What's the Question?

 If there is anything clear from Biblical history, it is that faith developed not from religion but from an encounter with the Living God.  All we know about Abraham's previous life is that he was probably a pagan. living in Ur with its local gods and pagan practices.  "Come out of there," spoke the Voice that Abraham eventually followed.  "Come to a place I will show you."  

And in the New Testament, we see Jesus responding to Nathaniel's question "Where are you staying?" by answering, "Come and see."  

In both cases, (as in all the other cases), men were invited to walk with God, to ask Him questions and to listen for His answers.  Their faith was not handed to them in a set of answers to questions they had not asked; rather, it grew by companionship, by a gradual trust in a God who walked with them and spoke with them on the way. 

Faith is born of experience with God, rather than from theology, or "right thinking."  Even with those schooled from childhood in right thinking, or even in the Scriptures, sooner or later, it is an encounter with the living God that is the seed of faith.  Without that encounter -- and the eventual communion of Spirit that follows -- faith is empty and barren.

For many of us, even for those who have been faithfully practicing religion for many years, the Encounter begins with a question, the answer to which remains for us remote and distant from our experience. Abraham's question to God was, "How can I know [that what You promised me is true?]  And what followed that question was an experience that Abraham could never forget! (See Genesis 15).

Our faith is based on our experience of God being with us.  Our theology helps us to comprehend and to explain our experience -- to put it into words for others.  And our theology helps us to pass on our faith, in a way, to at least open the mind of another to the possibility that God is with us, despite appearances to the contrary.  There is a saying:  The man with an experience is never at the mercy of a man with an argument.

"But I've never had an experience with God!" most people will claim.  And I want to say, "Have you ever asked Him a question?"  A question is like an invitation to communion; it is the door opening to Jesus' invitation: "Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone opens to me, I will come in and sup with him and he with me" (Rev. 3:20).  

God is all about Revelation --- He wants to reveal Himelf to us! But He waits for our question, our invitation, our asking.  "Ask of me!" He says, "and I will give you!"  The reason we do not ask is either because we believe we really don't need Him --- humans are smart enough to figure it out on our own, thank you very much!  Or we believe we are too small for Him to really care about; as many people have said, "God has bigger things to think about than my little problems!"  We are either too big or too small for God!

All of this rumination stems from the testimony I heard yesterday from a young boy who had been raised Catholic but who had not been practicing his faith for some years.  Rather, he had been attending a high school where he was being indoctrinated almost daily by his Muslim friends.  Finally, he went to the Mosque and began asking questions.  When he came home late, his mom asked where he had been and he told her. She slapped him and angrily said, "You go to church right now and ask Jesus: do You want me to be a Muslim or a Catholic?  If Jesus tells you to be a Muslim, I will not oppose you!"

The young man telling his story said that that was the first time in his life he had ever really prayed from the heart.  He sincerely asked Jesus what he should do, as the testimony of his friends was relentless and powerful.  For a half hour, nothing happened, but the young man waited.  Then he had a strong image of Jesus standing before the tabernacle and asking him, "Do you really want to turn your back on all I have done for you?"  The experience was so strong that went back to his friends with full confidence that he wanted to ramain Catholic and Christian, though he also remained friends with the boys throughout high school and beyond.

If this were not already too long, I would tell you my question too -- but that's for another day.  Today, I ask, "What's your question?"

God Has Nothing to Do!

 As I opened my morning reading from the Book of Wisdom, I delighted to find this:

Resplendent and unfading is Wisdom, and she is readily perceived by those who love her, and found by those who seek her.  She hastens to make herself known to those who desire her; one who watches for her at dawn will not be disappointed, for she will be found sitting at the gate.  For setting your heart on her is the perfection of prudence, and whoever keeps vigil for her is quickly free from care; Because she makes her rounds, seeking those worthy of her, and graciously appears to them on the way, and goes to meet them with full attention.

Really, can anything be more beautiful and encouraging to read first thing in the morning?  To find Wisdom "sitting at my gate" with "full attention"?  Wow!

