Years ago, "in between church jobs", as she puts it, Sister
Elizabeth was working as a nurse in a chronic diseases hospital in
Massachusetts. One of the patients she was caring for was a man who had on
his back a sore that went all the way to the bone and from which he was in
agony. In addition to the pain, he was consumed with anxiety.
One day he asked Sister Elizabeth, "Am I going to get
better?"
She doesn’t know where the answer came from, but she found herself
saying, "Yes, you are going to get better — if not here, then in
heaven."
The next day when she went into his room, she found him still in pain,
but totally at peace. "I’m glad I’m going to get better," he
said. "It doesn’t matter where — here or in heaven." A few
days later he died.
In The Impact of God, (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1995),.Iain Matthew reflects on the experience of
darkness as described by Saint John of the
Cross. Matthew says that although not all pain is a healing darkness —
that "night more lovely than the dawn" where God works to bring
us to union with Christ — it is still true that any suffering can become
this blessed night.
One of the qualities of this grace-filled night is that there is an
"inflow of God":
"The admission that we cannot heal ourselves,
while it may take some tension out of the air, fails of itself to hold
out hope. What makes ‘night’ blessed is the added assurance that the
one who can heal does intend to heal. Where God finds space, he
enters....That is what makes night something other than
disastrous."
"The one who can heal does intend to
heal."
Whether our suffering is physical or on some other level, God wants to
heal us. What matters most in the long run, may not be whether the medical
or psychic "cure" takes place now or later. To accept God’s
loving desire to enter into our pain, to allow in ourselves the space
where God can enter, to respond with faith to the "inflow of
God" — this may in itself be a deeper healing than any cure would
be.
Sister Elizabeth’s patient placed his trust in the healing intention
of God, and his darkness became a blessed night filled with peace as it
led him to that ultimate healing of heaven.
Where
can I go from your spirit?
Or where can I flee from your presence?
If
I ascend to heaven, you are there;
if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there.
If
I take the wings of the morning
and settle at the farthest limits of the sea,
even there your hand shall lead me,
and your right hand shall hold me fast.
If
I say, "Surely the darkness shall cover me,
and the light around me become night,"
even
the darkness is not dark to you;
the night is as bright as the day,
for darkness is as light to you.
Sister Rosalie calls me "Rose the Nose." That’s because I
have an unusually acute sense of smell. While at times this has its
benefits (such as noticing the fragrance of a dead mouse before it has had
time to decompose to a totally disgusting state), it can also be an
affliction (as when I am in distress because of an unpleasant odor which
others don’t perceive at all).
So it was with some astonishment that I recently experienced life for
several days without any sense of smell at all, due to a respiratory
infection going around Gainesville. To be completely honest, astonishment
is probably too weak a word. Although I know this sounds overly dramatic,
I was very nearly in a state of panic. I realized for the first time how
much I rely on scent to know the world around me, and I found myself
asking repeatedly and pitifully, "What am I going to do if my sense
of smell doesn’t return?"
In the spiritual life, there can be a comparable experience in the
loss, not of a favored manner of connecting with our physical
surroundings, but of our familiar way of relating to God — for example,
when the form of prayer with which we are comfortable no longer seems to
"work." Feeling bereft, we can begin to panic, even to feel as
if we have lost God.
Going Deeper
My sense of smell did return to normal. However, the loss of our manner
of apprehending God's presence is a different matter. Instead of returning
to what we consider normal, we may find ourselves called to a new form of
prayer or to a deeper way of being with God than what we formerly knew. In
this case, to go back to how things were would be neither helpful nor
possible. God calls us forward, drawing us closer through what sometimes
feels like absence.
There is no need to panic when we find our spirits deprived of the
tried and true. Trust God, talk to someone skilled in the spiritual life
— and whatever you do, don’t stop praying, even if prayer appears for
now to be leading nowhere.
Be still before the Lord, and wait patiently for him.
(Psalm 37:7a)
One of our sisters, in most ways cheerful and courageous, is terrified
of flying. Some people deal with this common fear by taking the train, and
others by having a few stiff drinks before boarding. But our sister
handles her fear in a more adult fashion — with teddy bears. She carries them on
the plane with her, cuddles them, talks to them, and generally lets them
comfort her.
Near the end of one trip the flight attendant approached her and asked
if she was a Catholic Sister. "Yes," she replied, "how
could you tell?"
"Your personality," responded the flight attendant, leaving
Sister to ponder the image of religious women in popular culture.
Lightning and Miss Layona
Many years ago, when I was a young teacher, I had the privilege of
meeting Miss Layona Glenn, 102 years old at the time. A retired Methodist
missionary to Brazil (in fact, by that time, she had been retired for
nearly thirty years), Miss Layona still wrote a newspaper column and
traveled about giving talks to church groups. That is how I met her: she
had come to speak at the local Methodist church and was spending the night
at the house where I lived.
Miss Layona was an intrepid woman who, however, confided at supper that
she was afraid of lightening.
"I don’t understand why I’m afraid of lightning," she
said. "I know God will take care of me. But I’m still afraid."
The Christian and besetting weakness
Neither Sister nor Miss Layona let her fear stop her, but neither was
the fear taken away. I imagine that there will always be areas of
our lives in which we are not totally free — even if we die in the odor
of sanctity at the age of 106, like Miss Layona — or at least not
totally free until we obtain the wondrous healing and freedom of heaven.
God works to
heal us and free us all through our lives, and we must cooperate with the
means God provides, sometimes ones that we can see (such as doctors or
psychologists), often ways that are mysterious and unseen. (Perhaps you
have had the experience of realizing that a particular weakness had been
removed, and could attribute it only to the grace of God.)
But even as we are led toward healing, we keep in mind that weakness is
not contrary to the Christian life. "My power," Paul hears God
say, "is made perfect in weakness" (2 Corinthians 12:9).
If one is afraid to fly (or afraid of lightning or snakes or
computers), it does not mean that holiness is lacking. No, even the
holiest among us are not finished yet. Our freedom will continue to be
partial until
our journey of transformation in Christ is complete in heaven. What is
more, the "real ‘wound,’" according to Iain Matthew in The
Impact of God,
"is our need for God, and God himself must be the cure."
The Lord is my light and my salvation;
whom shall I fear?
The Lord is the stronghold of my life;
of whom shall I be afraid? (Psalm 27:1)
As frequently happens, yesterday I found something for which I’d been
futilely searching only while looking for an entirely different item. It
was a clipping I had cut out of the paper years ago, containing a
quotation from Van Cliburn on what is necessary for a career as a pianist.
"I
think," he said, "the most important thing about going into
classical music is that one must love it more than anything else in the
world, and to feel that without it his life would be incomplete, so that
he must have it at all costs, all expense, for the rest of his life."
Jesus would probably have recognized the feeling. Here is how he
describes the longing for the kingdom of heaven:
"The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which
someone found and hid; then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has
and buys that field. Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in
search of fine pearls; on finding one pearl of great value, he went and
sold all that he had and bought it." (Matthew
13:44-46)
I was never inclined to practice the piano eight hours a
day, so obviously the desire (not to mention the talent) needed to become
a concert pianist was insufficient. But what about my desire for God's
kingdom (or "reign" as the Greek word basileia is
probably more accurately translated)? What about my love for Jesus? (Origen
described Jesus as ho autobasileia — in other words,Jesus
is himself the reign of God.) Am I ready to run and sell all for the One
who gave all for me? Or am I willing only to bargain and barter little
bits of my heart?
Yet whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of
Christ. More than that, I regard everything as loss because of the
surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have
suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order
that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of
my own that comes from the law, but one that comes through faith in
Christ, the righteousness from God based on faith. (Philippians 3:7-9)
Although we could see Mars from our yard, the lights in the
neighborhood dimmed our view. So late one night near the end of August we
all piled in the car to pursue the red planet before its distance from the
earth increased and its brightness diminished.
Headed more or less southeast on highway 20, with Mars, like the Star
of Bethlehem, leading the way before us, we drove until we had left the
city lights behind. Standing by the side of the country road we found the
night astonishing — there were myriads of stars invisible in town, with
the Milky Way in a broad swath across the sky. Reigning in splendor over
the lesser lights was the red planet Mars.
