What is in Our Control

 "A new commandment I give to you: Love one another as I have loved you."  

And how is that even possible, Lord?  To love others as You have loved us?

In this age of intense disagreement, it is so easy to "cancel" those who do not agree with us.  We are so easily "offended" by something done or said, even years previously.  And then, like the lepers of the New Testament, people are cast out, excluded forever from social acceptance.  

Yet, Jesus has told us to "love" one another -- even those on opposite sides of the political and/or social barrier.  In his book Long Have I Loved Thee, Walter Burghardt points out that "The Exodus was not simply a liberation from slavery; it was the formation of a new social order -- what Norbert Lohfink called "a contrast society" (p.168).

The Hebrew nation was formed in the desert not only to be in covenant with God, but to be in covenant with one another:

Is not this the fast that I choose:  to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke?

Is it not to share your break with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover them, and not to hide yourself from your own flesh? (Is. 58). 

 Over the centuries, and even today, the Jews are known for having taken the command seriously -- not to hide from those in need, but to extend their hands to the needy among them. For them, to do justice was to worship God.  Because Christians do not live in enclaves, it is harder to see in our society whether or not we "love one another" and loosen the bonds of injustice.  But there is one place where we can actually see the kind of love Jesus commands --- the Mass, the liturgy.  There we come together as "we," not "I":

We stand to one another not as the rich to the poor, the wise to the ignorant, the strong to the needy, the clever to the simple; we stand rather as the poor to the poor, the weak to the weak, the loved to the loved"  (Mark Searle, Liturgy and Social Justice, quoted in Burghardt.)

Whenever we attend Mass, there are no political, social, economic, educational, or racial barriers and divisions --- we stand together as "the needy" before God. There, we are truly a "contrast society" to the rest of the world.  It is the same society as exists in heaven.  What we have in common, what brings us together, is what we have received from God -- His compassion, His love, His mercy, His cleansing of our sins.  And this is what He expects us to extend to one another.  

The Greeks had four words for love: Eros, Storge, Philia, and Agape.  C. S. Lewis' classic Four Loves needs to be on every shelf, because in our culture, "love" means whatever the individual wants it to mean. And that makes it difficult for us to know, much less practice, what Jesus meant by "Love one another."  How much control over our emotions do we have in the face of hatred, animosity, political divisions, opinions, etc.?  

In his book On Retreat with Thomas Merton, Basil Pennington reflects on three words that sum up what it means to "Love one another" ---- Respect, Acceptance, Appreciation.  There are times when I am so upset by the voiced opinions I hear around me that I wonder how on earth I am supposed to "love" the person expressing those opinions.  But Pennington makes it "do-able."  What is in my control is the ability to respect, accept, and appreciate the other person as someone like myself who stands before God as poor, weak, needing to be loved even in our unfinished state.  Our worship, our liturgy, our Mass puts us all in the same position before God, as there we learn what it means to love one another as we have been loved.

 

Loaves and Fishes

I need to tell this story before I die --- because I am the only one who can tell it.  There is one other person who knows this story, but he will not tell it, and perhaps he did not even see it the way I saw it.  Perhaps he does not even know what really happened.

Everyone living on the Gulf Coast in 2005 has a Katrina story.  I suspect there are many stories like this one, but I don't know how many of them are eventually told.

The storm came in Sunday night and early Monday morning.  Monday afternoon, I was rescued by a neighbor from my damaged house and brought to the local shelter, a grammar school some distance inland.  I arrived to find the classrooms locked and people sitting on the floors lining the dark hallways.  There was no power, no air, no food except what people had brought with them, and no water.  I managed to navigate my way through spread-out legs to find a vacant spot in a back hallway.  I thought that if I could not find fresh air I would be sick.  The toilets had stopped working sometime Monday, and were overflowing, filling the school with their stench...  

Fortunately, my "spot on the floor" was located against a locked door to some office, and I was able to find breathable air coming from under the door as I tried to sleep that night.  From Tuesday morning on, though, most of the people in the shelter found it best to sleep outdoors on the school lawn.  We had no food or water Tuesday and Wednesday.  Thursday afternoon, a helicopter landed on the lawn; a Budweiser plant some distance away had sent a truckload of Budweiser cans filled with water to the shelter.  What a welcomed gift that was! 

