Remembering Leanne Payne

I received word today of the passing of Leanne Payne, founder of Pastoral Care Ministries (PCM) and a huge influence in my life and thought. She taught me how to practice the presence of God, especially in broken places needing healing. In addition, she helped lay out a biblical vision of how God can use guided imagery prayer to heal the soul.

Rather than a long post on aspects of her life and ministry, I wanted to share some key quotes that have been meaningful to me as I remember her writings. She made other authors like C.S. Lewis and Clyde Kilby accessible to me in ways I’ve not found elsewhere.

“Saints of all ages have made it their business to be present to God, and out of this has sprung their truest vocation. They become, therefore, the ones who blaze spiritual trials for others. Every generation of Christians must courageously face dark wildernesses, peculiar to the time in which they live. These “perilous woods” through which a path must be hewn are made up of the choking undergrowth and dark flowering of the sins and blindnesses of generations past, and they always stand as formidable roadblocks to the next generation of Christians. The saints who make it their full intention, therefore, to practice the Presence (however they term this) become the courageous pathfinders, whether for the many or the few. And in the doing of this, no matter how much they suffer, they are to be accounted doubly blessed, for they have discovered what they were born to do.” (The Healing Presence: Curing the Soul Through Union with Christ, 34).

“It is all too easy for us moderns to regard the supernatural world (e.g. the Holy Spirit, angels, demons) and activities as somehow less real than the world we behold with our senses. As twentieth-century Christians, we live in a materialistic age, one in which our systems of learning have long based their conclusions on scientific truth alone. The presuppositions of such systems have misled many generations of students, blinding them to the truths of God and the Unseen Real, whether more or spiritual. Because of these intellectual blocks, we moderns have more difficulty with invisible realities and perhaps a much greater need for the discipline of practicing the Presence than did our forefathers in the faith. In the very beginning of the Christian Era, however, St. Paul spoke of the practice by saying: “We fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal” (2 Cor. 4:18) The practice of the Presence then, is simply the discipline of calling to mind the truth that God is with us. When we consistently do this, the miracle of seeing by faith is given. We begin to see with the eyes of our hearts.” (Ibid., 26).

“If broken lives and souls are to be healed, I must begin with teaching the practice of the presence… To abide in the presence of the Lord is to begin to hear Him. To follow through on that hearing is to find healing, self-acceptance, and growth into psychological and spiritual balance and maturity.” (Listening Prayer, 131).

“The renunciation of self-hatred is a deliberate (volitional) step we take, and we keep our eyes on the Source of our salvation, not on our subjective feelings, which are unreliable and even ‘diseased’ due to the habitual attitudes we’ve formed. As we do this, God honors our transaction and showers His grace upon us. We then do battle with all the diseased and negative thoughts and imaginings, lifting them up to Him as they arise in our hearts and minds.” (Restoring the Christian Soul: Overcoming Barriers to Completion in Christ Through Healing Prayer, 21).

Light as Snow (A Reflection)

[first a little context: 2” of fresh snow has fallen this morning in Louisville KY, adding to 8” that fell two days ago. Snowfall can be a powerful trigger for anxiety for me as I usually have to drive through it to get to work. I still feel traumatized from a job I had 7-8 years ago that didn’t allow for “snow days” or any days off whatsoever (had to even work Christmas, Thanksgiving, etc.). I became terrified of inclement weather as well as anything that might make me sick, and developed phobias I carry with me to this day.

 

 In light of this, I need to do hard work re-interpreting what I experience with what I believe to be true about God and God’s world. This is the only way I know to move toward trusting God in the midst of deep anxiety. Today’s re-interpretation comes through an attempt at poetry and some texts to set my mind on.]

 

Have you ever listened to snow falling?

 

Peace falls gently to the ground

out of God’s sky.

Directly from the heavens where he reigns,

peace falls.

 

Beauty blankets the earth,

frozen goodness.

Ice crystals piled high,

each one utterly unique creations

lighting up a cold winter’s night.

Have you noticed how snow has a light of its own?

 

It’s message available for all who hear, with ears to hear:

God is pure light

no darkness in Him

none at all.

no malevolent motives or tricks up his sleeve;

no secret, manipulative malice.

 

If pure desire to bless could take visible form,

and fall to the ground,

might it not look like this?

 

Jesus showed us what God is like;

God is gentle and lowly

humble and childlike.

Willing to be set aside and ignored,

willing to be shoveled roughly to the side of the road

by those he loves.

No other form of precipitation

can give light to the world;

a dangerous lustrous beauty.

 

Beauty that’s wild and free

provides an odd sort of safety

for those willing to accept it on its own terms.

