Simple Goodness

Yesterday I wrote about "seven years of Divine Providence."  What I did not say then was that this providence all came about through the simple goodness of so many people: people who housed and fed us, who provided clothes for us, even people who donated furniture to us after the storm. 

Yesterday, it all came back to me again through the simple goodness of some of our neighbors.  While we, like so many others, were without power for a couple of days, Isaac was nowhere near the storm of Katrina.  Still, after two days of no hot coffee, no hot food, and no air conditioning, one tends to get a little out of sorts.  I happened to mention to one of our neighbors that I'd give anything for a cup of coffee.  About half an hour later, she and her husband and her mother arrived on our doorstep, all bearing gifts.

The husband brought a small barbeque grill with some charcoal so we could cook; the wife brought us some hot egg sandwiches, and her mother brought us a whole pot of hot, hot coffee.  No meal in a fancy restaurant could ever equal the pleasure we had with that hot coffee and hot egg sandwich.  We felt fortified for whatever came next.  Instead of lying on the sofa with a headache, I felt energized to begin picking up and cleaning up the debris left by the storm.

The simple goodness of so many people got us through Katrina; the simple goodness of our neighbors revived us yesterday when our spirits were flagging.  We never realize how dependent we are on hot meals until we have none, even for a short period of time.

Being on the receiving end of so much simple goodness makes me want to help others.  I don't know how to help the homeless, or the very poor, or the child who is being abused.  All I can do is look around me and watch for someone who needs what I can give at the moment.  But no one ever knows how important simple goodness in a moment of real need.

Seven Years of Divine Providence

Seven years ago today, I sat on the top step of my new home in Long Beach, Mississippi, holding an air mattress and watching  the storm surge climb up the stairs.  With my heart beating out of my chest, I prayed to have a heart attack if I had to die.  I did not want to float out of that house on an air mattress, especially during the height of the storm.  It was only 10:00 a.m.  The snakes and raccoons were prowling around looking for high ground, and my stairs seemed to be the best refuge at the moment.  A tornado had ripped the front door right out of its frame, so I had no protection against anything that might want to enter the house. 

With no tv or radio or telephone in the new house, I had spent the previous day reading Genesis: Studies in Hebrew Narrative and Poety by David Cotter.  I had just reached the section about Hagar, Abraham and Sarah's Egyptian slave girl who had to leave the household because of irreconcilable conflicts with  Sarah. In the Book of Exodus, God had expressly forbidden the Israelites again and again to mistreat a resident alien:

You shall not wrong or oppress a resident alient, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt.  You shall not abuse any widow or orphan.  If you do abuse them, when they cry out to me, I will surely heed their cry (22:21-23).

It is clear from the story that Sarah is "afflicting" Hagar, the same word used for the condition of the Israelites in Egypt.  Abraham is as passive in the circumstance as was Adam in the Garden of Eden.  He does whatever Sarah wants him to do. And God does what He said He would do -- He heard Hagar's cry, just as He had heard the cry of the Israelites in slavery!  It is interesting to note that He communicates with Hagar, the slave-girl, but not with Sarah, the "main character." 

Anyway, once the Angel of the Lord directs Hagar to return to Abraham and Sarah, she "called the name of Yahweh who spoke with her: 'You are a God of seeing'."  The simplest meaning of the name Hagar gives to God is "God Who Sees Me."  The commentary on this passage notes that up to this moment, it seems that no one has ever seen her.  Later, after Ishmael is born and they are both sent into the desert, she names her son Ishmael, meaning "God hears."  He heard her cry for help and directed her to a well.

Since I had been reading Hagar's story, as I sat on the staircase, I prayed, "O Lord, You are the God Who sees me and hears me.  You know where I am today; hear my cry for help!"

What followed that day and the days to come was the most amazing providence of God at every turn.  I cannot tell the whole story here, but I will just say this.  After spending a week in a shelter, I was once again rescued (miraculously, I think) and delievered to Natchez, Mississippi, where I was to meet up with my husband.  As I waited in the formal parlor of the church rectory with 12-foot ceilings, I realized that behind me was a huge painting that had been donated to the church by the king of France in the early 1800's.  I got up to look at the painting and realized that it was a portrayal of Hagar in the desert with her son; the angel of the Lord was pointing to a hidden well.  How many pictures of Hagar exist in the western world?  (I'm sure there are many in the Middle East.)  I have never before or after seen a painting of Hagar, but I was sitting beneath an 8-10 foot painting now!

My "Katrina Story" is the story of Divine Providence, of the God-Who-Sees-and Hears.  Seven years after that moment, today, I sit in practically the same spot that I said that prayer, and today, I celebrate and rejoice at the goodness of God, who brought me safely out of that dangerous situation and provided for my every need.  Seven years of Divine Providence -- and many more before that!  Alleluia!



Empowered from within

He that believes in me, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water (Jn. 7:38).

Jesus promised the woman at the well (Jn. 4) "a spring of water welling up to eternal life."  Amazing!  He did not tell her to obey the commandments, or to go confess her sins, or to seek out religious teachers.  He simply told her to ask Him for the living water.

So many people imagine that religion comes from outside of us, that first we hear the commandments and teachings of others, and then we try our best to follow them, and somehow, that will lead us to eternal life, if we are persistent and good enough.  It is true that in the ordinary order of things, we do tend to hear the commandments and teachings if we grow up in a religious tradition.  But that is not "the spring of water welling up to eternal life."  That is how most of us begin to search for the spring.  It is not yet the living water that Jesus promised us. All of the Old Testament reveals the Father Who is waiting to pour out from heaven "living water" on His people.  But, until Jesus, it was just too hard to believe in that relationship with God.

Even those not fortunate enough to be exposed early on to the commandments and teachings of religious men can drink from the waters of the Spirit.   Even those who reject the teachings they heard as children can still experience the living water of which Jesus spoke. 

Today, the Catholic church celebrates the feast of St. Augustine, who was the first Christian to regard his own life story as the perfect starting place for reflecting on the experience of God.  As he looked back, He saw the hand of God teaching him and guiding him toward his destiny.  He did not convert to Christianity because of any early teachings; although his mother was a devout Catholic, his father was a pagan, and Augustine felt no attraction to Christianity.  He pursued the philosophies of the Greeks and of the Manichees in his very intellectual search for meaning.  His spirit was always restless as he searched; he tried everything.  His conversion came as the result of a mystical encounter with the living God, as he heard a child singing in the garden:  "take up and read; take up and read."  He was standing next to a bible, which he took up and read on the page where it fell open.  And suddenly, the Spirit of the Lord came upon him, and for the first time in his life, He knew that for which he had been searching all his life.

Most of us believe that mystical experience is only for saints.  But "mystical" simply means that somehow God reaches into our souls and touches us beyond any teaching, any words, any thought, any external influence.  It does not have to "feel" holy; C.S.Lewis was not ecstatic at all when he knelt down as "the most reluctant convert in the history of Christendom."  For him, there was a moment of simply clarity empowered from within that caused him to kneel.  He was not at all trying to follow anyone's teaching or rules -- he just didn't accept any of them.  Instead, he was following what was deepest and most true inside of himself.

In the same way, Ruth Barrows (Before the Living God) describes herself as a teenager who had been sent to the chapel as a punishment for acting out at a class retreat.  As she sat alone in the chapel, she suddenly became aware of being in touch for the first time with what was deepest and most true within herself -- reality as she knew it.  She had an experience of God within her own life story.  *

Neither of these people (nor St. Augustine) "thought" their way into this experience.  It bubbled up from within them.  That is a "mystical" experience, and it is as different from "following one's religion" as reality is from fantasy.  When we experience oneness, truth, goodness, and beauty within ourselves, for the first time in our lives, we know what we have to do.  We kneel, we worship, we follow, we believe, we taste, we know joy.  And it is joy that finally leads us forward.

Those who are thirsty for this experience know where the well lies.  Like St. Augustine, our own life story is a good starting place for finding God.  Somewhere in there we did meet Him, even if that meeting has since been buried under tons of debris.  If we can return to that point, it is possible to re-connect with the Living God.  The woman in the Gospel met Jesus at the well; I wonder where we have met Him.

