Larry Hart

The ordinary acts we practice every day at home are of more importance to the soul than their simplicity might suggest.

— Thomas Moore

 

If we as individuals, relinquish our attachment to self- supremacy and open our hearts to the awesome simplicity of spiritual truth, all of our endeavors. . . can become deeply spiritual acts.

–– Gerald May

 

Marriage as a Sacramental Gift

Marriage is a sacrament –– the sixth of the seven sacraments. Sacraments, to use the simplest of definitions, are outward or visible signs of inward invisible grace. For the contemplative devoted to the spiritual life, the sacraments are widows through which the unseen realities of God may be glimpsed, and through which the light of God’s mysterious presence shines into this world. The sacraments provide a physical means to a spiritual end. To say, therefore, that marriage is a sacrament is to say that marriage is a way to God. I am, however, not speaking of marriage, merely as a religious rite or ceremony, but as a continuing way of everyday life that is pure gift.

The gift, or grace, that God gives in the sacraments is the gift of God’s own-self. Grace is the presence of the Holy Spirit working in us, transforming us into the likeness of Christ, inspiring us in gratitude, joy, and understanding; strengthening us in patience, endurance, and everything good. “Grace” derives from the Greek word, “charis.” In secular Greek, “charis” was related to “chairo,” meaning “to rejoice.” As far back as Homer it denoted an extraordinary “attractiveness” or “excellence” in an individual that the Greeks thought could only be explained as a gift of the gods. Marriage is meant, then, to be experienced as God’s favor, blessing, and loving-kindness which leads two people not only into an ever deeper and more fulfilling intimacy with each other, but with the God who enfolds them in the mystery of divine union.

The story of “Water Into Wine,” John 2:1-11, whatever else it may mean, certainly is a sign that marriage is a sacred gift to be received with both profound reverence and exuberant joy. The story as you probably remember goes like this:

On the third day a wedding took place at Cana in Galilee. Jesus’s mother was there, and Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. When the wine was gone, Jesus’s mother said to him, “They have no more wine.”
“Woman, why do you involve me?” Jesus replied. “My hour has not yet come.”
His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.” Nearby stood six stone water jars, the kind used by the Jews for ceremonial washing, each holding from twenty to thirty gallons.
Jesus said to the servants, “Fill the jars with water; ”so they filled them to the brim.
Then he told them, “Now draw some out and take it to the master of the banquet.” They did so, and the master of the banquet tasted the water that had been turned into wine. He did not realize where it had
come from, though the servants who had drawn the water knew. Then he called the bridegroom aside and said, “Everyone brings out the choice wine first and then the cheaper wine after the guests have had too much to drink; but you have saved the best till now.”
What Jesus did here in Cana of Galilee was the first of the signs through which he revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him.

If this pericope is read for information only, rather than with an openness to its transformative dimension which “surprises with joy,” then its sacramental celebration of marriage as a way to God will likely be missed.

Here is what I mean. When we read this text focused not only on the element of miracle, but on miracle as that which violates or sets aside the laws of nature, as that in which God “makes possible what is impossible,” rather than as an event in which God is somehow involved; and, as that which, whatever its actual particulars, astounds and in the wonder and joy of that astonishment becomes a sign pointing to the mystery of God, we will fail to grasp or enter into the “supernatural” character or sacramental reality of marriage.

Notice also that the stone jars in this story normally contain water used in purification rituals. When Jesus finished doing whatever it is he did, they contained wine. A perfect symbol for the sacred chalice of the Last Supper, in which the wine represents the blood of Christ that purifies our souls. And, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” All of this at a wedding in Cana of Galilee.

The Longing and Fulfillment of Intimacy

Whatever individual differences there are in our experience of marriage and family, it is there that we all hope to find our yearning for loving intimacy fulfilled. Intimacy occurs when what is deepest within us touches and is touched by what is deepest within another. Intimacy is the sharing of life from its most mundane to its most extraordinary events and moments. Sharing household chores, changing diapers or caring for a child, discussing our uneventful day, paying bills, taking a walk together, shopping, a kind or encouraging word, a gesture of affection may all seem inconsequential but are significant over time in building intimacy; as are, the larger and more dramatic moments and events of our days and nights –– life threatening illnesses, catastrophic injuries, shared values and faith, lived fidelity, acute crises, bitter sorrows, exuberant happiness, great successes, devastating failures and those moments of decision when “two paths diverge in a yellow wood.” Intimacy comes when we share a long journey together.

Knowledge

Intimacy is a way of knowledge. When Scripture uses the verb “to know” for coitus, as it repeatedly does, it is not fumbling for a euphemism, it is saying something utterly profound about sexual union. The popular evangelical writer Francis Schaffer observed that “animals mate but people meet.” And this meeting, this encounter, between two persons at the deepest level of their being is knowledge, it is enlightenment, and it is literally “love-making.”

It is not without major significance, then, that the Bible uses the word meaning “to know” for both human copulation and wide-awake awareness or consciousness, of God. Indeed, biblically this experiential knowledge of God is life, and joy, and peace.

This is what the Lord says: “Let not the wise boast of their wisdom or the strong boast of their strength or the rich boast of their riches, but let the one who boasts boast about this: that they have the understanding to know me, that I am the Lord, who exercises kindness, justice and righteousness on earth, for in these I delight,” declares the Lord.
–– Jeremiah 9:23-24, NIV

 

For you granted the Christ authority over all people that he might give eternal life to all those you have given him. Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.
–– John 17:2-3, NIV

From the perspective of Judeo/Christian spirituality, then, knowledge and wisdom are profoundly relational –– personal. Love is a way of knowing. Abraham Maslow, the most frequently quoted psychologist in the twentieth century, posited this same connection between love and knowledge more scientifically in writing of a way that transcends the limits of empirical objectivity:

But I propose another path that is, in the sense of greater perspicuity, of greater accuracy of perception of the reality out there outside ourselves, outside the observer. It comes originally from the observation that loving participation, whether as between sweethearts or as between parents and children produced kinds of knowledge that were not available to non-lovers.

Maslow thought that this was further evidenced by the ethological literature ––the study of animals in their natural environment.

Saint Paul is clear on this point with The Corinthians who were intensely occupied with themes of wisdom and mystical theology. His argument can be
outlined like this:

1) No one really knows the thoughts within a person, except the spirit which is in the
person (1 Corinthians 2:11).

2) No one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God who searches the
depths of God and knows the thoughts of God (1 Corinthians 2:10,11).

3) The unspiritual person does not accept the things taught by the Spirit of God, to the “natural” person such things are foolish, for what is spiritual can only be grasped
spiritually (1 Corinthians 2:14).

4) The spiritual person, having been taught the thoughts of God by the Spirit of God, is wise and understanding, and appraises everything; for he or she now
possesses “the mind of Christ” (2:13-16).

5) The spiritually immature within the Christian community are discernible by their
obvious loveless attitudes (1 Corinthians 3:1-3).

6) True wisdom “boasts” only in that “we belong to Christ and Christ belongs to God
(1 Corinthians 3: 18-19, 21,23).

You might consider stoping here and reading chapters two and three of I Corinthians. Then come back and re-read this short outline, holding in mind the simple definition given earlier of intimacy as an encounter between two persons in which what is deepest within one touches and is touched by what is deepest in the other. Such intimacy is love and wisdom and knowledge. It is communion. It is two becoming one. It is what we all dream of, all hope for –– to be known, understood, and loved. It is total fulfillment.

Marriage and Spiritual Practice

Marriage is a spiritual practice, and like all spiritual practices is meant to lead to a deeper and more intense communion with God, a larger consciousness of the presence of Divine Mystery, a greater experience of the One who is Love (1 John 4:7-21). The key biblical text is, of course, Ephesians 5:31-32: “’For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.’ This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church.” That is, Christ and the church are a profound mystery, in that they are not two but one. In the same way husband and wife are also a great mystery in that they are not two but one.

