Read an Excerpt
Fulfilled
Living and Leading with Unusual Wisdom, Peace, and Joy
By Kirk Byron Jones Abingdon Press
Copyright © 2013 Abingdon Press
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4267-7493-5
CHAPTER 1
DISTILLING STILLNESS
The exquisite risk to still our own house.... —St. John of the Cross
Sometimes you need to sit and think. Sometimes you need to just sit. —Satchel Paige
[A place] of not-thinking, not-remembering, not-wanting. —Mary Oliver
Why Stillness Makes Me Weep
I am used to it now: crying during my morning times of stillness. It doesn't happen all the time; when it does I just let the tears come. Why do I cry?
Sometimes, I cry at the point of having touched a moment of burdenlessness. There are spaces and places in stillness where I feel as light as a feather. All burdens, worries, and cares are lifted, at least temporarily, and it's as if I can just float away if I choose to do so. It is a moment of being fully relieved of all I've been carrying. I cry for the relief I am feeling and, I think, in part for the realization that I had been carrying all I had been carrying. Sometimes we don't know how much we are bearing until we drop the heavy load. Considering the weight for the first time is enough to make me cry sometimes.
Sometimes I cry from a sense of having bumped into myself, my truest, deepest self, free and unmasked. The roles we fill in life can camouflage, and sometimes compromise, who we are at our essence. It is possible to be so busy trying to be so many things to so many people that we lose a sense of who we are without reference to others and their expectations. In stillness, as all others and all expectations are gathered together for a time in a merciful waiting area outside my consciousness, someone whom I may not recognize at first glance appears. The someone turns out to be me: the me who is me unadorned by all. When I feel a sense of my deepest self, free from all expectations, dependencies, and false identities, I cry. This me feels whole from the inside out. He does not exist for acceptance; he exists from acceptance. He has no need whatsoever to overdo and overreach in order to fit in, because he has been outfitted from within, in a beautiful and comfortable robe of unconditional love.
Coming into mysterious contact with the source of such love is another reason for my crying. I have come to believe in a God of lavish love, grace, and mercy. I know that this love is real because in some moments of stillness majesty, I feel love all over me. When the love is all over me, I am ... I am in heaven ... and I cry. Feeling God's love—and listening to Ella Fitzgerald sing and Louis Armstrong play—is the best proof I have for the existence of God. Blessing on blessing, there are moments when I sense where the love is coming from: a Presence whose grace is as relentless as the world can sometimes be heartless. This Presence comforts and empowers me afresh with one of my best truths of all: amid all the worrying and wounding, there is set free in the world a Spirit of Relentless Healing that will not be stopped, no matter what.
So, in those moments of feeling fully released of all burdens, or feeling that I have come into the company of myself, or feeling filled to overflowing with God's love, I cry. And there is a rainbow amid the tears. Thus, many more days than not, I take what St. John of the Cross referred to as "the exquisite risk": the risk of surrendering our deepest heartfelt space to the sway of a Spirit, most holy, chancing that the sightings will be worth the surrender. Mark Nepo offers more helpful light on the best risk of all in The Exquisite Risk:
The exquisite risk is a doorway, then, that lets us experience the extraordinary in the ordinary. It is always near. Truth opens it. Love opens it. Humility opens it. And if stubborn, pain will intensify to open it. Sadness can open it, if felt to its center. Silence and time open it, if we enter them and don't just watch them. ([New York: Three Rivers Press, 2005], 15)
The Secret Sensational Power of Stillness
Be still, and know that I am God.—Psalm 46:10 (ESV)
Silencing our mental chatter is arguably the most important practice of all when it comes to creating, managing, and sustaining a fulfilling life. Here's why. When we are thinking about this and that, we are living a small, albeit splendid, dimension of ourselves. No matter how meaningful and vital our rational thinking is, it's never all we are.
Think of your mental self as being the tip of a majestic iceberg. Stay with the iceberg image. Though its tip is what is seen, its larger mass lies unseen, submerged under water. Moreover, the vast ocean surrounding its mass is yet another portion of its expansive reality. Similarly, your conscious mind is the tip of your total being. Your greater submerged mass is commonly referred to as the subconscious mind, the place where hidden knowledge is stored. But there is even more to us. The water surrounding our conscious and subconscious minds is God's Mind: limitless creative wisdom flowing playful and free, far beyond what the eyes can ever see or the rational mind alone can ever perceive. Maybe this is why Jesus says in John 4:14, "The water I will give will become in you a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life."