*note: the example of C.S.Lewis and of Ruth Barrows come from Ron Rolheiser's article, "Mysticism Achieved in Ordinary," Mississippi Catholic, July 13, 2012.  While I did not start out to re-iterate Rolheiser's comments, that is where I ended up.  My apologies to Rolheiser if I failed to do justice to his ideas.

Seeking Wisdom

To seek wisdom is to seek the mind of God, for that is its Source, and that is where it resides. If that be true, there is no sense in seeking wisdom elsewhere but in God Himself.  Reading and thinking are wonderful activities for the mind, and the student who reads and thinks is strengthening the neuronal connections that lead to understanding, but without prayer, knowledge does not automatically translate into wisdom.

The Bible, when read under the tutelage of the Holy Spirit, is replete with wisdom, but its truths are hidden from those who do not know God.    For wisdom is an interior light that comes with the word of God: Let light be!  Once He speaks that word in our hearts, wisdom enters and takes root there:

We do, however, speak a message of wisdom among the mature, but not the wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing.  No, we speak of God's secret wisdom, a wisdom that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began.  None of the rulers of this age understood it, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.

...as it is written: "No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him," but God has revealed it to us by his Spirit.

....No one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God.  We have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us....The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned....but we have the mind of Christ (1 Cor. 2:14 ff).

and James says (1:5):  "If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him....don't be deceived, my dear brothers.  Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.  He chose to give us birth through the word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of all he created" (1:16-17).

Once we know this, once we understand about the Source of Wisdom, all that remains is for us to seek it, to give ourselves no rest until we have received that which we seek.  In the Old Covenant, God had promised to pour out His Spirit upon all men, even upon young men and handmaidens (Joel 2:28-29).  He promised that one man would no longer have to teach his brothers to know the Lord, for He would write His law on our hearts (Jer. 31:34) and He Himself would teach us and guide us (Is. 48: 17).

We will sooner or later all find that which we are seeking.  Paul tells us to "seek that which is above, not what is below." I wonder why we  do not -- every one of us-- begin each day with a prayer for wisdom for that day.

Saints of the Present Moment

Today it is not enough merely to be a saint; but we must have the saintliness demanded by the present moment (Simone Weil --1909-1943).

And who are the "Saints of the Present Moment"?  I meet them every day: 

• the father who continues to work at a demanding and stressful job so his children can go to college;
• the retired grandmother who relinquishes her leisure to care for an infant grandson so her daughter can work to support the family;
• the family member who stays all night in the hospital with a sick relative.

In Galatians 6:2, Paul writes: Bear one another's burdens, and so you will fulfill the whole law of Christ.  And Jesus said, Love one another as I have loved you.  Jesus loves us by taking up "all the causes of our lives" (Lamentations 3:58) and staying with us, even to the end, even to death on a cross.  He does not leave us when the road is steep and the way is long, but remains with us always.  And His strength He shares with us in some mysterious and invisible communion. 

In the Book of Lamentations, Jeremiah gives us the cry of someone in great need:

Those who were my enemies without cause

hunted me like a bird.

They tried to end my life in a pit

and threw stones at me;

the waters closed over my head,

and I thought I was about to be cut off.

I called on your name, O Lord,

from the depths of the pit.

You heard my plea: "Do not close your years

to my cry for relief."

You came near when I called you,

and you said, "Do not fear."

So too with the "Saints of the Present Moment."  In our distress, in our need, we know they are with us, and their presence calms our fears.  The child of a good father knows that he need not fear when the father is near, when the father carries the burdens of need.  The daughter who needs to leave her infant knows that she need not fear because the grandmother will take good care of her infant child, and the patient in the hospital knows that she can sleep in safety while a family member keeps watch through the night.

These are the saints of the present moment, who say, "Do not fear; I am with you always."  This is Jesus continuing His mission today in those who love and obey Him. 

Simone Weil took up factory work because she could not bear to separate herself from "the immense and unfortunate multitude of unbelievers."  Her ministry may not be for all of us, but all of us have family, friends, and neighbors who are carrying burdens too heavy for them to carry alone.  As Simon of Cyrene participated in the carrying of Jesus' cross, so too, we willingly lift our share in the sufferings and daily burdens of others.  When we do it with prayer, in partnership with Christ, who carries our burdens, we are the Saints of the Present Moment.



The Ministry of the Holy Spirit

I want you to pray for me, because I want to receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit

(my words on June 15, 1977, to my roommate in the hospital).

and in a single moment, my entire life changed.  Before that moment, I was supposedly 'in charge' of my life, and it was a struggle to maintain control.  After that moment, the Holy Spirit was in charge, and I had only to learn how to yield my control to His.  Sometimes it was still a struggle, but He was there to teach me on a daily basis.  And since He is faithful when I am not, He has not left me all these years.

Immediately, I grew fearful that I would "lose" the Holy Spirit because I was too weak and/or too ignorant to know how to hold onto to this amazing new Presence in my life.  When I confessed my fears to my doctor, who had first prayed for me, he laughed:  "You do not 'have' the Holy Spirit," he told me; "He has you, and He's not letting go."  Those words made me relax.  Nothing depended on my efforts; everything depended on His.  And for the first time in my life, I could trust in God, despite my own insufficiency.

To know ourselves as weak and insufficient for life's demands is both a fearful and a wonderful thing.  As teens, we think ourselves powerful, knowledgeable, and indestructible.  As we grow into maturity, we come face-to-face with our own inadequacies, our own lack of knowledge, and our own vulnerabilities.  Then we either retreat into anxiety or we learn to grow in trust of God.

If the Old Testament covenant and laws had been enough, Jesus would not have had to come.  But as it turned out, the Jews by and large found it impossible to live according to the measure and standards of God as written in the law.  They had to continue year after year offering sacrifices to 'cover' their nakedness before God. 

And today, we have the Bible, including the New Testament, which gives us God's thoughts and His standards for daily life.  And again, we find that we can hardly read the Bible, much less live up to its revelation.  There is a reason for this:  the "letter of the law" is the written expression of God's will, but it is impossible for natural man to embrace the will of God without the ministry of the Holy Spirit.  As promised in the Old Testament, when God spoke through his prophets, His Spirit, when poured out on us, writes His Word, not on tablets of stone, but on our hearts.  It is the Spirit that breathes life into the Word of God; it is the Spirit that brings Jesus to life in us, as He did in Mary. 

If we want to know Jesus face to face, if we want to know God as "Abba/Father," if we want to be able to read the Word of God and have it written on tablets of flesh (our hearts), there is only one way.  At the Feast of Tabernacles, when the Jews remembered and celebrated God's Presence and Ministry to them in the desert, and when they remembered and celebrated how He gave them water from the rock when they were thirsty, Jesus stood up and said, "If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink...[and] streams of living water will flow from within him."  By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive.  Up to that time, the Spirit had not been given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified (Jn. 7:37ff).

Jesus put to death on the cross our 'natural man' who cannot and does not embrace the Spirit of God in order to raise from the dead "a new man," who lives by the Spirit.  Would we allow Him to die for nothing?  Why would we not ask for and receive what He is 'dying' to give us -- the Holy Spirit, who creates in us all that God the Father desires us to have through His Son?

Our choice is clear:  we can continue to live in our own strength, knowledge, and control, or we can yield to the Spirit of God and allow Jesus to live His life unto God through us, through the Gift of the Holy Spirit. 

I am so thankful He parted the curtains shielding the Holy of Holies and gave us all access into the heart of God!

Preparing for Ministry

Most Christians (and I think maybe even non-Christians, too) at some point in their lives desire some ministry.  I think we all want a mission; we want our lives to mean something to others; we want to help, to contribute to building up the world around us.  I once read a definition of "vocation," which means "calling:"

Vocation is where our deepest joy meets the world's deepest need.  If we want to know our "ministry," I think we must first identify our "joy."  What is it that gives us 'joy'?  It may be that we need to reach a certain level of maturity before we can answer this question, but it may also be that we need to begin asking the question early in our lives so that we can be on the alert for the answer. 