 

 

Some texts to consider (all NIV; emphasis mine):

Jeremiah 32:38-41

³⁸ They will be my people, and I will be their God.³⁹ I will give them singleness of heart and action, so that they will always fear me and that all will then go well for them and for their children after them. ⁴⁰ I will make an everlasting covenant with them: I will never stop doing good to them, and I will inspire them to fear me, so that they will never turn away from me. ⁴¹ I will rejoice in doing them good and will assuredly plant them in this land with all my heart and soul.

 

John 1:4-5

In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. ⁵ The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

 

James 1:16-18

Don’t be deceived, my dear brothers and sisters. ¹⁷ Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. ¹⁸ He chose to give us birth through the word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of all he created.

 

1 John 1:5-7

⁵ This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. ⁶ If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth. ⁷ But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.

[thinking also here about how Isaiah talks of God making our sins as “white as snow” though they were scarlet with blood (Isa. 1:18)]

 

Matthew 17:1-2 NIV

After six days Jesus took with him Peter, James and John the brother of James, and led them up a high mountain by themselves. ² There he was transfigured before them. His face shone like the sun, and his clothes became as white as the light. (cf. Lk 9:29)

 

2 Cor 4:5-6

⁵ For what we preach is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. ⁶ For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ.

 

Eph 5:8-9

⁸ For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light ⁹ (for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth)

 

Col 1:12-14

¹² . . . and giving joyful thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of his holy people in the kingdom of light. ¹³ For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, ¹⁴ in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

 

1 Thess. 5:5

You are all children of the light and children of the day. We do not belong to the night or to the darkness.

 

1 Tim. 6:15-16

God, the blessed and only Ruler, the King of kings and Lord of lords, ¹⁶ who alone is immortal and who lives in unapproachable light, whom no one has seen or can see. To him be honor and might forever. Amen.

 

Rev 21:22-25

²² I did not see a temple in the city, because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. ²³ The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb is its lamp. ²⁴ The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their splendor into it.²⁵ On no day will its gates ever be shut, for there will be no night there.

 

Rev 22:1-5

22 Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb ² down the middle of the great street of the city. On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. ³ No longer will there be any curse. The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and his servants will serve him. ⁴ They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. ⁵ There will be no more night. They will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, for the Lord God will give them light. And they will reign for ever and ever.

Walking Through Pain and The Good Life Jesus Offers

I mentioned in an earlier post that I was working through some painful issues surrounding my “work life.” As I think through this issue, I take the familiar path in dealing with heart pain - name what is hurting so that I can bring it to Jesus and have a conversation with him about it. Involved in this process is thinking through what the end goal might be, what kind of person I might become on the other side. It was around this point that I came across Luke 6 in my daily reading in A Guide to Prayer for Ministers and Other Servants.

“But I say to you who hear, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, ²⁸ bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. ²⁹ To one who strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also, and from one who takes away your cloak do not withhold your tunic either. ³⁰ Give to everyone who begs from you, and from one who takes away your goods do not demand them back.³¹ And as you wish that others would do to you, do so to them.” (Luke 6:27-31 ESV; all texts are ESV unless otherwise noted)

Several thoughts came out of reflection on this text. First, I noticed that Jesus uses terms and phrases to describe certain types of people that we’re all familiar with – “enemies, those who hate you, those who curse you and abuse you, etc.” This tells me that I need to take note how I’ve been wounded and by whom, in this case in my workplace experiences. I need to explore the events, memories, personalities and emotions involved. But thankfully, it doesn’t end there! In this text (and in the larger context of Luke 6) He is offering me a vision of life with Him in his Kingdom where I can freely and easily do the things he describes here – love, do good, bless and pray for those who have done evil to me. This vision of life in His Kingdom must also occupy my attention, increasingly as the process goes on (and it is a long process!)

It is so easy when attending to wounds to get caught up in lesser stories of vengeance and payback, isn’t it? Jesus offers us so much more. But I have to ask, do I really want this? Because if I do desire and seek to lean into this vision of life, then I will have to give something up, lose something. One thing I’ll lose is the “right” to vengeance, the right to repay evil for evil. The persons who injured me will likely never know or care and I lose the right to bring it to their awareness through like action. But if I look at what I gain - a life of love, freedom and joy – the bargain seems pretty lopsided indeed.

The second line of thought was this - What do you think was easier for Jesus to do? Love his enemies or hate them? Picture him on the cross. When he said, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do,” (Luke 23:34) do you think that was easy for Jesus or difficult? Do you imagine the words came strained out of his heart, somehow forced out?

The answer to this question is huge. It will determine whether or not we believe the commands of Jesus to be easy or impossible. It will determine how you read the gospels and indeed, the entire Bible.

