Lessons From the Garden

This morning, I walked around with my garden shears, deadheading rosebushes.  Some plants easily drop their spent flowers -- these are called "self-cleaning" plants.  Others, however, hold onto their old blossoms and refuse to turn loose of them, until they form a fruit.  In the case of roses, the "fruit" is rose-hips, a fruit that can be harvested for various uses -- but not by me.  I don't know what to do with rose-hips, and that's not why I grow roses. 

If I allow the rosebushes to continue feeding the old flowers until they produce fruit, they will continue to put their energy into the rose-hips instead of into producing new flowers.  Soon, I will have bushes with no roses, only rose-hips.  I think our lives are like that.  If we put our energy into "feeding" the past, going over and over what was wrong, what others did to us, we cannot produce flowers for today.  We have formed in our brains what is called a "loop," a phenomenon that makes every current event connect to and feed into the past.  Soon, our lives are filled with "rose-hips," which cannot be used for today -- unless, of course, we are scientists who know how to extract Vitamin C from them.

I recently read a story about a young woman who had been abused by her grandfather.  When he died, he left her his house, "where they had shared so many memories," as he put it in his will.  Her rage and bitterness were unspeakable.  She hated that house, and she hated him.  One day, she had the idea to donate the house to an organization that sheltered abused women and children.  In one stroke, she rid herself of the hateful house, and somehow, she found a way to make roses bloom from the same bush.

One of the lessons I've learned from working in the garden is that simply weeding a bed will not work unless we plant something in that spot that we want to grow.  The same is true of bitter memories:  we cannot get rid of them by denying them; we must plant something else in their place -- something strong enough to create new growth in our brains to replace the "loop" of past history.

For me, that "strong growth" has been Scripture.  Isaiah 59:19 says, "When the enemy comes in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord will put him to flight."  Sometimes, the hurts of the past come at us like a flood, threatening to overwhelm our stability and drown us.  But, if we have stored up Scripture in our hearts and minds, the Spirit of the Lord will put a sword in our hands, one that will counteract fear, anxiety, hatred, -- all the emotions that threaten to destroy our souls.

The morning I found out I had lung cancer, on the way to the doctor's office, I had been listening to Charles Stanley teaching about how to handle a crisis.  His text was Psalm 57:1:  I will take refuge in the shadow of your wings until the disaster has passed.  What a great gift that teaching was to me -- even before I knew I needed it, the Holy Spirit had ministered it to my heart like a shield and a sword to defeat the enemy I would face that day.

We cannot keep feeding yesterday's flowers; their blooms are spent.  If we want flowers for today, we must be willing to cut off the parts of our past that drain our energy.  If we don't want to keep staring at weeds in our yard, it is time to begin planting the Word of God instead.

The Freedom of Abraham

Thus Abraham becomes a free man.  He was set free from family and country when he left his native land.  He was set free from fear when he walked into hostile territory.  He was set free from doubt when he let the Lord give him a son.  Now he is set free from his ties to his own children and from worrying about the future because he has put himself entirely in God's hands.

And what does God do?  He gives it all back to him.  Abraham has a family again, he has a country again, he has a son again, he has a future again.  The reward of his faith is freedom, the freedom to fulfill the deepest desire of his heart....faith leads to the greatest human fulfillment (Richard Rohr in The Great Themes of Scripture, p. 97).

What does God want of us?  Everything.  It's that simple.  He cannot give us what we have not surrendered to him, for it is still under our control and management.  But our management is not good enough; it is always limited by our understanding of what is possible.  God's plans go far beyond what we can see or imagine:  "For I know the plans I have for you," says the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not harm you, plans to give you hope and a future" (Jer. 29:11).

People think the story of Abraham sacrificing Isaac is ridiculous, that God would not ask such a thing.  But we are all called to surrender our children to the Lord.  They do not "belong" to us; we were given for a time the privilege of serving them, of cherishing them, of loving them.  But, like Mary at the wedding of Cana, we must also at some point surrender them to the plans and purposes of God.

I had a good friend whose 14-year old son was diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor.  At first, my friend prayed for a healing.  Then she got angry at God.  She had 8 children and she had taken them all to church since they were born.  One day in her den, she shook her fist at God:  "How can You do this after all I've tried to serve you all these years?" she cried out.  And then she proceeded to tell God all she had done "for Him." 

In the midst of her outburst, something powerful came over her and she fell to her knees, apologizing to the Lord.  "I'm sorry;" she said.  "You gave me Your Son, and now I give you mine. He is yours."  And peace came over her with the surrender.

Even though several doctors had said to her, "I'm sorry, Mom; he's a fine boy, but there's nothing we can do," one doctor decided to operate just to relieve the pressure on the boy's brain.  When they opened him up in surgery, there was no tumor to be found!  She surrendered her son to God, and God gave him back to her.  She is long dead now, but that son is still alive and flourishing.

Nothing we surrender to God is lost.  He blesses the situation and returns it to us as a gift.  And then we are free to enjoy it without worry about losing it again.  Once it's in God's hands fully, He knows how to take care of what we have given to Him. 

The Vision of Faith

Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on...to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me (Phil. 3: 13 & 12).

*********

The journey of Exodus, the journey that Israel walked, is an image of the journey that every person makes when he or she sets out to follow the Lord.  Israel is, as it were, humanity personified, and so what happened to Israel is what happens to everyone who sets out on the journey of faith....

[The Israelites'] religious insight was really a product of religious hindsight: they reflected on their experience and they interpreted it in a new way.  Today, on the other hand, we do not usually look back on what has happened and see the hand of God in it.

When that hindsight becomes foresight -- when it becomes a hope and expectation that God will do in the future what He did in the past-- we call that the vision of faith.  It is precisely this vision that is essential for authentic worship.  (Richard Rohr in The Great Themes of Scripture, pp. 19-20).

We all tend to hold onto resentment and bitterness over the past.  Someone once said, "Sooner or later, we must all give up the hope of a better yesterday."  I love that idea, because I think it well expresses the reason we ingrain the past into our brains.  We rehearse what was done to us in the hope that by going over and over the past, we somehow can change it.  But all we do is make it more real; we become the past by making it our only reality.

That is why the Exodus journey, and the journeys of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, etc. are one of "the great themes" of Scripture.  The only way we can "change" the past is by walking out of it toward the future, toward that for which Christ Jesus has taken hold of us.  Of course, the past does not really change; what does change is the hold it has on us.  We are prisoners of our experience until we are set free by a call to the future, to a new "Promised Land," where the past becomes a distant memory.

In the book Hinds Feet on High Places, Hannah Hunard writes an allegory of "Much Afraid," whose future is determined by her relatives: "Fear," "Anxiety," "Worry," etc.  She is held captive and almost paralyzed by her "people."  But the Shepherd calls her forth from "her father's people" to the hills; he leads her by cords of love to a new land, where he captures her heart and makes her forget her relatives.  Once her heart has been renewed by love and she no longer belongs to her "father's people," but to her Lover, she is sent back to her people--no longer as "Much Afraid," but with a new name.  Her people no longer recognize her; she is not the person who went away after the Shepherd.  Now she returns in freedom and power to call them out of their dismal past also and to show them the glory that lies ahead.

This is the journey we must all take -- the journey to an unknown place, the journey out of our "dismal past."  There is only one Guide for that journey; no one else can go with us on the way.  Only Jesus Christ is the Way.  He is the One Who calls us forth and Who invites us to walk with Him.  Once we agree, we will know His Presence in a way we have never before known it. 

So many people are afraid to go with Him.  We prefer to hold onto what we are familiar with, even if it is painful, rather than let go of the past and walk into an unknown future.  But only "letting go" of Egypt will bring us to the Promised Land.

Watering the Soil/Soul of our Existence

How do we keep the soil/soul of our life tilled and watered, waiting for the seed of eternal life?

All of the Bible and all of spiritual writing begins with "conversion" -- which simply means "turning."  At some point, we all face the moment of turning: turning our faces and our souls from the things of this world to the things of God: no longer seeking admiration, love, attention, ambition, power, control, satisfaction from the people and things around us--but drawing close to God and seeking His attention, seeking the kingdom of God rather than the kingdom of this world.

