Monthly Archives: December 2008

Say Not a Word

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snow-on-trees1

The wordiness of religion overwhelms me at times.  The words in sermons, prayers, hymns and scripture multiply and collect in me.  Add in the thicket of conversation in the narthex after worship and my eyes start to swim — my brain becomes like a sponge that cannot absorb any more language.

I felt it on Christmas Eve.  After four worship services, three at my church and one at my wife’s, my mind could not take in another word.  By midnight only the calm melodies of strings and piano offered a refuge.

When my spirit is overfull with language, I reach for religious practices that don’t involve words.  Amos Niven Wilder urged this.

Say not a word, be still, and fear to pray;
Forego not the great prayer of silence; plead
With the great plea of helplessness, and say
No word but vast dependence for thy creed.

I listen for the ‘sound of sheer silence’ as Elijah did.  I stare at the way snow lies on tree limbs.  I look at a picture of the face of Christ.  These become non-verbal forms of prayer.  I step away from my Reformed roots for a time and become a Catholic, a Quaker, and a nature mystic.  Eventually the hunger for words returns.

Word weariness can plague Protestants because ours is the most wordy form of Christianity.  The Reformers designed it that way, and we’ve lived with the legacy ever since.  I wish they’d not discarded the other channels of grace so easily.

I love words and writing.  I love scripture and preaching.  Only too much of anything isn’t healthy, even good things.

During my residency as a hospital chaplain, a supervisor infuriated me one day with the comment, “Words get in the way of learning.”  It seemed absurd to use seven words to dismiss the importance of words.  Fifteen years later now, with more insight and charity, I see the comment as an invitation to embrace non-cognitive ways of learning.  Only I wish the supervisor had said, “Words aren’t the only way of learning.”  I agree they aren’t.

But even things we learn apart from language, truths that rise up from life itself, we clothe with words so we may reflect on them and share them with others.  We translate experience into the medium of words.

In the Incarnation, God worked in the opposite way.  God clothed the divine word in the skin of human experience to share life with us.  There are times in that story, though, when even the divine word wearies of human words, stops speaking and falls silent.

The Antidote Is Grace

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Tim Keller, pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City, worries a lack of humility among evangelicals contributes to their negative public image, and he locates the problem in a shriveled understanding of grace.

If people understood the nature of grace — acceptance before God rests on the merits of Christ, not on one’s own achievements — they would focus less on themselves and live more humble lives.

He identifies two worldviews believers in evangelical churches hold.  He calls them ‘narrative identities,’ ways people see themselves and understand their place in the larger story of God’s dealings with the world.

The first is what I will call the moral-performance narrative identity. These are people who in their heart of hearts say, I obey; therefore I am accepted by God. The second is what I will call the grace narrative identity. This basic operating principle is, I am accepted by God through Christ; therefore I obey.

We may not be conscious of these identities buried deep in our psyches, but they influence our attitudes and actions nonetheless.  Keller’s comments highlight an old tension in the Christian religion between moralism and grace.  Moralists define themselves by their actions and puff themselves up in what they do and say.  They look down on those who do not live up to their moral vision.  The graceful, though, have hearts full of the grace of Christ and show humility in their speech and daily living.  Their perception of grace yields the practice of graciousness.

The classic scripture on grace is from Ephesians 2.8-10:

8For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God— 9not the result of works, so that no one may boast. 10For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life.

Too many evangelicals, Keller worries, live in verse 10, trying to practice good works, before they have absorbed verses 8 and 9.

The problem of moralism appears in the liberal churches I’ve served too.  It operates in the many who have a nominal faith, whose religion rests on following rules and living an acceptable life.  It lurks in the emphasis on service.  The moral-performance identity can also mark social justice advocates in liberal churches, people consumed with political causes but whose character lacks humility.  Justice can simply be moralism written large.

I don’t separate faith from works as an evangelical like Tim Keller does.  Catholic writers have taught me that cultivating moral virtue is integral to salvation.  But I agree that moralism remains a problem in churches and among religious leaders, and it contributes to a negative public perception of us.  The only antidote is grace.

Reluctant Santa

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A few years ago my wife made a Santa suit.  She sewed the trousers, jacket and cap using a red textured fabric and trimmed them with a puffy white fringe.  She bought a wide black belt and a white wig and beard from a  costume shop.  We added a pair of black snow boots bought years ago at K-mart, and the outfit was complete.