Joy is not the same as pleasure; it is not even the same as happiness.  Some things do not necessarily make me happy, but they still give me joy.  I remember in 1985 when my closest friend died.  She had recognized in me the gifts of the Holy Spirit and said to me what John the Baptist said to his follwers:  there He is; (there is God at work; follow Him.)  She named in me what I still had no words to identify in myself.  She gave me confidence that God was "with me."  Because of her, I learned to trust the Spirit at work within me.  But then she died, and my grief was overwhelming.  Who would be my prayer partner, my sister, my friend in the Spirit?  Our friendship had been ordained by God Himself, it seemed, and was designed to bring me growth in the Spirit.  We could worship together freely, as well as share with one another the gifts given to us in worship. 

As I dwelt in grief, I slowly came to realize that, although her death had not made me "happy," there was a deeper emotion underlying the grief -- and that was joy.  My joy at having had Brenda for a close friend knew no bounds; my gratitude to God for that gift was a source of praise and thanksgiving. 

So, recognizing what gives us joy is a key to our "mission" or "ministry" in life.  Jesus, who for the joy of fellowship with us, embraced the cross, was not 'happy' to die in our place, but his mission gave him joy at the deepest level of his being.  And he prayed at the Last Supper that His joy would be in us, and that we would share in His joy.

If we would know our mission in life, we must ask the Spirit of God to identify for us and in us that point at which we experience our deepest joy.  When I see Jesus during His earthly ministry, I see Him embracing with joy the 12 who were drawn to Him, the beggars, the blind, the theives, the prostitutes who had been cast off by the world.  I see Him embracing the children, the "little ones" of God who were counted as nothing by the rich and the powerful. 

Going into politics does not give me joy; making money does not give me joy; having power and influence over others does not give me joy --- but helping others to recognize the Spirit that is at work within them does.  I remember one night at a prayer meeting "seeing" the Spirit of God "fall" on one of the women who was standing there.  I told her what I had seen in the Spirit, and she said, "I felt something, but did not know what it was."  As it turned out, she had experienced the Spirit some months previously and had been searching in several churches for an explanation of what she was experiencing.  She had gone with a friend to a Baptist pastor, asking for explanations of what was happening to her, but had received no answer that satisfied her.  When I "saw" the Spirit descend on her during the meeting, the Lord told me to "stay close and teach her."  What joy I experienced when she told me of her search.  She had experienced the Spirit, but did not understand what was happening.  I understood, because I had previously experienced the same thing.  I "had the words" to explain her experience. 

God is at work today in the lives of many people.  He does not need us to "create" the experience of the Holy Spirit; but He does need us to explain what He is doing in people's lives.  In the 8th chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, an Ethiopian eunuch was riding in a carriage, reading Isaiah.  The Spirit of the Lord said to Philip, "Go to that chariot and stay near it."  As it turns out, the eunuch did not understand what he was reading, but Philip did, because he had met Jesus Christ, the fulfillment of the Old Testament words and prophecies.  Philip's greatest joy was in being able to explain what the eunuch was reading.  And the eunuch's greatest joy was in hearing Philip's explanation.  Scripture says, "he went on his way rejoicing."

St. John the Divine, as an old man, said, "I have no greater joy than to know that my children walk in the truth."  Seeing people come to know Jesus as the Source of Life, watching them grow in the Spirit and recognize the gifts of God given to them through Him, gives me the greatest joy.  Seeing my own children walk in the truth is the greatest joy I have.  What is the source of your own joy?  There you may find your God-given ministry.

Look Up!

I was helped; my heart rejoices,

and I praise him with my song (Ps. 28:7).

"No," said Peter, "you shall never wash my feet."

Jesus answered, "Unless I wash you, you have no part with me" (Jn. 13:8).

The New Age Movement is filled with people who have no desire for God's help.  "We'll help ourselves," they claim, with a myriad of ways into the spiritual life:  transcendental meditation, humming, positive thinking, "manifesting" what they desire, etc.  "Ye shall be as gods," promised the snake to Eve in the garden, and there are many ways of modern man that cling to his promise.  "We can help ourselves," they proclaim; "we have no need of God."

But throughout the Bible, we see the tender mercy of a God who "stoops" to help the helpless. 

Somewhere, a prophet told the people: It was not because you were the largest of nations that the Lord chose you; indeed, you were the smallest of nations.  And why was that?  Israel had to know they had no defense but God.  He alone was the One to raise them up against nations stronger than they; He alone was to establish them as a people, as a nation; He alone was to take them from Egypt, the great, and to plant them in a land flowing with milk and honey.  They could do nothing for themselves.  Jeremiah quotes the Lord as saying: Let not the wise man boast of his wisdom or the strong man boast of his strength or the rich man boast of his riches, but let him who boasts boast about this: that he understands and knows me, that I am the Lord, who exercises kindness, justice, and righteousness one earth, for in these I delight (9:23-24).

It is always the poor, the lowly, the anawim in Hebrew, that know the help of God.  The proud, the haughty, the "rich," know nothing of His help.  But only those who "look up" are they who sing for joy.  Those who have been instructed, guided, and taught by the Lord sing for joy.  Those who have been drawn from deep waters, from the cords of death, and from the torrents of destruction recognize the God who helped them.  Those who have been cleansed from the sin that entangled them and set "upon a high place" bow down in worship and thanksgiving.  I love Psalm 18, for it is the testimony of someone (David) who was desperate and trapped and who has been rescued by the hand of the Lord:

It is God who arms me with strength

and makes my way perfect.

He makes my feet like the feet of a deer;

he enables me to stand upon the heights.

He trains my hands for battle;

my arms can bend a bow of bronze...

you stoop down to make me great.

You broaden the path beneath me,

so that my ankles do not turn....

Therefore I will sing praises to your name.

Whenever you find someone who sings to the Lord, who praises God with songs of thanksgiving, you know that person has experienced his/her own helplessness and has been helped by God.  The person who boasts of his own strength, wisdom, or knowledge has not yet discovered God.  The one who boasts of the goodness, the power, and the love of God on our behalf is someone who can be trusted, for his confidence is no longer in the flesh, but in the love and the strength and the willingness of God to help the weak and the powerless.

Have We Forgotten?

We tend to think of the Old Testament as, well, "old."  As not relevant to us "new" people.  But the patterns of birth, childhood, adolescence, adulthood, and old age have not changed since the beginning.  The patterns of life are all laid out in the Old Testament, for the nation of Israel as for individuals. 

The story of America is remarkably like that of Israel as a nation.  Taken out of the slavery of Europe, a ragged band of pilgrims crosses the sea and finally arrives on the shore of a new land, a land occupied by tribes of savages.  (We romanticize the American Indians as "pure spirits," but I'm not so sure, based on history.) Anyway, the early pilgrims recognized the hand of Divine Providence as they settled and spread throughout the new land.  They worshipped God and separated themselves into different colonies based on their freedom to worship as they chose.  Even our official founding documents recognize the God Who established the nation. 

Eventually, though, our history follows Israel's exactly.  In Deuteronomy 32, Moses is about to take his leave of the people he led through the desert, and he recites a hymn of Israel's history:

Is [Yahweh] not your Father, your Creator,

who made you and formed you?....

In a desert land he found [you],

in a barren and howling waste.

He shielded [Israel] and cared for him;

he guarded him as the apple of his eye,

like an eagle that stirs up its nest

and hovers over its youong,

that spreads its wings to catch them

can carries them on its pinions.

[Yahweh] alone led him;

no foreign god was with him....

Jeshurun grew fat and kicked;

filled with food, he became heavy and sleek.

He abandoned the God who made him

and rejected the Rock his Savior....

The Lord [Yahweh] saw this and rejected them

because he was angered by his sons and daughters.

"I will hide my face from them," he said,

"and see what their end will be....

They are a nation without sense,

there is no discernment in them.

If only they were wise and would understand this

and discern what their end will be...."

When Moses finished reciting all these words to all Israel, he said to them, "Take to heart all the words I have solemnly declared to you this day, so that you may command your children to obey carefully all the words of this law.  They are not just idle words for you -- they are your life.  By them you will live long in the land you are crossing the Jordan to possess (Deut. 32, selections).

Like Israel, we as a nation have grown "fat and sleek" and have forgotten God and rejected our Savior.  It is not so much that God is angry enough to punish us, but more that we, like the Prodigal Son, have walked out from under His protective care.  We no longer eat the food He provides to us, but rather the husks fed on by the pigs.  We languish in a foreign land, without any god at all, while even the servants eat from the table in our Father's house.  Like rebellious teens, we think we can get along without our Father, without our God. 

