These next few months promise to be difficult for us for many reasons. I invite you to some rest, some hope, and even love as we begin again with our journey through A Sunlit Absence diving into chapter five.
A Sunlit Absence by Fr Martin Laird – Part XI No. 61
Part XI of marks our journey halfway through Fr Martin Laird's A Sunlit Absence. This episode is the third movement with chapter four. We've spent more time with chapter four because it is the most difficult.
If you are having difficulty getting your heart and mind wrapped around chapter four, you are not alone. Press on ahead if and when you sense the goodness of the Holy Spirit drawing. Do not force or fake your way. Read and practice your prayer. Practice your prayer and then come back to pray.
All worship and prayer is a continual, ever-deepening rehearsal of the Gospel. As Fr Laird shares Teresa of Avila's words with us: "It is all about love melting into love."
If you sense a further drawing into this love and would like some help and guidance this fall, consider The Invitation School of Prayer.
A Sunlit Absence by Fr Martin Laird – Part X No. 60
Part X of our journey through Fr Martin Laird's puts us squarely in the middle of the book. This is the second of three treatments of chapter four of the book.
As we wade deeper into these waters, Josh wants to give listeners participating more freedom to not only stop listening and working through the book but to even perhaps take a break from the Invitation Podcast altogether.
The awkward, strange, and even painful discovery is that as we move closer to God we are invited into more and more sacrifice, more death of self, more shifting of our priorities, and surprisingly more bewilderment.
During the time of Covid-19, anti-racism protests, and a contentious presidential race we need to find ways to be careful and patient with ourselves. Further commitment to spiritual discipline can anchor us, yet we cannot strive or force ourselves along the way. Sacrifice always needs to be a response to cooperate with and deepen our love of God. If we attempt to earn God's love through contemplative prayer in a spirit of striving, we will drown.
For those who sense the Holy Spirit's leading to go further into the discipline of prayer yet who would like further guidance along the way, please consider the Invitation School of Prayer launching this September with online resources for your growth: www.invitationpodcast.org/school-of-prayer
It's my 45th birthday, August 6, 2020. The world seems like its on fire, but here we are in a happy place doing happy things. Long-time Invitation podcast music contributor, Jared DeMeester and my new friend Max working on Jared's music.
Sharing this journey through A Sunlit Absence is of the same joy and goodness, a way to push on ahead in hope love during Covid-19, anti-racism protests, and a contentious presidential race.
Big LOVE to you!
Fr Martin Laird - Conversation #14 No. 59
"We have to have the humility to be no good at this, and gradually, as our practice deepens, these afflictive thoughts--they actually help train us."
These words from Fr Laird in our July 9, 2020 zoom conversation were worth the price of admission.
The humility.....
to be no good at this...
That our struggles are part of the training. Our struggles are necessary!
In the context of Covid-19, the Invitation has been focusing on A Sunlit Absence, the second of a three-book series on contemplative prayer by Fr Martin Laird. This episode is Part I of two parts comprising an 1.5 hour conversation that Fr Laird so graciously shared with us.
Here Josh opens with a brief, guided prayer. Fr Laird shares some opening thoughts about contemplation in the context of all suffering we are experiencing throughout the world. Then we are able to interact with two questions from Invitation Podcast listeners who joined in to our zoom conversation.
The next episode, No 60, will be Part X of our journey through A Sunlit Absence. Shortly after Part II of this conversation of Q&A with Fr Laird will be available to you. Thanks for listening and continuing the journey.
A Sunlit Absence by Fr Martin Laird – Part IX No. 58
Father Laird describes the ideal contentment that can be gained through prayer: “The practice of contemplation does not acquire for us some thing. Contemplative practice proceeds by way of the engaged receptivity of release, of prying loose, of letting go of the need to have our life circumstances be a certain way in order for us to live or pray or be deeply happy.”
Contemplation trains us by grace to release, to surrender, to rest no matter what our present circumstances. The Apostle explains this contentment by saying, “for me to live is Christ and to die is gain.” I’ve known this passage from Philippians 2 for many, many years, yet this form of contentment has seemed unrealistic and unattainable. The writings of Fr Laird give us a path forward to move into and to dwell within this silent land, this sunlit absence, or his the metaphor of his third book, this ocean of light.
If you struggle to imagine this kind growth today, you are not alone. It’s been a struggle for me too.
My own struggle to pray during this time of shelter in place reveals that I am not yet firmly anchored in a contemplative practice, not as anchored as I thought I was. I am aware of my need for times of quiet trust to sit patiently in God’s presence, yet contemplation is not yet where my attention is drawn. It is not my first or even my second instinct.
First, I think of food. Second, I think of entertainment, the internet. Third, I think of sleep….and so on.