When we limit ourselves to just our thinking, our mental chatter, we are missing out on the dynamism and wisdom of our deeper and wider sacred dimensions. How do we explore these amazing, yet unsung and unseen, dimensions? We explore them through stillness and silence. Quiet the mind through silent prayer, meditation, or just being still and empty in the moment, and all God's enchanting universe opens wide and wonderful for holy adventure.
What David said about being still is truer than most of us ever allow ourselves to know. But, should we choose to, we can know and marvel and revel daily in such unspeakable knowing.
Stillness is no joke, or just maybe the biggest reason of all to laugh and leap for joy!
Stillness as Communion with Mystery
Some of the most provocative words I've read on mystery are not found in a book of theology, but rather an article entitled "We Are Explorers: In Search of Mystery in Videogames" by Tevis Thompson. Consider the following quotations from the article:
My favorite videogames ... stay with me after I stop playing. They resonate with mystery....
Mystery, like art, cannot be exhausted. It deepens with reconsideration. A well I draw from again and again. Replay is required.... Mystery demands second quests....
Mystery resists closure. It resists completion and clean getaways. It, instead insists. I'm not done with you yet....
Mystery, not mastery, breeds love. I do not love a game because I have conquered it....
Mystery is not merely the unknown. It is the impossibility of knowing and yet the continual attempt to know. (Guest Editorial, Kotaku.com, Oct. 26, 2012)
Such words may cause you to think about video games more deeply than you thought valuable or possible. I thought them well placed here to create some play-like excitement in you for the wonder that is mystery. Thankfully, mystery is available to gamers and non-gamers through stillness. When we pause the movement of mind, we are able to relax more easily in the bosom of the unknown. Such a place is an astounding space of blessing and grace, and no small risk. For what we are kissing when we are kissing mystery in stillness is something that is on Its own terms and not ours. Yet, in the embrace of the accepting unknown, it is possible to be more enthralled than troubled, and more excited than terrified. As we commune with Mystery in moments of silence and stillness, suddenly new worlds appear, and more, far beyond our safe and familiar dreams, becomes possible and desirable.
Being Present to Presence
Ever since childhood, I have had an abiding sense of a presence, a reality, other than the world into which I was born. I remember waking up at night when I was a child and just lying in bed feeling and wondering about something other. Sometimes, the feeling was so intense I became frightened. On some nights, I remember becoming so disturbed that I yelled out to my parents. I recall a few times trying to cry out to them and not being able to. It was as if for that moment, I had mysteriously been rendered speechless.
My fear about the presence was calmed by parents who spoke easily of God, a holy loving mystery. My experience, joined with parental and church influences, inspired a calling to ministry when I was twelve. I was a boy preacher. At twenty-two, I became pastor of my first church, and soon after I started teaching at a local seminary. The common thread uniting my ministry experiences was an abiding sense of the presence and a feeling of being warmly blessed in my pursuits. Often while preaching, pastoring, and teaching, I felt especially inspired, empowered, and grateful. These were, and are, the times when the presence winks. These are the times when delightful absorption with what we are doing when we are doing it makes our souls sing and God smile.
While mysterious presence can be experienced anyplace, anytime, and anywhere, I have come to own as most precious those moments of experiencing God in stillness when all thoughts are silenced. Such times allow me to experience God on God's own terms and not my own. Moreover, stillness of mind and heart signifies a willingness on my part to receive God in imaginings and understandings that may have nothing whatsoever to do with my previous understandings of God. My stillness is the offering of a clean slate to God. It is the yearning for God, if God wills, to sing unto me a new song.
This daily desire to engage and be engaged by God (God beyond perception) beyond "god" (the god of my perception) ensures that spirituality is always more than our manufactured constructs. Such an audacious presumption—to know God—is the impossible possibility that is at the highest heights and deepest depths of spiritual aspiration. There is an Unseen Bearer of Pastoral Burden-Bearers who speaks in an unusually calming whisper, saying, "I am with you, and together we will make it through."
Regular intervals of sweet sustained stillness can enhance our awareness of person and potential as a Children of God. Knowing better who we are fuels and fills us to play and soar in ways beyond our wildest imaginings. So endowed, ours is a present and future of not only surviving through it all, but also thriving through it all.
