Tag Archives: Lenten Manual

#45 Take to the sea for four days of Lent

23 Tuesday Feb 2010

Posted by in God, Prayer, Spiritual Exercises, Theological Ethics, Theology

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Courage!  Howard Westwood’s 1939 Lenten Manual uses outdated, high-flown language, is written in the mode of all-men-all-of-the-time, and mentions several, mostly-forgotten dead people.  Still, his exercises and meditations are worth a look.

Besides, Lent isn’t supposed to be easy.  So, as Westwood might say, abandon your safe haven and sail into the high seas of engaged reflection.

Here are a few more days from his Manual, in grey, one of the colors of the season.

DAY 6 (1st Tuesday):  “We Avow Our Faith”
“Here I stand, so help me God, I can do no other.” These words of Luther remind us of a statement by Prof. Kirsopp Lake: “Faith is not belief in spite of evidence, but life in scorn of consequence — a courageous trust in the great purpose of all things and pressing forward to finish the work which is in sign, whatever the price may be.” So do we avow our faith, without hesitation, equivocation or apology. For the moment we leave argument and discussion behind.  We are engaged in an enterprise that we will defend at all hazards and promote without compromise. We do not ask for a secure haven for we propose to sail the high seas. We do not ask for guaranteed certainty for we possess what is more important, the inward certitude of consecrated purpose.

Exercise: Dwell upon the assertion, “We become what we affirm.” Some psychologists condemn wishful thinking, therefore comment on, “The right kind of wishful thinking leads to creative power.”

Meditation: Spirit of Life, give us the courage to match our purpose, the will to endure and the trust which falters not. Above all, strengthen daily within us faith equal to our high resolve.

[The 2nd week’s theme.]
 IMPLICATIONS OF THE AVOWAL

DAY 7 (2nd Wednesday):  “In God”
In his essay “Is Life Worth Living?” William James utters words of profound insight in declaring “God himself may draw vital strength and increase of very being from our fidelity.” He also quotes William Salter, the late leader of the Philadelphia Ethical Society: “As the essence of courage is to stake one’s life as a possibility, so the essence of faith is to believe that the possibility exists.” In avowing our faith in God, we are staking our life on the possibility that the world is not a meaningless void, but that the highest within us reflects and reveals the Life and Intelligence through which all things exist.”

Exercise: Dwell on St. Paul’s statement, “We are co-laborers with God.” What do you think about the quotation from Wm. James?

Meditation: O Soul of All in the heart of each, help me to trust my deepest intuitions as expression of thy purpose, and in loyal devotion teach me to fulfill them in the experience of life.

DAY 8 (2nd Thursday):  “In Eternal Love”
How keen in their insight these words of the Bard of Avon:

Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds
Or bends with the remover to remove.

How beautiful in its constancy the frequent devotion of husband and wife, of parent and child! Yet human love is sometimes inconstant, for often it is influenced by changing circumstance and the passing of the years. The prophet causes the Eternal to say, “I have loved thee with an everlasting love.” Reflect on the eternal constancy of Nature in the rhythms of day
and night, the seasons, seed-time and harvest, etc. Note the great certainties in the invariableness of Nature’s laws. The manifestations of Nature are infinite, but Nature herself is unchanging. The laws of Love are likewise unchanging.

Exercise: The thought in the lesson is a challenge to our own constancy. This phase of the avowal is a pledge to overcome fickleness of mood and temper. Let us examine ourselves in this.

Meditation: O Spirit of Love, how often have we betrayed thee! By they divine constancy, control our changing moods and the waywardness of our affections. Keep the compass of our spirits ever true.

DAY 9 (2nd Friday):  In All-Conquering Love
It is the nature of Love never to know defeat.  Among the most revealing parables of the Great Teacher is that of the Lost Sheep, in which the shepherd seeks for the wanderer from the fold “until he finds it.” In his majestic poem, “The Hound of Heaven,” Francis Thompson likens the Divine Spirit to a relentless seeker forever on the trail of the soul of man. Likewise, the unknown author of the 139th Psalm, when he exclaims, “Whither shall I go from thy Spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence?”

In his hour of trial George Matheson cried, “O Love, that wilt not let me go!” There is a persistent quality in Love which never surrenders.

Exercise: Read Thompson’s poem referred to in the less. Take the time, even if you have to visit a library to obtain the poem. Treat the thought personally, “Love is destined to have its way with me.”

Meditation: O Love forever seeking us, teach experiences of our lives, thou art indeed the highest expression of the Universal Life. Teach me the secret of thine enduring patience, for in this is the assurance that thou shalt prevail, even with me.

#44 Her Nakedness passes her Ph.D. comps!

23 Tuesday Feb 2010

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Phew.  Comps are over!  Now onward to the dissertation proposal.  A Ph.D. student’s work is never done–or so it seems.

