Today I went to confession for the first time in nine years.
I spent the morning weeding the garden with my husband, and it felt to me like an appropriate way to prepare for the sacrament. Like my soul, the garden hadn't been properly tended for quite some time, and weeds had taken root that seemed to reach down into the very bowels of the earth. We dug as far as we could into the dirt and couldn't find the end of them. And so it seemed with the sin in my soul.
I had a lot to confess. But the priest wasn't interested much in hearing about the depths of my sin. I have a hard time seeing one act of impatience or one act of anger as simply one act. Every time I raise my voice or lose my temper I feel it points to something deeply wrong with me, some sort of systemic flaw. Father wouldn't let me explain this, and I was frustrated at first that he seemed to take everything so lightly. So you yelled at your son, so you were bitter towards your parents. No, I wanted to insist. Can't you see, I yelled at my son because I'm a terrible mother, I was bitter towards my parents because I'm hateful and unforgiving. Can't you see, can't you see what an awful human being I am, I who claim to love God?
But Father refused to hear this. And then it occurred to me that if Father is as Christ to me in this sacrament, then maybe Christ too is telling me to take my sins one at a time, and to go easy on myself. It's okay, you're okay, you're here, and you're sorry, and that's all that matters.
While I don't believe in a loose sort of spirituality that proclaims it doesn't matter what you believe or how you pray, I do marvel at how Christ comforts each soul in the particular way that each soul needs. Perhaps a libertine would demand a stricter confession - Christ would need to point out the existence of those tenacious weeds. But I think Christ was being gentle with me today, knowing that I knew the weeds were there, that I'd tried to pull them out myself - and now He was telling me to relax.
"It is He who has rent, but He will heal us; He has struck us, but He will bind our wounds" (Hosea 6:2). At times we need to be rent by God's judging hand; at times we need to be healed by His merciful touch. I found mercy today - can I accept it?
There is a spring rain falling today. It has been warm and lovely and wonderful after a too-long winter. I can hear it tapping on my roof and windows, and it has been a blessing.
Saturday, March 29, 2014
Tuesday, March 25, 2014
Day 24: In the Sinkhole
Each time I fall to sin, I find it so hard to get back up. I pray and I feel no consolation, only my own unworthiness. I read Scripture and I feel no guidance, only the distance between myself and the saints about whom I'm reading. How can I hope to emulate Mary - that blessed Mother - on this the Feast of the Annunciation?
I must remember that this is how Satan wants me to feel. It's the devil that keeps us mired in our own guilt, squirming in our own filth.
Robert Morneau wrote:
Were others asked? A lassie from an isle in a distant sea?
A maiden in North Africa or a slave girl from the Congo?
How many times were angels sent and returned, unheard, unheeded?
Was Mary tenth on salvation's list, or the hundredth?
And you, my soul,
was "fiat" spoken
when the angel came?
How strange to think that perhaps it was Mary's act that made her people's history the history of God's people. How strange to think that it was Mary's choice that confirmed and ratified the choices of the men and women who came before her - Abraham and Sarah, Issac and Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Esther, David, Solomon. How strange to think that God was nurturing His people, the Jews, for millennia, so that they would produce one like Mary, who would say yes to Him.
How is our Church nurturing people who will know how to say yes to God?
Sometimes I feel as though there are parts of my own soul, my own history, that I want to ignore. I refuse to face up to certain parts of myself because there is too much pain. Or perhaps I don't want to face up to those parts because I'm afraid there are things I will have to apologize for. But as long as I keep averting my gaze from those difficult things, I will never be able to give my full fiat to God.
Denise Levertov, in "Zeroing In," writes:
"When I set forth
to walk in myself, as it might be
on a fine afternoon, forgetting,
sooner or later I come to where sedge
and clumps of white flowers, rue perhaps,
mark the bogland, and I know
there are quagmires there that can pull you
down, and sink you in bubbling mud."
"We had an old dog," he told her, "when I was a boy,
a good dog, friendly. But there was an injured spot
on his head, if you happened
just to touch it he'd jump up yelping
and bite you. He bit a young child,
they had to take him down to the vet's and destroy him."
"No one knows where it is," she said,
"and even by accident no one touches it.
It's inside my landscape, and only I, making my way
preoccupied through my life, crossing my hills,
sleeping on green moss of my own woods,
I myself without warning touch it,
and leap up at myself -"
"- or flinch back
just in time."
How aptly does that capture what I'm talking about. Wander a little bit in my thoughts, and I find myself wandering into dangerous territory, where some memory unbidden will suck me into a sinkhole. And I too am like that good and friendly dog, pleasant enough mostly, but if someone manages to touch that hidden spot - a spot that even I don't recognize, that even I can't locate - I flare into a rage, hurting the people I love.
I remember once my mother said something hurtful to me, criticizing some work I was doing for her. Afterwards I was trying to help my son with his math homework, and I said something hurtful to him, criticizing his work. I lashed out at him in my anger at my mother, and I didn't mean to do it.
I feel like I am in the tomb, pushing and shoving at the stone. But only Christ can move it away. Can I let Him?
Can I remember that, as in the story of Namaan the leper, salvation comes in unexpected ways? Usually small ways. Nothing extraordinary or grand is expected. The holding of my tongue in an argument. Saying something kind when I wish to say something cruel. No heroic acts of martyrdom necessary. But also no mere waving of a magic wand.
Let me try to remember that no one becomes a saint alone. Namaan couldn't simply pray and be cured; he had to go to Elisha, and he had to hear about Elisha through his servant. God works through the people around us. May I be attentive to those around me, what they are here to teach me or show me. Grant me the humility to learn from others, to take others' advice. Let me not be afraid to ask for help, forgiveness, prayers. Only in that way can I be pulled out of the sinkhole of my own sinfulness.
I must remember that this is how Satan wants me to feel. It's the devil that keeps us mired in our own guilt, squirming in our own filth.
Robert Morneau wrote:
Were others asked? A lassie from an isle in a distant sea?
A maiden in North Africa or a slave girl from the Congo?
How many times were angels sent and returned, unheard, unheeded?
Was Mary tenth on salvation's list, or the hundredth?
And you, my soul,
was "fiat" spoken
when the angel came?
How strange to think that perhaps it was Mary's act that made her people's history the history of God's people. How strange to think that it was Mary's choice that confirmed and ratified the choices of the men and women who came before her - Abraham and Sarah, Issac and Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Esther, David, Solomon. How strange to think that God was nurturing His people, the Jews, for millennia, so that they would produce one like Mary, who would say yes to Him.
How is our Church nurturing people who will know how to say yes to God?
Sometimes I feel as though there are parts of my own soul, my own history, that I want to ignore. I refuse to face up to certain parts of myself because there is too much pain. Or perhaps I don't want to face up to those parts because I'm afraid there are things I will have to apologize for. But as long as I keep averting my gaze from those difficult things, I will never be able to give my full fiat to God.
Denise Levertov, in "Zeroing In," writes:
"When I set forth
to walk in myself, as it might be
on a fine afternoon, forgetting,
sooner or later I come to where sedge
and clumps of white flowers, rue perhaps,
mark the bogland, and I know
there are quagmires there that can pull you
down, and sink you in bubbling mud."
"We had an old dog," he told her, "when I was a boy,
a good dog, friendly. But there was an injured spot
on his head, if you happened
just to touch it he'd jump up yelping
and bite you. He bit a young child,
they had to take him down to the vet's and destroy him."
"No one knows where it is," she said,
"and even by accident no one touches it.
It's inside my landscape, and only I, making my way
preoccupied through my life, crossing my hills,
sleeping on green moss of my own woods,
I myself without warning touch it,
and leap up at myself -"
"- or flinch back
just in time."
How aptly does that capture what I'm talking about. Wander a little bit in my thoughts, and I find myself wandering into dangerous territory, where some memory unbidden will suck me into a sinkhole. And I too am like that good and friendly dog, pleasant enough mostly, but if someone manages to touch that hidden spot - a spot that even I don't recognize, that even I can't locate - I flare into a rage, hurting the people I love.
I remember once my mother said something hurtful to me, criticizing some work I was doing for her. Afterwards I was trying to help my son with his math homework, and I said something hurtful to him, criticizing his work. I lashed out at him in my anger at my mother, and I didn't mean to do it.
I feel like I am in the tomb, pushing and shoving at the stone. But only Christ can move it away. Can I let Him?
Can I remember that, as in the story of Namaan the leper, salvation comes in unexpected ways? Usually small ways. Nothing extraordinary or grand is expected. The holding of my tongue in an argument. Saying something kind when I wish to say something cruel. No heroic acts of martyrdom necessary. But also no mere waving of a magic wand.
Let me try to remember that no one becomes a saint alone. Namaan couldn't simply pray and be cured; he had to go to Elisha, and he had to hear about Elisha through his servant. God works through the people around us. May I be attentive to those around me, what they are here to teach me or show me. Grant me the humility to learn from others, to take others' advice. Let me not be afraid to ask for help, forgiveness, prayers. Only in that way can I be pulled out of the sinkhole of my own sinfulness.
Friday, March 21, 2014
Day 20: Fear of the Lord
The Israelites wanted to hide behind Moses, because they were afraid of God: All the people shook with fear at the peals of thunder and the lightning flashes, the sound of the trumpet, and the smoking mountain; and they kept their distance. ‘Speak to us yourself’ they said to Moses ‘and we will listen; but do not let God speak to us, or we shall die.’ (Exodus 20)
Moses answers in a peculiar way: Do not be afraid, he tells the Israelites - but on the other hand, he tells them that God is using their fear of Him to keep them from sinning.
So we have: don't be afraid, but be afraid. How to resolve this?
Fear God and nothing else. When we fear God, we will fear nothing else. In this way our fear of God becomes our strength in all other things.
The Church Fathers taught that fear of God comes from love of God. We are afraid of displeasing Him because we love Him and do not want to be cut off from His love. When we act on the basis of this fear, we will show moral courage and spiritual strength in the midst of all other trials. We will sacrifice anything to maintain our closeness to God.
Moses was the link between the Israelites and God. He foreshadowed Christ - God Himself who became man and behind whom we can hide when we stand before God. Are you afraid of God because of your sins and unworthiness? Are you afraid that the purity of God will destroy you in your impurity? Then hide behind Christ, the lamb without blemish, who is God. God loves us so much that He gave Himself to stand between Himself and us. It is as though He saw Adam and Eve, cowering in their shame, and He came Himself to shield them from His own judgment.
