Being least and still being great

Today is the Feast of John the Baptist, that fiery prophet who lost his head, literally, because he spoke the truth. The story of John from the gospels makes John seem wild, bold, and daring. John is doing what no one else dared do. He was breaking from tradition and baptizing people as a sign of repentance.

Jesus, when asked about John, said I tell you, among those born of women, no one is greater than John. But then Jesus added, yet the least in the kingdom of God is greater than he (Lk 7:28). It is an interesting remark, and I still have not come to understand it. But I can tell you what thoughts occur to me.

I think that truth does set us free. I think it the bond in relationships, the foundation of our faith with God, the reason we should trust any of our leaders.

There is also the truth about myself. I have secrets I need to let out, closets I need to open, and an honest face I need to present. All of those are almost a given.

But I also believe there are certain secrets we cannot share. And so, we cannot always speak that truth we hold within. When I realize this, I will not demand that others always speak the truth to me. I will accept that we each have our own inner secrets we dare not reveal. After all, we are fragile in our inner core, and we must protect that vulnerability.

Perhaps this is Jesus meaning. That John was great for speaking his mind, even when it cost him his head. But I do not have to be like that. I can be less than that, and still be greater than John. Simple because I can accept where I am, and know I do not have to follow in those footsteps.

That's my thought for today. What is yours?

Weeding out

It came from an article in Writer's Digest by Elizabeth Sims. It said  Let's face it: We writers tend to be rule-followers. We were the kids who turned in our papers on time, played the clarinet in the marching band....As adults we drive defensively, wear sunscreen and consult experts before making big decisions. We don't crash weddings or argue over the contents of our carry-ons in the airport security line. We weed out risk.

The line caught me because, I find it to be true. And I think this applies to our spiritual lives as well. We want God to remove all the uneasiness and risks in our lives.  We want spirituality to be safe.

Instead, God sends us inspirations that invite us to risk. God, it seems, dares us to believe, to act, to step out.

In class yesterday, we spoke of the importance of spirituality in our work as counselors. Our instructor asked us what our fears were. As we gave numerous examples, she summed it up with, "In other words, you are afraid to risk."  So true. So on the mark.

I am taking stock of my risk taking today, because I do not want to weed it out. I want to weed out fear, and hesitancy, and timidity. I want to step out in faith and know, my faith is about a God big enough to care for me. My God invites me to risk.

Taste and see the goodness of the Lord!

Psalm 34 says Taste and see how good the Lord is; blessed the one who takes refuge in him.

Both tasting and seeing are used figuratively, of course, but imply that our experience of God can cross that imaginary threshold between the tangible and the intangible. It is our challenge to make God so real, we are able to have that tangible relationship with him. It comes from meditation, from Lectio Divina, and from a constant turning to God in prayer and reflection.

This physical relish of God is the expected result of constant seeking. It is the realm of the mystic. It is possible for any christian.

Taste and see. Taste and see, the goodness of the Lord. I've always loved that hymn. Perhaps its because I believe it possible.

God does not call the gifted

We all have light within, we just need to pull it out and set it on a hill

It was a line that Anne Lamott quoted from her pastor's sermon on King David of the Old Testament. "God does not call the gifted, but gifts the called." I liked it immediately. I've been thinking about gifts lately, and the need to let them flow.

I think we tend to get it wrong about gifts. We look at geniuses, at stars, at people who have become rich because of some gift, and we think that is what gifts should do. But I do not believe that is the purpose of gifts.

Genesis says that when God finished creating, God looked at everything and said, "It is good." I think my reminder of that good is the gift God has given to me. I am not speaking here of some esoteric gift, some mind boggling earth shattering talent. I am speaking of the task or talent or ability that gives you joy. An ability that you should nurture. A task that, when performed, leaves you refreshed, not exhausted.

I am calling attention to this because I reflected on my own gift recently, as I walked by a piano in my church. I sighed and wished I had one in my little place. Not because I am a pianist. But because making music brings such joy to my heart and soul. When I play the piano, it's like I stepped for a time away from life as we know it here, and into another world. A world that does not count time or space. It is as though, somehow, God is released in that playing, and refreshes me in a singlular way. It is my little treasure I carry, and I am less when the opportunity is not there.

Do not let the world of glitter make you think light of your gift. Talent is not for standing up on a stage and proclaiming, only to be judged. It is that piece of heaven you carry inside of you, and which brings you joy. It is a reminder that yes, God gifts the called. And we are all called.

How much courage do I have?