Our grand view was not only because Mars was closer to earth than it
had been for 60,000 years, but also because we were unhindered either by
city lights or our own inattention. The only distractions were the garish
headlights of an occasional car.
In our dreariest moments we may feel that God too only comes close to
us every 60,000 years, but of course this is anything but the truth. In
reality, even when we are not aware of the divine radiance, God is always
near.
Sometimes lesser lights distract us. Sometimes we are too preoccupied
to notice God’s presence. Other times it may be simply that the
rhythm of the spiritual journey takes us into a period of dryness, or even
that God is calling us to an encounter deeper than our normal ways of
experiencing, so that the only way we know how to describe its luminance
it is in terms of darkness.
In all of these and at every moment of every day, whether we are gazing
in awe at the night sky or scrubbing the bathtub, God is with us.
According to Meister Eckhart, "I am as sure as I live that
nothing is so near to me as God. God is nearer to me than I am to myself;
my existence depends on the nearness and the presence of God."
Thanks be to God that nothing is so certain as that nearness of the God
who loves us and whose glory infinitely surpasses that of the stars and
the planets and the vast sweep of the Milky Way.
"The kingdom of God is not
coming with things that can be observed;
nor will they say, ‘Look, here
it is!’
or ‘There it is!’
For, in fact, the kingdom of God is within
you." (Luke 17:20-21)
Last week there was a half-page insert in the local
newspaper, an advertisement from a local plumber. It read something like
this:
ATTENTION
HOME OWNERS: No other plumber in Gainesville makes you this golden guarantee... "MY PLUMBER WILL SMELL GOOD
AND SHOW UP ON TIME OR I'LL PAY YOU!!"
Oh, if life were only so
neat and sweet-smelling! If everything would happen on time — that is,
according to my own timely plan. In reality life can be very messy, and
the events of life tend not to take place on my schedule.
Neither does God, in the divine ordering, promise to make life
neat. Rather, God is always present right there in the messiness of
life. There is nothing so messy or smelly that God refuses to be here
with us. We know this through the Incarnation and the Passion and
Resurrection of Jesus, who shared our human existence — who is
God-with-us.
Nor does God act in my life in what I always consider proper timing.
However, no matter how much I am convinced of the wisdom of my own way,
God’s timing is always better than my own. Waiting for the plumber may
bring disappointment and a large bill; "but those who wait on the
Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like
eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not
faint" (Isaiah 40:31).
For a thousand years in your sight
are like yesterday when it is past,
or like a watch in the night.
(Psalm 90:4)
Our roof seems to be home to an entire ecosystem. Besides the fact that
we have enough grass up there to keep a goat, we get inklings of varied
life-forms and mysterious goings-on that we can’t see — or see only
when they spill over into our lower world.
An early visitor was the
five-foot-long rat snake that made its way from the roof to our water
heater closet. Then there are the raccoons, which sound as if they are constructing
multiple-family lodgings above our bedrooms, and which on occasion have
fallen onto the front porch or tumbled, quarreling, into the courtyard.
The latest intruders from the roof jungle have been highly unwelcome: a
colony of fire ants. I had never heard of fire ant mounds on a roof, but
these built their dwelling up against the second-floor bathroom skylight.
Somehow they found tiny openings into the skylight itself. Since
the ledge around the circumference is very narrow, however, their interior annex
collapsed from time to time, casting dirt and ants onto the bathroom floor,
where the ants would wander around looking dazed and biting the
unsuspecting sister with whom they came into contact.
Several times, with the help of Sister Annette, I cleared them out as
well as I could, then climbed up into the skylight to seal the seams with
caulking — doing this by feel as I couldn’t see where the openings
were, and hoping not to get stung in the process. With the third climb, I
think I have finally thwarted the fire ants.
Yesterday I noticed a new invader from above — grass
growing inside the skylight in soil brought in by the ants and deposited
in a crevice I can’t reach. Eventually we will have to do something about the roof, before its
function as border between indoors and outdoors is totally compromised.
Boundaries In matters
of the spirit, boundaries are not so clearly
defined. We are accustomed to
speaking in terms of the physical and the spiritual, but here the borders
tend to be fluid. The
denizens of one domain spill over into another like raccoons
and fire ants, whether we want them to or not.
We are both spiritual and bodily creatures. Although the physical may
often seem to us to pose a block to the spiritual, at times, and through
grace, we become
aware that it can provide a pathway to God — who after all is the one
who created the physical world and called it good. The spiritual is not an
intruder in the physical world as the snake was an intruder in the water
heater closet, nor is the physical an intruder into the world of the
spirit. They mingle comfortably, even if we are not always comfortable
with their mingling.
Bearers of Mystery
The physical is in fact a bearer of Mystery. This may be most obvious
to us in the sacramental elements of water and wine and bread, but our own
bodies are also bearers of Mystery, suffused with the presence of God.
This requires of us a reverence in our approach to the human body. It
requires a humble trust when inevitably our bodies appear to fail us. For
even in our weakness — and perhaps especially here — we come face to
face with the incomprehensible mystery of ourselves and of the God of
Jesus Christ, whose Spirit never ceases to work in us.
Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s
Spirit dwells in you? (1 Corinthians 3:16)
Ted Turner is quoted as saying, "If I only had a little humility,
I’d be perfect." While Ted Turner may not be the poster child for
Christian humility, neither does someone with an attitude of self-disparagement
witness to the humility of Christ.
When Beverly P. Gordon ("My
Daddy Said So") was filling out a questionnaire which asked her
to describe herself with one word, she wrote — without any hesitation at
all — the word "gorgeous." Startled, and wondering why she
hadn’t written something that sounded less vain, she pondered her
response. She thought about her father and his unconditional love for her,
and she remembered how her mother had told her about the wonder of her
birth, and she concluded: "So the world can argue all they want; but
my Daddy said I was gorgeous and my mother affirmed it, and that’s good
enough for me."
God’s word tells us that we are loved and that we are
created good and lovely — in the image of the beautiful God. Whether or
not our own parents were as loving as Beverly Gordon’s, God looks at
each of us as a loving parent looks at a baby and says, "You’re
gorgeous!" A humility which says, "Poor me, I am so wretched
that God wouldn’t want to have anything to do with me" or, "I
am such a terrible sinner that God could never forgive me" — this
false humility is not from God and is contrary to the gospel of Jesus
Christ.
Christian humility is recognizing who we are before God. When we gaze
at the magnificence of the Grand Canyon or the splendor of the night sky,
we are aware of how small we are. And when we become aware of the depth
and height of God’s love for us, we also see our own smallness and our
unworthiness. We are creatures, we are weak, and we are at every moment in
need of mercy. But we also stand in the truth of what our heavenly parent
has shown us: that we are wholly loved and incredibly beautiful in the
sight of God.
The
Lord, your God, is in your midst,a
warrior who gives victory;
he will rejoice over you with
gladness,he
will renew you in
his love;
he will exult over you with loud
singing as
on a day of festival.
Before Sister Rosalie entered the Cenacle, she
lived in a house on the Gulf coast with two little dogs named Penny and
Black Bart. Whereas Penny was ladylike and prudent, Black Bart was an
adventurer. Once when he was still a puppy, an adventure led Black Bart to
an unfortunate encounter with a prickly pear, from which he came away with
a spine in his paw.
The poor creature was miserable, hobbling about
on three legs, but every time Rosalie tried to reach him to pull the spine
out, he backed away. He knew that what she was going to do would hurt.
At that point Rosalie was powerless to help him.
But as she watched him, something happened. Black Bart became very still,
and she could see him come to a decision. He then hobbled over to her and
went totally limp in her arms. Rosalie was able to remove the prickly pear
spine, and all was well.
Loving God,
when I am anxious,
when I am in pain,
when I fear loss of control,
may I go limp in your arms,
trusting your wisdom,
and surrendering myself entirely to your loving care.
Amen.
O
Lord, my heart is not lifted up,
my eyes are not raised too high;
I do not occupy myself with things
too great and too marvelous for me.
But
I have calmed and quieted my soul,
like a weaned child with its mother;
my soul is like the weaned child
that is with me.
O
Israel, hope in the Lord
from this time on and forevermore.
Late the other night I was reading peacefully when I heard a tremendous
clatter from the front of the house. The clatter was followed by a pitiful
chittering sound. I put down my book to investigate and followed the
chittering to the entranceway. There on the porch, just outside the
full-length front windows, was a baby raccoon crying and looking up at me.
Sister Elizabeth and I were the only ones home and she had already gone
to bed, but since this seemed like an event worthy of being roused, I ran
upstairs to get her — all the time hoping the baby was not injured and
wondering what in the world I would do with a wounded baby raccoon in the
middle of the night.
By the time we returned, Mama Raccoon had arrived, and they both looked
back at us suspiciously as she led Baby away.
I returned to my reading only to hear, a few minutes later, another
crash — which this time sounded like a softer landing in the bushes —
followed by more pitiful chittering. Evidently Baby was not having a good
night. I lifted my eyes only briefly from my book, however, figuring that
Mama could be trusted to handle the situation.
God, our heavenly parent, is even more concerned about us than Mama
Raccoon was about her baby. Our cries and complaints never fall on deaf
ears. God lifts us up after we fall, and keeps coming back to find us time
and time again.
As a mother comforts her child,
so I will comfort you...
Since 9/11, I have dreaded flying, not so much out
of fear, but because of the hassle involved.So when I found out I had to go to Chicago, I was not looking forward to it.As
it turned out, the trip from Gainesville
to Chicago
was uneventful, so I was feeling optimistic about the return trip, until I
called to make a reservation for the airport shuttle.
“We’re overbooked for that part of town and
can’t take any more reservations,” I was told.
An injured foot discouraged me from taking the
“L,” so I resigned myself to calling a cab, my least favorite mode of
transportation — not only because of the expense, but because my
introverted self, already frazzled from packing, is wearied by the forty
minutes of relating one-to-one with the stranger in the driver’s seat.
So my Sunday morning began with the expectation of
just plowing with determination through the day.God, however, is full of surprises, and ordinary events soon
reminded me of the abiding presence of God’s Spirit.
The Spirit of
God in the Taxi
First, the taxi driver turned out to be a very polite
young man from India, and as a bonus, he was quiet, freeing me from the necessity of
conversation.Along the way,
we stopped at a traffic light where an aging woman approached carrying a
corrugated cardboard sign which read: “I am homeless.”The taxi driver motioned for her to stop, and gave her a dollar
bill or two.
I said nothing, but pondered this simple gesture as
we continued toward the airport.Finally
I said to the driver, “I appreciate your compassion toward the homeless
woman.”
In his lilting English he replied, “I believe that
we have to help each other.”
“We don’t know,” I added, “the circumstances
that brought her to where she is.”
His response evoked the Sermon on the Mount,
“It’s easy to judge, but we can judge wrong.”
One can argue about whether
or not it really helps a beggar to give him or her money, but what was
unarguable was the kindness of the driver.
The Spirit of God in MidwayAirport
Since traffic was light, we
arrived early at the airport, and I began the long trudge toward the gate.(Midway is no longer a small airport.)On the way I noticed a sign for the airport chapel, and almost to
the gate I heard over the loudspeaker: “Catholic mass will be celebrated
at
11:00
in the chapel.It will last
one half hour.”This was
obviously designed to lure the harried traveler.
Letting myself be lured, I
turned around and headed for the chapel.When I entered I was welcomed warmly and asked to be one of the
gift-bearers at the offertory.The
liturgy began, and somehow the priest, whose 59th anniversary
of priesthood was that very day, managed both to give a homily (which he
promised would last only three minutes, and to reassure us, held his watch
before his eyes as he spoke) and also to have us sing at the proper
moments — and all in one half hour.
Besides the general
atmosphere of cordiality and efficiency, I was struck by the words of the
priest right at the beginning:“I
am available to hear confessions after mass.If you’ve been away for a long time, you don’t have to give
numbers and details, just a general idea of what you’ve done against
God.It doesn’t matter how
long you’ve been away.And
if you don’t need to confess, come anyway for the grace of the
sacrament!”
Nothing out of the ordinary
had happened. But here in
Midway
Airport
was the same Spirit which I met in the cab driver: a welcoming Spirit,
non-judgmental and kind.My
anticipated miserable day was turning out to be bright with the
contemplation of goodness.
A final detail.There was one empty seat in the plane, and it was right next to me.
"If you love me, you will keep
my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another
Advocate, to be with you forever. This is the Spirit of truth, whom the
world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know
him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you."
When corpses are not where you’ve left them, it is
reasonable to assume that someone has moved them.That’s what Mary Magdalene very naturally thinks when she sees
the empty tomb on the first Easter morning.
Something must be very wrong, she supposes.
After all, everything else has gone wrong the past few days. The marvelous
ministry of Jesus appears to have ended in failure.
Mary’s first action, though, is the right one.She’s distressed, so she gets help.She doesn’t just walk, she runs as fast as she can to get Peter
and John
and tells them:
“They have taken the Lord from
the tomb, and we don’t know where they put him.”
(John 20:2)
So
Peter and John run to the tomb. When they leave, having been
themselves consoled but from all appearances not having been much help to
Mary Magdalene, who is still there crying — Mary does the second thing
right.She investigates,
bending over to look into the tomb.That’s
when she sees the two angels, to whom she says, just as she had to Peter
and John:
"They have taken my Lord,
and I don't know where they laid him."
Then Mary turns around and sees Jesus (although she
doesn’t recognize him until he calls her by name).
Here
is an important lesson we can learn from this story: Don’t panic
when things are not as you assume they will be just because they’ve
always been that way.
And
here are some points to remember when panic is looming.
Events are not always
what they seem on the surface level.At times in our own livesit may seem as if Jesus has disappeared.We can’t find him where we expect him to be — or where we
found him yesterday.
When that happens don’t panic.Do what Mary did:
1. Run and get help from someone skilled in the spiritual life.
2. And check things out.
You will in the long run find that Jesus is right there, after all —
in fact, that he has been there all along, but like Mary, perhaps you
weren’t looking in the right place, or with the right eyes.
Indeed, sometimes what God
shows us is that we need new eyes to see beyond the limitations of
what has been.We may
need to see that God is calling us to a new and deeper relationship
with Jesus, as Mary Magdalene was called to relate to Jesus in a new
way after the Resurrection.As
it turned out, she found that Jesus was even more wonderful than she
expected.But she did have
to learn to experience him in a new way.
For Mary it was that she
went looking for the dead Jesus and found the living Christ.For us, it is not that Jesus has changed, but that we are
called to grow; it is not that Jesus has been taken away, but that we
may be called to let go of an old way of seeing or an old way of
praying or an old way of being that no longer serves us well, that
may no longer work in the deeper life we are being called to.When what is tried and true doesn’t work, we can tend to
panic.Instead of
panicking, draw closer to God: run for help if necessary, bend down to
look more closely and then turn around to look in unexpected places. Sometimes
we look for Jesus in the tomb — in what we are used to, in the old
way of being — when the living Christ is right there behind us.
"Why do
you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen."
(Luke 24:5)
In Sunday School, when I was a child, we used to sing the spiritual,
“Lord, I want to be a Christian.”If you don’t know the words, this is how it begins:
Lord, I want to be a Christian in my heart, in my heart,
Lord, I want to be a Christian in my heart...
I enjoyed singing it through verse two (“Lord, I
want to be more loving”) and verse three (“Lord I want to be more
holy”).The last verse,
however, was another matter:
Lord, I want to be like Jesus in my
heart, in my heart,
Lord, I want to be like Jesus in my heart...
I was not at all sure that I did want to be like Jesus.Not
only did he have to wander around with no home of his own, but look at
what happened to him on Good Friday.
Being an honest child, I didn’t want to sing verse 4 without meaning it,
so I pondered what to do about my moral dilemma.That's when I noticed the phrase, “in my heart.”I felt I could truthfully avow that I wanted to be like Jesus in my
heart without committing myself to being like Jesus in any other part of
myself.
Little did I know that if I were really like Jesus in
my heart, I would also be like Jesus in the whole of my life and the
totality of my being.
The self-giving of Jesus
The three days of the Easter Triduum summon us to
wonder and awe before the total self-giving of Jesus for us.But how perplexing the events of those three days must have been
while they were happening.The
mission of Jesus appeared to have been a failure.One of his friends had betrayed him.Another had denied him.Most
of the rest had deserted him.And
from his pain on the cross Jesus cries out in the words of Psalm 22, “My
God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
But out of the darkness we hear another prayer as
well, once again echoing a psalm (31) which Jesus must have known since
childhood.This one is
“Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.”
Commending my own spirit to God
What about our own participation in this mystery?What about the song I sang in Sunday School, not realizing the
import of the words, “Lord, I want to be like Jesus in my heart”?
Karl Rahner believed that “somewhere within our
lives there happens — or there may at least happen — an absolute
letting go, an absolute yielding of everything.” [†]
While this may happen at the time of physical death, it may be instead at
the moment of what he calls “death in the theological sense, which may
ultimately consist in the unconditional, quiet, yet trustful capitulation
before the incomprehensibility of one’s own existence, and thus also
before God’s incomprehensibility …. One gives up everything, one lets
everything go.”
Though all may seem meaningless, though cruelty may
seem to have won out, though the powers of darkness appear to have
triumphed, we put ourselves without reserve into the hands of Love. Rahner
adds, “And precisely in this seemingly dumb, dreadful and frightening
emptiness there dawns the arrival of the infinite God of eternal life.”
This is perfect freedom.This is being “like Jesus in my heart.”
[†]Karl
Rahner in Dialogue: Conversations and Interviews, 1965-1982, ed. by
Hubert Biallowons, Harvey D. Egan, S.J., and Paul Imhof, S.J. (New York:
Crossroad Publishing Co., 1986).
______
Let the same mind be in you that
was in Christ Jesus,
who, though he was in the form of
God,
did not regard
equality with God as
something to be exploited,
but emptied himself, taking the form of a
slave, being
born in human likeness.
And being found in human form,he humbled himselfand became obedient
to the point of death—even death on a cross.
Therefore God also highly exalted
himand gave him the name that is
above every name,
so that at the name of Jesus every knee should
bend, in heaven
and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is
Lord, to the
glory of God the Father.
St. Therese Couderc, the co-founder of the Sisters of
the Cenacle, had a vision of goodness one day during her prayer.She wrote about it in a letter dated
August 10, 1866
:
I saw
written as in letters of gold this word Goodness, which I repeated
for a long while with an indescribable sweetness. I saw it, I say, written
on all creatures, animate and inanimate, rational or not — all bore this
name of goodness.I saw it
even on the chair which I was using for a kneeler.
This was not just a broad global recognition of
goodness, but an awareness of goodness in the details, in the ordinary
things of life. The goodness in everyone and everything, she said,
comes from God, who has communicated to them something of the divine
goodness.
One implication of this awareness of goodness is
reverence toward the commonplace.Take
off your shoes, God told Moses, for the place where you are standing is
holy ground.Our homes, our
work places, the day to day objects involved in cooking, working, keeping
house, the daily activities such as making up the bed, washing the dishes,
praying, being with family and friends — all are holy ground, for
God’s goodness is everywhere.
But what about situations?Is the word “Goodness” written on all situations as well as on
all creatures?Some situations
are obviously evil, while others are subtly destructive, and none of these
must we call good.Nevertheless,
since God is always present and active, every situation holds within
itself the potential for good, just as the crucifixion of Jesus — a
blatantly evil action — was turned to good, not only for Jesus but for
the whole world.
In whatever situation we find ourselves, we can ask
God, “What is the call to me in this?”
I can ask, for example:
What is God’s call to me now that our nation is
at war?
or:
What is God’s call to me in my family
situation?
What is God’s call to me when faced with
failing health?
What is God’s call to me with the nation’s
economic downturn?
Notice that this does not mean that God has brought
about a damaging state of affairs or wants me to stay in it when escape is
feasible. (If the situation is destructive the call may well be to
get out of it as fast as possible.)
Notice
also that I am not asking, What is God’s call to my mother-in-law or to
my neighbor or to Saddam Hussein?Rather,
What is God’s call to me?What are the gracious desires of God for me in the reality in which
I now find myself?
We
know that in all things God works for good for
those who love God, who are called according to his purpose. (Romans
8:28)
Two Saturdays ago when I
went downstairs, sounds of cheering were coming from the street. I looked out the
front window to see a marathon going by. It turned out to be the "Great
Gainesville Road Race" that is held every year.
There was no
small number of runners, and they were a whole microcosm of humanity — every age and
shade, including a baby in a stroller being pushed by his father. Some were obviously
athletes. Others, out of shape, had given up running and were
trudging along. Some were really dragging.
No spectators were in evidence on our street, but on the corner stood an
official-looking woman who turned out to be the source of the
clapping and cheering.
"Whoa! All right!" she called to one.
And to others, "Look at you go! Not even
breaking a sweat! Good job!"
Everyone was cheered, no matter whether they were Olympics material or
barely able to make it to the next block.
The cheering woman reminded me of God. In her voice it seemed as
if I could hear God rooting for each of us as we travel our life's path:
"Yeah! You’re going to make it! Good job!" or "Whoops, try again! All right!"
Whether we are sailing smoothly along or whether we
are stumbling and bumbling in our journey with and toward God, I could
picture God clapping and cheering, encouraging us when we become
discouraged, lifting us up when we fall.
In this race, being in the lead is no cause for boasting, and there is no cause for
despair if we are slow or stumbling. What matters is that we are on
the road with God our companion and headed toward God our destination.
Therefore,
since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay
aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with
perseverance the race that is set before us, looking
to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the sake of
the joy that was set before him endured the cross, disregarding its shame,
and has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God.
Like all parents, I suppose, my mother had a repertory of cautionary
tales, mostly drawn from her own childhood. The ones I remember best were
about the consequences of disobeying parents: for example, the story about the
time she sat on the railing of the pig pen after having been told by her
own mother not to,
only to have the pig bite her big toe.
I still like to
imagine pigs this way, ensconced in roomy pens and taking time out from
enjoyment of the cool mud to investigate the toes of disobedient children.
The reality today
is likely to be far more cruel. In a modern factory farm there is no
mud puddle, no grass, no sunshine, no space to move around — and little concern for the
suffering of a creature of God.
Gestation
crates, probably among the most inhumane of the farm accommodations, where pregnant sows are kept for months at a
time, have recently been outlawed in Florida, where I live. But farrowing crates have not
been outlawed in Florida or any other place that I know of, and in these
also there is not even room for the mother pig to
turn around.
How contrary
this seems to the compassion of a biblical faith. We read in the
Bible, for example, that animals are to partake in the Sabbath rest along
with humans and that one of the reasons the land is to lie fallow on the
seventh year is so that not only poor people, but also the wild beasts
may eat from the field (Exodus 23:10-12).
Deuteronomy tells us "You shall not muzzle an ox while it is treading
out the grain" (25:4), which would prevent it from eating while working.
And of course, from the
time of Noah through our present time, animals have shared with human
beings in whatever happens to nature. They have also shared with us in the
love of God. Notice that after the flood, God makes a covenant with all
living creatures, not just with human beings (Genesis
9:8-11). We are all in this together, mysteriously together even in
the redemption brought about by Jesus Christ. All of creation, we are
told, "waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of
God" (Romans 8:19) and will "obtain the
glorious liberty of the children of God" (8:21).
Our relationship with God's creation, human or non-human —
whether we show compassion, cruelty, or indifference — is one of the
indicators of our relationship with God. Coleridge"s Ancient Mariner learns this
after "inhospitably" shooting the seabird accompanying
the ship he was on:
Samuel Taylor Coleridge,
"The Rime of the Ancient Mariner"
Even the sparrow
finds a home,
and the swallow a nest for herself,
where she may lay her young,
at your altars, O Lord of hosts,
my King and my God.
Happy are those who live in your
house,
ever singing your praise.
Peacemaking is not
optional for Christians. It is the peacemakers, says Jesus, who will be
called children of God. Besides taking whatever actions we can to foster
peace in our troubled time, we must assiduously pray for peace.
There are many traditional prayers for peace, including the rosary and
the prayer of St. Francis ("Lord, make me an instrument of your
peace") and the simple Latin invocation, "Dona nobis pacem"
(Grant us peace) which can be sung or recited as a mantra.
Lately I have had my own prayer for peace which is the fruit of not
paying attention as I was descending the stairs, thereby missing the
bottom step and breaking one toe, chipping another bone, and tearing the
ligaments in my right foot. Although I have progressed to the point that I
no longer need crutches, the pain has not vanished by any means, so I have
taken to making each painful step a prayer for peace. I call it the
Hobbling Prayer — a small thing, but God uses what is weak and foolish
"to shame the wise" (1 Cor 1:27).
All our prayers and our efforts to bring the love of Christ into the
world are important, no matter how awkward and limping. Something
worthwhile can be accomplished in our hobbling — perhaps (who knows?)
even more than will be accomplished by the dexterity of the leaders of
nations.
Blessed are the peacemakers, for
they shall be called children of God. (Matthew
5:9)
Sister Elizabeth, who is of a venerable age,
has difficulty bending down to reach the clothes at the back of the clothes
dryer. I thought that a back scratcher — the kind with curved fingers at the
end — would be just the thing for reaching, so I went out this morning for
what I thought would be a straightforward expedition to buy one.
The first place I went was
Eckerd’s drug store, since I already had a prescription to pick up there. When
I asked the pharmacist if Eckerd's had back scratchers, she said no without
hesitating. After I paid, however, an elderly woman who had overheard my query
tapped me on the shoulder and told me that she had recently found one at the
Dollar Store.
So I got in the car and headed for the Dollar
Store where I searched in vain until finally giving up and asking an employee
— who yelled across the store to another employee, who replied that, no, they
didn’t have back scratchers. Again, a woman who overheard (how could she help
but overhear?) came up and told me that the beauty supply place right next door
had them.
Off I went to the beauty supply store, where I
asked the two young Vietnamese women behind the counter if they had
backscratchers. One didn’t understand my question, so the other said a few
explanatory words to her in Vietnamese, then pointed in the direction of a
nearby counter. And lo and behold, there was indeed a generous display of
bamboo backscratchers with fingers on one end and three wooden rollers on the
other. While I was looking, one of the women called over to tell me that some of
the backscratchers had golf balls on the end.
"Where are those?" I asked, not
wanting her to think that I wasn’t interested in backscratchers equipped with
golf balls.
Over she came to show me, and sure enough, some
of the back scratchers had, instead of rollers, a white rubber ball (molded like
a golf ball) glued to the bamboo. The young woman picked one up and began to
whop me on the back with the ball to demonstrate its use.
I picked the one with rollers instead, paid 99¢,
and left. But I left with more than a bamboo back scratcher. I carried with me
the effects of a chain of grace, beginning at home in the laundry room,
continuing through the attentiveness of strangers at Eckerd’s and the Dollar
Store and the beauty supply place, and ending — for the moment — with my
walking into the parking lot.
My great-aunt Missie’s friend Maude was
nothing if not practical. When asked why she had a strand of dental floss
dangling from her teeth, she replied, reasonably enough, "So it will
be there when I need it."
Other people carry the just-in-case-I-need-it
syndrome to its less obvious but more cumbersome extreme — witness my
parents’ garage to whose interior no car found access for many years due to
the accumulation of objects that might be needed (or at least wanted) in the
future. Witness also the state of my own desk. Even my desk, however, lacks an
amenity I once heard of in someone else’s house: a box labeled "Pieces of
String Too Short to Use."
On the other hand, there are things we do need
to keep with us so they will be there when we need them. It is no burden at all,
and takes up no storage space, to carry around favorite morsels of poetry or
verses from the Bible — to know them "by heart" — a wonderful
expression. Sometimes after a hard day, I find myself quoting lines from
"The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" as I climb into bed:
Oh sleep! it is a gentle thing,
Beloved from pole to pole!
To Mary Queen the praise be given!
She sent the gentle sleep from Heaven,
That slid into my soul.
And how often does Yeats’ expression, "a
lonely impulse of delight," come to mind when I consider the call of God
— a mysterious attraction which inspires us to a radical and joyful abandon in
becoming what we are created to be. An impulse of delight may have propelled the
Irish airman of Yeats to fly, but instead impelled me to seek God through the
religious life.
But what I think of most as something to carry
around all the time so it will be there when we need it most is prayer.
"Pray without ceasing," says Paul (I Thessalonians 5:17). Throughout
the centuries people have wondered how to accomplish ceaseless prayer. One
ancient attempt is through a mantra-like word or phrase like the Jesus Prayer.
Here it is in its simplest form:
Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on
me.
We can pray our mantra wherever we are: walking
from place to place, fixing dinner, taking a coffee break, pushing the grocery
cart, driving to work.
The fact is that if I don’t pray when it
seems as if I don’t need it, then prayer may not be easily accessible inside
me when I realize I do. In reality, of course, there is no moment when I don’t
need an attitude of prayer, because there is no moment when I don’t need God.
See that none of you repays evil for evil,
but always seek to do good to one another and to all. Rejoice always,
pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of
God in Christ Jesus for you. Do not quench the Spirit.
(1 Thessalonians 5:16-19)
As I look out at the subdued beauties of a
Florida winter — the bright green of the cabbage palms and dustier green of
the live oaks, the yellow of the golden rain trees just preparing to lose their
leaves, the browns of the few already bare trees, last year’s Christmas
poinsettas planted and bravely trying to turn red again this year, a few
renegade azalea blossoms, the blue afternoon sky — I ask myself how close what
I am perceiving is to the reality of my surroundings.
Other creatures would view the same scene
differently. Whereas human eyes have cones for detecting red, green, and blue
light (and all the combinations thereof), bees’ eyes can’t see red, but do
detect ultraviolet, which our eyes don’t see at all. Dogs, I am told, perceive
colors much the same way as do human beings with red-green color-blindness. On
the other hand, dogs rely on their acute sense of smell to experience and
identify their environment. They can smell things we don’t know are there at
all; in fact, have even been known to smell cancer cells in human beings and to
warn their owners by sniffing or licking the lesion.
So as I gaze at what is around me, I wonder how
much my human senses distort what I perceive, and how much I don’t perceive at
all of what is actually there. A little over two thousand years ago the
Magi looked at the night sky and beheld a promise, while Herod (who as far as we
know hadn’t noticed the star until the Magi told him about it) saw a threat.
To see a promise in a star, to see a king in an ordinary-looking baby, we need a
different kind of perception from our everyday senses. In order to be led to
Jesus by whatever stars God puts in our lives, the eyes of our hearts must be
attuned both to observe and to receive the divine in our lives.
So I pray:
God of light,
guide me to Jesus
through day and night,
through desert and oasis,
until my hours and my years,
my light and my darkness,
my life and my death
are illuminated by your love.
The sun shall no longer be your light by
day,
nor for brightness shall the moon give light to you by night;
but the Lord will be your everlasting light,
and your God will be your glory.
"Standing on the Promises" is not
exactly a Christmas song, but it has been running through my head lately and
when I think about it, it does seem appropriate to the season.
The refrain goes like this:
Standing, standing,
Standing on the promises of God my Savior;
Standing, standing, I’m standing on the promises of God.*
For centuries, God’s people had been holding
to the promise of the longed-for Messiah. Simeon, for one, was "looking
forward to the consolation of Israel," as Luke tells us (2:25). His
consolation, and ours, comes with the birth of Jesus. Though his birth, life,
death, and resurrection we claim the promises of God as firm, never to be
broken. God’s promises can be relied upon even when we can’t rely on
ourselves or on the strength of our own virtue or faith.
What are these promises? Obviously, God never
promised us that all would be sweetness and light in this life. I asked Sister
Elizabeth what she saw as the promises of God, and together we came up with the
following list:
Peace: "not as the world
gives," says Jesus, but a more sturdy peace even in the midst of strife, a
peace which takes root in our hearts and the world through mutual compassion and
reconciliation
Love: a love that is creative, unending,
unfailing, unconditional
Presence: God-with-us (Emmanuel) both
when we are aware of it and when we are not, both when everything is going well
and when life is so dark that the very existence of God seems unlikely
Fidelity: in Sister Elizabeth's words,
the promise of God is "to see us through to the other side of suffering and
death" — a promise grounded in the Resurrection of the crucified Jesus
Christ from the dead.
Here is verse 2 of "Standing on the
Promises":
Standing on the promises that cannot fail,
When the howling storms of doubt and fear assail,
By the living Word of God I shall prevail,
Standing on the promises of God.
Standing, standing,
Standing on the promises of God my Savior;
Standing, standing,
I’m standing on the promises of God.
* Words & Music: Kelso
Carter, 1886
For in [Jesus] every one of
God’s promises is a "Yes." For this reason it is through him that we
say the "Amen," to the glory of God. (2 Corinthians
1:20)
The steadfast love of the Lord
never ceases,
his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.
"The Lord is my portion," says my soul,
"therefore I will hope in him." (Lamentations 3:22-24)
Late one afternoon during my recent retreat in
Pensacola — at a most wonderful spot looking out on the bay — I went for a
walk along the sea wall. Before I had gone far, a man appeared, jogging from
behind one of the nearby houses, along the beach, then around and back again
behind the houses. I continued walking, and soon another jogger came into view,
taking the same route along the beach and behind the houses. When a third man
emerged from behind the same house, I wondered if they were friends who got
together after work for their exercise. At that moment it dawned on me that all
three joggers were one and the same man. This time I spoke to him as he passed
and received a breathless greeting in return.I ask myself: How many times does
God have to come around before I recognize the divine presence? What does it
take before I am alert enough to greet the Christ who is always present, yet
still to come?
O loving Christ,
may I be awake and attentive
to welcome you at your appearing:
each day in the events of my life,
in the people around me,
in the quiet places of my heart,
and finally in your coming
again in glory.
Amen.
And the Word became flesh
and lived among us,
and we have seen his glory,
the glory as of the
Father’s only Son,
full of grace and truth. (John 1:14)
I had never seen a meteor shower before the
recent Leonid "meteor storm" (as it was described on NASA’s web
site). So when it was announced that there would not be another as spectacular
as this one for a hundred years or so, I decided to take action. Now taking
action in this case meant going against my nature, as it entailed getting out of
bed at 4:30 in the morning. This shows you how much I really wanted to see this
meteor shower. Sister Elizabeth and I met downstairs and crept outside to watch
the celestial display. Unfortunately, because of the full moon and the city
lights, there was not much to see from our yard, so we got in the car, and off
we headed straight out highway 20, then right at the sign pointing to Cross
Creek. We pulled off the road at a spot where there was a clear view of the sky
but where the trees behind us provided a shield from most of the moonlight.
Even for a night person who struggles to be
alert at morning prayer, it was worth the effort. We counted at least 80 meteors
during the half hour we stood beneath the sky watching. Afterwards I reflected
on what had been required and the similarities to what is needed for prayer.
1. Being there. This may sound obvious,
but it is the first and probably the most important requirement. I had never
seen a meteor shower before because I had never gotten out of bed, driven to a
dark spot, and stood there under the night sky.
2. Finding a spot where artificial light
doesn’t drown out the beauty. Our contemporary life surrounds us with
external stimuli, all of which compete for our attention. Just as we had to find
a location away from city lights and the moon in order to view the meteor
shower, it is helpful to find a location (in our hearts as well as a physical
spot) where our focus toward God is not unduly interrupted by what society
thinks of as "light."
3. Waiting. There were times when
nothing much was going on (nothing, that is, that we could see), but if we had
left, we would have missed something splendid.
4. Paying attention. No matter how many
meteors are flaming above my head, if I am discussing the topic of my next talk
or what to get at the grocery story in the morning, I will not notice them.
5. Letting our eyes adjust to the dark. Meteor
watching involves being willing to stand quietly in the dark, and it requires a
different kind of seeing from our ordinary, daily vision. In prayer, we learn a
new way of looking both through our own faithfulness and through the help of
those who have gone before us in the spiritual life.
Nevertheless, it is not our effort which makes
prayer happen, any more than Sister Elizabeth and I made the Leonid meteor
shower happen by being there, by choosing a conducive location, by waiting, by
paying attention, or by letting our eyes adjust to the dark. But without these,
we would probably still be wondering why so many people stand in awe before the
wonder of meteors streaking across the sky.
The sun shall no longer be
your light by day,
nor for brightness shall the moon
give light to you by night;
but the Lord will be your everlasting light,
and your God will be your glory.
Your sun shall no more go down,
or your moon withdraw itself;
for the Lord will be your everlasting light,
and your days of mourning shall be ended.
(Isaiah 60:19-20)
Maria Yudina (1899-1970) was a brilliant
Russian pianist and a devout Christian at a time when, if you wanted to advance
in the world, it was advisable to adopt the official atheism of the Soviet
Union. Nevertheless Yudina did succeed in her career, and one day Joseph Stalin
heard on the radio a performance of Yudina playing Mozart’s 23rd piano
concerto. He was quite taken with it and demanded to have the recording. No one
dared tell Stalin that the broadcast had been live. So Maria Yudina and the
orchestra were unceremoniously summoned to the recording studio in the middle of
the night. The conductor was so terrified that he couldn’t complete the
performance; therefore a second conductor, then a third had to be brought in
before the recording could be finished and delivered to Stalin.
Shortly afterwards Stalin sent Yudina twenty
thousand rubles. Her thank-you note read something like this:
I thank you Iosef Vissarionovich for your help.
I will pray for you day and night and ask God to forgive you your sins against
the people and the country. God is merciful and will forgive. I gave the money
to the church I attend.
Of course Stalin had killed people for lesser
offenses than this, and it is said that a warrant was indeed made out, but never
signed. When Stalin died, the recording of Maria Yudina playing Mozart’s 23rd
piano concerto was found on his record player — evidently the last music he
heard.Once again we are near the end of the Liturgical Year. The last Sunday of
the year — the Feast of Christ the King — reminds us that although the earth
seems filled with rulers and those who desire to rule, no one but God can be
truly sovereign. It is only to the Divine that we bend our knee and our
will.
Living out of this truth requires us to stand
for what Christ stands for. In practice this is sometimes as simple as
disagreeing kindly with a friend or writing letters to our senators or
representatives urging them to vote for justice and peace. In more extreme cases
it may mean putting our lives, our fortunes, or our reputations at risk, as did
Maria Yudina. And it always means living so as to witness to the love and
goodness of Jesus and the peace of the reign of God.
The Lord is my light and my salvation;
whom shall I fear?
The Lord is the stronghold of my life;
of whom shall I be afraid?
(Psalm 27:1)
We have had a family of three baby squirrels in
the wall of the patio outside my bedroom window. Like all young creatures, they
love to play with each other and to have small adventures. Occasionally mama
squirrel makes an appearance, looking exhausted, and sprawls out on the wall
where she endures more or less patiently the pestering of her offspring. When
she has had enough, she departs to heights of branches where her young can’t
yet follow.
The babies venture along the top of the patio
walls and the wooden beams that connect the walls. They reach out toward a small
tree just beyond their reach but which someday soon will be only a small leap
for them. They try their courage as they move farther away from the nest —
until some noise or movement startles them: a car passing or any small crack or
pop from the yard. Then they dash as fast as they can back to the hole in the
wall which is their nest. From the security of home they peer out at the wide
world, and only when they begin to feel safe again do they risk another sortie
along the wall.
It’s always good to have a safe haven. It’s
good to be able to return home when something frightens us. For us, our true
home is God, and although we are always journeying toward God who is our
destination, it is also true that our journey is in God, so that we carry Home
with us all the time. We can always turn toward the safety of home, and from
there, gaze with new eyes and clearer vision on what startles us or disturbs us.
How lovely is your dwelling place,
O Lord of hosts!
My soul longs, indeed it faints
for the courts of the Lord;
my heart and my flesh sing for joy
to the living God.
Even the sparrow finds a home,
and the swallow a nest for herself,
where she may lay her young,
at your altars, O Lord of hosts,
my King and my God.
Happy are those who live in your house,
ever singing your praise.
The newspaper ran a story recently about a man
in our area who tried to change his name to "God." The judge
wouldn’t allow it, however, reasoning perhaps that the name was already taken.
So the man came back later and changed his name to "I Am Who I Am"
(see Exodus 3:13-15).All the practical problems associated with a name change
would of course be multiplied if you took the name God, or even "I Am Who I
Am." Imagine getting a drivers license or a passport. Imagine your credit
cards.
While considering the ramifications of such a
name change, I remembered how the Hebrew prophets sometimes spoke of being
called by God’s name. Jeremiah makes a plea to God for the people:
"...you, O Lord, are in the midst of
us, and we are called by your name; do not forsake us!" (14:9).
In the next chapter, he speaks of himself as
called by God’s name:
Your words were found, and I ate them,
and your words became to me a joy
and the delight of my heart;
for I am called by your name,
O Lord, God of hosts. (15:16)
This didn't mean that Jeremiah went around
saying that he was God, but it did indicate an intimacy and a sense of being
under God's protection.
The early followers of Jesus weren’t at first
called by the name of Christ — that is, "Christians." That happened
first in Antioch, and it is likely that when first used, the term was
derogatory.
As for us, we can rejoice in being called by
the divine name without having to go before a judge or change our passports and
credit cards. After all, we are made in God’s image, God dwells in us, we have
been made children of God (and children usually carry the name of their
parents). We also, therefore, have the responsibility to act as God acts, with
compassion and tenderness, with forgiveness and mercy, with love for those who
love us and for those who don’t. People should be able to look at our lives
and be reminded of the goodness of God.
O God, may I live
as one called by your name
and made in your image.
May I be so transparent
that others may glimpse you
through my words and actions.
Amen.
Last night Sister Elizabeth said to me, "I
have a quotation for you." As soon as I heard it, I asked her for the book
so I could copy it down. Here it is:
What is the antidote to real evil?
On a political level, it is justice;
on a social level, it is compassion;
on a personal level, it is meditation.
(Rabbi Rami M. Shapiro,
"The Teaching and Practice of Reb Yerachmiel ben Yisrael"*)
These three levels, the personal, the social,
and the political, are not separate by any means. It is only through personal
meditation (or prayer) that we can learn the compassion needed for the social
level. It is only through compassion that we can ever know what justice really
is on the political level.
May we each enter deeply into the presence of
the compassionate God. Then let us pray for our national and international
leaders as they debate the responses to terrorism and the threats posed by
despotism. May they too spend the hours needed in prayer and meditation, so that
their sense of justice will be made true by compassion.
... love your enemies and do good to them,
and lend without any hope of return. You will have a great reward, and you will
be children of the Most High, for he himself is kind to the ungrateful and the
wicked. Be compassionate just as your Father is compassionate. (Luke 6:35-36, NJB)
* Meditation from the
Heart of Judaism, ed. by Avram Davis (Woodstock, Vermont: Jewish Lights,
1999), 23.
I hesitate to write this for fear that people
won’t want to come to our house, but the other day when I opened the door to
the water heater closet, I found myself face to face with a snake. This was not
just your ordinary green garden snake, but a brown and gold striped creature
nearly five feet long, who raised his (or her) head and gazed at me mildly —
even, dare I say, sweetly.
In spite of his gentle demeanor, none of us
felt totally at ease with a five-foot snake in the house, and we didn’t know
how to go about convincing him that he would be happier outside. I looked him up
on the internet and found that he was most likely a yellow rat snake, very
useful to have around since they eat rodents, but we still preferred that he
take his meals outside. So I called Florida Pest Control, only to be told,
"We don’t do snakes." At last a friend came over and took the
snake outdoors, chuckling at our dilemma .It was only when the snake was picked
up that we could see his intricate beauty. As I mentioned, he was brown and gold
striped on the top and sides, which was all that could be seen under normal
circumstances. (I could tell when he slithered away in the dead leaves that
those stripes were excellent camouflage.) On the underside, however, our snake
was a lovely cream color with bright star-like splotches.*
So I asked myself: Why would these beautiful
designs be found where generally they wouldn’t be seen? Is it that God revels
in beauty, even beauty that is "useless" from a human point of view? I
do believe that. I imagined God creating such a creature, putting star-like
designs on its underside where they would rarely be seen and exclaiming,
"How beautiful!
"All that flows from God’s hands is
beautiful. Like the snake's belly, however, not all of our own beauty is visible
under normal circumstances. What is more, I can’t help thinking that what God
finds loveliest in us is not always what other people think is of value. Even
what we ourselves take pride in may not be what God finds the most beautiful in
us. On the other hand, God, who sees the undersides of our hearts better than we
ever can, may look at something we think of as insignificant or even
disgraceful, and exclaim: "How beautiful!"
And let the beauty of the Lord our God be
upon us:
and establish thou the work of our hands upon us;
yea, the work of our hands establish thou it.
Psalm 90:17 (KJV)
______________
*
In all the web pages I checked describing yellow rat snakes, the descriptions of
the belly varied from simply pale white or yellowish to "mottled with
gray" or "yellow highlights," which leads me to assume that there
is no single characteristic pattern.
Blessed are you, Prince of Peace,
you call us to be peacemakers in you.
But sometimes we become disheartened,
because evil seems so strong,
and while our resources suffice
for making strife,
we lack the implements of peace.
Blessed are you, Crucified One,
we find our peace in your cross,
and there we lay our hoarded treasures —
the burden of needing to be right,
the fear that holds us hostage,
the cry of vengeance
that racks our heart.
Blessed are you, Giver of Peace:
in your love mold us into Christ,
that through us may flow the blessed peace
you long to pour over the world —
peace as fortifying as bread
and wine shared with friends,
as healing as the balm of sunset
after a day of toil,
as restful as finding ourselves
home at last.
“You have heard that it was said, ‘You
shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your
enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of
your Father in heaven..."
(Matthew 5:43-45)
When I saw the storm looming up ahead of us at
midday on the Florida Turnpike, I stopped to take a picture.
Sister Elizabeth and I were returning from the Cenacle in Lantana where she had
given a weekend retreat to about fifty women. Although we had run in and out of
rain all day, those summer rainstorms were nothing compared to the monster about
to swallow us up.
It was indeed an impressive storm. As you might
imagine, once in it, we could barely see the lights of the car ahead of us. At
the point when it became almost impossible to tell whether or not we were on the
road at all, we pulled over on the shoulder to wait it out with other prudent
drivers.
Too often in daily life, it seems all we can
see ahead of us is a wall of clouds. The road itself disappears. Even the usual
markers become invisible. Wisely we pull off to the side to pray, to ponder, to
avoid the most obvious dangers; but we can’t spend our whole lives there.
Eventually we have to make decisions, take steps, move along. If we don’t,
life moves us along willy-nilly.In fact, no matter how cautious we are, no
matter how carefully we plan, the reality is that we never really know what the
future holds.
Sometimes God graciously gives us an intuition
that we are on the right path. Something happens — perhaps something small and
apparently insignificant that we would miss if we weren’t paying attention —
that lets us know we are where we were meant to be. It is like being on the
highway, fearing we are lost, and finally seeing a sign saying,
"Gainesville 25 miles." Aha (we say to ourselves), I was on the right
road all along, although I didn’t know it! And we breathe more easily.
No, we can't see the future. What we can be
confident of is that we are headed for glory, but what glory will actually look
like, once we get there, again we don’t know. We do know that in moving toward
glory, glory is already in our midst, and that when we arrive at our final
destination, a place will have been prepared for us and — wonder of wonders
— we will know that we are expected, and that we are home.
Lead, kindly Light, amid th’encircling
gloom, lead Thou me on!
The night is dark, and I am far from home; lead Thou me on!
Keep Thou my feet; I do not ask to see
The distant scene; one step enough for me.
It’s not unusual to see abandoned objects
along the side of the road, but on the interstates, these are usually confined
to pieces of tire, the occasional cardboard box, or more rarely, a shoe or
unidentifiable piece of clothing. So I was surprised last week to see an
easy-chair perched comfortably on the shoulder of I-65. I didn’t think too
much about this until a mile or so on down the road there appeared a desk
drawer. The mystery was deepening.
Before long, however, I passed a car with a
small uncovered trailer attached, pulled off the road. In the trailer were
articles of furniture. The occupants of the car looked as if they were securing
the furniture in the trailer. I considered turning around and going back to tell
them that I had seen their easy chair and drawer a way back on the highway, but
this was rural Alabama, and the next exit was miles away. I realized that by the
time I got back to spot where I had seen them, the people with the trailer would
probably be long gone, either in the hunt for their furniture or bemoaning its
irrevocable loss.
I couldn't help but wonder at what point they
had noticed something amiss. Didn't they feel a certain lightening of the load
as objects dropped from the trailer? Were they so busy looking ahead at the road
or perhaps debating politics or religion among themselves that they observed
nothing of what they were hauling?
Questions to ponder:
What am I hauling around with me, spiritually,
emotionally, or physically, that I would do well to leave alongside the road —
and move on, lightened in spirit?
Can I let go of what no longer serves —
unnecessary possessions, fear that keeps me from God, the need to be perfect, or
the need for things around me to be perfect, even the need for my prayer to be
filled with what St. John of the Cross calls "sweetness"?
Can I hold lightly the things that do serve,
knowing that when I cling to anything that is not God, it weighs me down on the
spiritual journey?
Whom have I in heaven but you?
And there is nothing on earth
that I desire besides you.
(Psalm 73:25)
One day while I was still living in Louisiana,
I went out for my evening walk with the expectation of seeing nothing new —
except perhaps larger cracks in the levee from the oppressive heat and drought.
However, walking along the lake, I stopped at one spot to approach the water,
and to my surprise there was indeed something new — something I had never seen
before in the brackish water of Lake Pontchartrain: a jellyfish. (Of course, it
is only recently that the water has been clear enough to see a jellyfish.)
To be exact, this was a sea nettle. (I looked
it up.) Like other jellyfish, I learned, it has no heart, no blood, and no
brain.
My only impression so far of jellyfish had been
that they are a nuisance when one is swimming in the ocean — more than a
nuisance if you are stung by one. In fact, as I stared at this one, my first
reaction was a feeling of fascinated disgust. The sea nettle had shapeless stuff
hanging from its bell which reminded me of primal goo. It was especially
unappealing when it turned upside-down. I wasn’t even sure that it was alive.
Then a second jellyfish appeared, and I
realized that they were both in fact alive. I wondered if this one could be the
mate of the other — though it’s hard to imagine anything without either a
heart or a brain wanting to swim along companionably with its mate.
Gradually, as I watched, a marvelous thing
happened: I saw how beautiful they were. The first was a translucent white; the
second had red stripes. They both looked like uprooted mushrooms. Even more
remarkable, considering my first reaction to them, was the concern I felt as the
water became rough and the striped one seemed in danger of being smashed.
Too often, I don’t gaze long enough at things
or people to see their beauty. In gazing, we may at times be granted the gift of
seeing the world and its inhabitants a bit the way God sees them. When that
happens, we perceive the beauty that was there all along, but which we had not,
up until that moment, had the eyes to see.
During a community outing, we paused at Green
Cove Springs, where you can stand by the spring after which the town is named
and peer down through 30 feet or so of clear water into the blue depths. The
spring produces 3000 gallons of water a minute, flowing up from underground
caverns, out through a weir and into the municipal swimming pool, then out of
the pool and into a stream which in turn flows into the St. John’s River. In
the 19th century tourists came from far and wide to bathe in the healing mineral
waters.
When we arrived, three young boys were already
there, talking among themselves and, like us, gazing into the water. They told
us about divers who had gone into the spring sometime in the past to learn the
true dimensions of the cavern. One of them, they said, had gotten trapped
somewhere underneath the town’s fire station and had never made it to the
surface.
After we came home, I couldn’t stop thinking
about the unfortunate diver. I tried to locate some account of the accident on
the internet, but all I could find remotely related was a cryptic entry on a
page listing projects of a company called Karst Environmental Services:
Green Cove Spring Geologic Hazard Assessment
Green Cove Springs, FL., 1990; for City of Green Cove Springs. Provided cave
divers that entered spring to conduct assessment of collapse threat possible
from cave passages beneath public buildings.
Had all gone as planned in the course of this
project? Was there a diver left behind? Is this the event the children were
recalling, and did they have the story straight? In any case, it’s obvious
that the narrow, deep spring is not an entirely safe place, in spite of its
beauty, and a sign wisely warns that no swimming is allowed there.
Thinking of the dangers of this natural spring
leads me to reflect on a different kind of water: the living water offered by
Jesus. After asking the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well for a drink of water,
he says to her:
"If you knew the gift of God, and who it
is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and
he would have given you living water."
He goes on to compare ordinary water with the
living water:
"Everyone who drinks of this water [from
the well] will be thirsty again, but those who drink of the water that I will
give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in
them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life" (John 4:10,13-14).
The living water of Jesus gushes up without
danger (which is not to say that it is not costly — it is paradoxically a free
gift which asks of us the total gift of ourselves). There is no risk of harm in
the living waters of God’s love. The only real danger is that of staying
aloof. How often do I just dip my hand or my toe in the spring of living water
instead of plunging in entirely? Too often I sip daintily at the spring, instead
of drinking deeply so that it may become in me a spring "gushing up to
eternal life."
Out on a two-lane highway, Sister Elizabeth and
I caught a glimpse of a sign that made us do a double-take. It was on the edge
of a cemetery, a country churchyard, and on both sides it proclaimed the same
message to passersby and the graves round about:
NOTHING IS AS
TIRESOME
AS DOING NOTHING
Had the cemetery residents been led astray when
they were encouraged to rest in peace? I was reminded of a parent prodding
slothful offspring who were blissfully dozing away a summer morning.
A 19th century immigrant, Francis Grund, had
this to say about Americans: "There is, probably, no people on earth with
whom business constitutes pleasure, and industry amusement, in an equal degree
with the inhabitants of the Unites States of America. Active occupation is not
only the principal sources of their happiness, and the foundation of their
national greatness, but they are absolutely wretched without it, and instead of
the "dolce far niente," know but the horrors of idleness"
(Francis J. Grund, The Americans in Their Moral, Social and Political
Relations, 1837).
While it is true that we are created to need
meaningful activity, we are also made to need times of doing nothing — resting
in peace, not as dead, but alive in God. If our daily work is intended to
reflect the work of the Creator, then we are to rest, according to the Ten
Commandments and Genesis 2:2-3, because God rested on the seventh day of
creation. God’s way of being is always the wellspring for our own.What is
rest? It is not just the absence of activity. Rest is knowing that God is
Creator, and that God rests. Rest is taking time to be alone with the One who
loves us completely and unconditionally. Rest is freedom not only from work, but
from all that fatigues: from fear, from guilt, from trying to be God. Rest is
being enfolded in the arms of my heavenly Father/Mother who will help me pick up
the pieces of my mistakes, because I am too small to do it all by myself. Rest
is being assured that in spite of sin, as Julian of Norwich hears Jesus say,
"All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be
well."
"Come to me, all you that are weary and
are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and
learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for
your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light."
On I-10 between Tallahassee and Pensacola, I
noticed two motorcycles at some distance behind me. In the lead was an immense
three-wheeler, and following it was a two-wheeler. Two things intrigued me:
first, their steady pace behind me. I was going slightly below the
70-mile-per-hour speed limit, and they kept a consistent distance behind me for
many miles. Second, the driver of the second motorcycle was wearing — nota
bene — horns. Long horns — whether Viking or Texan, I wasn’t sure at
first, but I later decided on Viking.
On the highway, there develops a sense of
companionship with people whose vehicles accompany you for considerable
distances. Nevertheless, I hoped these would pass me so I could get a closer
look at the phenomenon of the horns. At last they did begin narrowing the space
between us, and as they moved alongside me, I saw that the driver of the
three-wheeler was a blond woman (not young: in fact, neither rider was anywhere
close to young), while the driver of the two-wheeler was a bearded man with dark
hair flowing nearly to his waist and — yes, indeed — long horns. As he
passed, he turned toward me. I waved. Smiling, he waved back, and rode on.
This brief encounter reminds me of the wildness
that still exists in our world. Regardless of our indoor p
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