We fear the Lord's judgment, and so we should. We must be judged before we can experience mercy. We must know how sinful we truly are, what punishment we truly deserve, before we can know the greatness of God's cleansing love. It's like going to the doctor: unless we are willing to face up to how deeply the tumor of sin has infiltrated our bodies, we will never be able to let the physician root it out.
It is frightening to face the judge - but know that you have Christ to hide behind. Christ stands with you during the trial, He stands with you during the judgment, He stands ready to be sentenced with you. He will not abandon you. He will plead on your behalf, and how could the Father refuse the plea of the Son with Whom He is well pleased?
The tenants in the vineyard did not fear the Lord. They selfishly insisted on using the vineyard as though it belonged to them and not to their Master. How often do we do that in our own lives, using the things of this world not as gifts over which we hold tenancy, but as possessions that we jealously guard even from God's just claims?
Yet the tenants were cowards. They did not go to the Master and confront Him face-to-face. They plotted slyly to kill His servants and His Son. It seems ridiculous: did they really think they could get away with it? The Apostles immediately can guess the fate of the tenants: they'll be cast out and condemned.
Yet how many of us live cowardly lives, like those tenants? The Psalms talk about people like this: who live day to day hiding their faces from God, refusing to acknowledge His existence. They are like ostriches with their heads stuck in the ground. It's cowardice and it's selfishness. One day their heads will be yanked out of the sand, and they will be forced to face up to judgment.
Live with your eyes open. Recognize that the things of this world come from God and are to be used in service of God. Live in fear of the Lord. Open your heart to face His judgment, but know who is standing before you, beside you, behind you when that judgment comes. Fear the Lord. Take courage in Christ. Then you will have nothing to fear.
--------------------------------------
Pray the Stations of the Cross. You get a beautiful chance to make up for the failures of the disciples! They could not walk the via dolorosa with Him. In the Stations of the Cross, you can.
Moses answers in a peculiar way: Do not be afraid, he tells the Israelites - but on the other hand, he tells them that God is using their fear of Him to keep them from sinning.
So we have: don't be afraid, but be afraid. How to resolve this?
Fear God and nothing else. When we fear God, we will fear nothing else. In this way our fear of God becomes our strength in all other things.
The Church Fathers taught that fear of God comes from love of God. We are afraid of displeasing Him because we love Him and do not want to be cut off from His love. When we act on the basis of this fear, we will show moral courage and spiritual strength in the midst of all other trials. We will sacrifice anything to maintain our closeness to God.
Moses was the link between the Israelites and God. He foreshadowed Christ - God Himself who became man and behind whom we can hide when we stand before God. Are you afraid of God because of your sins and unworthiness? Are you afraid that the purity of God will destroy you in your impurity? Then hide behind Christ, the lamb without blemish, who is God. God loves us so much that He gave Himself to stand between Himself and us. It is as though He saw Adam and Eve, cowering in their shame, and He came Himself to shield them from His own judgment.
We fear the Lord's judgment, and so we should. We must be judged before we can experience mercy. We must know how sinful we truly are, what punishment we truly deserve, before we can know the greatness of God's cleansing love. It's like going to the doctor: unless we are willing to face up to how deeply the tumor of sin has infiltrated our bodies, we will never be able to let the physician root it out.
It is frightening to face the judge - but know that you have Christ to hide behind. Christ stands with you during the trial, He stands with you during the judgment, He stands ready to be sentenced with you. He will not abandon you. He will plead on your behalf, and how could the Father refuse the plea of the Son with Whom He is well pleased?
The tenants in the vineyard did not fear the Lord. They selfishly insisted on using the vineyard as though it belonged to them and not to their Master. How often do we do that in our own lives, using the things of this world not as gifts over which we hold tenancy, but as possessions that we jealously guard even from God's just claims?
Yet the tenants were cowards. They did not go to the Master and confront Him face-to-face. They plotted slyly to kill His servants and His Son. It seems ridiculous: did they really think they could get away with it? The Apostles immediately can guess the fate of the tenants: they'll be cast out and condemned.
Yet how many of us live cowardly lives, like those tenants? The Psalms talk about people like this: who live day to day hiding their faces from God, refusing to acknowledge His existence. They are like ostriches with their heads stuck in the ground. It's cowardice and it's selfishness. One day their heads will be yanked out of the sand, and they will be forced to face up to judgment.
Live with your eyes open. Recognize that the things of this world come from God and are to be used in service of God. Live in fear of the Lord. Open your heart to face His judgment, but know who is standing before you, beside you, behind you when that judgment comes. Fear the Lord. Take courage in Christ. Then you will have nothing to fear.
--------------------------------------
Pray the Stations of the Cross. You get a beautiful chance to make up for the failures of the disciples! They could not walk the via dolorosa with Him. In the Stations of the Cross, you can.
Day 19: The Wideness of His Mercy
To torment constantly about your sins, your failings, and your weaknesses is a sign of a lack
of faith in God’s mercy. It comes from a lack
of faith in the power of the Cross. It
is akin to being like the ungrateful lepers in Luke, who did not come back to thank
Jesus for healing them. It is like
saying: Well, God, I know you’ve healed
me of this, but there’s still this,
and this, and this. . .
I do not mean that we should not be cognizant of our
sins. But our awareness of our sins
should not lead to a self-absorption that is the flipside of vanity. Awareness of our sins is beneficial only
insofar as it opens our eyes to God’s mercy, calls us to cast our sins on Christ. This, after all, is why He came. It's why He died.
Of course the more we know God's mercy the more we will know our sinfulness. But this should be a cause for joy, not despair. For the more our sins are revealed to us, the more we can offer them to God to be cleansed.
Mercy means undeserved forgiveness. If we wait until we are worthy of God’s
forgiveness we’ll never present ourselves to receive it. We must entrust ourselves to God’s
mercy.
To dwell too much on past sins is a distraction from the
future. Did St. Paul agonize over his
past persecution of Christians? Did St.
Peter dwell on his unworthiness after he denied Christ? The one who agonized over his past sins was Judas,
and this dwelling in the past led to his self-destruction. Paul and Peter trusted in God’s mercy – and
were able to look forward, not to the sins they committed in the past, but to
the good they were going to do in the future.
Thinking in this way leads to confidence. We know we are going to fail, we know we are
going to fall. But trusting in God’s
mercy means knowing that, even when we fail and fall, God knows the depths of
our will. He knows how much we long to
do good. Despite our failures and
fallings, we get up and try again, because we commit our thoughts, our actions,
our being to God’s mercy.
Don’t wait to repent and to act until you feel you know the
depth of your sin. You never will. Your mind and heart are torturous mazes. As Jeremiah says: “More tortuous than all
else is the human heart, beyond remedy: who can understand it?” (17) God does not expect you to understand
yourself fully. Only He can achieve this:
“I, the LORD, alone probe the mind and test the heart.” When you feel yourself overwhelmed by your
sinfulness, throw yourself on God’s mercy.
Allow Him to probe your mind
and test your heart. He will understand you far better than
you can understand yourself.
It’s God’s job to overturn the tables of idolatry in your
heart. Your job is simply to let Him
in. Let His word in. In John we learn that Jesus is with those who
have let His word into their hearts. His
word calls them out of the sinfulness of the world. Let His word enter you. Let His word engender in you a desire to do
good and a deep faith in His mercy. This
desire and this faith does not mean you will never sin again. God does not expect that of you. He only expects you to be confident that His
goodness is greater than your sin, and that, if you will it, His goodness will
move in you.Wednesday, March 19, 2014
Day 18: Nothing but Confidence
Do I allow God to test me?
No. I am afraid of failing.
But God does not want me to be afraid. Listen to the words of Moses as he begs the Israelites to endure the greatest test of their faith: The Lord will fight for you. You need only to be still. (Exodus 14:14)
I spend so much time hoping for a sign from God. If only I knew what God's will was, I tell myself, then I would do it. In the absence of a clear sign - a voice from the heavens, a miraculous occurrence - perhaps it's safe to assume that God is permitting us to choose. Perhaps there is no "one right answer" that reflects God's will. Perhaps, so long as we are not ostensibly sinning, God is willing to work with us and the choices we make. His power is more flexible and more creative than our weakness and limited judgment. So perhaps we oughtn't put so much pressure on ourselves to find the one right choice that will reflect the will of God. God is not a sadistic test-giver who offers us a billion choices and expects us to pick the exact right one. We pray, we ask for God to guide us, then we make our choice - and offer it to God.
But another question that is important to consider is whether we are acting out of fear, or confidence in God. Confidence not in ourselves: confidence in God. Do we trust that God will fight for us? If fear is motivating our decisions in life, then perhaps that is a sign that our choice is not God's will.
God wants us to trust Him and to love Him. Make the choices that will deepen that trust and love.
Where, then, does prudence enter? Certainly God gave us our brains; I don't think He wants us to be reckless and foolhardy. Having confidence in God does not mean jumping off a tall building and expecting Him to rescue you. When is prudence a tool that helps us discern God's will - and when it is a tool manipulated by the devil to keep us from doing what is right?
I am afraid of my weaknesses. My impatience, my lack of love. Can I nail these weaknesses onto the Cross of Christ? Can I let God set free the Christ in me?
Perhaps the only way to defeat our weaknesses is to make the choices that will best enable us to confront them. If you are impatient, seek out situations that test your patience. If you are lacking in love, seek out those who are difficult to love and try to love them.
Remember that God prunes the fruitful branches. Being pruned is painful. It means being pinched and cut, prodded and poked. Sometimes it means that the avenues in life that seem to us to be fruitful must be plucked out. But this is only so that more fruitful branches - ones that we could not anticipate - will grow in us and our lives.
Can we face the fingers that prune us - the situations that challenge our faith, test our weaknesses, move us to greater confidence in God?
Pray, pray, pray that He will fight for you.
No. I am afraid of failing.