Since the beginning of quarantine in March, my days have less and less structure and discipline. I confess I attend to contemplation irregularly. Yet gracefully, I’m aware of the consequences of my lack. I’m not blindly or naively ignorant of what is missing. The question here after making a confession, is how we cooperate with grace. When we stray from Jesus as our first love, we should feel the sting of conviction. However, there is no condemnation for those of us who are in Jesus. The Holy Spirit does not respond to our confession with shame.
Shame is the vocabulary of our dark enemies. Shame is the fruit of our false ego. If I pretend to be something I am not, falling short of that false self will unleash all kinds of demonic voices of empty, fruitless guilt, a guilt that causes us to hide from God. The false guilt causes us to quit our prayer.
Instead, again by grace, I delight to consider how much further removed from hope, love, and God’s presence if I did not already have years of prayer practice, if I didn’t already have my irregular prayer. I recall the delight of the prayer and am inspired to return.
No matter where you are in your prayer this summer, you have not wandered too far away. Prayer is always an invitation to return and to begin again.
“Come let us return to the Lord. He has torn us to pieces but he will heal us; he has injured us but he will bind up our wounds.” Hosea 6:1
Part IX of our journey through Fr Martin Laird's A Sunlit Absence takes us into chapter four which is also titled, "A Sunlit Absence." This is the thickest and most challenging chapter of the book, so before diving into chapter four I spend ample time reviewing why we are bothering with contemplation especially in our present, painful time of pandemic and political strife.
The pursuit of contemplative practice is at times bewildering and challenging, but with patience and persistence we will gain the reward of God's presence and friendship.
Below is an assortment of other sections of chapter four for your prayer and consideration.
Peace & Love to you! Amen,
Josh
“The soul is vast, spacious, plentiful. This amplitude is impossible to exaggerate. The Sun at the center of this place radiates to every part.” St Teresa of Avila
This vast inner space, an abyss, is completely open and porous to God. “Indeed Lord, to your eyes, the abyss of human consciousness is naked.” St. Augustine
Awareness, consciousness, watchfulness is this vast inner space radiating everywhere. It is not an object rather all objects, physical objects or internal objects like thoughts and feelings they appear and disappear in this awareness, a “sunlit absence.” To adapt Seamus Heaney, always luminous but never quite pinned down. This sunlit absence suffuses and embraces all as open to the luminous ground, as air to light. “In your light Lord, we see light.” Ps 36:10
St Hesychios identifies three moments in this process in which awareness becomes increasingly ungrasping, expansive, and luminous. “While we are being strengthened in Christ Jesus and beginning to move forward in steadfast watchfulness, he at first appears in our intellect like a torch which, when grasped by the hand of the intellect, guides us along the track of the mind. Then he appears to us like a full moon circling the heart’s firmament. Then he appears to us like the sun, radiating justice, clearly revealing himself in the full light of spiritual vision.”
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A Sunlit Absence by Fr Martin Laird – Part VIII No. 56
You are in the midst of some form of trauma. Healing found in silence is available.
If you are fighting against injustice today, you need the nourishment of silence to sustain you through tomorrow.
External, physical violence against black bodies originates in a noisy, wounded, empty soul. Where does healing come from? What will end the violence?
St. Augustine wrote: “Why do you want to speak and not listen? You’re always rushing out of doors and are unwilling to return to your own house. Your teacher is within.“
Fr Martin Laird writes: “ Indeed silence does more than tiptoe around the house. Silence moves through sound like water through a netting. The deeper our own interior silence, the more we take on its gracious ways of opening up the tight mind that clenches its teeth around what it wants and spits out what it doesn’t want.”
Our clenched teeth will be loosened by silence.
Bob, a friend who studied spiritual direction with me, said all of the above in another way:
”We are only as gentle with others as we are with ourselves.”
Our Zoom Q&A with Fr Laird is Thursday July 9, 2pm EST. More information is available HERE.
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A Sunlit Absence by Fr Martin Laird – Part VII No. 55
This is part VII of our journey through Fr Martin Laird’s A Sunlit Absence, the second of his three books on contemplative prayer. In the last episode we looked at how the opposite of the contemplative life is not the active life, but the reactive life. In this episode we consider how silence leads us to justice, to an honest awareness of what is broken, sick, and failing inside of ourselves. Fr Laird is working out the teachings of Jordon of Saxony, a 13th century Augustinian monk who writes, “Through silence a brother begins to cultivate and practice justice by which virtue he is informed so as to live his own life honestly. Not to harm others, and to each each one his due. Such formation as this carries anyone so formed on to the state of perfection. On the other hand, from the breakdown of silence, disturbance of mind arise. Quarrels are borne.”
A simple summary of Jordan of Saxony goes like this: the children of silence: peace of mind and cultivation of justice.