This “mystery” is perhaps best understood by resorting to what is known as inaugurated eschatology, which very basically says the kingdom of God is already here, but will not be fully consummated until Christ’s second coming. Consequently, Saint Paul can refer in the same place to how we wait with sharp anticipation our future adoption as the children of God; and, yet, are even now in this very moment are already the children of God (Galatians 4:1-7, 28). Inaugural eschatology is a way of explaining this mysterious paradox of “the already and the not yet.” At their wedding ceremony a couple enters the state of one becoming one.

To reiterate, then, marriage is the spiritual discipline or practice of union with Christ by husband and wife continuously discovering how to live into this union with each other. The specific and principle dimensions of that practice are stated in Ephesians 5. Because verse 27 is so problematic for contemporary men and women I am going to do a very quick exegesis of the chapter as it relates to Christian spirituality in general and to marriage as a spiritual discipline in particular. Here are the verses as translated in the New American Standard Bible –– one of the more literal if somewhat wooden translations –– followed by my comments:

Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children; and walk in love, just as Christ also loved you and gave Himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God as a fragrant aroma.

Fundamental to Buddhism are the Four Noble Truths: (1) Life is suffering. (2) Suffering is due to craving, desire, or attachment. (3) Letting go of attachments brings freedom from suffering. (4) Following the eight fold path teaches how to let go, and extinguishes desire and its suffering. Islam has the Five Pillars: (1) Faith in Allah as the one God. (2) Ritual Prayer five times daily. (3) Charity, paying the tax to help the poor. (4) Fasting during Ramadan. (5) Pilgrimage to Mecca. And Judaism has the Ten Commandments: (1) Worship Yahweh alone. (2) Do not make idols. (3) Do not take the name of the Lord in vain. (4) Keep the Sabbath holy. (5) Honor your father and mother. (6) Do not kill. (7) Do not commit adultery. (8) Do not steal. (9) Do not testify falsely. (10) Do not covet. And Christianity has the Two Great Precepts: (1) Love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. (2) Love those around you as you love yourself; indeed, love others in the same way Christ loves you (Matthew 22:35-40; Mark 12:28-31; John 13:34). Jesus says that the entire Old Testament hinges on these two precepts. The final test of Christian authenticity is love. “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another” (John 13:35). And Saint Paul taught the earliest Christians that every ethical principle and every moral imperative is rooted in and grows out of these two precepts (Galatians 5:14). And here it is again in Ephesians. The essential mark of Christian spirituality, of the contemplative life, is to be imitators of God, “walking in love as Christ walked in love,” loving as God loves (1 John 4:7-12; Matthew 16:24-26; Luke 17:22-18:4; John 17:1-13). I would suggest that you pause again. Read each of these passages along with Philippians 2:1-11 –– read them slowly, thoughtfully, meditatively. Don’t read them thinking about married life, but rather with regard to what is essential to the beatific vision. This, I think, is good preparation for understanding our problem verse in Ephesians 5. When you are ready begin again here.

But immorality or any impurity or greed must not even be named among you, as is proper among saints; and there must be no filthiness and silly talk, or coarse jesting, which are not fitting, but rather giving of thanks. For this you know with certainty, that no immoral or impure person or covetous person, who is an idolater, has an inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God.

Here Paul addresses the problem of the self-absorbed life –– the life of the person who is “covetous,” who is determined to get what he or she wants when they want it regardless of what anyone else thinks, feels, wants or needs. New Testament Greek scholar William Barclay defined “pleonexia” as an “accursed love of having,” which “will pursue its own interests with complete disregard for the rights of others, and even for the considerations of common humanity.” He labels it an aggressive vice that operates in three spheres of life:

• In the material sphere it involves “grasping at money and goods, regardless of honor and honesty.”
• In the ethical sphere it is “the ambition which tramples on others to gain something which is not properly meant for it.”
• In the moral sphere, it is “the unbridled lust which takes its pleasure where it has no right to take it.”

Here in this text the Apostle Paul identifies it as idolatry. In this instance Paul is thinking of idolatry in the same way as the modern theologian Paul Tillich who asserted that whenever anything other than the truly Ultimate becomes one’s ultimate concern, that is idolatry. It is also , of course, literally polytheism or the worship of many gods. The heart and mind becomes filled with complicated, and at times competing, drives, passions, and ambitions. Paul seems to have this in mind when he advises against coarse jesting and unfitting talk. The Persian wisdom teachers said, “It is not good to talk or joke about what is not allowed.” What they meant is that there are ways of talking about base things that fix them in our mind, nourish their development, and lead to their enactment. What is being discussed is that purity of heart without which we cannot see, or experience the reality of God’s presence and peace (Matthew 5:8); or, as Paul states it here, “No impure, self-serving, or greedy person, who is actually the same as an idolater, has any share in the kingdom, in the spiritual reality of God. ” Soren Kierkegaard said with both simplicity and profundity, “Purity of heart is to will one thing.”

Let no one deceive you with empty words. for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. Therefore do not be partakers with them; for you were formerly darkness, but now you are Light in the Lord; walk as children of Light (for the fruit of the Light consists in all goodness and righteousness and truth), trying to learn what is pleasing to the Lord.

Do not participate in the unfruitful deeds of darkness, but instead even expose them; for it is disgraceful even to speak of the things which are done by them in secret. But all things become visible when they are exposed by the light, for everything that becomes visible is light. For this reason it says, “

Awake, sleeper,
And arise from the dead,
And Christ will shine on you.”

“Werde was du bist.” “Become what you are” –– the “fruit of the Light of Christ.” Your daily work of love no matter how seemingly small or undramatic illuminates the darkness of this world. Become what you are, children of God seeking to know and practice the wisdom of God. Live, then, with hearts awake to the mystery of the ages, which is Christ in you, live in awareness of the peace, power, and presence of God. Learn to live intimately.
“And Christ will shine on you.”

Therefore, be careful how you walk, not as unwise people but as wise, making the most of your time, because the days are evil. So then do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. And do not get drunk with wine, for that is dissipation, but be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody with your heart to the Lord; always giving thanks for all things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God, even the Father; and be subject to one another in the fear of Christ.

To live in wisdom is to buy back, to redeem, to make the most of or fully appropriate our time. The image of someone buying up or cornering the market on something is at play here. But that is a rather strange way to talk about time. This is explained by the fact that in the Greek there are two words for time, Chronos which is clock and calendar or chronological time, and kairos which refers to the opportune moment, the decisive moment, the right moment as when fruit ripens on a tree and is ready to be harvested, it could be thought of in terms of a phrase used in the Hippie Movement –– kairos is “harmonic convergence.” Perhaps for this reason it is used in the New Testament to refer to something like a new or different order of reality. M. Robert Mulholland Jr. in his book Shaped by the Word makes this pertinent observation:

We find Paul in many places (Eph. 5:16 and Col. 4:5 are among the clearest of all) using kairos as though it had something to do with the very context of Christian existence in the world. In some sense Paul seems to be indicating that Christians, as they live their lives in the world, are living in an order of being that was inaugurated in the incarnation of Jesus and will be consummated at his return.

When Paul says, “Fully appropriate for yourselves the kairos: (Eph. 5:16, Col. 4:5), he is saying that we are to fully appropriate for ourselves, to completely immerse ourselves, to totally consecrate ourselves, to unconditionally yield ourselves to this new order of being in Christ which God offers.

This new order is radially different than the old. See, for example, Matthew 20:25-27. It is not about hierarchies, power and control, it is about helping, about compassion, about exercising hesed (loving kindness). It is the antithesis of the self- centered, self-absorbed life. Alfred Adler thought that every human being needs a sense of power –– the satisfaction that comes from knowing one has made a positive contribution to the common good of his or her family, church, or community.

And the feeling that what one thinks, feels, and desires (or fears) means something to those with whom life is shared. When the individual instead feels powerless and discouraged at an early age, he or she may become mistaken about the goal of life, and neurotically conceive of power as control, or status, or getting attention, or revenge –– hurting others in retaliation for the past hurts and humiliations of powerlessness. Charles Manson said that the words “Helter Skelter,” written in blood at both murder scenes, referred to a time when each person would look into his or her own heart and take it out on everyone else. Rollo May said, “Powerlessness corrupts and absolute powerlessness corrupts absolutely.” Sadly, it is power in its more neurotic forms which is most often manifested in Western culture, and which most often furnishes the context for interpreting this text.

