In reflecting upon the nature of the universe, one fact stands out glaringly and that is the primacy, the incomparability of that miracle we call consciousness, intelligence, or subjectivity. There is nothing comparable in the material world with this phenomenon, whether it be atoms, stars or nebulae. It is also obvious that it is not our personal thought which preceded the universe, rather it was and is "absolute Consciousness, of which our thought is precisely a distant reflection . . .Nothing is more absurd than to have intelligence derive from matter, hence the greater from the lesser, the evolutionary leap from matter to intelligence is from every point of view the most inconceivable thing that could be".

What distinguishes human consciousness from animal consciousness, what is natural to human consciousness is its capacity for the absolute and the infinite. It is also the case that the human alone is free to go against its own nature and refuse the content of Intellection and Revelation which are "natural". When actualized, it is this refusal which has been theologically called "the fall of man". This fall, this refusal of the inherent content of Intellection and Revelation, separates the human from the immanent Revelation and "then sets him against the prophetic Revelation". The Intellect (note capital I) was defined by Meister Eckhart as follows: "There is something in the soul that is uncreate and uncreatable. If the whole soul were this it would be uncreate and uncreatable, and this is the Intellect." Schuon also observes at this point that Moslem esotericism agrees that the Intellect is not created. This aspect of the human is also called "the eye of the heart", or the "eye of contemplation". Ken Wilber supports this line of insight with quotes from Hugh of St. Victor and St. Bonaventure. The latter noting that "there is a lumen superius, the light of transcendent Being which illumines the eye of contemplation and reveals ‘truth which is unto liberation’".

Frithjof Schuon writes that his central axiom is that on the one hand all that exists is inscribed a priori in the theomorphic substance of our intelligence-there is no integral consciousness that does not prolong absolute Consciousness-and on the other hand that the intellectual actualization of the real or of the possible depends, either on the perfection of our nature, or else on an external factor that makes use of the value of this perfection. . .such as Revelation or, . . an experience which provokes the archetypal remembrance of which Plato spoke.

Humans possess liberty because they are theomorphic, a word whose Greek roots are equal to the Biblical "in his image"; more exactly it means, "having divine form". Of course, human liberty is not total, but only so within certain limits, yet very real. The human "participates in [the Divine Absolute Liberty] to the extent that he conforms to it . . .this amounts to saying that in God and through Him, man can be reunited with pure Liberty; only in God are we absolutely free.

Consequently, we humans are situated between an [intuitive] Intellection that connects us to God and a world that has the power to detach us from God. Paradoxically, we might say, we have the freedom to wish to make ourselves God. It is this freedom, this situation, which makes possible the rupture between Intellection and reason. Hence from the very start we are in an ambiguous situation "suspended between the Infinite and the finite" and so it is inevitable that "offenses must needs come". In the Genesis myth, Adam and Eve, seizing the fruit of the "tree of the knowledge of good and evil" have grasped at being God. They simply did not trust their intuitive insight that their destiny was to be found in God, but trusted the simple, reasonable, appearance that the fruit was good to the eye and sweet to the mouth. It is in this way that we turn against our own true nature and thereby oppose god. "The rational faculty detached from its supernatural context is necessarily opposed to man and is bound to give rise in the end to a way of thought and a form of life both of which are opposed to man . . ."

In sum, what is human, essential, natural to us is what relates us to the Absolute and thus requires transcending the merely earthly about us. But when our Intelligence is separated from its supra-individual source it is immediately accompanied by that lack of sense of proportion which is called pride. This pride is the overvaluation of our rational capability, it is rationalism, and since it will not admit its Source, can only deny Spirit and replace it with matter. It is then a short way to viewing humanity itself as the child of matter, as if the lesser could produce the greater, trying to deduce consciousness from matter. Failing meanwhile to see that if we are only "dancing dirt" then our thoughts, including those about our origin, are quite meaningless. Scientistic-materialism totally undercuts its own foundation. Yet it is this scientistic-materialism which still reigns in most of our universities even though, as the great philosopher Alfred North Whitehead remarked 75 years ago, "it is quite unbelievable. This conception of the universe is surely framed in terms of high abstractions, and the paradox only arises because we have mistaken our abstraction for concrete realities." Again, a quote from Schuon seems apropos:

Besides to reduce all intelligence and all love to material causes is a way of not wanting to admit that our material existence is an exile; of wanting, on the contrary, to feel at ease in a world that presents itself as an end in itself, and which exempts man from the effort of transcending things and of transcending himself; whereas without this effort man bypasses the human vocation.

