{"id":725,"date":"2011-11-21T12:22:16","date_gmt":"2011-11-21T12:22:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/fellowshipofsaintsandsinners\/?p=725"},"modified":"2018-07-20T21:16:44","modified_gmt":"2018-07-20T21:16:44","slug":"stylito-heels-weird-jesus-sayings-continued","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/fellowshipofsaintsandsinners\/2011\/11\/stylito-heels-weird-jesus-sayings-continued.html","title":{"rendered":"Stylito Heels: Weird Jesus Sayings Continued"},"content":{"rendered":"

“Enter through the narrow gate.\u00a0 For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it.\u00a0 But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.”\u00a0<\/em> Matthew 7:13,14<\/p>\n

It is both\u00a0funny and endearing, comical and touching to reflect on all of the ways we human beings strive to encounter God.\u00a0 In my (the Christian) tradition, there is plenty of fodder for laughter and inspiration.\u00a0 If you haven’t read John McGuckin’s book, Standing in God’s Holy Fire<\/em>, I would commend it to you as a great little introduction to the Eastern church’s holy men and women who throughout history sought to embody and articulate what it means to “enter through the narrow gate.”<\/p>\n

Which is a bit like training for the spiritual Olympics.\u00a0 These early monastics were the best in their sport.\u00a0 They had honed certain spiritual practices- some of them a bit odd to say the least-\u00a0to a tee.\u00a0 Take, for instance, the fourth-century Syrian ascetic, Simon Stylites.\u00a0 He was the most well-known of a group of Christian monastics called “Stylites,” who practiced the spiritual discipline of stasis<\/em>, which was essentially prayer over long hours in a motionless posture.\u00a0 Simon had a knack for sitting on top of high pillars when he prayed.\u00a0 For hours, even days.\u00a0 In the desert.\u00a0 I have to imagine a sore bum, aching back and bad case of sunburn went along with the exercise- as well as a quick end to any vertigo issues.<\/p>\n

When Jesus instructs us\u00a0to enter by the narrow door, I suspect he doesn’t necessarily mean that we all need to find high pillars or their\u00a0modern-day equivalents\u00a0to sit around on.\u00a0 Elsewhere, Jesus advises that\u00a0when we wish to pray, we should go into our rooms, close the door and pray to our Father in secret (Matthew 6:6).\u00a0 But I can appreciate the genuine\u00a0sentiment here of Simon Stylites and all of the mystics who have preceded and followed him in their unbridled\u00a0desire to commune with God.\u00a0 Because a mystic need not be a monastic.\u00a0 A mystic is anyone who seeks\u00a0an encounter with God’s presence\u00a0in the ordinary stuff of life- for whom the common, daily material of our world can become “sacraments” of sorts.\u00a0 Mediums of God’s grace.<\/p>\n

Mystics can be all of us, really. \u00a0To the degree that our eyes and ears are open for God to meet us as God chooses. \u00a0In the sacred profaneness and profane sacredness of our lives.<\/p>\n

So that when Jesus issues this reminder, it is really a description of and a warning about a\u00a0reality.\u00a0 The reality that to do this kind of seeking- to be available to what God would say to us 24\/7, to “pray ceaselessly,” as the apostle Paul instructs in 1 Thessalonians, to listen and obey not just in “church” or in our “holy” places but everywhere- is really, really hard.\u00a0 It’s the narrow way.\u00a0 When we forget to be intentional about our relationship with Jesus, or pretend we don’t need to be, or when we allow ourselves to be carried along by life’s currents without actively\u00a0looking for and clinging to\u00a0the One who is “the Way, the Truth and the Life,” then we can easily\u00a0self-destruct.\u00a0 We can\u00a0lose the Way, miss the Truth and rob ourselves of\u00a0the Life.<\/p>\n

For as much as I am\u00a0inclined to laugh\u00a0when I read accounts of\u00a0saints like Simon, I am also inclined to feel a bit nostalgic.\u00a0 Because I suspect that the church today needs a few\u00a0more “holy fools.”\u00a0 Folks who will go to any length, no matter how embarrassing or foolish it might look, to do something radical for God in their worship and service.\u00a0 Folks who, mindful that Jesus can meet them at any hour, at any moment even, are like the “wise virgins” who ready their lamps, all the while\u00a0waiting with great expectation for their Bridegroom to come and consummate their love (Matthew 25).<\/p>\n

This kind of vigilance, this quality of choosing to live as “set apart” for God, is rare today.\u00a0 We inculcate it when we ask God to unplug our ears to hear\u00a0God’s voice\u00a0in those around us, in our circumstances and our world.\u00a0Or when we open ourselves to God’s call to us, in our workplace, relationships and various walks of life.\u00a0 Often, to do this requires a regular practice of learning to be still before God.\u00a0 Of doing nothing but being silent in God’s presence.\u00a0 Of learning to listen.<\/p>\n

I’m only a beginner in these things.\u00a0 And thus far I haven’t received any divine summons to walk in Simon’s shoes.\u00a0 If you see me levitating on Stone Mountain or perched on the top of the Bank of America in fervent prayer, then it will be a surprise to all of us.\u00a0 But a girlfriend of mine has been encouraging me to wear heels.\u00a0\u00a0At\u00a06’0″, I have\u00a0tended to avoid any platform that might earn me\u00a0the epithet of “the fifty foot woman.”\u00a0 (I haven’t seen the movie, but apparently there is one.)<\/p>\n

But “stylito heels” are a different story.\u00a0 When I put these on- (and while\u00a0I am thinking metaphorically here, I might be persuaded to wear real ones as the uncomfortable spiritual discipline of a postmodern “holy fool”)- I am straining upwards to give God a smooch. This way God doesn’t have to come down quite\u00a0so far to kiss me and enter in.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“Enter through the narrow gate.\u00a0 For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it.\u00a0 But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.”\u00a0 Matthew 7:13,14 It is both\u00a0funny and endearing, comical and touching to reflect…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":461,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,68,43,25,15,233,187,13,5,101],"tags":[235,241,238,234,239,240,237,236],"class_list":["post-725","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-god","category-grace","category-humor","category-jesus","category-mission","category-prayer","category-saints-and-sinners","category-spirituality","category-women","category-worship","tag-235","tag-christian-spirituality","tag-john-mcguckin","tag-matthew-713","tag-mysticism","tag-sacred-and-profane","tag-stilettos","tag-stylites"],"yoast_head":"\nStylito Heels: Weird Jesus Sayings Continued - 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