But God does not want me to be afraid. Listen to the words of Moses as he begs the Israelites to endure the greatest test of their faith: The Lord will fight for you. You need only to be still. (Exodus 14:14)
I spend so much time hoping for a sign from God. If only I knew what God's will was, I tell myself, then I would do it. In the absence of a clear sign - a voice from the heavens, a miraculous occurrence - perhaps it's safe to assume that God is permitting us to choose. Perhaps there is no "one right answer" that reflects God's will. Perhaps, so long as we are not ostensibly sinning, God is willing to work with us and the choices we make. His power is more flexible and more creative than our weakness and limited judgment. So perhaps we oughtn't put so much pressure on ourselves to find the one right choice that will reflect the will of God. God is not a sadistic test-giver who offers us a billion choices and expects us to pick the exact right one. We pray, we ask for God to guide us, then we make our choice - and offer it to God.
But another question that is important to consider is whether we are acting out of fear, or confidence in God. Confidence not in ourselves: confidence in God. Do we trust that God will fight for us? If fear is motivating our decisions in life, then perhaps that is a sign that our choice is not God's will.
God wants us to trust Him and to love Him. Make the choices that will deepen that trust and love.
Where, then, does prudence enter? Certainly God gave us our brains; I don't think He wants us to be reckless and foolhardy. Having confidence in God does not mean jumping off a tall building and expecting Him to rescue you. When is prudence a tool that helps us discern God's will - and when it is a tool manipulated by the devil to keep us from doing what is right?
I am afraid of my weaknesses. My impatience, my lack of love. Can I nail these weaknesses onto the Cross of Christ? Can I let God set free the Christ in me?
Perhaps the only way to defeat our weaknesses is to make the choices that will best enable us to confront them. If you are impatient, seek out situations that test your patience. If you are lacking in love, seek out those who are difficult to love and try to love them.
Remember that God prunes the fruitful branches. Being pruned is painful. It means being pinched and cut, prodded and poked. Sometimes it means that the avenues in life that seem to us to be fruitful must be plucked out. But this is only so that more fruitful branches - ones that we could not anticipate - will grow in us and our lives.
Can we face the fingers that prune us - the situations that challenge our faith, test our weaknesses, move us to greater confidence in God?
Pray, pray, pray that He will fight for you.
Sunday, March 16, 2014
Day 14: Watching the Theodrama Unfold
Hans Urs Von Balthasar spoke our being in the midst of the "theodrama," the story of creation, redemption, and salvation that God has planned for the cosmos. In this dramatic tale we all have a role to play; the key is to find out what our role is - even if it's just a little one - and to play it well.
Sometimes we are called to be active in God's drama. But sometimes our role is simply to be spectators - God's audience, marveling at the wonder of the show. This is what St. Peter didn't understand on Mount Tabor at the Transfiguration. Peter was used to being an active player in God's drama. He wanted to do something - get a word in, build a tent. But at this particular moment, God just wanted Peter to be quiet and watch God's glory unfold. Peter's flurry of speech and activity is interrupted by God's thunderous: This is My Son: Listen to Him!
When I was first learning to play the piano, I was lazy about rests. My piano teacher constantly admonished me: Music is made up of notes and rests - of both sound and silence. This truth applies to so much of life. A drawing is made up of both lines and emptiness - "negative space." Communication consists of knowing when to speak and when to listen. And drama is about knowing when to step forward and steal a scene, and when to step back and not dominate the stage.
It's hard for us to sit still, to watch and not feel the impulse to intervene or to do something. But in moments of frustration, ambivalence, and uncertainty, it might be worthwhile to ask if God is not perhaps calling us to be still, silent, and simply to observe. Are we called to act and speak now, or to sit quietly, watch, and listen?
Is our impulse to act an attempt to steal the scene from God? In Scripture we see God almost forcefully try to get people to be still. Job is probably the most famous spectator of the theodrama in Scripture: in his moment of loss and grief, God uses Job's moment of impotence to reveal His glory, to give Job a sense that his suffering is part of a broader story that God is weaving for the universe. Can we learn from Job and use our own moments of futility as a call to silence before the greatness of God's plan?
Don't rush the stage when God is trying to speak. He will invite you to join Him when your lines are ready. In the meantime, allow yourself to get lost in the power of His mighty performance on your behalf. Let Him amaze you, fill your heart with wonder. He will tell you when it's your time to act.
Sometimes we are called to be active in God's drama. But sometimes our role is simply to be spectators - God's audience, marveling at the wonder of the show. This is what St. Peter didn't understand on Mount Tabor at the Transfiguration. Peter was used to being an active player in God's drama. He wanted to do something - get a word in, build a tent. But at this particular moment, God just wanted Peter to be quiet and watch God's glory unfold. Peter's flurry of speech and activity is interrupted by God's thunderous: This is My Son: Listen to Him!
When I was first learning to play the piano, I was lazy about rests. My piano teacher constantly admonished me: Music is made up of notes and rests - of both sound and silence. This truth applies to so much of life. A drawing is made up of both lines and emptiness - "negative space." Communication consists of knowing when to speak and when to listen. And drama is about knowing when to step forward and steal a scene, and when to step back and not dominate the stage.
It's hard for us to sit still, to watch and not feel the impulse to intervene or to do something. But in moments of frustration, ambivalence, and uncertainty, it might be worthwhile to ask if God is not perhaps calling us to be still, silent, and simply to observe. Are we called to act and speak now, or to sit quietly, watch, and listen?
Is our impulse to act an attempt to steal the scene from God? In Scripture we see God almost forcefully try to get people to be still. Job is probably the most famous spectator of the theodrama in Scripture: in his moment of loss and grief, God uses Job's moment of impotence to reveal His glory, to give Job a sense that his suffering is part of a broader story that God is weaving for the universe. Can we learn from Job and use our own moments of futility as a call to silence before the greatness of God's plan?
Don't rush the stage when God is trying to speak. He will invite you to join Him when your lines are ready. In the meantime, allow yourself to get lost in the power of His mighty performance on your behalf. Let Him amaze you, fill your heart with wonder. He will tell you when it's your time to act.
Friday, March 14, 2014
Day 13: The Secret of Eternity
We are so quick to judge, but you would have thought we would know better by now. History abounds with examples of how faulty human judgment is, even on humanity's own terms, let alone when compared to God's.
Take Vincent Van Gogh, for example. Today his paintings are among the most valuable in the world. Yet when he died, he had sold only one. John Keats, dying at 24, considered himself a failure. But if they had given into the demands of the world - if Van Gogh had painted what would have made him money, if Keats had written what would have been published and acclaimed - how impoverished the world would be.
How often we sell ourselves short by insisting on immediate results. How often we forget that, in the lived experience of our great artists and our great saints, they lived lives completely on hope: a blind faith that their endeavors would bear fruit.
How does one persevere? Why keep painting or writing - or praying or preaching? Our world teaches us to "believe in ourselves." But I don't think this is enough. There is more at work here than individual creativity versus collective taste. It's not enough to say to ourselves: The world simply doesn't "get" me; I'm ahead of my time; people just don't know a good idea when they see it. This is sheer narcissism. This is not the path of Christ.
It's not about believing in ourselves: it's about believing in God. It's about giving our lives and our work to God, and trusting in Him to elevate and redeem what we do. We must "commit our way to the Lord" - we must trust that even the things we do in secret, things that are never recognized or acclaimed by human beings, bear fruit in God. Only God is eternal, and so only through God can our endeavors find permanence.
We pray to God that He may bless our work. Then we do our work, and entrust the fruit of it to God.
This is the lesson of Jesus on the Cross. Mocked, derided: a complete failure in the eyes of man. Judging with the judgments of man, those around him saw nothing but a defeated lunatic. Yet His last words: Into your hands I commend my spirit. Jesus placed His failure into the hands of His Father, and His Father transformed them into the greatest act of salvation humankind ever knew.
The point is: in that moment, Jesus was truly, existentially, a failure. It was not that He had some secret power His foes did not know about. It is not as though He could say: All right, kill me now, but in a few days I'll just come back anyway. In the moment of His death Jesus embodied the failure of humankind. It was not simply fear of pain and suffering that kept Jesus in agony at Gethsemane. It was a real, existential fear of failure, of the futility of His life's work, of the fruitlessness of His attempts to do God's will.
This is why at the end He had to say: Into your hands I commend my spirit. This was Jesus' act of faith: entrusting this failure to God. Can we speak these words with Christ? Into your hands I commend my life today, my work today. We are rejected, rebuffed; our plans fail, our ideas fall flat. Place these failures in God's hands. Trust that God is using those failures for a reason. Ask God to bring some good out of those failures - not for your own sake, but for the sake of others. Perhaps you will never see the fruits of your labors. Perhaps no human being will ever see the fruits. But beg from God the faith that there will be fruits, because you love Him and want to serve Him.
We live in this existential fear, I think. This fear that our lives are worthless, that what we do makes no difference. And in human terms, it's true: most of us will live quiet lives, our works will be forgotten when we die, and we will leave no real trace on the world. But when we believe that our lives are redeemed by God, then we can begin to see the value of our existence. God sees, God knows, and in God our lives are eternal. What we do here lives on in God forever. And through God, our smallest acts of kindness and charity will bear everlasting fruit.
Let God use you as He will. Perhaps you are meant for greatness in this world, recognized and acclaimed by your fellow human beings, either while you are still alive or after your death. Or perhaps you are simply meant to live a quiet, simple life, and will be forgotten in a hundred years. Either way, in God's eyes, you are eternal, so long as your life is lived in Him, so long as you commend yourself to Him in all you do.
Take Vincent Van Gogh, for example. Today his paintings are among the most valuable in the world. Yet when he died, he had sold only one. John Keats, dying at 24, considered himself a failure. But if they had given into the demands of the world - if Van Gogh had painted what would have made him money, if Keats had written what would have been published and acclaimed - how impoverished the world would be.
How often we sell ourselves short by insisting on immediate results. How often we forget that, in the lived experience of our great artists and our great saints, they lived lives completely on hope: a blind faith that their endeavors would bear fruit.
How does one persevere? Why keep painting or writing - or praying or preaching? Our world teaches us to "believe in ourselves." But I don't think this is enough. There is more at work here than individual creativity versus collective taste. It's not enough to say to ourselves: The world simply doesn't "get" me; I'm ahead of my time; people just don't know a good idea when they see it. This is sheer narcissism. This is not the path of Christ.
It's not about believing in ourselves: it's about believing in God. It's about giving our lives and our work to God, and trusting in Him to elevate and redeem what we do. We must "commit our way to the Lord" - we must trust that even the things we do in secret, things that are never recognized or acclaimed by human beings, bear fruit in God. Only God is eternal, and so only through God can our endeavors find permanence.
