Categories
Life

Seventh Deadly Thought: Vainglory

The vain-glory of this world is a deceitful sweetness, a fruitless labor, a perpetual fear, a dangerous honor…Francis Quarles

Vainglory: 1. excessive elation or pride over one’s own achievements, abilities, etc., boastful vanity. 2. empty pomp or show.

One of the Eight Deadly Thoughts that rob us of joy.

My moment of glory. A solo, bravely sung in Spanish before a crowded outdoor plaza in Mexico City. My friend Bruce was singing background vocals. He smiled as we walked off the stage–perhaps we had touched hearts with our brilliant rendition. As I passed the booth I heard the sound guy mutter, “Huh! I forgot to turn her microphone on.” I fought back tears–no one in the crowd heard one note I sang.

There were other songs, other soloists, God got the glory (and maybe some humans did too). But I wanted my share, some reward for my effort.

We all do. Is it too much to ask? Just,

  • a name in the program,
  • a place on the platform,
  • a mention in the credits,
  • or a title on the door?
  • a Best-of-the-Year award,
  • or a mention in the “Top Fifty,”
  • or some version of 15 minutes of fame?
  • a standing ovation or at least a paycheck,

when we’ve worked so hard and so well for so long?

Vainglory Is Idolatry

The powerful cultural message assaults our egos from every side: market yourself, create your brand, air-brush your image, because only the successful and celebrated matter in this world.

Vainglory’s bottom line: We make an idol of our own image, and expect others to bow down.

Jesus Asks,

“What if I appoint you to serve me with no hope of acclaim, no extrinsic reward, no thanks, no recognition, no title, no pay, would you still sing your heart out if your audience is just me, if your only applause is my whispered well done?”

Philippians 2:3-5: Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others. Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus…

  • who took the last place
  • endured humiliation we will never experience
  • promoted not himself, but the Father
  • avoided the applause of the crowd
  • purchased our freedom with the price of his own blood

so we don’t need the “vain” glory of this world.

Have your accomplishments been ignored and unrewarded? Is that okay with you?

 

photo credit
Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedinmail
Categories
Faith Life

Sixth Deadly Thought: Acedia

Let nothing disturb you, let nothing frighten you. God alone is enough. ~Teresa of Avila

Acedia, boredom or apathy that leads to despair.

The desert monastics called it the noon-day devil, from Psalm 91:6, “the destruction that wastes at noonday.”

Acedia is also known as sloth, not as in lazy–acedia can hide behind frenetic activity–but as in spiritually paralyzed.

Acedia is one of the Eight Deadly Thoughts that divert us from the way of love.

The voice of acedia beckons when,

  • your spiritual progress is slow,
  • you discover all Christians are hypocrites,
  • admired leaders fall from their pedestal,
  • you pray, read your Bible and help others and feel only empty and dry,
  • it takes more energy than you have to care.

Acedia is  the rank, foggy bog of the spiritual journey. No stars glimmer above, no soft-green-grass comforts underfoot. You can’t see light ahead, and you can’t remember any good behind.

You see no reason to keep going. Your mind wanders, imagining a life with no demands, where all is safe, soft and sanitized and any effort you make is wildly applauded.

In some ways this is the New American dream–escape to a safe cocoon of gated, gratifying comfort. Years ago I noticed a billboard along the freeway, declaring, in large, bold letters, “Life isn’t meant to be painful.”

But it is painful, sometimes necessarily so. And when some Christian voices claim we can avoid suffering, that prosperity is our given right, acedia is whispering in the background.

The Only Antidote For Acedia

Only one word of advice is offered by the ancient church fathers: Resist. Resist the devil and he will flee from you (James 4:7)

Don’t listen. Stand firm. Commit. Stay constant. Keep walking through the fog and it will clear.

  • If love may hurt you, love anyway.
  • If prayer is un-rewarding, pray anyway.
  • If everyone is a hypocrite, be genuine anyway.
  • If you are weary of trying, try anyway.
  • If one person can’t make a difference, make it anyway.
  • If it’s hard to follow Christ, follow him anyway.