As long as we are seeking anything from someone else or from something else but God, we will find disappointment.  Nothing else can satisfy us at the deepest level of our existence except God.  Our life's journey may be a series of discoveries of the things that we thought would make us happy, but don't.  So many people are angry and unhappy because someone or some thing has failed to satisfy them, but we are made in such a way that this physical and even intellectual world cannot complete us.  We have a spiritual nature, and only the Spirit of God can fill us to overflowing to the world around us.

Many, many things point the way to God and give us hints of the joy that awaits us, but if we just stop at the signposts of nature's beauty, of the love of family and friends, at reading or study, and never find communion with God through these signs, they will ultimately fail us also.

Our physical bodies need food and exercise and sexual satisfaction, but none of these things are God; we use them, but do not worship them as ends in themselves.  Our souls need intellectual stimulation and affection and emotional balance, but again, if we try to "latch onto" any of these things as the end of our existence, they will also fail to satisfy us ultimately.

It is our spirits that need water on a daily basis, and Jesus said that He was the Source of that Living Water.  No other prophet in the world-- Mohammed, Buddha, Indian gurus, etc. -- have promised or even suggested that if we come to them, they will give us Living Water, springing up to eternal life and flowing out of our bellies (core of our existence).  They can give us spiritual practices which soothe our bodies and souls (minds and emotions) temporarily, but only temporarily, as long as we continue the practice.  But none of them have said, "I will be with you always, even to the end of the world."  The initiative is always on our part, not on theirs.  Only Jesus offers us His initiative, His Spirit, to continue the work in us.

At the time of my life when I was searching the most, I first tried yoga.  It helped as long as I could sit undisturbed in a meditative position and hum.  But three babies did not allow for much sitting and humming; the bits of sleep I could snatch here and there seemed more soothing to mind and body.  Then I tried Transcendental Meditation, Yokefellow, and then Universal Unitarianism -- all of which promised that positive thinking, primal screaming, and holy thoughts would drive out depression and despair.

How does a person live from workshop to workshop, from therapy to therapy session?  Everything depended on my own ability to maintain equilibrium in the practice du jour.  Now, I am glad that I tried all these things; otherwise, I would not know how much they failed to satisfy me at the deepest level of my soul -- at the level of spirit.

When the Holy Spirit entered my life, He brought joy without ceasing, laughter in the place of deep mourning, beauty for ashes, and peace not as the world gives.  Isaiah says this:

Cursed is the one who trusts in man,

who depends on flesh for his strength

and whose heart turns away from the Lord.

He will be like a bush in the wastelands;

he will not see prosperity when it comes.

He will dwell in the parched places of the desert,

in a salt land where no one lives.

But blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord,

whose confidence is in Him.

He will be like a tree planted by the water

that sends out its roots by the stream.

It does not fear when heat comes;

its leaves are always green.

It has no worries in a year of drought

and never fails to bear fruit (17:5-8).

No amount of New Age "practice" could have given me the peace that the "world cannot give."  That kind of peace and joy flow directly from the heart of Jesus to the believer, the one who has surrendered his/her life to Him.  It is an active, dynamic, and overcoming peace; it flows continually from Him to the soil of our souls, softening it and making it ready to receive the things of God.  The seed planted in that soul/soil will bear much fruit.

Rich Soil

As you do not know the path of the wind,

or how a body is formed in a mother's womb,

so you cannot understand the work of God,

the Maker of all things.

Sow your seed in the morning,

and at evening let not your hands be idle,

for you do not know which will succeed,

whether this or that,

or whether both will do equally well (Ecc. 11:5-6).

What is it that nourishes our souls?  We all easily recognize the things that nourish our bodies, even though we sometimes choose junk food instead.  As children, we nourish our minds almost by instinct, investigating, wondering, exploring, discovering, reading, asking questions.  As adults, we sometimes think we "know it all," and therefore stop learning in favor of the easier path -- being entertained.

But at the deepest level of our being, beyond the physical, beyond the intellectual, is another part of us that defines who we are -- our spirit.  Proverbs 4:23 says, "Guard well your heart, for out of it flow all the issues of life."  When the Bible speaks of the "heart," it is referring to the spirit, the core of our being.  How many of us "guard well" our spirits?  How many of us give precedence and nourishment to our spirits?

What is it that brings joy and peace and contentment and overflowing love to our lives?  It is not eating to nourish our bodies, nor educating our minds, as wonderful and satisfying as both activities are.  That nourishment is temporary, and fails to satisfy the thirst we feel at our deepest level.  Jesus promised the woman at the well, the one who had had 5 husbands, a fountain springing up to eternal life.  Wow!  Imagine if there were inside us an ever-flowing and renewing fountain of living water!  Would we not go to the fountain daily to drink -- at least as often as we go to our kitchen faucet or the town well to drink?

How do we water the soul, the soil of our hearts?  How do we sow the seeds that spring up 30, 60, or 100-fold?  Whatever we plant in our soul will produce fruit, for good or for evil.  If we want something in our lives to change, it must begin with whatever we are planting in our gardens.  Even before the planting, however, is the condition of the soil in which we plant.

More tomorrow.....

Forming a Community

Whether we like it or not, it seems that a true community is formed by one of two events: (1) some common trauma or disaster that draws people together despite any and all differences among them, or (2) a powerful and common experience of the Spirit of God working among them, melding them together despite all differences.  Nothing else -- family bonds, neighborhood bonds, marriage bonds, etc. - seems to be powerful enough to hold together a community under stress.

I often used to think, when we had weekly prayer meetings in the 70's, that only God's spirit could have drawn together and held together such a diverse group of people who had little or nothing else in common.  But there was such joy flowing out of those prayer meetings, where the Spirit ministered to us individually and as a group, that it overflowed into our daily lives.  When one member of the group had a son or daughter about to be married, all of us came together to prepare the feast.  No one had the money to hire a caterer, so we all worked long hours to have the best spread available.  And the guests all commented about how much fun the community was to be with.  If there was a need, all of us were there to supply the need.  We comforted one another in sorrow and shared in all the joy of each family.  I have never before nor since truly experienced the New Testament church in the same way.

In the aftermath of Katrina, I was in a shelter with 350 people for a week.  Again, we were the most diverse group one could find -- about 100 Mexican laborers with their families, blacks, whites, and everything in between:  old, young, people on meds and slightly out of their minds when their meds ran out; policemen, firemen, those traumatized by the storm, those who had watched loved ones die -- you name it.  That shelter without air, without working toilets, without food or water, without ice, was our common home.  Babies cried from lack of formula and from diaper rash from the heat.  There were no clean diapers, cans of baby powder, or baby wipes.  We all suffered together from the same conditions -- and we all worked together, each one as he was able, to support one another.  There was no "mine" and "yours;" whatever we had, we offered to the others.  We all swept and mopped the floors, picked up the trash, rocked the babies, prayed for help together.  We listened to one another's stories, found something to laugh about, and even "showered" together by standing under the rainspouts the one day we had merciful rain.  That was community at its best; I would not trade that experience for anything.  We were in hell together, but we were together, whether we spoke the same language or not.

When God called the Israelites out of Egypt under the leadership of Moses, they all thought they would die at the shore of the Red Sea, with the E. army close behind them.  Once they had crossed over the Sea safely and escaped certain death, a "survival" bond erased all previous differences of opinion --- God had saved them together; together, they would face the next crisis.  And then the desert: no food, no water, no certainty of the next day.  Again and again, God showed them not as individuals, but as a people, that He was with them.  He provided manna, and water, and direction, relief from the heat by day and the cold by night. They learned to function as a people, not as individuals with their own interests.

And then, when the burden of governing so many people weighed Moses down, God sent His Spirit on 70 leaders to help Moses govern.  Now, God was forming the people into a "people," a nation, an "organization" with structure.  They could never have entered the Promised Land and lived in peace with 12 different tribes without both the desert experience and the Spirit of God hovering over them, governing them through a structure of order. 

There was a condition of order and peace, however:  But select capable men from all the people -- men who fear God, trustworthy men who hate dishonest gain -- and appoint them as officials over thousands, hundreds, fifties, and tens (Ex. 18:21).

In America, our forefathers also went through a common experience, a common trauma that united them solidly together.  They fled "Egypt" where they were prisoners of corruption, division, lack of freedom to worship freely, and absolute power.  They crossed the "Red Sea," certain of death at every turn, faced the wilderness of danger, lack of food, and uncertainty --- and then the War with Britain.  When they were finally established in safety, they elected capable men, trustworthy men who hated dishonest gain, men who had the Spirit of God in them, and settled down united both by trauma and the Spirit. 