Please sign up to stay informed about the date and times of our two Q&A sessions with Fr Laird here: https://www.invitationpodcast.org/fr-laird-qa-webinar
In this time of quarantine and as we face the racism in America, I invite you to contemplation for two reasons:
1. Contemplation is a practice of Divine healing, where the Holy Spirit can have more access to reach the trauma, exhaustion, and despair we are experiencing.
2. Contemplation is a de-centering practice that open us to listen to God, and others, especially open to see how we are complicit in racism and in other arenas of sin. For more help with facing racism, please visit: www.invitationpodcast.org/facing-racism
If you have not already subscribed to the Invitation Podcast, please do so: https://www.invitationpodcast.org/subscribe
It is a gift and honor to serve you through the Invitation Podcast. We hope you are well wherever you are during these difficult times. Peace of Christ
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A Sunlit Absence by Fr Martin Laird – Part Six No. 54
Key passages from Chapter Two:
“The opposite of the contemplative life is not the active life, but the reactive life.”
“The problem is noise in our heads. This is why the great spiritual masters offer practical advice on how to deal with our reactions to our thoughts and feelings. For reacting to them generates an inner video. This inner video can become our predominant experience of inner life.”
Key insight from Evagrius of Pontus:
“Those who long for true prayer, but are given over to anger or resentment will be beside themselves with madness. They are like someone who wants to see clearly but keeps scratching her eyes.”
“Resentment blinds the reason of one who prays and casts a cloud over prayer.”
“The most fierce passion is anger. It constantly irritates the soul and above all, at the time of prayer, it seizes the mind and flashes the picture of the offensive person before one’s eyes.”
This episode is part SIX of our journey through Fr Martin Laird's book A Sunlit Absence. Here Josh completes a guided study and practice through chapter two. It is not too late for you to join into this journey especially if you want to join into the webinar Q&A session with Fr Laird. Information and signup to be involved in the Q&A is found here: www.invitationpodcast.org/fr-laird-qa-webinar
Due to Covid-19 the date and time for the first of these two sessions is TBA.
In this time of quarantine and as we face the racism in America, I invite you to contemplation for two reasons:
1. Contemplation is a practice of Divine healing, where the Holy Spirit can have more access to reach the trauma, exhaustion, and despair we are experiencing.
2. Contemplation is a de-centering practice that open us to listen to God, and others, especially open to see how we are complicit in racism and in other arenas of sin. For more help with facing racism, please visit: www.invitationpodcast.org/facing-racism
Watch a video invitation to this new series
A Sunlit Absence by Fr Martin Laird – Part Five No. 52
What is the point of continuing to read, study, and practice contemplative prayer in the midst of one of the most important conversations about racial injustice America has ever experienced? What is the point of one white man guiding you through the writings of another white man? I’m learning the painful lesson that my voice and leadership are not important right now. It’s time to listen to our black and brown teachers and leaders. I’ve wrestled with postponing this journey with A Sunlit Absence even with the exciting plans to host two online Q&A sessions with Fr Laird. Here are two reasons why I invite you to continue (or begin...it’s not too late) with A Sunlit Absence:
1. If we are to sustain our activism, we need a consistent source of peace, healing, and spiritual and emotional nourishment. Contemplation offers us help as Covid-19 and the killing of George Floyd (preceded by many others) are taking a toll on our mental health. Contemplative prayer has been called “Divine Therapy.”
2. With the work that is before us to face racism as a country, the invitation is to see myself and how I am part of the problem. Contemplation can be described as centering prayer; however, if you attend to it in a substantial and an extended way, contemplation can aide in a de-centering journey. Contemplative prayer can dislodge our egos and aid our capacity to listen to the black and brown voices that we must turn our attention to.
As we continue with a Sunlit Absence, I want to offer three challenges to you:
Challenge #1: Commit to practicing contemplation daily for the duration of the time we are reading, studying, and practicing A Sunlit Absence. The first time I really dove in, it was in response to Ruth Haley Barton challenging me: five minutes a day of wordless prayer for a whole year. The wisdom is that shorter, consecutive, daily practices of prayer are more fruitful than longer, sporadic practices.
Challenge #2: Commit also during this time to daily study, discussion, and doing something tangible that engages the sickness of racism in America, what Dr. King described as America’s original sin.
Challenge #3: Tell someone about your intention to these daily practices, or even better, ask someone to join you in a daily practice of contemplation and to engage with you in the conversation on racism.
Be safe, and Peace of Christ to you, Josh
Below are a few resources to learn more about racism. I will continue to update a list of resources on this page: https://www.invitationpodcast.org/facing-racism with the help of my wife, Susanna Childress. And please feel free to submit your recommended resources as well.