Desert solitude. How could one be attracted to the nothingness it afforded? Only by realizing the value of detachment. Athanasius's life of Anthony, who is considered the father of monasticism, says that it all began for Anthony when he heard the gospel passage "If you wilt be perfect, go and sell all you have and give to the poor, and come and follow me." (Mt. 19:21)  Such drastic life changes prompted not a audience of scornful viewers, but an influx of dedicated followers. There must be something in this detachment theory that enriches.

Obvious benefits of detachment would be less worry about possessions and a clearer mind for God.But beyond detachment making one free and uncluttered, I think it offered yet another benefit. Detachment removed the tendency to look at what I am by what I have. If I have nothing, then I can only look at what I am.

Such an act searches for purity of heart, a key christian element. I begin to see myself in a different light. I begin to understand that I am sufficient when I am full of the light of God. I do not need trappings to be acceptable. God has made me with an inner beauty which even the desert barrenness cannot take from me.

Detachment enriches me because it gives me better vision. It is the ever contradictory nature of loss. When I lose, I somehow realize what is truly important to me. I realize the treasures I have.

There is much in the detachment of the early desert Abbas and Ammas that could teach us better discipleship. The question is, how much courage do I have to be detached? Am I willing to peer into my emptiness?

Accepting imperfect love

Sunset in South Dakota

We all want to be loved. It is the strongest desire of the human heart. And we cannot live without it.

But we know, no matter how strong the love, all love is fallible. Perhaps that is why psalm 63 reminds us to Rest in God alone. It continues God only is my rock and salvation, my stronghold: I shall not be disturbed at all.

Psalm 63 reminds us that only one can give us unconditional, perfect love, God. All else will love us in a tangible but fallible way. I need to remember this. No matter how deeply I may love someone or they may love me, be it my soul-mate or a kindred spirit, that love will not fully satisfy. There will be bumps in the road.

If I am grounded in psalm 63, if I am aware that only God's love is perfect, then I will allow human love its human frailties. I will not expect what cannot be. And in accepting that, I will experience an even greater satisfaction when I am loved

And that is hardly a bad thing!

When soul gets in the way of life

Sometimes I find my soul gets in the way of my life. That is, I think too much with my heart and not enough (at least at times) with my intellect. I am looking for meaning when perhaps I should be looking at studies or documents or perhaps even theology.

Do you have that problem too? Do you find that sometimes you don't want life to be examined on a slide, you just want it to have meaning. You want it to make sense, but not so much sense as to squeeze all mystery out of it?

Perhaps that is the problem. I love mystery. I find it the gem underneath all my unanswered questions. And while I am pondering those unanswered questions, and delving into how it might transform my life, I am missing out on documented ways of progressing.

I cannot say if this is a deficit, or if this deficit will be damaging to my outlook on life. Perhaps, and I am just suggesting to myself, I need to find the balance between the two. For me it is far more exciting to find insights for myself than to let others alway find the meaning, the reasons, the facts of life for me. Not that I am opposed to learning! But perhaps there are aspect in my journey that I feel I just need to discover for myself.

I say this as I fill my backpack with textbooks and head off for a day full of learning. I say this as I think about my job situation and my lack of sufficient employment. I say this as I look forward in life, and try to  balance my soul with my brains.

What is my spiritual worldview?

In another era...

Funny how even assignments can become material for self-reflection. In answering a question for a summer course, I had to address my cultural spiritual worldview.

I used to see my spiritual worldview as having the all-encompassing spirit that held everything safe. My spiritual world had a Divine Being who would never allow me to be tested more than I could bear, who would make my yoke easy and my burden light. When life progressed, and my Divine Being did not protect me from the very “evils” I imagined, I went through a very dark period. During that period my spiritual world became transformed. I dropped my expectations that my Divine Being would save me, and realized that my journey is to walk in a world full of very human individuals who make all sorts of choices. I stopped expecting my faith be a shield from overwhelming pain, and began to see that it was good for me to walk in the valley of darkness. I began to realize that neither God, nor church, nor other human beings were there so that I would be protected.

Since that time, I see my spiritual world in a different light. My Divine Being is not there to shield me if I am good. No, my God is the One who makes meaning to all that happens in my life. I have come to accept that I am not self-sufficient in my faith, but in need of the assistance of good philosophy, a social network of like-minded friends, and a healthy life style. It is this spiritual world view that permeates everything that I do. It makes a homework assignment a moment of self-reflection, a beautiful day a reminder to praise God, the sight of one struggling person an invitation to reach out. It is a spiritual world view that attempts to see beyond the veil of this temporal life. When I step out, when I take a chance, I pierce that veil, and God becomes more real for me. This is my spiritual worldview. This is my journey.

