re-Reading some contemporary spiritual Elders this week:

Reading Dallas Willard again. I like reading seasoned spiritual teachers, who no longer have anything to prove, or who have committed intellectual suicide to find higher thoughts (put their own best thoughts on the altar to find His, and found trust instead, as St Paul did)! As the American poet William Stafford wrote: “my mother told me, you don’t have anything to prove to God”. There is something nice about older teachers who aren’t in competition with the world, God, or other leaders, or trying to build their own empire or proving themselves to God. This stage of spiritual maturity, usually comes later in life, but I can always note the tone when i hear it! Dallas was convinced in his heart that true Christianity (not just the religious or traditional version) offered the real answers to life.

A close friend of mine met this teacher before he died and described how humble Dallas was and thankful, and a listening teacher; how his intellect, and best ideas had intentionally committed suicide to find God’s-(“It takes teachers a long while to die properly—pride is mighty in the human heart and especially lodges in the mind.” 1st C monk)-in order to be re-born into actual trust in God, the real Life of knowledge (spiritual things are discerned spiritually, our soul must quieten down, and listen through our spirit to His! “Human philosophy and wisdom is like a gnat in God’s Eye”)

Anyway, humility, rather than talent or expertise, or even articulation or erudition, or raw talents in art or ministry, always makes me want to sit under a teacher! The tone of love is even a clearer sign of a great teacher. A Father’s laugh underneath the message. A grandfather’s chuckle at themselves, and how kind God still is despite a clear view of who we are.

“All of the spiritualities that are now clamoring for attention, from explicit Satanism to what we hear on Oprah, are concerned with the two issues of identity and empowerment. Who am I? How can I have the power to live? Those are the questions everyone has to deal with. If we don’t come to terms with these, we lapse into some form of human decadence and failure. Renovation of the Heart is simply an attempt to say, “Here’s the Christian picture. It’s all true. It works. It’s accessible to everybody. And there’s nothing that compares with it on earth.”

Dallas Willard from an interview one of his most interesting books, “Renovation of the Heart”, which is all about deeper spiritual formation, or deeper incarnation of the actual Life and character of Christ in people, and some of the spiritual mechanics of that process. It’s also about our role in that work, so we are not just “paralyzed by Grace” as he put it. Good read. If you don’t like Christians, you still might like this book! Wisdom is wisdom.

I also like the idea of his soon to be released post-humous, but humorous or at least gentle, book, “Preparing for Heaven”. The basic idea that life doesn’t end, down here, that we are preparing for the continuing transformational process of the next life. Rooted in the idea that Jesus is Life itself, and that life never ends in Him. Great last meditation! I always have felt life is like rehearsal in theater, and then the real play happens!