A new series of meditations begins at http://johntheprecursor.blogspot.com/

I thought someone famous - probably Tillich or Merton or Bonhoeffer - had written, "Finally we understand that prayer is to be silent and listen for the word of God," or something similar.

But despite the power of Google, I cannot find what I seem to remember.

Finally prayer is being present with God. There are precious moments when God is so present that a bit of small talk does not seem out of place. But mostly, to be present with God is to be so embarrassed, so surprised, so in love, and so in awe as to be silent.

Here is Thomas Merton on silence:

With this inner self we have to come to terms in silence. That is the reason for choosing silence. In silence we face and admit that gap between the depths of our being, which we consistently ignore, and the surface which is so often untrue to our own reality. We recognize the need to be at home with ourselves in order that we may go out to meet others, not just with the mask of affability, but with real commitment and authentic love.

If we are afraid of being alone, afraid of silence, it is perhaps because of our secret despair of inner reconciliation. If there is no hope of being at peace with ourselves in our own personal loneliness and silence, we will never be able to face ourselves at all: we will keep running and never stop. And this flight from the self is, as the Swiss philosopher Max Picard pointed out, a “flight from God.” After all, it is in the depths of the conscience that God speaks, and if we refuse to open up inside and look into these depths, we also refuse to confront the invisible God who is present within us. This refusal is a partial admission that we do not want God to be God any more than we want ourselves to be our true selves.

Just as we have a superficial, external mask which we put together with words and actions that do not fully represent all that is in us, so even believers deal with a God who is made up of words, feelings, reassuring slogans, and this is less the God of faith than the product of religious and social routines. Such a “god” can come to substitute for the truth of the invisible God of faith, and though this comforting image may seem real to us, his is really a kind of idol. His chief function is to protect us against a deep encounter with our true inner self and with the true God.

Silence is therefore important even in the life of faith and in our deepest encounter with God. We cannot always be talking, praying in words, cajoling, reasoning, verbalizing, or keeping up a kind of devout background music. Much of our well-meant interior religious dialogue is, in fact, a smoke screen and an evasion. Much of it is simply self-reassurance, and in the end it is little better than a form of self-justification. Instead of really meeting God in the nakedness of faith in which our inmost being is laid bare before him, we act out an inner ritual that has no function but to allay anxiety.

The purest faith has to be tested by silence in which we listen for the unexpected, in which we are open to what we do not yet know, and in which we slowly and gradually prepare for the day when we will reach out to a new level of being with God. True hope is tested by silence in which we have to wait on the Lord in the obedience of unquestioning faith. Isaiah recorded the word of Yahweh to his rebellious people who were always abandoning him in order to enter into worthless political and military alliances. “Your safety lies in ceasing to make leagues, your strength is in quiet faith” (Isa. 30:15). Or as another translation has it, “Your salvation lies in conversion and tranquillity, your strength in complete trust.” Older texts say, “In silence and hope shall your strength be.” The idea is that faith demands the silencing of questionable deals and strategies.

Faith demands the integrity of inner trust which produces wholeness, unity, peace, genuine security. Here we see the creative power and fruitfulness of silence. Not only does silence give us a chance to understand ourselves better, to get a truer and more balanced perspective of our own lives in relations to the lives of others: silence makes us whole if we let it.

Silence helps draw together the scattered and dissipated energies of a fragmented existence. It helps us to concentrate on a purpose that really corresponds not only to the deepest needs of our own being but also to God’s intentions for us.

... and supremely happy with Him Forever in the next. Amen.

Fear or hope of the next life does not - yet - motivate me much.

I believe with atypical assurance that through Jesus we are forgiven. And while I have some notions of divine justice, I am either insufficiently self-critical or sufficiently trusting in God's mercy that the prospect of justice does not propel me.

Neither does the prospect of an eternity with God transform my impatience with the present. I can imagine the spiritual, physical, emotional, and intellectual implications of perceiving this life as something akin to one hour during the summer of my seventh year. But such a heavenly vision, remains more visionary than real.