Actually, I began to feel sorry for those reading their Protestant Bibles, the ones from which Martin Luther removed the Book of Wisdom for whatever reason made sense to him.  As much as my friends and neighbors love their bibles, I know they would love the Book of Wisdom --- if they only had it.  But then my sorrow extended to those who have no bible at all, or to those who have a bible but don't read it.  How will they ever know that Wisdom is "making her rounds, seeking those worthy of her, and going to meet them with full attention"?

I have often quoted Bishop Barron's analogy of God as a helicopter pilot hovering over our lives, just waiting for us to clear a space for Him to land.  Differnt analogy, same difference!

In his preface to Introduction to Christianity, Joseph Ratzinger (Pope Benedict xvi) traces the history of belief -- or lack of belief --- in God throughout history.  With Marx's theology, the real power of salvation comes through politics and economics.  We don't really need Wisdom; God is not really "practical."  We have not really denied God; He is simply no longer needed in regard to the reality that mankind has to deal with today.  He has nothing to do, according to Ratzinger:

We have come to regard the depths of our being as, in the last analysis, unfathomable.  We have limited ourselves to our own perspective, to the visible in the widest sense, to what can be seized in our measuring grasp. [Natural science] suffices us. We can deal with it and thus create for ourselves a world in which we can live as men.

I find that world depressing..... to find God/ Wisdom irrelevant? When Abraham ran into the limits of human possibility, into the impossibility of producing a child at the age of 100, God's answer was to take him outside to gaze at the stars -- at the world beyond reason and human possibilities:  Look, Abraham:  can you count the stars? Your descendents will be without number!  And Abraham believed, not because he could measure and count and control -- but because Wisdom had spoken in his heart.

Call me a fool, a silly goose.  But tomorrow at dawn, when you look for me, you will find me at the front gate, seeking Wisdom and gazing at the stars above!

 

A Childlike Faith

 Faith is Confidence in God's willingness and ability to be with us in all circumstances.

When I was a small child, about two years old, I was playing in the back yard one day while our next door neighbor was hanging her wash on the clothesline.  Our back yards then, according to my mother, were "the size of a postage stamp," so I was practically at her side when suddenly a clothespin snapped in two.

"Give it to me," I said with confidence, "my daddy can fix anything!"  With a smile at the confidence of a child who did not yet know that clothespins cannot be fixed, she handed me the broken pieces, and I immediately took them to my daddy, who was working in the tiny garage beside the yard.  When I turned my back, he simply reached into the bag and brought out an unbroken clothespin.  Proudly, I brought the "fixed" clothespin to my neighbor and said "See, I told you my daddy can fix anything."

In my adult life, I heard many sermons on the importance of "having faith in God," but now, wise to the ways of the world and to the impossibility of fixing broken clothespins, I used to wonder how one was to acquire this faith.  I knew God loved us, but I figured He expected us to solve our own problems with His help --- kind of like morally supporting us in our challenges.  I really did not expect Him to solve the problems Himself.  After all, as a friend of mine is fond of saying, "God gave us a brain and he expects us to use it."  No doubt!

Here is what I failed to know and realize for many years:  Yes, God has given us both brains and brawn, and yes, He expects us to use both --- under the anointing and direction of the Holy Spirit, our Advocate and Guide.  The word "Advocate" comes from the Latin ad (to, toward) and vocare (called);  it is actually a legal term in Latin, as in the sense of a lawyer, one who is called to our defense to support and uphold us when we are weak and helpless to help ourselves.

At the Last Supper, as He was preparing to leave His apostles, Jesus promised that He would send us "the Gift of the Father," the ADVOCATE.  "Another Advocate," He called the Holy Spirit, meaning that Jesus Himself is our first Advocate, but since we could no longer ask Him in person for help, He was sending to us the Holy Spirit.

Faith is Confidence in God's willingness and ability to be with us in all circumstances.

He does not negate our brains or our brawn; He directs both and shows us how to use them both. He strengthens our inner man so that we are no longer helpless victims of fear.

