New Year Beholding | The Art of Other Seeing: God & Humans

The Annunciation by Henry Ossawa Tanner, 1898 A.D.

Beholding others is about approaching people as we do God, as a mystery to discover and enjoy rather than to sense-make and control. + Strahan Coleman

Beholding by Strahan Coleman continues to be a wonder-filled book I have been overjoyed to return to at the beginning of 2025 and 2026.

"Beholding" has recently been a theme in my life that I think Jesus continues to invite me back to. Why? 

There is humility in beholding. 

There is curiosity in beholding. 

There is wonder in beholding. 

This posture as a way of life not only invites me to welcome and witness what God and others are doing in my life, but in response, beholding helps me to worship God as the Creator and Sustainer who I get to thank for all that is in my life.

For more on what beholding is like, here are a few excerpts from Coleman's Beholding.

The Art of Others Seeing

"When I first saw God, 

I went a kind of blind. 

Now all I see is Heaven

in the eyes of 

enemy and friend alike."

Prayer Vol. 01

When we look at humanity 

through the artist eyes of God, 

we see little miracles in everyone we meet 

— even our enemies. 

The Church becomes a kind of artistic, 

anthropological priesthood, 

documenting and celebrating 

every little detail of our differences.

As an opportunity to find God, 

being hospitable to another person,

to any other person at all,

becomes an act of Christ-embrace.

Seeing Those We Don't Understand

Knowing the fundamental goodness about God means we can be with Him whilst we grow in our understanding. God's goodness is what our relationship is based on. Beholding others is simply our treating others with that same dignity.

If our gospel is sin obsessed, it reduces our story with God to that of forgiveness only, and we're likely to take the sin-central view of life to those around us. Sin will be the first thing we see, and we're confronted with people who touch the nerve of our particular sin horror, we will struggle to see their image. We'll only see their brokenness as the main event of their existence. If our gospel is one of reconciliation, if it begins before the fall in Genesis with God's face-to-faceness with us, then we're more likely to see that essential good in someone first and prioritize their rediscovering friendship with their Father over moral correction. We'll see their image, their imago Dei.

Christ w/ the Canaanite Woman & Her Daughter by H.O. Tanner, 1909 A.D.

The women at the well in Samaria in John 4 is a beautiful example of this. Jesus was confronted with a woman who had had many husbands and was not married to the man she was presently with. One divorce alone would have had a powerful negative connotation for this woman, and being in her current relationship would have socially marked her further. It would have been all that many would have seen first when they spoke to her. But not Jesus.

Jesus beheld her.

He asked for her water, drawing her into a deeply spiritual conversation, one that He didn't dive into with the all-together religious leaders back in Jerusalem.

Jesus saw something else.

He saw deeper than this woman's mistakes. He saw someone longing for God with the capacity to be a great evangelist. When he relationships did come up, Jesus didn't lecture her on sexual ethics.

 

He continued to invite her 

into the story of God.

And she did become an evangelist. So much so that Jesus stayed for days in the town where she lived as she drew many others out to hear Him. 

Jesus did this kind of thing all the time.

He saw the beauty in others

louder than their shortfalls.

To transcend others' shortfalls

and love like Jesus,

we need to become beholders.

It's not an either-or, of course, because one can't be fully reconciled without a transformation of the behaviors that bring relational brokenness. 

But repentance was often a response 

to Jesus' profound love and grace 

toward someone.

It matters that we choose to see someone's God-image before their sin. People are more than their brokenness. When we see others through their God-image first, over and above what we can make sense of in the interim, we can love and behold them, because no matter how they act — engaging us, confusing us, or challenging us — we know that as surely as God is good, His good image is placed within that person and we can find common ground. 

Practically, this means when we're talking with those we disagree with, no matter how our arguments end, we never denigrate the dignity or fundamental goodness of one another. Even our enemies. Even our political opponents. It means that when we see another at our borders, challenging our cultural norms, holding vastly different political views, asking more of our financial social situations than we think we can give, we're seeing God and the opportunity to meet and care for Him (see Matthew 25:34-40).

Beholding others 

doesn't mean resigning 

to their shortcomings 

or becoming indifferent, 

but it does mean that 

on the long journey 

toward healing and reconciliation, 

we can sit with each other and 

see each other with beauty and love.

Love will always long for healing wherever it sees brokenness, and full reconciliation isn't possible without the healing of the brokenness within us. 

