Temptations...

Here is the article mentioned today in the homily. I took it straight from beliefnet, a great website to check out when you have a moment. Enjoy!

Lent as Divine Therapy

Father Thomas Keating talks about Lent as a time to look at unconscious dynamics that keep us from a deep relationship with God.

Fr. Keating, a Trappist monk at St. Benedict's monastery in Snowmass, Colorado, is a co-founder of the centering prayer movement. He recently spoke to Beliefnet producer Anne A. Simpkinson about the contemplative dimensions of the Lenten season.

How can we make Lent a more contemplative time? And, if people are already practicing contemplative prayer, how can they deepen their practice?

Lent is meant to be a communal retreat for all Christians--at least those who observe Lent. The liturgy is an instruction in the mystical meaning of Lent as preparation for the Holy Week celebration of the mystery of redemption.

Redemption basically is about holistic health, if you want to translate it into modern parlance. What I suggest--based on the Christian tradition but not often preached--is that you can't enter into t

he fullness of the Pascal mystery of the redemption unless there is a radical transformation of motivation within you. So, on the first Sunday of Lent, you have Christ going into the desert and experiencing basic human instincts--security needs, power-control needs, and affection-esteem needs. The three temptations that [Christ faced in the desert] address each one of those issues.

If you accept the belief that baptism incorporates us in the mystical body of Christ, into the divine DNA, then you might say that the Holy Spirit is present in each of us, and thus we have the capacity for the fullness of redemption, of transformation.

Lent is a time to renew wherever we are in that process that I call the divine therapy. It's a time to look what our instinctual needs are, look at what the dynamics of our unconscious are. The church is hinting in the first Sunday of Lent that Lent is about temptation, or what we think is temptation. It's about the raw experience of human instincts, and how they unconsciously influence our conduct and decisions all our life long unless we keep working with them.

Lent is the time to expect temptation and [experience] afflictive emotions such as shame, humiliation, anger, greed, the time to look at how those instincts, which are developed in early childhood are frustrated--or gratified. See there's a hazard in self-exaltation if we get what we want, or depression if we don't get what we want. To work on those [emotions] during Lent, I think, is more effective than fasting or rituals.

With regard to prayers, I would suggest doing a little more meditation, add another half-hour period [of prayer], if that's possible. If it's not possible, be more alert to the false self and its [emotional] programs as they manifest in everyday life. This is a form of practicing the presence of God.

Do you think that giving up chocolate or meat or whatever is only a scratching of the surface of Lent?

Yes, but if you scratch the surface and find out there's something underneath, it's helpful that way. (Laughter) It seems to me that scratching the surface of the unconscious, allowing a few cracks to show, hastens the evacuation [of emotions tied to the false self], and is a good thing.

I imagine giving up chocolate would make us understand how powerless we are because of how hard it is to do. I think that's one of the benefits of something like that. If we can't give up chocolate for 40 days, how can we give up other things?

It's a good start. But the liturgy, or the church, whoever put that together in their mystical wisdom wasn't thinking about your taste buds. (Laughter) Lent is about more serious matters. The Church was thinking about how it feels to confront the emotional damage of a lifetime that is sitting unnoticed in your unconscious. Unless one does an extraordinary kind of deep psychotherapy, it might take five years on the couch [to uncover and work with such things]. But the practice of a non-conceptual meditation [centering prayer] initiates a process that may go on for a lifetime. Every Lent is an invitation to go deeper into that process.

Lent is--and I think the Eastern Orthodox Church would agree--a 40-day retreat that the church invites everybody to go through every year. If it is really well done, it would be comparable to an extended Vipassana (Buddhist meditation) retreat. It would have a transforming effect each time you did it.

It would be a real challenge to take on Lent this year because our lives are so pushed and pulled by so many external demands.

Perhaps more than ever today. [I think of] the intrusion of mass media. I don't know what that's going to do to people, what it's going to do to a generation without some balancing factor like Lent. Lent could become more and more crucial to spiritual practice. Even 10 days of retreat is barely enough to get in touch with oneself, and then you go back and you lose it in three or four days. That's why Contemplative Outreach started an immersion retreat, which lasts three weeks, and why we're considering retreats of greater length.

Illustration: Temptation of Christ, stained glass of JoKarl Huber in the Church of Saints Peter and Paul in Weil der Stadt, Germany; photograph by Rebecca Kennison, 1989

Remember that you are (star)dust...

