I came to the eight day retreat at Eastern Point on Cape Anne, MA this year expectant and energized. Lent was underway for 2019 and I had prepared more than usual for the 40 days which would include the 8 days of silence for Laurie and me. On the backend, we take an extra night in Boston that gives us time to share our encounters with our Lord and our surroundings from our solitude and to name some takeaways.
So even with several intensives and the week around the National Prayer Breakfast concluded, I had intentionally spent more time listening to the ways God may be communicating about the time. In Washington, our friend Richard Treacy mentioned that he was praying through Lent using Eugene Petersen"s book on the Psalms of Ascent (Psalms 120-134), A Long Obedience in the Same Direction. It immediately resonated with my spirit as Richard and I laughed uproariously at our choice this year of ascent over descent for Lent. We decided to join the Hebrews as they make their Alyiah-- going up to Jerusalem and Jesus as he makes his way up from the Kidron Valley to the same Jerusalem and the Cross.
This also offered consideration of my own direction, past, present, and future. Is it obedient? Is it the same direction? Has it been and will it continue to be steadfast? All of this input seemingly important for a lengthy pause to listen to God about it. Helpfully, over the past couple of years, I have also become aware of God speaking into each day, presently as I listened, in big things and small. It is a growing awareness and practice and an increasing delight to grow in the reality of trusting what one hears and acting on it. Increasingly, it has opened up spaciousness, a more relaxed presence and actually extending the days. It has also made me far more intentional.
In that way, as I prepared for the retreat and the Lenten vigil, I believe the Lord brought seven words to my conscious mind and I wrote them down to bring to the retreat time. The words were radical, beauty, palm, transition, death, mercy, and gratitude or gratefulness. In this writing I share how the "radical" was fleshed out during solitude. I will also say that each word was encountered and filled with meaning and messages through the homilies, devotional texts, daily Scriptures, spiritual direction and encounter with the great outdoors. Each word has its own story of revelation, connection, and path and together form a grid of unity -- a fabric -- each one informing the other as I listened. I cannot overstate how thrilling, informative, and encouraging this was and is. It emphasizes to me, and I hope to you in your journey, that each day can be alive in the Spirit as we learn that "man does not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.” God is speaking. Am I listening? God created as the Word is spoken and his ongoing creativity invites collaborative participation in the work of the Spirit. The unfolding of each of the words is a full story in itself.
The word "radical" posed this question to me: "What does "radical" describe for me going forth into the fourth quarter of my life as a disciple of Jesus and an elder in the faith. I began with the dictionary which presents two distinct meanings. The first is "arising from or going to the root or source; fundamental; basic. The radical sign in mathematics is a symbol placed before a quantity to indicate its root is to abstracted. Lots to work with there. Secondly, and more familiar to us as commonly articulated and descriptive of a position: "carried to the farthest limit; extreme; sweeping." "Radical social change" is the usage example. Plenty of space to play in also.
At the retreat, a slim devotional volume was made available for Lent. I used it alongside Petersen’s book. One day the devotional entry was titled "Radical Faithfulness." It jumped off the page. It had my attention. The Scripture was Jesus' calling of Levi, now called Matthew, the tax collector and his response: "And leaving everything behind, he got up and followed him."
Luke 5:27-28. The writer comments:
“Unlike Matthew, we do not necessarily have to leave
our families and our belongings behind, but if we do
it right (in following Jesus) we do have to be radical
about it because, quite frankly, everything about Jesus
is radical. I often say that if I could grasp with my
human mind the reality of who Jesus is and what he
has given to me, my life would change in radical and
transformational ways.”
The fact that these verses and this commentary showed up concerning the word "radical" felt like a gift and affirmation at the same time, and the gifts kept coming. It drew me to simplicity and making a smaller footprint of stuff. Traveling lighter in the fourth quarter. Shedding along the way so to speak, and enjoying all the more what God has given me, materially and relationally. When these convergences so clearly occur, God's faithfulness, his actuality is preached to me. I sit in the silence marveling that He is saying to me: "Hey, I am working with you. I am communicating. Receive it. Continue to listen, believe and obey. Believe what you see and hear in the smallest of things. Act on it." And these verses pile on: "Ask and it will be given to you. Seek and you will find. Knock and the door will be opened to you." In all things, "pray without ceasing". "My sheep know my voice and follow me. They will not follow a stranger." A simple, obedient and, yes, radical way to live.
So the foregoing is one impactful meaning for "radical" in my journey and maybe has some bearing on yours. Another dimension and meaning opened up for me as I read Psalm 126 with Petersen's commentary. I realized that over the last three years in particular a sense and practice of celebration and its expression as gratitude to God, honor to people and daily remarking on something delightful in that day had taken hold of me. "Isn't that wonderful. Let's celebrate it now." Could this be a developing, radical way to live out my life. Psalm 126 and Petersen say "Yes". In his discourse, he emphasizes laughter and joy. He quotes his Message translation of Philippians 4: 4-5:
"Celebrate God all day, everyday. I mean revel in him.
Make it as clear as you can to all you meet that you are
on their side, working with them, and not against them.
Help them see that the Master is about to arrive. He may
show up any minute."
Maybe here, in living out the Christ life to the full, we get closer to a vitality, an overflow, a spirit radical in celebration of the goodness of God. Thus at this point "radical" seems more like energetic, anticipatory, visionary, and alive. Not competing but blessing; at home in the present and articulating in all circumstances the hope that is within. It seems to be all about being certain about God and living on the basis, and loving on the basis, of who He is. Joy.
This, of course, is not to deny suffering in oneself, in others and throughout the world. It does not mean separating from grief instead of grieving. Petersen says this about suffering, and we intercede with this confidence in every intensive before the Cross:
"All suffering, all pain, all emptiness, all disappointment is
seed. Sow it in God and he will, finally, bring a crop of joy
from it....The joy comes because God knows how to wipe
away tears, and in his resurrection work, create the smile
of new life. Joy is what God gives, not what we work up."
Radical seeks and delights in and is stunned by beauty. Radical is patient in transition, not passing one by but seeing transitions as necessary to move from one place of growth to another, changed from one form of glory to the next. Radical opens the hands; it also raises the palms in praise and extends the hands in welcome. Radical does not fear death and treasures each moment of life, knowing death is transition itself. Radical is mercy. Gratefulness, gratitude is a radical response to a radical love.
May the succeeding days of my life and yours, dear friends, be filled radically with the life of Christ, an un-self-conscious witness that we are delighted to be chosen and called and that we are ready with the answer in radical obedience to His voice. Shall we encourage each other in this? Shall we shout it together from the rooftops? Let’s.
Blessings,
Trip and Laurie
In Memoriam
Laurie and I, and the Verbena friends and partners, pay special tribute and honor to Jean Vanier, the founder and visionary of the L'Arche communities. Laurie and I were privileged to attend, with Ron Ivey and others, the last English speaking retreat Jean led. The retreat was at La Ferme in France, the original L'Arche community and Jean's home. We are saddened by his passing but so grateful for his life. His mentoring and sharing of the gospel through introducing his friends numbered among the disabled helped us see our own disabilities and laugh together. Verbena is committed to partnering with L'Arche any way we can.