We pray to God that He may bless our work. Then we do our work, and entrust the fruit of it to God.
This is the lesson of Jesus on the Cross. Mocked, derided: a complete failure in the eyes of man. Judging with the judgments of man, those around him saw nothing but a defeated lunatic. Yet His last words: Into your hands I commend my spirit. Jesus placed His failure into the hands of His Father, and His Father transformed them into the greatest act of salvation humankind ever knew.
The point is: in that moment, Jesus was truly, existentially, a failure. It was not that He had some secret power His foes did not know about. It is not as though He could say: All right, kill me now, but in a few days I'll just come back anyway. In the moment of His death Jesus embodied the failure of humankind. It was not simply fear of pain and suffering that kept Jesus in agony at Gethsemane. It was a real, existential fear of failure, of the futility of His life's work, of the fruitlessness of His attempts to do God's will.
This is why at the end He had to say: Into your hands I commend my spirit. This was Jesus' act of faith: entrusting this failure to God. Can we speak these words with Christ? Into your hands I commend my life today, my work today. We are rejected, rebuffed; our plans fail, our ideas fall flat. Place these failures in God's hands. Trust that God is using those failures for a reason. Ask God to bring some good out of those failures - not for your own sake, but for the sake of others. Perhaps you will never see the fruits of your labors. Perhaps no human being will ever see the fruits. But beg from God the faith that there will be fruits, because you love Him and want to serve Him.
We live in this existential fear, I think. This fear that our lives are worthless, that what we do makes no difference. And in human terms, it's true: most of us will live quiet lives, our works will be forgotten when we die, and we will leave no real trace on the world. But when we believe that our lives are redeemed by God, then we can begin to see the value of our existence. God sees, God knows, and in God our lives are eternal. What we do here lives on in God forever. And through God, our smallest acts of kindness and charity will bear everlasting fruit.
Let God use you as He will. Perhaps you are meant for greatness in this world, recognized and acclaimed by your fellow human beings, either while you are still alive or after your death. Or perhaps you are simply meant to live a quiet, simple life, and will be forgotten in a hundred years. Either way, in God's eyes, you are eternal, so long as your life is lived in Him, so long as you commend yourself to Him in all you do.
Thursday, March 13, 2014
Day 12: The Mind Beyond
The word conversion, in Greek, is metanoia - beyond the mind. When Christ calls for our conversion, He is calling for us to go beyond our own minds.
There are many, many ways of achieving this. Poetry is one. Emily Dickinson once wrote: "If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that it is poetry." Poetry teaches us to see the world in a new way. Consider the simple poem Joseph Hutchinson wrote about artichokes: O heart weighed down by so many wings! Ted Kooser, in the Poetry Repair Manual, asks us if, after reading this, we could ever think of an artichoke the same way.
Art is another way. I recently took a drawing class and, while I was never very good, I had a moment where it occurred to me that to see artistically is different than normal "seeing." It's about transcending what your mind tells you - this is an apple, this is a chair, this is a face - and instead to see line and shadow, shape and color. My teacher was fond of reminding us not to think of it as drawing an apple, because then we will draw simply what our minds imagine that an apple should look like. The trick was to look at the apple anew - to have no expectations of it, as though we did not have any conception of how an apple ought to appear. Only with those renewed eyes could we see the apple for what it really was, and draw it as such.
Reading is another way. In Shadowlands C.S. Lewis says: We read to know we are not alone. Reading stretches our mind, allows us to grow in empathy, to go beyond ourselves and consider the world from another's point of view. Even drama and film can achieve this.
I think that the measure of great art - whether that art be poetry or painting or fiction or drama - is its ability to stretch our minds, to achieve a metanoia in us - a conversion that leaves us seeing the world in a new way.
Think of your encounter with God as an encounter with a great work of art. We do, after all, call it the "drama of salvation," and most of Scripture comes to us in literary, narrative form. Often we read a poem or see a piece of art and we don't "get it." There are layers and layers of meaning that can't be grasped on the first try. Yet the images in the art, the story it tells, haunts us. We come back to it again and again, and we find more and more to learn.
I've been meditating lately on T.S. Eliot's Ash Wednesday, written after his conversion to Anglicanism. It's a beautiful poem, full of ambivalence and longing for the things he's sacrificed for the sake of his conversion. I don't "understand" the poem fully and I don't think I'm meant to; but what sticks with me are the images: the lady in the white gown, the white leopards, the white bones, the demon on the stairs, the veiled sister between the yews. And then there are the feelings these images evoke: a desperate longing amid a quiet death, a feeling of the soul being torn in two, beyond hope and despair.
The experience of trying to interpret poetry, art, music, literature and so on is the same experience of theologians trying to interpret God: our words can explain, can elucidate and clarify and analyze - yet something will always be missing, that intimate and personal experience of encountering beauty and standing in awe of it. Yet we keep returning and returning to it, haunted by the beauty of it, unable to escape its pull.
Art moves us beyond ourselves - and that is why it is a work of empathy, and of love. The reason love is the fruit of conversion is precisely because conversion means to go beyond your own mind - to enter the mind of another - and this act of uniting your mind and heart and will with someone else's is precisely what love is.
In a manner of speaking we can say that God Himself experienced such a conversion, when He became man and, willingly divesting Himself of divinity, took on the mind of humankind. God did this not because He had any need to - naturally our minds always existed in Him to begin with - but to show us what conversion meant, what love means. It means the willingness to stretch our minds and hearts towards another.
Practice the art of conversion. Look at a piece of art, read a poem, watch a film. Take a walk in nature and try to see things with a poet's eyes, an artist's eyes - ever new, as though you had never seen it before. Convert the way you see the world around you.
Then: meet up with a friend, or strike up a conversation with a stranger. Listen to what they have to say. Enter into their subjectivity, ask yourself what you would do or how you would feel if you walked around in their shoes, as Atticus Finch would say. When someone is happy, share their joy as if it is your joy. When someone is annoying you or making you angry, stop and think about the world from their point of view: ask yourself if they are tired, or hungry, or perhaps they're just having a bad day. Convert the way you see others.
Then: pray. Read the Scriptures with fresh eyes - not as stale stories you learned as a child that no longer have relevance, but as though you had never heard them before. Convert the way you see God: consider the story of Scripture from His perspective. What is He trying to teach, how is He trying to show His love for His people? Listen to what Scripture has to say, not what you think you remember it says. Convert your heart to God.
Wednesday, March 12, 2014
Days 10 & 11: Nature's Patience
How adept human beings are at using their creativity – a
sign that they are made in the image of God – to distance themselves from God.
How closely virtue and vice are related.
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In late winter, the world is waiting.
Amid the rush of cars that hurtle down the street, the trees stand
silent, their branches bare, empty as a mother’s arms without her child. Waiting for the leaves to return.
Nature teaches me to wait.
Wait for snow to melt, wait for leaves to bud, wait for flowers to
grow. I do not like to wait.
Every now and then, when the road for a moment is silent, I
can hear the birds. Prophets of the
spring. I cannot see them except for the
occasional rattle of a branch. They make
the bushes tremble. Their chatter is a
harbinger of hope.
Teach me how to prophesy.
The prophets knew how to wait. We
don’t like to wait. But the whole point
of the prophets was to remind us that we are never settled. We are always waiting. We must remember that we are waiting. We are a people of anticipation.
How to combine: Prepare
the way of the Lord! with: Do not be
anxious; God will provide. What can
we learn from the trees and the birds?
Take what God has provided today and use it to prepare for tomorrow. If you do not have today what you need
for tomorrow, trust that it will come tomorrow.
But do not neglect to use what you have today.
One thing God provides: signs. The birds know how to read the signs. Do not be blind to the signs that God has
provided to prepare you for what is to come.
Know when to prepare for winter; know when to celebrate the arrival of
spring.
Perhaps this is why the prophets so often went out into the
wilderness: to learn from the patience of nature.
If we believe Jesus’ words – that God knows what we need
before we ask – then let us trust that God is
right now giving us what we need. Not
that He will give us what we need,
but that He is actively and always giving. Then the prayer becomes not one of petition: Please God, give me what I need, but a
prayer for grace: Please God, show me how
you are giving me what I need now.
The beggar on the sidewalk: He is God giving you what you
need. Perhaps he is God’s way of telling
you that you need to practice generosity.
The lost wallet lying on the ground: God is telling you that you need to
practice charity. A traffic jam: God is
telling you that you need to practice patience.
A missed opportunity: God is telling you that you need to treat all
things as a gift, not as something to which you are entitled. The gift of a few moments to spare between
meetings: God is telling you that you need to practice some act of faith, hope,
or love. Perhaps you are being asked to
pray, or to call your spouse, or to buy a cup of coffee for a colleague.
Pay attention to the signs.
Every moment of every day God is giving you what you need. The birds know this, as they prepare for
winter during the fall. They know that
God is giving them what they will need in the winter during the fall. Can we see that God is teaching us now,
through the little trials of daily life, what we will need to know if we ever face
a true winter of desolation?
-------------------------------------------------------
Thank God for the goodness He has allowed you to bring into the world today. To be humble, it's not enough to repent of your sins and lament your distance from God. To be humble you must also recognize the goodness in you as a gift of God's grace.
Monday, March 10, 2014
Day 9: Justice in Abundance
Nature reflects the nondiscriminatory nature of God. Scripture speaks of this, as when Christ reminds us: "He causes the sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous" (Mt 5:45). Gregory Nazienzen places this observation in a positive light, as evidence of "the abundance of God's generosity" and His care for all creatures. Certainly this is true: nature reflects God's goodness and His concern for creation.
But the natural world that gives us life also brings us death. See New Orleans after Katrina, or the Philippines after Haiyan. In our twenty-first century world we've countered nature's lack of discrimination with the discrimination of man: the wealthy, who can build stronger houses or even have the resources to flee from nature's fury, do not suffer as much from the destructiveness of nature as the poor.
In wealthy countries we are also increasingly distanced from nature as God created it. We live in temperature-controlled environments. We buy our food at grocery stores and expect that grapes should be available year-round. Only occasionally do the whims of nature affect us, as perhaps a moderate increase in the price of milk, or as a water-use restriction due to drought.