The world in which we live, the mental environment of the present western world, leaves little or no room for any profound sense of meaning to life. We are "here today and gone tomorrow" and that’s it. In this atmosphere we easily follow the lead of Adam and Eve and grasp at the seemingly preferred. Even those who are trying to follow the teaching of our Teacher, Jesus, find it all to easy to slide into the patterns of the world. Thus it is that we do well to take time for self-examination and repentance during Lent. The word in the New Testament usually translated as repentance is the Greek metanoia. This word metanoia carries in the NT the meaning of a profound change of mind and heart as it appears in one who repents of a previous purpose or action. It is used of those who have begun to abhor their errors and misdeeds and have determined to enter upon a better way of life. Thus this change embraces both recognition of sin and sorrow for it and hearty amendment, the tokens and effects of which are good deeds. Thus, previous to repentance must come a kind of self-examination, or life review, which brings before one any previous misapprehension about the meaning and purpose of life. But more important is the intimate connection and dependence of repentance and forgiveness on the quality and content of one’s faith.

Everyone lives out of a conviction, whether somewhat conscious or mostly unconscious, about the meaning and purpose of life and thus of its appropriate conduct. In his profound work on Faith, titled The Dynamics of Faith, Paul Tillich indicates that no one lives without faith because faith is a state of the organization of psyche about one’s ultimate concern, or concerns. Tillich states specifically "faith is the state of being ultimately concerned". We are necessarily creatures of faith, else we become schizophrenic, inwardly divided, having no overriding organizing principle. Usually, it is necessary to say ultimate concerns because most people do not have only one organizing ultimate concern in their lives. And, since faith, as Luther observed, makes both god and idol, we are mostly polytheists. Consider the person who sets to work in the morning with his eye set on making money, being a success in business and making a name for himself. These could easily be three different, somewhat incompatible faiths. Each could function part of the time as this man’s ultimate concern. Then later in the day, perhaps as he comes home, this man’s concern is to be a good husband and father and a man of respect in the community. Again, such goals, if elevated to ultimate concerns, become not merely divisive, but idolatrous.

Faith is not the same as belief. Belief is a matter of conviction on the basis of evidence. We believe, for example, in maps because we have reason to trust mapmakers; we have previous experience that shows maps to be trustworthy. I’ve never seen most of the world, but I trust, with virtually no doubt, that our atlases describe it with great accuracy because I have found maps to be accurate guides. Belief is a matter mostly under the control of will and decision, guided by reason. What constitutes faith? Theologians have generally agreed that it means total trust and loyalty. This is the essence of Paul Tillich’s thought too, in his words "faith is the state of being ultimately concerned".

People have many concerns; some of them very basic, food, shelter, safety, but also people have spiritual concerns. These latter may be of a cognitive nature, aesthetic, social or political. Any of these may become a matter of ultimate concern by claiming to be ultimate. The criteria for discerning an ultimate concern are simple; it demands total surrender and promises total fulfillment. Faith is the state of having one’s total concern claimed; it is all-absorbing, overriding. Secondly, it promises fulfillment. As absorbing, it means that one’s life direction, one’s life investment is set on this purpose above all. In the O.T., the covenant structure is one of command and promise. "You shall love the Lord your god with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might. (Deut. 6:5) This quote states unambiguously the character of faith as the demand for total surrender to the object of ultimate concern. Here the object is Yahweh, the God of justice, universal justice for all, for every nation. But as we see too tragically, the usual nation’s claim is that it shall have precedence over all other nations and literally may claim one’s life in its service. Yahweh is to be the God of all people, not just one nation. In our pledge of allegiance to the flag, we say "one nation under God", but too often the nation has usurped the place of God. Thus modern nationalism, like most states of past history, claims our ultimate loyalty and promises fulfillment.