Becoming Godly Listeners

If we walk with God for long enough, we'll experience seasons of dryness and quiet. Times when all our prayer, tears, longing, and searching will feel like they're turning up nothing. These seasons deeply challenge our assumptions that we can always feel, sense, or hear God when He's there, and we're forced to walk the faith journey in what feels like complete blindness.

It's often in these seasons that beholding prayer becomes a lifeline for our spiritual walk. Here, we're coerced to either behold God for who He says He is or deny Him altogether as we find we don't have the energy, faith, or mind space to wrestle with the questions anymore. Beholding prayer becomes a way of acknowledging that somehow God is sitting with us in the dust of it, strangely available, closer than our skin.

The Psalms come alive 

like living companions

because like the psalmist's,

our prayer finally becomes honest and raw.

These hard times are a gift 

to us in this way,

though they rarely feel like it

in the moment.

Through them we learn 

the silent companionship of God

in our suffering.

The quiet persistence of His love 

in the wilderness.

Over time we learn to look back and see that He was with us in awareness and acceptance even when we couldn't feel or see it in the moment. He wasn't withholding His love or presence from us by not giving us the answers or healing we wanted; He was demonstrating the audacity of His love to sit with us in our pain without giving them. He was just there with us in our grief much like He was whilst walking with Mary on the way to Lazarus' tomb. In our darkest moments, we were being beheld by God.

The Resurrection of Lazarus by H.O. Tanner, 1897 A.D.

For the one who has beheld and been beheld by God through their own dark nights, allowing people to vent their honest anger and rail away at others and God is an act of genuine strength and compassion. They're able to let others fully be, as God once let them be.

I like to imagine a world

in which the Church can become

God's ears to the world.

Listening with this kind of grace,

sitting with others in their darkness,

teaching them how to be

in the tension of pain and

the wonder of life.

Today, as a whole world of people feel despair and depression at historic levels, maybe God longs to fashion a priesthood of believers who know how to sit in the darkness alongside them with enduring love, even when it feels helpless. We've been really good at talking, sometimes talking at people, for a long time. What if it's time to learn to listen as a form of witness? 

What if deep listening 

is a way of healing the world, 

revealing God to it?

In this way,

we can be present

as a form of mission

for our times,

helping others to make sense

of their pain, suffering,

loneliness, confusion,

success, and blessings

in the context of 

God's withness.

Christ at the Home of Mary by H.O. Tanner, 1905 A.D.

As we behold and love 

in these ways, 

that love engulfs people into

the kind of relationship with us 

that God longs to have 

with the world.

It shows them a little more

of what God is like.

We're the closest thing to God

for many on this earth;

we're Christ's body.

So when we love 

the image of God in others

and sit with them

in a beholding manner,

we give them a sample

of the magnificent

and all-engulfing 

love of God, too.

Not all of us are called to the vocation of the evangelist, but the universal calling of every follower of Jesus is that of being witnesses to what we have seen and touched and of those who have been seen and heard by God. Beholding invites us to be witnesses through our attentive and compassionate listening, as well as through our storytelling and sharing.

It's important to note that this doesn't mean we should keep our mouths closed about important issues in the fear that we may offend people or that it may cause them to feel less seen. That's another extreme, and it's not even the best way to love someone. But love changes our volume, our temperament, the words we use, and the place we challenge from. Reconciling love changes our tone. It makes us, hopefully, slower to speak ... speak from beside rather than across from others.

+ Strahan Coleman 

in Beholding,

"The Art of Other Seeing,"

pgs. 98-109

The Annunciation by H.O. Tanner, 1898 A.D.

Bonus: The Artist Behind the Artwork

Henry Ossawa Tanner was the first African American artist to gain international acclaim. He was a realist painter and he also stands as one of the leading painters of sacred art during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Tanner was not only African-American, he might well be the premier painter of African descent in all art history. 

You can read more about Tanner at:

ATJR: Making the Modern Divine

In relation to beholding, 

"The Annunciation"

by Henry Ossawa Tanner

captivates me.

Here, Mary listens.

Here, Mary questions.

Here, Mary beholds.

Here, Mary responds

as she begins to see

what God is doing

and what she will get to do

for the life of the world.

And she says,

"Let it be done to me

according to Your Word."