Someone once wrote that what we call the "wrath of God" is really the "wrath" of a fallen and chaotic world.  As long as we dwell in the house of the Lord, we are protected from that wrath -- the wrath of indifferent nature, the wrath of wildfires, the wrath of torandos and hurricanes and floods; the wrath of drought and of famine.  But when we are no longer under the banner of love, we have no defense against any of these things. 

I've always loved The Lion King for its depiction of a land under a good and just ruler and for its portrayal of a desolate land under an evil king.  That is a very biblical perspective; the blessings of God are linked by word and image throughout the bible with lush greenery, flowing waters, and rich crops.  The Hebrew words for "blessing" and for "streams of water" are separated by one vowel: berakhah means "benediction,blessing, prosperity (by implication), and berekhah means reservoir, or pool where camels drink.  And the word for "birthright" in Hebrew is bekhorah.

When Jacob steals Esau's bekhorah/ birthright, -- the land he would have inherited from Isaac --, it was no good unless he also somehow could get the berakhah/benediction which would bring the berekhah "streams of water" to enrich the land.  In the biblical account, reversal of letters and sounds comes together as Esau cries: Isn't he called ya'qob/ the deceiver?

                                             He has deceived [ya'qebeni] me twice:

                                             My bekhorah / birthright he took away

                                             and now he takes away my berakhah / benediction!

The Bible does not record so much what happened as what happens.  I am afraid that by forgetting our birthright as born of God we have also lost our blessing, our 'streams of water' that overflow and nourish the gift of land we have inherited.  In Genesis 2, we are told that God had not yet sent rain upon the earth..."but streams came up from the earth and watered the whole surface of the ground." 

Throughout the rest of the Old Testament (and the New, if we but read it right), we find the analogy of water and blessing.  Jeremiah 17:

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....

Those who turn away from you will be written in the dust

because they have forsaken the Lord,

the spring of living water.

I am so afraid that by going our own way, we as a nation have forsaken the Lord, the Spring of Living Water, and have, as Jeremiah told the Israelites, dug broken cisterns for ourselves that cannot hold water (2:13).  What happened to Israel can easily happen to us, but if we turn back to our Source of Life, we, too, like Israel can be restored.

What if.....?

Open wide your mouth and I will fill it (Ps. 81:10)

I have put my words in your mouth

and covered you with the shadow of my hand-- (Is.51:16)

John replied:  A man can receive only what is given to him from heaven....for the one whom God has sent speaks the words of God; to him God gives the Spirit withou limit (Jn. 3:27 & 34).

What if our task in life were to receive what God wants to give us? 

What if we were supposed to be purified and cleansed vessels to hold the grace of God?

What if we emptied ourselves of foolish words and concerns so as to hold the words that God wants to speak to the world through us?

John the Baptist went out to the desert, not so much to escape the world around him, but to better hear and receive the words of God for that world.  Paul, upon suddenly meeting the Lord on the road to Damascus, went for three years into the desert of Arabia, shutting off all contact with the temple, Jewish practice, and his family so that he could receive all that God wanted to pour into him.  Jesus, after His baptism by John, went out into the wilderness for 40 days so that He could "open wide his mouth" and be filled with the words of God. 

Unlike Paul, John the Baptist, and Jesus, we may not have the luxury of going into the desert, shutting ourselves off from the world so as to receive the very words of God into our souls, minds, and hearts.  We may have to do the same things by teaspoons and minutes instead of by months and years.  But what if we saw as our mission in life to receive what God wants to pour out into the world through us?  Would we be tuned in to receive the gifts of God?  Less tuned in to the distractions and amusements the world has to offer?

I think of the great scientists, composers, poets, writers, men of medicine who were open to the revelations of God.  I think of Handel, and Beethoven, and Mozart.  I think of George Washington Carver, of Einstein, of Marie Curie.  I think of General Honore, of Shakespeare, and of C.S. Lewis.  I think of Mother Teresa, of the Benedictine women mystics of the 12th and 13th centuries, and of Julian of Norwich.  All these people opened their souls to God and received inestimable gifts for the world around them, for their time and forever.  Has God stopped pouring out His gifts, or have we stopped receiving them?

The Spirit of God is rich and giving without limit.  How, then, shall we receive?



The Importance of Ritual

God, of course, can break into our lives at any moment, overwhelm us with His Presence and Power, and give us direction and peace.  But those moments are rare, and even when they do occur, we tend to wonder afterwards if we imagined the whole thing. 

The Catholic church is often criticized by those who don't experience it as comprised of "empty rituals."  What the critics fail to recognize is the power of ritual as the meeting place of God and man.  C.S. Lewis, in one of his writings (I can't recall which one) once reflected on the fact that when you don't have ritual, you have to pay attention to what's happening to see if you agree with it.  And once you have understood the prayer, you can say "Amen," or you can take issue with it.  However, once you become familiar with the ritual, and you know what's going to be said in it, your mind is free to create its own prayer within the format.  Of course, teenagers who need constant stimulation will grow bored because they have not yet learned to pray.

Now, paying attention, of course, is not a bad thing; television has discovered that you have to change the image every 3 seconds to hold people's attention.  Even Sesame Street has been criticized for developing brains that demand change every 3 seconds, meaning that when children arrive at school, their expectation is constant change, so they have not developed the capacity for focus and concentration. Everything that happens must come from without, leaving little time for the creativity that comes from contemplation within. That process works against the learning process unless computers take over.  And computers have worked miracles for children with autism, breaking through the shells that have held them prisoners in their own heads.  So stimulation for teens and autistic children may be a gift. 

For most of us, however, constant stimulation actually prevents prayer.  Last weekend, while I was traveling, I attended church with my relatives.  The people were lovely and friendly; the young pastor ( a mother of three young children) did a wonderful job, though she was obviously under the strain of being mother and pastor simultaneously.  As an older mother whose "been there" and who knows exactly what she is going through, I wanted to reach out and hug her, and offer her my support.  If I lived there, I would draw close to her and be her friend, not her church-member.  But here is my point:  attendance at that church was a social occasion, lovely as it was.  It did not provide me with a time of prayer, as attendance at a Catholic church does, no matter where in the world I enter it.  I have attended Catholic churches in France, in Germany, in Croatia -- places where I did not understand anything that was being said -- and, because I understood the ritual, I have found a place of prayer, a meeting-place with God.

One might argue that we should pray at home and go to church to meet our fellow-travelers on the road of life.  And I have no problem with that argument, for indeed, it is probable that my home prayer prepares me to pray when I enter a Catholic church.  Years ago, I discovered my 'prayer-chair;' that is, I discovered that because I kept my bible in one place, beside my favorite chair next to a window where I could look out at God's great creation, whenever I got to that chair, I immediately began to enter into a state of prayer.

My body calmed, my soul rejoiced, and prayer came to me spontaneously.  Of course, that did not happen at first; my response built up slowly, during the times when I actually met God during prayer, and He ministered to my fevered heart, soul, and body.  But it did happen, and because the brain makes those wonderful connections of associating certain times and places with certain thoughts and emotions, and strengthens those connections with every repetition, prayer became as natural to me in that chair as breathing.  The same thing happens at Mass. Once we do enter into communion with God at Mass, and repeat our efforts to do so, the process becomes a natural one when we enter the Mass, despite a foreign or careless priest, or a strange place.  The externals no longer matter much, even though we might be momentarily entertained or captivated by a powerful sermon or a charismatic priest. 

My point is that, with ritual (not "empty ritual," but ritual- that -provides- a -meeting- place -with- God), we
are no longer dependent upon the charism of the speaker.  Our prayer is with the Most High, and He can use anything or anyone to touch us.  The externals become less important to us as the internal life becomes richer.