As was noted above, we easily become concerned with such things as "success", "social standing", "money", "power" and each can become a matter of ultimate concern. Each of these not only promises, but carries a threat, the lack of fulfillment. For the nationalist of every sort, the threat is the collapse of hopes and dreams in the fall of the nation. This collapse of hopes also occurs when any demagogue finally crashes whether from internal or external causes. For those concerned with the more mundane gods like success, the threat is economic or social defeat or ignominy. Such a failure of one’s ultimate concern often leads to severe mental distress, even suicide.

As indicated, faith is the state of being ultimately concerned. The content of that concern matters infinitely for the life of the believer. There is nothing under the sun, so to speak, which is appropriate for one’s ultimate concern. Everything finite eventually comes to an end, passes away. So every faith vested in something finite is doomed to fail with dire consequences. But for the definition of faith, the content is of no matter. Faith makes both god and the idol.

Further, it should be observed that faith as ultimate concern is an act of the whole personality not some one aspect that might be called the religious dimension. Faith is a centering act of the entire psyche and participates in the dynamics of the personal life. These dynamics have been variously described by psychology, but because most modern psychology is based upon the empirical-scientistic principle, the highest dimensions of personality are excluded. However, at least two major schools of psychology include the transcendent in their thought; viz., transpersonal psychology and analytic psychology. Each has in some ways connected with the esoteric/perennial Tradition. In order to be brief, I will here consider only the contribution of analytic psychology to the understanding of the dynamics of faith.

Analytic psychology speaks of the polarities of the human experience and their conflicts or tensions. Three polarities in particular will be considered. The first polarity, the most decisive polarity, is that between the conscious and the so-called unconscious. As one famous writer noted, everybody speaks of consciousness and assumes that it is a personal reality whose nature they know, but no agreed upon definition seems to exist. For our purposes consciousness will be used to mean awareness and response ability to one’s external (the world) and internal (intra-psychic) processes. As for the unconscious, C.G. Jung’s definition appeals to me: the unconscious is that aspect of psyche of which we are unaware and which thus cannot be delimited with any precision.

As Tillich observed, faith as an act of the whole person must include the unconscious elements. However, faith is also a conscious act, so the unconscious elements participate only to the degree that they have been made conscious. These unconscious elements are always present, and if they determine the nature of our ultimate concern, faith does not occur; and compulsion takes it place. The compulsive personality is not guided by faith, but by some unconscious element. In the NT such elements were called demons. True faith is a matter of freedom. Freedom means the possibility of centered personal acts, acts which are from the whole (hale) person and which make the person whole. Faith is the free act of choosing to center the whole person about that which is truly Ultimate. To speak in this manner of faith as choice implies that we have free will and does not deal with the necessity of grace as it makes possible faith in the Ultimate. We might say that it is grace which makes freedom of choice possible. The knotty problem of God’s omniscience and omnipotence in regard to free will cannot be addressed here due to space. Suffice it to say that it is God who is the author of human freedom.

A second set of polarities is that between what Freud called the ego and the superego. Freud thought of the superego as the basis of all cultural life because it restricts the uninhibited expression of the instincts, especially the sexual instinct. However, this conceptualization of superego fails to note how it may also function in a very negative fashion; it may cut one off from the inner vital forces, produce disgust about the whole system of cultural restrictions and produce neuroses. Indeed it all too easily becomes a tyrant and destroyer of freedom. Superego may be paralleled with the Law concept of the OT. The proper purpose of the Law is to be a guide and a teacher. As we read in the NT, "a schoolmaster to Christ". And, as St. Paul continues, "Before faith came, we were confined by the law and kept under custody. . .the Law thus held us as wards in discipline, till such time as Christ came. . ." Our touchstone here is Christ. Thus the content of culture, the voice of conscience, the guidance of the superego may be accepted only if and when they affirm the truly Ultimate.