The season of Lent has begun.  Whether or not you spent last Wednesday with a sooty cross on your forehead, you may be wondering how to participate in this season.  Horace Westwood’s 1939 Lenten Manual could be just the ticket.  While serving as a Unitarian minister, the Reverend Westwood wrote a Manual making it a straightforward affair to participate in Lent through the practice of a daily, guided meditation.  It’s a wonderful resource–because, after all, who wants to reinvent the wheel for every religious holiday. Should you decide to create your own manual, however, please share!

Westwood’s Manual is based on his faith in God as Eternal and All-Conquering Love. The Manual is broken down by weekly themes and daily meditations except for Sundays since Westwood assumed Lentenites would be in Church (where else could you possibly want to be?).

Now, for the promised manual.   The foreword explains how Westwood intended it to be used.  Also included are Saturday’s meditation to situate and prepare you for today’s meditation, the first Monday of Lent.

FOREWORD

The Great Avowal: “We avow our faith in God as Eternal and All-Conquering Love.” (The Worcester Statement)

This Lenten booklet is based on the plan of a brief daily lesson, followed by an exercise and a meditation. The purpose of the lesson, however, is not to instruct but to stimulate thought on the part of the reader. It makes little difference whether or not there is agreement with the writer. The important thing is that those who follow the lessons should do their own thinking and form their own conclusions. In other words, this is a work booklet.

It is not intended to encourage sentimental piety, than which there is no greater enemy to religion. The times [1939] demand a certain ruggedness of temper and incisiveness of mind.  The period through which the world is passing calls for spiritual hardihood, fortitude and strength. While our central theme is “Eternal and All-Conquering Love,” and while we may not overlook that Love has its tender side, the reader is reminded that Love can be most searching in its demands and stern in its requirements.

A few practical suggestions for the best use of the booklet:

(1) Set aside a definite period each day during Lent, at least ten minutes, better still, fifteen
or twenty.

(2) Try to relax and quiet the mind before reading the lesson.

(3) Read the lesson slowly and thoughtfully.
Sometimes its thought may seem obscure and sometimes you may profoundly disagree. Well, this is a sign that you are using your mind, which is the important thing.

(4) Use the exercises faithfully

(5) Keep a notebook and record your reactions.

(6) Use the meditation as a sincere expression of your own purpose.

(7) Remember that in using these lessons day by day you are sharing an experience with hundreds of others who are doing the same thing. Seek, then, to become aware of the fellowship you share. It will be to you a source of encouragement and power. Also, you will be a source of inspiration to others.

[The 1st week’s theme.]
 THE IMPORTANCE OF THE AVOWAL

DAY 4 (1st Saturday):  A Way of Behavior
The importance of the Great Avowal [“We avow our faith in God as Eternal and All-Conquering Love”] lies in that it is more than an argument. It means that you and I pledge ourselves to a particular way of life. It means that we “highly resolve” to behave as though Love were the Supreme Reality behind the centuries of history and the events of the passing show. It means, despite the terrible record of the past few years, despite dictatorships, concentration camps, persecutions and the exploitation of human life on behalf of the “will to power,” and despite the hatred of class struggle, war and revolution, we proclaim that Love will endure and will prevail.

Exercise: Why do we say “to behave” rather than “to live”? Comment on, “A reasonable argument without the committal of self to the conclusion is of no avail.”

Meditation:
Creation’s Lord, we give thee thanks
That this thy world is incomplete;
That battle calls our marshaled ranks
That work awaits our hands and feet;

That thou hast not yet finished man,
That we are in the making still, –
As friends who share the Maker’s plan,
As sons who know the Father’s will.

Since what we choose is what we are,
And what we love we yet shall be,
The goal may ever shine afar, –
The will to win it makes us free.
(William De Witt Hyde)

DAY 5 (1st Monday):  The Importance of Demonstration
How few of us realize that there is a sense in which we make the truth! When Clara Barton undertook her great work during the Civil War she began to make the truth of the Red Cross movement. When Jesus cried, “Father, forgive them: for they know not what they do,” he added to the truth of the power of magnanimity and the redeeming strength of the forgiving heart. In later lessons we shall discover that the avowal of “God as Eternal and All-Conquering Love” is grounded in reason. But because we avow it, we make it the truth by which we conduct the affairs of life. We enter upon the most thrilling and daring of adventures. Cowardly spirits will shrink from the enterprise. What more important task could we undertake than to demonstrate the Supremacy of Love?

Exercise: We must beware of sentimentalism in our thought of love. Contemplate the sentence, “Love can be hard.” Review previous lessons.

Meditation: O Love revealing to us the heart of God and the depths of the soul of Man, give us the wisdom to perceive thee at work behind the events of the hour. We would adventure with thee into the dark places of life and reveal thy power in thought, word, and deed.