What has happened today?  We have certainly lost men who seek the Spirit of God as their source of governance; we have lost our common experience of trauma and near-death and coming out of it safely together.  We are no longer a community.  But it seems that we will learn again -- through hurricanes, through drought and food shortages, through fires and floods -- to be a community.  Now, if only the Spirit of God would raise up for us once again men who have been annointed to serve and who do so under God!

Purity of Heart

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end.  Amen.

Every Catholic child learns that prayer from birth; he hears it in church and at home, if the family prays the rosary together.  The prayer could not be more simple and automatic -- so simple and automatic that we never hear it; we just "say" it.  But this one prayer is the path to purity of heart, if we could only really pray it.

When Mary first began appearing in Medjugore in 1981 (I think it was), the world was waiting for a dramatic message.  With every previous appearance, although her message was very simple, war broke out some years later in the area.  Of course, that was also true in Yugoslavia, with the genocide to follow in the 1980's reign of Sloban Milosovich.  The country was bombed all around Medjugore and finally divided; now Medjurore is part of Bosnia-Herzogovinia.  Yugoslavia no longer exists.  Yet, Mary still appears daily to the visionaries.  One of them, Marjia, often comes to Alabama, and Mary appears to her there.  During her last appearance in Alabama in July, I believe there were over 15,000 people in attendance. 

Mary's messages are always so simple that few people (comparatively) take them seriously.  She is there not to dramatize events, but to teach people to pray.  First, she taught the children visionaries to pray by leading them in prayer daily:  Pray until prayer becomes joy for you, she told them.  Then, others gathered around the children to pray with them.  Some of them led prayer groups for years, and are still doing so.  Others taught their children at home to pray.  There are no 'scary' and dramatic visions taking place -- just simple invitations to prayer and gratitude from the heart of Mary for listening to her call.  There are "secrets" not yet revealed, but they remain secrets to the visionaries.  Mary's mission is to call people to the heart of God, to teach them to trust Him, to teach them to turn to Him in faith and confidence, to prepare them for whatever comes by hiding them under the care of the Most High. 

That is "purity of heart"  -- to desire only that people we know turn to God, know God, love God, trust God.  Moses had to learn purity of heart before he could lead his people out of Egypt.  It took him 40 years on the back side of the desert to give up his fiery temperament and to rely on God's way instead of his ways.  He was extraordinarily well-learned in Egyptian ways; he was in line to inherit the throne of Egypt and to become a 'god' to the Egyptians.  But Yahweh had to teach Moses that nothing would set his people free except reliance on and trust in Him.  Moses had to learn the one thing that could free his people-- total trust in Yahweh, not in himself.  That's a very hard lesson.  In fact, when Yahweh commissioned Moses for the task, Moses had no confidence at all in his own ability to speak to Pharoah or, for that matter, to his own people.  He went with his trust that the Yahweh who revealed Himself to Moses would also be present to work out the details.

When Mary calls us to pray daily, her trust in God is like that of Moses.  She knows that the one who prays daily will begin to desire nothing else but "Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit."  We begin to desire not our kingdom come, but His.  Until we are there (or at least on the way), we do not have purity of heart.  If we desire anything else but His kingdom come, we will remain on the back side of the desert, helpless.  Once we desire that God act in His way, in His time, on His terms, we will have gained purity of heart.  Only then will we be fit instruments for His use.

St. Therese of Liseux used to picture herself as the toy of the child Jesus, like a small rubber ball.  If he wanted to pick her up and play with her, it delighted her.  But if he allowed her to remain unnoticed for months and even years, lying unused in a dark corner, that also delighted her.  She wanted nothing else but to allow Him to do whatever He chose with her.  Now that's purity of heart -- not a desire to be strong and powerful, not a desire to change the world or to fix things we don't like, not a desire to be loved or even noticed -- but the desire for God to use us (or not) as He chooses.  

Family Reunion

Jesus replied: The people of this age marry and are given in marriage. But those who are considered worthy of taking part in that age and in the resurrection from the dead will neither marry nor be given in marriage (Luke 20:34).

Our family is planning our next reunion, and I am so excited to see everyone again and to meet the new members, born since our last reunion.  There is always such a spirit of joy and celebration when we come together -- a spirit of union and of welcome to all.  Our conversations are rarely, if ever, about the past, for as a family of six siblings originally, our history and shared memories are limited.  As the oldest, I was leaving home while the others were just beginning to grow and create memories of their own.  What we share and celebrate today are the wonderful and interesting people we have become, and the children we have produced.  The people who have married into the family in each generation are part of the union we celebrate; there is no distinction between "blood" sisters or brother and "spirit" sisters and brothers.  In fact, while there is a dissolving marriage in my generation, all of us have insisted that the "ex" come to the reunion and be a part of the celebration; she is still our beloved sister, whether still married to my brother or not.

Though the first generation was all raised in the Catholic church, only 2 of us still remain Catholic.  The rest range from agnostic to "way out there" (maybe New Age, I don't know) to conservative evangelical.  Now, here's the interesting thing:  we have deep and intense discussions about ideas, but never about "religion."  We disagree sometimes about how things "are," but our discussions always draw us closer together in warmth and love.  There is a deep spirit that unites us, much deeper than the things that divide us. 

A number of years ago, while one of my brothers was still dating, he brought his new girlfriend to the family reunion.  She spent most of the time in her room.  Maybe that was our fault; we wanted to welcome her, but there was just something that didn't "fit" the family.  She had a different "spirit," an incompatible spirit. She knew it; we knew it.  The marriage never took place.  Several years after that, my brother suddenly married another woman.  When I called to congratulate him, he said, "I finally met someone I could bring to a family reunion, and I wanted to close the deal before the next reunion."  His new wife was just perfect; when we met her, she was instantly part of the family.  There was so much joy in all of us to welcome her.  She will always be part of our family, whether the marriage lasts or not (It will; I have no doubt).

So what's the point?  The things of this world (family history, marriage, religion) are not what unites us -- those things are part of this world and serve a definite purpose in this world.  What unites us is an indefinable spirit, a union that cannot be broken or touched by the things of this world -- marriage, religion, history, even language.  Will we all be together in heaven?  The bond we share cannot be broken.  There is no doubt in my mind that our family reunions in heaven will continue as on earth -- along with all those each individual family united to while on earth. 

In the spirit, there is no male or female, Jew or Gentile, black or white, old or young -- all drink from the same Fountain of Life.  The reason that I, as a 70-year-old woman can teach a class of 17-year-old- juniors in high school is not that we even come close to sharing the same "world" of experience/ history/ memories, etc., but that there is spirit that unites us in a deeper and closer bond than anything we experience in the world.  Only the Holy Spirit can bring that spirit-bond to the foreground and make the physical world fade into the background. 

Shakespeare had one of his characters say something to the effect that "there is more on heaven and earth than we can guess at, dear Polonius."  (I may have completely messed up the quote.)  In the passage from Luke, Jesus went on to say that in the next age, those who rise from the dead "can no longer die; for they are like the angels.  They are God's children, since they are children of the resurrection."

When Jesus was told that his mother and brothers were waiting to speak with Him, He replied: Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?  Pointing to his disciples, he said, "Here are my mother and my brothers.  For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother" (Matt. 12:4-50).  We have a family not born of the same mother and father, but of the Spirit of God.  Once we connect with that family, it's forever!

Jesus spoke of the "sword" that would divide "a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law, and a man's enemies will be the members of his own household" (Matt10:34).  The "sword" He spoke of is a division of spirit, not of flesh.  In the flesh, we have many divisions and disagreements, but in the Spirit, all of those fade into the background.  Jesus said, "I know mine, and mine know me."  That is the test -- not Catholic, Jew, Muslim, or whatever else the world has concocted to divide us -- but knowing Christ, whether consciously or not.  I look forward to the next "family" reunion, where He gathers together all who drink from His Spirit.

And a door opens.....

In his autobiography, Surprised by Joy, C.S.Lewis writes of getting into the sidecar of a motorcycle which his brother was driving.  When he stepped into the sidecar, he was an unbeliever; by the time they arrived at their destination, He believed.  What happened during that short time?