A woman, a dear friend and member of a church we served, once asked me who was the boss in our family –– me or Brenda? I answered that there really was no boss. “Well,” she pressed on, “if a decision has to be made and you don’t agree who has the last word, the final say?” “No”, I said, “we just keep talking until eventually we reach a mutual conclusion.” That did not satisfy her at all. So when our daughter came home from college, and we gathered for a church dinner, and were all sitting at the same table she asked our daughter: “Tell me. Who would you say is the boss in your family?” Our daughter thought silently for a long moment and then said, “I used to think Dad was the boss. But Mom makes most of the important decisions so I guess she is.” With that our friend was satisfied. It is a satisfying answer because it follows the logic of this world. But the logic of the heavenly realm is harder to grasp.

It is the sort of logic, which maintains that, “the greatest is the one who is the servant of all.” The highest is the one who has gone deepest. The “blessed” is the one who is poorest and weakest –– the anawhim. And the fullest is the one who is most empty. I love Eugene Peterson’s translation of Philippians 4:4-5, “Celebrate God all day, every day. I mean, revel in him! Make it as clear as you can to all  you meet you are on their side,  working with them and not against them.” It is as difficult to comprehend this with the mind as it is to understand it with the heart. More difficult still is to live it, but that is precisely what this verse is requiring.

The main thing that should now be noted is that when Paul urges the Ephesians to be in subjection to one another he is saying nothing at all different than what he has already said about what is absolutely necessary to Christian spirituality, about what is essential for knowing God, for seeing God, for becoming one with Christ. Communion with God grows, as we love with pure hearts. To love is to serve and to serve is love, and this practice of love and service is one “thing.” It is mystical knowledge.

Wives, be subject to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is the head of the church, He Himself being the Savior of the body. But as the church is subject to Christ, so also the wives ought to be to their husbands in everything.

The English word “head,” used metaphorically, is almost automatically assumed to mean “the one in charge or in authority;” however, the Greek term can also refer to the source of something –– that which feeds or nourishes. Thus, Christ is the head of the church in that he feeds and nourishes it, and cares for it, and gives himself up for it. In fact, it is only in the context of Christ giving himself up for and nourishing the church that the husband in Ephesians can be said to be the head.

The husband is to show love for his wife by remaining faithful to her alone, by a willingness to sacrifice himself for her needs, by supporting her spiritual growth, and by seeing and respecting her as a person. The wife submits to her husband by being loyal only to him and no other man, by encouraging him, by working for what is in his legitimate best interest, and by being a true partner in the business of life (Proverbs 31:10-31).

It becomes even more difficult to read this verse in a flat one-dimensional
manner when it is recognized that the word translated as “submit to,” or “be subject to” is simply, due to the peculiarities of the Greek language, not in the text at verse 22. It has to be supplied by the translator trying to make good English sense. That is, in verse 22 the English word “submit” translates a Greek word that is not actually in the text. It does occur however in verse 21, which can, in part, be literally translated as: “submitting yourselves to one another in reverence to Christ.” Passages like the fifth chapter of Ephesians come originally from the Greco/Roman household codes. These were short statements of how to act ethically, or appropriately, or orderly in various relationships and settings – kind of like All I Need to Know I learned in Kindergarten by Robert Fulghum. I enjoyed Fulghum’s book, and suspect its very simplicity was helpful to a large number of people. Of course, Fulghum didn’t literally learn everything he needed to know in kindergarten, and Ephesians 5 is not an exhaustive treatment of marriage and family relationships. It has to be interpreted within its own written context and within the context of the light of Christ. To regard this passage as saying nothing more than that all future arguments between a couple will be decided by agreeing, in advance, that the one, based on gender, will always be right, reduces the text to a logical absurdity, and renders it too trivial to be of any consequence to the contemplative life.

By now it should be clear that this passage has nothing to do with obsequious devotion. For the wife to be in subjection to the husband is no different than what it means for all Christians to be in subjection to one another. Or, for that matter what it means for a husband to love his wife. It’s all the same thing. “It is,” someone said, “demeaning to the mysteriousness of the one flesh union between husband and wife to define it in terms of a hierarchy.” It is demeaning because divine union pertains only between persons. Jordan and Margaret Paul stated the issue succinctly as a question in the title of their book: Do I Have to Give Up Me to Be Loved by You? To speak of becoming one with someone who has been reduced to a non-entity is meaningless.

Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her, so that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she would be holy and blameless. So husbands ought also to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself; for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ also does the church, because we are members of His body.

By way of furnishing a larger context for this comment, I begin with a paraphrase and elaboration of 1 Corinthians 13:1-13 –– Saint Paul’s description of what love is like:

–– “enduring the hard thing in such a way as to turn it to glory,” appreciating and affirming life in the midst of suffering, waiting for the answer to unfold naturally like a cherry blossom.
–– food for the hungry, shelter for the homeless, medicine for the sick, encouragement for the disheartened. It is gentle yet strong. It is sensitive, yet sturdy.
–– it is courageous, fearing no loss or separation. Love is not envious. It does not desire to possess.
–– poised. Love therefore is not boastful, arrogant or rude. It is as gracious as a welcoming host, and as appreciative as an honored guest.
–– love forgoes its own rights for the sake of gaining rights for others. Love does not insist on its own rights if it harms or costs others their rights.

–– love is, therefore, not easily angered by every inconvenience, by the little things that get in our way or annoy us.
–– it finds no pleasure in keeping track of what our enemies owe us for the pain they have caused us; and it finds no satisfaction when people act in ways that prove our negative judgments of them were correct.

–– regardless of who that person is, or what the circumstances may be.
–– love believes that the center of everything is absolutely trustworthy and good; and, that “while the situation may not be trustworthy, God is.”

— love knows that no person or situation is ever beyond redemption, and is always open to being surprised by joy, by truth, by grace.

With this picture of love in mind, then, we are prepared to observe here in Ephesians 5:25-30 that husbands must love their wives with a love that is the same in kind and quality as that with which Christ loves the community of faith, the household of God, the church which is his own mystical body. He who loves his wife loves himself. How could it be otherwise if the two are one? The husband’s love is, therefore, one that seeks to nourish everything good in her spirit, and cherishes her person as sacred. Notice that at the deeper level there is no essential difference between subjection and love. The entangling distinctions of power and authority often debated by Bible commentators are cultural in nature and primarily, denials to the contrary, about willfulness, but with a deeper reading of Scripture in the light of Christ that all eventually disappears until only the guiding mystery of Christ’s love remains.

For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and shall be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. This mystery is great; but I am speaking with reference to Christ and the church. Nevertheless, each individual among you also is to love his own wife even as himself, and the wife must see to it that she respects her husband.

In A Brief History of Time Stephen Hawking said we are very close to understanding how the universe was made, but if we knew why we would know the mind of God. A fascinating statement from an atheist, but apparently one who nevertheless appreciates the mystery that runs through the whole universe and holds the cosmos in cupped hands. It is the audacious claim of Christians that they do indeed have the mind of Christ; and to further assert in trembling reverence and humility that they therefore know why it was made. Christian experience, tradition, and Scripture all converge in trusting that the universe was created by Love, through Love, in Love, and for Love (Ephesians 1:1ff.).

Invitation to Communion

So, verses 22-33 return us to the focal point of Christian spirituality –– union, communion, sacred intimacy, a loving oneness that can only be described as holy. Placed before us is not a list of onerous marital demands, but an invitation to discover in marriage a way to enter into union with the mystical presence of Christ.

Larry Hart

Family life is full of major and minor crises–– the ups and downs of health, the stresses of success and failure in career, and in marriage itself. It is inhabited by all kinds of characters. It is tied tightly to places and events and histories. With all of these felt details, family life etches itself into memory and personality. It’s difficult to imagine anything potentially more nourishing to the soul.

