Or simply waited until I did hear.

* * *

There is magic in honesty, in the spiritual life as in any relationship. There is magic in owning exactly who you are, without pretence, to God, and to another person.

We enter into the spiritual life through a very narrow gate, a low tunnel, and the name of that tunnel is honesty. Never pretending that we feel what we do not feel. That we believe what we do not believe. That we have experienced what we have not, in fact, experienced.

Once we pretend, we are lost in the shadowlands; we join the crowds pretending that the Emperor has clothes, when in fact, as far as we can see, he does not.

And the greatest loss is that we lose the possibility of experiencing the richness of the spiritual life. Lost in our lies, we lose the chance of seeing Jesus.

Honesty, humility, simple words, gateways to the pearl without price.

We need to go low; stop pretending; tell the truth; enter as a child.

And then maybe, like Irene, we will confess that we do not in fact hear God, and we will be prayed for, and then we will indeed “hear God loads.”

Amen

 

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What Kind of Blog would Jesus have Written?

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A few words Jesus wrote

Well, if Jesus were a blogger, rather than an itinerant preacher, what kind of blog would he have?

1) It would be unique. It’s recorded that people were amazed at his words. No man ever spoke the way this man does (John 7:46).

Oh great. That’s a tall order. And how do I be unique?

By being myself. 

Since no two people see the world in the same way, by being honest, we stumble upon the secret of being original, of being unusual.

Each person is unique, as unique as each snowflake, rose, fingerprint, zebra’s stripes, the iris of an eye, or the dots on a penguin’s chest.

As we grow to utter honesty, we discover in the process–unique blogs.

2) It would be full of grace and truth. 

Full of graciousness, of course, but it would be honest too. Hypocrisy was the trait Jesus most abhorred in the Pharisees, “who did everything to be seen by men” (Matt. 23:5) and honesty was the trait he adored, for instance, in his foot-in-the mouth, speak-first-and-then-think disciples.

3) It would be a blessing.

There would be life in it, living waters, and nourishment–the bread of life.

4) Would Jesus spend time in gaining readers for his blog, or would he proceed on the “If you build it, they will come?” principle?

Both. He sees Philip and Matthew and invites them to follow him. He invites himself to Zaccheus’s house for a meal.

And the real-life friendships which grow out of blogging is one of its great pleasures.

But I get the impression that Jesus went about his Father’s business and drew people to him because there was life in his words. That he would have delivered the Sermon on the Mount if there were five people there, instead of five thousand.

If one invests time in blogging, it is perhaps only sensible and responsible to invest some time in finding readers for one’s blog. And I do far too little of that…

5) Jesus would not embark on or continue a blog without being sure that blogging was his Father’s will for him, what he was called to do.

He said, “I do nothing on my own.” I think he would be continually checking in with his Father on what to write, and how much to write, and how.

6 A blog written by Jesus would be somehow prophetic.

He would listen to his Father until he heard him speak. He would record what he heard.

6 A blog written by Jesus would be varied, like his teaching ministry.

Jesus used parables and sermons, exhortation and admonition. He taught his disciples spiritual lessons from their everyday experiences. He used metaphor and allegory, humour and satire.

He loved pithy aphorisms—oh how he would have loved Twitter—and stories which, twenty centuries later, reveal fresh depths of meaning each time we ponder them.

He loved questions. His favourite answer, in common with many Jewish rabbis was a question, which silenced his questioners.

* * *

I would love my blog to bear some resemblance to the blog a central figure in my spiritual, emotional, and thought-life might have written.

And how do I do that?

Oddly enough, it begins with relaxing. Slowing down.

Spending more time with him–to catch his spirit. To have my soul filled with his bread of life, and with the living waters He said would flow from those who believe in him.