Martin Luther King spoke of the "fierce urgency of now." In much of Reinhold Niebuhr's work, we also sense this full engagement with the present moment. Niebuhr prays for serenity, but we often aim our prayers at that which eludes us.

Urgency and serenity are tough to combine. But to do so may be to achieve the wholeness of justice and mercy, prophecy and love, work and rest to which we are called.

That I may be reasonably happy in this life...

Given the reality of this world, may I be reasonably happy.

Given the sin and hardship of this life, may I be reasonably happy.

Given the potential of this day and this moment, may I be reasonably happy.

Given the capacity of my reason, may I understand reality, accepting what I cannot change while noticing and advancing opportunities for change.

And in failure, success, and in every endeavor, may I be reasonably happy.

trusting that you will make all things right, if I surrender to your will...

While I am not sure of the first clause, I endeavor to fulfill the second clause.

Does God make all things right? If so, right is beyond my knowing.

I can indulge in various thought experiments to make it so. Such as, God used the Nazi holocaust to undermine the foundations prejudice across the world. After Hitler racial, religious, and other forms of bigotry became indefensible and are gradually being eliminated.

Even if this were true. Does it make right the Holocaust? Not to me.

I seek to surrender to God's will so that I might not contribute to evil. I seek to surrender to God's will so that I might join with God to prevent evil. In surrendering I tend the wounds of evil. I don't expect - God forgive me - for God to make all things right.

A collection of articles on Mark Rothko - including the painting above - is available from The Guardian.

taking, as Jesus did, this sinful world as it is, not as I would have it...

To be realistic is to observe accurately.

The realist is especially self-aware of filtering observations through expectation.

Even Jesus had expectations, of the woman at the well for example.

But Jesus was wonderfully adept at recognizing when his observations did not match his expectation and adjusting to what he observed.

Rather than my expectations being confirmed, I pray for keen observation, creative insight, and disciplined engagement.

accepting hardship as a pathway to peace...

If something is hard, I wonder if it is right.

I don't think this at the first or even second hard turn.

But by the third or fourth hard turn - especially in quick succession - I will certainly wonder.

Is it hard because creating is not always easy or because the creating is ill-matched to the context?

Hardship is validated or not in its intention and, even more, in its outcome.

If hardship is an output of self-assertion in any of it varied forms, I doubt its value and suspect the hardship actually diminishes self and others.

If hardship is an input to preserving relationships, serving others, creating beauty, doing what is good and discovering what is true, then the hardship is a pathway to what is worthwhile.

O God, help me to distinquish one from the other.

enjoying one moment at a time...

Satisfaction may gradually emerge.

Comfort can be cultivated over time.

Contentment is a state of mind that may persist.

Happiness - depending on your definition - can be a disciplined practice.

But joy is of a specific moment.

Joy is experienced now or not at all.

Joy is an externality that we allow to claim us.

Joy explodes our ego and sears our wounds.

Living one day at a time,

There is an echo of, "Give us this day our daily bread."

Let us live fully in this day.

There is an echo of, "So do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." (Matthew 6:34)

Do not add worry of tomorrow to today's troubles.

Whether full of trouble or joy, today is enough. Attend fully to this day and tomorrow may be transformed.

... and the Wisdom to distinguish the one from the other.

We pray for the wisdom to distinguish what can be changed from what cannot be changed.

It is more likely that we can change our own behavior and attitude than the attitude and behavior of others. But even this will be difficult.

It is more likely that we can change what is new and seems insignificant, than that which is long-established and cherished. But even small changes are challenging.

It is more likely that we can change - or contribute to changing - that which others find threatening than that which others do not notice. But fear complicates the changing.

It is more likely that we can contribute to change when the benefit of changing is widely acknowledged. But change is always difficult.

We live in a world of constant change, yet most of us, most of the time, prefer the illusion of stability. So often our goal is a changelessness that is not possible and, perhaps, heretical.

Courage to change the things which should be changed...

Bravery suggests fearlessness in face of danger and courage is often a synonym of bravery.