–– Thomas Moore

Everyday Household Spirituality

“I can’t schedule anything on Wednesdays”, I tell my friends, “it’s my house cleaning day –– one of the most important days of the week for me.” I am being neither funny nor facetious in saying this. Nor am I expressing my “feminine side,” I actually don’t have much of a “feminine side” to express. No, my Wednesday house cleaning, like walking the dog four times a day, putting out the trash or washing the dishes all have to do with what the Thomas Moore quote used here says: “The ordinary acts we practice every day at home are of more importance to the soul than their simplicity might suggest.” In a true spirituality of the heart “all our endeavors can become deeply spiritual acts.” Cleaning house is, therefore, a spiritual endeavor for me; that is, as long as I allow it to carry me into a silent awareness of love, humility, and presence.

Wednesday house cleaning is, in fact, written down in my personal rule of life, along with other disciplines like prayer, meditation, sacred reading, and communal worship. A former nun, told me that in the convent they tried to tell her, that ordinary chores like dusting, mopping or scrubbing toilets was inner spiritual work. “But,” she says, “I didn’t ever buy it.” And one does, of course have to “buy it,” buy it as a mystical manifestation of love in search of Sacred Presence, in order for any act to become a spiritual practice.

I remember reading decades ago in Keith Miller’s Taste of New Wine, of a pivotal moment in his own spiritual growth. From the time he and Mary Ellen were first married they had argued over who should take out the trash. Then one night as he reflected on what he could do, in the spirit of Christ, to be a more loving husband to Mary Ellen, Miller’s glance fell on the wastebasket. “No Lord,” he groaned quietly to himself, “not the wastebasket! Take my income, anything.” But he knew within himself, that for him it had to be the wastebasket. Without saying a word he took it out. He had taken it out before when he wanted to manipulate her into doing something he wanted to do, but this time, and from then on, he took it out because he knew this was the place where his “pride was fastened.” Whatever is done in love and for love is a genuine spiritual practice that brings us closer to God. Marriage and family is a way to God.

Two More New Testament Wisdom Sayings

With this in mind, then, there are two more pericopes worth reflecting on in understanding marriage as a part of the Christian contemplative life. They are both quite short and need little comment since their similarity to what has already been said about the fifth chapter of Ephesians is so obvious. But each further supports marriage and family in its own way as a path leading into mystical communion with God. They are both from the little Epistle of I Peter and are my own translations. Although not literal word for word renderings I think they nevertheless reflect accurately the meaning of each. The first reading is from 1 Peter 2:15-17 and says:

God’s will for all of you is that by doing good and showing kindness to everyone you might be the cure of ignorance –– especially the ignorance of those who think you are a threat to the common good. Live your life so that it is obvious to everyone that your freedom in Christ means serving God, and is not an excuse for doing evil. Be loyal to the beloved community, honor the dignity of everyone you meet, be respectful of government officials and reverence God . . . Wives, in this same way, honor your husbands so that even if they are indifferent to the deeper spiritual life they may possibly experience a change of heart and mind as day by day they see the compelling beauty of your inner life in your outward behavior.

This text will remind anyone who has read modern Family Systems Therapy of one of its central tenets; namely, that the healthiest persons psychologically and emotionally know who they are, know what they feel, think and believe, and where they are going, without attempting to coerce anyone else into thinking, feeling, believing, or acting as they do. They may invite others to join with them, but the very nature of invitation respects the freedom of the other to choose otherwise. Indeed, no one can change another person against his or her will –– not by lecturing, not by moralizing, not by bribery, and not by “nagging” or logical argument. In fact, such attempts tend to be counter-productive –– usually serving only to further entrench the other individual in the negative behavior. The only person we can really change is our own-self; sometimes, not always but sometimes, the other person will then change in response to the change in us. The kind of “submission” or “subjection” Peter has in mind here is not a weak or cowardly acquiescence to the whims of another, but a letting go, a moving with the currents of the Spirit, a losing of the self in the mystery of Divine love.

The second reading is from 1Peter 3:7:

The same goes for you husbands: Be good husbands to your wives. Honor them, delight in them. As women they lack some of the social, cultural and legal advantages and resources you have as males. But in the new life and order of God’s grace, you are equals. If you are equals then treat your wife as a true spiritual fellow so that your prayers will not be hindered.

Notice two things. First, the wife is not a “weaker vessel,” as the King James Version put it, because she is inherently inferior to the man, but as a woman in the first century faces cultural challenges and difficulties not experienced by her husband or other males. Second, notice that if the husband is not living in consideration of his wife’s feelings, dreams, and needs it obstructs, or interferes, with his prayers and impoverishes his spiritual life. This can only mean that marriage is, as contended here, a genuine
spiritual practice.

Marriage and Sex

One of the first things that needs to be said, regarding sex and marriage is that sex is intended for pleasure. There is no book more erotic, not pornographic but erotic, than the Old Testament’s “Song of Solomon. ” It is most likely a compilation of the songs used in the week-long celebration of an ancient Jewish wedding, and as such sings of the joy of sex and its spiritual implications, but it does not mention the conception and birth of children. That occurs in other passages but not in the “Song of Solomon.” Sex is for joy. It is obviously also for procreation, but that it is the way in which new life may be brought into the world, does not negate it as a gift meant to bring happiness and physical pleasure. Psalm 104:15 says, “God made wine to gladden human hearts, oil to make their faces shine, and bread that sustains them.” The abuse wine, bread and sex may wreak havoc in a human life, but that doesn’t mean they are not intended for pleasure. Or, how about Proverbs 5:18,19? I quote it with Wheat & Wheat’s explanatory notes included: “Let your fountain [your body parts which produce life] be blessed, and rejoice [or ecstatically delight] with the wife of your youth . . . Let her breasts satisfy you at all times, and be ravished [or filled] always with her love.” And I especially like Proverbs 30:18-19:

Three things are too wonderful for me, four that I can’t figure out:
the way of an eagle in the sky, the way of a snake on the rock,
the way of a ship out on the open sea,
and the way of a man with a woman.

I like Proverbs 30 because it catches the mystery of the pleasure of sex. To repeat my quote of the popular evangelical author from the late twentieth century, Francis Schaffer, “Animals mate, but people meet.” Whether we are aware of it or not sexual intercourse involves the whole person –– body, mind, and spirit. Sex is never a matter of indifference, but for better or worse affects who and what we are. Sex is good and beautiful but becomes ugly, perverted and evil when it is coercive, exploitative, abusive or uses another person purely as an object of self-gratification. Marriage itself offers no guarantee that sexual intercourse will be either genuinely pleasurable or healthy. In the physical intensity and ecstasy of sexual pleasure, and partly because of it, the mystery of intimacy occurs. And so Saint Paul wrote to the Corinthians, the first truly urban Christians of the first century: “Do you not know that whoever is united to a prostitute becomes one body with her? For it is said, The two shall be one flesh” (1 Corinthians 6:16).

There were some people in the Christian community of Corinth, that were, what might be called “proto-gnostic” in their thinking. They thought of themselves as spiritually ascendant. If they had lived in the twentieth century they might have claimed to be more “spiritually evolved.” The physical body and its actions were therefore, they asserted, irrelevant. Jerome Murphy-O’Connor, O.P. in his brief but fine commentary on 1 Corinthians writes insightfully of the above verse:

The body is, therefore, morally relevant . . . The divine purpose was that the act of intercourse should found a permanent union of two persons. They should become interdependent parts of a single entity. The act of intercourse, therefore, implies the acceptance of responsibilities for the other. Union with a prostitute on the contrary, is intended to be transitory. Permanent commitment is positively excluded and this is what makes it impossible for a Christian . . . In casual fornication with a prostitute the other person is not empowered to grow; the other person is used for selfish gratification.

The lack of commitment constitutes a similar problem for sex outside of marriage. In our society sex is generally far too premature, so that it “short circuits” the whole process involved in a couple coming to genuinely “know” each other. What they experience is the sensate pleasure without any idea of the depths to which given the requisite leisure, that experience could have taken them. And having known sex only as this short circuited experience, may never know the heights it is capable of helping them reach. It should also be noted, that since sex is the rhythm of two becoming one, the act of intercourse without consideration or love for the other is a hindrance to the growth of both persons.