What have we lost in the process? Certainly a sense of nature as gift. Certainly a sense of nature as full of surprises. But we have also lost a sense of nature as a sign of God's justice, given abundantly to all regardless of rank or wealth or even moral worth. Sheltering ourselves from the vicissitudes of the natural world also shelters us from the injustice in our human world, because we can no longer empathize with those who still must struggle and strive and contend with nature simply to survive.
Christ, Gregory of Nazienzen, and the prophet Isaiah all remind us to reflect on God's justice as evidenced in nature, and to imitate it. When we have been given good things by nature - sunshine, bountiful harvests, beauty - we are asked to share them, because they are "common to all" as Gregory says. When we have been dealt a blow by nature, we are asked to share in the sorrows of those who suffer, as Christ did - the Savior who descended and "made his grave with the wicked."
Nature reminds us that there is no such thing as the "undeserving poor" - or rather, that all of us are "undeserving poor." God's justice gives to good and evil, rich and poor alike - who are we to second-guess the judgment of God? Especially a God whose justice included giving His own Son to be numbered among the transgressors and killed with the wicked! Nature teaches us that it is not up to us to discriminate based on the moral worth of the recipient of our generosity. It was precisely such attempts at discrimination that led to Christ's own condemnation according to the flawed logic of human judgment.
Nature does not make such discriminations. Many evil people benefit from the bounty of nature; many good people suffer from nature's destructiveness. In a certain way, nature reminds us of the truth that, no matter how good we are on a human scale, compared to God we are still forever unworthy until He makes us so. If God followed the laws of human justice, we would all already have been destroyed several times over for our greed, our pride, our selfishness. If nature wounds us to remind us of this, who are we to complain?
Nature reflects God's desire that we share together our blessings and our sorrows. We are not to withhold our blessings because we deem someone morally unworthy, nor are we to refuse to share another's sorrow because we think he is too sinful to deserve our sympathy. Christ came and showered blessings on us precisely because we were not worthy. He gave us these blessings even though our unworthiness prevented us from recognizing them as blessings!
Nature, like Christ, asks us to take on each other's sorrows and joys. Nature forces us to recognize our interconnectedness with each other and with creation. Nature challenges us to a new understanding of justice: one that recognizes all of humanity's dependence on God, because we are all equal as unworthy recipients of God's grace.
But the natural world that gives us life also brings us death. See New Orleans after Katrina, or the Philippines after Haiyan. In our twenty-first century world we've countered nature's lack of discrimination with the discrimination of man: the wealthy, who can build stronger houses or even have the resources to flee from nature's fury, do not suffer as much from the destructiveness of nature as the poor.
In wealthy countries we are also increasingly distanced from nature as God created it. We live in temperature-controlled environments. We buy our food at grocery stores and expect that grapes should be available year-round. Only occasionally do the whims of nature affect us, as perhaps a moderate increase in the price of milk, or as a water-use restriction due to drought.
What have we lost in the process? Certainly a sense of nature as gift. Certainly a sense of nature as full of surprises. But we have also lost a sense of nature as a sign of God's justice, given abundantly to all regardless of rank or wealth or even moral worth. Sheltering ourselves from the vicissitudes of the natural world also shelters us from the injustice in our human world, because we can no longer empathize with those who still must struggle and strive and contend with nature simply to survive.
Christ, Gregory of Nazienzen, and the prophet Isaiah all remind us to reflect on God's justice as evidenced in nature, and to imitate it. When we have been given good things by nature - sunshine, bountiful harvests, beauty - we are asked to share them, because they are "common to all" as Gregory says. When we have been dealt a blow by nature, we are asked to share in the sorrows of those who suffer, as Christ did - the Savior who descended and "made his grave with the wicked."
Nature reminds us that there is no such thing as the "undeserving poor" - or rather, that all of us are "undeserving poor." God's justice gives to good and evil, rich and poor alike - who are we to second-guess the judgment of God? Especially a God whose justice included giving His own Son to be numbered among the transgressors and killed with the wicked! Nature teaches us that it is not up to us to discriminate based on the moral worth of the recipient of our generosity. It was precisely such attempts at discrimination that led to Christ's own condemnation according to the flawed logic of human judgment.
Nature does not make such discriminations. Many evil people benefit from the bounty of nature; many good people suffer from nature's destructiveness. In a certain way, nature reminds us of the truth that, no matter how good we are on a human scale, compared to God we are still forever unworthy until He makes us so. If God followed the laws of human justice, we would all already have been destroyed several times over for our greed, our pride, our selfishness. If nature wounds us to remind us of this, who are we to complain?
Nature reflects God's desire that we share together our blessings and our sorrows. We are not to withhold our blessings because we deem someone morally unworthy, nor are we to refuse to share another's sorrow because we think he is too sinful to deserve our sympathy. Christ came and showered blessings on us precisely because we were not worthy. He gave us these blessings even though our unworthiness prevented us from recognizing them as blessings!
Nature, like Christ, asks us to take on each other's sorrows and joys. Nature forces us to recognize our interconnectedness with each other and with creation. Nature challenges us to a new understanding of justice: one that recognizes all of humanity's dependence on God, because we are all equal as unworthy recipients of God's grace.
Sunday, March 9, 2014
Day 8: The Great Divorce
Genesis presents us with two stories of creation. The first begins in chaos, out of which God creates light, then the heavens and the earth, then the seas and dry land, then animals - then man. The second story begins with man, for whom God creates the garden.
There are two complementary truths that shine through these stories. The first truth is that man is created for the world. In the first story God creates man to "rule" over the earth - which has been interpreted as meaning that man should dominate creation, but really seems to mean more that man should cultivate and care for the creation that pre-dates him and that has goodness and worth apart from him.
But the second truth of Genesis is that the world is created for man. Just as the garden was created for Adam and Eve, so too is nature given to us to provide us with life and beauty and joy. It is ours to use - it is a gift given to us from God. So it is also ours to take care of, to wonder at, to marvel in.
There is a mutuality of gift at work in creation. We are God's gift to creation; creation is God's gift to us. In a certain sense, Adam and Eve's crime can be seen as one of ecological greed: they see that the tree of knowledge is good and pleasing, they think it will bring them wisdom and understanding, so they refuse to respect it for its own sake. They ignore the rules God has given them for creation's proper use. In other words, they exploit the tree for their own gain.
Adam and Eve's act of disobedience - their exploitation of nature for their own selfish purposes - is what makes fasting for the rest of us necessary. Their act is the opposite of fasting: God asked them to abstain from eating from the tree - to sacrifice their right and power to eat that fruit - and they did not obey. God asked them to hold that tree sacred, as a symbol of the intrinsic goodness and worth of creation in and of itself, apart from man's use of it. Adam and Eve were called to a recognition that creation was made to serve them only insofar as they used it to serve creation in return.
But they could not hold onto this awareness. Their eating of the tree was not simply an act that impacted their relationship with God; it also impacted their relationship with all of creation, for now we, their heirs, must struggle with a creation that we see as hostile because it refuses to give us what we want when we want it.
The goal of fasting is to re-instill a reverence for creation in us. It is to teach us how to refrain from exploiting creation and its gifts - to see it as sacred on its own terms, and to use it only insofar as the using of it empowers us to give back to it. Thus Jesus' atonement for Adam and Eve's act of lustful greed takes the form of a fast: a refusal to exploit His divine power to give Himself bread for His own gain. Adam and Eve refused to sacrifice their right to eat the fruit of the tree; Jesus, to atone for their sin, sacrifices his right and power to turn stone into bread, to manipulate creation for His own gain.
Fasting as Christ did leads us to an awareness that the world is not given to us solely for our exploitation. Setting aside a time when we abstain from using the gifts of creation is not a rejection of those gifts; it is, rather, a period during which we reflect on the sanctity of those gifts, the goodness of the Giver, and ask ourselves how to use those gifts wisely, with prudence and moderation and, above all, love.
If we fast well, and combine our fasting with prayerful reflection, we will, as Gerald Fagin, S.J., put it, "grow in a sense of reverence. We will have a deepened sense of the sacredness of all things. . . Reverence is a disposition of heart that allows us to live before the beauty and goodness of every creature and the God who made them. . . [R]everence will enable us to find God in all things." Adam and Eve's lack of reverence for the tree and for the God who made it led to our downfall. Let us during this season of fasting recreate in our hearts a reverence for the gifts of the world and the God who gives them to us.
But they could not hold onto this awareness. Their eating of the tree was not simply an act that impacted their relationship with God; it also impacted their relationship with all of creation, for now we, their heirs, must struggle with a creation that we see as hostile because it refuses to give us what we want when we want it.
The goal of fasting is to re-instill a reverence for creation in us. It is to teach us how to refrain from exploiting creation and its gifts - to see it as sacred on its own terms, and to use it only insofar as the using of it empowers us to give back to it. Thus Jesus' atonement for Adam and Eve's act of lustful greed takes the form of a fast: a refusal to exploit His divine power to give Himself bread for His own gain. Adam and Eve refused to sacrifice their right to eat the fruit of the tree; Jesus, to atone for their sin, sacrifices his right and power to turn stone into bread, to manipulate creation for His own gain.
Fasting as Christ did leads us to an awareness that the world is not given to us solely for our exploitation. Setting aside a time when we abstain from using the gifts of creation is not a rejection of those gifts; it is, rather, a period during which we reflect on the sanctity of those gifts, the goodness of the Giver, and ask ourselves how to use those gifts wisely, with prudence and moderation and, above all, love.
If we fast well, and combine our fasting with prayerful reflection, we will, as Gerald Fagin, S.J., put it, "grow in a sense of reverence. We will have a deepened sense of the sacredness of all things. . . Reverence is a disposition of heart that allows us to live before the beauty and goodness of every creature and the God who made them. . . [R]everence will enable us to find God in all things." Adam and Eve's lack of reverence for the tree and for the God who made it led to our downfall. Let us during this season of fasting recreate in our hearts a reverence for the gifts of the world and the God who gives them to us.
Saturday, March 8, 2014
Day 7: Plenty on the Parched Land
Happiness is about learning to be grateful for the good things in your life. Joy is about learning to be grateful even for the bad. It's about finding "plenty on the parched land," as Isaiah says - or rather, about seeing the parched land as a plenty.
The only way to reach such gratitude is through love. A person in love is grateful to go through the parched land, the barren desert, the wilderness, if it gives him an opportunity to express his love for the beloved. Jesus' temptation in the desert in Matthew 4 only makes sense in this way: the devil, as tempter, is not simply trying to get Jesus to disobey God's Law, he is trying to woo Jesus away from the Father He loves. The devil employs all the tricks of lust, because that's all the devil understands.
