"I have come that they might have life....."

 The Talmud says, Every blade of grass has its angel that bends over it and whispers, "Grow, grow!"

How much more, then, are we the project of the Creator, who sends His angels to watch over us lest we dash our foot against a stone? 

 "Grow, grow," He says, and we cower in dark caves, afraid of His Light.

"Grow, grow," He says --- and we run the other way, hiding like Adam from His voice.

"Where are you, Adam, my creation, holder of my Spirit-breath?"

"Where are you, O Absolom, my son?"

Where is Wisdom?

 When God began creating the heavens and the earth, "...a mist rose from the earth (ground) and watered all the surface of the earth.  Then the Lord God formed man out of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life....A river rose in Eden watering the garden; and from there it separated into four branches...the Phison....the Gihon....the Tigris....and the Euphrates" (Gen. 2).

I have written before about the adam/adamah (the human/ground or earth) connection.  Without the breath, or Spirit (ruah) of God, man is like the dust of the earth, "dry, parched, and without water."  All the way through the Scriptures, there are constant parallels and references to the condition of man himself without wisdom and the earth without water.  The most direct and constant references come in the Wisdom books (Psalms, Proverbs, Wisdom, Sirach).  And, go figure, these are the least read and least known books of Scripture.  In fact, the Protestant bible does not even include Wisdom and Sirach as inspired books. 

 Without the Spirit of God, man's body and soul are constantly compared to the earth without water.  With the "breath of God," man himself is "like a tree planted near running water; his leaf does not wither."  Anyone who searches for Wisdom, or the Spirit of God, is compared to the earth watered with a mist from the ground and with the four rivers encircling the earth.  Although the ideal 'search" for wisdom references would begin with Proverbs, the most direct example can be found in Sirach 24, where Wisdom sings her own praises:  

From the mouth of the Most High I came forth and mistlike covered the earth (adamah)....

I spread out my branches like a terebinth, my branches so bright and so graceful.  I bud forth delights like the vine, my blossoms become fruit fair and rich.  Come to me, all you that yearn for me, and be filled with my fruits....He who eats of me will hunger still, he who drinks of me will thirst for more; he who obeys me will not be put to shame, he who serves me will never fail.

All this is true of the book of the Most High's covenant...It overflows, like the Phison, with wisdom---like the Tigris in the days of new fruits.  It runs over, like the Euphrates, with understanding, like the Jordan at harvest time.  It sparkles like the Nile with knowledge, like the Gihon at vintage time.  The first man never finished comprehending wisdom, nor will the last succeed in fathoming her.  For deeper than the sea are her thoughts; her counsels, than the great abyss.

Now, I, like a rivulet from her stream, channeling the waters into a garden, said to myself, "I will water my plants, my flower bed I will drench"; and suddenly this rivulet of mine became a river, then this stream of mine, a sea.  Thus do I send my teachings forth shining like the dawn, to become known afar off. Thus do I pour out instruction like prophecy and bestow it on generations to come.

To search for wisdom is a wise thing to do.  That might sound redundant, but it is the truth.  Without wisdom, foolishness overtakes us in everything we do, and our minds, hearts, souls, and bodies begin to wither and fail.  One of the best places to begin a search for wisdom is the Book of Proverbs:  How long, you simple (foolish) ones, will you love inanity? Lo! I will pour out to you my spirit, I will acquaint you with my words (Prov. 1: 22).

I have to laugh.  When I watch tv, I indeed "love inanity," and my mind, body, and soul wither and die.  When I read Scripture, I am revivified, energized, and re-watered!  Wisdom is the Gift and Spirit of God given to us for life itself:  Wisdom is a tree of life to those who find her, and those who lay hold of her will be blessed (Prov. 3:18).

It's Personal! (part 2)

 You will have your fill of bread; then you will know that I, Yahweh, am your God (Ex. 16)

How can we know that God is close to us, that He hears our prayers, and that He cares about our needs?  Jesus taught us to ask for our daily bread -- that's about as close to our daily needs -- some would say, the "little things"--- as you can get, I think.  The Book of Exodus tells us that God heard their cries in slavery and sent Moses to deliver them; then He heard their cry in the wilderness and sent bread (and quail) to feed them.  In fact, He told Moses, You will have your fill of bread; then you will know that I am your God.  