A third set of polarities to be considered are those between the acts of the whole person and those of aspects of the personality which try to act for the whole. C. G. Jung called these aspects of the personality complexes. Thus we get in the popular usage such terms as Freud’s famous Oedipus complex, mother, or father complex, and so on. Jung believed that any of the activated formal aspects of the unconscious (which he termed archetypes) could come into conflict with the ego. Now it must be noted that faith is not an act of the rational aspect of psyche alone, if it were, faith would be mere knowledge and a creature of will alone. Knowledge is part of faith, as is reason, but they are concomitants, not the whole. When faith is treated primarily as knowledge, or belief as described earlier, it easily is deformed into orthodoxy, right believing and, worse, believing that you and your group alone are right in your beliefs. This stance is the foundation of every fanaticism.

Nor is faith some quality of emotion, particularly an emotional experience that one must have, or have had to be a person of faith. Emotion is in every act of faith, but emotion is not the source of faith; it is rather a concomitant. When faith is reduced to some particular emotion or experience, it easily is distorted into the same set of problems that beset rigid orthodoxy. The group turns in on itself and is set over against the rest of not only the world, but of other faith communities which do not carry the same dogmas.

Finally, in this set of polarities, it must be noted that faith is not a creature of the human will, especially will as set over against other demands of the psyche. To place all the emphasis on will is to reduce faith to ethics, or morality and greatly overrates the power of will. Certainly ethical behavior, moral actions are part of the results of faith, but they are not the core, much less the whole. Willpower is too fragile to bear the load of a faithful life. To think otherwise is like telling a alcoholic, or a drug addict that if she only willed to do so, she could quit. Every twelve step program teaches that the first step is to admit that you can no longer control this desire; that a higher power is needed than the will.

In summary, faith is the unity of every element of the centered self; a self which is not inwardly divided. Hence faith is not derived from something else, because all attempts to derive it from something else are themselves based on faith. The two most common patterns are to derive faith from rationality or from the will; in both cases making faith a creature of the ego aspect of personality. But faith transcends all that and does so because it is a unified act of the centered self.

Now it must be asked what is the source of such an all-embracing concern as faith? To understand this question, we must realize that there are two sides to the faith relation: the one who is concerned and the object of concern. Human experiences, feelings, and thoughts are conditioned and finite, transitory. They come and go and are about things that come and go. Thus the content of our experiences is finite, conditional, unless it is elevated to an unconditional validity. It thus appears that humans have the capacity to elevate something to unconditional validity. The fact that we have such a capacity suggests that we have some ability to understand in an immediate act, a personal act, the meaning of the ultimate, the unconditioned, the infinite. It is this ability which was referred to early in this paper as intuitive Intellection. St. Paul, in Romans Chapter Two, said this very simply by pointing out that people inherently know God’s eternal power and deity in the creation and in themselves. Tillich puts the matter as follows: "Man is driven toward faith by his awareness of the infinite to which he belongs, but which he does not own like a possession. This is in abstract terms what concretely appears as the ‘restlessness of the heart’ within the flux of life" St. Paul also points out that humans, despite this inherent knowledge of and about God, seemed always to be caught up in some false ultimate concern, attached to some idol.

We can also see in this "restlessness of the heart" evidence that there is a critical principle at work in human consciousness, viz., that which is really Ultimate is somehow present in the human. It is this inner Presence that drives one toward faith in the truly Ultimate, toward making a discernment between the false and the True. We can and do experience the difference between that which is really True and that which is only preliminary, transitory, finite. Nothing that can be characterized as belonging to the world or as a creation of humans can be ultimate. To treat any of these as such is to guarantee disappointment. Every idol has clay feet and will crumble sooner or later. An idolatrous faith leads to a loss of the center of the personality, or more exactly to a miscentered personality and to eventual collapse. Faith may be demonic or holy, our ultimate concern can destroy us or heal us (in conventional Christianity we speak of being "lost" or "saved".)