Some might say here that you’re talking about Jesus, the God-man; he had stuff going on that we don’t.

Did he? Let me ask another question, one that has rocked my world for several years now.

What did Jesus expect from his disciples, his earliest followers?

It seems pretty clear that Jesus expected his apprentices, his disciples to follow him in a certain way of life, something he called “eternal life” (John 3:15-16; 3:36; 4:14; 5:24; 6:27, 40, 47, 54; 17:3). He expected his disciples to do the things he did and say the things he said, in his confident peaceful manner (Matt 7:21-27; 11:25-30; 28:18-20; Colossians 3:1-17; 2 Peter 1:3-11, Phil 2:12-13, etc.). Below are merely a sampling of verses regarding this.

Luke 6:40

“A disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone when he is fully trained will be like his teacher.” (Cf. Matt 10:24)

 

John 14:12-15

“Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father. ¹³ Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. ¹⁴ If you ask me anything in my name, I will do ¹⁵ “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.

 

John 15:7-11

⁷ If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. ⁸ By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples. ⁹ As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love. ¹⁰ If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love. ¹¹ These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.

 

1 John 5:2-3

By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments. ³ For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome.

 

We need to have the thought, that for a certain kind of person, loving an enemy and doing good to them is an easy task and light burden. For others, for a different kind of person, it is largely impossible, at the very least an arduous task requiring herculean effort.

The hard thing for Jesus to do on the cross would have been to say, “You idiots! What the hell do you think you’re doing?! I will make you pay, MARK MY WORDS!! YOU WILL BURN IN HELL!!” The easy, light way to live came out of him naturally at this time as at other times. He offered love, compassion and forgiveness to his cruelest enemies simply as a natural overflow of what was stored up in his heart from having walked with his Father in God’s good world. He could not have easily done otherwise.

Grace for Broken Souls

I was meeting with a friend recently and the Lord brought this section of Brennan Manning’s Ragamuffin Gospel to mind. Having been under a vague, dark and oppressive cloud since the beginning of the New Year, I found that I needed it probably more than he did.

Since I have found life in sharing with others what I need to hear, I wanted to put it out there for myself and others to drink from (I’m not sure the page reference, found the quote online).

Many of us are haunted by our failure to have done with our lives what we longed to accomplish. The disparity between our ideal self and our real self, the grim specter of past infidelities, the awareness that I am not living what I believe, the relentless pressure of conformity, and the nostalgia for lost innocence reinforces a nagging sense of existential guilt: I have failed.

This is the cross we never expected, and the one we find hardest to bear.

One morning at prayer, I heard this word — “Little brother, I witnessed a Peter who claimed that he did not know Me, a James who wanted power in return for service to the kingdom, a Philip who failed to see the Father in Me, and scores of disciples who were convinced I was finished on Calvary. The New Testament has many examples of men and women who started out well and then faltered along the way.”

“Yet on Easter night I appeared to Peter. James is not remembered for his ambition but for the sacrifice of his life for Me. Philip did see the Father in Me when I pointed the way, and the disciples who despaired had enough courage to recognize Me when we broke bread at the end of the road to Emmaus. My point, little brother, is this — I expect more failure from you than you expect from yourself.”

The ragamuffin who sees his life as a voyage of discovery and runs the risk of failure has a better feel for faithfulness than the timid man who hides behind the law and never finds out who he is at all. Winston Churchill said it well — “Success is never final; failure is never fatal. It is courage that counts.”

Stop Being a Pleaser

Some new wounds were unearthed this week. Or, to be more accurate, light was shed this week on wounds unearthed back in November 2014. Wounds revolving around work, bosses and tasks, some of which go back decades. They are pervasive and long-standing in their effects, and as I contemplated (at times, with shame) how deeply and easily my heart is injured I felt the need to re-visit these words from Henri Nouwen.

Perhaps later when I have more perspective I shall write more on the journey the Lord is taking me on, but for now I’ll let Nouwen speak from a page out of The Inner Voice of Love titled, “Stop Being a Pleaser.” Inner Voice was Nouwen’s “secret journal” kept during a period of public breakdown just a few years before his death.

“You have to let your father and father figures go. You must stop seeing yourself through their eyes and trying to make them proud of you.

For as long as you can remember, you have been a pleaser, depending on others to give you an identity. You need not look at that only in a negative way. You wanted to give your heart to others, and you did so quickly and easily. But now you are being asked to let go of all these self-made props and trust that God is enough for you. You must stop being a pleaser and reclaim your identity as a free self.” (Henri Nouwen, The Inner Voice of Love, p.5)