Dear Group Leaders and Friends in Christian Meditation,
May is often a traditional time for weddings. When I was an active Catholic priest, my weekends were full of the fun and festivities of matrimony. I would often joke that in May, love is patient, love is kind, love will make you lose your mind. When I was in parish ministry, marriage preparation was one of the main ministries that would occupy my evenings and weekends as I met with couples to walk them through the process of preparing for marriage. This month, we had two weddings in our family. One last weekend and one next weekend. It is interesting to me that neither was particularly religious; getting married in lovely places but with almost no religious overtones. This is likely the norm but remains disconnected from my own experience. Culturally we have become alienated from religious experience. And yet the Spirit remains present and active in our lives, and universally. May is often also a time to celebrate Pentecost as we do today as I write this letter.
We can never be separated from the Spirit of God. She is within us in every aspect of our being, surrounding us and in far reaches of all of creation. The Spirit’s very nature is love. Father Bede Griffiths, the English Benedictine, and later Camaldolese, monk who went to India to “find the other half of his soul”, spoke of the Holy Trinity in this way in his book “Return to the Center”:
“The Father gives himself in love to the Son, who is the very form, the expression of his love, and this love returns to the Father in the Holy Spirit, who unites Father and Son in the eternal embrace of love. Love giving itself, losing itself and finding itself in love, and Love returning to itself, giving itself back in love—this is the eternal pattern of the universe.” (61)
Marriage is about this love; whether the wedding is explicitly religious or not, God’s Spirit is present in the love of the couple who are pledging their lives to each other. The word “religion” suggests re-linking. A reconnection to each other and to God whose life and spirit is never far away from us. Our nation might be less religious than it was in the past, but we are desperate for relinking, reconnecting and renewal of who we are as God’s children. We need to reacquaint ourselves with the Love in which we are continually invited to “live, and move and have our being.” (Acts 17:28) I am the king of typos as I type. When I wrote these words from Acts, I wrote “love” instead of “move.” There is truth in that typo, it is in God that we not only live, move and have our being, and it is in God that we love.
Institutional religion is at a crossroads. As churches close and communities diminish, we need to reacquaint ourselves with finding ways of seeking contemplation, having conversations and building community. I think that is the place for us as the World Community for Christian Meditation continues to seek a place for the renewal of our nation and our world. When we sit down in silence, stillness and simplicity, saying our mantra, we are linking ourselves to something larger than us and our personal agendas; we are giving God the space to permeate us in love, compassion and the Maternal care of the Spirit of God. A helpful opportunity for discussion and conversation is the current year-long online series given by WCCM.org: The Future of Religion: How can spirituality evolve to meet today’s challenges? https://wccm.org/events/the-future-of-religion/
Our second family wedding is for my cousin’s daughter. I am presiding at this wedding and have enjoyed working with my cousin and her fiancé. I suggested many options for reading, and they picked ones that were lovely but not particularly religious. With the wedding vows, I shared ones from the Presbyterian Church, the Episcopal Church and the Catholic Church. The bride- and groom-to-be came back quickly and without hesitation with their choices and a small adaptation. Their choice of marriage vows and a small tweak remind me that God comes to us in our uniqueness and continues to come into our lives whether we consider ourselves religious or not. God never stops calling us, inviting us into relationship, permeating us with the Love that is God. For me, this is a great gift of meditation. Our twice daily rendezvous with God remind us of how God is always present in our lives, world and universe. God is present to us every moment whether called or not. God is our very being.
May God bless each of us with love!
Warmly,
Kevin Maksym
