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How to Pray Through Interruptions

“The kingdom of self is heavily defended territory.” – Eugene Peterson

I usually think whatever I’m doing is soooooo important. I have my schedule. I guard my time. I’ve made my plans. Woe to the one who decides to burst in on them!

I especially worry about being interrupted when I’m working — which means writing, thinking, dreaming. Writing is often how I pray. It’s when I sort through my ideas about God and praise him in the best way I know how.

Except when it’s not the best way.

In the mid fourteenth century, an Augustinian canon named Walter Hilton wrote a treatise addressed to a wealthy layman. The recipient of this treatise loved God and seemed to feel guilty that he was not a monk or a priest. Hilton’s response is wonderful. Embrace the life you have, he says. And that means embrace interruptions.

A contemplative quality of life is fair and fruitful, and therefore it is appropriate to have it always in your desire. But you shall be in actual practice of the active life most of the time, for it is both necessary and expedient.

Therefore, if you are interrupted in your devotions by your children, employees, or even by any of your neighbors, whether for their need or simply because they have come to you sincerely and in good faith, do not be angry with them, or heavy handed, or worried — as if God would be angry with you that you have left him for some other thing — for this is inappropriate, and misunderstands God’s purposes.*

A medieval cellarer--a man leading "the active life." Creator:Monk of Hyères Cibo [CC0], via Wikimedia Commons — A medieval cellarer–a man leading the “active life.” Creator:Monk of Hyères Cibo [CC0], via Wikimedia Commons

Hilton is believed to have lived as a hermit for a time, but he seems to know how things work for those leading the active life. He knows that the second you try to pray, your children need you. The moment you find some blessed peace and quiet, your neighbor comes around wanting you to take her to a doctor’s appointment.

How often have I gotten angry about these kinds of interruptions? Or worse, how often have I told my children, “Just a minute — I’ll be right with you,” never taking my eyes from the computer screen?

In Hilton’s advice I find a gentle reproof. Do not be heavy handed. Don’t be so worried! And I find a “spirituality of interruption.” It tells me: I don’t leave my devotions when I take my children into my arms. This interruption is my devotion. I don’t leave my work when I assist someone. The neighbor who needs me is my work. This spirituality is, frankly, a challenge.

Recently I’ve seen other thoughtful people wrestling with this idea. A recent post by Ken Chitwood describes those moments when someone, perhaps someone unknown, has been “thrust into our hectic schedule” as momentary vocations — they are God’s invitation to join him in caring for the world. “Momentary vocation” is a lovely term for interruption, isn’t it? God puts these interruptions, er, vocations right under our noses, if we’re not too busy building our kingdoms to notice them.

I’m coming to believe that God has written these interruptions into my schedule, as immovable and sacred as fixed-hour prayer. I imagine God adding them to my calendar when I’m not looking. “Won’t she be surprised!”

Yes, she usually is.

Most of us aren’t monks. But that doesn’t matter: our active lives are sacred callings. I’m learning that there are no interruptions to prayer. Just different kinds of prayer.

*Toward a Perfect Love: The Spiritual Counsel of Walter Hilton, trans. David L. Jeffrey (Portland, OR: Multnomah Press, 1985), p. 18.

Lisa’s book, A World Transformed: Exploring the Spirituality of Medieval Maps, is on sale (Kindle version) for $2.99 for a limited time. Check it out and share the news!

What I Wish St. Augustine Had Said

Justus van Gent, St. Augustine, ca. 1474

When I read Marilynne Robinson’s novel Gilead a few years ago, I was struck by something the character of John Ames proclaims towards the end of the story: “Augustine says the Lord loves each of us as an only child, and that has to be true.” (2004, pp. 245-46)

It certainly rang true to me. It’s hard for me to wrap my mind around the idea that God loves the whole world. Doesn’t he play favorites like the rest of us do? When I read that line in Gilead, I immediately took to the idea of being God’s only child. One of a kind. Special. Uniquely loved.

Historian that I am, I went to look up this quote in Augustine’s works. I was pretty sure it came from the Confessions. But try as I might, I couldn’t find it. As I searched, I came across the same loosely quoted phrase, with no citation, in a nonfiction book. And I’ve seen it other places on the web.

Finally, after consulting a friend who specializes in the early Christian tradition, I discovered what Augustine really said:

You are good and all-powerful, caring for each one of us as though the only one in your care.*

Here’s the context. Before his conversion to Christianity, Augustine’s mother, Monica, wept for his soul. God comforted Monica in a vision. Augustine writes:

How could this vision come to her unless ‘your ears were close to her heart?’ You are good and all-powerful, caring for each one of us as though the only one in your care, and yet for all as for each individual.