But courage originally meant to be large-hearted. This is something beyond brave.

Change does not usually require challenging some threat. Rather, it requires noticing and caring about what is easily within our ability to change.

Courage implies engaging others with empathy and our own condition with insight.

With courage we perceive and respond creatively.

God give us grace to accept with Serenity the things that cannot be changed...

Among what cannot be changed is the reality of evil.

Our separateness from God is a necessary corollary to our freedom of decision.

In exercising freedom we easily fall into self-assertion, especially when convinced of our own righteousness.

The more our decisions express and empower our separate self, the greater the potential for evil.

This is the human condition. The potential for and reality of evil will not change.

God, give us grace to accept with Serenity the things that cannot be changed, Courage to change the things which should be changed, and the Wisdom to distinguish the one from the other. Living one day at a time, enjoying one moment at a time, accepting hardship as a pathway to peace, taking, as Jesus did, this sinful world as it is, not as I would have it, trusting that you will make all things right, if I surrender to your will, so that I may be reasonably happy in this life, and supremely happy with you forever in the next. Amen.

For many years I had a mixed reaction to the so-called Serenity Prayer, or at least its first stanza. As a young man I was uncomfortable with what seemed an undertow of fatalism.

But the courage to change the things which should be changed would not allow me to dismiss the prayer entirely.

With years and experience, I better understand there are things that cannot be changed. (I first wrote, there may very well be things that cannot be changed. This remains a wisdom I resist.)

At some point in the last ten years or so I encountered the second stanza, beginning with, "Living one day at a time..."

Taking this sinful world as it is, gave depth to the things that cannot be changed. Learning that Reinhold Neibuhr was the author gave context to each word and phrase.

In the days ahead I will give the prayer close consideration.

Gracious and loving God, thank you for your many blessings. Thank you for being with us today. Help us to know you. Help us to join with you in creating, healing, and being. Help us in our observing, deciding, and doing. May we find and stay on the way you intend. When we go another way - wounding others, hurting ourselves, and neglecting you - do not cease to seek our return. May our relationship with others reflect the love and liberty you have given us. We know you are always with us, help us to truly be with you.

This is one form of my common prayer. Before a meal, on a special occasion, as I enter into conflict or potential conflict, something like this is what I will say aloud or silently.

It is based, I hope, on the pattern of the Lord's Prayer. We begin by acknowledging the identity of God. For me the Kingdom of God is revealed and present, but we usually deny it.

We need help in our daily doing. We need help recognizing that what we do in the present moment is how we are co-creators (or not) with God.

We acknowledge our failures. I am especially concerned with how I too often treat others as means to my ends, rather than profound ends in themselves.

I seek to deepen my relationship with God and with others. In these relationships I perceive is the way of ultimate reality.

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord my whole life long.

Surely towb: good, pleasant, agreeable, joyful, valuable, charming, becoming better, beautiful...

and chesed: good, kind, lovely, loyal, loving, faithful, devoted... shall follow me all the days of my life.

There is a sense that towb is an experience of the external world while chesed describes our interior experience. Goodness is what we encounter. Mercy is what we bring with us to the encounter.

The prayer does not promise that towb is all we will encounter. Even in this short prayer there is talk of enemies, evil, and death's valley.

But when we open ourselves to God's chesed, even the deepest wounds we have caused or received can be healed.

You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.

I am my own worst enemy.

I can subvert, distract, and defeat myself more effectively than anyone else.

Yet despite myself - and often without intention - I can contribute to, cooperate with, and experience such exquisite grace.

I am anointed as a child of God. My meaning is found and my purpose is achieved in relationship with God.

In relationship God's gifts are continual and overflowing.

Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I fear no evil; for you are with me; your rod and your staff - they comfort me.

Increasingly it is the presence of God that is most meaningful to me.

I do not expect dramatic interventions, but I very much depend upon God's company.

God offers guidance, his staff touches my shoulder warning to choose another way. If I am paying attention, God is leading me along the path that is best for me.

But whether I am on the path or have blithely wandered, God is there.