Basic Principle of Practice

Since this is not a paper on how to have a happy marriage, but on marriage as a spiritual practice I will try to do my best not to stray into marriage and family therapy; however, there are some basic principles you might want to reflect on that may be both therapeutic and helpful to the work of spiritual formation at the same time. At least, I hope so.

First of all, there is an immeasurable difference between a marriage begun without reservations and one entered into with reservations. “Until death do us part,” leads not only to a different final destination, but to a different experience of every moment than, “for as long as our love lasts.” But let me be clear. I am not saying there are no Biblical grounds for divorce. That is simply not what Scripture says.

Jesus’s words in the Gospels have often been quoted to rigidly assert adultery as the only grounds for divorce. There are a couple of problems with this interpretation and assertion. The Greek word porneia, which is translated as “adultery,” actually means something more like “sexual immorality. “It is the word from which the English word “pornography” comes. Not only does this broaden the so called exception clause considerably, but 1 Corinthians 7:8-17 provides a second and different exception clause. This seems to suggest, that the Biblical injunctions, whether in the Old or New Testament, were never meant to be used as a doctrinal club for mercilessly battering those whose marriages fail. Indeed, this is further demonstrated by the fact that Mosaic Law provided for divorce. While Jesus says that the Mosaic provision falls short of the ideal will of God he does not set it aside. What he does do is to expose its use as a justification for a kind of serial polygamy. Isn’t it “funny,” that historically rather than dealing with the divorced harshly and judgmentally, there has not been more of a resort to Jesus’s response to the woman at the well (John 4:4-26)? The ideal, the will of God, has from the very beginning, been that a couple embrace one another lovingly, and then in that embracing, in that holding to one another, become one while paradoxically and mysteriously each not only remains but becomes his or her true self. This simply can’t happen where there are reservations, for every reservation means I want you today but I may not want you tomorrow; and, therefore, whether aware or unaware must always hold you at arms-length.

At least in passing I want to note that many marriages would have gotten into far less difficulty if people had simply remembered to treat and speak to one another with common courtesy and ordinary civility. As previously noted, the Apostle Peter urged that in marriage we treat one another with consideration so that our prayers are not hindered. We can’t be chronically inconsiderate, self-centered, or angry without it affecting our ability to pray and our capacity for mystery. At work people approach difficulties as problems to be solved – problems that they are perfectly capable of solving. When I worked in a counseling practice, clients would frequently call to say, “I have to reschedule my appointment for this evening. There is a crisis at work and we have all been asked to stay to solve the problem.” But at home problems are framed as battles to be fought – and the person to whom we are married as an uncaring adversary. Far from being adversarial marriage ought to be an ever growing friendship. Cicero said, “friendship is complete sympathy in all matters of importance plus genuine good will and sincere affection.” I’ll leave it to you to ponder what this may mean in terms of shared values and desires. And, what it may have to do with what Scripture imagines as “friendship with God.” We, of course, need good boundaries, and if we are incapable, in any relationship, of saying, “no,” then our “yes” really means nothing. Good boundaries mean that there is some sort of internal self-regulation of what we let in and out of our heart and mind. It means that we know how to be assertive without being angry or selfish – we are able to say what we mean and we mean what we say. And, we are able to see and to acknowledge, the needs, hopes, and fears of another as important. like all the silly proof-texting of Cloud and Townsend’s book, Boundaries; however, if this is a problem area for you it does articulate a number of helpful principles. Here I will simply acknowledge that we are talking about love – agape. And, love has to do with our working for the legitimate best interest of another without seeking to fulfill our own personal agenda, even our personal desire to be loved, when and where we have the power to do so.

None of us can change another human being against his or her will. We can’t really control other people – not even if our motives are good and what we want for them would truly be in everyone’s best interest. The best we can do is to discover who we are and where we are going, leaving others free to join us or not While we can’t control life or other people we can change ourselves, and when we have done that the people around us and close to us will very likely also change. For one thing, free from the need to resist being controlled, they have the space to reflect on what they genuinely want, and believe best; for another, the whole emotional and spiritual dynamic of our relationship will have shifted so we are simply no longer the same person and must be related to differently. However, the changes we make in ourselves, must not be mere techniques or methods employed to change the other person. They must be genuine.

Beyond Household Codes

Read Ephesians 5:1-21 again. Well, you really ought to read the whole book – it’s just six short chapters. It is a wonderful book about what it means to be alive in Christ and for Christ to be alive in us. It is about husbands and wives and children, and even slaves and masters in that first century world seeing their existence and all of reality as animated by reciprocity – mutual respect, consideration, and love. In his epistles, Paul utilized Greco/Roman household codes as a culturally relevant way of communicating this principle to first century families. But if we cannot see how what he says actually transcends that world, and ours as well, then we have seen nothing.

At the most basic level we ought to be able to recognize how, in the way he utilizes the ordinary household codes, Paul demonstrates how our life in Christ changes the trajectory of our entire existence. Compare Ephesians with Xenophon who said the aim for the respectable upper class Greek woman was “to be seen as little as possible, to hear as little as possible, and to ask as little as possible.” Demosthenes stated as the accepted rule: “We have courtesans for the sake of pleasure; we have concubines for the sake of daily cohabitation; we have wives for having children legitimately and serving as faithful guardians of our household affairs.” Talk about fragmentation.

Roman fathers were endowed with nearly limitless power over their family, including grown children. This patria potestas, “the father’s power” gave the father legal rights over his children until the father’s death. These powers included the right to arrange marriages or force divorce, expose a new born child, disown, sell, or even kill his child. Of course, even though a father had these legal rights, it did not mean these acts were common. But it does say something about the underlying assumptions of parenting. In contrast, Ephesians 6:1-4 speaks of the family relationship of parent and child as having to do with listening, that is the meaning that lies behind the word “obedience,” respect, and teaching in a way that is positive and encouraging rather than a way that is harsh and provokes resentment.

Children, we know, thrive best where expectations are high but reasonable, and where there is a lot of support in meeting expectations. It’s like the parent is always saying, “I know this may be difficult but you can do it, and I am here to help you succeed.” Many years ago a group of boys on their way to high school in an old VW Bug, distracted by a white rat that had gotten loose in the car, ran off the little road that ran along the hill right above our house. They crashed through our back fence, broke off a water hydrant, and stopped just short of the house itself. That evening the young driver and his father showed up at our house with tools. “Good evening,” said the father, “we are here to repair the damage done this morning.” He wasn’t angry, or upset with his son. “We like to clean up our messes,” he said. There was nothing punishing in what he said or did. He was trying to teach his son that when we create a mess, we have a responsibility to clean it up. And here is how it might be done. That’s what Paul is talking about, and that is the everyday spirituality of family – not all of it, but a big part of it.

Seeing Real

The spiritual practice of marriage and family ought to result in seeing the other, feeling the other, experiencing the other, as real. That’s what the fictional character of Lizzie in The Rainmaker is talking about as she describes watching and truly seeing her father.
Marriage and family are a way to God. They are a way to God because they are a practice in the spiritual art of deep seeing. The ideal of all spiritual life is to see God, to feel God, to experience God, to know God as real. Now I don’t know if Richard N. Nash, the author of The Rainmaker, ever actually had Lizzie’s experience himself, but I know for certain that it is not merely a dramatic literary image. I have had such an experience on several occasions in more than five decades of marriage. Usually in the midst of the most mundane moments and ordinary events – the two of us getting ready for work, doing dishes, her playing the guitar and singing as I quietly read at the end of the day. I am talking about profoundly spiritual experiences, mystically gifted moments in which I have looked at my wife Brenda and thought how astonishingly beautiful she is, how good and how wise, and how utterly blessed I am that someone like me could be joined to someone like her. And in those moments when I “see” her, I feel that my hope of realizing the beatific vision has drawn closer. How does that song go?

Oh Lord, you’re beautiful, Your face is all I seek,
And when your eyes are on this child,
Your love abounds to me

In the movie As Good As It Gets, the Melvin Udall character, played by Jack Nicholson, is pressed by Carol (Helen Hunt), his romantic interest, to come up with a compliment for her. This is a real challenge for Melvin who suffers from an Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder and is terribly self-absorbed. But Melvin who has been growing in his capacity for relationship as he has been forced to care for a little mutt of a dog, and as he has watched how Carol cares for her asthmatic son, respects everyone one she meets, and is so generous with her sympathy, has an amazing answer –– it is the best compliment Carol has ever received. That brief part of their conversation goes like this:

Melvin: I’ve got a really great compliment for you, and it’s true.
Carol: I’m so afraid you’re about to say something awful.
Melvin: Don’t be pessimistic. It’s not your style. Okay, here I go: Clearly, a mistake. I’ve got this, what – ailment? My doctor, a shrink that I used to go to all the time, he says that in fifty or sixty percent of the cases, a pill really helps. I hate pills, very dangerous thing, pills. Hate. I’m using the word “hate” here, about pills. Hate. My compliment is, that night when you came over and told me that you would never… all right, well, you were there, you know what you said. Well, my compliment to you is, the next morning I started taking the pills.
Carol: I don’t quite get how that’s a compliment for me.
Melvin: You make me want to be a better person. And that makes me feel good––about me.

The more we practice love, respect, and presence beginning with those nearest and dearest to us, the more we grow in both our desire and capacity for intimacy and the more helpful we become in encouraging others to awaken to the depths of love that may be slumbering in them. Marriage and family are a way to God.

A Question in the Dark

Finally, let me suggest the use of a question I found helpful one dark night decades ago. I had begun constantly complaining and grumbling to myself about what I was not getting out of my marriage and family. At the time we lived in a house built on the steep side of a coastal mountain forested by tall Redwood trees. Our bedroom was on the lower floor, and because the only windows were below the trees it was so dark with the lamps turned off that as the old worn saying goes, “You could not see your hand in front of your face.” One night there in the dark I began my internal complaining, but this time there was a gentle realization that appeared –– like the soft light of a candle. “Larry,” my inner voice said, “you need to stop this. You are being sucked down into a black whirlpool. Maybe,” it went on, “you would be better off asking not what you are getting, but what Brenda and the kids need from you.” It had about it the quality of both question and invitation. It may have come from having read Viktor Frankl some years earlier. Frankl said that in the Death Camp he learned to ask not what he demanded of life, but what life demanded of him. But, I am convinced that in that dark night it was ultimately God speaking, calling, inviting. And, I can say that taking that little trail has led to the most amazing vista points.

Two Final Disclaimers

Nothing I have written here should be construed to even suggest that marriage
and family is essential to intimacy with God or the fulfillment of our spiritual longing.
If you are unmarried, and have either no interest in or hope of marriage, then you will need to discover what the everyday living of the single life means in terms of the poetic, the mystical life. Whether you are happily or unhappily married the question is the same –– how can the particular circumstances of your life here and now become the means God has placed in your hands for your spiritual transformation –– windows through which the light of Christ shines into your heart.

I also worry that I may have written with far less humility here than I should have. There is in the Apocrypha wisdom literature of the Old Testament a wonderful meditation to be found in Ecclesiasticus 2:21-23: “Do not pry into things too hard for you or examine what is beyond your reach. Meditate on the precepts you have been given; what the Lord keeps secret is no concern of yours. Do not busy yourself with matters that are beyond you; even what has been shown you is above human grasp.” So alas I must admit to my chagrin, I have been talking about things that are really quite beyond me.

Larry Hart

But yield who will to their separation,
My object in living is to unite
My avocation and my vocation
As my two eyes make one in sight. Only where love and need are one, and the work is play for mortal stakes, is the deed ever really done
For heaven and the future’s sakes.
–– Robert Frost

The Wisdom of “Two Tramps in Mud Time”
Much has been written on the meaninglessness of work in the modern and now postmodern world – the mindless and repetitive assembly line of the industrial age, and the monotonous hours writing code, tediously entering data, staring at anesthetizing screens day after day in the postmodern age. Not long ago someone who manages computer programmers for a living told me how much he hates his job. “I wish I could have been a farmer instead,” he said. He hates his job, but makes too much money that makes too many things possible for his wife and children, for him to just walk away. Indeed, no matter how wearisome or mind numbing people may find their jobs they are nevertheless usually grateful to be earning an income. Even in books on spirituality authors frequently struggle with work as “that which we do for income” and play as “what we do for joy.” But notice how Robert Frost in poetic simplicity untangles that knot.

Two hulking tramps, lumberjacks, come out of the woods. They need work and see Frost cutting wood, not in order to buy bread, but for the pleasure of it, for the sheer joy of it. True it needs doing, but for Frost it is a joy to chop the wood. Frost says of these two woodcutters: “They thought all chopping was theirs of right… As that I had no right to play with what was another man’s work for gain… My right might be love but theirs was need…” Frost does not deny the logic of need but he unites it with the right of joyful love.

My object in living is to unite
My avocation and my vocation
As my two eyes make one in sight.

In sharing the discovery that his avocation and vocation are just as much one as his two eyes are in making one in sight, Frost points the way to poetic enlightenment. The contemplative way is not about distinguishing between need and love as used here, or differentiating between vocation and avocation, but in seeing the two as one. Only in this way can the wisdom saying of Saint Benedict, “My work is my prayer,” ever really make sense.

A vocation, from the Latin “vocario” meaning a “call or summons,” is an occupation to which a person is especially drawn, suited, trained, or qualified. Though “vocation” is now generally used in a secular sense, there are even professionals who do vocational testing and counseling, the use of the word originated in a religious context. Whether understood more specifically and “supernaturally,” for want of a better term, or more generally and “naturally,” Christians have traditionally tended to think of each individual as created or endowed by God with certain gifts, and talents orienting them toward a specific purpose and way of life. Before the sixteenth century its primary reference was to the “call” of God to all human kind to that large, spacious and free life Christians are talking about, or are supposed to have in mind, when they use the word “salvation.” Beyond that it was used in speaking of the “call” or “vocation” to the priesthood. The Roman Catholic Church actually recognizes four vocations – marriage, single life, religious and ordained life. Martin Luther went further to include what we would recognize as most secular occupations. In its broadest sense the Christian idea of vocation includes the use of one’s gifts in work, family, church and civic life for the sake of the greater common good.

Community Feeling
Alfred Adler, the brilliant Viennese medical doctor who with Freud and Jung was among the earliest pioneers of depth psychology, developed this theme in his concept of gemeinschaftsgefuhl. This rather unwieldy German word coined by Adler is usually translated as “social interest,” but for our purposes is perhaps better and certainly more simply rendered as “community feeling.” It’s what Saint Paul meant when in Romans 12:10 he wrote, “Love one another with brotherly affection;” or, what Hebrews 13:1 says in encouraging the persecuted Christian community, “Let brotherly love continue.” Social interest, community feeling, brotherly affection is invariably evidenced by a “useful style of life.” Without social interest, community feeling, or affection for our fellows we become self-absorbed and concerned only with our own interests. Such a style of life, said Adler, is useless.

Four young men in their mid-twenties, all living with their parents in an affluent California beach town, spent their days surfing, hanging out, and smoking pot; and their nights drinking and causing trouble in the local night clubs. None of them went to college and none of them worked. One night they got into an altercation with another young man from the same “community” that they knew but apparently didn’t like. They followed him home from the bar where the four of them attacked him. The largest of the four hit him with enough force to knock him backwards and down to the asphalt where he hit his head hard and died. The last I heard of the case the father of the young man who struck the fatal blow was still screaming, “Injustice!” and attempting to get his son out of prison. In general the useless life is not particularly pathological or necessarily evil. It is just meaningless.

Those who have social interest, according to Adler, develop a “style of life” that extends beyond their own individual and private interests to concern for the well being of the larger community. This community feeling will be evidenced in a “useful style of life.” But without community feeling the individual is entangled in a self-absorbed, self-centered, self-aggrandizing style of life that can only be characterized as “useless.”