More New Year posts:

+ Hope | Planting Seeds in the Dark 

+ Laughter | His Joy in Us Fully

+ Subversive | Peace & Punk Rock  

+ Childlike Faith | Marveling

 

May God's Kingdom come, His will be done.
Que le Royaume de Dieu vienne,
que sa volonté soit faite.
愿神的国降临，愿神的旨意成就。
Nguyện xin Nước Chúa đến, ý Ngài được nên.
Jesús nuestra Rey, venga Tu reino!
🙏💗🍞🍷👑🌅🌇

With anticipation and joy,

Rev. Mike “Sully” Sullivan

Email Pastor Mike | Website | Visit Us | Support Us | Facebook Us

Lent | In The Face of the Deep, The Holy Spirit's Work is Wild

The Holy Spirit by Cal Ogelsby, 2014 A.D.

The Spirit's work
in the life of His people
is often a wild work,
a desert work.

He knows and loves the places
that seem empty to us
as much as
He knows and loves the places
that teem with life.

He calls us to the wilderness
to work in us in ways
that could not be done well
(perhaps not done at all)
were we not drawn away ... 

+ Paul Pastor
The Face of the Deep

I continue to return to The Face of the Deep by Paul J. Pastor to reflect and meditate on the Holy Spirit who welcomes us into the holy wild. This book has not only been a great companion when I first read it during a silent retreat at the Abbey of the Genesee, but also a needed re-read during Lent.

This post will include favorite pull quotes from the chapter entitled:

 "The Wind of the Wilderness: 

The Spirit of the Desert." 

The Wind of the Wilderness

The Spirit of the Desert

Let all teachers hold their peace;
let all creatures be silent in Thy sight;
speak unto me Thou alone.

+ Thomas a Kempis
The Imitation of Christ
pg. 165

Be Led to Sacred Silence

in a Place Apart

When I have hiked into the true wilderness, it is the depth and quality of the silence that enters my soul and leaves me changed. When I meet people – and there are many – who say that their most profound encounters with God are in nature, it is this sense of quiet they usually want to remember. It is the sacred silence of a space, silent not because of the absence of sound, but silent because of the effect it has on the soul. A holy silence of the interior, prompted by a sacred simplicity on the exterior. A reminder that the true silence of the Holy Spirit is presence as much as it is absence. It is entering a place apart. … I began to know the rough roar of silence as the voice of the Spirit. He was leading me, mysteriously, to a place apart. + pg. 167, 169

The Spirit Whistles
in the Wilderness Wind

If the Bible were a movie and if places were characters, "the wilderness" would hold a starring role. It's a recurring setting, all the way after the expulsion of humanity from the garden in Genesis, to the "wander in tears, forty years" of Israel's desert time, to the visions of Ezekiel, to the famous temptations of Christ, and Jesus's well-known habit of wandering into desert places for prayer. The wilderness is a place of contradictions, a place portrayed in Scripture as an empty place yet full. The wilderness is cruel and bare, yet a setting for kindness and miraculous provision. The wilderness reveals things often by obscuring them. The wilderness welcomes God and the people of God by – sometimes concretely, sometimes abstractly – meeting evil. More than anything, the wilderness is the background that most clearly highlights the high, good strangeness of the Holy Spirit, who, so often in Scripture, whistles like a wind among the rocks of the desert. A cloud by day, a fire by night. Faithfully leading. Faithfully obscuring. 

The Wild, Affirming,

Driving Desert Work

The Spirit's work in the life of His people is often a wild work, a desert work. He knows and loves the places that seem empty to us as much as He knows and loves the places that teem with life. He calls us to the wilderness to work in us in ways that could not be done well (perhaps not done at all) were we not drawn away, brought away, thrown away, finding ourselves on a lonely trail. This was Jesus' experience. Directly after the soaring high of His baptism in the Jordan, the joy and affirmation of the Father speaking His belovedness over Him, the Dove of heaven seemed to distend and whip apart into a lionlike whirlwind, launching Christ into the first great trial of his adult life. In Mark's account, he writes: " ... And the Spirit drove Him into the wilderness. ... " The Greek word translated here as "drove out" is a rough one, from which we get our word ball, and as you would expect, it means to throw, fling, send flying, hurl. It is not gentle. Like a Major League Baseball pitcher sending a fastball straight through the strike zone, the Spirit in Mark's Gospel downright hurls Jesus (the Beloved, remember) into the wilderness. + pg. 171 