From the above discussion it can be seen that faith as ultimate concern about the True Ultimate is not easily attained. And we recall Jesus’ conversation with his disciples after the incident with the rich young who man went away sorrowing, unable to let go of his possessions in order to have eternal life. "And Jesus said to his disciples, ‘Truly I say to you, it will be hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven . . .it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle.’ And the disciples, astonished, said ‘Who then can be saved?’ Jesus looked at them and said, ‘With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.’" How is such faith possible? Only because God is already at work within us both to will and to do.

The contemplative tradition has much to say to us about the process of being a person of faith. The focus of this essay is on the need for and the process of repentance as a critical part of being a person of faith in God. Thus our concern is with the dynamics of the Christian life because we know that we have all already stumbled and gone astray in one way or another in our lives. Our faith is that of finite beings, and doubt is part of this process, but there is an element in faith that helps us to accept this necessary state. That element may be called courage and it arises from our trust and loyalty to God as Ultimate Love. "Courage as an element of faith is the daring self-affirmation of one’s own being in spite of the powers of ‘non-being’ which are the heritage of everything finite." This factor is doubly important the more one realizes that idolatrous faith is a real possibility. If one puts the wrong ultimate at the center of existence, then the meaning of one’s life is likely to be the forfeit. The failure of an ultimate concern leads to psychological collapse, deep despair. But such failure may also be the crisis that makes faith in the True Ultimate possible. "With God all things are possible".

Martin Luther was greatly concerned with sin and repentance. He fought continually for certainty and a sense of security over against his doubt. Some of his remarks on repentance found in his "The Babylonian Captivity of the Churches" seem noteworthy.

A contrite heart is a precious thing, but it is found only where there is an ardent faith in the promises and threats of God. Such faith, intent on the immutable truth of God, makes the conscience tremble, terrifies it and bruises it; and afterwards, when it is contrite, raises it up, consoles it, and preserves it. Thus the truth of God's threat is the cause of contrition, and the truth of his promise the cause of consolation, if it is believed. By such faith a man "merits" the forgiveness of sins. Therefore faith should be taught and aroused before all else. Once faith is obtained, contrition and consolation will follow inevitably of themselves.

And Luther adds, a paragraph later: Beware then, of putting your trust in your own contrition and of ascribing the forgiveness of sins to your own remorse. God does not look on you with favor because of that, but because of the faith by which you have believed his threats and promises, and which has effected such sorrow within you. Thus we owe whatever good there may be in our penance, not to our scrupulous enumeration of sins, but to the truth of God and to our faith. All other things are the works and fruits which follow of their own accord. They do not make a man good, but are done by the man who is already made good through faith in the truth of God.

Here we see clearly Luther’s insistence that it is by faith alone that all is accomplished; that our very repentance is a fruit of faith, not a good work in which we can trust. None the less, it must be noted that "faith without works is dead", a phrase which Luther disliked. So what can be said more about repentance? First, that it is possible, it is enabled, by the faith that God is like the father in Jesus’ parable of the prodigal son. I need not remind you that in this parable, the father does not wait to hear the son’s confession of repentance to order the fatted calf slain for celebration and to run to the son to hug him and welcome him, thereby demonstrating his total forgiveness. We see here that God forgives, not merely seven times, but seventy times seven, i.e., eternally. We can note that receiving forgiveness follows our being stirred up to repentance by our recollection of God’s promises and the inevitable consequences of idolatry. We can also recall Plato’s teaching that the unexamined life is not worth living.