There is comfort in companionship.

He leads me in right paths for his name’s sake.

Only once have I been seriously lost. I was hiking the woods alone (the same woods I had known since sixth grade).

The aim of the hike was to get beyond where we had gone before. On the northeast corner of our known world was a big marsh, maybe 15 to 20 acres. In spring it could be a shallow lake. Given time and difficulty, we had never been to the other side of that swampy ground.

We called the swamp Death Valley. When we first found it the bleached bones of cattle were scattered in piles across its edge. Here and there the cattle had been trapped in the mud, struggled, died, feasted upon, leaving their own bones as grave markers.

It took considerable time and care to find a way through Death Valley. Then I climbed the rocky cliff that I had seen but never stood upon. Tired I lay prone at the top of the cliff surveying the tangled scene I had gotten through.

Far below, barely half-way across the swamp, coming a different way than I had, was a boy/man. Given distance even the gender identification was more assumption than observation.

I had asked my friend Mark to hike with me. I decided that his baseball practice must have been canceled. Standing I yelled, "Mark, here I am."

I don't remember the reply. But the voice was much deeper than Mark's fourteen or fifteen year-old scratchy tenor.

I ran until I could run no more. I ran until I was breathless, bending over wheezing. I ran full-speed where I had never been before.

Where I finally stopped was, of course, entirely unrecognizable. Even if I had wanted to, I could not have easily found my way back to the cliff's edge, the edge of what I knew.

Quieting my fear and collecting my wits, I roughly situated where I needed to go from the sun's position. I set out to connect with the old east-west cut that was once the road used to haul out the coal.

There was no path. Only a direction. In that direction were ponds I could not cross, cliffs I could not climb, and thorny thickets that tore at my clothes and skin, but after hours I made my way.

I had not run far. The ground was too rough for that. But it did not take long for fear and ignorance to make it very difficult for me to get back to the right path.

He makes me lie down in green pastures; he leads me beside still waters; he restores my soul.

Our house sits between a five acre wood and a ten acre pasture. My office is about 50 yards up the road overlooking the same pasture.

As I write this, looking toward the pasture I see my dim reflection in the window. The sun has not risen. But in a few minutes I will be able to see rabbits nibbling, birds flitting, perhaps a fox hurrying across the field.

When I return home my wife will have been awake only ten or fifteen minutes. But she will report to me on deer, or turkey, or even the occasional bear.

The natural world can be a dangerous place. I do not envy the rabbits, at least the squirrels can climb. It is easier to be higher on the food-chain.

In the pasture change is constant, it is also broadly predictable; life is vulnerable and beauty abounds. The sky is now a dusky purple and a mist is rising with the sun.

The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.

But, of course, I want a great deal. I want to repair the road, fix the plumbing, plant more flowers, patch the ceiling, and clean the basement.

What I too seldom consider is how much I have, much more than I need. Vastly more than I deserve.

The Hebrew we translate as want is chacer: to be empty, decreased, diminished, lacking, in need.

The psalmist proclaims, "The Lord is my shepherd." Do I follow the Lord? Do I depend on the Lord? Do I seek the way of the Lord or my own paths?

There are ways to fulfillment. There are ways to illusion. Which have I chosen? Which will I choose today?

The Lord is my shepherd,
I shall not want.
He makes me lie down in green pastures;
he leads me beside still waters;
he restores my soul.
He leads me in right paths
for his name’s sake.
Even though I walk
through the darkest valley,
I fear no evil;
for you are with me;
your rod and your staff—
they comfort me.
You prepare a table before me
in the presence of my enemies;
you anoint my head with oil;
my cup overflows.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me
all the days of my life,
and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord
my whole life long.

I have heard this psalm more often than I have prayed it. But at age 19 I gave three sermons on the 23rd psalm. I was serving as an assistant chaplain at a state park in Southern Illinois. The sermons were short, silly Sunday meditations. But in the setting and the response there is a precious memory. For a few days I will see what meaning I can find today.