Anyone who has been through a natural disaster is likely to "know" how close and personal God is.  After going through Hurricane Katrina, there were many Moses in my life, starting with the stranger who walked me out of the house with no door in the midst of downed electrical lines and fallen trees all around, the firemen who just happened to be coming along in a school bus picking up refugees at that exact moment that we arrived across the tracks beyond which no vehicle could drive....and on and on.  It's a long story of God's providence, providing exactly what I needed at the moment I needed it.  Finally, I arrived in Natchez, Ms. where Father David O'Connor, another "Moses," provided a place for the family to re-gather and stay until we could find shelter.  Heading to the mall to find clothes, I happened into a bookstore instead (my daily bread), reached immediately for a book called Abraham by Bruce Feiler, flipped it open to a random page and read this: 

And the bible says, "I want you to have total trust in me, Abraham." You're not going to know where your next meal is coming from.  You're not going to know where your next home is.  If you're going to be in covenant with me, you have to trust me with every cell in your body.  And if you do that, I will bless you (p.48).

At that moment in my life, nothing could have been appropriate or striking to my situation! "I'm there!" I said to God. "I'm there right now!" We were even totally dependent on others for our daily bread, given that we had no access to cash, with all electrical systems down and banks closed for God knew how long!  Someone had given us 150 dollars on a Walmart card, for underwear and clothing, and that was our bank account for the moment.  Somehow, I did find the cash for Feiler's book, and that was my first purchase after Katrina --- and it did provide the bread I needed to get me through the next few months. ("Not by bread alone," Jesus had said, "but by every word that comes forth from the mouth of God.")

Bruce Feiler says, in his discussion of Abraham's journey, "Departure is paramount to Christian identity.....We want the security of knowing that we have a house, we have a job, our children are protected, we've got a savings account. And God says that's not going to bring the security you really need in your life" (p.49).

Anyone who has ever meditated on the suburb poetry of Psalm 23 knows how personal faith is:  The Lord is my Shepherd; there is nothing I shall want.  This came from David, the shepherd boy, who learned as child the closeness of the Lord: Your servant (David) has been keeping his father's sheep. When a lion or a bear came and carried off a sheep from the flock, I went after it, struck it and rescued the sheep from its mouth.  When it turned on me, I seized it by its hair, struck it and killed it....Yahweh who delivered me from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine (I Sam. 17).

Later in his life, when being pursued through the wilderness by Saul's armies, David again relied on the faithfulness of God to deliver him and to provide for him his daily bread and water when he had no access to either: You provide a table for me in the presence of my enemies (Ps. 23).  

One of the best commentaries on this psalm came from a shepherd, who line by line describes the implications of the psalm for the sheep: A Shepherd Looks at the 23rd Psalm by W. Philip Keller. Everyone who wants to appreciate this psalm beyond a funeral reading of it needs to read Keller's book.

In the 23rd chapter of Jeremiah, God rails against the bad shepherds of his people.  "I myself will shepherd them"; says the Lord.   "I myself will make them lie down" (Ezekiel 34).  And finally, Jesus Himself makes the claim in John 10: I am the Good Shepherd (promised throughout the Scriptures).

The following quote may seem off the topic, but at a dinner party once, where the Eucharist was being discussed as only symbolic, Flannery O'Conner responded: "If it's just a symbol," she said, "then to hell with it!"  I feel exactly the same way about Jesus' words, I am the Good Shepherd.  If it's "just a metaphor," then to hell with it!

It's Personal!

 "How can you believe in a God who is so involved in your daily affairs? someone once asked.