Other people borrow the costume on occasion, but she made it largely for me.  She planned for me to walk into rooms full of children and bring them Christmas cheer.  She made a Mrs. Claus outfit too so she could accompany me.

Problem is, I’m a most reluctant Santa.  I feel silly saying, “Ho, Ho, Ho.”  Strands from the beard slip into my mouth and make breathing difficult.  And I’m nervous around children — they sense this because they’re nervous with me too.  All in all, a lot of strikes against a potential Santa.

We know a single mom raising three small children.  Christmas was going to be thin for them, so my wife decided they needed a visit from Santa.  After lunch on Christmas Eve I put on the red uniform, sloshed through the rain and melting snow and showed up on their doorstep with a small frozen turkey and a basket of food.  My wife went along in civilian clothes and took pictures.  (She turned the event into a small scrapbook and gave it to them as a gift.)

The children were excited at first, but when this strange man entered their home, they grew more fearful and shied away.  Only the eldest braved a picture with Santa, a slight smile on her face.  Her blond hair complimented a little red dress with white fringe.  When asked what she wanted for Christmas, she said, “A hamster.”

I gave out candy canes and said Ho-Hos as convincingly as possible.  My wife did most of the talking, though, and I stood by as a silent Santa. She said to me afterward, “There aren’t many children who get a visit from Santa in their home on Christmas Eve.”

When we arrived home our dog Jazz, unhappy with a stranger in her home too, barked at me till the red suit came off.  Then Santa folded back into his old brown suitcase for another year.

Later that evening I shared a pew with the same mom and her three children at a Christmas Eve service.  Two dozen lit candles of many shapes and sizes stood on the altar, their light waiting to join sixty hand candles during Silent Night.  The girl in the red dress sat next to me, but I doubt she suspected anything.  Or at least, she didn’t let on.  Her mom smiled at me and mouthed the words, “Thank you.”

Love can call on us to do uncomfortable things.  When an introvert like me puts on a Santa suit, it’s a spiritual exercise in love of neighbor.  Almost in spite of myself, I brought a smile on Christmas Eve to a little girl in a red dress.  I learned there is a place in the world for shy Santas.

Empty Hands

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I arrived early for lunch with a college student home on Christmas break.  The hostess seated me at a table in the back of the restaurant near the kitchen. 

I sipped a glass of water and watched the servers emerge from the kitchen door, their arms loaded with trays of food.  They walked quickly to the waiting diners at tables nearby.  A sign hung at the top of the door jamb, facing inward toward the kitchen, its black letters visible from the restaurant side. 

It took a few seconds to decipher the reversed letters:  “Are Your Hands Full?”  The sign reminded servers to carry as much as they can to minimize trips.  Empty hands are inefficient. 

I visit the elderly in our congregation and see the problems of aging.  Some have hands full caring for spouses with dementia or congestive heart failure and don’t know a moment’s rest.  Others suffer the opposite dilemma in assisted living facilities:  with no need to cook, clean, repair or perform chores, their hands lie empty and idle in their laps.  They itch for something to do. 

When the prophet Simeon took the Christ child in his arms, his hands were full, and when he said to Mary, “A sword will pierce your own soul too,” her hands were empty.

Handbells and the New Creation

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Last Sunday our Wesley Bell Choir performed at the 9:30 service.  We played “A Christmas Carol Fantasy,” our hands clad in dark brown gloves.  I rang C, D flat, and D in the fourth octave.

We’d lugged our tables, music stands and handbells up to the balcony ahead of time.  On the Sunday before Christmas, many from the congregation join the choir in the chancel to sing the Hallelujah Chorus, leaving no room for bell tables.   Before going into the ministry, I never knew worship and logistics belonged together.

We rehearse on Wednesday nights after the midweek children’s program.  The process of learning new music always amazes me.  The discord when we first play a piece eventually yields to beauty and harmony.  The right hands will find the right bells at the right time.

Theologian Paul Tillich spoke of a new creation seeking to come to birth in all of us.  For five minutes Sunday morning, our bells nudged that reality a little further into being.

Four Themes In the Hymns of Charles Wesley

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The Wesley volume in the Classics of Western Spirituality features writings of John and Charles, founders of the Methodist movement in 18th century England.

