Love Life

Question:

What breaks you out of your patterns of dislike?
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Transcript of Video:

I have had to learn, and it has actually got – has become easier because I’ve had so many opportunities to practice it and maybe that’s part of the grace, I’ve had to learn to say I’m sorry. And I’ve had to learn to ask people for forgiveness. I can spend so much time in my head demonizing them, which of course is a justification to myself for why I can be nasty to them, or why I’m in conflict with them, or why they push my buttons. That’s my justification, this, “So, well, of course I feel this way about you because you’re like this, you’re like this, you’re like this.” So that is – that kind of thought pattern is something we have to reject. Something we have to catch ourselves in and that we have to stop. We cannot revel in that kind of thinking. So Augustine said, “Thinking can be sinful,” and that’s – I think that that’s what he was talking about much more than people have equated it with sexual desire, because that’s where we always seem to go. But I think that was actually what Augustine was talking about. Our ability to demonize, to mentally demonize others, to justify our own feelings about them. And how do we stop that, we stop that kind of thinking. We catch ourselves in that kind of thinking and we say, “No, I can’t go there. I can’t do that. I have to do something else,” whatever that might be. But I think that there’s a very sound spiritual practice for us.

– Br. Robert L’Esperance

Question:

Make a list of your sinful and graceful actions today. Which side is longer?
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Transcript of Video:

I think one of the challenges that most people face, and I see this especially if someone comes for confession, people tend to be very pre-occupied with their failings, with their sins, mistakes and so forth, and not cognizant, not aware of how they actually do incarnate the love of God in their lives. And if they are aware of it, they take it completely for granted. “Well, of course, I’m supposed to do that.” Well, in a sense that’s right. But I think there’s – it’s helpful to have a deeper awareness, a firmer grasp on our capacity for love.

If we were going to be very practical and concrete about this, get out a piece of paper and a pen and start writing. Make two columns. Think through the day, the week, the month, whatever, and in one column make a list of your sins. And by sins, that doesn’t mean mistakes. That means things that you have done with some intention to break a relationship between you and God, between you and a human being. Not just accidentally stepping on someone’s toes, but intentionally stepping on somebody’s toes.

Make a list of what really is a sin in one column. Then make a list of all the things that you’ve done and said today that embody the love and grace and truth of Christ. The donations you made, the kind words you said to the checkout counter person, the help you gave to the older person next door, the guidance you gave to a child, the work that you did to support the family that you’re responsible for, all these things reflect the love of God and embody the love of God and they’re all very ordinary things. And that list is going to be much longer than the failings on the other side.

– Br. Mark Brown

Question:

Can you be content with what you have to give?
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Transcript of Video:

I honestly believe that we’re called to collaborate with God in forming the community. The one that is all of creation. But we do it in the ways that each of us has a spark, a desire for forming community. Look for opportunity for service of whatever kind. You know, it may not be saving the world or eliminating hunger single-handedly or poverty, but rather a particular need at a particular time.

There is the disciple who talks about a young man be availed, I think it’s Andrew speaks to Jesus, at the time when he’s in the wilderness with all these people and they’re not all Israelites. They’re just people who have come because they’ve heard of Jesus. And Jesus says, “You know, you give them something, you need to give them something to eat.” Rather than being flummoxed like some of the others, this Andrew said, “Well, there is somebody here with these five loaves and two fish.” Offering what we have without a kind of fear that it won’t be enough. It’s a giving of ourselves when the situation presents itself. You know, it’s not about some kind of you’re being asked a mystical trick question. But rather knowing what we have and being willing to hand it over. I think that’s a handing over of one’s life as well or even to perhaps to look foolish by the offer that we make.

– Br. Jonathan Maury

Question:

Can you love as a witness? Can you be a listener rather than a savior?
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Transcript of Video:

In my experience, community is healing and loving by how people come alongside and witness my experience. Witness my wounds. Witness my grief. Witness me right where I am. Often Jesus has done something inside that is freeing and liberating and life-giving and I then want to share. And it’s the person who comes alongside and listens and acknowledges my pain, my hurt, all that I’m feeling, whatever I am able to share who collaborates with Jesus, who does further healing with Jesus, by witnessing my experience. Letting me be honest and open by another being a safe and trustworthy person.

I think one of the challenges for us is that we think that it has to be someone special. That they have to be in a particular role or have particular training to be able to love or collaborate in this way. But anyone can listen. It is a skill. It can be worked at. This desire not to fix but to be with. To stand with another that they might withstand the world, withstand their experience. It’s choosing to be alongside maybe not saying a word but showing that you’re really there with them that enables another to heal. That gives loves to another. You can do it. Anyone can do it. All of us together listening, loving another, we bring healing to the world. We collaborate with Jesus who came in next to us. We are with Jesus in loving the world.