Befriending Stillness
In order to observe more inner calm and peace, we must come to terms with our conscious and unconscious negative valuations of stillness. For example, we associate stillness with mischief. If younger children are too quiet in a home, an alarm may go off inside of us: "What in the world are they up to?" At other times, stillness is used as a punishment: "Sit down and don't you move a muscle!" Sometimes we punish persons who have offended us by giving them "the silent treatment." Another example of a negative perception of stillness is our discomfort with extended pauses in conversation. Finally, we may associate quiet with trying personal life situations. I remember a seminary student linking her uneasiness with stillness with "the calm just before the storm" of another abusive assault from her father.
Though sometimes painful, identifying ways in which stillness has been negatively experienced is a way of preparing stillness to wear new garments, to take on greater positive meaning and value in our still-thirsty lives.
We receive what we deeply desire; what we focus on is what expands in our lives. Consequently, you will not realize more stillness and the resulting peace of mind and soul in your life unless you truly want it. Warning: given that our society promotes noise and busyness, you will have to develop a deep desire for stillness in a hostile environment. It is possible to do this by periodically reminding yourself of the amazing life-transforming benefits of stillness. I encounter people from all walks of life, from all parts of the world. Many are eager to tell of their own transformational experiences with stillness. Here are just a few:
1. Calm
2. Soul Refreshing
3. Hearing God's Voice
4. Acceptance
5. Release
6. Insight
7. Clarity
8. Soulfulness
9. Surprises
10. Originality
11. Connection to God, Self, Nature, and Others
12. Contentment
13. Elation
14. Lavish Grace
15. Inner Spaciousness
16. Courage to Face Fear
17. Creative Energy
18. Noticing More
19. Patience
20. Stretching
Take a moment to reflect on each stillness blessing and its meaning for you, past, present, and future. How have you experienced stillness? Can you think of a moment when being still was especially helpful and meaningful? How do you think you would benefit from having more stillness moments in your day?
Be Still for Clarity, Change, and Contentment
When we are constantly busy, no matter how important the tasks, we risk never really knowing who we are, what we want, and where we are going. Take time to be still in order to know, to become genuinely familiar with your vast inner wealth.
Busyness leads to weariness, and weariness leads to stagnating repetition. In our tiredness, we begin to repeat the same thoughts and behaviors because we don't have the energy for creativity and innovation. Rest leads to peace; peace leads to clarity; clarity leads to creativity. We do not need to rest merely for refreshing and restoration. We need to rest for energy to begin new explorations, to hold in balance the tensions we encounter as leaders, and to take bolder risks on the enchanting journey of sacred transformation. Without rest, we are devoid of the potent energy required for real change.
The best rest includes a feeling of contentment: a sense of peaceful satisfaction about what we have already accomplished, including the lessons we've learned from our mistakes and so-called failures. Some persons resist allowing themselves to feel content for fear of becoming complacent. Remember this distinction: contentment receives new dreams and visions; complacency rejects new dreams and visions.
In order to press on with enhanced clarity and strength, we must pull back with deliberate intention and confidence. And, when you do, allow yourself to feel blessed in the deep places. Let yourself down easy in the soothing waters of God's grace. There are few things in life more dynamic than a rested body and a rested soul. This rest is the sweetest rest of all, the longing for which is beautifully expressed by David in Psalm 42:1: "As a deer longs for flowing streams, so my soul longs for you, O God" (god's word).
Letting the Fire Lean into You
Before I write, I light a candle. The flame keeps me company and inspires me. I say the flame. In fact, sometimes it's two flames: one candle with two wicks. Though a candle may have two wicks, I usually light only one. The second flame derives from my turning the lit wick toward the direction of the unlit one. Leaning the lit flame toward the other is what causes the unlit wick to catch fire. All the unlit flame has to do is be still.
The Bible uses fire in reference to ecstatic and very personal experience with God. Perhaps the most famous flames are in the burning bush on the back side of the desert that catches the attention and soul of Moses, the invigorating, pulsating, spiritual energy that burns in the prophet Jeremiah so it feels "just like fire" in his bones, and the tongues of sparks that take up residence just above the newly raised heads of renewed Jesus people on the Day of Pentecost. Spirituality in such moments is no staid, static sort of thing; it is the energy of God so vibrant and full that it cannot contain itself within itself. It catches fire, catching everything in its path by fulfilling and thrilling scorching surprise.
What if there is a fire that does not consume, that never goes out? What if there is flame that is always leaning toward us and longing for us to catch fire?
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Fulfilled by Kirk Byron Jones. Copyright © 2013 Abingdon Press. Excerpted by permission of Abingdon Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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