John’s prose is dry stuff — not unusual in theology — but Charles’s poetry sparkles with life.  This edition includes 121 hymns.  Reading them, and singing the few I know, has fed my spirit in recent days.  I noted four recurring themes in his hymnody. 

1.  The Evangelical Theme.  The gospel of Christ shines in the hymns.  That ‘Christ died for our sins’ filled Wesley’s imagination with wonder and adoration.

Oh, let me kiss thy bleeding feet,
And bathe and wash them with my tears,
The story of thy love repeat
In every drooping sinner’s ears;
That all may hear the quick’ning sound,
If I, ev’n I, have mercy found. 

The death of God for our sakes astonished Wesley.  He comes back again and again to the theme, with special attention to blood imagery.  The doctrine of the Atonement is at issue here — Christ’s death brings forgiveness of sins to each believer and hope of eternal life.  Wesley’s passion for Christ’s passion fueled the engine of early Methodism. 

2.  The Mystical Theme.  Wesley wanted to experience God’s love in daily life, and his longing for love broke forth in passionate language.

My longing heart is all on fire
To be dissolved in love.

The mystical language gives voice a holy desire to be rejoined to universal love and to have that love fill one’s whole being.

3.  The Sacramental Theme.  Wesley emerged from the womb of the Anglican church, and its sacramental piety remained with him.  A whole section of hymns in my edition treats the Sacrament of Holy Communion.

Come, Holy Ghost, thine influence shed,
And realize the sign;
Thy life infuse into the bread,
Thy power into the wine.

The ‘sign’ points to the evangelical theme.  Bread and wine call the believer’s attention to Christ’s sacrifice on the cross, which secures remission of sins and the reality of new life.  The  ‘life’ and ‘power’ in the elements leads back to the mystical theme.  One must feel these things deeply.

4.  The Practical Theme.  The hymns advocate a life of holiness and obedience.

I wait, till he shall touch me clean,
Shall life and power impart;
Gives me the faith that casts out sin,
And purifies the heart. 

The practical outworking of the faith — fruit of the evangelical, mystical and sacramental aspects — issues in personal transformation, purity of heart and a corresponding amendment of one’s conduct. 

Although it seldom appears in the hymns, at least those in my edition, a deep social concern would also fall under this practical theme. 

On mercy’s wings I swiftly fly
The poor and helpless to relieve,
My life, my all for them I give.

This social project marked the early Methodist movement. 

The robust theology in the hymns impressed me, as did the rich language and turns of expression.  Charles Wesley blended passionate belief with a facility for words.  Though not a Methodist myself, I was surprised by how many times his language touched a responsive chord in me. 

It’s possible not to be Methodist but still to be Wesleyan in one’s beliefs.

Wandering Samaritans

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A winter storm yesterday left eight inches of snow.  Rain falls on the just and the unjust — snow lands indiscriminately as well.  If only we could train snow to accumulate everywhere but roads, driveways and sidewalks. 

An old snowblower, a gift from my father-in-law, sits unused in our garage.  Every year we pledge to have it repaired in the summer, but snow never comes to mind much in July.  So it remains tucked in a corner, leaving only snow shovels for use in December.  Fortunately with a one car garage, our drive is half the usual size. 

Around noon, after the storm subsided, I was shoveling down the drive toward the street.  I worked slowly, mindful of how many men have heart attacks at this task.  But then a couple came over from across the street and began digging out the bottom of my drive where the snow is heaviest.  A few minutes later their sons came out too and finished the job before leaving to help dig out others along our street.  I thanked them and finished our short section of sidewalk, as well as the walkway up to our front door. 

When I went inside and told my wife about these helpers, she said, “We need to give them a plate of fudge for Christmas.”

Luke the Evangelist made the word Samaritan a synonym for a ‘doer of good deeds.’  I was glad for the wandering Samaritans who helped me dig out after the storm.  Receiving the good is different than doing the good, as one side of a math equation differs from the other, but the good is there nonetheless.  The philosopher Simone Weil said that when we help someone in need, our compassion mingles with their gratitude to indicate a place where the hidden God is present. 

I was on the side with gratitude yesterday — grateful for the unbidden helpers who brought their shovels and the presence of God to my driveway.

Jubilate Deo

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My wife puts colored beads on a string and makes lovely jewelry for her friends.  I string words together in sentences and paragraphs.  It’s a creative outlet. 