– Br. Luke Ditewig

This week’s videos will take up the theme of Collaboration. As you get ready for the week, we invite you to listen in on a conversation about Collaboration between the Novice Guardian, Br. David Vryhof and Brs. Luke Ditewig and Jim Woodrum. We hope their questions will start your thinking about your own, and give you a glimpse into the Brothers’ daily life as monks who look to the Gospel of John to guide their own lives of love. We hope this coming week will help you to #LoveLife.

Question:

Are you being called to collaborate with others or with God to be more fully alive?
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We are pleased to share in this Lenten journey with you. Today’s offering is a compilation of the five Participation videos. We hope this compilation will help you to catch up on any videos you might have missed, as well as providing an easy way to share the week’s videos in a group. Let us know how this week went for you!
Watch the Videos. Write your Answers. #LoveLife

Questions:

Participation 1: List three attributes of God that matter most to you.
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Participation 2: How can you uniquely reflect the love of God today?
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Participation 3: What’s got you half-dead?
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Participation 4: How is God inviting you to change?
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Participation 5: Pray your name today. What do you hear?
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Question:

Pray your name today. What do you hear?
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Transcript of Video:

The other passage that sends shivers up and down my spine is the encounter between Mary Magdalene and Jesus in the garden. And the reason why I love that passage is because she enters into this conversation with the gardener, you know, “If you have taken him away tell me where you’ve taken him and I’ll go and get him.” And she doesn’t recognize him in that initial conversation. And it’s not until he says her name, “Mary,” that she recognizes the risen Lord and she responds with, “Rabboni,” teacher.

And so sometimes in my prayer I simply allow myself to hear my name, you know, in my prayer have my name spoken and I can think of all the different people who have said my name. And sometimes my name is said crossly [laughing]. And you can tell when somebody is angry with you by the way they speak your name. But you can also tell when somebody loves you by the way they say your name. And so sometimes in my prayer, I simply allow myself to hear my name spoken and hear the love in that voice James, Jamie.

– Br. James Koester

Question:

How is God inviting you to change?
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Transcript of Video:

You know, all of us know that transformation, change, always has challenges and pain involved in it. And I can remember lots of times in my life when I’ve gotten to a place where I think, “Okay, I know we’re on a little plateau here, God, but I’m not really ready for any more challenges and I don’t really want much more pain in my life. I feel like I’ve done that.” And I think about God just kind of smiles and says, “We’re moving onto the next place. We’re going deeper and I’ll be there with my spirit to support you and help you but it’s just part of life.”

And I think the most wonderful thing about it is that I always know that it’s not the voice of God or the movement of God in my life if it’s something that feels too difficult and too isolating. That whenever God is offering me a challenge, I also have this great sense that well this might be difficult but the spirit will be there and the spirit will … well, the yolk will be easy and the burden will be light.

– Br. Tom Shaw

Question:

What’s got you half-dead?
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Transcript of Video:

One of those stories in John’s gospel which has always captivated me is the story of the raising of Lazarus. This extraordinary moment where Jesus walks up to the tomb and speaks those words, “Lazarus come out,” and Lazarus begins to move. There is a wonderful sculpture of the raising of Lazarus. I believe it’s in the Chapel of New College in Oxford by Jacob Epstein. What I love about it is that there is Lazarus coming out of the tomb but only half of him is coming out and the other half is still in the tomb and you get this sense that he’s not sure that he wants to come out because there’s something comfortable about the familiar even if you’re half dead. And I think that Jesus is calling us to new life and we have to say yes even though new life often can be rather fearful because it’s unknown. But I don’t believe that Jesus will ever leave us in a place where we are not fully alive. I think he’s constantly calling us everyday to become more alive because the more we become, the more I become the Jeffrey that God created me to be, the more I glorify God. And I would say the gospel of John another wonderful theme is the theme of glory that, “Where Jesus is there the glory of God shines forth and that we are meant to shine forth with that same glory as well by becoming fully alive in Christ.”

– Br. Geoffrey Tristram

Question:

How can you uniquely reflect the love of God today?
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Transcript of Video:

We’re talking about a dynamic which the prologue to John’s gospel kind of gets for us because, you know, son isn’t used right away it’s word. It’s this spoken word. It’s word is action. Word is love. God speaks creation into being. God breathes then, you know, there’s the spirit is how humankind and the whole creation are enlivened.

So it’s this kind of dynamic of a relationship that we’re speaking about that has chosen to take on the wholeness of humanity. Jesus has a soul. God has a soul. Jesus has a human heart. God has a heart. All of these things taken on are signifying truths about how we really reflect the image of God and not only what our origin is but also what our real destiny is, you know, that we’re actually being incorporated into this circle of love. What we call the incarnation is something that is taking place in all of us continuously in the whole human race. We’re being filled with the life of God each of us but always reflecting it in a way that only we can do.

– Br. Jonathan Maury