How then do we do self-examination? For example, we might observe our anger and begin to notice the occasions when it comes. An interesting and useful technique is to name it as if it were another personality, e.g., "the angry one", or "the one who feels slighted", trying to capture the feeling of that aspect of the personality which underlies the anger. And also to feel the emotion in our body; to hear the stories it tells. Every strong emotion carries a story that is a clue to its identity. Then as we sense more deeply its roots, we can identify its sources such as fear, or disappointment, or pain, and so on. We also can see the stories that we've been taught, or our mind tells us about how the world should be and who we think we are. These are our "faith" stories; they have conditioned our faith for good and for ill.

In his book The Awakened Heart, Gerald May indicates that the source of freedom is love. "When we accept the presence of love and give ourselves to it, we glimpse immense freedom and spaciousness. There is room to move around, unencumbered by fears and doubt." But May goes on to show how this freedom of love is destroyed by addiction to the object of love. In spirituality, addiction is called attachment. Attachment is a process and being attached to someone or something loved produces addiction which destroys the blessedness of love. To be attached means that freedom is lost, we are chained, bound to the object and thus have fallen into bondage, slavery. Unfortunately, continues May, most human loving contains some attachment. "Addiction finds its way into all our loves."

May suggests that we ask two questions about our freedom in order to discover how much addiction has crept into our loving. First, "How free are we to give up the person or things we love?" Of course, any such letting go of a beloved is painful and the greater the love, the more the pain. But to the extent we are free, though we may lose part of ourselves, we know the pain can be borne. The greater the attachment, however, the less we are able to bear the pain of love, because it seems we are losing our very self. Addicted love says, "I cannot live without you". And the "you" may not be a person, but the promotion that is so desired, the mark of success one has worked for, even the new house, or other possession that was so wanted. Addiction, to connect with the earlier discussion above, means idolatry, substituting that, which is not God, for God. And, as noted, all idols will fail eventually, often destroying the believer along with them.

The second question that May recommends is, "How free are we within our love?" Is there space to be oneself, or does it require a lot of "adjusting", being what one is not truly in order to perpetuate the love? The less space, the less true the love. Of course, true love of another person involves some adjustment of behavior to the needs and wants of the beloved. But if it is true love and not attachment/addiction, then it will not interfere with what we most deeply want. The difference is between attachment-binding-desire and commitment-honoring-desire, between codependence and compassion, neediness instead of mutuality, shame instead of dignity.

By this process of self-knowing we can begin to discover that our stories, even our reactions, our behavior, are not who we are. These things are sometimes as mundane as conditioned reflexes, like Pavlov’s dogs salivating at the sound of the bell. These are old habits, so deep that they are often totally unconscious until we raise them up to awareness. We can also become aware that our consciousness is not bound to these stories or responses and thus can begin to change the image we have of ourselves. It is no longer necessary to regard oneself as lost in the dark, or confused about the pathway of life. Instead the trail we have been following is now visible. And the trail our Higher Self really wants to follow is illumined ahead. A whole new perspective on life opens up. We can see how we’ve been caught up in a pattern leading nowhere like a squirrel in a rotating cage. A new possibility is available; the past can be forgiven, left behind like an old shoe that no longer fits. A Christ event has occurred in our life. Now we are enabled with graciousness and compassion for ourselves and the others with whom we’ve been involved, and we feel a new sense of connection with what really counts in life.

Such a successful self-examination leads to new life and actually a new identity. One is no longer the same person because now one’s story has changed. Humans all live storied lives. We encapsulate the meaning of life in one or more stories, perhaps seeing our particular life as a Cinderella story, or as Snow White awaiting her princess, or perhaps as Sir Galahad waiting for his particular dragon to slay. With such stories we say "only if", or "only when" over our life. Only if I were rich, successful, popular, beautiful, brilliant, whatever would my life be fulfilled. In this way we create and serve our particular idols.