Even the sad posts feel good to write.  Disillusioned Children, for example, may give the impression I walk around in a state of discouragement, but that’s not necessarily true.  My heart is often cheerful.  Only cheerfulness doesn’t prompt me to write as melancholy does, and that comes over me too.

Writing actually disperses the sad thoughts by bringing them to expression.  Words exorcise the demon and help me once again to find the joy in living. 

Rejoice in the Lord always; again I say, Rejoice.  (Phil 4.4)

Of the eight deadly thoughts in classical spiritual theology, sadness plagues me most.  Writing provides a way to combat it, allowing me to rejoice in God.

Children at Play

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I don’t know who first thought to dress children as shepherds and wise men and have them play the Nativity story.  Charles Shultz took over an established practice for A Charlie Brown Christmas, which was an instant hit.  Many churches follow the custom.

Our children’s Christmas musical, Jesus, Light of the World, took place last Sunday at both morning services.  The program alternated a narration of the Christmas story with solos and several anthems sung by the whole ensemble.  Twenty-eight children took part, some dressed in biblical costumes for their parts, and the rest wearing burgundy T-shirts with the musical’s logo printed on them.  Children played handbells and percussion instruments during two of the numbers. 

The stage featured a free-standing door to the left, the Inn, and the manger in the center.  To the right, the leaders had draped the high pulpit with brown tarps to make a pretend outcropping of rock.  At the appropriate time, an angel rose from behind the rock and addressed two shepherds below with the news of Christ’s birth. 

Attendance was high for both services.  Everyone left the sanctuary with smiles on their faces.  One man turned to me and said, “I wish we could keep this Christmas spirit all year long.”  Maybe for adults, seeing children at play like this awakens something long dormant inside.

Into the Wet Earth

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You turn us back to dust, and say, ‘Turn back, you mortals.’
(Ps. 90.3)

A retired English teacher in the congregation died in October.  We held her memorial service in the sanctuary.  With no children and little family, I worried the service would be too small, but dozens came in respect of her memory, many of whom had been her students at the high school.  They spoke of a true gentlewoman, firm and compassionate.

In her last years I visited her many times, sitting on antique chairs in her living room.  She hunched over with age but never complained of any infirmity.  She served cookies, relished conversation and delighted to show visitors her collection of music boxes.

Her nearest relation, a sister, died last year.  The loss left her heartbroken.  They had written one another daily for years, always including their favorite comic strips in the envelope.

A portion of her ashes was buried next to her sister in the family plot in Pennsylvania, and a portion in our memorial garden last week.  Like many people, her heart belonged to more than one place.

On the appointed day, rain fell lightly and vestiges of snow covered the ground in patches.  Our custodian prepared a hole under the locust tree ahead of time.  When her executor arrived with the ashes, three or four inches of water had collected in the bottom of the hole.  We stood under umbrellas while I said prayers from the committal service in the Book of Common Worship.  Then we mingled her ashes with the water at the bottom of the hole and filled it back up from the pile of wet earth.

I plan to be cremated — to the extent one can plan things after death.  Ashes seem the most fitting end of us.  Half of mine are to be buried wherever home will be, and the other half mingled with the sand in the Nevada desert where I grew up.  A portion of my heart will always belong to the landscape of the Great Basin in the mountain West.

In his book The Path of Perfect Love, philosopher Diogenes Allen says when we die, our life ends permanently.  Only the life of God that has taken root in us continues and awaits resurrection in a new creation.

I saw divine life in my English teacher friend, whose ashes went into the earth.

The Sky Was On Fire

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A little after five o’clock on Thursday I stopped to fill up at the gas station on the way home.  I put the nozzle in the tank and stared toward the southwest.  The sun had passed over the horizon, and its light left streaks of orange along the bottoms of the clouds, interlaced with faint blues and purples.

Looking at the colors, it was as if reality suspended itself for a time.  I was transfixed by the sight.  Any thoughts of the economy, Barack Obama, or the next Great Depression faded away before the vision — the sky was on fire.

The prophet Isaiah had a vision:

In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lofty; and the hem of his robe filled the temple.  (Is. 6.1)

It centered Isaiah’s attention on the true king.

