Each master apprentice teacher usually has a central core teaching, if they have become humble enough, they usually offer it towards the end of their lives! Here’s a few of my mostly 20th C (or last 300 years) favorites….fun trying to raw note crystallize some of my favorites essential teachings today…

Nouwen—learn to be in the beloved, adored, dearly cared for space between the Father and His Son.

Willard: allow Him to enter into your entire being, including your unconscious, so that even your motivations are transformed.

Eugene Peterson: pray your way into scriptures into a transformational encounter with God. Pray as reading the Bible! Pray to meet and be transformed by God! Read the bible as a method of meeting and being changed by Him. Then life has meaning and is a long pilgrimage into, to and with God.

Victor Frankl—man’s most basic need is meaning! And God, offers us a purposeful suffering! And, people endure suffering, when it’s meaningful–is at least one of this great teacher’s earned wisdom spiritual notes.

Merton: bring your inner being into His Being, let them commune constantly. Find your true self by resting in His True Self! Learn your name, but losing it in His Name! Learn true contemplation which is most basically bringing your inner person, or inmost being to His!

Many other saintly sinners: serve others into meeting Him, and His Heart for them and you.

All of them, knew how to meet Him in their own personal sufferings!

CS Lewis, for instance, met Him through imagination. He invited folks into a baptism of the imagination, as he called it! Yes, that we can meet Him directly through vision, dream and art making, seems obvious from scriptures–Daniel, Joseph and all the prophets come to mind! Why not us! God is willing to meet us in all realms of Reality!

His Mentor, George MacDonald, a dear friend of mine historically, who i met spiritually in his home in Scotland—know Him as Father of ALL Reality. Consider all of life from the perspective of The Father God, and from there, interpret family, life, nations, cities and nature….

Francis Shaeffer, who i studied under in Switzerland, and other theologians—Jesus is Lord over all of Reality, so you are free to meet Him in whatever realms you are drawn to, and bring His Kingdom there.

A friend of mine: live as if, it were just you and The Father in the universe. This will transform you firstly, and then you will see all people as family in the same situation—as neighbors in need of that essential encounter. God is One and so each emphases through His students is included in His expression!

Forming His Nature in us, is always however, how we are formed through our suffering by His Ongoing suffering for us! And then giving from that space.
This is a key to spiritual discernment. When reading, ask—where is He in this text? Where are His Thought and Spirit being expressed. Read and amplify there.

It’s easy to get lost in the peripheral thoughts, or more pet peeves, or hurts of great teachers. Mature ones are no longer bitter! Try to go for the core thoughts, and see how deeply they are embedded in Christ. What of their best thoughts is “in Him”! As St Paul put it. Enter and amplify there! Enter the spiritual room they are speaking from! THAT’s the Key! Find where the writer or thinker is thinking FROM! Find that room, and you’ll get which parts are “of the Spiritual Kingdom”–that’s the quickest way to read between the lines!

That’s where you’ll get truth, in art, literature or even church thinkers and spiritual leaders. Discernment is lots about just gazing at Him through the thought system or art. Keep meeting Him, and you’ll be fine, and able to see what it true in this. Search for God as you behold! That’s the way. Then even a sunset, or art, or sacred literature, can become a place of meeting and transformation–a living tabernacle!

This is specifically tough in cloudy diffused conversations as in current media situations. But it’s still possible. It requires a discipline of staying with and in Him as you read!

Discernment is as simple and complex as staring at, and staying with your Friend Jesus as you read or behold art, literature and thought. And as your suffering becomes in communion with more of His, as you do!

Try to meet Him through whatever you are encountering, so you don’t get drawn into what is not of His Nature. Look for God in what your looking at, until you find Him. Suffering is a way to discern the saints! How we suffer reveals our true selves in Him!

Application in terms of quest-ions:

What’s your core teaching–ie the aspect of Christ’s Life that you most reflect, or express. How true of an image is it! What level is the central teaching and expression of your life “in Christ”? As He is The Truth, The Way and The Life to live it out!

What is the essential core doctrine your own life emphasizes, and how pure is that doctrinal poetic statement of being, channeling through your life?! If you are a living parable, how deeply are you baptized into His, so that you know your own? Also, what’s your parable about? Can you teach and be it?! What are you teaching us about God? What is He trying to say through your life?

That will determine the truth of the statement and poem you are and were on earth. What part of His Story are you? And are you being told well?! Are you allowing Him to edit your life into His Story of Himself through you–His Autobiography through your biography! For, we are His autobiographies! His expressions and poems about Himself!

Each of us, have different saints cheering us on! Here are a few of my circle “in the Spirit”. The communion of the saints becomes more comforting and collaborative as we grow older!