As Teresa of Avila reminds, when everything and everyone else fails, God alone is enough.

When are you most tempted to stop caring? What helps you recover your joy?

 

 

Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedinmail
Categories
Faith Life

Sabbath Quiet: The Heart And Its Affections

The heart has its reasons which reason knows not. ~Blaise Pascal

The Heart And Its Affections: by Jonathan Edward

The nature of human beings is to be inactive unless influenced by some affection: love or hatred, desire, hope, fear, etc. These affections are the “spring of action,” the things that set us moving in our lives, that move us to engage in activities.

When we look at the world, we see that people are exceedingly busy. It is their affections that keep them busy. If we were to take away their affections, the world would be motionless and dead; there would be no such thing as activity.

It is the affection we call covetousness that moves a person to seek worldly profits; it is the affection we call ambition that moves a person to pursue worldly glory; it is the affection we call lust that moves a person to pursue sensual delights.

Just as worldly affections are the spring of worldly actions, so the religious affections are the spring of religious actions.

A person who has knowledge of doctrine and theology only–without religious affection–has never engaged in true religion. Nothing is more apparent than this: our religion takes root within us only as deep as our affections attract it.

There are thousands who hear the Word of God, who hear great and exceedingly important truths about themselves and their lives, and yet all they hear has no effect upon them, makes no change in the way they live….

No one ever seeks salvation, no one ever cries for wisdom, no one ever wrestles with God, no one ever kneels in prayer or flees from sin, with a heart that remains unaffected.

Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758)

Can God be found in the deepest affections of your heart?

Photograph, Lands End, San Francisco by Melanie Hunt


Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedinmail
Categories
Faith Life

Fifth Deadly Thought: Anger

 Of the Seven Deadly Sins, anger is possibly the most fun. To lick your wounds, to smack your lips over grievances long past…in many ways it is a feast fit for a king. The chief drawback is that what you are wolfing down is yourself. ~Friedrich Buechner

Anger: 1. The fit and proper response of God to evil and injustice. wrath. 2. A permanent disposition toward someone who has wronged you, bitterness. 3. The ongoing resentment toward those who fail to live up to your standard, outrage.

Has there ever been a time when so many have stayed so angry for so long for so little reason? What good has it done?

We love anger, it tastes so good, but it is well named as one of the Eight Deadly Thoughts that keep us from love.

Don’t misunderstand. We were made to share in God’s anger–the healthy, right response to cruelty, to all that destroys his good creation. If nothing matters enough to shake our complacency, there’s something wrong. But anger can be dangerous to our souls,

  • If it is without focus, splattering over everyone we encounter.
  • If it is chronic, unresolved because of something in the past.
  • If, in protest against evil we become evil ourselves.
  • If we’re convinced we are the judge and the standard–others must believe and behave as we do, or they deserve our wrath.

Antidotes to Anger

  1. The sun is setting, it’s time to quit. What if every sunset is a can’t-miss-it reminder to release into God’s keeping all that frustrates your heart? Take a few moments each evening to repeat the words of Jesus, Father, forgive them for they know not what they do, until your heart is tuned to his.
  2. I’m angry, but I’m not answering the door. The devil, suitcase in hand, rings your doorbell the minute anger is stirred. Address your anger directly to God and the devil will flee.
  3. I’m only responsible for me. Turn your focus from what “they” are doing to what you can do to overcome evil with good.
  4. This is my Father’s world. If anger has a grip on you, take a walk outside and let creation remind you–new growth is often hidden by the dead and decayed.
  5. “God knows I’m angry, I’m not alone.” Read Romans 12 and Ephesians 4:17-5:2 and allow God’s words to reshape your thinking.

What antidotes to anger can you share?

photo credit
Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedinmail
Categories
Faith Life

Fourth Deadly Thought: Sadness

Melancholy should be an innocent interlude, a tender and fugitive frame of mind; praise should be the permanent pulsation of the soul. G.K. Chesterton

Sadness is the ancient monastic name for it. Melancholy. Self-pity, the longing gaze at lush grasses growing on the other side.