Lewis' entire life had prepared him for that single moment when a door opened in the universe and he stepped through it.  His love of nature, and of mythology, of fantasy, of poetry, of language -- all had been preparation for that one moment.  His friendship with J.R.R.Tolkein, the book club where they exchanged ideas and commented on one another's books -- had all been leading up to the moment the curtains parted and revealed to him Jesus Christ, the Lord God of heaven and earth.

Up until that moment, we think we see, as did the Scribes and Pharisees of Jesus' day; we think we see, as I did as a young intellectual who thought she "knew" how the Bible was written, who thought Jesus was "a man of his time" and spoke as an inculturated Jew.  I, too, at one time was a proponent of the time-snobbishness that held that we, as moderns, were so much more enlightened than the people of the New Testament, and certainly, of the Old Testament.  What they ascribed to the action of God, we now "know" to be science and nature at work, or so I then believed.

But one day, a door opens, and we, if we are blessed and graced, step from one universe into the next--the world of belief.  Our scepticism fades as the wonders of daily grace and miracles unfold before our eyes.  No longer is Jesus a historical figure, but a living Presence in our lives.  We are drawn by His love and we hear His voice; He reveals to us His own Spirit, Who leads us into all truth.  We have been born again, not by our own will or effort, but by the fatherhood of God who brings us to a new birth in His Spirit. 

While we continue to live "in" the world, but not "of" the world, we see what we could not see before; we hear what before was silent; we become sensitive to things that before we scorned.  We see not from our own history and perspective, but from God's viewpoint -- and everything is different.  It is as if we (our old selves) have died and a new person has come back from the dead, someone who for the first time is more alive to the things of God than to the things of this world. 

This is the meaning of Christ's death and resurrection---He had to crucify the sin nature that kept us blind to the Spirit of God in order to bring out of the earth a "new man," a man alive to God.  I Cor. 2:14 says: The natural man does not grasp the things of God, nor can he, for they are revealed by the Spirit.  But the spiritual man judges all things....and we have the mind of Christ.

The "mind of Christ" is not acquired by study, but by revelation.  We have to thirst for it, ask for it -- but when the door opens, we will know it.

Walking With God

Enoch walked with God; then he was no more, because God took him away (Gen.5:22).

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"Come, walk with Me," said the Most High God, "and I will show you great things which you know not."

"Not right now, Lord," said I, "my favorite show is coming on t.v.  Maybe later."

"Come, walk with Me," said the Spirit; "I want you to see something wonderful I made."

"It looks like rain right now," I thought; "We might get caught in a thunderstorm."

"Come, walk with Me," said the Lord;" I want to reveal to you the secrets of the universe."

"It's kind of hot right now," I said; "let's wait until it's cooler."

"Never mind," whispered the Spirit; "the homeless without a t.v., the one in prison who would love to walk in the rain, the one toiling all day in the hot sun have come with Me, and I have refreshed their souls beyond all measure."



Relationship, not Religion

When people start thinking about God, they almost always begin to think about religion -- going to some church to find God.  But as human and "natural" as the process seems to be, it is really backwards.  If we were not raised in a church, we begin looking for the 'right' church -- and really, God in His love and mercy will very often lead us to the place that can nurture our hungry souls.  But the truth is that we would not have been looking for a church unless there had already been some call in our hearts -- the beginning of a relationship with God.  We would not look for Him unless He had already found us.

If we have been raised in a church, we may have felt the intimation of a relationship already as children, but the "cares and concerns" of our lives may have choked out the relationship until we find ourselves just going through the motions of attending church services and thinking that this is all there is to it.

God wants a relationship with us.  Throughout the entire Old Testament, He calls Himself "husband," "father," "mother," "intimate lover," "brother," "friend."  In the first chapter of Genesis, He is "El," (God).  That is His title: The Supreme God, the Creator."  But very quickly, He gives mankind His Name: Yahweh.  By the second chapter of Genesis, He is referred to as (in English) "The LORD God," Yahweh El, in Hebrew.  The Jews did not allow the sacred Name to be pronounced, so wherever it occurs in Scripture, they substitute "Adonai," meaning "Lord."  That way, when the text is read aloud (the only way it could have been read for centuries), the Name Yahweh could not be pronounced aloud.)   I respect the awe and reverence this practice embodies, the "fence" the Jews put up around the Sacred Name -- but in some ways, it also hides the truth from us. 

God did not want to be called "God,"  (or whatever title we use in our culture).  He has a Name, and He gave that Name to mankind so that we could address Him as a Person, face to face.  We have names, and we give those names to those we trust (as identity theft has taught us not to give our names to those we don't trust).  Those who know our name have a relationship with us (in the simple world before the internet).

John Paul II said this:  God in his deepest mystery is not a solitude but a family because he has within himself Fatherhood, Sonship, and the essence of the Family, which is Love.

From the beginning, God wants us to participate in and image His Life of Love, of Family, of dynamic relationship, of pouring out and receiving and giving back in love.  We are His Image and Likeness; we are made for relationship, as the first lesson of Genesis teaches us.  Adam had the entire world at his fingertips; there was nothing he needed or wanted -- except companionship, except a lover who could receive him and give back to him what he most needed and wanted-- love.  He needed relationship, family, dynamic love.  Adam was not sent to church; he was given a wife, and sons.  The Garden was the 'church' where they walked with God and with one another.

Yesterday, a friend who was raised as a militant atheist, who  had been taught that anyone who believes in God is ignorant or stupid, said to me, "I am now off all my medication, and I am better; I think there's something out there, but I don't want to go to church and have a preacher take all my money. Maybe Buddhism." 

I want to cry that she identifies Yahweh who seeks to fill her soul with love with 'going to church,' and religion, and yet, I know that she is now off her meds and no longer depressed and looking for life because so many people have been praying for her for so long -- and Yahweh Who Loves Her is calling her forward out of darkness into His marvelous light.  It is not yet time to tell her that, but she has accepted that people have been praying for her.  It is not that our prayers have moved God on her behalf; it is that God on her behalf has wanted us to be a part of what He wanted to do for her all along.  He could have done it without us, but he wants a "family" of love and support around her as she emerges from the shadow of death into life.  Unfortunately, Buddhism would take her, if truly practiced, out of relationship back into her own inner world, shutting off all that might distract her from "nirvana."

When God called Abraham out of his father's house and his people/ his pagan culture, there was as yet no religion, no church -- only worship of the stars, sun, and moon, and child sacrifice to appease the gods.  It would still be about 600 years before any semblance of "religion" would be formed among Abraham's descendents at Mount Sinai.  So my point is this:  if we want to know God as "husband," "father," "mother," "lover," "friend," we will have to cultivate a relationship with Him through prayer.  Then, and only then, He will lead us to "church," where we can celebrate and share His relationship with us and others in the family of God.  Then the dynamic giving and receiving can spill over into the lives of others; then we can be truly family ('father,' 'mother,' sister, brother, lover, friend) with Him and with the world around us.

To say we are all "family" without the loving relationship that originates in the Trinity is simply untrue and misleading.  A church can gather us together, but it cannot give us love unless we are gathered together by the love of God.

Listening to God

People have told me that God has never spoken to them, though they have strained to hear Him.  We must be standing in the Presence of God to hear His voice in our hearts, and one of the very best ways to stand in the Presence of God is through a practice called "Lectio Divina."  In his simple guide to Lectio Divina, Father Luke Dysinger, a Benedictine monk, writes this:

God does not reach out and grab us but gently invites us ever more deeply into his presence.

And Catherine de Hueck Doherty puts it this way: The sea of God's mercy is warm and quiet and inviting for us to swim in (from Grace in Every Season).

I will say this:  we must be at peace, for the most part, before we can hear the voice of God.  As Elijah discovered, God is not in the whirlwind, nor in the storm, but in the "still, small voice" deep inside us.  And we know the voice is not ours because it goes against all of our own thoughts up to that moment, and it brings an end to our own foolish thoughts, replacing them with confidence and peace and assurance.

Lectio Divina is not the same as "reading Scripture."  We can read Scripture to confirm our own deeply - held beliefs and to "prove" that we are right.  That is not Lectio Divina.  In Lectio Divina, we are not trying to justify our beliefs, or to learn more, or to cover a certain amount of text.  We are seeking instead the voice of God speaking to us through the Holy Spirit.  We are seeking to enter the Presence of God.  We are seeking to swim in the warm and quiet sea of His mercy and love.

