Dear Group Leaders and Friends in Christian Meditation,
His Holiness, the Dalai Lama often says that his religion is kindness. That is a worthy aim for all of us, to be kind women and men. It is more than a reasonable response to life. I have often heard people say that kindness is missing in our world. It is a good way of being … kind. I want to be kind, but I know that often I can be unkind. When I am stressed, I can react more than respond. I often pray to God asking to be a kind man, in a world where we can be treated unkindly.
As followers of Jesus, we are called to kindness and even more. We are called to love. I don’t doubt that the Dalai Lama is a loving man. It is seen in how he has responded to the atrocities that the Tibetan people have faced at the hand of the Chinese dictatorship. Jesus has called us to love God and neighbor. But this invitation to love is not the sole propriety of Jesus, it is a central message of Christ who took love all the way to the cross and into resurrection.
Over the last couple of years, I have been ministering as a hospice chaplain. It is a gift to sit with the dying and be invited into people’s lives and homes at one of the hardest parts of their lives. I have seen great love with the dying. Father John Main was prophetic when he taught that we as Christian meditators ought to be a community of love. Fydor Dostoevsky wrote in The Brothers Karamazov that “Love in action is a harsh and dreadful thing compared to love in dreams.” I realize that in my own life love is hard. I can think of people whom I have loved but it didn’t always show in my words and actions. I can think of my beloved now. I have pledged my love to her in a way that I was unable to in the past. Yet, I often feel like I struggle with “love imposter syndrome.” I sometimes see my own actions with a tongue that is sharp and a heart that can be hardened.
Love is more than hallmark moments and empty promises. I was able to spend a weekend with our WCCM friends in Chicagoland in August. In my sharing with them, I spoke of this idea of “love imposter syndrome.” I don’t recall where I saw it written in that way, but it resonated with me. Maybe we can all relate to struggling with loving even those closest to us, and even more, those whom we might think of as enemies. When I shared this idea of love imposter with a friend, he made the remark that God provides where we miss the mark. Maybe that is what grace is: filling in the gaps where our humanness gets in the way. May God give us the grace we need, especially in these days.
Meditation is an act of love and like love itself, it can be a harsh and dreaded thing compared to what we think meditation is in theory. It is easier to think about meditation, to read about it, to imagine what it might be like.
I am certain that we have all had times of meditation that were difficult, even to sit for the entirety of the meditation. Maybe we have had moments when we sat struggling, leaving the mantra aside, and wondering if the bell had stopped working. At the recent John Main Seminar: INTEGRAL CHRISTIANITY: The Vision of Celtic Christianity for the Crisis of the 21st Century, much wisdom was shared for the challenges of our world. Abbott Columba McCann, Abbott of Glenstal Abbey, spoke during his Reflection on Silence: “Sometimes all hell breaks loose when you go into silence.” Love and meditation can teach us to follow Jesus even amidst the hell of our thoughts and the pain that we can experience when we love.
The work of meditation can be hard work indeed. It can also bring untold benefits and lead us to love with more intentionality regardless of our personal struggles and foibles. God can lead us deeper into our own hearts where God is awaiting us.
Meditation can renew us if we give it room to show the way. Romans 12:2 gives us a glimpse of what I am suggesting: “Do not be conformed, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds…” As Christians, we must follow the prophetic path that Jesus laid out, not allowing ourselves to conform to the diabolical division that the world can show us. We are to be people of love, a community of love. Each morning and evening when we sit to meditate, we are choosing another way, the way that leads from death to New Life.
May our God of love draw us ever deeper into love and into the silence of our mantra!
Warmly,
Kevin Maksym