Because serious repentance means that our identity shifts, does not mean that our body, personality, friends, and habits may not remain much the same. Indeed, to the extent that we continue to believe our old story that says that's all of who we are, we may still be frightened or lost or needy. But serious repentance begins to bring a shift from the small self, where we feel that we're this limited person who can only do and know so much, to a sense of interconnectedness with the entire world. Our innate Christ, child of God, nature is awakened, which has within it a great abundance. We can begin to discover the immense inner treasure, our true nature, our theomorphic nature. For we are "made in His image". When that identity is felt, we feel fully alive. This is not a once-for-all-time or continuous experience, especially at the outset. It usually comes in flashes and moments which later deepen and lengthen. As the center of our existence becomes the True Center we experience more and more of what it is really like to just feel fully alive. This is an ecstatic experience, even the physical world around one may change its aspect from hostile to benign, may change its color from drab to brilliant, from boring to thrilling. This is a very freeing experience; we realize that it doesn’t matter what grade we got on a test, or how much money we make, or what worldly accomplishments we have to our credit. We now know that we are accepted, accepted by God, beloved by God.

There are some typical problems in the ways that people approach the repentance process. The elements of repentance may be organized into three broad categories. First is self-confrontation, the willingness to be brutally honest before God with one’s life, recognizing that a sin has been committed and that repentance is needed. With this there is the experience of sorrow, or remorse, making confession, and suffering, accepting the consequences of having broken the moral law.

The second category involves willingness and self-control. This requires forsaking the sin, the stories that support the sin, and developing a pattern of self-regulation that is incorporated into a new and morally benevolent lifestyle. This new pattern of self-regulation will probably involve some form of support whether it be from a counselor, pastor, or community, but will also include prayer continually acknowledging dependence on God and need for grace. These means will assist one in developing, discovering appropriate stories for the desired new life. Will alone is not sufficient to the task, but the willingness to be changed by the grace of God and the support of others can enable the change.

The third category has to do with self-sacrifice. There must be a yielding up, a giving of oneself to God in a spirit of obedience. Earnest search for the will of God for one’s life means looking deeply into self-identity. But self-sacrifice also means reconciling, restoring, forgiving and serving. Now one must realize one’s essential rootedness in God and relatedness in creation. Knowing yourself as a child of God means living as a child of God. Forgiveness is a major item here. Forgiveness is a kind of letting go, letting go of ideas of what one is due, letting go of any, even slight, notion of vengeance or getting even. Forgiving is necessary for spiritual health! Forgiving is for your own sake, the sake of your soul, so to speak, not for the welfare of the other, although that too may be involved. Carrying about a grievance is like having a cancer in your heart that slowly grows until it is fatal. Often in this kind of self-examination, it will be realized that one has sinned against another. Jesus’ words are quite specific on this point, "So if you are offering your gift at the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift." (Matt. 5:24).

If you have engaged in earnest self-examination then you will be ready to ask, what is a practical and workable practice for Lenten observance? First of all, the best clue is not the old notion of giving up something, say candy, or cigarettes, for Lent. This practice is often undertaken as if one were doing a favor to God. God has no need whatever for any favors from us. Nor is God interested in our heaping up praises; God is quite well acquainted with God’s own identity. If things need to be given up (I’d say for sure give up smoking) for ordinary life, or health, then fine, maybe Lent will help you start. But all such sacrifices are for your own sake, not for the sake of God. Yet maybe there is something we can dedicate to God; that something is our time. A practical and workable plan for Lent, which can and should carry over into the rest of your life might be as follows: Start every day with prayer; (I’ll expand more on that in a moment). Prayer is at the heart of what is most valuable during Lent and for every day of one’s spiritual life. Most of us do not know how to pray, even how to begin. We probably in moments of crisis do make appeal to God, but what about our everyday lives; are they in any sense permeated with prayer?

If we are to pray there are some things we need to learn. One of the greatest American preachers, Harry Emerson Fosdick, in his book called The Meaning of Prayer said "Prayer is the soul of religion and failure there is not a superficial lack for the supply of which the spiritual life leisurely can wait. Failure in prayer is the loss of religion itself in its inward and dynamic aspect of fellowship with the Eternal. Although, as noted, we seem inevitably to pray asking God’s intervention in times of crisis, we must keep well in mind that we cannot know what the result of such action will be; the answer to our prayer is God’s business, not ours and we had best leave it at that. An additional warning is in order here, a warning stressed by Archbishop Anthony Bloom of the Russian Orthodox Church. Bloom writes, "To meet God means to enter into the ‘cave of a tiger’-it is not a pussy cat you meet-it’s a tiger. The realm of God is dangerous. You must enter into it and not just seek information about it."

