Living Providentially

 Someone once asked me, "What does it mean to be 'poor in spirit'?  That is a question I have been pondering for years, actually.  But recently, a friend said to me, "I think you live very providentially."  Again, that remark caused me to pause and consider what he meant.  And I'm beginning to think that the answer to that question is the clue to the first!

So, when I first started treatment for cancer almost a year ago, the package information with my chemo pill said that this medicine might cause swelling of the ankles and legs.  Sure enough!  From the very beginning, I've experienced swollen ankles, feet, and legs --- sometimes worse than others, but at the end of every day, my ankles look like bagels. My doctor keeps recommending compression socks -- a real test for someone who grew up barefoot at every opportunity!  (I still kick off my shoes the moment i get in the house.)  I have come to accept this condition as my new reality, even though I have been off chemo for about 3-4 months now; the swelling has never subsided.  

Although I have learned to live with the condition, I am getting ready for a 13-hour plane trip to Japan next week, and I figured that will probably put me over the top with swollen legs, ankles, and feet.  So last week, for the first time, I asked God to let me know if there were any solution to this condition.  The very next day, my sister called about the trip (she will be going also), and I sort of complained about the swelling, mentioning that it was bound to get worse with travel.

She told me about a product she started using after knee replacement surgery, when her swelling refused to go down within the usual time period: Lymphgo!  (This is not an ad for Lymphgo....but she told me that within 24 hours of starting it, she saw results.)  Nothing works that fast!  However, what I am doing is not working either, so I ordered the product for both myself and my husband.  Surprise!  Within 24 hours, I began to see a difference.  After two days, I saw a huge difference for both of us. Could this be such a fast answer to my prayer?  It's hard to believe, but I have to believe what I am experiencing!

Is this what it means to "live providentially"?  My answer to the first question was that being "poor in spirit" meant to have no other resource but God.  And my meditation book this morning says that there are many ways of being "poor in spirit" --- chronic illness, disability, grief, depression, loneliness, regret ---the list is endless.  And all forms of pain  can cause us to turn in on ourselves, to hoard our personal resources for self-preservation.  But what if, instead, we gave from our poverty?  And what if our poverty caused us to turn to God for a solution?

Psalm 46 says, God is our refuge and our strength, an ever-present help in distress. Maybe that's our answer to both questions!

The Spirit of Practical Wisdom

 Last time, I wrote about how close God is to us in our daily lives.  It is really hard for most of us to really embrace that idea.  It is easier to believe, if we believe at all, in a God who is in His heaven while we are on earth and that there is a great gulf between the two "places."  But all of Scripture, from the beginning to the end shows the opposite -- it reveals God in search of man, God who wants to be "closer than a brother," God who wants to espouse His people, to be part of their daily lives, to embrace them in a marital hug, to "tabernacle" with them, or to dwell in their midst.

In Exodus, we see a God who, having delivered His people from slavery in Egypt, wants to dwell with them in the desert, so He commands them to build Him a "tent of meeting," where they can go and meet with Him.  In Chapter 31, the Lord says to Moses, "See, I have chosen Bezalel....and I have filled him with the Spirit of Practical Wisdom, with skill, ability, and knowledge in all kinds of crafts -- to make artistic designs for work in gold, silver, and bronze, to cut and set stones, to work in wood, and to engage in all kinds of craftsmanship.  Moreover, I have appointed Oholiab...to help him.  Also I have given skill to all the craftsmen to make everything I have commanded you; the Tent of Meeting, the Ark of the Testimony with the atonement cover on it, and all the other furnishings of the tent... and also the woven garments, both the sacred garments for Aaron the priest and the garments for his sons when they serve as priests, and the anointing oil and fragrant incense for the Holy Place."

[Note:  The term 'Spirit of Practical Wisdom" is from the Living Bible, which is a paraphrase of the original text.  Most bibles read "the Spirit of God" in this passage.]  However, the translation here brings home how close the "Spirit of God" is to our daily lives.  God is not in His heaven observing our lives and behaviors; in Jesus Christ, He has willed to "dwell among us" and to enter into our endeavors --- even to directing them, if we will allow Him.  In Revelation 3, Jesus says, "Behold, I stand at the door and knock; to anyone who opens, I will come in and sup with him, and he with Me."  He wants to partake of our daily lives/ eat of our bread and meat/, even as He offers us His daily bread and meat.