Resources on racism
Quick, deep dive videos:
Bryan Stevenson: There’s a Direct Line From Lynching to George Floyd | Amanpour and Company
Poor People's Campaign: How Rev. William J. Barber Uses His Faith To Fight | TIME
Why “I’m not racist” is only half the story | Robin DiAngelo | Big Think
Robin DiAngelo on "White Fragility" | Amanpour and Company
Films:
Just Mercy - FREE to watch for a limited time on Amazon Prime
Books, essays, and more to come at this link.
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A Sunlit Absence by Fr Martin Laird – Part Four No. 51
While protests continue to erupt across America, we continue here on a journey into contemplative prayer knowing that contemplation is not an escape from the brokenness around us. Contemplation is not a comfortable way of hiding from the justice that we should all be crying out for today either. Contemplation will deepen and clarify our understanding of justice. Contemplation will help us identify each of our own unique responses to the crises that beset us, and contemplation will also help sustain and nourish our much needed activism to address the racism that continues to have a stranglehold on us. In fact, it may only be via contemplation that you are freed from your ego long enough to catch a glimpse of how you are contributing to the oppression of the marginalized and are a part of the problem!
In this fourth episode working through Fr Martin Laird’s book, A Sunlit Absence, we finish up chapter one and should by now have a working definition of contemplation. In this episode we consider how through practice, the mechanical nature of this prayer movement will eventually become familiar and more graceful.
The exciting news is that Fr Laird has committed to two separate Q & A sessions with Invitation podcast listeners. The specific details are being worked out, but the idea is to meet with Fr Laird after chapter four and then again at the end of the book which will likely take us through most of July 2020. It isn’t too late to dive into this valuable book and for you to come up with your own questions that you may very well be able to ask Fr Laird yourself. If you haven’t already, please subscribe so that we can contact you with the further details about these two online events. https://www.invitationpodcast.org/subscribe
Also, in this episode Josh mentions his song, “Silence.” The song can be found at the end of the episode, at 22:40. This is a more recent version of the song that includes Josh’s wife, Susanna Childress as well as strings performed by Jared Demeester.
The greatest gift you can offer back the invitation is to invite a friend to the Invitation. Please share the Invitation!
If the Invitation has been of help to you, and if you would like to see the Invitation grow sustainably, your financial help is much appreciated. https://www.invitationpodcast.org/donations
Peace of Christ to you in these very bewildering times. Amen.
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A Sunlit Absence by Fr Martin Laird – Part Three No. 50
We GET to go through it. The obstacles are doorways.
First, we avoid silence because we are addicted to noise and rush, addicted to our self-importance, our genius ideas, powerful emotions, and valiant actions. Then we abandon silence because we are horrified by what we discover is really going on inside of ourselves. The only way forward is to have compassion for ourselves in the midst of our struggle. Father Martin Laird explains that, "The thoughts and feelings, which were previously the most distracting obstacles to inner peace, are now seen to be vehicles to it."
As the children's book reads, "We can't go over it! We can't go under it! Oh no! We've got to go through it! In fact, we get to go through it. There is no other way but to go through our obstacles into the still presence of God
This third installment of our journey through A Sunlit Absence by Fr Marin Laird continues in chapter one. Chapter one is a summary of Laird's previous book, Entering the Silent Land. The intention here is to offer a substantial definition of contemplation as well as offering some practical descriptions of how contemplation is practiced. Bless you for continuing on this journey. May you be blessed even in the midst of this covid pandemic. Subscribe to this podcast to stay updated when new episodes, classes, and retreats are made available www.invitationpodcast.org/subscribe
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A Sunlit Absence by Fr Martin Laird – Part Two No. 49
Part two of a journey of guided prayer, reading, and commentary through A Sunlit Absence by Fr Martin Laird. Buy your own copy of the book and read more in-depth on your own or access the journey through this transformative book with the podcast. A new episode will be offered every second or third day. Questions and comments are welcome. Email josh at invitationpodcast dot org. If you have not already subscribed, please join the journey www.invitationpodcast.org/subscribe Peace of Christ to you during this quarantine wilderness..
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A Sunlit Absence by Fr Martin Laird – Introduction Part One No. 48
One sentiment offered on social media this past week went something like this: “let's not return to normal. Normal wasn't working. If we try to return to normal, we won't have learned the costly lesson." This is the truth of all transformation. COVID 19 is just a very severe, collective opportunity for us to move beyond "normal."
This episode no. 48 is the first of a new series of reading, studying, and praying through Fr Martin Laird’s book A Sunlit Absence. Fr Laird helps us reform a consciousness that can embrace the transformation that is at hand. You are invited to buy the book to follow along in your own reading or to simply listen and pray with the podcast.
If you have not subscribed yet to the podcast, please join the journey www.invitationpodcast.org/subscribe
And also, please consider inviting someone to the Invitation. Let someone know about the goodness of going deeper with God with the Invitation Podcast. Peace of Christ to you during this troubling time wherever you are in the world.
