meeting place

I woke again this morning thinking about the condition of my heart ... the 2 things at the bottom of it... desperation and self loathing. How can it ever be quiet and be a meeting place with the Lord - if they are crowding it up? The answer is simple: it can't be ...

After the Potter's Inn retreat, I came home with so many things stirring ... even if I couldn't really get a grip on them... and so I began reading to try and keep things moving forward. So I read all the books I mentioned in an earlier post ... but the one I haven't mentioned was ' The Way of the Heart ' by Henri Nouwen. This one so far has me stopped in my tracks. It was an earth shattering read. He explains the Desert Fathers in a succinct and powerful way. He boils it down and helps apply it to our extremely loud culture. Because how can americans ever hope to emulate desert monks who viewed a solitary existence as essential to knowing Jesus? He offers three words to summarize - flee, be silent, pray - and then unpacks them to combat the 'comfortable self-centeredness' which so characterizes american culture.

I'm not going to get into all the particulars of the book in this moment ... I'll get to that in another post soon - but really I just want to get to the BIG takeaway for me... which is this: creating a solitary and quiet place to meet with God in your heart.

Hasn't this been my journey now for a while - to find and live in my union with Christ? And then I read about the desert fathers going and working it out in complete solitude - for decades at a time. BUT my problem is - I don't have that 'luxury' - I have a husband and 3 kids ... and as much as I would love to run away sometimes ... I'm pretty sure thats not what I am called to at all ... but man I still want to experience and live in my union with Christ.

Here are a few of the quotes that I'm chewing on from Nouwen:

' It is the heart that is the place of prayer. The prayer of the heart is a prayer that directs itself to God from the center of the person and thus affects the whole of our humanness. '

' Prayer is standing in the presence of God with the mind in the heart; that is, at the point of our being where there are no divisions or distinctions and where we are totally one. There God's Spirit dwells and there the great encounter takes place. There heart speaks to heart, because there we stand before the face of the Lord, all-seeing, within us. '

' By its very nature such prayer transforms our whole being into Christ precisely because it opens the eyes of our soul to the truth of ourselves as well as the truth of God. '

So here's my take away from that ... That my oneness with Jesus already exists. I know this ... at least I know it in my head with a very limited experience of it. It exists in the place where the Holy Spirit dwells within me - because thats where our spirits touch -  and thus can become one. So to experience this oneness - to have an encounter with The Lord ... I need to descend into my heart to meet with Him face to face - my heart is the meeting place. Well what happens when my heart is covered up with all kinds of crap - things in the way obstacles? That's where this post comes full circle and I get back to looking at my desperation and self-loathing.

I wondered yesterday if desperation was bad ... we sing songs about it ... I'm desperate for you... like a beggar searching for food, or someone lost in the desert without water ... It feels like a search without end - it sounds like striving. Perhaps I don't need to be desperate at all especially if everything I need to be in union with Christ is already here. But I think the endless waiting is what has made me desperate. It's the dire 'please help' - I actually am starving - I actually am dying of thirst for Jesus ... how do I shut that off? It goes beyond just feeling that way ... its my whole mode of living. Its exhausting. Jesus said 'Come to me all who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest...' I have come but He hasn't granted rest yet.

The self-loathing I recognize needs to go ... I get it again that 'self'-anything is a twisted up form of pride. What makes me keep swimming in it? What keeps it churning up? I think it's that unhealed place of shame - that 'I'm just not worth it' pile of garbage that still lives in the depths of my soul. It can't go away on its own - I can't wish it away - It  must be washed away through revelation and have it healed and replaced.

So what does this leave me with? Not much more than I started with ... I still have to wait - wait for Jesus to come and make more cracks in this chrysalis I am in.