Presiding Bishop, Katharine Jefferts Schori preached a wonderful and bi-lingual sermon on Ash Wednesday in San Jose, Costa Rica. Bishop Katharine was a scientist before becoming a priest in the church, and her sermons often contain beautiful images of creation, humankind and God, which come directly out of her work studying creation. She is a wonderful example of how science does not make God obsolete, but may instead inspire a deep love, appreciation, and awe for God in all of creation.

In her sermon from Ash Wednesday, Bishop Katharine describes humankind as dust hoping to be worthy of the image of God, and she reminds her listeners that the same dust the we are made of ultimately comes from the stars. She says, "Lent is our opportunity to bless this dust so that it can shine even brighter than the stars like the light of Christ...Our world needs this light resurrected from dust."

And, here is the link to the audio version of the sermon. Hope you can check it out!

Compline

Here's some great information about Compline by Jamey Anderson...

At 7:30 p.m. on March 1, in place of the traditional Evensong on the first Sunday of the month, the Epiphany Schola will sing Compline: a meditative, ancient service that has been chanted and sung by Christians for 1,500 years, probably first by St. Benedict. If you haven’t been to a Compline service before, it may be useful to think of it as a “stripped-down” version of Evensong.

Evensong (sung Evening Prayer), an exclusively Anglican creation originating from the sixteenth century, is a combination of Compline with Vespers. If you’ve ever been to an Evensong and wished you could just sit back and relax into the music instead of standing up during the canticles, you might find what you’re looking for in Compline. There is much less of the “stand-up/sit-down” formalities in Compline. The church is dark, and in many cases, you may not even be able to see the singers. The emphasis is on quiet meditation and bringing the day to a peaceful close.

Episcopal musicians in the 1950s re-discovered Compline and brought it into the modern age, most notably in Seattle at St. Mark’s Cathedral. By the 1960’s, people would flock into the church, sit on the floor, or lie down on the pews. People even bring their own pillows to fully relax in the darkened room. You can hear examples of the service at www.complinechoir.org. The choral director Peter Hallock writes about the great interest in Compline that remains to this day:

“In the mid-and late 60’s, the service began to attract large numbers of young people, a phenomenon that, to a great extent, can only be accounted for by the search for new cultural values being promulgated by the younger generation of that time. Remains still exist that serve as reminders of a movement that, among other things, must be credited for the interpolation of Eastern religious thought and practice into our lives. The embracing of meditation, yoga, and martial arts such as Tai Chi are further examples.”

And the Seattle Weekly’s Best of 2008 issue cites Compline at St. Mark’s as the “Best Non-Alcoholic Happy Hour!”

“You just saw a guy with a briefcase and a girl with dreads and about 15 tattoos walk into a 77-year-old church together. ‘Huh?’ you might be thinking. But if it’s Sunday night at 9:30, you should walk in too, because it’s time for Compline at St. Mark’s on Capitol Hill. Wearing old sweats? So what?—you’ll probably be sitting on the floor, and no one cares what you wear here anyway. Just sit back and listen to the church’s 18-member choir party like it’s the year 509. They sing evening prayers the way monks have done ever since there were monks, and they do it beautifully. You’ve never felt this calm in your life, I promise you, no matter what your religious preferences.”

Here at Epiphany, our re-imagination will include singing the service with both men and women, rather than the exclusively male monk-style voices that are sometimes used. If any of this interests you or has raised your curiosity, circle the date in your calendar, bring your friends, and wear comfortable clothes: we’ll see you at Compline on March 1^st!

Yawn, stretch, groan...

...Epiphany Epicenter is waking up after it's winter hibernation! I have taken a little break during Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany, but now, for the Lenten Season, I will make regular blog postings part of my spiritual discipline.

On that note, what do you have planned for Lent? If you are looking for resources for prayer and study, I highly recommend these three:

Pray as you go
This website provides wonderful daily prayer, readings, and music in a very friendly format. I love this podcast! You can download from their website or from iTunes.

Episcopal Relief and Development (ERD)
ERD has some wonderful Lenten meditations you can have delivered to your inbox. ERD is an organization Epiphany has long supported and we have a great deal of enthusiasm for the important work they do. Click here to sign up for their Lenten meditations.

The National Catholic Reporter
This website has several different options for Lenten meditations delivered directly to your inbox, including Edward Hays, who is one of my favorites.

Have a wonderful Lent, everyone, and stay tuned!