Standing at the gas station, I saw the Lord’s multicolored robe fill the sky beyond the trees.  For a few seconds earthly rulers and concerns passed into insignificance, and I ‘beheld the beauty of the Lord.’ (Ps. 27.4)

The Virgin and John Spong

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Mary said to the angel, ‘How can this be, since I am a virgin?’
(Luke 1.34)

Last winter John Shelby Spong spoke at the Kirkridge Retreat Center in eastern Pennsylvania.  My wife, an avid Spongite, was excited hear him.  He’s helped her envision new forms of Christian faith. 

I was reluctant to go.  I’d never heard Spong speak before, and there’s enough orthodox in me that his writings make me twitch.  But since my wife went with me to see Saving Private Ryan and The Passion of the Christ, it was only fair to go with her to hear John Shelby Spong.  Love does these things.

I met him by chance in the stairwell before the first session Friday night.  “I’m Jack Spong,” he said and grasped my hand.

It snowed overnight.  Saturday morning even with the road plowed our car couldn’t get enough traction to get up the hill to the main lodge.  So we walked carefully up the grade along the edge of the road.  I worried our white Nissan would never make it out of the Poconos, but by noon the sun had dried out the roads.

The meeting room at Kirkridge looked out on the Delaware River Valley.  Spong wore camouflage pants and paced back and forth as he talked.

I don’t fit the profile of a progressive Christian.  I felt out of place there, almost like a spy.  My wife said, “You’re a mole.”  And Spong knew I was the mole.  He kept looking at me all weekend.  I was the only one not leaning forward or taking notes.

He covered material in his book Jesus For the Non-Religious.  He said the writing of the Jesus story grew out of elements from the Jewish liturgical year.  By the last lecture he honed in on his key theme:  the story of Jesus is a conduit for divine love, which must spread over the world and heal its wounds.

More than once he addressed the Virgin Birth, a belief he considers inane and pernicious.  I was probably the only person in the room who believed in the Virgin Birth.  Believing this grounds me in a deep tradition and makes me feel secure.  Like Pascal’s wager, if it’s not true I lose nothing.

On Sunday morning, we shared our breakfast table with John and Christine Spong.  My wife wanted him to sign a book but was embarrassed to ask.  I noticed the deep creases on his face. I didn’t bring up Mary’s question to the angel.  John Spong and I differ on how to read that story.

But we agree on Jesus as an exemplar of divine love.

When the Margins Disappear

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He drew me up from the desolate pit,
out of the miry bog,
and set my feet upon a rock,
making my steps secure. (Psalm 40.2)

I finished a funeral Monday afternoon and drove back to the office.  When I arrived home later and sat in my rocking chair, I felt unburdened for first time in many days.  It was an odd feeling, almost lightheaded.  An array of things had closed in on me — church, family and my own health — and it was like life had scribbled all over the margins on the paper, and there was no room left to breathe or to pray.  When the margins in my life disappear I feel caught, and the miry bog swallows me whole.

The universe will conspire to eliminate the margins, especially in ministry, which may be why Jesus sought out ‘deserted places’ (Luke 5.16) to pray and reclaim a margin in his life.

Priests of Oncology

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My mother has a small tumor (basil cell carcinoma) on the right side of her nose.  She had her first radiation treatment last week at a cancer clinic.  After the brief procedure a doctor came by and spoke with her.  She told me later he was on a rotation of twenty oncologists in that clinic.  It was startling to hear there were so many.

Our public radio station recently featured a discussion about a shortage of family practice physicians.  Specialized fields draw more practitioners, partly because they pay far more than general family practice. Perhaps that’s one reason why there are twenty oncologists on a rotation at this clinic.

In his book Caring For Those In Crisis, Kenneth Mottram says the great cathedrals of our age are the sprawling medical centers with their tall towers.  The vast social resources that in the Middle Ages flowed into religion today pour into health care — to alleviate sickness and delay death.

My mother’s cancer clinic is a side chapel to a larger cathedral.  Twenty priests of oncology process in and perform rites there.

Evangelical Fervor

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At our last Advent study we looked at Luke’s story of Zechariah and Elizabeth, using Rejoicing In Hope by James A. Harnish, a United Methodist pastor in Florida.  The lesson asked us to discuss times of spiritual barrenness we’ve known and occasions when we’ve sensed the divine presence in our lives.

To close the study, we sang a hymn from Charles Wesley:

Christ, whose glory fills the skies.
Christ, the true, the only light,
Sun of righteousness, arise,
triumph o’er the shades of night;
Day-spring from on high, be near;
Day-star, in my heart appear.