Thursday night, those of us sleeping outdoors were awakened by two Greyhound buses arriving from Texas.  A man who owned a pre-stressed concrete company on the coast had brought in the buses for his workers, about 150 of them, who were in the shelter with their families.  He was bringing the workers to Texas, where he would provide places for them to live and jobs in his plant there.  As each worker boarded the bus, I watched this man hand each of them a check.

After the buses left, the man came to me and said, "I have a small school bus loaded with bread, meat, and cheese for the people who are left here (about another 150 of us).  How should we handle this?"  (I had been managing the office while the police and firemen were handling other problems that week.)  I advised him to wait until morning (it was about 3:30 am then), and we would start feeding everyone.

As soon as it was light, he opened the back door of the school bus, and two of us began making sandwiches for the people in the shelter.  Under the seats in the bus, he had packages of cold meat, cheese, bread, Gatoraid, and chips.  As people lined up for the sandwiches, word quickly spread to the surrounding neighborhood that food was available at the shelter, and the lines grew.

For the next 3 hours, we continued to feed everyone who arrived.  From time to time, I would see the Mexican worker who was assisting our donor looking around under the seats.  Then he would come to the man, whose name I never learned, and say, "There's no more bread," or "We run out of meat."  Each time this happened, our benefactor would calmly say, "Look under the seats."  Now, I had just watched that assistant look under all the seats, but every time, when he looked again, he found what he was looking for -- another loaf of bread, another package of meat or cheese.  The only thing we ran out of that day was potato chips!

Eventually, we were able to hand out seconds, and the line eventually dwindled.  Finally, my co-worker and I were able to sit down and eat our own sandwiches!

I have never forgotten our own miracle of the loaves and the fishes!  I cannot explain how or why we were able to feed everyone who came to us --- the school was surrounded on every side by homes, and my guess is that we fed maybe 300 people that day.  And I cannot explain why our donor never worried that we might run out of food.  

When the Red Cross workers arrived later that morning with MREs (Meals Ready to Eat), they took inventory of everyone in the shelter so that they would know they had enough food for everyone, and they did not want to distribute food to anyone not registered in the shelter.  I understand their logistics, and the reason for their caution, but after our miracle of the loaves and the fishes, I wanted to tell them to throw their caution to the wind --- God would provide!

A Sense of Awe

 In 2016, an article by Paula Spencer Scott in Parade Magazine indicated that feeling AWE might be the secret to health and happiness.  Psychologist Dacher Keltner, who heads the University of California, Berkeley's Social Interaction Lab, studying the power of emotions, in 2013, kicked off Project Awe, a three-year research project funded by the John Templeton Foundation.

Here are some of their conclusions:

1.  It's likely that human beings are wired to feel awe to get us to act more in collaboration, ensuring our survival.  Awe binds us together because facing a great vista, a starry sky, or a great cathedral, we realize we are part of something much larger.  Our thinking shifts from me to we.  Astronauts feel this in the extreme, according to a researcher at the University of Pennsylvania.

2.  Awe helps us to see things in new ways.  Unlike other emotions, awe helps us to put on the brakes and keeps us still and attentive.  This "stop-and-think" phenomenon makes us more receptive to details and new information.  Albert Einstein described feelings of awe as "the source of all true art and science."

3.  Awe makes us nicer and happier.  The sense of awe seems to dissolve self and makes us act more generously, ethically, and fairly.

4.  Awe alters our bodies.  Awe is the emotion that most strongly predicts reduced levels of cytokines, a marker of inflammation that's linked to depression, according to research from the University of Toronto.  Recent studies have linked exposure to nature with lower blood pressure, stronger immune systems, and even reduced depression and stress.

In 2010, Stacy Bare and fellow veteran Nick Watson co-founded Veterans Expeditions to get returning soldiers from all eras outdoors.  Like Bare, they all began to report relief from PTSD.  Now, along with Sierra Club Outdoors, Veterans Expeditions has partnered with UC Berkeley to form the Great Outdoors Lab to document nature's impact on the mind, body, and relationships.