Danger, Scarcity, Abundance ...
All a Work of Love

The Spirit is not playing around. Nor is Jesus – who, in the more detailed accounts of this story elsewhere, is fasting, hungry and thirsty during this time in the desert. He is besieged with temptations in the wilderness – the temptation to work miracles on His own behalf rather than the Father's; the temptation for immediate acclamation and acceptance by the people who would eventually reject Him, screaming for his crucifixion; and the temptation for an easy path to world power rather than the death-road, the God-road to the eternal Kingdom promised to the seed of David. All His suffering and all His overcoming are kept between the lines in Mark's Gospel. I like that. All that we are given here to make sense of Christ in the wilderness is the duration (the ancient "forty" of Noah's flood, of Moses on the mountain, of the wandering years of Israel in the desert), the Devil, the beasts, and the angels. A long time. Danger scarcity, abundance. The wilderness. And this, like every work of the Holy Spirit, was love. + pg. 171 

Silence with Jesus

is a Very Good Place to Start

I sat with my spiritual director, Father Stephen. He asked me to describe my relationship with Jesus. I was silent for a minute, fumbling around inside my head until I came across the right words. "It's as if," I began, "Jesus and I are sitting together in a dark room. He's not saying anything. I'm not saying anything. I look at Him. He looks back at me. We're together. But silent. Quiet. Like we're each waiting for something. He was quiet for a while himself. I sat, adjusted my chair. I wondered if I should continue to talk, to fill up the room between us with words. I didn't like the silence. I wanted to speak or for him to speak or for Jesus to speak. Anyone, really. He breathed deeply. "Silent?" he asked. "Silent." "Well, that's a very good place to start." + pg. 172

Can't Understand
Without Slowing Down

In her classic Walking on Water, Madeleine L'Engle wrote: When I am constantly running there is no time for being. When there is no time for being there is no time for listening. I will never understand the silent dying of the green pie-apple tree if I do not slow down and listen to what the Spirit is telling me, telling me of the death of trees, the death of planets, of people, and what all these deaths mean in the light of the love of the Creator who brought them all into being; who brought me into being; and you. It's a beautiful truth, but a wilderness truth, a desert truth. A truth of windy silences – to somehow believe that to understand ourselves, to understand the great breath of creation, we must first walk backward, back along the trail, back through the deaths of things large and small, slowing life and heart and mind, all the while listening for the voice of God, all back, back, back, to the edge of the deep, to the starting place of being. That hazy place where the Spirit summons us up from the waters of beginning and whistles love and joy, creating and sustaining. "It's good that you are; how wonderful that you exist!" We must know the Spirit's desert road, the trail away from the roars of man and nature. ... It is time for the wilderness. Somehow, with the Spirit, we must learn to enter a place apart. For all its difficulty, it is a very good place to start. + pgs. 172-173 

The Spirit Tears Us Up

with Blessings ...

This Too Is Love,

If We Can Accept It

The sacred silence of our interior becomes the void, the good and empty place into which the Spirit can speak. ... He leads us into desert places ... He pounces, tumbles us in the sand and grit either roughly or gently. Away from the noise He carries or flings us, from the dullness of full belly and full brain. ... He tears us with blessings, tears us open sometimes till the red blood flows out so thick and abundant that we fear our life is leaving, that our bones will be left behind us when we wander on. And for all this, He makes no promises other than His love. If we can believe it, even the bitterest wrestling with the Spirit out in the desert is for our good, the good of His beloved. We must sometimes suffer wounds before we can be bound again, better made and wiser than before, bearing the scars of wilderness as witnesses to the nearness of God. This too is love, if we can accept it. + pg. 174 

It Is the Wind of the Spirit
That Seeks to Polish Us
with the Sand of the Wilderness

It is the wind of the wilderness, dry and cutting if necessary, that blows our own thoughts out of us and the Spirit's knowing into us. It is that wind that will eventually allow us to see though our eyes be closed and hear though our ears be deafened. It is the Holy Spirit, the wind of the wilderness, that flings us into the desert like rag dolls, cradles us out there like children, feeds us like the ravens above Elijah's creek. It is the wind that seeks to polish us with sand, to let the erosion of the grit reveal our truest contours. To see what we take with us out of nothing. What we leave with the nothing. But for all this, who wishes for the wilderness? For some it has a romance before and after we are there and its own glass-like beauty that shimmers when we're in it, but for any beauty we may find, we still quail and quiver. The wilderness is where the Spirit takes our masks away, where our own hearts are flayed, where the faces of devils and angels, once obscured by rocks and birds and lust and thirst, stare at us, challenging us to blink before they do. + pgs. 174-175