My answer is twofold:  first, personal experience.  Nothing is too small to ask about or to be answered, in my experience.  And experience grows little by little.  People are fond of talking about "the leap of faith," as if we jump across a chasm based on some vague hope that Someone is there to catch us if we fail.  But faith is not really like that at all.  Usually it begins as a mustard seed, tentatively put into the ground.  When we actually see a small sprout emerge, we begin to believe.  And so we have the "faith" to try again, and our faith does not disappoint us, as the Scripture says.  We ask for something small and personal, and we find that, indeed, Someone is listening and bending close to our prayer, much to our surprise.  "This is what I had hoped for, but was pretty sure that nothing would come of it," we say to ourselves.  But now, now, maybe we can ask again.  After all, we find that the Gospels tell us that very thing:  You receive not because you ask not, the book of James tells us (chapter 4):

God does not expect a "leap of faith" from us.  Scripture shows us again and again how gently He trains us to ask and believe.  Abraham "walked with God" a long way from Ur of the Chaldees to the land of promise (Canaan).  Each evening, he built an altar to the God who called him out of the land of pagans to a "place I will show you."  "Am I going the right way?"  "Are you still with me?" he may have been asking along the way.  And then, Sarah is taken for the Egyptian harem....Is this what you have brought us here for?  This wouldn't have happened if we had stayed in Haran, among our own people!  Who are you, Yahweh, that you have tricked us?  These are not "statements of blind faith," and yet I imagine these may have been the very questions of Abraham at some point.  And yet...God did not disappoint him ---- or Jacob, for that matter, either, when he fled from his brother's wrath and encountered the God of his forefathers on his way to Haran.  

When we study Scripture, we find that God answered not only Jacob's prayer on his journey, but the same is true for Moses, Joshua, David, and the prophets:  If God will be with me and will watch over me on this journey I am taking and give me food to eat and clothes to wear so that I return safely to my father's house. then Yahweh will be my God (Gen. 28).  And the story of Jacob, whose name means "cheater, grabber, usurper," reveals a "covenant" God who was with him along the way, doing just what Jacob asked of Him.  And so, eventually, Jacob becomes Israel, who has contended with God and with man.  Maybe the word translated "contended" might be better as "engaged with."  Those who "engage" with God, even "wrestle" with Him, are not disappointed.  That is the meaning of covenant:  I am with you!

At one point in my life, I refused to ask God anything, either because I did not believe He cared about my "small" life, or because I didn't think I was worthy to receive anything "small" from such a big God, or who knows why?  I hoped He was there, but I refused to engage/ wrestle with Him for what I needed or wanted.  I was very much like king Ahaz in the book of Isaiah (chapter 7), who, though terrified at the threat of invasion from the surrounding nations, refused to ask God for anything:

....the hearts of Ahaz and his people were shaken, as the trees of the forest were shaken by the wind.

[Isaiah was sent to tell Ahaz:] be careful, keep calm, and don't be afraid.  Do not lose heart because of these two smoldering stubs of firewood.....it will not take place; it will not happen....Ask the Lord your God for a sign, whether in the deepest depths or in the highest heights.

But Ahaz said, "I will not ask; I will not put the Lord to the test."

Then Isaiah said, "...Is it not enough to try the patience of men? Will you try the patience of my God also?  Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign....."

Ahaz did not want to engage with Yahweh; he refused to enter into any kind of relationship with God, under the pretense of "not putting God to the test."  Yes, I get that.  I refused to ask myself, not knowing Scripture at all and thinking it was virtue to not ask for anything.  But as I engaged with Scripture and began to read passages like these in Isaiah and else where, I began to tentatively "engage" with God, and I was never disappointed:

the Lord longs to be gracious to you: he rises to show you compassion...
Blessed are all who wait for him!...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"(30).

I am the Lord you God, who teaches you what is best for you, who directs you in the way you should go. If only you had paid attention to my commands, your peace would have been like a river, your righteousness like the waves of the sea. ....say, "The Lord has redeemed his servant Jacob." They did not thirst when he led them through the deserts; he made water flow for them from the rock; he split the rock and water gushed out (48).

So my answer to "Why do you believe/ trust in a good God who is close to you?" is based on two things: Scripture and experience.  Scripture gave me the courage to ask or engage with the living God.  Experience taught me that I did not ask or engage in vain.  As soon as I asked, He answered.  And so I asked again.  And I was not disappointed.  