Researchers have speculated that a lack of exposure to nature lies at the root of many health problems of people who live in crowded cities and high rises.  Yesterday I wrote about time to be alone, which also may be crucial to our mental and physical health.

When God entered into the life of Abraham, beginning the history of the Jewish people, He made great promises to Abraham, telling him to "Look at the heavens and count the stars...."  It seems to me that for all of us, a sense of awe is the beginning of a relationship with God.  Karl Rahner, the greatest theologian of the 20th century, said that we have all experienced God in our lives -- but we have not all realized it.  "O yes," he said, "you have experienced God."  But that sense of awe and mystery is what is missing.  Our history, like the history of Abraham, is where we find Him, if only we know how to see.  And our sense of Awe at His Presence may be the source of our own spiritual health and happiness.

Time to Be Alone

 I just started reading Long Have I Loved You: A Theologian Reflects on His Church by Walter J. Burghardt.  Not an autobiography as such, the book is more a reflection on the significant influences on Burghrdt's life and thought, and it honestly captures the theology and philosophy that has also shaped my own formation, both pre- and post-Vatican II.

We are culling books from our shelves at this stage of our lives, and frankly, this book was on its way to the donation box when I happened to flip through the last pages of Burghardt's Epilogue on Grateful Memories, where he includes authors or personalities that somehow touched and influenced his thinking, apart from those already addressed in major sections of his book.  His one-page entry on Anne Morrow Lindbergh stopped me in my tracks, and I thought, "I need to read this book."  Here is Burghardt's commentary:

Strange, isn't it, how a moment, a poem, a sentence can affect your life?  Anne Lindbergh and I have lived in completely different worlds: she a thoughtful essayist and poet, wife and widow of the American aviator who made the first solo flight across the Atlantic; I a theologian and editor professor and preacher.  Our paths crossed only in a book and a poem.  Her book: Gift from the Sea, each chapter crafted on a particular shell.  One segment centered on the need to be alone.  She discovered that her response to some invitations, "This is my time to be alone," was difficult for people to understand and accept.  Any other excuse, like a hairdressing engagement, was acceptable, but "time to be alone" sounded to many like a secret vice.  For in our hurried and harried existence, untold millions are reluctant to be alone.  Each empty space has to be filled with sound, often the louder the better.  Jog with a Walkman, cook with a radio, clean house with a TV talk show in your face ---anything better than that frightful s-word: silence.  Actually these are among the most important times in our lives -- when one is alone. Certain springs are tapped only when we are alone.  The artist knows he must be alone to create; the writer to work out his thoughts; the musician, to compose; the saint, to pray."

One of the members of our Wednesday morning book study group recently voiced the same feelings when she said that for years she had been making excuses why she could not attend some events she would prefer to avoid.  Lately, however, she has found the courage to say, "I'd rather not do that, but thank you for inviting me."  It might be time for all of us to find that same courage and to give voice to our need to be alone at times -- to think, to pray, to enjoy looking at the trees, whatever.  

Our communication devices, though a great convenience, have also become harsh task-masters, demanding that we be available and on-call at every moment, intruding even on our alone time.  I wonder how much writing and thinking Anne Morrow Lindbergh, Flannery O'Connor, and Walter Burghardt would have accomplished if their lives had been at the instant demand of cell phones, Instagram, and messages.  Something to think about! 

 

The Word Bears Fruit

 If I could be granted only one wish, I would ask that my children, my family, everyone I know and care about, and those far off whom I have yet to know, would hear or read and absorb the Word of God.  

Jesus told many parables about the Word of God as a seed that bears fruit, and my experience bears out the analogy.  The fourth chapter of Mark contains two parables back to back about "the kingdom of God," but the application is the same as in the parables of the sower and the seed (the Word of God):

A man scatters seed on the ground.  Night and day, whether he sleeps or gets up, the seed sprouts and grows, thought he does not know how.  All by itself the soil produces grain -- first the stalk, then the head, then the full kernel in the head.  As soon as the grain is ripe, he puts the sickle to it, because the harvest has come.