A principal problem in our day is that God seems far more absent than present. How can we pray to a God who is absent, or to a God who seems impotent? Bloom, born in 1915, and whose first profession was to be a surgeon, suffered through the attempts of the Russian Communists to wipe out the Church. He saw the faithful persecuted and the Christ of the splendidly architected liturgies eliminated, but "we discovered the Christ who was rejected just as we were". He writes of a young woman who came to his surgery who had rejected the Gospels without reading them. On her honeymoon, she had gone with her husband to the cinema and suddenly had gone blind; later an incurable illness was discovered. She said "My heart hasn’t the strength to beat godwards" and she had the courage to accept real absence and would not settle for a comfortable false god. Of this incident and for us, Bloom writes, "The day when God is absent, when he is silent-that is the beginning of prayer. Not when we have a lot to say, but when we say to God ‘I can’t live without you, why are you so cruel, so silent?’" It is very likely that many, if not most, even all of us, are those for whom God seems to be silent, absent and, if Bloom is right, we are then at the beginning of prayer.

Remember, prayer is an encounter and a relationship; one which cannot be forced on either us or on God. Any true relationship must be free and mutual. Looking from this point of view, perhaps God has more to complain of than we do. Have we not been pretty unavailable? If we are complaining because God is not there during the few minutes per day or even per week when we stop to pray, what about those many, many hours when we were not available to God? "Behold I stand at the door and knock" He says, but is there anyone to answer?

It was observed earlier that meeting with God is not like a walk in the park. The encounter with the Divine is first of all judgment. We are meeting Absolute Truth! Nothing but the truth about us will be real in this encounter and the rest will be shown to be false. So, it is a good thing that God is not present many times when we are asking, because what we want is not Truth, but a comforting lie; we could not endure a real meeting. This being the case, we can start honestly to pray with the certainty that we "have all sinned and gone astray", we need redemption. In this stance we can recall the words of Jesus when the Pharisees complained that he was eating with tax collectors and sinners, "I came not to call the righteous, but sinners." If we’ve begun to know our sin and weakness, then we can begin to see that we need to approach God in all our weakness, ready to be on our knees and beg for mercy.

Now, if we are ready to meet this God who is a Tiger, who is Truth, ready to meet the Omnipotent in our weakness, we can begin a Lenten practice. When your eyes first open in the morning, give thanks to God. "This is the day which the Lord has made, rejoice and be glad in it." Or as the poet e.e cummings has said,

No matter if you feel glad or sad, give thanks to God that you have awakened to a new day, a new here and now. If we lack enthusiasm, that is only a mark of our weakness, but in our weakness God can be strong.

Then having begun your day, do whatever you need to get ready, wash your face and so on, then set aside fifteen or twenty minutes for silence, for prayer, for meditation. Silence is most important because only in silence can we go deeply within. Our modern life is much given over to distraction whether it be the media, the telephone, or work. This Lenten practice calls for dedicating your most valuable gift to god, your time. But it must indeed be devoted to God, with no interruptions short of emergencies allowed. This is holy time, sacred time, sacrificed, if you like, to God. There are many sources for prayers if your spontaneity like mine is not facile. But do not be satisfied with poor quality just because they are printed in some prayer manual. Bloom’s advice is "choose a prayer . . . [one] that makes sense and which does not make us uneasy." Use a prayer about which you can be wholehearted, even enthusiastic. Look at the great sources of prayer, the saints, the classics of the Church, the Psalms. Do not simply read in some rote fashion; take a single prayer and make it your own, claim its sentiments, its passion.