Psalm 100 says, "Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name."  Before we begin "reading Scripture," I know of no better way than thanksgiving and praise to enter into the presence of God.  True praise and thanksgiving means that we have taken the focus off our little lives and concerns and turned the spotlight on God and on His love for us, His care for us, His concern for us.  We are no longer desperate beggars standing before the closed and remote gates of a palace, but in the Presence of the One Who loves us, who has ears to hear us.  The warmth of His response begins to fill our hearts and minds and ears so that now we are ready to hear His Voice.

Only then can we open our Bibles under the direction of the Holy Spirit, who will show us what God has to say to us this day.  The Scriptures were written under the guiding hand of the Spirit, and it is that same hand that points out to us what our souls and minds and hearts are thirsting to hear today.  Without that interaction, Scripture remains a closed book to us. 

Lectio Divina is a dialog with God.  It is prayer, not "study."  It brings our thoughts and cares and wounds that need to be talked about, dealt with, into the Presence of the Only One who can heal, correct, and lighten our hearts.  Lectio Divina has no goal other than being in the Presence of God and of hearing what He has to say to us.

Richard Rohr says this:  Today the Lord will give you something new.  All you have to do is hunger, and the Lord will give you what you desire.  You have to come before the Lord expecting and wanting something more than you already have.  We get what we expect from God.  When we have new ears to hear with, the Lord can speak a new word to us.  When we no longer expect anything new or anything more from God, we are like nonbelievers, atheists for all practical purposes (from the Introduction to The Great Themes of Scripture.)

I am much afraid that my church, for the most part, is a church of nonbelievers in Rohr's definition.  We do not expect to hear from God, and we are suspicious of those who claim to hear His voice.  But Jesus promised us, "My sheep know my Voice, and they will not follow another."  If we have not heard His Voice, we have not entered His Presence, and we do not know Him.  How sad, for we are indeed, "like sheep without a Shepherd."

Yesterday, I wrote about the person who "moves on," who allows him/herself to be transformed into someone fit for heaven.  Today, my daughter-in-law, who is one of the most fun people on the planet, posted an obituary written by a man she does not know, but whose self-written obituary speaks volumes about the person he was at the time of his death:

1953 - 2012

I was Born in Salt Lake City, March 27th 1953. I died of Throat Cancer on July 10th 2012. I went to six different grade schools, then to Churchill, Skyline and the U of U. I loved school, Salt Lake City, the mountains, Utah. I was a true Scientist. Electronics, chemistry, physics, auto mechanic, wood worker, artist, inventor, business man, ribald comedian, husband, brother, son, cat lover, cynic. I had a lot of fun. It was an honor for me to be friends with some truly great people. I thank you. I've had great joy living and playing with my dog, my cats and my parrot. But, the one special thing that made my spirit whole, is my long love and friendship with my remarkable wife, my beloved Mary Jane. I loved her more than I have words to express. Every moment spent with my Mary Jane was time spent wisely. Over time, I became one with her, inseparable, happy, fulfilled. I enjoyed one good life. Traveled to every place on earth that I ever wanted to go. Had every job that I wanted to have. Learned all that I wanted to learn. Fixed everything I wanted to fix. Eaten everything I wanted to eat. My life motto was: "Anything for a Laugh". Other mottos were "If you can break it, I can fix it", "Don't apply for a job, create one". I had three requirements for seeking a great job; 1 - All glory, 2 - Top pay, 3 - No work.

Now that I have gone to my reward, I have confessions and things I should now say. As it turns out, I AM the guy who stole the safe from the Motor View Drive Inn back in June, 1971. I could have left that unsaid, but I wanted to get it off my chest. Also, I really am NOT a PhD. What happened was that the day I went to pay off my college student loan at the U of U, the girl working there put my receipt into the wrong stack, and two weeks later, a PhD diploma came in the mail. I didn't even graduate, I only had about 3 years of college credit. In fact, I never did even learn what the letters "PhD" even stood for. For all of the Electronic Engineers I have worked with, I'm sorry, but you have to admit my designs always worked very well, and were well engineered, and I always made you laugh at work. Now to that really mean Park Ranger; after all, it was me that rolled those rocks into your geyser and ruined it. I did notice a few years later that you did get Old Faithful working again. To Disneyland - you can now throw away that "Banned for Life" file you have on me, I'm not a problem anymore - and SeaWorld San Diego, too, if you read this.

To the gang: We grew up in the very best time to grow up in the history of America. The best music, muscle cars, cheap gas, fun kegs, buying a car for "a buck a year" - before Salt Lake got ruined by over population and Lake Powell was brand new. TV was boring back then, so we went outside and actually had lives. We always tried to have as much fun as possible without doing harm to anybody - we did a good job at that.

If you are trying to decide if you knew me, this might help… My father was RD "Dale" Patterson, older brother "Stan" Patterson, and sister "Bunny" who died in a terrible car wreck when she was a Junior at Skyline. My mom "Ona" and brother "Don" are still alive and well. In college I worked at Vaughns Conoco on 45th South and 29th East. Mary and I are the ones who worked in Saudi Arabia for 8 years when we were young. Mary Jane is now a Fitness Instructor at Golds on Van Winkle - you might be one of her students - see what a lucky guy I am? Yeah, no kidding.

My regret is that I felt invincible when young and smoked cigarettes when I knew they were bad for me. Now, to make it worse, I have robbed my beloved Mary Jane of a decade or more of the two of us growing old together and laughing at all the thousands of simple things that we have come to enjoy and fill our lives with such happy words and moments. My pain is enormous, but it pales in comparison to watching my wife feel my pain as she lovingly cares for and comforts me. I feel such the "thief" now - for stealing so much from her - there is no pill I can take to erase that pain.

If you knew me or not, dear reader, I am happy you got this far into my letter. I speak as a person who had a great life to look back on. My family is following my wishes that I not have a funeral or burial. If you knew me, remember me in your own way. If you want to live forever, then don't stop breathing, like I did.

A celebration of life will be held on Sunday, July 22nd from 4:00 to 6:00 pm at Starks Funeral Parlor, 3651 South 900 East, Salt Lake City, casual dress is encouraged.

Online condolences may be offered and memorial video may be viewed at www.starksfuneral.com.

Published in Salt Lake Tribune from July 15 to July 22, 2012
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Heaven is full of people like this:  people whose mistakes and sins did not define who they were when they died, but who were transformed into the image of God by the love they shared, by the people they became one with, by the joy they spread to those around them.  His wife will miss his voice, his laughter, his presence, but whatever conflicts they may have had, whatever impatience she may have experienced with his bad habits in life are also gone forever.  What remains is their bond of life, their bond of love.  His "confession" is that of every one of us:  we have sinned, but we have loved, and it is love that in the end has saved us from our sins.

Moving On

When God began creating the heavens and the earth,

the earth was wild and waste, and darkness covered the face of the deep,

while a breath/breeze/wind/spirit of God brooded over the face of the waters.

When we die, who is the person left behind, and who is the one moving on?  Who is the person that leaves behind the wild and waste, formless abyss, and who is the person that enters into the Spirit of God?

If we think of ourselves from "the other side" of this life, we can hardly imagine that we would enter eternal life with the anger, the resentment, the hostility, the frustration, the busyness and the business that we hold onto every day of our lives.  All of that is what must die eventually -- so why not allow it to die today?

The person that we will be eventually will enter heaven full of joy, full of peace, full of love, full of compassion and understanding for others.  The person inside us who loves to dance, to sing, to laugh, will live forever.  We will know then for sure that we cannot fix anything or anyone else; we can only pour out the good that we have allowed God to pour into us.  We can only share what we have been given from the Spirit, who moves over the waters of our lives, correcting, ordering, balancing, restoring, renewing, bringing light into the darkness.

What the breath of God, the ruah, does continually for the cosmos, God does in our souls on a daily basis. 

Why not allow Him today to begin His work in us?  Why not allow Him to transform the wild and waste abyss of our lives into a cosmos of beauty and truth?  It can be done, but we cannot do it for ourselves.  It is the breath of God and the voice of God in us that creates a new beginning. 

If we never moved beyond the first sentence of Genesis, we would still be renewed by the Spirit of God working His work in us:  For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus (the "new man") to do good works, which God planned in advance for us to do (Eph. 2:10).

Learning to Sing: Part 3

"My soul is dead; they have sucked all the life out of me."