In this statement, Augustine paints a vivid picture of God’s overwhelming love. God rests his ear on Monica’s chest and listens to her heartbeat, her tears, her pain. In Monica’s moment of need, everything and everyone else fades from God’s view, and Monica becomes his only care and concern.

But Augustine did NOT say, “God loves each of us as an only child.” He does not explicitly cast God as a parent. Augustine might have been thinking about God as a father, but maybe not. Perhaps he was thinking of God as a pastor, a doctor, a mentor, or a teacher — someone who has another in his or her care.

Rembrandt_-_The_Return_of_the_Prodigal_Son_(detail)_-_WGA19135 — Rembrandt, The Return of the Prodigal Son (detail)

I have to admit that I’m disappointed. Having gotten it in my head that Augustine was talking about an only child, I found the real quotation to be somewhat watered down. I don’t want to be someone in God’s care. I want to be God’s child. You don’t run into your doctor’s or teacher’s outspread arms. You run into your father’s (or mother’s) arms. That’s the kind of care-giving relationship I crave — the complete trust and intimacy between parent and child. I know I have this relationship, for Jesus exhorts us to be “little children” many times.

But here’s the kicker — I want to be God’s only child. I yearn for the undivided attention of a beloved parent; to climb up on God’s knee and know that I am his only one. He’s not going to get distracted by the other children out there. He’s not going to run out of time or energy for me.

I’m not above acting like a child desperate for attention, either. “Look at me!” I cry out to God. “I bet those other kids can’t do a one-handed cartwheel!” Do you do that, too? (I mean the showing off, not the cartwheel.)

We look to the greats of the Church to tell us about our deepest longings. Augustine didn’t tell me what I wanted to hear, but he did teach me something about myself. My search for Augustine’s quotation, and my subsequent disappointment, reveals the state of my heart: a heart that’s desperate to be someone’s one and only.

I know I’m not alone in feeling this way, since this passage from the Confessions has been misquoted (perhaps a better word is paraphrased) more than once, even by the likes of Marilynne Robinson! I think it points to one of the tensions of the Christian faith — we have a God who stretches his arms around the whole world yet loves each of us as the one perfect and beloved child he’s always longed for. It’s a tension I’ll wrestle with for a long time, since I’ll always be a child at heart.

*Augustine, Confessions, trans. Henry Chadwick (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 3.11.19, p. 50.

Lisa’s book, A World Transformed: Exploring the Spirituality of Medieval Maps, is on sale (Kindle version) for $2.99 for a limited time. Check it out and share the news!

“When Jesus Did the Dishes”

By Miguel Pires da Rosa from Braga, Portugal (Recycle) [CC BY-SA 2.0], via Wikimedia Commons

Last week I wrote about dishwashing as a spiritual discipline. By channeling the wise words of a Buddhist monk and a medieval master, we can “wash each dish as if it were the baby Jesus.” We introduce tenderness into a chore that usually invites frustration.

Today—dishwashing as a moment of delight.

We begin by doing the dishes as a form of imitatio Christi. Surprising—unless you’re familiar with the medieval way of approaching Jesus.

In the fifteenth century, Jean Gerson, chancellor of the University of Paris, wrote about the boyhood of Jesus:

Thus Christ was subject, as he was to you, Mary and Joseph,

What kind of subjection did he wish for himself?

Was he not showing obedience in your midst, as one who rightly serves?

Carefully and often he lights the fire and prepares the food;

He does the dishes and fetches water from a nearby fountain.

Now he sweeps the house, gives straw and water to the donkey.*

We do the dishes because Jesus first did them for his parents. Is it any wonder I love the Middle Ages?

This tidbit about Jesus is, as you’ve doubtlessly realized, extra-Biblical. Gerson uses his imagination to bring to life the Bible’s brief statement that the boy Jesus was obedient to his parents (this was after Jesus was “lost” for three days in Jerusalem–see Luke 2:51).

Gerson’s poem represents the medieval imagination at its finest. Like Ludolph of Saxony’s Life of Christ (discussed in my previous post), it paints a picture of Jesus meant to delight us and to invite us into his life.

This kind of imagination doesn’t often figure into modern approaches to Jesus. We usually stick to what we know. But I was pleasantly surprised when my Sunday school class recently veered off our assigned topic (Jesus’ public ministry) and began discussing, in a very imaginative way, what the Holy Family’s life might have been like. What was it like for Mary, raising Jesus and knowing–but maybe not knowing–who he was and what he was destined to do? What opinions did the Holy Family’s neighbors have about the boy Jesus? Did they think he was exceptional, and maybe a bit peculiar, without realizing that he was the Messiah?

This discussion filled me with delight! It was, for a moment, like being in the Middle Ages, when church officials and laypeople alike loved talking about the “lost years” of Jesus’ life.