Does that mean that I receive everything I ask for?  No, but I still engage.  Here is the best answer I have seen to that question:

If fear is the root of all evil in the world, religion's role is the overcoming of fear. But the overcoming of fear cannot be illusory.  Religion must not become the opium of the people.  In a remarkable aphorism, Macmurray contrasts illusory religion with real religion:

The maxim of illusory religion runs: "Fear not; trust in God and He will see that none of the things you fear will happen to you"; that of real religion, on the contrary, is "Fear not; the things that you are afraid of are quite likely to happen to you, but they are nothing to be afraid of" (John Macmurray, Persons in Relation, 1991), quoted in William A. Barry, S.J., Spiritual Direction and the Encounter with God, 1992)

The takeaway here is that in all of Scripture, as in all of our experience, terrible things indeed happen to people who have engaged with God, and yet....they all discovered along the way that God was and is greater and more faithful than the terrible things that happen along the way!

The Adamah Connection

And the Lord will guide you continually, 
and satisfy your desire with good things,
and make your bones strong;
and you shall be like a watered garden,
like a spring of water, 
whose waters fail not (Is. 58:19).

I have to ask, who wouldn't want this?  

What is this strange disease that keeps us from returning to the Lord for our own sake?  For our own health?  The book of Genesis portrays the Garden of Paradise as a place of lush growth, a place of friendship with God and total unity with one another, as well as with the animals and nature.  There are four rivers flowing from Eden, which water the entire earth.  Out of this well-watered earth, God formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed into him the breath of life.

From the beginning to the end of the entire bible, there is a strong relationship between the soul of man and the "dust of the ground."  The Hebrew word for man/the man is adam; the word for ground, soil, dust, earth, field, etc. is adamah.  The common root here is intentional, not accidental.  The condition of the soil, the earth, the ground, biblically speaking, is directly linked to the condition of mankind, of man's soul.  

Once separation takes place between man/adam and God, from Whom comes the breath of life, the results are immediately seen not only in disunity between man and woman, but also reflected in the earth/soil itself:  Cursed is the ground/adamah because of you...it will produce thorns and thistles for you...since from it you were taken; for dust/adamah you are and to dust you will return.

During the next generation, the disharmony between God and man, man and man, and man and the earth grows even greater:  Listen! Your brother's blood cries out to me from the ground/adamah.  Now you are under a curse and driven from the ground/adamah, which opened its mouth to receive your brother's blood from your hand.  When you work the ground/adamah, it will no longer yield its crops for you.  You will be a restless wanderer on the earth/adamah.

Cain said to Yhwh: "My punishment is more than I can bear. Today you are driving me from the land/adamah, and I will be hidden from your presence; I will be a restless wanderer on the earth/adamah, and whoever finds me will kill me.  The human/adam is no longer in friendship/harmony with God, with his fellow men, or with nature.  The world has become a hostile, rather than a safe and welcoming, presence.  

One of the most interesting bible studies one can undertake is to trace the connections from this point on between the fate of the earth/ground/adamah and the condition of man's soul in his relationship to God.  When I speak of the earth as a whole, I include in that category the condition of man's body, taken from the earth.  When our soul is "parched, lifeless, and without water," our bones waste away...and our strength is sapped as in the heat of summer (Ps. 32).  

The remedy for a sick adamah/adam is once again walking with God in the garden and listening to His words:  "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my says," declares the Lord. As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.  As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater, so is my word that goes out from my mouth: it will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.  You will go out in joy and be lead forth in peace; the mountains and hills will burst into song before you, and all the trees of the field/adamah will clap their hands.  Instead of the thornbush will grow the pine tree, and instead of briers the myrtle will grow (Is. 55).  The curse of mankind, the death of the earth, is reversed by the healing word of the Lord which comes down on man like the rain and snow come down on the earth.  And man's spirit, renewed by the spirit/breath of the Lord, will renew the condition of the earth.

