"The Incarnate Wisdom prays with and in is; and our worship as His must look beyond the distractions of the contingent to the eternal Beauty and Truth." Evelyn Underhill, "Abba" p.2 I suppose that when someone mentions the Lord's prayer, they don't automatically think beautiful. Afterall beauty is treated in a subjective manner and usually lies within our own interest in such things as poetry, art, certain people, places and I suppose even good stories. But, I've meditated on the phrase "Our Father", the beginning of the Lord's prayer, thanks to Underhill, and have found an infinite beauty within this phrase. Underhill in her book "Abba", starts with the address to the Father and she talks about the first two movements of prayer. The first movement is adoration as of a child toward a Father. I'm sure that in a society where we have distorted pictures of fathers, it is difficult to apply beauty toward this image, but there is something about the inheritance that one receives from our God that brings beauty to those of us that hope for something more than what we know here on earth. The phrase "Our Father who Art in Heaven", finds its first movement in being fully concerned with His glory, His presence and His plans. As I look into the philosophical idea of beauty, I find that beauty isn't as subjective as some make it out to be. There is something to the pleasure that some things bring us, but the greater characteristic of beauty is the excellence within the object itself. And He said, “Abba, Father, all things are possible for You. Take this cup away from Me; nevertheless, not what I will, but what You will.” Mark 14:36 For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, “Abba, Father.” Romans 8:15 The distinction of our heavenly Father is that He loves, disciplines, He is transcendent, is perfect and as Jesus would put it "all things are possible" for Him. These are excellent qualities and characteristics that we don't find perfectly demonstrated in humanity. All of us have high ideals to love, but we fail at times to love others perfectly. The Glory of God is worthy of a beautiful distinction, simply because the Father who is the object of perfection is everything that humanity desires as a pattern of life. This brings us toward the second movement of prayer and that is mans need. "But the theme of the second movement, with its humble petition for the support of the Unchanging Spirit in our ever- changing life, is weak and limited man, as he is now; his needs, his errors, his fears." p.3 What a beautiful mess the inheritors of heaven find themselves. "Our Father" is able to look at our struggles and become our source of hope, our forgiver and our deliverer. The distinction or excellence of the Father in heaven is that His children in need can appeal to Him who is greater than any earthly father. Our heavenly Father can satisfy and in fact is the only one who can satisfy our needs... "It is a statement of fact, which takes us clean aways from the world of religious problems and consolations, the world of self-interested worries and strivings, and discloses the infinite span and unfathomable depth of that supernatural world in which we really live. From our distorted life "unquieted with dreads, bounden with cares, busied with vanities, vexed with temptations" the soul in its prayer reaches out to center its trust on the Eternal, the existent." p.3-4 That is Eternal Beauty! Love, and do what you like! Saint Augustine In the book "The Making of a Mystic", compiled by Carol Poston, one will find several letters of Evelyn Underhill in all phases of her life. We get a glimpse into the start of Underhill's spiritual direction in a series of letters, January 1908, corresponding with her friend Majorie Robinson. I particularly resonated with this letter because Robinson seems to have written a letter eluding to the struggle of sin and wrongdoing consuming her life, the question, how do I break free? This is the question that reverberates throughout all humanity. It seems at first that Underhill does not show confidence in answering this question, but I suppose this might have been a dose of humility or better yet, an understanding that the spiritual life is not formulaic. So, how does one avoid the wrongdoing that so easily entangles us? "If you like wrong things, you will soon find the quality of your love affected..." ( Letter January 16, 1908, Underhill p. 113) One theme that Underhill provides in her writings is the theme of "Affections", and this is not uncommon for the mystics. She understood that thinking and acting are often guided by one's affections, so when she equates "wrong things" with one's love, she is talking about the quality of one's affections. This particular theme can be found in her classic book, "Mysticism: The Purification of Self", she speaks about three phases of the mystic, in particular "the lover". In short, the lover, for Underhill represented the human need to be loved and to love and if one seeks right affections, then, all those who seek God must set their affections upon Him. The lover is the stage where one becomes aware of misplaced affections and bringing them