--words of a friend

This is Scripture; this is the entire story, from the opening pages of Genesis to the close of Revelation.  The pattern is always from death to life, from utter darkness, chaos, and confusion to light, harmony, and balance.  The world and our lives tend toward entropy, destruction, unwinding, descent into darkness.  We are overwhelmed and the waters of destruction close over our heads; we are "hard-pressed and are falling," in the words of one of the psalms, but "the Lord heard my cry and delivered me."  If we read the Psalms, again and again, we see the pattern from death to life:

unless the Lord had given me help,

I would soon have dwelt in the silence of death.

When I said, "My foot is slipping,"

your love, O Lord, supported me.

When anxiety was great within me,

your consolation brought joy to my soul (Ps. 94:17-19).

David was destined to be Israel's greatest king, the one annointed by God to bring order, peace, and harmony -- "The Golden Age" --  to Israel, where for the first and only time, God's people would dwell in peace and security in the Promised Land.  But before David came to the throne, before his life-mission was to take place, he was forced to flee to the wilderness for a number of years, to hide out in caves for fear of his life.  In his hatred and jealousy, Saul sent his army to hunt down David, to pursue him relentlessly, and to destroy him.  David's long and tortuous experience in the desert, when he could not even leave the cave for water to satisfy his thirst, taught him the providence of God.  When all human and natural resources were denied him, he learned for the first time in his life to rely on God.  All of his songs, which today we call the Psalms, flow out of his wilderness experience.  He was for all practical purposes, dead and buried, but the Lord brought him out of the grave and "set him on a high place, and did not let his enemies rejoice over him."

If we read the Psalms with the background of history, we know the source of David's Songs of Praise and Thanksgiving:

Psalm 27:  The Lord is my light and my salvation---whom shall I fear?

                The Lord is the stronghold of my life---of whom should I be afraid?

               When evil men advance against me to devour my flesh,

              When my enemies and my foes attack me,

             They will stumble and fall.

           Though an army beseige me,

         My heart will not fear;

        Though war break out against me,

        Even then will I be confident......

        for in the day of trouble, he will keep me safe in his dwelling;

       He will hide me in the shelter of his tabernacle and set me high upon a rock.

       Then my head will be exalted above the enemies who surround me;

        At his tabernacle will I sacrifice with shouts of joy;

        I will sing and make music to the Lord.

Only those who have been "laid low in the dust" and brought back to life know the salvation of our God. Only those who have been crushed by the cruelty of Egypt, of godless men, can know the saving and rescuing hand of God and can then sing with Miriam and Moses: "Sing to the Lord, for he is highly exalted.  Horse and rider he has hurled into the sea" (Ex. 15:21).

This is the meaning of Christ's death and resurrection:  He had to submit Himself willingly to the death we all undergo -- the death of mind, body, and spirit -- in order to descend to where we lie crushed, abandoned, dead, and enslaved.  There, and only there, united to Him, can we rise to a new life.  2 Cor. 5:17 puts it this way:  If anyone be in Christ Jesus, he is a new creation; the old has gone; the new has come!  Jesus told Nicodemus, Unless a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of heaven.    Why "born again?"  Because the old man is weighed down with the weight of the past -- his family, his world, the cruelty of others becomes part of our DNA, and we pass it on, willingly or not, to the next generation.  We are our history, and we cannot escape it -- except by death.  In the words of Isaiah, Your whole head is injured, your whole heart afflicted.  From the sole of your foot to the top of your head there is no soundness--only wounds and welts and open sores, not cleansed or bandaged or soothed with oil (1:5-6). 

There is no remedy for this kind of injury.  We cannot recover unscathed and act as if it never happened. But if we are willing to go down into death with Christ Jesus, if we are willing to allow Him to crucify our "natural man," chained by our past, to the cross, we are free of it forever.  In His resurrection, we rise to a new kind of life, no longer crippled and lamed and beaten and bruised and raped and scorned.  Now, we know ourselves to be someone else, "a new creature," chosen and accepted by God, brought to a new birth, delivered from the past, and sent out to sing a song of praise and thanksgiving to the God who allowed us to be brought low enough to look up.



Learning to Sing: Part 2

From childhood, God had always drawn me with cords of love, but I didn't really learn to sing (as in Mary's Magnificat and Francis Hymn of Creation) until I was broken down, exhausted, and felt for the first time in my life a failure.  Up until then, the two sustaining pillars of my life had been prayer and sleep, and as a successful high-school teacher for more than 10 years, I felt myself to be a fairly competent person, in control and on top of most situations.

When my first child was born, although he had severe and chronic tonsillitis, I had time to sit and rock him, read to him, care for him night and day.  I nursed him until I became pregnant with my second child, so even though I was not sleeping much during the night, I was still coping fairly well.  With the second child, who had severe and chronic earaches and allergies, things became a lot more difficult.  We took in a hyperactive, hungry 14 - year -old who needed help that he could not get at home.  Since there were never leftovers to pull out of the fridge, I needed to cook on a daily basis---and cook a lot.  As someone who had never learned to cook in the first place and who had no imagination at all when it came to what could be prepared, I was frantic.  I no longer had time to sit and rock and comfort a sick baby, to read to a two-year-old.  I found myself facing failure at every turn:  I was not a good mother; I couldn't keep up with a 14-year-old adolescent appetite; I could not keep diapers washed (we could not afford Pampers); the beds were unmade; the sofa was wet from being peed on (plastic diaper covers caused severe rashes on my children); and I was a crazy person from sleep deprivation. 

And then came the third child, whose chronic strep throat and projectile vomiting meant two or three hospital stays every year.  It seemed that no matter which child I tended to at any moment, I was failing two others.  My husband came home from work each day to chaos; I would hand him a crying baby so I could go into the kitchen and stare at the freezer, wondering what on earth, if anything we could eat that night.  No longer was I a competent person; I could not meet anyone's needs.  I had not slept more than an hour and a half in almost six years, and when I tried to get up early to pray, a baby would wake up crying.  There was nothing I could "fix," least of all myself.  "What do you want from me?" I screamed at God.

When the youngest child was 6 or 7 months old, I called my husband at work one day.  "I don't know what's wrong," I said; "I think I need a psychiatrist.  I can't stop crying, and I don't know why!"  God bless him; he immediately took off three days from work and came home to stay with the children while I went out to the Cenacle, a retreat house in Metairie.  I went there only because I vaguely recalled someone once telling me that one of the sisters there "had glued back the pieces of her life" when she fell apart.  That phrase seemed to be just what I needed at the time, and so I called Sister Geautreaux and asked if I could come to see her.

For the next three days, I slept; I cried; I walked on the lakefront; and I talked in the evenings with Sister Geautreaux, a trained counselor:  "I don't know why I'm crying," I said.  "Nothing is wrong.  When I look at my neighbors and their problems, I know I don't have anything to cry about."

"Who is God to you?" she asked.  I did not know the answer to that, but I thought about it until the next evening.  "He is the God of my past," I said, "and occasionally the God of my present, but He is not the God of my future. I cannot trust Him for tomorrow, or the next day, or the next ten years.  I am afraid for my children; I am afraid of my own failure; I don't think I can manage to fill their needs.  I don't know how to be a good mother."

I had not a clue as to what would be different when I returned home.  I still would not know how to cook, clean, comfort babies, take care of responsibilities, etc.  But the morning I was packing to leave, I heard a bird on the ledge outside my window.  He was singing his little heart out --- singing without stopping, singing, singing, singing.  I walked over to look at the most beautiful cardinal I have ever seen.  He was looking in at me, and singing his most beautiful song.  And suddenly, a moment of pure grace overcame me in his song.  At that moment, I "knew" in the deepest part of my being that I did not have to "fix" anything:  I just had to learn to wake up each morning and sing.

That was the turning point of my life.  Much, much more in the realm of grace was to follow that moment, but until that moment I would not have been receptive to what was still to come.  I first needed to let go of the sense of overwhelming failure and learn to sing a small song of thanksgiving and praise for three perfect and beautiful babies, for a loving husband, for a safe home and for plenty to eat (if I could only learn how to cook it).

To this day, whenever I see a cardinal, I remember the Gift of God and rejoice that in the words of Psalm 40:  ...he turned to me and heard my cry.  He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire;
he set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand.  He put a new song in my mouth, a hymn of praise to our God.