If We Can Not Say

Thank You to the Desert Yet,

Then It Is Likely

We Are Still in It

What are we to make of a Spirit – the Spirit of the same Jesus who knew the pain of wilderness so well – who not only accompanies us into the desert but throws us into it? If it is true that He is the wind at our back, blowing us into places abandoned by men, places hard to live in and dry, places of thorn and curse and cruelty, places of the sun by day and the catamount or wild dogs by night, then what are we to say to Him for such treatment? "Thank you"? I mean no presumption, and I speak this in faith. If we cannot say thank you for the desert yet, then it is likely because we are still in it. The wind of the wilderness, ever seeking your good, does not expect your gratitude when you have not eaten for forty days. "What are you doing here?" The ancient question hangs, as it did for Elijah, over the mountain, over the hot bedrock of the desert. But we might as well ask it of the Asker. And who knows if we will receive an answer that human ears can understand? He only promises love. No answers. Not ease. Only love. + pg. 176

A Favorite Story of Abundance

There is something that awakens inside the soul when one realizes that in God's view of the world there is no such thing as scarcity. Let me tell you one of my favorite stories of abundance. I will try to tell it as it was told to me by my friend Randy, a Keetowah Cherokee: In the 1950s, Canada's government was consolidating rule in the Arctic by forcing the native Inuit peoples onto settlement reservations. One old man, a grandfather, resisted. He did not want to live in the white people's houses. He did not want to eat their food. He did not want to lose his culture. His family, concerned that he might do something rash in his yearning for the old freedom, took away his weapons, his tools, his precious knife – all that he needed to live off the land in the frozen, blustery tundra. Or at least they thought they took everything away. They could not take away his knowledge, his way of seeing things. And his way of seeing was the most important thing he had. One dark night, as the wind shrieked around his place, the grandfather stepped out into the blizzard. He was empty-handed, but only for a moment. He defecated into his hand, molding his own "waste" into a keen blade as it froze, spitting on it, wetting and sharpening the bloodletting side with saliva. It froze solid and sharp. He took the knife and killed a dying dog, skinning it to make coat and harness. He used its rib cage for a sled, its flesh for food. He hitched up a healthy dog, and with a flourish of his blade, the grandfather disappeared into the white desert. ... The grandfather was strong in the old ways of seeing things – that is to say, seeing the world, for all its dangers, as a place (in its own desolate way) of abundance. + pgs. 177-178

Even the Desert Places

Whisper Back the "Very Good"

of Their Maker

For all appearances to the contrary, there is no such thing as scarcity where the Spirit is concerned, even in the wilderness, even after the forty-day fast. The bare clarity of the desert may corner us, reduce us, winnow us, take us next door to death, even, but if the process is allowed to work, we will see, gradually or all of a sudden, that we have never been alone, that there has never been utter silence, that tools and food and fire and comfort and meaning and the kindness of God can be everywhere, even here, for those who can see things as the Spirit sees them. ... Abundance can look like barely enough sometimes, sometimes like scarcity itself – five loaves and two fish before a hungering multitude. ... After all, in spite of the hunger and thirst, who, among all those whom God led into the wilderness, starved there? Who died of thirst? For the wind of the wilderness, there is no such thing as scarcity, no such thing as emptiness. In spite of any curse and harshness, even the desert places whisper back the "very good" of their Maker, who rustles the sage and dances among the rattlesnakes. + pgs. 178-179

The Difference is Seeing

The difference of the desert is the difference of the seeing. If we think the Spirit is cruel to blow us into the windy and desolate places, then we have not yet understood this. We need such barrenness much more than we think. ... The wind of the wilderness blows where it wishes. The Spirit's presence can be as arid and contradictory as the desert – but always in the service of love. + pg. 179

The Wilderness is Empty of Words

It Is Full of Meaning

At some point, every person's path leads into the wilderness. Into the desert, to be quiet for a time, or perhaps to rage and to curse God where only ravens and silent angels can hear. Sometimes we wander there; sometimes we walk with purpose. We look for the path. Sometimes it is clear. At other times the sands cover even our own footprints. Sometimes it is a place emptier than empty; sometimes we glimpse a silhouette under the cleft of a rock or a cloaked figure moving parallel to us down a far ravine. The wilderness is empty of words; it is full of meaning. It is silent yet howls until the head pounds. Sometimes it is an experience of such profound suffering that others wonder how you make it. Sometimes it is so simple and personal that others wonder why you don't just "get over it." In any case, being thrown into the wilderness is an act of love. There are no promises whether you will live or die. But even there, in the deepest desert, the Spirit can lead you to wells of living water. + pg. 180