Just now, I am preparing for a trip to Japan.  Of course, with my health conditions, I have been in prayer about the wisdom of taking such a long journey.  I am willing to go or not to go, but I feel I need direction before striking out on my own, especially now.  In the meantime, I am packing my bags so that I will be ready to go, even knowing that I may have to unpack them in case the Spirit directs otherwise.  I have a very small tote bag which fits over the handle of my carry-on suitcase.  That small case holds all my medicine, along with digestive enzymes I must take with each meal, and emergency supplies for such a long trip --- including benedryll in case I accidently ingest peanuts or some other allegen that seriously affects my body.  All of these things must be close at hand in case of emergency -- they cannot be stuffed in an overhead bin.  

The problem is that the bag I have is just a bit too small for the supplies I need immediately.  It is convenient, but not quite large enough.  On my way home from the dentist, I felt a nudge in my spirit to check out the Goodwill store on my way home.  Now Goodwill carries loads of purses, backpacks, and tote bags --- but none of them have trolley straps that allow you to attach them to your luggage, so my reaction to the "nudge" was, "No, they never have anything like that; I've looked before."  Still, the urge to stop was so strong that I gave in --- and what did I find but the perfect bag, part of a three-piece set of luggage!  The 3rd piece was exactly what I needed --- small enough to have with me on the plane, large enough for all my supplies!  I couldn't believe it!  And I almost passed it by for lack of belief in the Spirit of Practical Wisdom! 

I guess if God cares enough to supply me with the exact tote bag I need, He cares enough to guide my journey along the way!  I think that if we yield to Him on a daily basis (maybe by praying with our hands gently upturned on our laps as a sign of our acceptance of His guidance), we might begin to experience  in our daily lives His Spirit of Practical Wisdom.

How Close He Is!

 For what other nation is there that has a god so near to it as the Lord our God is to us whenever we call upon him? (Deut. 4:7)

The history of Israel demonstrates how close God is to his people, those with whom He has a covenant beyond death.  In Jesus, that covenant/closeness is extended to all mankind, to whomever will accept it. Those of us who have walked through the shadow of death have had some glimpse of that closeness, but for many people, God is just "too busy" or too remote to bother about our little lives.

There is a current youtube video now about the second pilot shot down over Iran, whose plane crashed in the moutainous region where there was no vegetation to cover him.  Exposed, without water, injured, he faced certain death, whether found by the Iranian search parties or not.  But Jesus appeared to him, saying, "Follow Me!"  Although the soldier had a crushed knee which was beginning to swell badly, he began to walk after Jesus, who eventually led him 48 kilometers, past four Iranian checkpoints, to a plateau where he could be picked up by American helicopters.  Later, when he was debriefed by Army Intelligence, his story was held to be "impossible,"  as they traced his journey from the site of the crash to where he was rescued.

 Last night, I watched a program called It's A Miracle, which tells of similar miraculous events.  One story was of a pilot whose single-engine plane was about to crash.  Suddenly, a man appeared in the cockpit, telling the pilot that he would not die in that crash.  The pilot reported an unnatural sense of peace and calm as the plane nosedived into a field, burst into flames, and filled the cockpit with smoke.  Unable to release the seatbelt, the pilot reported that the "man" with him began to breathe in his face, giving him fresh air in the midst of heavy smoke.  Someone who had seen the plane go down ran to rescue the pilot and pulled him out of the plane, which immediately exploded.  Later, the rescuer remarked that he could not understand how the pilot could have survived the intense smoke filling the cabin.

After viewing the program last night, I woke up this morning thanking God for the numerous stories like this of His Presence in the midst of almost certain death.  As I sat down to pray, I heard in my spirit the word "Sirach."  I kind of vaguely thought to myself that I needed to re-read Sirach at some point, but mostly ignored the message otherwise.  After prayer, I reached for another book which I have been reading every morning.  But immediately, I heard more insistently: Read Sirach!

Now curious, I reached for my Catholic bible (Sirach is not included in the Protestant Bible), and opened to Sirach, but for some reason, I went to the very last page of the book, where at some point, I had written the following words in an empty space at the end of Sirach:

I give you thanks, Lord and King/  I praise you, God my Savior! 

I declare your name, refuge of my life, because you have ransomed my life from death;

You held back my body from the pit, and delivered my foot from the power of Sheol.

You have rescued me according to your abundant mercy/ From the snare of those who look for my downfall/ and from the power of those who seek my life. 

Since it has been awhile since I read Sirach, I had forgotten writing those words, taken from  the last chapter of the book.  Startled to find them in my present contemplation of God's closeness to us, I turned to Chapter 51, to read the whole thing, and found these words included:  from many a danger you have saved me, from flames that hemmed me in on every side; from the midst of unremitting fire, from the deep belly of the nether world (vv. 4-5).