in harmony with the one true affection of our lives, loving God and loving others. "It seems to me that your immediate job must be to make this love active & operative right through your life..." I wouldn't ever say that this is all that easy and we certainly cannot move toward perfection, a life without wrongdoing, but the focus of our lives don't have to be sin oriented. The centrality of one's faith must be in setting one's affections toward seeing things in a "real" light by "loving everything for and in God". I would like to make one point about this though, Underhill certainly does not mean by any of this to be a self help kind of religiousity... "...So with sins--as we advance, our conscience gets more delicate, & acts of self-help which once seemed almost laudable, now look hideous." In other words, there must be a basis for one being able to set their affections upon God in the first place. The fact that human beings act in wrong ways is never the debate, what is argued is how one can and must deal with this. Underhill has made the assumption that her friend Robinson had already pursued and started a relationship with Jesus and from that foundation she could focus on love in Christ and would result would be a life free from a life guided by wrongdoing. The problem that Robinson had was that although she submitted her life to God, she didn't know how to deal with depravity she struggled with daily. A couple of answers emerge from this letter: 1) develop a rule of life, 2) view the dark night struggle as a time of growth and 3) spend time meditating specifically on the Scripture specific to Jesus. Without getting into all three of these too deeply, I think it would be safe to say that all three, although not required, can point one's affections toward the object of true love itself, Jesus! It's a start, it's a discipline and ultimately it is a matter of faith fueled by real love. "Of course it is deplorable that we should all hesitate to make temporal sacrifices for eternal gains" ---Thomas å Kempis "A Living Church ought to be full of the germs of Wonder and Love." The Inside of Life, Underhill p.10 I have come across a short, but wonderful piece by Evelyn Underhill called, "The Inside of Life". Her point was that most people tend to focus on either the inward life or on the outward life and it is rare that one cannot go without overemphasizing one and neglecting the other. The solution to the imbalance is a life filled with wonder and love. From personal observation there are a great deal of people that focus intently on the sciences and the explanations for the amazing things discovered in this world, but I have seldom experienced the same people going beyond an interest/curiosity level. I certainly do not disagree with being curious or looking for answers, but it seems to be at the cost of awe and wonder. Although uncomfortable at times it's good to live in amazement, to leave the world of the great mathematician and enter into the corner of "the lover, the poet, the saint". Most of the wonder filled language is found in this group: "Oh Thou Supreme! most secret and most present, most beautiful and strong! What shall I say, my God, my Life, my Holy Joy! What shall any man say when he speaks of Thee?" -- St. Augustine I suppose that Underhill is defining wonder as appreciating that which we may not fully understand, but that resonates deeply within us. She describes the saints, such as Augustine, as those who don't just talk about the God of the Universe, but ones who gaze deeply into Reality and in doing so are filled with wonder and love. We may not be aware of how deeply these characteristics, wonder and love, connect with who we are, especially when we seldom slow down. Underhill makes it a point to note that, "All art is born of them and all religion too." It is not that scientific thought should be avoided, but that it must be a means to an end and not the end itself. Art and religion introduce wonder and love because they have the ability to make us slow down and ponder the what lies beyond what we already presently know. They point to the great Reality that there may just be something beyond this world, but in order to be in tune with this one must pay attention to the inward and outward life. "It was Sir Thomas Browne who first called man the 'great amphibium.' We all begin as tadpoles; but we ought to end as frogs--equally at home in both worlds, both elements." p.5 I admit that I personally don't have great practice with wonder and love, but Underhill has pointed to a great place to start, in fact she does exactly what she exhorts the Church to do and that is to "bind us together--the learned and simple, the strong and the weak--in a great social act of love and worship: to provide a home for the nurturing of the spiritual life." Like Underhill, just start with reading Psalm 8 and savor the taste of wonder and love shooting through the Psalm. May this season be filled with wonder and love renewed, don't miss out on the germs! |
Evelyn Underhill“For a lack of attention a thousand forms of loveliness elude us everyday” Archives
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