In the 15th chapter of Genesis, Abraham is fretting about having no children to whom he can leave his estate.  He has concluded in the natural order of things that he will have to leave his vast wealth to his trusted servant.  God assures him otherwise, but Abraham needs a sign; he needs assurance that he is not imagining God speaking to him.  God directs Abraham to prepare a sacrifice, an ancient and well-known and frequently-practiced ritual in that time.  In this ritual, both parties bring a sacrificial animal, representing their own lives.  The animals are severed, with the parts separated into two halves.  In a ritual ceremony, both parties walk between the severed animals, signifiying that if either one breaks the covenant, they are calling down on themselves the curse:  what has happened to these animals will happen to them.  This is a blood covenant; the penalty for breaking it is death. 

What happens next is not part of the ancient ritual:  Abraham falls into a deep sleep; a "thick and dreadful darkness" comes over him.  In his sleep, the Lord reveals to him what the future holds for his people, and then "a smoking fire pot with a blazing torch appeared and passed between the pieces."  The Lord made a covenant with Abraham, according to the ritual of the time; biblically, fire represents the appearance of God's presence.  God did not allow Abraham to walk between the pieces, as was the custom.  He did not want Abraham to carry the burden of the curse lest he should break the covenant.  Yahweh took the entire burden upon himself to uphold the covenant.  He took on both parts -- that of God and that of man -- and He did it by subjecting Himself to man's rituals.

So when critics talk about the "empty rituals" of the Catholic church, I beg to differ.  If our rituals are "empty," it is simply that we ourselves have never infused them with prayer and with meaning.  God has come to meet us in our common ritual, but we have not come to meet with Him.  Still, as one mother of seven children puts it, "We have a 14-year-old down to a 2-year-old, so my kids aren't always getting the full benefit of what going to church can be.  But what they do get is that they are memorizing the prayers, hearing the songs, and for a minute, stopping themselves from arguing with a sibling.  Just for an hour, they are in a calm, peaceful place, even if they're day-dreaming or dozing off.  You keep repeating that throughout childhood, and there's only good that comes from it."  For herself, she sees church as the one time in the week that she can decompress: "For me, my house and my life are so chaotic and busy that I need an hour of quiet calm and a peaceful time." 

When I was where she is, the last thing I needed from Sunday worship was another social occasion; I, too, was desperate for decompression and peace.  My sister and I, once attending St. Patrick's in New Orleans after we were grown, reflected on the experience of a Latin high Mass.  "For one hour a week," she said, "no one was expected to talk to you, and you were not expected to talk to anyone else. You were free to sift through all the thoughts roaming around in your head and to discover what it meant to be alone with yourself."  I was surprised to find the memories of an operatic experience, where music, soothing language that you didn't understand or have to pay attention to, incense, and beauty all contributed to lifting the spirit, not through comprehension, but through the senses.  Church was not a place like school, where we had to work, but a place where we could enter into rest of body, mind, and soul.  Even if we fell asleep, it was still a place of rest and peace.  Surely, "God was in this place, and we knew it not," as Jacob said on awaking after his dream of a ladder to heaven. 

"Empty rituals?"  Never!  Only for those who believe that God is not present unless they are being entertained and stimulated with a dynamic performance!  Only for those who cannot be alone with themselves and with God!  Only for those who need constant stimulation and social interaction!  For those who crave prayer and meeting face-to-face with God, who need their spirits lifted when their minds are overwhelmed, ritual provides a format and a place of rest, a place where we can dream and perhaps meet God face-to-face, a place of prayer and inspiration, a place of renewal and peace.  If one goes to church to criticize what her neighbor is wearing, or to pick apart the sermon, or to meet a girlfriend/boyfriend, the ritual is indeed "empty."  But as we mature and seek more of God than we do of the world, we just might find that God is waiting for us, and has been waiting for us, in the ritual.

Circumcision of the Heart

Depart from me, O Lord, for I am a sinful man (Luke 5:8).

A man is a Jew if he is one inwardly; and circumcision is circumcision of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the written code (Romans 2:29).

When [the Holy Spirit] comes, he will convict the world of guilt....(Jn. 16:8).

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One sign of the presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives is that of remorse, of consciousness that we have sinned, that we have hurt others, knowingly or unknowingly.  When we weep, or when we could weep, for our sins, we know that the Spirit of God is "circumcising our hearts." 

In the Parable of the Prodigal Son, the younger son "comes to his senses" and says, "Father, I have sinned agains heaven and against you.  I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired men" (Luke15:18).  When we can finally admit that we have sinned, we are finally ready for restoration.  And in the parable, Jesus gives us the mind of the Father, Who is waiting and watching to clothe us with the robe and the ring and to throw a party on our behalf. 

Restoration is a glorious event!  Even before Peter denied Jesus, he knew he was a sinful man.  What he had not experienced was the love of God to restore him to his place as son.  Once he was restored, he could never forget the depths from which he had been raised; he could never again look down on the sinner.  He knew his role was to lift up and restore men to the service of God.

Psalm 32 portrays the emotion of the man who has recognized and admitted his sin:

Blessed is he whose transgressions are forgiven,

whose sins are covered.

Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord does not count against him

and in whose spirit is no deceit.

When I kept silent,

my bones wasted away

through my groaning all day long.

For day and night

your hand was heavy upon me;

my strength was sapped

as in the heat of summer.

Then I acknowledged my sin to you

and did not cover up my iniquity.

I said, "I will confess

my trangressions to the Lord" --

and you forgave the guilt of my sin....

What happens next in the Psalm is God's response:

I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go;

I will counsel you and watch over you

(alternate translation:  I will guide you with mine eye).

Do not be like the horse or the mule,

which have no understanding

but must be controlled by the bit and bridle

or they will not come to you....

Until we recognize that we are sinners to the bone, that we have no insight or understanding as to the way in which we should walk, we are not receptive to the "eye" of God, to His counsel, advice, or direction.  We are hell-bent on going our own way, thinking like teen-agers that we know it all.  I love the translation that says, "I will guide you with mine eye."  The child who watches his/her mother's eye knows exactly what to do; he is sensitive to the mind and will of the mother, and he responds to her without words. 

I once had a dog like this; she was very aware of and sensitive to my moods and my direction.  She would do nothing that displeased me, so she was a great joy to have around.  I did not have to yell, or put her in time out, or hit her with the newspaper.  If she only knew what I wanted, she would do it.  As one of my children put it, "Ginger was the poster-child for the good Christian life." 

That is the relationship God wants to have with us; if we are sensitive to Him, He will guide us with His "eye."  We will not need correction.  And the only way we can be sensitive to Him is to recognize that we do not "know it all," to know that unless He does guide us, we will inevitably choose the wrong path and regret it.  Until I knew this, I could not understand why we had to admit we were "sinners."  I did not think I was so bad, at least, not as bad as "some people I know":).  Now I understand that without God's direction, I have no chance of doing the right thing, or walking in the right path.  I am like the horse and the mule that needs the bit and the bridle.  And I welcome the direction of the Most High every day, for He sees what I cannot see, and His hand directs me away from the evil that dries up my strength as in the heat of summer. Now, I am happy to admit that I am a sinner, and I am happy to live in my Father's house, not as a servant, but as a restored child.





The Importance of the Heart

All men everywhere desire communion with God.  That relationship is what we are made for -- Our hearts were made for Thee, O Lord, and they are restless until they rest in Thee (St. Augustine).  The problem is that we are distracted by the "restlessness" in us, and we don't know how to fill it up.

C.S.Lewis, in his work called The Abolition of Man, portrayed mankind as seeking to satisfy their restless hearts in either of two ways: cerebrally or viscerally.  He pictured "man" with his 'North' and 'South' regions of head and belly, with the "chest" in the center, as the seat of balance between the two regions.  For Lewis, modern people are increasingly becoming "men without chests" -- a process he warned would eventually lead to the abolition of mankind.  Both the head and the animal in us have the power to destroy mankind, but if anything, the head is the more evil and destructive.

A colleague of mine, raised by a brilliant scientist mother to be a militant atheist, was one of the most "restless" people I have ever met.  She searched and searched through her depression and oppression, through her anger and through her aggression.  But God -- no; she had been well taught that anyone who believes in God is stupid, unlearned, untaught.  She was visceral in her sufferings, but she was ruled by her head.  Of all the people I have ever known, she was the most determined to have no dealings with what Lewis calls "the chest," the heart, the soul.  One day, M. came to me thinking I could guide her to a course in comparative religions.  She was finally coming around to 'the God question,' and thought that comparative religions would shed some light on the truth she needed to embrace.  I shook my head; I knew it would be a complete waste of time to study comparative religions.  What M. needed was not more thinking, but some way into her heart.