One of the first actions of the Holy Spirit in our lives is to direct our attention to the Word of God, and He usually puts us in good company to help us read and rely on what we are slowly learning --- that God has been with us from the beginning and that His resources are infinite:  He has lots and lots of clothespins at hand to supply our need.  Slowly, slowly, we begin to actually believe that He is willing and able to be a part of our lives and to help us in all circumstance.

At first, we are reluctant to let go of our self-reliance:  "God helps those who help themselves," as the saying goes.  Slowly, reading the Bible, we begin to see and to believe that God helps those who cannot help themselves.  Usually, it is coming face to face with our own inability to help ourselves that makes us reluctantly ask for God's help.  And when He answers us, we want to say it really wasn't God at all, but some other cause:  "We were so lucky," we tend to say!  

Unless we are saints like the Little Flower, whose mother died when she was four, it takes us a lifetime to grow into child-like faith, into people who truly have confidence in God's willingness and ability to be with us in all circumstances.  

I think I have written recently about God's Word to me when I struggled with my cancer diagnosis last year:  You shall see for yourself that all things will be well and all manner of things shall be well (from Julian of Norwich).  I have repeated those words to myself many times during the past year -- and now a new blood test has revealed that there are no cancer cells in my blood!

Yes, I have been taking Ivermectin all year, and yes, I did have a round of chemotherapy in the form of a pill.  I do not discount at all these things --- but Who is it that made it even possible for meet to meet and befriend someone who has been taking Ivermectin for 5 years, who convinced me to try it and supported my doubts with videos from reliable sources?  Not only that, but he has been so gracious and willing to obtain the Ivermectin from India for me!  (Rely on my own brains and brawn?  I was helpless as a babe in the woods in this case!)  I have a wonderful oncologist who was willing and able to find an oral drug to spare me from infusions.  God delights in using secondary causes and directing us to help when and where we need it!  I have experienced this over and over through the years.  An Advocate of our freedom of choice, He always allows us to say, "It only thundered" when others have heard the Voice of God speaking from heaven (see John 12:29).

Another Angel

On the day I called, You answered me;
You increased the strength of my soul (Psalm 138).

 Today is the feast of the Holy Guardian Angels, especially St. Raphael (his name means "the healing of God"), St. Michael (the Warrior) and St. Raphael (Messenger of God.)

I have always had a great devotion to my own Guardian Angel, who saved me from being kidnapped when I was five years old.  I probably have told that story somewhere along the way of this blog.  The story of St. Raphael's ministry of healing is told in the Book of Tobit which is not in the Protestant Bible, but it is a beautiful story.  

But this is the story of another angel, sent to me when I most needed help and comfort.  And I even know the name of this particular angel -- Chip Lassabe.  I hope he does not mind me telling this story.

From the time my cancer reappeared a year ago, I have not had any anxiety or worry, but only peace and even joy.  After all, I probably should have died in 2010 when my entire right lung was covered with a black mass --- and yet, I have had 16 wonderful years since then.  I figured I had had more blessings than I ever could have expected in that time, and I was ready to surrender now at 84, not really expecting to live much beyond that anyway.  The one issue I had not really thought about and dealt with was the idea of having to go on chemotherapy, although my doctor was willing to try an oral form instead of infusions.

Still, there was one day when I was totally unnerved, mostly due to confusion about what was happening and what to expect.  I received a phone call from "CVS," a name I naturally connected to the well-known drugstore, informing me that my insurance had approved the chemo drug prescribed by my doctor and that I could pick it up from any pharmacy.  This call was delivered by a "robo-voice" and there was no convervsation or explanation along with it.  Confused, I did not know my next step:  was I supposed to go to a CVS pharmacy ?  Our local pharmacy had closed a few years ago, and I did not know if there was a CVS anywhere locally.  I thought they had been  bought by Walgreen's.  