What I might have…what could have been…if only that…if not for them…if I had not…

How fortunate others are, compared to me.

Sadness: One of the Eight Deadly Thoughts that rob us of joy, distract us from love, paralyze our lives.

Yikes, I am good at this one!

Problem #1. We swim in sad news. There are people making big money to keep our focus on how rotten we have it. Other regions are more prosperous, other eras were more ideal, we are all on a slippery slope to doom and devastation.

Headlines You Will Never See:

  • Residents of 24 Main Street feel great today.
  • 3, 000, 000 area commuters arrive home, unharmed.
  • Local couple reportedly unconcerned about the economy.
  • Recent studies prove majority of teenagers like their parents.
  • Neighbor’s pit bull licks master’s hand before daily walk. Story on page 14.

Problem #2. From what we can tell, everyone else has more money, a nicer house, better vacations, brighter children, funnier friends and tastier dinners than you do. And that’s just from Facebook–forget the Christmas letters. How did everyone else achieve such perfect lives?

We compare our worst with others’ best and come up wanting, and so we either fall into the slimy pit of envy, or set out on the noble search for something we can’t define and will never find. Melancholy is the happiness of being sad, Victor Hugo noted.

What Sadness Reveals

  1. We view other people as competitors.
  2. We feel trapped by the deficiency of life in the present.
  3. We refuse to settle for a non-ideal world.
  4. We are defining our worth by what we achieve.

Freed From Sadness, Unleashed To Love

  1. Share rather than compare, the gifts you’ve been given.
  2. Cultivate the habit of noticing what is good.
  3. Set out on a quest to make beauty where it’s lacking.
  4. Seek your identity in the incomparable love of God.

What ideas do you have to overcome the temptation of sadness.

photo credit
Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedinmail
Categories
Faith Life

Sabbath Quiet: New Mercy Every Morning

Great is his faithfulness; his mercies begin afresh each day. Lamentations 3:23

Morning Hymn

New every morning is the love
Our wakening and uprising prove;
Through sleep and darkness safely brought,
Restored to life, and power, and thought.

New mercies, each returning day,
Hover around us while we pray;
New perils past, new sins forgiven,
New thoughts of God, new hopes of heaven.

If, on our daily course, our mind
Be set in hallow all we find,
New treasures still, of countless price,
God will provide for sacrifice.

The trivial round, the common task,
Will furnish all we ought to ask;
Room to deny ourselves, a road
To bring us daily nearer God.

Only, O Lord, in thy dear love
Fit us for perfect rest above;
And help us this and every day
To live more nearly as we pray.

John Keble (1792-1866)

Beneath this simple lyric lies profound wisdom. Read the prayer again. God’s mercies are found in the midst of the mundane and even the undesired moments of our day, a new supply each morning. Where have you failed to notice his loving hand at work? Take heart! Though we fail to see, we can never fail to be seen.

When are you most aware of God’s presence?

Photograph by Mary Ellen Armbruster
Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedinmail
Categories
Culture Faith Life

Third Deadly Thought: Avarice

We must understand that the lust for affluence in contemporary society is psychotic…We crave things we neither need nor enjoy.  ~Richard Foster

Avarice: Insatiable desire for wealth or material things. One of the Eight Deadly Thoughts that whisper in all our ears.

What do you have too much of? The question was an ice-breaker at a Women’s Retreat. Answers were shared: shoes, fabric (this was a crafty group), clothes, books. We all nodded in sympathy.

My answer surprised even me. What did the speaker have too much of?

Butter.

I was in the throes of the baking-cookies-for-kids-and-their-friends stage of parenting. At the grocery store, I could never remember if we had butter so, just in case, I would pick up a pound or two. One day I cleaned out the fridge and found 20 pounds of butter hiding in the back.

The last morning of the retreat, every breakfast table sent their butter to mine. In case I was worried I would run out.