The Song of Songs portrays our relationship with God as the loving communion of real persons:

Like an apple tree among the trees of the forest

is my lover among the young men.

I delight to sit in his shade,

and his fruit is sweet to my taste.

He has taken me into the banquet hall,

and his banner over me is love (2:3-4).

Anyone who has experienced a real and loving exchange with the living God of the bible does not need to keep searching for some other idea or experience.  It is no longer a matter of the head, but of the heart.  Finally, all the ways we sought to tame our restlessness fade into the distance.  For the first time in our lives, we experience rest, and balance.  Who would want to leave that rest to search for something else?

Until that time, religion is, as described by Isaiah the prophet, "do and do, do and do, rule on rule, rule on rule; a little here, a little there--- so that they will go and fall backward, be injured and snared and captured" (28:13).  The reason religion has become "do and do," according to Isaiah is that the people to whom He said, "This is the resting place, let the weary rest," and "this is the place of repose" would not listen.  They insisted on running after something else, even when they were told, "In repentence and rest is your salvation; in quietness and trust is your strength" (Is. 30: 15). 

Those who believe in the Word of the Lord and surrender to it in the heart, in their center, will discover in themselves what Isaiah described as the Joy of the Redeemed:

The desert and the parched land will be glad;

the wilderness will rejoice and blossom.

Like the crocus, it will burst into bloom;

it will rejoice greatly and shout for joy....

Then will the eyes of the blind be opened

and the ears of the deaf unstopped.

Then will the lame leap like a deer,

and the tongue of the dumb shout for joy.

Water will gush forth in the wilderness

and streams in the desert.

The burning sand will become a pool,

the thirsty ground bubbling springs.

In the haunts where jackals once lay,

grass and reeds and papyrus will grow....

Gladness and joy will overtake them,

and sorrow and sighing will flee away (35).

Whenever I see people in "sorrow and sighing," I so want to tell them that rest and delight, the soothing of the heart, cannot be found in either the head or the belly (the 'north' and 'south' of the human body), but only in the center.  The Bible is not a cerebral book; it is a book of the heart. Jesus told the scribes, "You search the scriptures because you think that in them you will find life, but you refuse to come to me that you might have life. 

That's pretty clear: we find life not by understanding religious truth, but by coming to the Source of Life, by allowing living water to bubble up in our deserts.  The integration of all our desires -- head, heart, and body-- does come once we surrender to the heart's desire for communion with God.  He does not want us to dismiss either the head or the physical body; He desires the fulfillment of us as humans fully alive.  But that fulfillment comes not by pursing every whim of the head or the body -- but by allowing the heart, the center, to integrate and fulfill all of our desires under the Lordship of Jesus Christ.

A New Genesis

It was inevitable...that in the garden I should begin to ask myself what lay behind all this beauty.  When guests were gone and I had the flowers to myself, I was so happy that I wondered why at the same time I was haunted by a sense of emptiness.  It was as though I wanted to thank somebody, but had nobody to thank; which is another way of saying that I felt the need for worship.

--Beverly Nichols

From the beginning of time, mankind has felt the need to worship, to thank Someone for the gifts of the earth-- and unfortunately, to control, or to ensure, that the gifts would continue.  All we can do as creatures is to receive; despite our inclination to 'be as gods,' we really cannot control the gifts that come to us freely and without price.

We have always known the truth, but we have not always known the God of heaven and earth.  Early man invented sacrifice as a form of worship, as a way to thank and please the gods.  Mankind has always wanted an open door, a form of communication and exchange between heaven and earth.  Not satisfied with sacrifices of grain and wine and bulls and sheep, they began to offer their sons and daughters to the Most High.  What more had we to give than the fruit of our womb, than the most precious possession we had?  We offer back to the Creator the gifts He has given to us.

Early mythologies always incorporated the idea of "father" and "mother" in the generation of the gifts of sea, sky, and land.  The Creator God, whatever form he took, was "Father," who poured out life and generation to the womb of the earth, the "mother," who received the seed of Life within herself and nurtured it, bringing forth "sons and daughters," or fruitfulness, abundance.  The gift of the earth is the result of the marriage or union of spirit and flesh.

In the womb of the virgin, finally, as C.S.Lewis puts it, "myth becomes fact."  The seed of the Creator enters into an "earth/flesh" which fully receives all that God wants to pour out on mankind.  Whereas the Word -- "Light: Be!" -- brought forth all that exists in Genesis, with the Spirit of God hovering over the waters, so now, the Light of the World that brings light and truth to the heart of man, enters the womb of the virgin, as the Spirit hovers over her.  What mankind has always sensed, believed, and lived in some way on the physical plane now becomes reality on the spiritual, as well as the physical, plane. 

The first few lines of John's Gospel provide truth for a lifetime of reflection.  They can never be read enough; their truth can never be exhausted.  Even before he became a Christian, C.S. Lewis recognized the power and the truth of the Gospels:

This is the marriage of heaven and earth: Perfect Myth and Perfect Fact: claiming not only our love and obedience, but also our wonder and delight, addressed to the savage, the child, and the poet in each one of us no less than to the moralist, the scholar, and the philosopher.

Lewis goes on to call God "the Master Story-teller," combining fact with the best of human art.  John's Gospel finally takes the realities described in the first three Gospels and sees the meaning, the truth behind the physical events:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God...

through him all things were made; without him [the Word] nothing was made that has been made.

In him was life, and that life was the light of men.  The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it....the Word became flesh and dwelt among us...to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God -- children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband's will, but born of God.

Finally, what all mythologies, religions, and vague desires of mankind has tended toward has become reality.  There is finally a true and real union between God and man, a loving communion, a marriage of the divine and the human.  It is possible; it has been done; it exists in Jesus Christ, and from the fullness of his grace, we have all received one blessing after another.  In Him, the first creation, destroyed and marred by man's greed, darkness, and blindness, has risen to a new and greater form of life that cannot be destroyed.

As the Spirit of God hovered over the waters of chaos and darkness at the first creation, as the Spirit hovered over the empty womb of the virgin Mary, so too He hovers today over us, over our chaos and darkness, waiting, waiting, for our openness, for our receptivity to the Divine Energy.  We have all felt the need to "thank Someone," to worship, to receive spiritual Light and Life, to become children of God, born not of a father's will, but of the divine seed. 

It has happened; it happens now!  Let a new heavens and earth spring up in us.  Let us receive in our own empty flesh the Word of God, Who is Christ Jesus, born in us of the Holy Spirit.  Let Him come to a new birth in our flesh; let us be 'married' to God and produce children for Him.  It begins in us not with an idea or an argument, but only with worship, with surrender, with openness to the Life God Himself has chosen to pour out in everyone who will receive it. He will not do it alone, but only with our cooperation.

Let the earth (our flesh, which has become dark and chaotic) receive the Word of God and become new again.  Let there be Light!  Come, Lord Jesus and make of us a new creation, a new Genesis!

Next Post on Aug. 15th

I Always Wanted to be a Dog!

In the history of the Jewish people, after they had settled in the Promised Land, there were still threats from their sworn enemies, the Philistines on one side, and the Moabites and Ammonites on the other.  (Actually, the name "Palestine" comes from the Philistines, so we can see the battles are not yet over.)  Anyway, whenever the Israelites forgot God and lost His protection, their enemies would attack.  In those times, God always raised up a powerful leader to restore the peace of His people -- we read about those leaders in the Book of Judges. 

That pattern continued right down through Christian history.  During the Middle Ages, when the church's struggle to maintain itself among the kingdoms of this world caused it to lose focus on spiritual values in favor of power and control, God raised up people like Francis, Clare, and Dominic to restore the kingdom of Christ, a kingdom "not of this world."  Today is the feastday of St. Dominic (1170-1221). 

While traveling through southern France, Dominic discovered how ignorant the people were of Catholic teaching and Christian faith.  Heresies were rampant among them, just because anyone could teach anything in the name of Christian belief.  From his experience, Dominic got the idea of founding a mendicant order, friars like the Franciscans, their contemporaries, who did not reside in a monastery, but who traveled on foot, as beggars (mendicants), taking the Light of Christ throughout the land.