Once man's connection to Yhwh is re-established, the man/adam flourishes. His soul is watered like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in due season and whose leaf does not wither. Whatever he does prospers (Ps. 1).  When Jesus offered the Samaritan woman "a spring of water welling up to eternal life" (Jn.4), He was offering her friendship with the Living God, re-connection with her neighbors, and a new fruitfulness of the earth.  She had come to the well for life-sustaining water, and that is exactly what she found.  

I cannot help but look at the condition of our earth today ---climate change, fires, floods, earthquakes, drought, storms----and wonder if our brothers' and sisters' blood is crying out from the adamah.  The earth is reacting to adam's soul, and it is dying: no longer producing crops, but disaster.  Will Adam become like Cain, a restless wanderer on the earth because he can no longer connect to God, to his fellow man, or to the earth itself?

Proclaiming Christ in the Culture — Bishop Barron’s Sunday Sermon

Everyone needs to hear Bishop Barron's Sunday sermons, so here's one to start with!

Standing Before the Lord

 I have written before about an experience I had while still working, but I need to mention it again today.  I was sitting at my desk working on a project when suddenly and unexpectedly, the Lord spoke to me:  Who are your favorite people in the Bible?  Now I say, "the Lord spoke to me," but I have no objections whatever to someone being a bit skeptical about my hearing the Lord speak.  I am comfortable with saying, "The thought crossed my mind," even though there was absolutely no reason why such a thought would occur to me in the middle of a workday, and the exchange that followed was even more strange.

Without any hesitation or even thought, I replied, "Enoch, Deborah, Abraham."  Now, if you had asked me that question in normal conversation, I would have had a great deal of trouble identifying my "favorite" characters in the Bible.  I might have weighed the merits of each one before coming to a conclusion.  At this moment, however, it seemed as if the answer had been given to me all at once, bypassing the usual hemming and hawing.  Immediately upon responding, I heard that Voice again: Walk with me; sit with me; stand with me."

Okay, folks, I'm just not that good to make up something like this without a lot of prior thought.  I'm a rather slow thinker altogether, and I think it might have taken maybe a month for me to come up with such a terse summary of those three characters.  I didn't have to think much to understand "Walk with me" in its  application to Enoch, who walked with God and was no more, because God took him away (Gen. 5).  And Deborah, one of the judges of Israel, was easy because she sat under a tree, and the Israelites came to her to have their disputes decided (Judges 4).

Abraham, though, I had to think about.  I knew he had walked with God from Ur of the Chaldees to the land of Canaan; I knew he sat with the Lord under the tree of Mamre and heard that Sarah would deliver a child the following year -- but "standing" with God?  I wasn't really sure about that reference until I looked it up in Genesis 18.  And there it was:  Abraham remained standing before the Lord (v.22).

He is "standing" before the Lord because God has just spoken to him, saying, "Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do?"  God is revealing to his friend his plans to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah.  Abraham's nephew lived in Sodom with his family, so Abraham stands before the Lord to plead for the city, finally obtaining the Lord's promise not to destroy the city if He can find in it ten just men.

We see a similar scenario in the book of Ezekiel, who is among the exiles in Babylon around 597 B.C.  Ezekiel has a vision of the Lord and says, "When I saw it, I fell facedown, and I heard the voice of one speaking.  He said to me, "Son of man, stand up on your feet and I will speak to you." As he spoke, the Spirit came into me and raised me to my feet, and I heard him speaking to me" (Ez. 2).  Now the Lord is revealing to Ezekiel what He is about to do to the house of Israel, but He warns Ezekiel ahead of time: But the house of Israel is not willing to listen to you because they are not willing to listen to me, for the whole house of Israel is hardened and obstinate.   As it was with Sodom and Gomorrah, so it is now with Israel: the land is full of bloodshed and the city is full of injustice (9).

Before the time of Ezekiel and the Babylonian exile, another prophet, Jeremiah, lamented: My heart is broken within me; all my bones tremble.  I am like a drunken man, like a man overcome by wine, because of the Lord and his holy words.  The land is full of adulterers; because of the curse, the land likes parched and the pastures in the desert are withered....both prophet and priest are godless; even in my temple I find their wickedness, declares the Lord....they are all like Sodom to me; the people of Jerusalem are like Gomorrah....But which of them has stood in the council of the Lord to see or to hear his word?  Who has listened and heard his word?  ....if they had stood in my council, they would have proclaimed my words to my people and would have turned them from their evil ways (Jer. 23).