Adler thought of neurosis as a form of reality evasion. Mistaken about the goal of human relationships, the how and the why of human relations, the neurotic individual lives within a dysfunctional set of self-created and self- imposed thoughts and behaviors that are always, in the end, self-defeating, and increasingly lead to feelings of having done nothing and of having been nothing that truly matters. The “mistake” is, of course, made in the individuals early childhood, the mistake that one’s primary aim in life is self-gratification, attention getting, or power and control. The mistake is that ultimate fulfillment lies along the lines of self-interest rather than community feeling. Consequently, Paul urges the Christian community, “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others” (Philippians 2:3-5).

Adler’s work led him to further explore feelings of “inferiority” and to investigate issues we would now think of, at least on the popular level, as involving questions of self-esteem. The simple fact is that every occupation and every “accomplishment” has a limited stress-bearing load; that is, its capacity for providing a sense of meaning, satisfaction and fulfillment is limited, is finite. The Jesuit priest, psychologist, spiritual director and author Henri J.M. Nouwen wrote in Out of Solitude: Three Meditations on the Christian Life:

It is not difficult to see that, in our particular world, we all have a desire to accomplish something. Some of us think in terms of great dramatic changes in the structure of our society. Others want to build a house, write a book, invent a machine, or win a trophy. And some of us seem content when we just do something worthwhile for someone. But practically all of us think about ourselves in terms of our contribution to life. And when we have become old, much of our feelings of unhappiness or sadness depend on our evaluation of the part we have played in giving shape to our world and its history. As Christians we even feel a special call to do something good for someone but although the desire to be useful can be a sign of mental and spiritual health in our goal-oriented society, it can also become the source of a paralyzing lack of self-esteem.

It is perhaps important to make a small clarification here. Adler and Nouwen are not in contradiction. Social interest, or community feeling, is not in opposition to Nouwen’s insight that “even doing good for someone” can lead to “a paralyzing lack of self-esteem.” The two are in complete agreement in observing that anything, even something good, when done with a self- enhancing purpose becomes the antithesis of the spiritual life and its power to do either ourselves or others genuine good is diminished or negated all together. The rule of Jesus is that whatever good is done must be done with no thought of reward, otherwise we lose the greater reward of knowing the ineffable presence and reality of God.

The Meaning is in the Love
At the risk of being thought of as engaging in simplistic proof-texting, searching for and citing a passage or passages of scripture that support whatever position an author or speaker has predetermined to uphold, I am going to reflect on a Biblical text that has been rather pivotal in my own personal meditations. The text is the first chapter of Saint Paul’s Epistle to the Ephesians. I have personally found this passage to be of what I can only describe as ultimate significance in revealing to me the mysterious meaning of my own life, as well as, I think, of every sentient being, and of every atom in the universe. It is not within the scope of this conversation to do an exegesis of the entire chapter, and it would most likely be helpful for you to reflect on it in the quiet of your own mind and in the stillness of your own heart, but there is time and space to note what I think is of special relevance to our discussion here.

First read verses three through fourteen as a whole:

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him. In love He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved. In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace , which He lavished on us. In all wisdom and insight He made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His kind intention which He purposed in Him with a view to an administration suitable to the fullness of the times, that is, the summing up of all things in Christ, things in the heavens and things on the earth. In Him also we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to His purpose who works all things after the counsel of His will, to the end that we who were the first to hope in Christ would be to the praise of His glory. In Him, you also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation—having also believed, you were sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is given as a pledge of our inheritance, with a view to the redemption of God’s own possession, to the praise of His glory.

This is not a passage of scripture that is easily outlined or followed sequentially, that is because from verse three through fourteen it is all one sentence. It is more of a lyrical song that it is a well-reasoned statement or argument. As he writes Paul the Apostle is not thinking in a sequential fashion, but rather he is overwhelmed, filled, with a sense of wonder at the mysterious workings and purpose of God:

1) By a consciousness of having been chosen, along with all human kind, before the foundation of the world by The One Who Is.
2) By a consciousness that we are chosen to be lavishly blessed spiritually.
3) By a consciousness that we have been chosen to be holy (different from everything profane, chosen to be counter cultural), and blameless (consecrating what is best within us to the purposes and compassionate concerns of God).
4) By a consciousness of having been set free, “delivered,” from that blind self-will which imprisons all humanity – liberated from our obsessive-compulsive life-styles.
5) By a consciousness of God’s great eternal and cosmic plan.
I use the word consciousness above because what Paul longs for us to know can be caught in the poetic feel of a song better than it can be said in ordinary prose.

As Paul writes the words come spilling out and tumble over one another in spiritual ecstasy. The blessing, the “inheritance,” the grace, the sheer wonder of God’s mysterious movement and mystical rhythm defy all dictionary definitions, all theological theories, and all philosophical speculation. Here Paul sings of God’s purpose, and therefore the ultimate meaning of our own lives, in polyvalent lyrics. Paul’s way of singing it is, “That we might be holy and blameless before God. In love.” The Hebrew word for holy is “qodesh” and means “apartness, set-apartness, separateness, sacredness.” We might reasonably extend the meaning then to include “otherness, transcendent and wholly other.” In the New Testament, the word for holy is “hagios” and means, “set apart, sacred, what holds special and precious significance, and what is worthy of reverence or veneration.” A chalice, for example, may be holy not because it is materially different from all other chalices, but because it has been set apart, set-aside, consecrated for use in the Eucharistic worship of God, and is used for no other purpose. To the extent that any man or woman has his or her heart consecrated to God he or she is holy.

“The word “blameless” originally had to do with ritual sacrifices. It had to do with what is whole, or integrated. An animal offered on the sacrificial altar could only be offered if it was whole, healthy, and complete. In the New Testament James captures the essence of the term in assuring his readers that the life challenges we face on our journey can, if it is our desire, work in such a way as to make us “perfect and complete.” Biblically what is perfect is not necessarily beyond all further improvement, but it is appropriate to and fulfills the purpose for which it was made or intended. A colt bred and trained as a racehorse is perfect if it runs fast. A tool is perfect when it is just the right tool for the job at hand — functions in the way it was intended to function. The sacrificial lamb in ancient Hebrew worship was perfect when it was appropriate for representing the giving of one’s self to God. A blemished lamb – sick or injured and therefore of little market value, could never be appropriate for signifying deep gratitude, remorse for serious wrongs, or profound commitment and devotion. Human beings are perfect when it can be said they live in the way they were created to live. We are perfect when it can be said that the pattern of our lives reflects a “harmonic convergence” with kindness, caring, and Divine Mystery.

The Divine intention, according to our text, is that we live “to the praise of God’s glory.” The early church father Irenaeus said: “The Glory of God is a human being fully alive.” In his helpful little book written in 1976 John Powell, S.J., who is both a priest and psychologist, modified Irenaeus to say in one of his books: “The Glory of God is a man or woman fully human, fully alive.” What is the glory of an artist? Isn’t it the beauty of a painting, a sculpture, or perhaps a piece of music? What is the glory of a parent? Isn’t it children who grow to live well as adult men and women. These are the sorts of questions Powell sought to explore in his book. But here we only need to note that the Apostle Paul says that whatever else it may include, the great cosmic plan is that we live “to the praise of God’s glory. In love.” When we live with integrity and joy, when we are fully human and fully alive, when we, to the best of our ability, live love each day that is the glory, the shining, of God; and, therefore, the essential meaning of our own life.

Look at verses 9-10: “He made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His kind intention which He purposed in Him with a view to an administration suitable to the fullness of the times, that is, the summing up of all things in Christ, things in the heavens and things on the earth.” Notice how God’s intention, how the eternal mystery of God’s will, is “kind.” And notice how God’s desire is for all things to become one, to be united, to be summed up in Christ who is the incarnation of love.