Was I supposed to go to Walgreen's and tell the pharmacist that I had lung cancer and that my insurance company had approved the drug?  I had no prescription to present to them; I did not know what to do, and for some reason that morning, the thought of telling the pharmacist that I needed chemotherapy overwhelmed me.  I started crying just imagining myself trying to explain the whole situation to a stranger.  The idea of being on chemotherapy more frightening to me than cancer itself.

In my confusion, I attempted to stop crying so as not to alarm my husband, and I opened a book lying on the footstool in front of me.  The first thing I read was a quote from Julian of Norwich, a 14th century mystic:  You shall see for yourself that all things will be well, and all manner of things shall be well.  Restless, and trying to get moving for the day, I closed the book and went to a table in my office where i picked up an old notebook, where I used to write notes during times of adoration of the Blessed Sacrament.  The notebook was open to the last entry, made at least a year previously:  You shall see for yourself that all things will be well, and all manner of things shall be well.

And then a third time that very morning, the same words appeared in the meditation book I used each day.  So I finally believed that God was sending me a definite message.  I cannot say I calmed down, but I did stop crying for awhile as I got dressed to go to Walgreen's.  On the way, I kept saying, "If only I had someone to talk to!"  I felt that I needed to release to pressure of approaching the pharmacist and telling him that i needed a chemo drug.  Somehow in the back of my mind, I knew something was wrong with this scenario, and that the pharmacist would know it!

When I got to Walgreen's, I sat in the car, again crying at the thought of trying to actually facing the reality of chemotherapy.  "If only I had someone to talk to," I said again.  At that point, there was a gentle knock on my window, and I saw a sweet looking young man peering in at me.  When I rolled down the window, he said, "Mam, I can't go in there and leave you sitting out here like this!  If you need someone to talk to, I'm here to listen."  

"I have lung cancer," I said, "but that's not the problem."  "Okay," he said.  "And I have to start chemotherapy, but that's not really the problem either," I said.  "I'm trying to understand," he replied through my tears.  "The problem is that I have to go in there and tell the pharmacist to order the drug."  (I never claimed that this would make sense!)  

After he offered to go into the drugstore with me, I realized that I just was not ready; I was still confused about the whole opearation.  Nothing made sense to me without a prescription! My "angel" finally said words that brought me absolute peace:  "You don't have to put yourself through this!  Drive down to the beach and listen to the waves and watch the birds flying in circles.  When you are calm and peaceful, call your doctor and ask what you are supposed to do now."  

I cannot tell you the instant peace and calm his words brought to me!  All of a sudden, I knew he had said the words I needed to hear.  I was taking on a burden that I didn't need to carry.  He wrote his name and number on a card for me --- he is an off-shore drill worker on leave for a few days.  And I drove off with peace in my heart.  His advice was 100% on target!  I arrived home joyful and ready for whatever came next.  And later that day, my doctor's office called me to tell me the drug had been approved and that they would deliver it to my home!  

You shall see for yourself that all things will be well, and all manner of things will be well!  (The words of Jesus to Julian of Norwich).  

On the day i called, you answered me and increased the strength of my soul!  (Psalm 138).

If You Knew the Gift of God.......

 I had just started reading the Bible and did not know anything about it when I came across the words With joy you will draw water from the well of salvation (Is. 12:3).  My heart leaped.  Like Julian of Norwich, who believed that all God's works had been done especially for her, I felt that these words had been written just for me.  Later on, when I read John 4:10,* I immediately connected the two passages.  (* If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.)

This morning, I was praying and reflecting on the twenty-third Psalm (The Lord is my Shepherd) when for some reason, I had a flashback to being at a Buddhist temple in Singapore.  I had asked the guide what one had to do to reach enlightenment according to Buddha.  He explained the seven tenets of Buddhism, which basically can be achieved by right thinking, ethical living, and meditation.  (These tenets differ according to the forms of Buddhism but come down to purity of heart, mind, and action -- do no harm, do good, and embrace suffering.)  As I listened to the guide, I recognized that some of the "virtues" he described did not come naturally to me and hardly accounted for the greed, avarice, pride, and just plain meanness that are part of the human experience.  

"If these are not part of you, where do you go to acquire these qualities?" I asked the guide.  "No one ever asked me that question!" the guide responded. Later on, I read that one is supposed to meditate oneself into a state of nirvana, or stillness, in order to overcome weakness and suffering.  "And if we fail to reach enlightenment, then what?" I asked.  "The Buddha will give you a second chance," he replied.  "Ah, reincarnation!" I said.  

I have friends who are Buddhists, and I have to say that they do make every effort to live according to the principles of the Buddha.  But when I enter into the twenty-third Psalm, I just have to be extremely grateful for the Gift I have been given:  He leads me beside restful waters; He restores my soul!

The Lord is my Shepherd; there is nothing I shall want; he makes me to lie down in green pastures....He guides me in paths of righteousness for his name's sake.  Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for YOU ARE WITH ME;  Your rod and your staff, they comfort me.

You prepare a table before me in the midst of my enemies.  You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.  Surely goodness and kindness will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.  

Notice the Psalm begins in with the third person, "the Lord....He..." but switches to the second person, For YOU are with me, when we walk through the valley of the shadow of death.

I AM THE WAY, THE TRUTH, AND THE LIFE.  There is no other name by which men willl be saved; no one has seen God, but God, the only Son, has made Him known......The Buddha would have said, "Live by these principles; follow my teaching.".. but he would not have said, "I am the Way."

We don't have to reach nirvana by our own efforts, knowing that we are "sinners," or "natural men" who struggle with our own weakness; we have Someone Who shepherds us and Who makes us to "lie down in green pastures," Whose Holy Spirit in us leads us to peace and to the love of God for which we are made.  Alleluia! Alleluia!  Thanks be to God!  It is done for us and in us by Jesus who loves us and shepherds us by His Own Holy Spirit!

I Am That Man!

 I just finished reading a book that made me madder and madder the further I read.  The name of the book is Why I Am Not an Atheist: the Confessions of a Skeptical Believer by Christopher Beha.  The reason the book made me so mad was that there was almost no autobiographical information at all throughout, despite the implications of the title.  

As a teenager, Beha left the Catholic church in which he had been raised and then eventually embarked on a ten-plus year long study of philosophy.  The book turned out to be equivalent to a Master's study of the history of philosophy.  Now, I actually like philosophy in small doses, those I can actually digest, but if I had wanted a book on the history of philosophy, that's what I would have ordered.  Surprisingly, Beha makes very few-and-far-between comments on the effects of his study on him personally.

He tells us in great depth what the individual philosophers taught, and even the impact of their teachings on the cultures and times in which they lived. But the in-depth explanations of rationalism, phenomenology, and all the other "isms" left me cold.  "But what does it mean?" I wondered for hundreds of pages, eventually skipping dozens of those pages looking for something either I could relate to or something that Beha himself related to.

The more I read, the more determined I got to give this book an absolute horrible review on Amazon.com. People deserved to know what they were getting in this book, I thought!

Fortunately, and finally, I perservered to the end of the book, and Amazon automatically closed the manuscript the way they do with Kindle books.  But not before I spotted a final chapter of the book, entitled "Postlude,"  (the opposite of Prelude, obviously).  In that final chapter, obviously not important enough for Amazon to consider, Beha finally writes the message I had been ready to read!  In that final word, Beha goes on to tell what happened after he sent his finished manuscript off to the editor.  He began a new novel about a young lapsed Catholic writer and his fascination with an old girlfriend who has converted to Catholicism.  In that book, he put all his quarrels with God, but he also tried to address the fact that he couldn't quite get over him.  After he had sent that book off to a publisher, he experienced the most severe bout of depression he had ever faced.  He was almost paralyzed with dread and though repeatedly about killing himself.  He imagined he would stay in this situation for the rest of his life.  He drank too much and cut himself off from people around him.  He said he wanted companionship but he also wanted to dedicate himself entirely to the creation of his own meaning.  That a life shared with others might play some part in that creation hardly occurred to him.