Adoramus Te, Christe, et benedicimus Tibi, Quia per sanctam crucem Tuam redemisti mundum, Domine, miserere nobis!

From sixth grade until graduation from high school I spent as much time as I could in woods east of town. From the 1920s until the 1960s the ground had been stripped for coal.

This was before land restoration laws had been passed. As a result thousands of acres of flat Illinois farmland had been transformed into rugged hills, deep lakes, islands, and weird rocky outcrops.

Now it was pastured and once had been used to film a cowboy movie. Mostly it was a vast space that grown-ups ignored. Great for teenage boys.

We built cabins in the pine woods. We skinny-dipped in the spillway. We collected iron pyrite as if it was real gold. We built a chapel, carrying bag after bag of quikcrete to fashion a real floor.

The chapel building was part of a two or three year period when a group of nine or ten of us had joined as the Club of Rome. Bruce and I were the co-leaders. Bruce was the plumber's son. His Dad worked alot in tin. Each of us had breastplates of tin, spraypainted in gold, some had well-fashioned Roman-like helmets. Bruce was "First Consul."

I was the Cardinal Bishop of New Wittenberg, reconciling reformation division in the wastepiles of slurry, cinder, and clay. I wore a cardboard miter on which I had reproduced, in magic marker, a gold and blue byzantine image of Christ ascending.

My principal task as spiritual leader was, at the place we had set our boundary separating "Roman" territory from that of our parents, to raise my hands and sing, "Adoramus te, Christe..."

We adore Thee, O Christ, And we bless Thee, Who by the holy cross have redeemed the world, Who have suffered for us! Lord, have mercy upon us!

With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.

Recently I had dinner with a suspicious, skeptical, and evidently unhappy man. He had known plenty of shams and participated in a few himself. On most scorecards, his career had been a success. But not for him. I don't know about drudgery, but he had plenty of broken dreams... and he seemed intent on breaking those of others. While the food was wonderful, the dinner was unpleasant.

Last evening lightening bounced about inside the clouds. No bolt to the ground. No threatening thunder. This morning ten thousand - and more - fireflies are dancing in the meadow. My grandma's dinner table shines. It has, perhaps, been my desk for as many years as the family gathered about it. The coffee is strong and hot.

The unpleasant - or worse - and the pleasant are each real. But I am inclined to give more time and thought to the unpleasant. I see it as a threat to be deciphered or a fracture to be healed. I am, it often seems, called to action by the unpleasant. The pleasant I tend to take for granted.

Yet this morning, at least, it occurs to me that the unpleasant man is gone. My grandma's table is still here. The fireflies have returned for another summer. The lightening flashes as it has since the first second of creation. The coffee reminds me of my first sip in Vienna more than thirty years ago. The pleasant persists.

From the scripture assigned for today, "The earth, O Lord, is full of your steadfast love, teach me your statutes. You have dealt well with your servant..." Beauty abounds and God's love surrounds us, may we make time, place, and opportunity to notice.

Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be, and whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul.

At fifteen I had no clear conception of God, but there was something slightly scandalous in the broad tolerance of that "whatever."

Over the years I have considered many explanations for and manifestations of God. The vast majority strike me as commendable.

I have settled on a God that is beneficently mysterious, and whom I can know through the example of Jesus and the working of nature.

It has been much more difficult to keep peace with my own soul, and especially with my aspirations. These are less consistently beneficent.

Jesus, Buddha, Confucius, Mohammed, Plato and many others - each in their own way - teach that peace is the outcome of aiming our labors and aspirations toward divine intention.

You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

I can make a case that the universe is unfolding as it ought. But while the case is credible, it implies a universe largely indifferent to the plight of particular trees, stars, or children.

The universe is unfolding, changing, opening. It's general direction and character seems beyond much influence. But how this change is experienced by a particular place, time, and people depends on how each of us are unfolding, changing, and opening.

Are we resisting or reflecting? Do I help or hurt? Are you neglectful or attentive? Are we creative partners in the unfolding or do we wreak havoc and destruction in opposition?