Harmless And Prudent?

A mildly amusing story, but too much butter in the fridge is hardly a problem. This is my point–avarice sneaks up on us and claims to do no harm.

Covetousness we call ambition.
Hoarding we call prudence.
Greed we call industry, 

writes Richard Foster.

It may not be millions in an off-shore account, it may be twenties in an envelope under your mattress. Or a stash of food, supplies and weapons against the coming apocalypse du jour. Or a closet full of unworn clothes, a basement cluttered with barely used items “you might need someday.” We hoard,  “just in case.” We store up for bad times we can’t predict.

Jesus calls it irrational. In Luke 12,  he shares the parable of a wealthy man with crammed-full storage units, planning to upgrade to larger ones. What a fool, Jesus says. He’ll be dead by morning, and what good will stuff do him then?

Avarice distracts us from God, the simple enjoyment of life, and the very real need of others. “Wherever your treasure is, there your heart and thoughts will be also.” (Luke 12:34 NLT)

Why would we want to give our heart to things?

Arresting Avarice: ABC

  • Appreciate: God knows what you need each day–put him first and he promises to provide.
  • Be generous: Share your best things, not your cast-offs. Don’t keep anything–your home, car, clothing, food or cash–as “just for you.” Give it all to God for his use, for others.
  • Clear out your basement, storage unit, garage, attic, closets on a regular basis–give away what you haven’t used for a while.

Reading Luke 12 regularly is a great antidote to avarice. What others ideas can you add?

 

photo credit

 

Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedinmail
Categories
Culture Faith Life

Second Deadly Thought: Lust

We are not masters of our own feeling, but we are by God’s grace masters of our consent. ~St. francis de Sales

Lust is the alien impostor of love. And we live in the thick of its pollution.

So thick, we’ve forgotten what it feels like to breathe air unclouded and clean.

Lust is named one of the Eight Deadly Thoughts for good reason. Left to its devices, lust kills the most beautiful gift God has given–relationship. Richard Foster writes, “The relationship between male and female is the human expression of our relationship with God.”

Or so it is designed to be.

Lust: The strong physical desire to have sex with somebody, usually without associated feelings of love or affection.

That second part is key. Lust is sex with all the relationship drained away. A corpse.

You hold up a picture in your mind and say “I will love you.” You hold that same picture up and say “I will lust you.” Notice your thoughts travel in opposite directions.

  • Toward self-giving–the desire to encourage and serve for their good
  • Toward self-absorption–the desire to possess and enjoy for your pleasure

We’ve lost our way. Not only do we glorify lust in our movies and sitcoms, but the laugh-track implies something’s wrong if we don’t.

So, Is Lust Really A Problem?

  • A mind filled with fantasy can’t also discern.
  • A mind listening to lust can’t also hear God.
  • A mind willing to objectify others can’t also love.

How do we climb out of the smog, clear our heads and restore our vision?

Some Ideas:

  1. Care: Notice the millions neglected, abused or trapped in self-loathing. This is what unbridled lust has accomplished. Allow yourself to be sickened and sad.
  2. Confess: Notice what you watch, where you “surf,” what you read. When alone with your thoughts, where do they linger? What influences needs to go out with the trash?
  3. Community: Find an accountability partner or group. Prayer is the power that breaks lust’s deadly grip.
  4. Cultivate your appetite for wholesome fare. As the Apostle Paul urged,

Fix your thoughts on what is true and honorable and right. Think about things that are pure and lovely and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise…and the God of peace will be with you.

Philippians 4:8-9

A Few Resources:

I appreciate Barb Wilson’s blog post, 50 Shades of Frenzy, on the damaging effects of lust, glamorized in books like 50 Shades of Gray. Her website offers helpful resources for sexually broken men and women.

Dee Bright has written a great book, The Divine Romance, on healing for women trapped in harmful thinking . Click on her website to learn more.

What change can you make today to clear the air of lust?