Amen

I will continue "Learning to Sing" again tomorrow, but today, I just must quote from Adrienne von Speyr's World of Prayer.  I have always seen this blog (and formerly, my prayer journal) as a way to hold on to the wisdom that God pours out to me in prayer each day.  I see myself as holding up an empty cup, maybe a chalice, to the good God who loves to pour into my small cup a portion of His wisdom and truth.  And while He pours, my cup spills over so that I cannot contain all that He shows me; nor can I remember it.

I started my journals years ago, and then this blog, not to teach others, but as a way for me to contain and recall and live out the treasures of heaven.  Like Samuel, the young prophet, I don't want to let the word of the Lord fall to the ground; I want to hold it in my heart, turning it over and contemplating what I am given each day.

Each morning, the Holy Spirit seems to hover over my vast library and select one small reading which reveals to me --- or confirms to me -- truth He has already spoken to me in prayer.  How He can direct my attention to one paragraph out of one book out of the many, many books in my house, and how that one small passage can speak to the particular issue of the moment in my life has always been a wonder to me.  Only the Spirit of God can move over the waters of our lives this way.

Yesterday, the reading from von Speyr (whose book was lying on the floor next to my bed, but which I had not been reading for some months now) shed the most brilliant and clarifying light on something I had been wrestling with for days.  The few paragraphs I "happened" to read at random illumined the issues of my heart and soul in a way that brought me peace and joy and thanksgiving.  This is the way the Holy Spirit uses Scripture, if we allow Him to do so -- not studying it to be brilliant, but studying it as a search for the wisdom we need for our lives.

This morning, I happened to open von Speyr's book to the middle and read something that I believe is not so much for me as for someone else; I know not who.  But the words of the passage seemed to catch fire for me as I read them, so I offer them to whomever might read this today.  Von Speyr had been writing of a young person, a young adult who is learning to pray, really pray, for the first time -- but I think her words apply to all of us entering into the world of prayer:

He must unite his life, also, to his gift of prayer....He must gather up his whole life and spread it out before God, offering it to God whole and receiving it back from God whole, inbued with a new meaning.  His prayer was training, and now the question is: for What?  For a life, certainly, which is to belong more and more to God.  Although he cannot demand that God reveal his will to him at every moment in every detail, he does know that if he offers his life wholly to God, he can be entrusted with a mission from him which will be the core and content of his llife and which will provide the orientation for his activity....

Up to now the person praying has thought primarily of his own concerns and brought them to the Lord.  Now he sees that the Lord comes to him with his divine concerns and wants to appropriate his life for those purposes.  He has experienced the Lord's blessing upon his personal life.  Now he must allow the Lord enough room that the Lord will bestow on him his mission as well.

--The World of Prayer, pp. 142 & 145

When we reach the point in our prayer of which von Speyr writes, our life becomes prayer and our prayer becomes our life; there is no longer any distinction between the two.  

Learning to Sing

My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God, my Savior,

....for He who is mighty has done great things for me,

and holy is His Name...(The Magnificat: Luke1:46 ff).

And the angels sing earnest, loudly in their celebration of this tiny creature who stuns, and shadows dance and prance in the darkening sunlight to give praise for her life, and we all smile and nod knowing that the magic has taken shape in... her small form and will grow and search yearn and hurt, as her life hurls into the coming and we know certain that Hazel's place is unmatched and unplaced for she is beauty unrefined...And you gave birth to this wonder. 

(Words of a friend to my neice on the 4th birthday of her daughter)

Are they crazy?  That is, Mary, and the friend who sings about the magic of a tiny creature?  Do they not see the horrors and cruelty of Roman occupation in the Holy Land and the modern world on the brink of disaster?  How can they sing?  Should they not take up the sword against evil and slay the wicked instead?

During the 15th century, when the Catholic church was rotting from the weight of power, corruption and almost willful misunderstanding of its role in the world, when it was in collusion with kings and emperors, Francis of Assisi and his band of merry men almost single-handedly reformed the church and the world -- by singing.  He sang to the fields of flowers, and to the birds of the air; he sang the praises of "Sister Moon and Brother Sun;" he sang the joy of poverty and of the providence of God. 

Before Francis, there were only monks and priests---one set, like the Buddhists, turning their backs on the world of sin and corruption and fleeing to the monasteries where they could live lives of holiness and purity.  The other set, the priests, immersed in the world, but also for the most part, tainted by the surrounding culture and tempted to adopt its values and worldview.  Francis was advised that if he wanted to serve God and renounce the values of his world, he should become a monk.  But Francis did not want to retire behind the safety of monastery walls.  He wanted to live where God led him, in the midst of danger and corruption, in the world, but not of the world.  He took literally the command to preach the Gospel to every creature; he did not question how it was to be done; he just did it.  And always, singing, rejoicing, giving thanks in every circumstance.

People of Francis' time were weighed down by oppression, fear, and the impossibility of life in a society where power and wealth was everything.  If one did not own property, or did not inherit power, life was almost intolerable.  And then came Francis, who seemed totally oblivious to the world that made sense to everyone else.  He sang, he celebrated, he rejoiced --- and men of his time wanted to live that life too-- as did women.  Clare of Assisi asked to be a follower, to wear the garment of praise and thanksgiving in the midst of a cruel and indifferent world.  And other women followed her, singing in their poverty because they, like the birds of the air, knew that God would provide.

Our physical, intellectual, and spiritual resources are limited to "fix" the world around us, and so we grow restless and frustrated.  We see evil and corruption, and so we drag our feet in despair:  what's the use? It won't make any difference; we can't change other people or the world we live in.  What can we do?  We can sing the song we were given to sing, a song of praise and thanksgiving to God, who also sees what we see, but whose resources are not limited to do "great things for us" anyway.  We sing magic; we sing thanksgiving; we sing wonder and praise.  We know we have nothing; it matters not.  Neither do the angels store up treasures in barns and banks.  Still, they sing.  Do they not see the world going to hell in a handbasket?  How can they sing?  They see what we cannot; they see another world, and so they sing.

Mary knew at the deepest level of her soul that the oppression of her people was not God's final answer.  She also knew at the deepest level of her soul that she had been given a part to play in God's solution to sin and suffering, and she rejoiced in the gift she was given.  She still rejoices, and she still calls us to look at God, to enter into prayer, where we too can hear the song of the angels. 

Are we crazy?  Are we dumb?  How can we sing at a time like this?  More tomorrow.....

Ecce Homo

Because you came to me, saying, "Show me your God; I want to know Him,"

I showed you the One I love.

But you scorned and mocked both me and Him:

"You are a fool, and He is not worthy."

I wanted you to see the sweet Rose of Sharon,

the One my heart loves,

But the sneer cut deep:

"Can anything good come out of Nazareth?"

Once again, you crucify both my Beloved and me.

And here we are again, risen from the death of your disdain and disgust:

Crowned with thorns, backs bloody with ridicule and misunderstanding.

I cry out, wanting to walk away, to cut the cords of love and care,

But my Beloved holds fast:

"The reason I came into the world was to destroy the work of Satan.

I gave my back to those who beat me; my cheeks to those who plucked my beard.

Will you, too, walk away?"

The Roses

See today's blog for explanation.

Life Lessons

Last week, in art class, for the first time, we were attempting to paint roses.  Our beginning classes a year ago had been of beach scenes, waves, swamp scenes with birds, etc., all things that could be painted in broad strokes, all things that could be seen as they developed on canvas.  We had also done still life: one magnolia sitting on a table, or a book with a bottle and grapes: again, all things that could be seen as we painted them. 

The roses were different.  They could be painted only one petal at a time -- and as we painted, no "rose" appeared before our eyes.  Even the one petal we were working on did not appear to be a petal; my first attempt looked like a miniature bowling pin more than anything else.  "There's no way this is going to be a rose," I said to myself as I completed the first petal.  With the second petal, nothing got better.  If anything, it was worse.  Now I had a miniature bowling pin plus something that I could not even identify.  By the fourth petal, I was ready to throw in the paintbrush.  "What can this be?" I asked the instructor.  "It will never be a rose; what else can I make of it?"  Patiently, he sat down and painted the next petal for me.  As I watched him working, I realized that he was focusing only on that one petal, trying to get the light and shadow just right.  He was not thinking about the ones that I had already painted, nor was he thinking about the ones to come.  He had a single focus in mind: get this one right.