At St. Dominic's church on Harrison Avenue in New Orleans, the central feature is a 50-foot-mosaic of St. Dominic.  At his feet is a dog carrying a flaming torch.  St. Dominic had a vision of this dog carrying a torch, and he knew the dog represented himself.  At first, he could not understand the vision, until the Lord revealed to him the faithfulness of a dog.  This dog was carrying the light of the Gospel throughout the land.

I was always inspired by that dog.  I wanted to carry the Gospel too, with whatever strength the Lord would grant me.  This morning, I read a reflection on today's gospel by Kathy McGovern, who writes a weekly blog that connects Scripture with life (www.thestoryandyou.com).   Reading her commentary made me realize all of a sudden that with changing times come different ways of carrying the Good News throughout the land.  Even the Franciscans and the Dominicans today live in houses; they no longer walk from village to village preaching the Gospel to a small group of people gathered under the trees or in the village square.  Just so, we no longer have "judges" in the land of Israel, gathering up the tribes for battle against the Philistines.  (Well, maybe we do).  But in the age of the internet, of newspapers, and of magazines, the Lord still has many "dogs" who carry the light of the Gospel throughout the land.  The Jehovah's Witnesses once asked me to go with them door to door, but I am so happy the Lord had another plan to grant my prayer.  He put a small torch in my mouth, and allowed me to carry it to a few readers.  I am so happy to be a dog in His household!

Who is Jesus to Us?

When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd.  So he began teaching them many things (Mark 6:34)

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We all have to find our niche in life.  In order to do this, we must have companied with Jesus: we must know Him as more than a personal Savior (Oswald Chambers: My Utmost for His Highest).

Of all the animals on earth, a sheep without a shepherd is the most lost.  Alligators can take care of themselves, hummingbirds can find food; even cats, if necessary, can fend for themselves without a caretaker.  But sheep --- they have no claws, no sharp teeth, no skunk odor to ward off predators; they have no horns with which to defend themselves and their little ones, or wings with which to take flight.  Sheep cannot even find their own food.  They depend upon the shepherd to lead them to green pastures.

And once the shepherd leads them to the "tableland," as it is called in Hebrew, even then, he cannot allow them to enter the field until he has gone before them with his "rod and his staff" to ferret out the snakes hiding in the green grass, and to pluck out the poisonous weeds that the sheep would unknowingly swallow.

Even in the lush meadow, the shepherd must remain vigilant.  The lion and the wolf lie in wait for the shepherd to fall asleep.  And there are worms that bury themselves in the tender spot on the sheep's head, in order to lay their eggs.  Those eggs sink deep into the brains of the sheep in order to hatch, thereby destroying the sheep from within.  The only defense against these burrowing destroyers is the oil with which the shepherd annoints his sheep, rubbing it into their forehead to block the entrance of the worm.  (I can just imagine the sheep closing his eyes and "purring" as the Shepherd rubs his head with oil.)

And sheep are notoriously dumb.  They wander away from the flock and the shepherd, falling off cliffs and into ravines wherein they cannot extricate themselves.  They break their legs and are unaware of danger until it is too late.  They have no idea where they need to go next.

All throughout the Old Testament, God promises to be a Shepherd for Israel; in the New Testament, Jesus says, "I am the Good Shepherd!"  For those who know how to hear, He is claiming to be the God of the Old Testament, who will lead Israel into safe pastureland and watch over them.  Each one of us is "Israel;" together, we are all "Israel."  There is only one flock and one Shepherd.  If we want to find our safe pasture, if we want to know where we belong in the great plan of Divine Providence, if we want to find our mission in life, there is only one way.  We must place ourselves under the care of the Good Shepherd, who alone knows how to pasture the sheep.  We must finally admit that our "claws" have no power to defend us; our teeth have no bite; we cannot defend ourselves against our enemies, no matter how much we scream and cry and yell.  We are not our own; we belong to Another, to the One Who has laid down His life for the sheep.  If we cannot trust Him with our lives, then He is not the Good Shepherd, and His words to us are all in vain.

Fear of the Lord

He will be the sure foundation for your times,

a rich store of salvation and wisdom and knowledge;

the fear of the Lord is the key to this treasure (Is. 33:6).

I cannot think of anything the world has to offer that can come close to matching this promise from God.  Who among us would not want "a rich store" of salvation and wisdom and knowledge.  Imagine moment to moment having wisdom and knowledge at our fingertips!  Yesterday, I wrote about Jehoshaphat, the king of Judah, turning to the Lord in a time of great national danger and saying, "We do not know what to do, but our eyes are on you!" 

Almost every day of our lives, we are in a position of saying, "We do not know what to do...." but how many of us can say, "but our eyes are on you"?

On March 21, 2010, as I was recovering from surgery for lung cancer, I opened my Bible and read this:

The Lord will guide you always; he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land and will strengthen your frame (Is. 58:11).  At that moment, I had been discouraged because just the week before surgery, I was walking to the beach and working in my garden for several hours a day.  Now, just getting from my bed to the bathroom was a struggle.  I wondered if my life would ever again be the same.  But that Scripture "caught fire" in my heart, and I grabbed onto it, even dating it in the margin of my Bible.

Now I look back on that moment with rejoicing.  The Lord knew just what to say to me when I was discouraged, to give me hope.  His ministry is new to us every morning; He does not speak once and then say, "I already told you."  Instead, He comes to us in the moment, wherever we are, and feeds us the bread of life, the Word of Wisdom and Knowledge and Truth.

"The fear of the Lord is the key to this treasure."  So many people do not understand that expression - "the fear of the Lord."  Many years ago, I was concerned because I did not "fear God," but I wanted to, because so many of the promises of God are linked in the Bible to "fear of the Lord."  So I boldly asked God to show me, to teach me, what it means to "fear the Lord."  I think we need the confidence to ask for what we do not understand, and to talk to God not with "Thee's" and "Thou's," but with the language we use every day. 

I don't think I can explain to anyone else what the Lord has taught me in this regard; I think maybe each person has to ask and receive that knowledge (like all other knowledge of spiritual truth) for himself.  But maybe I can just drop one small idea into the vast bucket of wisdom here.  I think "fear of the Lord" means to look to Him first for our Source of "salvation, wisdom, and knowledge" -- not traveling the world over looking for something or someone else to save/ help/ teach us -- but first seeking the Lord's wisdom and knowledge and guidance as our solution.  Yes, He will direct us to good doctors, healers, teachers -- but because we sought Him first.  He and only He is the "sure foundation for our times." 

Fear of the Lord has nothing in common with abject terror, and it goes far beyond the idea of "respect and awe."  If we read the entire 58th chapter of Isaiah, from which I took the March 21st quote above, we can begin to grasp the idea of fear of the Lord.  It means to orient one's whole life and being to God, to face Him always and everywhere as a sunflower turns to face the sun.  It means to look neither to the right or to the left, but to look at Him -- and then we shall be radiant with joy. 

The Word of Life

I long to see you so that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to make you strong -- that is, that you and I may be mutually encouraged by each other's faith....I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile.  For in the gospel, a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last...(Romans 1: 11 & 16).

"I am not ashamed of the gospel because it is the power of God..."  At one time, before I knew the power of God, I was "ashamed" of the gospel.  Not exactly "ashamed," but embarrassed.  I wanted and needed the respect of others; I did not want them to think I was a religious fanatic.  I wanted to appear intelligent, reasonable, and in control.  But now I know the problem with that stance --- as long as we are offering ourselves to others, we have no "spiritual gifts" to exchange, nothing "to make you strong." It is not our own intelligence, our own brilliant insight, our own emotional strength that encourages others; it is the gift of God, given to us in Jesus Christ, that saves us.  It is the gospel, the good news that we do not have to rely on our own strength, but on the power and the grace of God to save us.