What do you think about this kind of discussion? Is it legitimate to “flesh out” Jesus’ obedience and other events in his life? Have you yourself ever wondered about all those moments we know nothing about?

Here’s another moment. In this miniature from the Hours of Catherine of Cleves (ca. 1440), Jesus is shown taking steps in a baby walker. (This is a few years before he learned to do the dishes!) Nearby, Mary weaves while Joseph planes a piece of wood. This scene of delightful intimacy may have been intended to help the book’s owner, the Duchess of Guelders, prepare for her (hoped-for) role as mother.

By Clèves Master [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

There’s some theology behind these wonderful little scenes. Gerson himself said there is no better way to soften hard hearts than to let faith see God acting as a child. He wanted to help Christians delight in the boy Jesus and to affirm that God became human—a small human with parents, chores, and child-like faith. Gerson’s imagination is in service of the incarnation.

I think we could use a little more imagination in our faith today. We are so good at studying the Bible. We parse its meaning verse by verse and even word by word. We defend our beliefs with arguments and analysis. We listen to three-point sermons that tell us how to live.

Sometimes, this approach leaves me exhausted. I feel like I’m drowning in meaning and interpretation. I recently turned down an invitation to join a Bible study because, frankly, it seemed too labor intensive. It involved too much homework, too many workbooks, and too many lectures. I love God’s word, but sometimes, instead of study guides, I need to be guided to some lighter moments. I need to enjoy my faith and to delight in who Jesus was and is. “God laughs into our soul and our soul laughs back into God,” writes Richard Foster about experiencing delight in our Lord.

Gerson’s poem opens the door to a moment of delight, one I can experience even at the kitchen sink. Thanks to this medieval chancellor–and that wonderful discussion in my Sunday school class–I can no longer do the dishes without imagining the boy Jesus scrubbing away at the nearby fountain. I think of the incarnation, which is good. I remember that Jesus participated fully in the messiness of life. Very theological.

But more than all that, I smile. I like thinking that God did the washing up, in more ways than one.

*This quotation and other information about Gerson are from Brian Patrick McGuire, “When Jesus Did the Dishes: The Transformation of Late Medieval Spirituality” in The Making of Christian Communities in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, ed. Mark Williams (London: Anthem Press, 2005), pp. 131-152.

Birth Stories

When people ask about my daughter’s birth, I usually describe the weather. I tell them a story, a true one, about the blizzard that raged the day she came—about my prayers that the baby woulfd stay put during the storm and the telling pains that nevertheless arrived, with no warning, to wreak havoc on my body, just as the blowing snow made mischief for the cars that slid by my window. I tell them about my husband’s frantic shoveling to free the car from the mountains of snow in the driveway and our harrowing ride to the hospital, during which we made cautious haste—cautious so that the car would be able to stop, haste so that we would make it in time. I tell them, finally, about the baby that was born eleven minutes after we traversed the long hospital corridor to the inner sanctum at its end.

People like this story. But I intend it primarily as a metaphor, a way to talk about certain aspects of this birth that are difficult to describe in polite society.

**Published at: The Cresset, Trinity 2011 (Vol LXXIV, No. 5, pp 26-32)

Bloom: Rembrandt, Red Meat, and Remembering the Flesh

In his 1655 painting, The Slaughtered Ox, Rembrandt gives us a disturbing image. We come face to face with a giant ox carcass hanging from a cross beam, its hind legs splayed and skin flayed to reveal the bone, fat, and muscle beneath. The animal dominates the image space; the viewer can find virtually nowhere to look for relief. Even peripheral details, such as the wooden planks of the interior and the clothing of a woman in the background, take on the colors of the slaughtered animal; subdued browns, reds, and whites dominate. The painting belongs to the later, “impressionistic” part of Rembrandt’s career, as the rather loose brushstrokes indicate. But surely to segue into a discussion of impasto represents a thinly veiled attempt to divert attention from the reality of this image. There is no way to get around it: in his painting, Rembrandt offers not merely thick brushstrokes, but the convincing illusion of dead and soon-to-decay flesh.

I always have liked Rembrandt, but I never thought much about the The Slaughtered Ox. Certainly I never sought out this painting on my occasional visits to the Louvre, where it now hangs. With art history classics like Leonardo’s Virgin of the Rocks and Paolo Ucello’s Battle of San Romano in nearby galleries, why focus on an animal carcass? A few years ago, however, I found myself face to face with the kind of flesh that Rembrandt depicts. This time, my encounter took place not at a museum, but at the meat department of a large midwestern grocery warehouse. I had taken a job at the warehouse, called Roundy’s, where I sold all kinds of fresh and processed meat to grocery stores in a tri-state area. Suddenly, I was surrounded by the kinds of carcasses I previously had found so distasteful. In this most unlikely of situations, I discovered that Rembrandt and I—and his painted ox, too—had something in common.