Slowly the feeling crept over me that the Holy Spirit had not only guided my tv watching the previous night but somehow out of the multitude of Biblical words and stories, He also guided my reading this morning.  I am in awe at how close our God is to us!  

For those who don't usually read the Bible, I highly recommend perusing Sirach, especially the last chapter.  It gives one pause....... 

 

 

 

The Inner Christ

 Blessed are they who do not see and yet believe, Jesus said to Thomas.  Was this a kind of echo of God's word to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Paradise?  For the ancients, as well as for the moderns, like Thomas, we "know" what we can verify through our senses:  she saw that the apple was good for food and pleasing to the eye.  That she knew.  What she did not "know" was the poison of not trusting God.  This knowledge is what every one of us must learn for ourselves.  We know what we've been told, but we don't believe it until we taste for ourselves.

St. Ausgustine taught that the "inner Christ" is the divine truth and light within us, closer than we are to ourselves.  In his Confessions, he argues that God is present within us, as the source of wisdom and truth.  Our inner teacher is Christ who shines on the mind to reveal truth.  Now, Thomas had, during the three years he spent with Jesus, undoubtedly come to experience Jesus as the Way, the Life, and the Truth. His failing was that he could not trust what he knew internally.  What he "knew" was what he had seen --- Jesus taken from the cross and laid in the tomb, and the door sealed.

St. Augustine's beautiful prayer "O Beauty ever ancient/ O Beauty ever new/ You, the beauty of my life renewed,/ let me find my life in You" can be found in his Confessions.  But today, it is easier to access it online --- and even better to listen to it sung by the St. Louis Jesuits, which will pop up when you google O Beauty Ever New.

It is easy for us to trust what we "know" through our senses and our reasoning.  But that knowledge ultimately leads to death until our "Inner Jesus" begins to teach us the Way, the Truth, and the Life.  Most of us are afraid to simply ask Him to show us the Truth; we, like Thomas, are afraid to trust that He is real.  But "Show me!" is a prayer that He will answer.
 

The Right Hand of Fellowship

 In Galatians 2:9, St. Paul tells that he had gone to Jerusalem to explain his ministry to the Gentiles to the "pillars of the church, Peter, James, and John:"  ...they gave me and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship when they recognized the grace given to me. They agreed that we should go to the Gentiles, and they to the Jews.

Originally, the gesture of extending "the right hand" to someone indicated a demonstration that one held no weapon in the hand and that the other person was being greeted as a friend, not an enemy.  In the early church, "the right hand of fellowship" expressed acceptance, agreement, and trust --- a welcome into an established group, a way to enter a partnership in the Gospel.  In the very first church, the believers "devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching, and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer" (Acts 2:42).  They considered their relationships with one another an important part of their daily lives.

Strong friendships and fellowship are an essential part of a healthy and growing Church. In the final reference to fellowship in the New Testament, (1 John 1:7),  we read, "If we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin."

Recently, I have been thinking about the words of the Resurrected Jesus to Mary Magdalene: Go to my brothers and tell them, "I am returning to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God" (John 20:17).  It seems to me that these are among the sweetest words Jesus spoke in the Bible.  The words themselves seem to me to be Jesus extending "the right hand of fellowship" --- that is, of acceptance, agreement, and trust --- to His friends.  At the Last Supper, he had said to them: "I no longer call you servants, but friends, because servants do not know what their master is doing."  And now, it seems that after the Resurrection, a new kind of fellowship is established.

Jesus spoke often of "my father" during his ministry on earth.  He did always what the Father wanted and the words He spoke were not His own, but belonged to the One who had sent Him.  And now, it seems that the apostles were included in the same ministry, the same partnership in the Gospel. Now, He refers to "my Father and your Father, my God and your God."  Our fellowship with the Risen Christ has given to all of us fellowship with the Father Himself and with one another.  We are accepted; we are loved; we are trusted, and we are being purified from all sin, that our fellowship may continue beyond this life and into the next!

When God Speaks

 The religion of the ancient Hebrews (and thus of the Hebrew Bible) was based upon the belief that God can and does speak to man. ...  The belief that God speaks to man is fundamental; we cannot accept some of the Hebrew beliefs as valid for modern man and abandon the basis upon which they are proposed, for this leaves them precisely baseless, unfounded (The Two-Edged Sword, McKenzie).

