Meditation, Soul Saving, and the Life We Have to Live

I found myself recently frustrated that the general perception of Christianity is that we are only interested in sin management or the mass conversion of others, as if we are some kind of spiritual pyramid scheme and our eternal rewards as individuals increase with each person we get to “buy into” our product of Jesus Christ and Going to Heaven. (Maybe it is more accurate to say that the product du jour is escaping eternity in hell…)

I recently read an article about how a Baptist turned Buddhist Army Chaplain is creating a meditation and resilience center in Afghanistan (link to article) which made me proud that the military is seeing spirituality and prayer as something that makes us stronger and offers healing benefits, and more than just a lucky rabbit's foot tacked onto the occasional ceremony.

What bothered me (bothers me) is the lack of attention that we give to meditation and contemplation as Christian Chaplains (and Christians in general).  Many of the articles shared about military chaplaincy and Christianity are written in a negative light and tell of the harmful effects of proselytization.   Christians are painted as angry purveyors of an angry God.

There it is again: Christianity is only about mass conversion and sin management.  

And yet there is John Wesley’s admonition to his preachers: “You have nothing to do but save souls; therefore spend and be spent in that work.” This commission weighs so heavily on my heart, because anything Wesley said to his preachers applies to my Methodist self and there is something absolutely necessary about this work!

But when I think of saving souls…I think of the spouse who has been cheated on and lacks a sense of self-worth.  I think of the service member who has been sexually assaulted and now has issues of trust and a devalued sense of self-esteem.  I think of the troops who have survived combat and carry the spiritual and emotional damage that goes along with that.  I think of all those who are forced to live a closeted existence because to be completely honest about who they are (and who they have been created to be) means exile from family and friends, means exclusion from the Church and the One who made them…I think of the many different faces that sit in Chapel—and have sat in congregations I have served in the past—who are the people behind each of these generic statements…

In the spiritual exchange of penal-substitutionary atonement, their soul is safe the moment they accept “that Jesus died for their sins”; nothing to worry about any more.  But from a spiritual direction, and spiritual wholeness perspective many of them, while saved from “eternal damnation” have souls that live a tortured existence…they have souls that still need saving and need people who will spend and be spent in this work.

When I served in the local church, there was a man who would not cross the threshold of the church building because of the things he endured during World War II.  How many people in our world are in similar places, staying away from God and the wholeness that Grace offers because they are living with the horrors they have caused or that they have had perpetuated upon them.

Can the Church (and those of us who serve) come back to a place where we embrace meditation and contemplation as an avenue of healing and wholeness, a place where we experience at-one-ment with God through the Great Physician Jesus Christ or are we relegated to simply being sellers of cheap fire insurance?

I for one stand with the Saints of Spiritual Direction: Henri Nouwen, Richard Foster, Barbara Brown Taylor, Richard Rohr, Brennan Manning, and so many others.  All of whom are fully committed to the need for the revelation of God in Jesus Christ, all of whom are head over heels in love with the Giver of Grace, while still being generous and charitable to our sisters and brothers of other faiths.  I stand with them because they speak, write, teach and live in a holistic practice of this faith I know and love.