But Jesus would rather stay in the desert, in the parched land, than go to the land of plenty the devil offers. I feel that too often in our world where the "gospel of prosperity" reigns, so many people do follow the devil into that land of plenty - into a land admittedly full of good things - and think that God has led them there. They give thanks to God for that plenty, but meanwhile God is still calling to them from the desert.
Our deserts are manifold. They can come in the form of depression or mental illness. They can come as physical disease. They can come as the loss of the things or people we love. They can come as demons from our past: childhood trauma, bad romantic relationships, broken friendships. They can come simply in the form of the difficulties of everyday life: the people who annoy us, the coworker we are butting heads with, the mother who nags us, the children who make demands on our time.
When we are in those deserts, how do we behave? It's only human to long for the land of plenty. But we must always be vigilant that it is God, not the devil, whom we are following in our quest to get out of the desert. Sometimes the path the devil offers seems easier. Sometimes the path God offers only seems to lead more deeply into the desert. In fact this is often the case. But we must trust, as Jesus did, that if we follow God's path He will send angels to comfort us on the way. And it is only by following God's path that we can find true joy and true love.
The question must always be: if I truly loved God, what would I do? I think the path of love is always the path of gratitude. If we take for granted the fact that God loves us, then we must ask ourselves how He might be trying to speak His words of love to us in the deserts in which we ourselves find ourselves. How is He asking you to grow, to learn, to love? Perhaps He is teaching you patience, empathy, forgiveness. Or perhaps He is simply sitting beside you in the desert, staying awake for you as you endure your trials even though His own disciples fell asleep when they waited for Him. Perhaps He is waiting for you to turn to Him, to turn your sorrows over to Him, to weep in His arms.
I must be clear, though, that learning to be grateful for the desert does not mean we are not also called to a land of plenty. Traveling through the desert must always lead back to the re-creation of the garden. Embracing the cross does not mean embracing its injustice. We can be grateful that Christ was crucified for our sake while lamenting the injustice of a world that allowed Him to be crucified. The desert of suffering is not an end in itself. Rather, embracing the cross and the desert means embracing the truth that God can transform even a situation of pain and suffering into a circumstance of love.
This is how God is greater than injustice and suffering: not because He enables us to avoid them, but because He empowers us to confront them and transform them through love. During Lent we follow Christ into the desert because He followed us there first. He follow Him because we love Him and we cannot bear to be separated from Him. And we love Him because He loved us first. Peter told Christ in His moment of transfigured glory: "Lord, it is good for us to be here." Let us say that to Him also in the middle of the desert that we walk through with Him and He walks through with us: Lord, it is good for us to be here. Help us to see the plenty in the parched land.
The only way to reach such gratitude is through love. A person in love is grateful to go through the parched land, the barren desert, the wilderness, if it gives him an opportunity to express his love for the beloved. Jesus' temptation in the desert in Matthew 4 only makes sense in this way: the devil, as tempter, is not simply trying to get Jesus to disobey God's Law, he is trying to woo Jesus away from the Father He loves. The devil employs all the tricks of lust, because that's all the devil understands.
But Jesus would rather stay in the desert, in the parched land, than go to the land of plenty the devil offers. I feel that too often in our world where the "gospel of prosperity" reigns, so many people do follow the devil into that land of plenty - into a land admittedly full of good things - and think that God has led them there. They give thanks to God for that plenty, but meanwhile God is still calling to them from the desert.
Our deserts are manifold. They can come in the form of depression or mental illness. They can come as physical disease. They can come as the loss of the things or people we love. They can come as demons from our past: childhood trauma, bad romantic relationships, broken friendships. They can come simply in the form of the difficulties of everyday life: the people who annoy us, the coworker we are butting heads with, the mother who nags us, the children who make demands on our time.
When we are in those deserts, how do we behave? It's only human to long for the land of plenty. But we must always be vigilant that it is God, not the devil, whom we are following in our quest to get out of the desert. Sometimes the path the devil offers seems easier. Sometimes the path God offers only seems to lead more deeply into the desert. In fact this is often the case. But we must trust, as Jesus did, that if we follow God's path He will send angels to comfort us on the way. And it is only by following God's path that we can find true joy and true love.
The question must always be: if I truly loved God, what would I do? I think the path of love is always the path of gratitude. If we take for granted the fact that God loves us, then we must ask ourselves how He might be trying to speak His words of love to us in the deserts in which we ourselves find ourselves. How is He asking you to grow, to learn, to love? Perhaps He is teaching you patience, empathy, forgiveness. Or perhaps He is simply sitting beside you in the desert, staying awake for you as you endure your trials even though His own disciples fell asleep when they waited for Him. Perhaps He is waiting for you to turn to Him, to turn your sorrows over to Him, to weep in His arms.
I must be clear, though, that learning to be grateful for the desert does not mean we are not also called to a land of plenty. Traveling through the desert must always lead back to the re-creation of the garden. Embracing the cross does not mean embracing its injustice. We can be grateful that Christ was crucified for our sake while lamenting the injustice of a world that allowed Him to be crucified. The desert of suffering is not an end in itself. Rather, embracing the cross and the desert means embracing the truth that God can transform even a situation of pain and suffering into a circumstance of love.
This is how God is greater than injustice and suffering: not because He enables us to avoid them, but because He empowers us to confront them and transform them through love. During Lent we follow Christ into the desert because He followed us there first. He follow Him because we love Him and we cannot bear to be separated from Him. And we love Him because He loved us first. Peter told Christ in His moment of transfigured glory: "Lord, it is good for us to be here." Let us say that to Him also in the middle of the desert that we walk through with Him and He walks through with us: Lord, it is good for us to be here. Help us to see the plenty in the parched land.
Friday, March 7, 2014
Day 6: A Question of Love
Scripture is a love story that ends with a question. God has shown His abiding love for us: will we respond in kind?
The Gospel only makes sense in the context of love. Who else but a lover would throw off power, glory, to come in the form of a slave - to take on suffering and indignity, rejection and scorn? Hear how He calls to us and woos us: Come to me, all you who labor and are weary, for I will give you rest. My yoke is easy and my burden light. There is no greater romance than this, the lover who pursues His beloved from heaven to the ends of the earth.
We cannot read the Gospel apart from this context. It does not make sense as a collection of sayings or teachings, or as a record of Jesus' comings and goings. There is a reason the Evangelists used a narrative structure in their writings: because only as a love story does the Incarnation make sense.
Stories provide concreteness, tangibility, and the story of the Gospels reminds us that God's love is real and concrete: a real love among real people, Jesus and His disciples. It is not an abstract idea of good-will for all. Even though God does love all, He loves us all concretely, personally, not in some remote philosophical way.
Christian evangelism should always be about drawing people into this love. It's not first about telling them all the rules to follow or detailed doctrine to believe. These things are important, but they come later, for they flow from the original spark of love that must be struck first in the human heart.
To evangelize effectively, we must live the story of this love. We must demonstrate the joy (not mere happiness) that comes from feeling the love of God and from sacrificing for the God we love. We must sacrifice ourselves for others to manifest the love God has for them in concrete ways.
This happens not through political action or philosophical debate. This happens in the interactions of our daily lives. We cannot force love to happen, but we can create the conditions that permit love to blossom. Our Catholic institutions must be structured in a way that encourages meaningful personal contact and that empowers loving self-gift. Parish communities must be open and inclusive. Opportunities to serve and to be served must be made available. Social events that root everyday life in a Christian cultural framework must be developed. People must be able to look inside a Catholic parish and see a community that is on fire with God's love.
Christians must be ambassadors for Christ, authentically bearing witness to God's great question for humanity. God has loved us; how will we respond? We must carry this question into the world. When others encounter us, they must feel this question come alive in their hearts. They should walk away from us wondering where we've gotten the love that we have, and they should want to experience that love for themselves. We, by the way we live our lives, must be the open-ended question of love God poses to the world.
The Gospel only makes sense in the context of love. Who else but a lover would throw off power, glory, to come in the form of a slave - to take on suffering and indignity, rejection and scorn? Hear how He calls to us and woos us: Come to me, all you who labor and are weary, for I will give you rest. My yoke is easy and my burden light. There is no greater romance than this, the lover who pursues His beloved from heaven to the ends of the earth.
We cannot read the Gospel apart from this context. It does not make sense as a collection of sayings or teachings, or as a record of Jesus' comings and goings. There is a reason the Evangelists used a narrative structure in their writings: because only as a love story does the Incarnation make sense.
Stories provide concreteness, tangibility, and the story of the Gospels reminds us that God's love is real and concrete: a real love among real people, Jesus and His disciples. It is not an abstract idea of good-will for all. Even though God does love all, He loves us all concretely, personally, not in some remote philosophical way.
Christian evangelism should always be about drawing people into this love. It's not first about telling them all the rules to follow or detailed doctrine to believe. These things are important, but they come later, for they flow from the original spark of love that must be struck first in the human heart.
To evangelize effectively, we must live the story of this love. We must demonstrate the joy (not mere happiness) that comes from feeling the love of God and from sacrificing for the God we love. We must sacrifice ourselves for others to manifest the love God has for them in concrete ways.
This happens not through political action or philosophical debate. This happens in the interactions of our daily lives. We cannot force love to happen, but we can create the conditions that permit love to blossom. Our Catholic institutions must be structured in a way that encourages meaningful personal contact and that empowers loving self-gift. Parish communities must be open and inclusive. Opportunities to serve and to be served must be made available. Social events that root everyday life in a Christian cultural framework must be developed. People must be able to look inside a Catholic parish and see a community that is on fire with God's love.
Christians must be ambassadors for Christ, authentically bearing witness to God's great question for humanity. God has loved us; how will we respond? We must carry this question into the world. When others encounter us, they must feel this question come alive in their hearts. They should walk away from us wondering where we've gotten the love that we have, and they should want to experience that love for themselves. We, by the way we live our lives, must be the open-ended question of love God poses to the world.
Thursday, March 6, 2014
Day 5: Choosing Life
St. Ignatius says that everything has the potential of calling us forth to a deeper life in God, even the evils and difficulties we encounter in daily life: sickness, failure, poverty, shame. To "choose life" means, for me, to choose to use even my failures and my weakness as a path to deeper life in God. So I am weak? Let my weakness make me humble and so draw me closer to God. So I am sick and suffering? Let my suffering increase charity and empathy in my heart and actions. So I am ashamed? Let my shame teach me selflessness, and let me learn how not to let what others might think keep me from doing what is right.