So what is our vocation? What is that to which we are summoned as Christians? Isn’t it that we are called with and in utter simplicity to be love as Christ was and will always be love? Isn’t it to love as God loves in every circumstance, in every situation, at all times and in all places, to love in light and in darkness, in joy and in sorrow, to love and to keep on loving in success and failure and toil and ease and boredom and excitement? Love is the reason for our existences and the meaning of our lives, for in the words of Saint John “God is love.” There are no higher or lower vocations – whatever the means by which we earn a living there is only the one vocation of love.

The Peace of Chopping Wood, Carrying Water
I met Jim when I began a yearlong chaplain residency at Saint Anthony’s Hospital in Denver Colorado. Jim was the oldest in our group. After a terrible family tragedy, which, as often happens, led to further troubles and sorrows. He closed his successful real estate business and moved to Portland Oregon where he looked for any sort of employment that had little stress and few responsibilities. He applied for every job, sweeping floors he saw posted. One employer became so angry when he found out that Jim had a college degree and had owned his own business that he threatened to physically throw him out of his office. Eventually, Sears employed Jim, where he sold luggage. One day while driving in the hills around Portland he came across a Catholic monastery. Jim is Roman Catholic and found the monastery somehow intriguing. He went in, became acquainted, and was introduced to meditation. Over time Jim’s in depth practice of contemplation made him one of the most fascinating people you could ever meet. When we first met in the Clinical Pastoral Education program he had the rather disquieting habit of speaking only when he thought a response was actually called for; more significantly he had the unique ability to enter the room of a hysterical patient and, using very few or no words, help calm the patient by simply being genuinely present.

Jim had obviously returned to Denver by the time we met. He and his wife had remarried and in looking for something to do he had gone to the hospital’s Human Resources Department. He asked if there was something he might do as a volunteer – perhaps as an orderly. It didn’t take long for Human Resources to recognize how much Jim had much to offer and that’s how he wound up in the Chaplain Residency Program.

I think that Jim’s practice of spiritual disciplines like meditation and contemplative prayer had brought him to a place where all of life, including his work, was prayer and spiritual practice. There is a Zen proverb, which says, “Before Enlightenment chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment chop wood, carry water.” The contemplative life requires an unusual appreciation of the present moment. Most human beings show little awareness of the here and now; they neither appreciate nor live in the present. The experiences we have had can become not simply memories offering good guidance in the present or part of the mysterious consciousness that is who we are, but nostalgic attachments, anchors, to the past that impede us on our journey. Or, rather than allowing hope for the future to carry us gently forward we become preoccupied with what might be – literally attempt to fill our time and place before we are there. Life is beautiful just as it is right now. Yes, with “all of its glories and all of its faults life is a bitter sweet waltz” – a breathtakingly beautiful waltz. Beauty, meaning, and consciousness of God are all in us and available to us each moment as we labor for food and shelter and clothing (as we chop wood and carry water) if we are but awake enough to see them through sleepy eyes.

When Jim first inquired at the hospital it was not a search for gainful employment or for a position with any status attached to it. He acted out of a simple desire to serve which was also the desire to be a caring healing presence. His quest was for horizontal rather than vertical growth. Growth along the vertical axis is the quest of ambition and the desire to be better than everyone else – to be at the top of the heap. Sadly, even if one succeeds at vertical growth and somehow manages to make it to the very top, whatever that means, they usually remain unhappy and anxious, knowing they may be displaced and thrown back down to the bottom at any moment. Horizontal growth on the other hand comes from the longing to make a genuine contribution to the good of the people around us. A woman in our California coastal village decided to go to India and work with Mother Teresa.

I mean if you want to be at the top as a helper, you can’t climb much higher than that. But once Mother Teresa found out this woman had left a thirteen-year-old daughter in California while she had “altruistically” traveled those thousands of miles to work with the poorest of the poor, Mother Teresa said to her: “No you cannot come to help us here. Not yet. You must return home and finish raising your daughter with love and good care. When you have done that we can talk again.” Mother Teresa was pointing her to growth along the horizontal axis. Horizontal growth has nothing to do with what is big, or important, or dramatic and everything to do with what is simple and loving – awake to the requirements and possibilities of love in the present moment. A thousand things beyond your control may prevent you from achieving big success, earning big money, gaining high status, or finding exciting employment, but only you can prevent you from growth in love – the practice of which results in the experience of ultimate meaning and ultimate satisfaction. Wherever you are your heart is either awake to love or it is not.

Wisdom From a Seventeenth Century Monk
Nicholas Herman was born in what is now known as eastern France. As a young man he fought in the Thirty Years’ War and was wounded in his leg so that for
the rest of his life he walked with a limp. He served for a time as a footman or valet, but said because he was large and clumsy he was not very good at it.

One winter, in the depth of winter, Nicolas looked at a barren tree, without leaves or fruit, and saw it as waiting patiently for the abundance of summer. Gazing at the tree, Nicholas grasped for the first time the extravagance of God’s grace and the meaning of divine providence not just as concerning humanity in general, but for himself in particular. He pictured himself, like the tree, as seemingly dead, but with God’s life waiting in him. He said, that in that moment he looked at the leafless tree the fact of God first flashed on his soul, and a love for God that never after ceased to burn. He said that it was not a “supernatural vision,” but a “supernatural clarity.” Sometime after this experience he entered the Discalced Carmelite monastery in Paris. Because he did not have the education to become a priest Nicholas entered the priory as a lay brother and took the religious name, “Lawrence of the Resurrection”. He spent almost all the rest of his life within the walls of the monastery, working there first as a cobbler, a repairer of sandals, and then in the kitchen. Despite, or perhaps because of, his rather “lowly” position, the spiritual quality of his character grew and drew people to him. Even as he continued his mundane work in the kitchen word spread beyond the monastery of his spiritual character. Learning of the profound peace that clothed him as obviously as the monk’s habit in which he was dressed, people came to seek spiritual guidance from Brother Lawrence. After his death the wisdom that he had passed on in conversations and a few letters became the basis for the book, The Practice of the Presence of God. It is considered a spiritual classic, and often is recommended by spiritual directors. In the monastery kitchen where amidst the tedious chores of cooking and cleaning and at the constant bidding of his superiors, Brother Lawrence developed his rule of spirituality and work. In his Maxims, Lawrence writes, “Men invent means and methods of coming at God’s love, they learn rules and set up devices to remind them of that love, and it seems like a world of trouble to bring oneself into the consciousness of God’s presence. Yet it might be so simple. Is it not quicker and easier just to do our common business wholly for the love of him?”

Brother Lawrence must have spent long hours meditating on Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians (6:5-7): “Servants, respectfully obey your earthly masters but always with an eye to obeying the real master, Christ. Don’t just do what you have to do to get by, but work heartily, as Christ’s servants doing what God wants you to do. And work with a smile, always keeping in mind that no matter who happens to be giving the orders you are really serving God.”

For Brother Lawrence, “common business,” no matter how mundane or routine, was the medium of God’s love. The issue was not the sacredness or worldly status of the task but the motivation behind it. “Nor is it needful that we should have great things to do… We can do little things for God; I turn the cake that is frying on the pan for love of him, and that done, if there is nothing else to call me, I prostrate myself in worship before him, who has given me grace to work; afterwards I rise happier than a king. It is enough for me to pick up but a straw from the ground for the love of God.” And so it has been said that together, God and Brother Lawrence cooked meals, ran errands, scrubbed pots, and endured the scorn of the world. Brother Lawrence died at the age of 80 in relative obscurity and perfect joy.

So How Does Work Become Prayer
Before I began this meditation I read a number of books on the theology of work, none of which I found satisfying. For the most part they debated definitions of work and whether work should be fulfilling or must necessarily involve frustrating toil. Often they explored distinctions between prayer or contemplation and action. They were well written books by people with a far greater understanding of theological and philosophical subtleties than I am capable of grasping. They just did not answer the question that continually haunts me, “How can the presence of God be practiced in all things and at all times?” And how is it that it can be true for me as it was for Saint Benedict and Brother Lawrence, “My work is my prayer.” My personal experience is that when my work is one with the love of God and others, it is prayer.