The Desert, Like All Places, 

Is the Dwelling of the Holy Spirit

Though He may cast you there, He will fling Himself alongside you, rough as sackcloth, gray as ashes, and good. He does that so that in the emptiness, like so many before us (like Jesus Himself), we might find fullness; in the absence, presence; in the scarcity, abundance; in fasting, a feast spread in the presence of our enemies. In the roar of the wind in both ears, the joyous shriek of the Dove of creation, that ghostly white wind of the wilderness, you might hear Him asking the ancient question: What are you doing here? He knows your answer already, but it is no matter: you have been kindly hunted, brought or carried or thrown here because it is you who must answer Him. 

+ pgs. 180-181

Links to other Lenten posts:

+ Ache for Meaning

+ Memento Mori 

+ I Hope to Lose 

+ Facing Death

+ Look at the Birds

+ Meet Us in the Mess

Christ is all,

Rev. Mike "Sully" Sullivan

Email Pastor Mike | Website | Visit Us | Support Us | Facebook Us

CN | Being with God in Stillness, Silence, and Surrender

 

It has been said that God’s first language is silence, because, through Christ’s sacrifice of love on the cross, God no longer has anything to say against us. What if God’s silence is, therefore, not an absence but instead an affirmation of our acceptance? + AJ Sherrill, Being with God

Along with Red Skies, When Faith Fails, The God in the Garden, and Living Under Water, Being with God ranks up there as one of my favorite spiritual reads during 2022. Here is an excerpt that has helped me embrace leaning into solitude with the Spirit of God.

The Spirit Himself intercedes for us through wordless groans … with the will of God. + Romans 8:26

Have you considered what an astonishing promise it is that the Spirit prays in us, and does so “according to the will of God”?

Everything about church planting that one needs to know, but soon forgets, is implied in the term itself: the vocation requires the patience of a farmer rather than the efficiency of a machinist. Self-imposed deadlines, relentless fundraising, and chronic comparison tragically turn church planters into church mechanics. Several months into the church plant I was a part of in Southern California, I was exhausted at every level. I needed a breakthrough, but I wasn’t sure what kind of breakthrough I needed.

Around that time, a friend was hosting a workshop that centered on the life and ministry of Henri Nouwen. Nouwen had left a prestigious faculty position at Yale to serve and live alongside people with cognitive disabilities in a community outside Toronto called Daybreak. 

Nouwen’s life had been characterized by the same struggles we all face: comparison, control, and consumption. 

Those three Cs were the merry-go-round in my head … The more I talked with a new friend I met at the Nouwen workshop during a break, the more I realized I needed the disciplines necessary to move beyond talking at God to being with God. I wanted a deeper relationship with God (think Mary at the feet of Jesus, not Martha doing chores around the house) that was in line with those of the early church, the desert fathers and mothers, the monastic communities, and many other Christian traditions. It occurred to me that maybe it was time to stop riding the merry-go-round in my mind, that maybe there was a better conversation I needed to join. And maybe that conversation wasn’t taking place “out there” but was already present within me through the Holy Spirit. This is where Romans 8:26-27 comes into play. Marjorie J. Thompson, a Presbyterian spiritual director, says it well:

Have you considered what an astonishing promise it is that the Spirit prays in us, and does so “according to the will of God”? Perhaps our real task in prayer is to attune ourselves to the conversation already going on ... Then we may align our conscious intentions with the desire of God.

 

Spirit’s 3 Ss: Stillness, Silence, Surrender Counter 

Our 3 Cs: Comparison, Control, Consumption

The three Cs of comparison, control, and consumption are subversive strategies we employ to strive in our own capacities … We equate strength with feeling equipped and competent in our abilities. We believe the illusion that comparing ourselves to others can lead to personal victory. We swallow whole the lie that if we can only control our lives through worry, manipulation, and striving, then we will achieve what we are hoping for. We are seduced into thinking that being fully alive means consuming the next product, latest gadget, or newest experience. Perhaps these are the very weaknesses from which the Holy Spirit — who lives within us — seeks to liberate us.