Finding the real someone

I loved reading Heather King's story of her loss and found. She tells how her lawyer career left her feeling empty inside, betrayed by her colleagues and disappointed in her profession of her hopes and dreams. She then begins to doubt her life, think of all of her struggles, and wonder what was wrong with her that she can not seem to fit in? In the midst of her questioning, she made her first retreat, and a kind director, seeing anguish all over her face, touched her lightly and said, You're very dear to God.  She felt overwhelmed with the gesture, and writes Christ is just the Person who sees you when you feel like you're most invisible. In a way, Christ is just the Person who knows what's in your heart before you do.

There is so much implied by these words. First, that we all have those moments when we wish someone would see the real me...and Jesus is just that person. Secondly, any real search for Jesus, for Divinity, for God, ultimately reveals our real self. For our search isn't just for some 'feel-good' experience; it is looking for that something to steady us when things aren't so certain, finding a "someone" rather than a "something."

Letting go of words and living the experience

I love this ancient legend of an old woman describes how she is asked about her love for God. "Yes, yes, I love him very much," she replies. "And do you hate the devil?" she is asked. "I love God so much I don't have any energy left to hate the devil."

The moral of the story speaks to my own soul: if I put my energy into loving, I won’t have time to hate. I will be too busy seeking the experience to worry about how someone else is living out her life. But that is not easy in our day. There are so many baskets begging us to contribute something, our heart for this cause, our mind for this doctrine, our energy for this group. Though such causes are good, they can get us so caught up in the tangible that we forget we started out as seekers of the Divine.

It all started with a desire for the Divine; that we are where we are because we have come to love God deeply. We need to take the time to savor where we are in our journey, to stop and enjoy the moment of truth, the place our energies have brought us, the light we share.

It is time to let the Divine warm our hearts and seep into our soul. It is time to enjoy the presence we have worked so hard to identify within our very selves. It is time to put down the map, and relish being. It is time to let go of words, and live the experience.

Refusing to play it safe

Steeple of the very first interracial monastery in the United States

It happened in the late 1930's, when three nuns wanted to begin a monastery that accepted women of any background. They applied to practically every diocese of the US trying to find a sponsor, and no one wanted an interracial monastery in their area. It took many letters and not a few years before they finally found one bishop willing to take the risk.

It happened with my mother, when she decided to home school us in 1970. There were no homeschool movements at that time. When her attempt hit the newspaper and became front page news, our parish priest distanced himself from us. Our pastor, the man we did numerous services for, and who had shown us kindness. He did not want to take a chance.

It happened to me when I was enduring my darkest hours as a monastic religious nun. My counselor told me to seek help from the Archbishop. I tried. He not only stepped back from my situation, he had some harsh words to say to me for having a problem. He could not understand anyone who struggled.

These thoughts come to mind as I read the Gospels, and realize that perhaps one of the most dramatic parts of the Gospels is the way Jesus could identify with the wounded and the poor. Jesus always took the risk, a chance. He showed compassion to those who suffered, especially those who were outcast by society. This is the real Jesus of the Gospels. He is not some stone statue that stands with hands outstretched waiting for us to bow down before him. He is the one who stoops to our level, reaching out to lift us up, to give us life.

Perhaps it is a human frailty, to step back and play it safe in the face of trouble or when confronted with frailty. And yet, it was Jesus who is quoted as saying in Jn 10:10 The thief comes to steal and destroy; I have come that you may have life, and have it more abundantly. Makes you wonder, doesn't it?

For me, it is a reminder of true discipleship. Following Jesus is not some safe journey. It is a very human endeavor, one that uses those graces, those insights, that intimate relationship in prayer to then reach out to those who hurt, or are wounded, or need a voice.

For Jesus never played it safe. And neither should you or me. 

Seeking a way to human hearts

To serve God is to seek a way to human hearts says Jerzy Popieluszko. I think it is easy to forget that loving God is very earthy, very human, very tangible. It's like rays that cannot be contained, but that break forth upon everything around it. No man is an island wrote John Donne. No one can love God in a vacuum. It must of necessity spring forth. And its target is the human heart.

I have had the joy and inspiration of meeting people who radiate that love of God. That individual is just different. She sees things differently, as she is gentle in her speech and her view of life. She speaks differently as her words speak directly to the heart, not repeating some oft read words or quoting some familiar scripture passage. She lives by inspiration, not driven by some passion or working for some glory. This person had an amazing thoughtfulness of others such as I had not experienced before. When I was around her, I felt the presence of God.

