The Magdalene Mystique - The Path Inward

I usually arise early. Sometimes I go for a walk in the early morning light. Other times I sit in our living room chair that looks out on our garden and trees. This morning I found myself reading Psalm 104 as I looked out upon the earth. It would have been next to impossible not to feel blessed - blessed to be alive and participating in breath.

I want you, too, to feel this blessing so I am bringing some of the psalm’s music to you this morning. Psalm 104 is an ancient creation hymn that gives praise to Mother Earth. It is in Wisdom that God has made all.

From Psalm 104:

“Bless the Lord, O my soul;
O Lord my God, how excellent is your greatness!
You are clothed with majesty and splendor.

You wrap yourself with light as a cloak
and spread out the heavens like a curtain.

You lay the beams of your chambers in the waters above;
you make the clouds your chariot;
you ride on the wings of the wind.

You make the winds your messengers
and flames of fire your servants.

You have set the earth upon its foundations,
so that it shall never be shaken.

You covered it with the Deep as with a mantle;
the waters stood higher than the mountains…

You send the springs into the valleys;
they flow between the mountains.

All the beasts of the field drink their fill from them,
and the wild asses quench their thirst.

Beside them the birds of the air make their nests
and sing among the branches.

You water the mountains from your dwelling on high;
the earth is fully satisfied by the fruit of your works…

O Lord, how manifold are your works!
in Wisdom you have made them all;
the earth is full of your creatures.

Yonder is the great and wide sea
with its living things too many to number,
creatures both small and great…

I will sing to the Lord as long as I live;
I will praise my God while I have my being.

May these words of mine please God;
I will rejoice in the Lord…

Bless the Lord, O my soul. Hallelujah!

interconnectedness

Yesterday in the Episcopal Church the gospel reading included the passage from John where Jesus tells his disciples that after his death it will be the Spirit of truth who will guide them into “all the truth,” or as one scholar translates the Greek, into the “fullness of truth.” (John 16:13)

I have always loved this description of the Spirit as truth — perhaps because truth has always meant so much to me, and I have, for most of my life, been on a search to find it. I suppose that’s why I first took up the study of philosophy in my search for truth.

Jesus in the Gospel of Mary tells the disciples that if they search for the Spirit within, they will find peace. He is very clear in his description: that (1) the Spirit is to be found within the disciples and (2) when they discover that Spirit within, they are to follow it! So the mission is to search and find and follow the peace. This mission is not something that someone else can do for us, though it is important to listen to others about the truth and the peace they have found. But it is up to us in our own hearts and minds, individually and in community, to do this spiritual work. (These are the words of Jesus that led me to subtitle this website “the path inward.”)

To think there is a Spirit of truth within to guide us is a great comfort and empowerment. It is also a responsibility to express that truth/peace and to live by it. And discernment is not easy and is filled with obstacles. Perhaps that is why our Magdalene Community has taken up study and meditation and prayer in community to assist us in our inward path.

Thomas Merton has been helpful to me in understanding the path inward. In a small book entitled Spiritual Direction and Meditation,(Collegeville: The Liturgical Press, 1960), 52-53, he reminds us that St. Thomas and St. Bernard of Clairvaux describe meditation (consideratio) as “the quest for truth.” But he says that what they mean by meditation differs from what they mean by study, which is also a “quest for truth.” And both study and meditation lead to prayer and communion/union with God.

Merton continues: “Meditation and study can, of course be closely related. In fact, study is not spiritually fruitful unless it leads to some kind of meditation. By study we seek the truth in books or in some other source outside our own minds. In meditation we strive to absorb what we have already taken in. We consider the principles we have learned and we apply them to our own lives. Instead of simply storing up facts and ideas in our memory, we strive to do some original thinking of our own.

Meditation is for those, Merton continues, who want to enter into an intimate contact with truth itself, with God. They want to experience the deepest realities of life by living them. Meditation is the means to that end and it reaches its full development in prayer which seeks to possess the truth not only by knowledge but also by love. So for the saints study and meditation end not only in knowledge as an act of the intelligence but passes over into love.

I invite your comments if you resonate with some of these quotes and thoughts. Please click on the following to access a video entitled “Compassion: Dali Lama, Muhammad Ali, Thomas Merton” Thomas Merton

Sheryl, who is the technological wizard of this website will bring it here later. For those of you who check in early, I don’t want you to miss this video. Also click here to check out the video “Truth Happens” truth interconnectedness