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The Men's Weekend: An Aggressive Spirituality for Active Men by The Rev. Hartshorn Murphy
Men, who are members of St. Augustine's, are invited to attend a Men's Retreat Friday, May 30 - Sunday, June 1st at the Mary and Joseph's Retreat Center in Rancho Palos Verdes. Our retreat leader is the Rev. Dr. Kenneth Kaisch, Director of the Consultants for Change and Transition in Fullerton and author of Finding God: A Handbook of Christian Meditation.
Dr. Kaisch invites men to come away and to consider the adoption of, or renewal of, spiritual practices as "disciplines of recovery" as a corrective to the tyranny of this age, reflected in this statement: "Only useful activity is valuable, meaningful, moral. Activity that is not clearly, concretely useful to oneself or to others is worthless, meaningless, immoral." (Walter Kerr, The Decline of Pleasure, 1962)
By this law we live. We feel guilty when we have "nothing to do." We are reluctant to confess that we took a day off and "did nothing." We feel we have to justify a vacation as something to enable us to work harder when we return to work. It is why our introductory question at a social gathering is not "who are you?" but rather "what do you do?" This rampant utilitarianism dominates Western Culture and seduces us to behave as if that which is important is so for its usefulness, that a thing is of value depending on the profit I can extract from it. Such a pervasive philosophy (worldview really) leaves us often depleted and passionless.
"This dehumanizing Anglo-Saxon legacy is particularly devastating to men who learn that passion is something to be ashamed of, that strong feeling is a sign of weakness and the truly manly reaction o reality is stoicism. Love, of course, but let not love enrapture you. Be afraid, if you must, but keep your teeth from chattering. Take joy from a sonata, but let it not thrill you. Death will always sadden, but you dare not weep. Detest sin, but never be disturbed by it. Protest injustice, but grow not black with anger." (Walter J. Burghardt "Contemplation")
The corrective is an engaged contemplation of the real. The Carmelite William McNamara called contemplation "a pure intuition of being, born of love. It is experiential awareness of reality and a way of entering into immediate communion with reality…You can study things, but unless you enter into this intuitive communion with them, you can only know about them, you don't know them. To take a long loving look at something - a child, a glass of wine, a beautiful meal - this is a natural act of contemplation, of loving admiration."
Our journey to the mountain is about discovering the long, loving look at the real. It is the discovery of the Holy in deep, thoughtful encounters with God's creation, with God's people, with God's self. It is to discover our bodies as "sacred space" which God, the sculptor, formed (Genesis 2:7) and breathed life into and which St. Paul described as the "Temple of the Holy Spirit." (I Corinthians 6:19). It is to attempt to experience what the 2nd century French Bishop Irenaeus described when he wrote: "The glory of God is a human being fully alive, and the glory of a human being is a vision of God."
Space is limited. Reserve your space by signing up on Sunday or by calling the church office.
(In preparation, Dr. Kaish asks us to read The Spirit of the Disciplines, by Dallas Willard, available in the Bookstore.)
Copyright © 2003 St. Augustine by-the-Sea
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