The idea of being "pro-life" has been far too rigidly applied to the idea of being anti-abortion that we fail to see its broader implications. Being "pro-life" is more than being anti-abortion; it's also even more than being in favor of social justice for poor women and children, although I believe it must incorporate both. Being pro-life means letting go of our conceptions of what our lives should be like and embracing the abundant life God offers to us.
The deep social crime of abortion is that it incubates a culture of shame: of fear, of anxiety, of closing in around ourselves, of seeking to control and predict and determine what the future will be. This is the sin of Adam and Eve, who out of fear disobeyed God, seeking a life that they could control, not recognizing that the small span of things that are within our control are nothing compared to the abundant and eternal life God offers us - a life full of surprises that can only be encountered when we let go of our desire for control. Being pro-life, when applied to a circumstance of pregnancy, means being willing to be surprised by another person that God has allowed to enter into our lives. It means letting go of control, because only when we let go of what we think life should be like can we free our arms to embrace the fullness of life God wants to offer.
This kind of being pro-life is not about a rigid attachment to mortal life on earth. Indeed, being pro-life in this sense
demands the recognition that life on this earth is not an ultimate end in itself. Sometimes the political pro-life movement gets too tied up in the idea that mortal life on earth should be protected at all costs. And this logic leads to absurd attempts to keep brain-dead people on life support no matter what the cost to their dignity. But this is not really pro-life: it is a decision made out of fear, not out of loving trust in God. And anyway, this tenacious clinging to mortal life is not really a Christian value. Christians have always known that life on earth must sometimes be sacrificed for the sake of God's life in us and in others. This is the point of martyrdom, of self-sacrifice. Being truly pro-life means being willing to sacrifice oneself, one's own desires, for the sake of bringing more abundant life into the world.
demands the recognition that life on this earth is not an ultimate end in itself. Sometimes the political pro-life movement gets too tied up in the idea that mortal life on earth should be protected at all costs. And this logic leads to absurd attempts to keep brain-dead people on life support no matter what the cost to their dignity. But this is not really pro-life: it is a decision made out of fear, not out of loving trust in God. And anyway, this tenacious clinging to mortal life is not really a Christian value. Christians have always known that life on earth must sometimes be sacrificed for the sake of God's life in us and in others. This is the point of martyrdom, of self-sacrifice. Being truly pro-life means being willing to sacrifice oneself, one's own desires, for the sake of bringing more abundant life into the world.
How often does shame keep us from choosing life! The irony of Adam and Eve is that they sought to be wise ('arum) but ended up knowing only nakedness ('arowm) - and they grew ashamed. But the way to break the chains of shame is not to be unashamed. The key is not to take a defiant stance and say: "I am not ashamed!" Especially when we have done things to be ashamed of! The key is to face up to shame, to be willing to suffer the scorn of the world. The key is not to run away from it by protesting our innocence, but to confront it, embrace it. To acknowledge our shame before God is the first step in reclaiming our dignity as God's children. Only when we cast off the false clothes of pride and admit our fundamental nakedness can we submit to being "clothed in Christ."
The saints knew how to embrace shame. I was watching the film Becket this morning, and there's a poignant scene where Becket, taking retreat in a monastery, wonders whether the happiness he's found in his asceticism isn't a too easy path to holiness. He resolves to resume his responsibilities as archbishop, to return to England and face Henry. By many, this decision might be seen as ambition. A refusal to let go of his power. His humility might be seen as a sham, a ploy, a strategic pretense. But when, as Fulton Sheen says, we have an "undisturbed mastery of ourselves," we will be able to face the shame of having our motives misunderstood. Becket is holy precisely because he is willing to be seen as unholy for the sake of holiness.
It's shame that keeps me hiding. I feel that I do most things based on what I think others will think. I want to be thought well of, I want to be admired, I want to be liked. But this is death to my soul. May I have the courage to face my shame: to let it accuse me, to stand under its judgment. It's only by allowing myself to stand accused that I can permit God to come to my defense. And it's only if God defends me that I can do anything good, right, holy, life-affirming in the world.
Wednesday, March 5, 2014
Day 4: Ambassadors of God's Mercy
Today was a difficult one for me. I set the bar high for myself, and, naturally, I did not attain what I had hoped to attain.
Can I remember that God permits this to keep me humble? This, too, is part of the fast: to remind us of the fragility of our bodies, of our bodies' dependence on the gifts of God to sustain them. And what is true of the body is likewise true of the soul. We deprive ourselves of what we need so that we will not take for granted the God who gives us what we need. Thus, again, we must remember that what we sacrifice what is good. We give it up not because it is bad or evil, but precisely because it is good, and we must remember what life would be like without God's giving these good things to us in His mercy and love. The fast means nothing without the feast; the feast means nothing without the fast.
The ashes on my forehead today made me feel the need to be better, to be a better witness to Christ, a better "ambassador" for Him. I was ashamed when my behavior fell short and I saw that others could see the ashes on my forehead, marking me as one of God's people. But the ashes mark me as a sinner, not a saint. God's people, comprised of sinners who must always learn to repent. I should be ashamed of the ashes, for they are a sign of guilt - of my constant need to return to God, to turn back to Him with all my heart.
This too is our witness: to show the world what it looks like to sin and fail, but also what it looks like to repent of sin and strive for reconciliation with God. We don't do the world any favors by hiding our sin. If we wish the world to turn to God, we must acknowledge to it that we, like they, are sinners - the only difference is that we have hope in God's gracious and compassionate mercy. In revealing our shame, we reveal God's greatness.
We are ambassadors for Christ when we acknowledge our sin. The act of repentance, of contrition, is an act of evangelization. For Christians to confess and apologize for their sins can be the first step in bringing others to Christ.
Can I remember that God permits this to keep me humble? This, too, is part of the fast: to remind us of the fragility of our bodies, of our bodies' dependence on the gifts of God to sustain them. And what is true of the body is likewise true of the soul. We deprive ourselves of what we need so that we will not take for granted the God who gives us what we need. Thus, again, we must remember that what we sacrifice what is good. We give it up not because it is bad or evil, but precisely because it is good, and we must remember what life would be like without God's giving these good things to us in His mercy and love. The fast means nothing without the feast; the feast means nothing without the fast.
The ashes on my forehead today made me feel the need to be better, to be a better witness to Christ, a better "ambassador" for Him. I was ashamed when my behavior fell short and I saw that others could see the ashes on my forehead, marking me as one of God's people. But the ashes mark me as a sinner, not a saint. God's people, comprised of sinners who must always learn to repent. I should be ashamed of the ashes, for they are a sign of guilt - of my constant need to return to God, to turn back to Him with all my heart.
This too is our witness: to show the world what it looks like to sin and fail, but also what it looks like to repent of sin and strive for reconciliation with God. We don't do the world any favors by hiding our sin. If we wish the world to turn to God, we must acknowledge to it that we, like they, are sinners - the only difference is that we have hope in God's gracious and compassionate mercy. In revealing our shame, we reveal God's greatness.
We are ambassadors for Christ when we acknowledge our sin. The act of repentance, of contrition, is an act of evangelization. For Christians to confess and apologize for their sins can be the first step in bringing others to Christ.
Tuesday, March 4, 2014
Day 3: Repaid A Hundredfold
I love St. Peter. In today's Gospel reading I can hear his petulant, boastful, yet anxious voice, trying to contrast himself with the rich man who has just walked away from Jesus. "We've given up everything and followed you, not like that one!" Jesus responds by saying that God will repay Peter sacrifice a hundredfold - but with persecutions.
This conversation with St. Peter is paired with James' and John's request to sit at Jesus' right and left hand, to which Jesus similarly responds with with a hint of persecution: Can you drink the cup that I drink? And between these two encounters - first with Peter then with James and John - comes Jesus' prophesy of His own fate: He will be condemned, mocked, spit upon, cursed.
The ignorance of the Apostles is on full display here. Peter doesn't know what he's talking about. He thinks he's given up everything for God, but he hasn't - not yet. God is going to ask more. James and John don't know what they're talking about. They're thinking of some militaristic or royal triumph. But before they can be kings they must become slaves.
Give someone an inch, and they'll take a mile. For no one is this more true than of God. Give Him your obedience to the Law; He'll demand your possessions. Give Him your possessions; He'll demand your life. Give Him your life; He will demand servitude.
But these demands: they are not the selfish exactings of a greedy God. Rather they are the poor pittance we offer to a most generous God, a God who gives beyond our wildest imaginings. It is rather incredible that God would accept such humble offerings as our measly, paltry lives in exchange for the bounty He offers us: eternal life, eternal love. But Jesus' sacrifice of Himself on the Cross makes our sacrifices acceptable to God. Jesus' sacrifice does not negate the value of our sacrifices or render them unnecessary. Rather, Jesus' sacrifice is what makes our sacrifices worth anything at all.
Jesus says of the kingdom of God: Whoever has will be given more; whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken from them (Mark 4:25). He is speaking of generosity, of love: the more love you measure out, the more will be measured to you. This is the life of the Trinity, and Jesus' Incarnation is an invitation to us to enter into that life.
As we walk the path towards divine love, we will be tempted like the Apostles. When the going gets tough, we will petulantly point out that we're better than others and insist that God reward us for what we've already sacrificed. This is the temptation of pride: it's the temptation that will lead us to strut around with our ashes on our forehead as if those ashes are something to be proud of. We must remember that those ashes are a sign of our humiliation: they tell the world, publicly, that we are sinners. We have failed at love, and so have been agents of death in the world. Those ashes are a sign not of what we have already sacrificed, but rather that we have not sacrificed enough. God is calling us to sacrifice even more - to sacrifice even our lives unto death.
But: death is not the end. Not the death that we have brought into the world through our failure to love; not the death that we shall all have to endure. But after three days He will rise. Love triumphs over death. Abundant life, generously bestowed, erupts from the desert of fasting and self-sacrifice. The fast is not an end in itself; it is, rather, a necessary means to God's triumphant end.