Eventually he met a young woman who treated his writing as comic novels.  He tried to explain that he was writing about "the indictment of the superficiality of contemporary culture."  She nodded: "It sounds like comedy," she said. Finally, instead of trying to impress her, he tried to make her laugh and discovered that he was capable of making someone else happy --- and that made him happy at last:

        My life was filled t love, but there was something in this love that demanded I make sense of it.  The light and the warmth of this sun were baffling.  Where were they coming from?  What did they mean?

Beha reviewed his 15-year-long study of philosophy and then told himself:  Suppose you start with love.  That was the one and certain thing in my life.  If I took this for true, what else would have to be true with it?

        He and his then wife decided to return to church, just for something to do to have a sense of community, time for reflection, and the experience of ritual.  And then one Sunday morning, he listened to a reading from John's first letter:  Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God,and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God...If we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.

For the first time, Beha realized that when we love, God becomes a part of us; the warmth and the light he was now experiencing was God!

He also understood for the first time that God exists outside of time and space, beyond the range of human understanding through reason:  "God can well be loved, but he cannot be thought" (from the 14th century The Cloud of Unknowing.)  He finally understood that life is not a problem to be solved by the intellect, a thing that must be mastered by being understood.  And that is why mystics are not trying to convinced anyone of anything!  They are simply saying how it is for them.  Beha discovered that we have a capacity for knowledge that does not come by sense experience, but that comes through love and the grace of God.

Beha eventually stumbled across the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which begins with these words: Faith is man's response to God,who reveals himsef and gives himself to man, at the same time giving man a superabundant light as he searches for the ultimate meaning of life.  Beha commented upon reading those words that they were a "pretty good way to describe what I found when I started going to Mass again."

What I can say is that the path I'd been on all this time had brought me to the place where I was both intellectually and emotionally prepared to listen to the voice within, a voice that I know had been there all along, a voice I had been taking great pains to keep quiet.

And finally, Beha quotes one of his favorite philosophers:  "The Christian religion is only for the man who needs infinite help."  "Over many years," writes Beha, "I have come to discover that I am that man."

Amen, Mr. Beha, I am actually glad I read your book!

When the King Returns

 I recently saw Christopher Nolan's movie The Odyssey, and since then many people have asked whether I liked it.  As someone who has read and loved the original story in verse, the movie version did not have a great appeal to me --- but that is not to say that Nolan did not do a good job with it.  For me, movies do not usually match the printed story, and I suppose that is because they never quite replicate my imagination.  The only exceptions for me so far have been The Secret Garden and Dr. Zhivago, although I must admit that I do not see many movies, so my judgment is extremely constrained.  

The Secret Garden was exactly the way I pictured it in reading; in Dr. Zhivago, the director used the uniques qualities of film to convey more than "the story."  He used color, sound, and motion to convey the "spiritual" and ineffable depth of experience that comes with the reading of an outstanding novel.

To be fair to Christopher Nolan, I cannot imagine anyone capturing the song of The Odyssey on film.  After all, recent research indicates that Homer's original story, much like the way the Bible was written, was added to and enhanced by one generation after another of storytellers/poets, all of whom used Homer's original catch-phrases to link their additions to the original.

That being said, there was one scene in Nolan's film that stirred and moved me -- the scene when Odysseus returns home disguised as a beggar.  I could not help but connect the imagery to Jesus' story in Matthew 25 about His return: For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat; I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink; I was a stranger and you invited me in; I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me; I was in prison and you came to visit me.

 Although I was disturbed at the way the film took liberties with the original ending of The Odyssey, the homecoming scene in which the faithful servants and friends of Odysseus recognized him moved me.  One by one, they knelt, bowed their heads, and began to rhythmically pound their staffs on the floor in recognition and fealty to their Lord.

And I wondered:  will I/we recognize Jesus as LORD when He returns?  Will I/we kneel in homage and fealty to One we love and honor?  Or will I/we cower in fear and trepidation at His return?

I do have to thank Christopher Nolan for the beautiful image of servants and friends who recognize in a ragged beggar the Lord whom they loved and for whose return they have awaited for so many years.