As I watched him, I realized what I was doing wrong.  I was focusing on the rose, the one that wasn't there yet, the one I wanted to see, but could not.  I had been accustomed up to now to slapping the paint on the canvas and seeing before my eyes the beach, or the book, or even the magnolia come to life.  The rose was different; it would not "appear" until each petal had been painted as well as it could be.  I had to re-train my brain, and my expectations.  I had to stifle my impulse to want to see results right away.  I had to trust that if I painted one petal at a time, the rose would appear at the end.  And so it did.  Once I had finished each petal, I stepped back from the canvas --- and saw a rose!  I'm not sure how it got there, as I did not paint a rose; I painted only one petal at a time.  But there it was!

The next rose was easier, not because I could see the outcome, nor because I had learned to paint petals -- I was still trying to acquire that skill -- but only because I believed.  Based on my experience with the first rose, I believed that if I worked diligently, without seeing, on one petal at a time, there would be a rose at the end.

I finally began to understand Jesus' words to those He healed: "Your faith has saved you!"  I had been ready to give up entirely and paint over the whole canvas as I worked on the first rose -- because I could not "see" a rose as I worked, and I could not believe that what I saw in front of me would ever be a rose.  And what I would have missed was the magical experience of finishing my work and seeing that I had indeed painted a rose!  Who would have dreamed it possible? 

With the second rose, I kept going, despite not "seeing" anything more than I had seen the first time.  I just believed that if I did the work without seeing, the rose would be there at the end.  Amazing!  I felt much more confident, even though I still saw nothing as I worked.  The people who pressed through the crowds or who shouted out to Jesus from the sidelines were desperate enough to believe that if they could just get to him, they would be healed.  They need to just keep on trying to get to him, despite the overwhelming odds that faced them.  They needed to just keep putting one foot in front of the other, or keep raising their voice so that He would hear them, despite the noise of the crowd or the embarrassment of their friends. 

"If I can just touch the hem of his garment," the woman with the hemorrhage said to herself....."if I can do just this one thing....."    She knew her rose would appear at the end of the process. 

Today's reading hold two scriptures relevant to my "life lesson" in painting the rose:

...a person will reap only what he sows, because the one who sows for his flesh will reap corruption from the flesh, but the one who sows for the spirit will reap eternal life from the spirit.  Let us not grow tired of doing good, for in due time we shall reap our harvest, if we do not give up.

(Gal. 6:7-10)

Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and on your own intelligence do not rely;

In all your ways be mindful of him, and he will make straight your paths (Proverbs 3:5-6).

******************

We may not see the results of the seeds we sow today, but we will eventually see the harvest of what we sow today, for good or for evil.  Today, we may not be able to paint a rose, but we can paint one petal in faith that one day, we will see the results in a beautiful rose! 

(Later today, I will attempt to import a photo of my roses.)

The End of "Theology as Quest"

On July 4, I began a mini-series of reflections on theology (our view of Who God Is) as "sentence diagramming" -- a way of taking apart our ideas to see what they tell us about our relationship with the Almighty.  I said that if our theology (or diagram) is faulty, it will affect our relationship with God, much as my neighbor who felt that he would probably not go to heaven because "no one is good enough" (and by implication, least of all, him).

But the question I explored for the next few days was "how" we acquire "good" theology.  The prime example given through Scripture is that of Abraham, whose journey away from his native gods, family, and culture gave him exposure to a whole new way of thinking and relating to Yahweh, the One Who called him to a future he could not ever have imagined out of his old framework:  You shall be the father of multitudes, and all nations shall bless themselves by you.

The journey-theme continues throughout Scripture with each generation that follows Abraham, down to the Exodus, where the entire people (and all the odd assortment of wanderers that went out of Egypt with them) experienced leaving all that they knew to go to an unknown destination, led by this mysterious Yahweh.  On the way, in the desert, entering the Promised Land, they came to know the One Who was Faithful, Who did not abandon them, but who helped them, fed them, and guided them on their way. 

With the example from Holy Hunger, I wanted to show that it is each person's individual journey that reveals Who God Is.  While it may seem enough for awhile to just attend church and obey the commandments, each one of us sooner or later will find ourselves either searching for something more satisfying, or in a position, like Bullit-Jonas, desperate for help.  As soon as we open ourselves to the mysterious Other and cry out to satisfy our deepest hunger, He is there.  He loves to answer the cry of our heart.

Our ''theology" of God determines our relationship with Him, and our relationship with Him determines our theology.  The reason Jesus invited us into a personal relationship with the Father and promised us the Holy Spirit was to make of members of the "Family."  I have been trying to diagram the relationship to which we have been invited, but although I can get it down in Word, I cannot get it to paste into the blog.  So I will have to be content with trying to explain in words what a picture would show much better.

We tend to think of the saints in heaven standing around admiring the Beauty, the Love, the Goodness of God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit.  But actually, in heaven, we are drawn into their very life: the life, the energy wherein the Father pours out into the Son all that He is and has.  The Son, receiving everything from the Father without reserve, returns everything He receives back to the Father in the dynamism or movement of the Holy Spirit.  And we --- we are in Jesus; we are standing in Him as He receives everything from the Father, just as if we were supposed to be there from all eternity.  We are dynamic, participating, members of the family of God, not bystanders watching it all happen and admiring from afar. 

And that participation, that life, begins even now, through the action of Jesus Christ incarnating Himself in our flesh and taking up all the issues of our life as His own.  He has become one with us as He is with the Father, and He unites us with one another as we are united in Him.  That is what theology is all about---union with God and with one another in the divine action and energy of the Holy Spirit.

Discovering the God Who is For Us

Yesterday, I quoted from Holy Hunger: One Woman's Journey from Food Addiction to Spiritual Fulfillment, by Margaret Bullit-Jonas.  She was writing about her discovery that OA members had to find the God that supported them, defended them, protected them, upheld them, and they had to learn to rely on that God for strength.  Today, I give you more of her words, her way of relying on the God she found:

I began to practice a very simple, frequent, and honest form of prayer, no doubt a form of prayer that has been uttered by human beings since the dawn of time: Help me! 
I learned the power of turning, both in words and in silent inner gesture, toward the One who alone could get me through the next five minutes without my diving into the cookie jar or the bread basket.  If I needed to pull my car over to the side of the road, if I needed to step out of a conference, if I needed to lock myself in a stall in the ladies' room in order to collect myself for that simple, secret, urgent prayer, then that is what I'd do....

Prayer slowly became the undercurrent of my life, sometimes serving as its quiet backdrop, sometimes leaping into clear relief in the foreground, as I went through each day and asked for help not to overeat.....

Just as I learned that the urge to eat was usually the signal of a feeling that needed to be explored, I also learned that the urge to eat was a signal to pray.  Since the urges to eat were frequent, so too were the reminders that I must turn to God.  From moment to moment, day in and day out, I had to return again and again to my desire for God, my dependence on God's help, my need for a saving relationship with the Source of life.  There's nothing like addiction to teach us that we can do nothing by ourselves.

Not everyone has an addiction, but the journey out of our own hell is one that every person must sooner or later make.  And we make that journey by learning to lean on God as our Source, our Strength, our Help.  Once we take the first step -- one which we could not begin to take unless He had already led us to that point --- He is ready and eager to show us that He is faithful, that He is strength, that He is provider.  That is what I mean by revelation that leads to good theology.  As long as we hold back and refuse to surrender, as long as we hold up our fist and say, "I shall be as god! I do it myself!" (like two-year olds), He will allow us to tie our own shoes, no matter how many knots we make in the process, and no matter how many times we pee on the knots to make them even more difficult to untie in the end. 

Like Adam and Eve in the Garden of Paradise, we were designed to walk with God, to be one with Him, to receive His Spirit in our spirits in order to govern this earth and our relationships in peace and harmony.  When His Spirit departs from us, when we can no longer breathe in the breath of His mouth,  the earth and human relationships begin to disintegrate.  And we are surprised when the waters of chaos close once again over our heads, and when we sink once more into the abyss.

But that's not the end of the story.  It continues as it began, with the Spirit of God hovering/ brooding over the waters, and the Word of God issuing forth from His mouth:  LIGHT! BE!  He sends forth His divine energy, and we are born again out of darkness into light; chaos is pushed back and dry land appears, and once again, we walk in safety.  Our world produces good things, relationships are healed, and heaven comes down to earth.