As moderns, we tend to be sceptical about God speaking to us.  We may not doubt that he speaks to the great saints ("Francis, rebuild My Church!" for example), but most of us are extremely doubtful that He can or will speak to us.  And yet, Jesus is very emphatic at the Last Supper about the role of the Holy Spirit in our lives: But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you (Jn. 14).

    When he, the Spirit of Truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. He will bring glory to me by taking from what is mine and making it known to you (Jn. 16).

Many of us have had the experience of "hearing" an inner voice directing us, and yet we have shut it down, thinking that we were speaking to ourselves, out of our own minds and desires.  How do we know when we are talking to ourselves or when the Holy Spirit is directing us? While most of the time the whisperings of the Holy Spirit are subtle, there are times when He is very direct.  Let me give you a recent example:

My sister is retired but still drives a school bus on a regular basis to pick up extra cash.  Once or twice a year, she and her husband will travel to the coast and spend 2 or 3 nights in a casino, where they both enjoy playing poker with her school bus money. (It's the only money they use for that purpose.)  If one or both of them win a poker game or two, they will add that money to the casino fund and save it for the next trip.  

On one of the bus trips -- a field trip where the drivers had to wait for the children to return -- another bus driver, a woman also, was telling my sister that one of her checks had bounced at the bank, and now she was faced with not only paying that bill, but also interest and added fees from the bank.  She did not know what she was going to do. My sister immediately told the woman to follow her home after they finished their route that day, and she would give her 500 dollars to take to the bank and cover her costs.  She took the cash from her casino fund.  

The other woman was extremely grateful and promised to repay her 50 dollars every two weeks, with each paycheck.  After a couple of payments, however, the woman moved and her bus route was changed, so that the two no longer met on a regular basis.  Eventually, my sister began to think to herself, "She's never going to pay me back; I'll never see that money again!"  And of course, once we begin to gnaw on a mental bone like that, it continues to haunt us.  But then one day, in the midst of her grousing about the money, a strong voice spoke in and to her:  "It was never your money to begin with; let it go!"  And that voice brought such peace that my sister was able to release all of her negative thoughts and worries about the money.  She realized how much of that money she had actually won, as well as earned. She indeed was able to "let it go." 

Now how do we know God was speaking in this case?  As John McKenzie points out in his book, there is always a sense of the "Other" in these cases.  When we are consumed by fear, worry, and anxiety, and there is "voice" that cuts across the direction of our own thoughts, bringing peace and even love, it's a pretty clear indication that we cannot be talking to ourselves.  And once we have experienced the Voice of the Holy Spirit speaking to us, we begin to believe and to be a little more sensitive and less doubtful that God does want to be part of our lives.

The Best Easter Ever!

As we entered the Easter Triduum (Holy Thursday, Good Friday, Easter Saturday/Sunday) this year, there was an extra measure of prayer and intensity for most of us.  An American airman had been shot down in the mountainous region of Iran during the Iranian War.  The pilot of the plane had been rescued by American forces, but the second in command had not yet been found  ---- and the world was holding its breath.

It was a question of who would locate the American first.  Iran had placed a bounty on his head, and it seemed that every Iranian citizen in the area was out to claim the reward, hunting him down with sticks, guns, and whatever weapons they had at hand.  Ameica, meanwhile, was trying to locate him with all the tools at their disposal-- encoded signals, helicopters, etc.  One search plane had already been shot down by the Iranians, but that pilot had also been rescued.  

Those of us who remember previous wars remembered the brutality of nations like Iran who captured American soldiers.  We recalled the televised beheadings, the parading of broken and tortured men before cameras while citizens cheered.  As the mother of a helicopter pilot who has been through survival training, I was especially focused on the parents of this young airman.  I could almost experience their anguish and fear for his safety.  I could imagine in my flesh and bones what their prayers for his safety must have been like.

Every service I attended -- Holy Thursday, Good Friday, the Easter Vigil --- I felt as if I were praying with the whole world for this man's rescue by American forces.  During the night, I would wake up praying for him and for his parents.  And I knew I was not alone in my prayers.  

Then, Easter Morning, I arose at 4 am, wondering if there was any news.  Fortunately, my husband, who had also been praying at night, was already awake with the exultant announcement:  The airman is safe; he has been found !    Immediately, I thought of the Father's cry in the Parable of the Prodigal Son:  We must rejoice; the son who was lost has been found!    I could imagine the joy and relief and thanksgiving of the parents as I sort of collapsed with joy myself.  

Alleluia!  Alleluia!  He is risen from the dead!  Ring the bells; announce the Good News!  We have all been saved from death and sorrow!  Alleluia!  The timing of the loss and resurrection brought a whole new and real dimension to Easter this year!