Photo Credit
Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedinmail
Categories
Faith Life

Sabbath Quiet: Disturb Us When We Attempt Too Little

Cowardice asks the question, ‘Is it safe?’ Expediency asks the question, ‘Is it politic?’ But conscience asks the question, ‘Is it right?’

And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular but because conscience tells one it is right. ~Martin Luther King, Jr.

Disturb Us, Lord

Disturb us, O Lord
when we are too well-pleased with ourselves
when our dreams have come true because we dreamed too little,
because we sailed too close to the shore.

Disturb us, O Lord
when with the abundance of things we possess,
we have lost our thirst for the water of life
when, having fallen in love with time,
we have ceased to dream of eternity
and in our efforts to build a new earth,
we have allowed our vision of Heaven to grow dim.

Stir us, O Lord
to dare more boldly, to venture into wider seas
where storms show Thy mastery,
where losing sight of land, we shall find the stars.

In the name of Him who pushed back the horizons of our hopes
and invited the brave to follow.

Amen.

~by Desmond Tutu, based on a prayer attributed to Sir Frances Drake

Disturbing Questions

Do you dream small, hugging the shore so in your own strength you can’t fail? Is your hope shallow, praying for a quick fix rather than deep change? Is God calling you to launch out, trusting his Spirit to guide? Will you pray, “Disturb me, Lord?”

Photograph by Melanie Hunt

Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedinmail
Categories
Culture Faith Life

First Deadly Thought: Gluttony

Gluttony is an emotional escape, a sign something is eating us. ~ Peter De Vries

Gluttony. One leering face of an eight-headed bully is blocking my way. I’m hungry, my heart cries, as I swerve to avoid him. Stop here, he beckons, and I’ll show you a shortcut. Come, make your choice from the menu in my hand. As long as you’re filled, what could possibly matter? He waves it before me, the

Menu du jour

Specialty of the house: 

  • Food

Other popular items:

  • Drink
  • Luxury
  • Clothing
  • Cars
  • Technology
  • Travel
  • Entertainment
  • Work
  • Exercise
  • Applause

Check back tomorrow–new items each day. Don’t forget this is an all-you-can-eat buffet. Our motto: More is always better. Less is never enough.

The Problem With Gluttony

Gluttony, from the Latin, gluttire, lit. gulp down. To over-indulge, to over-consume. In our propaganda-swamped culture, everyone’s promoting the next-shiny-new-thing. And a voice assures us,

  • You deserve a reward
  • It’ll help numb the pain  
  • No one is hurt if you choose to upgrade.

But gluttony is deadly because of the lie it upholds:  God (he made every morsel you pile on your plate) hasn’t and isn’t and will never be enough.

For the 4th century monastics who warned of the Eight Deadly Sins, meals were simpler. But the voice of temptation sounded as strong: What difference does it make if you go back for seconds? But unconsumed food was set aside for the poor–if a monk over-indulged, he sent a child away hungry.

For many of us, the consequences of gluttony are more hidden, but the lesson is the same. We say “no” for the sake of God’s compassionate “yes.” We say “enough” so love will have its way.

Beheading The Bully: The Spiritual Practice Of Enough

  1. Make a habit of paying for groceries with cash. Remove from your cart any food low in nutrition. Place the money you save in an envelope for the poor.
  2. Borrow what you can; refuse to buy new until you’ve worn out the old.
  3. Purchase for usefulness, rather than status.
  4. If food is your weakness, bring a meal to a neighbor. If you’re a glutton for shoes, give them away. If you drool over luxury, share life with the poor.
  5. Write a letter “releasing” your chocolate, your work, or your iPhone from the burden of providing comfort and escape. “Remind” them of their true, but far lesser role.
  6. Keep a Journal of Contentment, listing all you’ve been given.
  7. Find ways to enjoy f00d-free, gadget-free fun.
  8. Aim for significance not self-indulgence when you travel.
  9. Cultivate a holy gluttony for God.
Share with us your ideas for beheading the bully!
Photo Credit

Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedinmail