Triune God

Imagine a pyramid with 3 faces or sides.  Each side represents one Person of the Trinity.  Inside the enclosed space is an inexpressible dynamic of unity and the exchange of love.  It is not static, but moving, flowing, never-ending energy of giving and receiving, ever-new, ever-surprising, ever fresh.  Think of gorgeous spring days and the eternal surprise of newly-discovered love.  Think of energizing conversations and acceptance.  Think of ever-flowing surprise!

It does not matter whether we enter the pyramid through the Face of the Father, the Creator of heaven and earth, or through the Son, who redeemed and made all things new again, or through the Spirit, who blows where He wills and renews the face of the earth----As we enter, we are caught up in the exchange of love and life and energy among the Three. 

The Father eternally creates and gives all He is and has to the Son;
The Son eternally receives ever-new life and love from the Father and returns it to the Father in gratitude and thanksgiving;
The Spirit is the eternal energy and exchange of life and love between the Father and the Son.

The Spirit eternally shows us the Face of Jesus and re-creates in us the Spirit of the Son.

Jesus eternally shows us the Face of His beloved Father, and brings us to the Father;

The Father eternally bestows on us the Spirit of life and love.

What need have we of petty arguments and strife, of jealousy and discontent, of preserving territory and possessions?   If we are willing to surrender everything, we can enter into the life of the Father, the Son, and the Spirit of God.

In God We Trust

"For I know the plans I have for you," says the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future.  Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you.  You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.  I will be found by you," declares the Lord, "and will bring you back from captivity" (Jer. 29:11).

From the beginning, God always wanted to walk with us, to be close to us.  He walked with Adam in the garden, and until he sinned, Adam was comfortable talking the the Lord each day.  Sin has a way of making us hide from God, walking away from His Presence in our lives.  We no longer want to talk with Him anymore, because we are conscious that we are doing the wrong thing, and we feel ashamed to be asking Him for help.  But even then, the plans God has for us have not changed---they are still plans to prosper and not to harm us, plans to give us a hope and a future.

Jesus said that He came to heal and restore the lost and the broken----and more than anything else, He embodied the spirit of His Father toward mankind.  There is a scripture that says, Draw near to God and He will draw near to you.  If we want to know God's Presence and plans for us, we need to "draw near" to Him so we can feel His Presence and hear His plans.

God has not promised us a life without storms---but He has promised to be with us in the storms and to be our shelter in the storm.  In Ps. 56, David, who was pursued by King Saul for years and had to hide out in the wilderness for his life, says this:

When I am afraid,

I will trust in you.

In God, whose word I praise,

In God I trust; I will not be afraid.

What can a mortal man do to me?

The United States first started putting "In God We Trust" on its coins during the Civil War, but it was not until the height of the Cold War, in 1955, that Eisenhower made it the official motto of our nation under the constant threat of nuclear war.

When Jesus celebrated the Passover Meal with His disciples, He was celebrating the deliverance of Israel from the slavery of Egypt, and He made Himself the lamb that was slain to provide food for the journey, whose blood on our doorposts would preserve us from the Angel of Death.  He used the most common elements of our lives---bread and wine----to say, "I am here; I am with you in your eating and in your living; in your going out and in your coming in, in your joys and in your troubles, in your struggles and in your pain---I am always with you.  I will never leave you or forsake you.  Draw close to Me, and I will draw close to you.

When Moses was leading the Israelites through the desert, He said to Yahweh, If your presence does not go with us, then do not send us up from here.  What else will distinguish me and your your people from all the other people on earth?  And the Lord said to Moses, I will do the very thing you have asked, because I am pleased with you and I know you by name.

If we want to know the Lord's Presence and Plans for us, let us spend 5 minutes a day just with Him, drawing near to His Presence and listening with our hearts.  We cannot and will not be disappointed.



One in the Spirit

The saints are those who in this life bear the crushing and overwhelming burdens of others and who both "cry out to God with unutterable groanings" for their brothers and sisters and also who reach out with the compassion of Jesus to touch, to heal, to support.  Jesus promised that His followers would do greater things than He did, because He was going to the Father (and thereby could release His power and spirit throughout the world, to all who would receive).  Collectively, the Body of Christ can do "greater things" than He was able to do in the flesh, as one Man, limited by time and space.

Those who have allowed Christ to continue His redemption on earth through them constantly make intercession for those they love---and they love those Christ loves, because they are one with Him in spirit.  And after death, that love and intercession, that bearing of others' burdens, does not cease, but continues in an even greater way.   Freed from the demands of the physical body, the soul continues on the path it set for itself on earth---toward freedom, toward love, toward unity and support for those it loves.

The Communion of Saints is a great doctrine, but few of us realize how much strength we have in it.  The Book of Hebrews tells us that we are "surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses" (12:1), so let us run without hinderance toward the great prize, throwing off the burdens of sin.  Whatever we train ourselves to do in this life is what we will be doing for eternity:  praying, praising, rejoicing, or cursing.

Images and Dreams

There are some things within us

So deep that cannot be expressed;

Some things we just don't know how to say--

The human spirit constantly breaks from restraints to find new forms of creation.

Out of the depths of the heart, we cry

in art,

in poetry,

in beauty,

in anguish---

We break old forms, not satisfied with the limits they hold,

and go forth to lands as yet unexplored,

where the horizon recedes as we advance,

and our souls meet the infinite once again.

The images and dreams God give us hold greater power than the concepts we can form in our minds.  The heart holds onto the image longer than the mind can contain an idea.  Proverbs 4:23 says, Guard well your heart, for out of it flow all the issues of life.

Most of us have "given up" on childhood dreams and images----they are considered fanciful, unreal.  But I think we were given those dreams and images for a reason.  I think they hold truth that the mind has not yet grasped.

I was talking to someone in passing last week; how it emerged in a 3-minute conversation that we both had the same dreams as children, I'll never know.  But there it was:  we both had dreamed at one time that we could fly---not fly, fly, but more float above the earth, both lifted up, not with wings, but more on invisible clouds, so that we could move at will and see at will whatever was on earth beneath us. 

Now, she is an artist and I, a teacher---and I think we both have an "inner eye that sees."  I do believe our spirits float above the earth, seeing and grasping what we cannot always explain in speech.  She must create from within; I must teach from within, as we live out our dreams.

How can we give others the space to live their dreams?  How can we re-connect with the powerful images of our childhood, of our spirits?

Manna From Heaven

Jesus needed to receive all things from the Faher, so He slipped off alone each morning to hear the words His Father gave Him for the day.

We, too, need on a daily basis to cry out "Abba!"   "Daddy,"  "Father!" to the only One who can save us from death.  We need manna from heaven daily to keep us from dying of starvation.  Our spirits are hungry for God, but we keep starving them because we have no food to give them---but the Bread of Heaven is available to us each day if we will only receive it.

Praying once a week is not any more sufficient for our souls than eating once a week would be to our bodies.  We need strength for the journey; we need light for our eyes and bread for our souls---the bread we eat spiritually is the word that comes from heaven to nourish and sustain us.  How can we travel without it?

The Father's House

When my children were small, or even as teens, occasionally the door would open and my kids would come in with one or two friends, some of whom I had never met.  They never questioned whether their friends would be welcome; they just assumed that anyone who was a friend of theirs could come into their house.  And they were right.

Because of Jesus, there is an open door into the Father's house.  He Himself is the door, and He opens it to all His friends.  When He invites us into His Father's house, it is without any formality; He invites us in as playmates, or even better, as His own flesh, His brothers and sisters:*

Father, I desire that they also, whom thou has given me, may be with me where I am....(Jn. 17:24).

I no longer call you servants, but friends....(Jn. 14).

If we consider the apostles, that very first group of Jesus' "playmates," they were not a haloed, saintly group.  We need to actually picture them in all their rough ways, arguing amongst themselves, confused, even sinful and jealous.....much like the friends our children bring into our house.  The interesting thing is that some "friends" did not stay long or ever come back; some "fit into the family" and some didn't.  Those who did not had no desire to come back, not because they were not invited, but because they just didn't "fit." 

When my brother once brought a new girlfriend to a family re-union, she spent the whole week in her room.  Somehow, she just didn't feel comfortable in the family group----and shortly afterwards, she and my brother broke up.  Years later, he married a lovely woman because as he said, "I finally found someone I could bring to a family re-union."

The door to God's house stands open; everything He is and owns is available to us in His Son.  I John says, "and this is the confidence we have in him, that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us.  And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have received the requests we make of him" (I Jn. 5:14).

Confidence (parrhesia in the Greek) is that intimacy in love which puts the other person's goods at our disposal.*  My children's friends did not wonder if they had access to whatever toys or food my children had; they correctly assumed that if they came into the house, whatever was there for the children was there also for them.  If they had no respect / reverence for the household and the possessions, they were no longer welcome, but as long as they could "play nice," they could come in anytime.

Christ has made divine truth open and accessible to the human heart which cries out to know the truth.  In His face, we finally see the the image and glory of the Father in heaven, now made manifest to the world.  Nothing is withheld from His friends; everything that is His, is theirs.

The door is open; the only question is whether we will come into the Father's house as the friend and playmate of Jesus, the Son --- and whether we ourselves will feel that we fit into the family, despite our inherent failings and faults.

*  Most of these ideas and some direct quotations have been taken from Hans Urs von Balthasar's book called Prayer.  I don't want to take credit for his insights; I just want to make them available to a wider audience.

Re-kindling the Spirit

In my neighborhood--- around the corner, thankfully--- there is a rusted Model-T Ford sitting on a front lawn. It wasn't left there because of laziness or indifference; the house and lawn are well-kept.  It is clearly meant to be a lawn decoration---and that's fine, since the dear old car clearly will never again be operable. 

The human personality and spirit was meant to run on the energy of the Holy Spirit -- the Spirit of our Creator---flowing through us.  Unfortunately, many of us ran out of fuel many years ago and have left our spirits parked somewhere like rusted-out Model-Ts.  Our religion has become an ornament, but not the divine energy to fuel our lives.

Unlike the Model-T, though, our spirits and energy can be re-newed.  There is a scripture that says, "Draw close to God, and He will draw close to you."  Sin often keeps us from doing that.  Like Adam in the garden, we tend to hide from God because of our nakedness---as if He had not created our form in the beginning and knows exactly what we look like underneath the fig leaves.  But the consciousness of sin makes us fear to approach the holiness of God. 

Sr. Faustina, in writing of the Divine Mercy, tells us, as does Julian of Norwich, that our weakness and misery draws even more of the mercy and pity of God.  Like a mother grieving over the hurt of her fallen child, pitying his/her helplessness, God is even more solicitous of the sinner than He is of the sleek and the strong.  Jesus tells of the Good Shepherd leaving the flock to go in search of the one little lost lamb.  The Father is standing on the roof of the house, every day searching for the return of the prodigal son, waiting to lavish on him the robe and the ring.  Sometimes, though, we just cannot re-start the old car once all the parts have rusted out.  We don't know where to go for repair and restoration.

"Help" is a good prayer, a good starting-place: and we have this confidence in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us, and if we know that He hears us, we know that what we have asked for is ours (I Jn. 5:14).

Holy Spirit, fill me with the fire of Your love,

enlighten my mind with the knowledge of Your truth,

give me wisdom and understanding of the ways of God,

and annoint me with the power of Jesus to do good in this life.

Take my hands, my feet, my eyes and ears, my mind, heart and soul

to be used as instruments of God's love on earth. 

Keep me from the power and snares of evil,

and bring me at last into your heavenly kingdom.

All you holy ones of God, pray for me.

[I think I hear an engine starting up.]

Sin and Grief

And I will send you another Advocate, the Comforter.  When He comes, He will convict the world of sin, because they do not believe in Me (Jn. 16, compiled).

One of the first (obvious) movements of grace in our lives is the conviction of sin.  At first, we do not think we are "that bad" as to call ourselves sinners--not that we are perfect, of course, but "sinners," well, we are "trying" to do the right things. 

Hmmm...as C.S. Lewis points out, the good man knows well of both good and evil; the bad man recognizes not much of either.  Scripture points out "The good man falls seven times a day, but the Lord lifts him up."

Peter's first utterance upon recognizing the Presence of the Holy One in his life was the cry, "Depart from me, O Lord, for I am a sinful man!"  and Paul called himself the worst of sinners, for he persecuted the church of Jesus Christ. 

The closer we come to God, the more we see sin in our lives.  With the entrance of the Holy Spirit, our eyes are opened for the first time to the secrets of our own hearts.  Before then, we tend to see the sin of others, but not our own.  But the first office of the Holy Spirit is to convict us of sin.

Conviction is not condemnation; it is just a more truthful way of seeing.  We have no control over the sins of other people---and we truly have no control over our own sins until we begin to see our own hearts.  It is not the outward behavior that needs changing; it is the corruption of a wayward heart.  Jesus said that we cannot pour new wine into old wineskins, for the skins will burst and spill the new wine.  We need new hearts to deal with old behaviors.

I thought I was "pretty good," or at least not as bad as "some people" until I had a vision of a huge 12-foot wall of cracked boulders with a sign on it saying in huge letters:  Your sins are  forgiven you.  Then I knew that "my sins were piled higher than my head," in the words of David, the Psalmist.  And I knew they were beginning to crumble under the annointing of the Holy Spirit, but that tearing down that enormous wall would take a lifetime.

The saint is the one who recognizes the grace of God given to him and mourns/grieves the harm he has done; the sinner is the one who has not yet seen the grief he has caused and is still causing, the one who thinks he is all right.

Great is Thy Faithfulness, O Lord

It is better to know the Lord

than to be a millionaire.

For money can fail and stocks crash,

but the Lord is forever Father and faithful to those who look to Him.

Consecrating our imagination to God

After I had received a new filling or annointing of the Holy Spirit, an experience I believe is meant for every Christian to prepare him or her for public ministry, I began to have "dreams and visions."  At first, I kept thinking "I must be imagining all this," or just dismissing the new experiences as products of my imagination. 

Then one day, after I had one more time said, "This is my imagination," the Lord spoke, cutting across the lines of my thought:  Did you used to 'imagine' these things before?  As I thought about it, I realized with a shock that before I was re-filled with the Spirit, before someone prayed for me, the thoughts of my mind and imagination were only those of fear and of "the worst" that might happen.  There were no thoughts, dreams, and visions pertaining to God and to the Spirit.  I was living "without hope in a darkened world," as Peter describes our "former way of life handed down to us by our fathers."  But now I was picturing a new world, a future full of hope and of promise, and that brought joy---"by their fruits, you will know them," Jesus said.

At that moment, I dedicated my imagination to the Lord, to be used for His purposes.  No longer did I dismiss my imagination as "just.....," but now I began to see it as a gift from God.  And then, as I continued to read Scripture, I discovered that the world of images is the language of the heart, the primary way that God communicates with his children.  Imagination is not "daydreams," but a flow of inner vision, directed by the Holy Spirit---unless we have consented to turn it over to Satan instead. 

Our western mentality, inherited from the Greek culture, does not place any value on the imagination.  We consider ourselves rational, logical, intellectual beings.  But Jesus was anything but "logical."  If we try to "make sense" of what he says, it does not work.  The only way we can receive Him and His words is to open our hearts to him----as His words enter our hearts, they change our minds, and then, we understand. 

God reveals Himself to the poor in spirit, those who are "not much" in the eyes of the world.  To them, He gives the Spirit of Wisdom and understanding.  Christianity is a heart-to-heart, or Spirit-to-spirit relationship.  Often our spirits go where the mind cannot at first follow, but later we understand fully.  That was the experience of the Apostles who followed and believed Jesus, understanding fully only after the descent of the Holy Spirit, who opened their minds and enlightened their understanding.

If we spend time with God on a daily basis, and offer to Him the eyes of our hearts, He will begin to fill them with dreams and visions --- see Joel, Chapter 3. We won't necessarily understand at first the meaning of what we are seeing. Then it is up to us to ponder the images he gives us, as Mary pondered in her heart all that God had spoken to her.  It helps if we have a small group --- or even one person we trust--- to speak with about what we are seeing and hearing. 

To come to full maturity in our Christian life, we must learn eventually to integrate both head and heart, to use all the gifts God has put into us, to make us in His own image.  If He wants to speak in images, we must develop the capacity and receive and treasure the language of the Holy Spirit.  As we look at the Bible, we see that God did not give us a book of systematic theology, but rather a series of stories from Genesis to Revelation.  As with the parables of Jesus, the spiritual realities behind these stories must be prayed over and chewed over before we "get" them.  Often, the truths remain hidden until the Holy Spirit illumines them for us.  That is why the Bible can be read for a lifetime and still release revelation to us.  The images of God are rich and powerful to change us, if we will only mull over them.  That is why Psalm 1 says, "Blessed is the man who meditates day and night on the law of the Lord."  The Hebrew word that we translate as "meditates" actually means "mutters."  As God draws pictures for us, we must turn them over and over in our minds and hearts until the light of truth begins to shine out of them.

Seeing and Believing

All I know is that this man opened my eyes, and now I can see.

Not only the blind man in the Temple in Jerusalem, but all of us who have been baptized in the Holy Spirit can and do say these words.  Going from spiritual blindness to the Light of the World, the face of Jesus, and the words of Scripture is exactly like going from darkness into light.  At first, we don't see what is plainly in front of us, and then, suddenly, we see!

C.S. Lewis tells the story of his own sudden conversion; when he got into the side car of his brother's motorcycle one day, he was a confirmed atheist.  By the time they had reached their destination, he was a believer!  How does such a thing happen, except by the miraculous grace of God? 

A woman once told about a trip she and her husband took to see the Matterhorn in Switzerland.  Eagerly, once they were in their hotel room, she ran to the window to gaze at the legendary summit.  But when she drew back the curtain, she saw only the foothills and clouds.  "Where is it?" she asked her husband, who had seen the Matterhorn on a previous trip.  "It's right there!" he said; "you just can't see it right now."   She was doubtful, as it appeared to her that she was seeing everything that was there, and yet she saw nothing remarkable.  For the next 3 days, the clouds covered the Matterhorn, and she saw only the foothills.  On the 4th day, as she opened the curtains, the most magnificent and breath-taking sight greeted her in the majesty of the Matterhorn.  All the while, it had been there, but obscured from her sight.  And then, suddenly, she could see it!  This, she said, is how the Gospel looks to the unbeliever---shrouded, imperceptible.  But once our eyes are opened, its majesty reveals itself to us.

At one time in my life, I could not read Scripture at all; it held no appeal for me.  And then one day, after a young girl had prayed for me to receive the Holy Spirit, the words of Scripture came alive!  A light shone from them and on them, and that light was more beautiful than anything my eyes had ever beheld!  The words were food and drink to my hungry and thirsty soul, and I could not take them in fast enough. 

Before then, I could not see God at work in my life, and suddenly, I saw His Presence everywhere---it was before me as the Matterhorn mountain!  I began to see the power of His grace at work in every moment of my life.

Before that time, I had no hope, but only fear, for the future.  And then, He became my future, my anchor, my hope, my trust: All is well and all shall be well.  God became my rock and my security:  "the man who fears God fears nothing else; the one who does not fear God fears everything else."

Jesus said, "For judgment I have come into the world, so that the blind will see and those who see will become blind" (Jn. 9:39).

If we say that we see, but do not say that it is Jesus who opened our eyes, we are still blind and do not know it.

Hedging Our Bets

What is sin but that part of myself that refuses the flowing action of God in my life---the part of me that says, "I am satisfied and comfortable with this pleasure, and I think I'll hold onto it a bit longer, even if this is not the grace of God, or the fullness of God's plan for my life."

In the Old Testament, God revealed Himself as a "jealous God;" He was not willing to share space in our lives with other gods.  It was not enough to worship YHWH at the Temple and then travel up to the high places to offer sacrifice to other gods, just in case YHWH was not paying attention.  God is not willing to wait for us to dole out to him bits and pieces of our time and life; He wants everything, as any lover would.

God cannot use what we do not surrender to Him, for it still belongs under our control, and He will not take it from us by force.  He will woo us and walk with us until we are finally ready to give Him everything---that is, give up the sinful parts of our personalities, the parts of us that are not like He is.

Read Me!

Read the heart of Jesus, the heart of God---
Gaze fully, steadfastly, on His holy face----
There you will see the wisdom and power of God.
That is all you need to know and understand.

Read the Word of God in the heart of Jesus,
Who reveals all and conceals nothing of what God would tell us.

Freedom

It is for freedom that Christ has set us free (Gal. 5:1)

Freedom:  for Abraham, the first step toward freedom came with the Word of the Lord coming to him:  Leave your people and your father's house and come to a land I will show you.  Abraham first left "Ur of the Chaldeans" (Babylonians), where the sun, moon, and stars were worshipped as gods, and went to the land of Haran, in what is modern-day Syria, bordering on Turkey.  But the call of God was insistent; he had not yet arrived at "the land I will show you."  So, taking all he possessed, he started out again, stopping frequently along the way for worship and communion with the God who was leading him.

Freedom:  for the Israelites in Egypt, the first step came with the Word of the Lord to Moses, who carried within his heart a burden for his people in slavery to the Egyptians:  Let my people go.  Moses, as Abraham, did not know the way, but constantly had to be led by God.

Freedom:  in our own lives, we are all either worshipping false gods or in slavery to "the principles of the world," as Paul puts it in Galatians, until the Word of the Lord comes to us to lead us out of bondage and to set us free.  If we are listening and receptive, the Word will lead us "out of the empty way of life handed down to us by our fathers" (1 Pet. 1:18) and into the freedom to be who God created us to be.  Had Abraham remained in Haran, he would never have become the Father of a Nation; had Moses not acted on the Word of the Lord, the Hebrews would have perished forever under the Egyptian desert. 

We will never know the plans of God for our lives if we will not receive His Word and walk in it.  Mary became pregnant with the Word made flesh, and the world was set free.  What could happen to our lives and families if we also allow the Word of God to take flesh within us?

Listening to the Spirit

There are some things we cannot know unless they are revealed to us from above.

Jesus said to Peter, "Blessed are you, Simon Peter, because flesh and blood have not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven!"  Jesus "knew" who to annoint as chief of the Apostles because He saw the Spirit at work in Peter---most of us probably would have thought John the more likely candidate, but rough Peter was the one who received the knowledge of who Jesus was.

Knowledge is one of the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit, a list derived from Isaiah 11's description of the Messiah:

A shoot (Nezer, in Hebrew) will come up from the stump of Jesse;

from his roots a Branch will bear fruit.

The Spirit of the Lord will rest upon him---

The Spirit of wisdom and of understanding,

the Spirit of counsel and of power,

the Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord---

and he will delight in the fear of the Lord.

He will not judge by what he sees with his eyes,

or decide by what he hears with his ears;

but with righteousness he will judge the needy,

with justice he will give decisions

for the poor of the earth.

Jesus, the Nazarene, was annointed and filled for ministry by the Holy Spirit at the time of his baptism----and the gifts of wisdom, knowledge, understanding, judgment, power, reverence, and fear of the Lord flowed throughout His public life.  The seven gifts are all inter-connected, and cannot be separated so that one person has wisdom, for example, and another has understanding.  They are all "a package deal," inter-dependent.  We cannot have wisdom without fear of the Lord, or knowledge without understanding----the Spirit is One, and His action in us contains all the gifts simultaneously.

The gift of knowledge can be seen as Jesus speaks to the woman at the well and tells her she has had 5 husbands---His "judgment" of her was not condemnation, but mercy and understanding---she was the first missionary as she ran off to her village to say, "I have found the Messiah!"

The inner voice of knowledge warns us against "judging by what we see with our eyes" or deciding by what we "hear with our ears."  There is an inner witness to the truth beyond appearances that we would do well to listen to. 

I am convinced that twice in my own life, my life was spared by the gift of knowledge beyond appearances.  The most recent event happened a few years ago on a hot summer day as I was parked by the lagoon in City Park eating a snow-ball.  I often went to the Park between classes to grade papers, but this was the first time I chose to park on this grassy area facing the lagoon; I went there because of its proximity to the snow-ball stand off Harrison Ave.  Later, I was to hear what a dangerous area this was, but at the time I had never heard any stories about the area. 

As it was a lunch hour, there were a number of cars parked in the area around the lagoon, with people in and out of their cars eating lunch or just resting on the grass.  Suddenly, I heard a voice in my head saying, "As soon as she finishes that snow-ball, I'm going to kill her!"  What?!   Where did that come from??  What a thought to enter my mind!

It seemed that I was "hearing" something from someone else, so I left my own world, so to speak, and began to carefully observe the people and cars around me.  Usually, I am totally oblivious to types and makes of cars, and I could not tell you after leaving a place how many people were there.  But on that day, though I was very calm, I looked at everyone and every car.  There was a white car, older model Ford, parked at a right angle to my car, about 25 feet away, and sitting in the driver's seat with the car door open, was a young kid in his mid-twenties.  He was facing me, and obviously observing me, but I was not frightened by him.  I went on eating my snow-ball, and then slid my seat away from the steering wheel so that I could begin grading papers. 

A few minutes later, I looked up to see this boy heading toward my car.  When he saw me look up, he ambled toward the lagoon just in front of my car, as though he were out for a stroll.  I watched him carefully and noticed that in the hand closest to me, he was concealing a knife.  If I had not been warned, I would not have been noticing him at all, but would have been totally absorbed in my work.  Now, though, I watched him walk to the edge of the lagooon and then circle back casually on the other side of my car.  Through the rear-view mirror, I saw him move behind the car and up toward me on the driver's side.  Quickly, I turned around to face him head on, locking my eyes on his.  I could tell that he did not expect that, as he thought he was sneaking up on me.  Flustered, he said, "Do you have the time?"   I knew better than to take my eyes off his to glance at my watch, so I carefully pulled my watch up to my eyes and told him the time without taking my eyes off his.  He backed away, went to his car, and drove off.

Thinking the whole incident was over and that maybe I had just imagined danger, I went back to grading papers as everyone in the area gradually left and I was alone.  My car was about 10 feet from the lagoon, so in order for me to leave, I needed back up, and my seat was still too far away from the steering wheel and pedals for me to drive, but I was totally relaxed and focused on my student papers for the next few minutes.  Suddenly, I glanced into the rear-view mirror and noticed the same white car sneaking, almost tip-toeing, off Harrison Ave. onto the grassy area.  Immediately, I knew and understood what was happening.  If I had not previously studied that car, I would not have recognized it at all, but I knew it was the same car, and I knew that he was planning to trap me against the lagoon by parking behind me so that I could not back up and leave the area. 

Without taking the time to move my seat forward, a slow process since it was motorized, and without taking the time to put my shoes on, I quickly scooted to the edge of the seat where I could reach the gas pedal, started the car, backed up quickly, turned around, and drove off past a very surprised young man. 

I never was afraid, but without the "gift of knowledge," if I had not heard a very strange thought go through my head, I'm not sure I would be alive today to tell this story.  So now when I "hear" a thought that does not seem to be coming from me, I pay attention and listen to it.

Why Lent?

John the Baptist said he was "a voice crying in the wilderness--prepare ye the way of the Lord, for He comes to rule the earth--and his winnowing sword is in His hand" (paraphrased and including other scriptures).

The prophet Micah gave us a picture of the "wilderness" or spiritual darkness of the earth, the place that needs to be cleansed of evil-doing and ignorance of the ways of God:

All men lie in wait to shed blood; each hunts his brother with a net.

Both hands are skilled in doing evil...the powerful dictate what they desire...

The best of them is like a brier; the most upright worse than a thorn hedge...

Do not trust a neighbor; put no confidence in a friend...

For a son dishonors his father,

a daughter rises up against her mother,

a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law---

a man's enemies are the members of his own household...

Lent is a time for the nation at large to return to "the fear of the Lord, the beginning of wisdom," to see how far we have strayed from the rule of God in our lives.  Jesus wept over Jerusalem because they failed to recognize "the day of their visitation."  His reference was to the prophet Micah's words "The day of your watchmen has come, the day God visits you" (7:4).

If we knew God was coming to visit, we would "clean up" our homes---and it wouldn't help to shove everything under the bed, because He would know it.  We need to remove injustice and malice from our lives; we don't need to sacrifice our children on the altar.  Again, Micah:

With what shall I come before the Lord

and bow down before the exalted God?

Shall I come before him with burnt offerings,

with calves a year old?

Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams,

with ten thousand rivers of oil?

Shall I offer my firstborn for my transgressions,

the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?

He has shown you, O man, what is good.

And what does the Lord require of you?

To act justly and to love mercy

And to walk humbly with your God (6:6-8).

If we walk with God on a daily basis, as the disciples traversed the dusty roads of Jerusalem with Jesus for three years, there will be no room in our homes for evil.  He will teach us as we go, and we will ultimately despise injustice as He does, putting it far from us.  What a good place to begin in Lent---walking with God!

Jesus didn't come just to "show" us the way to heaven;

every religion, including the Jewish faith, offers a "way" to heaven or eternal life. 

The Jews called it "halakeh," the Way; the Buddists call it "Nirvana," or non-disturbance by the events of the earth, which is all "Illusion/Maya."  For radical Muslims, the "Way" is zeal for the destruction of Allah's enemies, the infidels and for the establishment of cultural change according to Sharia Law.

Among the Christian religions, each one has its own spin on the "Way" to eternal life.  Some live by faith alone; some, by rituals and faith, etc.

All of us, even apart from any religion, seek to establish our own "way," our own kingdom on earth, and we will either exclude or kill in some fashion those who cannot accept our "way," our established form of culture or religion.

But Jesus came to make accessible to us His Own Spirit, the Spirit of love, peace, patience, joy, kindness, generosity, faithful, gentleness, and self-control (Gal. 5:22).  This is not "our" kingdom; this is the kingdom of God on earth, and it belongs to those who are willing to surrender their own "way," or kingdom.  Jesus died in the flesh that we and our strong wills might die with Him, but that's not the end of the story.  He rose in the Spirit that we no longer live for ourselves and for our own interests (kingdoms), but for the kingdom of God.

We have all suffered from the evil of someone else who was trying to impose on us their own "way" of life.  From the concentration camps of Hitler's Germany to our own families, someone wanted to impose on us a "kingdom" that caused suffering and harm.  It is hard for all of us to say with Jesus, "Father, forgive them for they know not what they do" [in imposing this suffering on us].  And all of us have imposed our own form of harm and suffering on others in our attempts to establish our own "Towers of Babel." 

The problem with sin is that it de-sensitizes us to how our selfishness and determination for what we want is causing suffering to others.  Like the disease of leprosy, which destroys the nerve-endings so that we no longer feel pain, sin/selfishness destroys our hearts; the heart literally becomes "hardened" against the pain of others who suffer from our sins.  If we want what we want, we no longer care who around us gets hurt in the process---but we are destroying our own souls along the way also.  Our hearts are becoming leprous, no longer able to be com-passionate, or to suffer along with others.  And what is the cure for a leprous and hardened heart? 

If our hearts are to be made soft again, if we are to be "born again" as little children, if we are to give up our own kingdoms--which will eventually fall anyway--we must surrender our old selves to death, allowing the Spirit of Jesus to take up headquarters in our flesh, establishing His kingdom of justice, peace, joy, kindness, love, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. 

The Jews rejected Jesus as their Messiah because He failed to establish an earthly kingdom of peace, destroying the enemies of Judaism.  But He did destroy their enemies---of hatred, cruelty, oppression---in the human heart.  He has given us His own heart in place of our own. 

In Praise of Wisdom

Wisdom is a tree of life to those that find her (Prov.3:18)

The Book of Wisdom, found only in Catholic Bibles, tells of all the riches that come to the seeker of Wisdom.  Solomon, the author of the book, reveals that, although he was a mortal, like other men, he asked for wisdom, and that along with her, came multiple other gifts:

• friendship with God;
• sound knowledge of existing things:  the organization of the universe and the force of its elements; the beginning and the end and the midpoint of times; the changes in the sun's course and the variations of the season; cycles of years, positions of the stars; natures of animals, tempers of beasts; powers of the winds and thoughts of men; uses of plants and virtues of roots---such things as are hidden and such that are plain; for Wisdom the artificer of all, taught me.

To read the Book of Wisdom slowly and thoughtfully is to pray along with Solomon for the Gift that is from above, that only God can give; along with wisdom come long life, knowledge, prudence, and understanding.  She is better than riches, because "all good things come to [us] in her company"(7:11).  Solomon says, "knowing that I could not otherwise possess her except God gave it---and this too, was prudence, to know whose is the gift---I went to the Lord and besought him, and said with all my heart:" [the whole of Solomon's prayer can be found in Chapter 9 of Wisdom.]



Reading this book makes it clear that knowledge cannot produce wisdom, but wisdom opens the door to knowledge.  It is said of George Washington Carver, the American Negro scientist who was born just before the Civil War, that he asked God to show him the secrets of "God's great universe."  "If I showed you the secrets of the universe," God answered, "you would not understand them.  But I will show you the secrets of the peanut."  Carver went on to discover over 150 uses of the peanut, making that crop more useful to the South than the cotton crop which was steadily depleting the soil and keeping his people in economic slavery even after the Emancipation.  Carver reported that while teaching at Tuskeegee Institute, he would go out each morning to roam the woods, seeking specimens for his class in botany that day.  During those early mornings, according to him, he "received from God his orders for the day." 

Carver is just one of thousands of scientists, musicians/composers, artists, and other saints who sought wisdom and who received along with wisdom, "knowledge of crafts" (7:16).  The story of the building of the Temple found in the Books of Kings and Chronicles tells of craftsmen endowed by the Lord with knowledge and skill to adorn the Temple.  Each person is given knowledge, skill, and wisdom in his/her own field of ministry by the Spirit of God for the building up of the Body as a whole.  In I Corinthians 12, Paul lists the gifts given by the Spirit for the building of the church, the Body of Christ---the expression of wisdom; the expression of knowledge; faith; gifts of healing; mighty deeds; prophecy; discernment of spirits; varieties of tongues; interpretation of tongues.

In the Old Testament, the Holy Spirit is personified as Wisdom, "the artificer of all things."  As she "passes into holy souls, making them friends and lovers of God," she bestows also the gifts of "practical wisdom," (knowledge and skill), and courage to set about the things of God and His kingdom.

Let us not cease to pray for Wisdom!

Trusting....

If you, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more your Father in heaven knows how to give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him.

The Father loves to give, to share His wealth, with His children.  He delights in our receiving of His gifts and wants to give even more.  Most of us ask for specific gifts of our own necessity or choice---but how many of us trust the Father enought to say to Him: "rain down gifts of Your choosing---the gifts You want to give me, the gifts that will delight Your heart to give!"

Open our hearts to see and rejoice in what You chose for us, O Lord!

Let it be done unto me according to Your word, Your power, Your knowledge, Your Truth, Your insight, Your Goodness, Your love, Your plans for me and for the world around me.!

Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful with gifts of Your choosing and Divine Will.  Let my heart rejoice and my tongue sing the praises of the good God who knows how to give good gifts to those who look to Him.

Hearts of Flesh

We have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God...

We have all hurt at least one person in our lives; we have all done injustice---been unfair---to at least one person.  And when we sin against another and do not immediately repent and confess our sin, asking forgiveness, our hearts become hardened so that we do not even see we have been wrong, but instead feel entirely justified in the way we have acted.  And our hardened hearts turn into resentment against the other, so that we become even more unjust and unfair against him.

When God says He will remove our hearts of stone and give us hearts of flesh (Ez. 11:19), He is referring to hearts hardened by years of unrepented sin.  And when John the Baptist tells us that the Messiah will "turn the hearts of the fathers to their children," he is saying that the Messiah will make our hardened hearts like the heart of God the Father, who has never done evil or injustice and so has never hardened his heart against any of his children.  Then we will truly "be as gods," in the image of God, with hearts of flesh instead of hearts of stone.



On Sin and Death

It is clear from the Book of Genesis that we were made for com-union with God, with one another, and with the universe.  God breathed His own soul/spirit into man, and made them in His spirit and image so they would "walk with Him in the cool of the evening, in the Garden He had made for them. 

Adam, in his loneliness, experienced his own spirit pushing for com-union with another like himself.  He had all the world had to offer, and yet, he needed soul communion.  And God, in His love, gave him what he craved: a soul-mate, a help-meet (suitable for his nature).

As Adam tended the garden, the animals came to him and he called them by name --that is, he understood their natures and was able to name who/what they were---he was in communion with them.

The destructive force in the universe was determined to disrupt the harmony, the trust, the union between God and man, man and man, and man and the universe: ye shall be as gods, he told them, judging for yourselves good and evil.  So man walked "away" from God rather than 'with" God.  And that break in com-union, that wall in the spiritual world, extended itself to the relationship between man and woman, and between man and the universe, eventually passing on to the next generation even more intensely.

The problem is that we are made for harmony, for union.  Without it, we die.  The spiritual dis-unity/death begins on the inside, but eventually expresses itself in anger and frustration at the other.  As our lack of spiritual connection grows, even the earth experiences our spiritual death and gives nothing back to us.  Those who walk in darkness hardly notice the coming of spring or of dawn; their hearts remain shrouded in anger and selfishness.  They cannot be "born-anew" each day by the gifts of nature because they are blinded by rage. 

In Romans 7, even Paul (in his born-again state) can say, "I do not understand myself at all.  In my mind, I agree with the law of God, but there is something at work in me that is stronger than I am that causes me to do the very thing I have determined not to do.....unhappy man that I am!  Who will redeem me from this body of sin?"

In the next chapter, Paul gives the answer:  "Thanks be to God....for the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus has freed [us] from the law of sin and death." That is, the spirit of Jesus living in us is always at work to overcome the divisions that lead to death---division from God, from our brothers, and from the universe.  The spirit of life poured out in us through the gift of God tears down the walls of division that we have built up, the walls that lead us to death by isolation and loneliness, the walls of anger and rage and frustration, the walls of hostility that keep us from seeing God, one another, and the beauty of the world around us. 

The only way we can remove those walls in our spirits is to bring them to the Lord, who has already crucified our nature/flesh and all its passions and in the place of the dead man of sin has brought back from the grave a "new man," alive to God and dead to sin.  And the Spirit of God living in our re-born spirits can finally re-connect us to Himself and to all living things. 

What is Wisdom?

While the Western mind, descended from the Greek tradition, seeks to argue ["I don't agree; let me tell you what I think"], the Oriental mind seeks wisdom---to comprehend, to understand what it does not yet grasp.

Humility opens the door to wisdom and understanding---and then knowledge.

As a child, I fell in love with wisdom and asked God from that time on for wisdom.  He answered by showing me my own heart as a scroll that I could not read---it appeared to be blank, but my feeling was only that I could not see what it contained.  Then I understood that if I allowed Him to show me what was there, it would lead me to heaven.  He then showed me the first word, "Purity," a word I did not really understand at the time, a word I almost felt had no relationship or emotional resonance to me.  At the time, that word was almost like a foreign word to me, since I had no experience (of purity) to which I could attach meaning or significance.

I now believe the word was written on my heart by Jesus Himself as the gift He was to give me over the years.  Having seen the word written on my heart caused me to begin seeking its meaning.  For more than 30 years, that was the only word I was given, but gradually during that time, I grew to understand what it meant, with the Holy Spirit as my teacher and guide.  He even, miraculously, it seems, put into my hands Kirkegaard's Purity of Heart.  To this day, I do not know how I acquired this book, or when, but Kirkegaard turned on a light in my mind and put words to what I had experienced years before:  Purity of heart is to desire one thing.  If one desires one thing plus other things, it is not purity of heart, but something else.

How wonderfully K. described my growth into my "lifetime scripture:" One thing I ask of the Lord, and this I seek--to dwell in the house of the Lord all my days and to gaze upon the beauty of His temple (Ps. 27).  From the moment I first read that verse, I knew it was my "lifetime" Scripture---it was the "one thing" I desired above all else.  But it took 30 years for the rest of K's description to be true of me---or before I began to approach true purity of heart.  And even now....

But some years ago, the Lord in His love and mercy for me wrote on my heart scroll a second word: humility.  Now, if "purity' has taken 30 years, how long will 'humility' take?  Again, the word seemed almost foreign to me, as I knew myself to be more proud than humble.  But now I understand that He writes on our hearts what He will teach us.  He teaches humility and purity, and His teaching is effective.  His word in us accomplishes what it says -- see Is. 55:10-11.  If He writes it, it is finished, done, completed, perfected.  "What I have written, I have written," said Caesar of Christ---or Christ of us.  What He writes on our hearts, no one can counter-write or erase:  "It is finished!"  [Even though it may take 30 years or more for the work to be completed in us.]

Finally, within the last two years, a third word was given to me:  truth.  I began a couple of years ago to fall in love with truth, embracing it as a tree of life, clinging to it as a sure foundation, understanding for the first time in my life the meaning and value of truth.  He Himself is Truth, and from Him comes all truth and all understanding of truth.  He is the light of the world, and in His light, we see light. 

And finally, I see:  I asked for wisdom as a child, but wisdom is the sum of these gifts:  purity of heart, humility to receive, and the truth that sets us free.  That is wisdom, and it takes a lifetime to grow into wisdom, even though in the Book of Job, Elihu says, "it is the breath of the Almighty in a man that gives him wisdom [and the young as well as the old have the breath of God if they are receptive and pure enough to receive it---my addition based on Elihu's speech]. 

I say, "Be careful what you ask God for; He takes all requests seriously."