I think this is what it means to servie God is to seek a way to human hearts. It is not some unattainable attribute or glory. It is very tangible. It affects those who come in contact with such a soul. It is as though she were carrying God within her, and I could not help but be affected by that Presence, a Presence not just felt, but seen by human actions.

Paul once said, I live, now not I, but Christ lives in me (Gal 2:20). I think that this is more obvious to those around someone like this than to the person herself. When Christ lives fully in me, I change. And that change in tangible, noticeable, and powerful.

The power of silence

During a great conversation with a friend, we spoke of our need for silence, and wanting friends and companions who could not only identify with that need, but who practiced silence for themselves as well. "I think most people think of silence as emptiness," my friend said. I agree.

I wonder if I would appreciate silence as much as I do if I had not been required to live in silence for so many years. After all, we are social creatures, and communication is the norm.

And yet, when communicating with God, silence is more eloquent than formal prayers. Silence says, you have something worth while to say, and I am listening. Silence gives God a chance to speak to my soul. Silence offers me a venue to learn to listen and discern that quiet, still voice.

I would even dare say, silence lets me step into that other world, the world of the spirit, in some small way. By quieting my mind and heart, I somehow open the door, or maybe it's a window, or maybe it's just a small crack, into the world of the spirit, where I can begin to understand things in a different way. If you have ever gone to a silent retreat, or learned how to spend time in meditation, you will know what I mean.

Perhaps that is the message from psalm 46:10, which says, Be still and know that I am God. Silence holds a treasure, one I cannot see until I let silence penetrate into my very being. And then I will find, not emptiness, but Presence.

The direction of my Way

Artwork by Mary Grace Thul, OP

The Feast was Holy Trinity, and the sermon focused on how Trinity is relationship, and speaks to our relationship with God. And our relationship with God affects how we think of ourselves, and how we treat others.

If I say I believe in God, and yet I am judging others continuously, then you can be sure my God is a judgmental God who keeps tabs and is going to make me pay every last penny. That is sad.

If I say I believe in God, but am timid and fearful, unable to take chances or risks, then my God is weak and unable to be there for me. And that is pitiful.

If I say I believe in God, but am selfish, narcissistic, and vain, then my God doesn't care or ever think about  me. And that isn't true.

My relationship with God is so important. For how I see God is how I view myself and my fellow travelers.

For faith is not just about believing. Jesus said, I am the Way. And that Way includes me. I am also the Way, whether I know it or not. I am The Way by how I live, and what I believe affects that, directly.

It is good to check in and see just what I  believe. All I need do is look at how I am acting.

God as Mother

It began as a simple conversation. I was telling my priest something about my mom, and he replied, "Well, mother's are most like God."

The remark stopped me in my tracks as I thought, yea, you are right. Who else loves beyond reason or explanation? Who else would sacrifice for you more than your mother?

And, come to think of it, scripture has many references of God as Mother. Think Isaiah 49: 15, speaking of God's love: Can a mother forget her infant, be without tenderness for the child of her womb? Or Matthew 24:37, which has Jesus saying: how many times I yearned to gather your children together as a hen gathers her young under her wings, but you were unwilling!

When I think of God as Mother, I think of a gentle God, an understanding God, a God who cares.  When I think of God as Mother, I am more trusting, more confident, and pray with a greater honesty, one that is not afraid to speak my heart.

When I think of God as Mother, I no longer fear to approach God. Because I know, Mothers are the ones who accept, who heal, who bind up the wounds.

Mothers are great examples of what God is like. Are we not the luckiest people?

Are you following the right Way?

Different spiritual writers offer differing views about what it means to be a spiritual person and what to expect when on The Way. Take for example the writings of Madeleine L'Engle who says:  There's not much rest. We walk as strangers in this foreign land with no rest and yet this  uphill road leads to the light of home. The night is far spent. The day is at hand. Her words can be summarized as... life here on earth has to be hard, following the spirit means suffering, that pain must become a constant companion.

Reading this, it is no wonder that many are turned from Christianity. Who wants to follow a Way if it means increasing pain and suffering? Who wants to be isolated from the rest of humanity?

Take, on the other hand, the writings of Catherine of Siena, a Christian mystic and spiritual writer. She says that all the way to heaven is heaven. Catherine believed that as we come to know God, we will become enlightened. What does that mean except that life will become full of more joy, not less. For when we see God, we find joy. I am reminded of Jesus words, I have come that they may have life, and have it more abundantly. The journey should open up our world, not close it down; should help us perceive more blessings, not less.

So if your Way is draining you of life; if it is suppressing your joy and darkening your vision, I suggest you have not found the right Way. I suggest you read authors like Catherine, who help us realize, all the way to heaven should be heaven!