Here are a couple of quotes from Teasdale’s book, “A Monk in the World.”

And here is our true challenge as mystics in the world: to create community with those who are so different from us that we feel we have nothing in common with them. As our world becomes smaller, through a growing common culture, the true test of community will be our tolerance for our most profound differences and love for the most challenging among us.

There are four essential requirements for successfully embracing a mystical path in the midst of the demands of family and work: surrender, humility, spiritual practice, and compassionate action. These elements are indispensable to being a mystic in the world . . .

All day long I’ve been dreading writing this post. Every time I take an extended break from blogging I feel intense pressure when writing the post that announces my return. I can imagine readers saying to themselves, “He had a week to think about his next post and this is what he writes?”

Well, I’m back and this is the best I can do.

We had a great week on Sanibel Island, which is just a few minutes away from Ft. Myers, Florida. We played on the beach, searched for shells, and went through three bottles of sunscreen.

I made good on my vow to leave my email alone. Only once did I venture into a coffee shop that advertised an internet connection. When I saw the island prices they were charging for 15 minutes of usage I was shocked out of my moment of weakness and went to the grocery store and bought some shrimp fit for boiling. I was extremely pleased with how little I thought about work while I was away.

On the trip I spent some time with Wayne Teasdale’s “A Monk in the World: Cultivating a Spiritual Life” and Thomas Keating’s “Open Mind, Open Heart: The Contemplative Dimension of the Gospel.“

Right now, I’m loving reading about and experimenting with the mystical side of Christianity.

I’m officially on vacation. This will be my last post for the next eight days. We’re heading to the beach. One of my goals for this week is to not check my email. If you send me an email and I reply, then you will know that I have failed in my quest to fully unplug.

In my message yesterday from Eph. 6:10-20, I said something like this:

Paul uses a military illustration to once again tell us that through the gospel God has us provided the necessary armor, the necessary power for standing firm.

This point is worth emphasizing because I’m not sure how many of us are really hearing what this passage is saying.

Yes–we have an enemy. Yes–there is a battle raging. Yes–we need to arm ourselves. But let’s make sure we understand the nature of the battle we are fighting and the kind of weaponry we’ve been given to fight with.

Our battle is not against flesh and blood. Our battle is not against Osama Bin Laden. Our battle is not against people of Islamic faith. Our battle is not against homosexuals. Our battle is not against other churches who are not just like us.

Our battle is against the unseen forces of evil standing behind all the evil activity in this world. That includes the evil activity we see in our so-called enemies as well as the evil activity that manifests itself in us.

Our battle is not against flesh and blood. Therefore we do not wage war the way the world does. Followers of Christ do not wage war against evil with guns or missles or legislature. The Kingdom of God does not come into this world riding on American tanks, nor is it advanced by passing amendments.

In the battle against evil we take our cue from Jesus and recognize that the victory over sin and death and evil was fought and won from the cross. We do not wage war as the world does. We have been equipped with the armor of God, which means that the only weapon with which we have been given to fight is the gospel, which is a message of life-giving, self- sacrificing, peace-making, enemy- embracing, enemy-forgiving love.

I want to caution us against reading this passage as justification for attacking whoever the enemy du jour happens to be. The cosmic battle between good and evil cannot be reduced to a flesh and blood enemy. When we reduce it the evil we think we are attacking in someone else may actually be what is energizing us.

One of the mistakes 1st century Jews made was to assume that Rome was their enemy when in reality their real enemy was the power of evil that stood behind the evil activity of Rome and behind the evil activity of the hard-hearted Jewish religious establishment that helped nail Jesus to the cross

If we want to follow Jesus, we must be ready for a fight, but we must also be ready to fight a totally different kind of battle using a totally different kind of weapon.

I made these comments more from a Christian perspective than an American one. They are not always one in the same. This is a distinction we need to be making more often.

This piece reminds me of John 5:39-40, “You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life.”

These people know that the bible is not a self-help book full of easy answers, but a book of stories and wisdom that is meant to lead us into relationship and worship. There are hard and fast truths in it, yes, but they are surrounded by soft truths, and slippery truths, and sometimes truths, and truths that once were true but are no longer true, and truths that are only true if you are in the right state of mind, and truths that are only true if you are not hurting someone, and truths that are true in the moment but not if you are talking about the moment, and truths that can only be lived and should never be spoken, and truths that we cannot hear, and truths that are more than we can bear.

The truths of the bible are utterly beyond anyone who seeks to own truth and who seeks truth above the Spirit of God.

The bible is not a book for those who need a weapon. It is not a book for those who know where they are going and what questions they will ask. It is not a book for those who are in a hurry and looking for the shortest route.

The bible is a book for pilgrims and wanderers. It is a book for children and for those who wish to become children again. It is a book for seekers and searchers and dreamers.

It is a book for anyone and everyone who hopes that the desires of God might be written upon their hearts.