Abraham, Jeremiah, Ezekiel ---- all called to stand before the Lord, to hear His words and His plans, and to intercede for the city or nation.  Jesus said to His disciples, "I no longer call you servants, but friends, because a servant does not know what his master does/plans."  For most people, prayer usually means saying words to God, but it is clear from Scripture that God wishes to reveal His plans to those who will stand before Him and listen.  If we walk with Him long enough, and sit with Him in friendship for awhile, perhaps He will then stand us on our feet and speak to us as He did to Moses, face to face.

 God is goodness and truth

and the closer we come to goodness and truth

the more we shall be like He is.

Intentional Discipleship and Evangelization

 The word "evangelization" normally strikes terror into the heart of most Catholics, who for the most part just want to pray quietly before the Blessed Sacrament and find a moment of peace from the rush of daily life.  Are we supposed to buttonhole people in the street and start talking about Jesus to them?  Our own reactions to street evangelization has made us wary of imitating that practice.  

When I look at the beginning of John's Gospel, I see Jesus doing something else -- recognizing those he meets with awe and respect, not so much telling them immediately about God, but instead telling them something about themselves.  First, hospitality: "Come to my house; welcome."  When Jesus turned around and saw two men following him, He said, "What do you want?"  A good question to ask of others: "What are you looking for?"  Their initial response was superficial -- perhaps they had not expected the question and didn't know what to say at first:  "Where are you staying?"  His answer: "Come and see."  

An invitation to share his life, his home, his food.  Hospitality-- a great place to begin.

Andrew was one of those men.  After spending the day in the company of Jesus, he found his brother Simon and told him: We have found the Messiah!  No first-century Jew could have resisted that message: scholars tell us that there was at the time a heightened expectation for the appearance of the Messiah.  Peter's expectation of what he would find had to be over-the-top!  and yet, when he encounters Jesus for the first time, Jesus "looked at him and said, 'You are Simon, son of John. You will be called Cephas."  I'm quite sure that was the last thing Peter would have expected the Messiah to say to him.

Nathanael's expectation was somewhat less exalted than Peter's must have been:  "Nazareth! Can anything good come from there?"  He didn't think much of Philip's praise of Jesus, but when he met the Son of God in person, Jesus said, "Here is a true Israelite, in whom there is nothing false." Nathanael's response is much like that of the woman at the well, whom Jesus was to encounter later: "You are the Son of God!"

Jesus first saw the person before him, and that "seeing" was life-changing.  In the Old Testament, Hagar, the slave girl of Abraham and Sarah, and the mother of Ishmael, gave a name to Yahweh:  You are the God Who Sees Me (Gen. 16:13).  (Some years later, she is to address Him as, You are the God Who Hears me.)

Now, having been "seen" themselves, both Peter and Andrew are able to see Jesus for who He is -- the Messiah, the Son of God.

I think there is a message here for those who want to evangelize but don't know how:  RECOGNIZE the person to whom you are speaking.  WHO is he/she?  Recognizing the beauty of the person before us is the beginning of respect.  C.S. Lewis once wrote that if you'd never met a human and suddenly encountered one, you'd be inclined to worship this creature.  David Brooks, in a November 2020 editorial for the New York Times, wrote, "Every human is a miracle and is your superior in some way. The people who have great conversations walk into the room expecting to be delighted by you and make you feel the beam of their affection and respect."

Before we ask, "What are you looking for?" maybe we need to ask, "Who are you?"  When we are "delighted" by others, in the words of David Brooks, they may in turn ask us, "Where are you staying?" That's probably a good time to say, "Come and See."

Easter Sunday

 I came to Communion Easter Day

thinking about the dress worn by the lady in the front pew---

broad white collar, white flowers on a navy background---

and never saw the radiance 

of the garment offered me:

shining translucence,

Son-whitened,

Shimmering beauty,

Breath of God