I like the third verse:

Visit then this soul of mine;
pierce the gloom of sin and grief;
fill me, Radiancy divine,
scatter all my unbelief;
more and more thyself display,
shining to the perfect day.

Afterward I leafed through other Wesley hymns, many of which I remember singing with abandon during my Intervarsity days in college, like And Can It Be and Jesus, Lover of My Soul.  Those years gave me a sense of what the early Methodist movement was like — prayer, Bible study, deep discipleship, evangelism, mission outreach, and even open-air preaching.  Those were exciting years of spiritual formation for me, and when I come across any Charles Wesley hymn, with its vital evangelical cast, it brings those times back to mind.

The early Wesleyan movement joined an evangelical fervor — which courses like blood through the hymns — with a social concern for the poor and the outcast.  This social project still animates United Methodists today, but it long ago disengaged itself from the evangelical piety that was once its root and fuel.  Such piety is even suspect, at least in circles I’ve seen.  Staid Anglicans in Wesley’s time scorned it too.

Not that I’m any model of evangelical fervor.  But when I sing, “Visit then this soul of mine… fill me Radiancy divine,” something inside awakens again.

Aboriginal Man

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In the epic film Australia, Sarah Ashley (Nicole Kidman) must drive 1500 head of cattle from her ranch at Faraway Downs to the port at Darwin.  A mysterious man called Drover (Hugh Jackman) assists her in the journey, which will save her family fortune and her honor.

The villain, Fletcher, menaces their every move, at one point poisoning a watering hole they need to continue.  But in the distance they see an aboriginal man, motioning them to follow.  He will ‘sing’ them across a wind-swept desert to a water source three days away.

This aboriginal man appears at odd times throughout the film, often standing on one foot like a bird.  Ashley and Drover follow the aboriginal man across the desert, called the Never-Never since no one dares cross it.  They survive and bring the cattle to port just in time.

I saw the aboriginal man as a Christ-figure in the film.  The risen Christ walks with us through life’s dangers, singing the ancient song of the gospel, until we arrive safely home.

Perhaps when St Paul likened Christ to a new Adam, bringing life to all, he identified him as the Aboriginal Man.

My Heart Goes Flat

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The left front tire on my 12-year-old Geo has a slow leak.  I put air in it periodically to keep it inflated.  The mechanic at the shop says the rim is rusty, preventing the tire from sealing well around it.  The rim needs to be replaced.

My heart has grown rusty from age and wear.  It doesn’t seal well, and the breath of God leaks out.  Only I can’t replace my heart.  So I pump it up with prayer to reinflate it.  When I fail to pray my heart goes flat.

Three Simple Rules

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Three Simple Rules: A Wesleyan Way of Living, by Bishop Reuben P. Job, offers rules for living drawn from the writings of John Wesley.

  • Do no harm.
  • Do good.
  • Stay in love with God.

The first rule prohibits harmful words or actions toward others, in the view that everyone, even an enemy, is a child of God.  The second calls for activism to heal the world’s wounds, and the third grounds everything in disciplines of prayer, reflection and worship.

The last page of the book presents the rules in the form of a song.  A congregation might sing it regularly so the rules are written on the heart.

I doubt Job’s rules are as simple as they appear.  To protect one person, for example, may require harming another — a reality anyone in law enforcement lives with daily.

This book addresses a hunger for simple, practical guidance.  It’s like a Methodist version of the Four Way Test in Rotary.  I read it easily in an hour.

Simone Weil and the Three Loves

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Simone Weil, the French philosopher, mystic and social reformer, believed we approach God indirectly.  Our love for God is implicit in three other loves:

  • Love of neighbor.
  • Love of the beauty of the world.
  • Love of religious practices.

When we attend to neighbor, nature and ritual, we are loving God, whose presence has withdrawn to make room, so to speak, for the creation.  Weil writes of these matters in her essay Forms of the Implicit Love of God. (My limited understanding of her is indebted to philosopher Diogenes Allen.) 

Her first love locates God in the exchange of compassion and gratitude between neighbors.  Her second sees God’s ‘tender smile’ in the beauty of nature.  Nature’s indifference and cruelty, though, teach us not to place our final trust in created things.  Her third invites us to call on the name of the Lord in the language of our culture and religion.  If someone has wearied of religion, Weil says the first two are sufficient to approach God.

I order my spiritual life, to the extent that it has any order, along the lines of these three loves.