I had the opportunity one summer when I was in seminary to be in El Salvador and work with a group called Cristianos por la Paz – Christians for Peace. These are Salvadorans and North Americans who for decades have been working together to address the causes and consequences of civil war and state violence and criminal violence. One of the many amazing people I got to spend time with and work with there was a nun named Sister Peggy O’Neill. She’s one of the rad nuns.

She had grown up in a working-class family in New Jersey, became a nun, and for many years was a professor of theology in New York City. But then in the early 80s she went to Chile for a position teaching feminist theology in Chile, and one thing led to another through the tremendous liberation movements happening in the church at the time in south and central America, and she ended up, as she put it, being claimed by the people of El Salvador. Only then, she says, did she begin to know more fully the reality of, what she likes to call, “The ‘G’ word” (“It’s bigger than whatever we try to put around It, including religions.”) 

Sister Peggy ended up with the people of Suchitoto, which during the civil war in the 80s was really in the cross-fire of the conflict. During the civil war, she went through some unspeakable things with the community of Suchitoto.  Through it she was a humble and loving sister with them. Then after the war she worked with a bunch of folks to respond to the need to deal with the collective trauma of everything by starting an organization called the Centro Arte para la Paz. They have art classes, music classes, a museum, and various groups that work on holistic healing from trauma, and the practice of nonviolence. 

Now, Sister Peggy is someone who has a presence to her. She’s completely at home in her body, with herself, with everyone else. She has a spiritual quality about her, she’s bright and aware and full of love and good humor and a steady strength. She has been through hell, with her Salvadoran friends, and has been doing really hard work for decades. And yet she has this kind of aura that’s just clear as a bell – not a little bell, but a solid brass bell on a solid frame that rings out clear and full. 

I had to ask her, how is it that you’re so clear and present and open-hearted and steady in doing this work despite how horrible and difficult and unrelenting the suffering can be? 

            After pausing to reflect on it, she told me how important it is that she’s part of a community that suffers and celebrates together. And that within the larger community, for many years she lived with other nuns who would eat supper together every night, and share with each other about their days, and pray together. Then every night before she goes to bed she has a particular personal prayer practice, which she was kind enough to share with me.

At the end of every day, no matter what, she sits in prayer. In prayer, she places herself before the presence of God, feeling how God’s love radiates through her and embraces her and is radiating through and embracing each and every person in her city that night and throughout the country and throughout the world – every one, just as they are. God grieves for God’s children. God celebrates for God’s children. 

Then, in the light of God’s love, Sister Peggy reflects on her day. Who did she encounter? How did she respond? What choices did she make? What work did she do? What work did she left undone? What things were in her control? What things were out of her control? Where did she have responsibility to respond? Where was that out of her hands? In what ways did she act in alignment with God’s purpose for her? In what ways did she not? If not, what can she do about it tomorrow? Are there reparations to be made?

Then she gives it all back to God. Every moment of that day, every person she encountered or who influenced what she experienced, knowing that every moment is born of the infinite possibilities of God’s being, every being in every moment has a certain amount of freedom to act, and however we end up acting, whatever the consequences are, it all ultimately returns back to its sacred source, Who embraces everything as it is.  

So, as part of her nightly practice, she has a calm and mature reflection on how she has used the freedom she has to respond to the things that she has some responsibility to respond to, while she relinquishes control of the outcomes, along with releasing everything that she has no control over. All pervaded by the universal love of the Creator. 

In this way, Sister Peggy told me, she can “go to sleep with a clear conscience.” 

This is a practical, matter-of-fact Christian spiritual practice. And it isn’t just for rad nuns in El Salvador. I think many of us could find it not just helpful, but life-giving or even life-saving, in whatever setting or stage of life God has called us to. 

At the last national gathering of our denomination, the United Church of Christ, the synod passed a resolution calling on churches to be intentional about being “Contemplatives in Action:”

“Through fostering spiritual practices that deepen us in love for God, neighbors, ourselves, and all creation, this Resolution would empower the UCC to more fully root its collective life of activism for justice in the prayerful life of contemplation.”

Our regional conference, the Pennsylvania Southeast Conference of the UCC, is responding to this call to “Live the Jesus life as Contemplatives in Action.” At our annual meeting last weekend, there were workshops exploring various spiritual practices. Our Conference Minister, Rev. Bill Worley, spoke very movingly about the deep and urgent spiritual need within our churches and in our broader society to care for the inner lives of our souls as we endeavor to minister faithfully to the brokenness in our society. He quoted Rev. Traci Blackmon, one of our national ministers who said, “The reason we’re having so much trouble with the work out there is because we haven’t done the work in here. . . Jesus is not just asking us to be courageous. . . Jesus is asking us to be transformed. . . from the inside out.”

This is important to living the Jesus life, through whatever it is we are living through according to our circumstances and our purpose.

As we heard in our gospel story from Luke (Luke 5:12-16), as busy as Jesus was responding in a loving and humble way to everyone who came to him, he often went off alone to “lonely places to pray.” Jesus relied on regular spiritual practice. 

So, what does that look like for your life?

I’d love to hear from you about what spiritual practices have you found to be sustaining in your life. 

And what hasn’t seemed to work for you? 

And are there spiritual practices that you feel like you need or that you feel drawn to? 

In the coming weeks in my sermons, I’ll be sharing about various Christian spiritual practices that could be helpful, as well as highlighting the practices that we already do as part of our Sunday worship and yearly ritual cycle. 

Now, from the outset I want to be really clear about something: 

When it comes to Christian spiritual practice, remember that this is all about Grace. That means there’s nothing really for us to achieve, through some sort of technique. There’s nothing to attain, no goals to work towards, nothing to make us more deserving. We are not saved by our works. Grace has already been set in motion for us; we just have to say “yes” to it and simply abide in the Universal Love that is and was and ever shall be. It’s nothing special. 

Jesus just needs us to be willing to show up all and only as we are and abide in mercy. It’s just about helping ourselves and heling each other to simply abide in that mercy,  and to grow into that mercy, be shaped by that mercy, transformed by that mercy in ways that help us to let go of the fruits of bitterness, and bear more of the fruits of love.

For that grace, for that Love Supreme, I give thanks to God. 

(Delivered Sunday, June 12, 2022, by Rev. Nathaniel Mahlberg at the United Church of Christ at Valley Forge)

(Image by msandersmusic from Pixabay)