When John says that the law came through Moses, but grace and truth through Jesus, this is what he is getting at.  The law, excellent as it is above all other law on earth, could not save us.  It is a guide, a ruler, if you will, measuring a straight path in a crooked world.  But men in themselves have no power to walk a straight line.  We are thrown off course by the sin of the world inflicted on us, by our own sins drawing us away from the straight path.  And then we are lost, wondering in darkness, unable to find our way back -- until the light of the gospel begins to shine in our hearts.  Peter says, And we have the word of the prophets made more certain, and you will do well to pay attention to it, as to a light shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts (2 Pet.1:19).

Truth has the power to save us, to restore us, to heal our wounds, because it is alive and active.  The Word of God, the Truth, took on human flesh and pitched his tent in our midst, that we might no longer rely on men's opinions and empty promises.  Instead, "from the fullness of his grace, we have all received one blessing after another" (Jn. 1:16).  Jesus Christ is the "Good News" that God is with us and dwelling with us.  He is the shining Light that gives light to every person who comes into the world.  All we have to do is to turn to Him and allow His light to shine in our hearts. 

When the light of the gospel begins to shine inside us, we are born again, made new by its truth, changed from the inside out.  Everything previous to the coming of that light begins to fade away.  And those who are daily being renewed by the gospel of Jesus Christ find that He in them pours out spiritual gifts for their mutual encouragement and joy.  This is where we find "church:" in the body of believers transformed by the gospel of Jesus Christ.  One has a song of praise; one has a word of encouragement; one has an insight to share with others  -- and all walk away strengthened by the others.

The first letter of John the Divine says that he has "heard...seen with our eyes....looked at...and our hands have touched" the Word of Life, which was from the beginning.  John says, "We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us.  And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ" 1:1-3).

When the Word of Life comes alive to us, when we have begun to hear, and see, and look at, and touch it, we can never again be ashamed of the power of God to resurrect dead bodies and souls.  We must proclaim what we have seen and heard and touched, and in doing so, we have fellowship with one another.

The Poor in Spirit

Blessed are the poor in spirit,

for theirs is the kingdom of God (Matt. 5:2).

What does it mean to be "poor in spirit"?  Those who know they have no resource other than God are the poor in spirit.  They know they cannot depend on their own strength, their courage, their "bootstraps," their money, or anything else.  The mother whose son is in prison is poor in spirit.  The man whose wife left him for another man is poor in spirit.  The mother whose teen-aged daughter scorns her is poor in spirit -- unless we think we can fight these battles with our own weapons: anger, revenge, resentment, complaining, begging, etc.  Then we are not "poor in spirit;" we are still counting on something other than God to fight our battles.

One of my favorite Biblical accounts is the story of Jehoshaphat, king of Judah (2 Chronicles 19-20).  At one point in his reign, he was told that a vast army of Moabites and Ammonites were coming from across the Jordan River to conquer Jerusalem and to take its people captive.  Jehoshaphat's first response was to "inquire of the Lord," and he called together the people from every town in Judah to seek help from the Lord.  Jehoshaphat stood up in the Temple and cried out to God:

...if calamity comes upon us, whether the sword of judgment, or plague, or famine, we will stand in your presence before this temple that bears your Name and will cry out to you in our distress, and you will hear us and save us.  .....For we have no power to face this vast army that is attacking us.  We do not know what to do, but our eyes are upon you (2 Chr. 20: 9 & 12).

As the people stood there as one, waiting for instructions from the Lord, the Spirit of the Lord came upon one of the men present.  "Listen,.....," he said to the king and to the people; "this is what the Lord says to you: 'Do not be afraid or discouraged because of this vast army.  For the battle is not yours, but God's'."

This is what it means to be poor in spirit: to know that unless God is your strength and your salvation, you have no hope; to stand and wait for the counsel of God, and not to depend on man. 

Isaiah constantly warned those living in Jerusalem not to depend on Egypt for help when they were threatened by the Babylonians.  He tells the people that God is "the refuge of the poor, a refuge for the needy in his distress, a shelter from the storm and a shade from the heat" (25:4).  He also tells them:

[Yahweh] will keep in perfect peace

him whose mind is steadfast,

because he trusts in you (26:3).

To be poor in spirit is to know that God will provide.  To be poor in spirit is to wait upon the Lord and trust not in princes.  When Joseph was warned that Herod was seeking the life of the Child, he had no weapons, no army, nothing with which he could defend Mary and Jesus.  But he knew God, and it was the angel of the Lord who warned him to take the family and flee.  It was God who had sent the wise men with gifts of gold, frankincense and myhrr -- all expensive gifts which could be sold to supply their needs on the flight into Egypt.  They had all they needed, because God Himself was their Source of strength and supply.

To be poor in spirit is to be wealthy beyond all measure, for the kingdom of heaven is [ours].



Powerful!

O people of Zion, who live in Jerusalem, you will weep no more.

How gracious he will be when you cry for help!

As soon as he hears, he will answer you.

Although the Lord gives you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction,

your teachers will be hidden no more;

with your own eyes you will see them. 

Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying,

"This is the way, walk in it" (Is. 30:19-21).

*******

I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen.  I must bring them also.  They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd (John 10:16).

********

What is the Source of salvation for those who "weep," for those who eat the "bread of adversity" and who drink "the water of affliction"?  What is it that draws people together, even though they are not of the "same sheep pen?"  It seems from both the Old and the New Testaments that those who hear the voice of God find the way.  Those whose ears are opened find "rain for the seed you sow in the ground" and "streams of water flowing on every high mountain and every lofty hill" (Is. 30: 23 & 25).

"But I have never heard the voice of God," people will say; "He has never spoken to me!" 

From the beginning of time, God has spoken:  He spoke to Adam and Eve; He spoke to Cain and Abel; He spoke to Noah, to Abraham, to Hagar, the slave girl, in the desert, when her son was dying from lack of water.  He spoke to Moses, to the people of Israel, to the prophets.  And lastly, says Peter, "he has spoken to us in His only Son."  The problem is not that God does not speak; the problem is that we do not know how to hear Him.

Last night, our pastor told us a powerful story.  When people come to confession after years and years of not going to confession, he says to them, "What made you decide now, after 30, 3, or 5 years, to come to confession?  What was going on when you thought to yourself, 'I need to go to confession'?  We need to go back to that moment, for that is the moment that God was speaking to you, and we need to learn to listen to that voice, that moment."

It is the voice of God that speaks in a still, small moment that gives us direction for the future.  My sister-in-law had a tragic first marriage that ended when her husband committed suicide.  She had not seen it coming; she had an infant under one year of age, and she was devasted, without any means of support.  She was completely overwhelmed and lost.  Then one morning, for no apparant reason, she woke up knowing what she had to do.  At the time, she was living in the French Quarter, painting for a living.  But somehow, she just knew she had to go buy a house in Waveland, Mississippi. 

On a rational level, that "plan" made no sense.  She had no money to buy a house; her husband, also an artist, had left her with no insurance.  Her only income came from the one or two paintings she could sell at a time.  But without words, she "knew" she had to go to Waveland and buy a house.  That day, she and the baby went to Waveland and looked around.  She saw a house that she knew she was to buy.  The real estate agent laughed at her; there was no way anyone would lend her money to buy that house.  But my sister-in-law got in touch with the owner and told him her story.  He agreed to sell her the house with no down-payment, but just a monthly note. He would carry the loan. 

How did she know that?  How did she have the courage to believe that she could do the impossible?  Although she had eaten the bread of affliction and had taken in the water of adversity, she heard a voice behind her saying, "This is the way; walk in it."  And that house became her salvation, her place of healing, her place of silence where she could paint.  Before long, she met my brother and re-married. 

God speaks to all those who belong to Him, no matter which "sheep pen" they belong to.  I have interacted with Muslim women in abusive marriages who hear the voice of God comforting them, directing them. I have counseled a Buddhist woman from Taiwan who was being blackmailed by an unscrupulous lawyer holding her papers.

There are no words "from above," just a quiet knowing in their hearts what they need to do.  God speaks in diverse ways; we just need to be willing to hear and obey.  His word is like a fire in our hearts and like a hammer breaking a rock to pieces (Jer.23:29).  All God asks of us is to "stand in [His] Council to see and to hear His word to us" (Jer 23:18).  Then, when we cry to Him, He will answer.  A door will open in the wilderness; a path will unfold before us. 

We will be led to the 'one flock and one Shepherd,' and we will find pasture for our souls.