The fasting we perform during Lent is a small drama of redemption and salvation, and we are called to experience it during Lent. How will our little "deaths" in our times of fasting open us up to a birth of new life? Fasting from things we enjoy can open us up to gratitude and to solidarity with others who suffer. Fasting from distractions and demands on our time can open us up to new experiences and surprises that we would not have imagined for ourselves. Giving up what we imagine to be desirable rewards opens us up to experiencing the rewards God wishes for us - a God who is ever surprising, ever new, ever generous, ever loving.
This Lent God welcomes us into His heart. Let us joyfully enter.
This conversation with St. Peter is paired with James' and John's request to sit at Jesus' right and left hand, to which Jesus similarly responds with with a hint of persecution: Can you drink the cup that I drink? And between these two encounters - first with Peter then with James and John - comes Jesus' prophesy of His own fate: He will be condemned, mocked, spit upon, cursed.
The ignorance of the Apostles is on full display here. Peter doesn't know what he's talking about. He thinks he's given up everything for God, but he hasn't - not yet. God is going to ask more. James and John don't know what they're talking about. They're thinking of some militaristic or royal triumph. But before they can be kings they must become slaves.
Give someone an inch, and they'll take a mile. For no one is this more true than of God. Give Him your obedience to the Law; He'll demand your possessions. Give Him your possessions; He'll demand your life. Give Him your life; He will demand servitude.
But these demands: they are not the selfish exactings of a greedy God. Rather they are the poor pittance we offer to a most generous God, a God who gives beyond our wildest imaginings. It is rather incredible that God would accept such humble offerings as our measly, paltry lives in exchange for the bounty He offers us: eternal life, eternal love. But Jesus' sacrifice of Himself on the Cross makes our sacrifices acceptable to God. Jesus' sacrifice does not negate the value of our sacrifices or render them unnecessary. Rather, Jesus' sacrifice is what makes our sacrifices worth anything at all.
Jesus says of the kingdom of God: Whoever has will be given more; whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken from them (Mark 4:25). He is speaking of generosity, of love: the more love you measure out, the more will be measured to you. This is the life of the Trinity, and Jesus' Incarnation is an invitation to us to enter into that life.
As we walk the path towards divine love, we will be tempted like the Apostles. When the going gets tough, we will petulantly point out that we're better than others and insist that God reward us for what we've already sacrificed. This is the temptation of pride: it's the temptation that will lead us to strut around with our ashes on our forehead as if those ashes are something to be proud of. We must remember that those ashes are a sign of our humiliation: they tell the world, publicly, that we are sinners. We have failed at love, and so have been agents of death in the world. Those ashes are a sign not of what we have already sacrificed, but rather that we have not sacrificed enough. God is calling us to sacrifice even more - to sacrifice even our lives unto death.
But: death is not the end. Not the death that we have brought into the world through our failure to love; not the death that we shall all have to endure. But after three days He will rise. Love triumphs over death. Abundant life, generously bestowed, erupts from the desert of fasting and self-sacrifice. The fast is not an end in itself; it is, rather, a necessary means to God's triumphant end.
The fasting we perform during Lent is a small drama of redemption and salvation, and we are called to experience it during Lent. How will our little "deaths" in our times of fasting open us up to a birth of new life? Fasting from things we enjoy can open us up to gratitude and to solidarity with others who suffer. Fasting from distractions and demands on our time can open us up to new experiences and surprises that we would not have imagined for ourselves. Giving up what we imagine to be desirable rewards opens us up to experiencing the rewards God wishes for us - a God who is ever surprising, ever new, ever generous, ever loving.
This Lent God welcomes us into His heart. Let us joyfully enter.
Monday, March 3, 2014
Day 2: Giving All to God
The first step in giving all to God is gratitude.
The young man went away sad because he had many possessions. Yet if he had been truly grateful for his possessions, he would, ironically, have been willing to give them away.
We don't give things away because we hold them cheap. We give them away precisely because they are precious to us. We give them away because they represent ourselves, placed at God's disposal.
There are things I hold dear, things like my selfishness, my pride, my anger. My illusions about how my relationships should be. God asks me to sacrifice these precious possessions - how strange to think that He would accept these sacrifices of unholy things. But He will, because they represent who I am. They signify my willingness to place myself at His disposal.
Yet He asks me to sacrifice these things because He wants to replace illusion with reality - the shifting whims of human perception with the "imperishable, undefiled, unfading" truth. My "self" is nothing without God. My pride is not based on truth, because in truth I accomplish all in and through God. My anger is blinding me to the reality of the goodness of the world around me. My illusions about my relationships - with husband, child, parents - are keeping me from experiencing and appreciating my relationships as they really are.
When we die to these things, truth comes alive. Gratitude stems from humility, and humility is nothing more than an acceptance of the truth about oneself in the face of God. And the fruit of gratitude is always self-gift.
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I think that this Lent it will be important for me to learn how to be grateful for my parents. I feel at times as though there is a brick wall preventing me from honestly perceiving the good they've done for me. I have a lot of anger towards them, not just about things they've done in the past, but also about their apparent blindness to what they've done, their refusal to acknowledge the hurtfulness of their behavior. I've been stewing about this for so long that it's hard for me to feel any gratitude for the love they've shown me, because that love has always seemed so conditional, so self-serving.
Even writing about this now makes me sad and angry and anxious and hurt. Their love and concern for me so often manifested itself in angry attempts to change me into what they thought I ought to be, so that I would do what they thought would make me happy. How do I forgive them for that?
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And so also: gratitude is caught up in forgiveness.
I am tired of being told by them that I need to forgive, to let go of the past, to move on. I need to do this, I need to do that - it feels again like I am being manipulated so that I can play the part they want me to play, instead of being allowed to be honest with them about myself and how I feel about them.
Forgiveness is about relationship. I am firmly convinced of that. It must work two ways; it is not something that can be fully achieved on one's own. Forgiveness must change both parties; it cannot be a demand only upon the one doing the forgiving. Otherwise it is a cheap forgiveness, a dishonest forgiveness, a forgiveness that is not transformative but only perpetuates an unjust status quo.
Forgiveness, death to self - these are all martyrdoms, but martyrdom is not victimhood. Victimhood allows the victors to stand triumphant and unopposed. Martyrdom always tends towards the end of injustice. Forgiveness is not an invitation to be a victim; it is, rather, empowerment over one's oppressors. It indicates that the oppressors have no power over the oppressed.
My inability to forgive my parents is only evidence that I am caught in their power still. I am trapped in the status quo of them wanting me to be what I am not and of me wanting them to be what they are not. This push and pull is destroying us.
Forgiveness means stepping out of this push and pull struggle for the upper hand in the relationship. It means letting go of power.
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I offer to God today my relationship with my parents. I ask Him to help me forgive them and to teach me to be grateful to them. At the very least I am grateful that they raised me to have faith in Him. I ask Him to help me be honest with myself about my part in our troubled relationship. I ask Him to help me love them as He loves them, for they too are His children. I ask Him to help me sort through my responses to them, so that I can respond to them in a way that is true to myself without coming from a place of vengeance against them. I ask Him to take me out of their power and to hold me in His.
The young man went away sad because he had many possessions. Yet if he had been truly grateful for his possessions, he would, ironically, have been willing to give them away.
We don't give things away because we hold them cheap. We give them away precisely because they are precious to us. We give them away because they represent ourselves, placed at God's disposal.
There are things I hold dear, things like my selfishness, my pride, my anger. My illusions about how my relationships should be. God asks me to sacrifice these precious possessions - how strange to think that He would accept these sacrifices of unholy things. But He will, because they represent who I am. They signify my willingness to place myself at His disposal.
Yet He asks me to sacrifice these things because He wants to replace illusion with reality - the shifting whims of human perception with the "imperishable, undefiled, unfading" truth. My "self" is nothing without God. My pride is not based on truth, because in truth I accomplish all in and through God. My anger is blinding me to the reality of the goodness of the world around me. My illusions about my relationships - with husband, child, parents - are keeping me from experiencing and appreciating my relationships as they really are.
When we die to these things, truth comes alive. Gratitude stems from humility, and humility is nothing more than an acceptance of the truth about oneself in the face of God. And the fruit of gratitude is always self-gift.
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I think that this Lent it will be important for me to learn how to be grateful for my parents. I feel at times as though there is a brick wall preventing me from honestly perceiving the good they've done for me. I have a lot of anger towards them, not just about things they've done in the past, but also about their apparent blindness to what they've done, their refusal to acknowledge the hurtfulness of their behavior. I've been stewing about this for so long that it's hard for me to feel any gratitude for the love they've shown me, because that love has always seemed so conditional, so self-serving.
Even writing about this now makes me sad and angry and anxious and hurt. Their love and concern for me so often manifested itself in angry attempts to change me into what they thought I ought to be, so that I would do what they thought would make me happy. How do I forgive them for that?
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And so also: gratitude is caught up in forgiveness.
I am tired of being told by them that I need to forgive, to let go of the past, to move on. I need to do this, I need to do that - it feels again like I am being manipulated so that I can play the part they want me to play, instead of being allowed to be honest with them about myself and how I feel about them.
Forgiveness is about relationship. I am firmly convinced of that. It must work two ways; it is not something that can be fully achieved on one's own. Forgiveness must change both parties; it cannot be a demand only upon the one doing the forgiving. Otherwise it is a cheap forgiveness, a dishonest forgiveness, a forgiveness that is not transformative but only perpetuates an unjust status quo.
Forgiveness, death to self - these are all martyrdoms, but martyrdom is not victimhood. Victimhood allows the victors to stand triumphant and unopposed. Martyrdom always tends towards the end of injustice. Forgiveness is not an invitation to be a victim; it is, rather, empowerment over one's oppressors. It indicates that the oppressors have no power over the oppressed.
My inability to forgive my parents is only evidence that I am caught in their power still. I am trapped in the status quo of them wanting me to be what I am not and of me wanting them to be what they are not. This push and pull is destroying us.
Forgiveness means stepping out of this push and pull struggle for the upper hand in the relationship. It means letting go of power.
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I offer to God today my relationship with my parents. I ask Him to help me forgive them and to teach me to be grateful to them. At the very least I am grateful that they raised me to have faith in Him. I ask Him to help me be honest with myself about my part in our troubled relationship. I ask Him to help me love them as He loves them, for they too are His children. I ask Him to help me sort through my responses to them, so that I can respond to them in a way that is true to myself without coming from a place of vengeance against them. I ask Him to take me out of their power and to hold me in His.
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