Finding our way back requires us to pursue the inverse of our natural impulses: stillness, silence, surrender. 

Surrendering to the indwelling Holy Spirit connects us to the eternal dialogue happening within the Trinity. This conversation that the Trinity has been having since creation is a far better conversation than the one happening in our heads. And entering this better conversation reminds us of what is true. The truth is twofold:

1. We are probably less important than we think. 

2. We are definitely more loved than we know.

When we first discover that we are less important than we think, the discovery can create a loss of significance. But this is a grace to us. It’s a grace because our self-worth no longer has to be forged and defended through comparison, control, and consumption. What liberation! When we get to that place, we then can fully embrace the reality that we are more loved than we know. This is why Christians claim wholeheartedly that identity is received, not achieved. God’s great love for us brings us, in Christ through the Holy Spirit, into the current of the Triune God. All we must do is surrender to it … enter the eternal conversation, where we can discover the joy and the mystery of what the Holy Spirit is constantly speaking with the Father and the Son. This conversation within the Trinity is full of sacrifice, acceptance, and creative love toward the other.

The Groaning of the Spirit & Surrendering to the Spirit

The essential task in prayer may not be to start a new conversation with God but rather to join the eternal conversation already happening within us. 

The Triune God is already having a conversation within us, through the Holy Spirit. The contemplative life is about learning to join that conversation. Prayer doesn’t begin with us talking and end when we run out of things to say. Prayer is always happening between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. And the Holy Spirit … always invites us to pull up a chair and join.

Paul’s instruction in Romans 8 is perhaps the strongest admonition in the epistles to quiet the mind and attune the soul to silence, for it is only in the silence that we hear God’s whispers of liberation that release us from the burden of establishing and defending our own significance.

It has been said that God’s first language is silence, because, through Christ’s sacrifice of love on the cross, God no longer has anything to say against us. What if God’s silence is, therefore, not an absence but instead an affirmation of our acceptance?

Christian contemplation is a dive into the Holy Spirit. Rather than falling into nothing, we fall into Someone. And the Holy Spirit never calls us to flee all desire. The problem isn’t with desire but with disordered desire. Through contemplative prayer, we realign our desires with God’s desires. We do not need to fear surrendering to God in silence and stillness, for it is the Spirit of Christ who awaits our company and invites us into the conversation.

Prayer Practice of Surrendering, Listening for the Spirit’s Groans

The Eastern Orthodox Church has long practiced the tradition of praying a few short lines known as the Jesus Prayer. The Jesus Prayer focuses on repeating a simple refrain:

Inhale: Lord Jesus Christ 

Exhale: Have mercy on me

This condensed form of the Jesus Prayer centers our identity on the person of Christ. It acknowledges our inadequacy as sinners apart from the mercy of God, and it gives the mind something to focus on as we open ourselves up to the groaning of the Holy Spirit. 

Read Romans 8:26-27

Bow your head toward your heart 

Set a timer for 5-10 minutes and practice the Jesus Prayer.

If your mind wanders and/or when you realize your mind has wandered, don’t be hard on yourself or spend energy analyzing why you lost your way. Simply return to the Jesus Prayer.

Afterward, reflect on the experience in a journal.

Stick to this practice daily for a week and see what opens up for you over time. 

Through contemplative prayer we can keep ourselves from being pulled from one urgent issue to another and from becoming strangers to our own heart and God's heart. Contemplative prayer keeps us home, rooted and safe, even when we are on the road, moving from place to place … Contemplative prayer deepens us in the knowledge that we are already free, that we have already found a place to dwell, that we already belong to God. + Henri Nouwen, In the Name of Jesus

Next post: CN | Here Is Honest, Messy Holy Ground: Pray As You Can

Here are links to other recent City Notes (CN) books:

A Time To Heal (Shalom); Red Skies; Story of God in a Sanitation Truck; The Artistry of What's Next; Days of Song on Spot of Scorched Earth; Seeds of Hope in the Rain & the Dark; The Church is the Most Corrupt Institution on Earth; The Seamless Life; A Good Calling; Inisheer Island; Wrestling with God in Doubt; Taste Grace in World of Seculosity; I've Seen What Hope Can Do; Ubuntu and the Family of God; Baptism as the Way of Life; Childlike Wonder; Listening to God's Voice; The Cross and Peacemaking Presence

With presence, peace, and many blessings,

Rev. Mike “Sully” Sullivan

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