In the parables of Matthew, Jesus explains: The one who sowed the good seed is the Son of Man....what was sown on good soil is the man who hears the word and understands it.  He produces a crop, yielding a hundred, sixty, or thirty times what was sown.

No one has to take my word for the effect of Scripture in one's life.  St. Ignatius of Loyola wrote about "discernment of spirits" based on his own experience.  When he read adventures of knighthood, chivalry, romance -- all books which thrilled him -- he noticed that afterwards he was left restless, disturbed in his spirit.  When he read books about the saints, or the Life of Christ -- the only books available to him during his recuperation -- his spirit was left peaceful, joyful, and confident. He quickly came to realize that by paying attention to the effect that certain events had on his inner man, he could "bear fruit," in a way.  That is, he could become peaceful, joyful, confident, able to face the trials of life.

I have heard that someone beginning to read Scripture for the first time should start by reading the Gospel of John 7 times.  I don't know what that statement is based upon, but it's probably not a bad idea to begin with at least one reading of that Gospel, noticing what effect is produced in you as you read.

Most of us initially approach the reading of Scripture intellectually, as we would read a textbook. But St. Paul says that all Scripture is "God-breathed, useful for teaching, rebuking, and training in righteousness..."  When God "breathed into the nostrils of Adam," man became a living being.  When the breath of God hovered over the primeval chaos, light entered the world and began to produce life, harmony, beauty, fruitfulness.  When the breath of the Holy Spirit entered the apostles, they lost their fear and became witnesses of the Resurrection.

When we read Scripture, we enter into an encounter with the Holy Spirit, who "breathes in us the breath of Life."  I think we can trust God to breathe into us all that He breathed into creation at the beginning, all that He breathed into the apostles after the Resurrection --- life, light, confidence, joy, peace.  At first, like the farmer who sows his seed, we do not see or feel the seed producing fruit, for it does its work in secret.  But before long, we begin to see small shoots coming up in our spirits -- as Ignatius of Loyola noticed in himself. 

St. Augustine wrestled long and hard with philosophy, doctrine, the beauty of ideas, etc. but just could not surrender until he heard a child chanting a rhyme: Take up and read. Take up and read. That simple chant touched his soul and he picked up a scroll at random, just happening to open it to Romans 13:14: Put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the sinful nature.  Suddenly he understood the solution to the one thing holding him back from a relationship with Jesus Christ.  He was to clothe himself with Jesus Christ!  And because Augustine picked up that scroll, the world became richer that day for all time.  The Word of God bore fruit in him, as it surely will do also in us!

 

To Be An Apostle

 I have written more than a year ago about Elizabeth Leseur (1866-1914), a devout Catholic who suffered from cancer during the last years of her life.  Her husband was an avowed atheist who scoffed at Elizabeth's faith, but Elizabeth offered her sufferings for his conversion. After her death, he began to read and then to edit her journals, which became the source of his awakening to the spiritual life.  He eventually published her writings (Selected Writings) and then went on to become a Dominican priest.

I keep the following selection on my desk, because to me, it sums up briefly but succinctly what it means to be an "apostle" in modern times for a woman, a mother, a wife with social obligations, etc.  --- in other words, for someone whose life is not outwardly dedicated to apostolic or missionary life.  To all appearances, Elizabeth Leseur was not an evangelist, not a catechist, not "preaching the word" on the streets, and yet her quiet life of prayer and study led to the conversion of her husband, who in turn dedicated his life to the apostleship of preaching.  

I find God's "economy" fascinating!  (Our "economy" is the method by which we provide for the management and distribution of our assets to provide for the needs of our household.)  In Elizabeth's case, as in the case of Therese of Liseux, a cloistered nun who died at 25 but subsequently through her writings became the patroness of worldwide missionaries, God uses the smallest and weakest vessels to accomplish His purposes:

...think of what you were when you were called.  Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth.  But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things ---and the things that are not -- to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him (1Cor. 1:26).

Or, as Hildegard of Bingen put it so simply: God has arranged all things in the world in consideration of everything else.  That is a profound statement when applied to our seemingly insignificant lives!

Anyway, here is Elizabeth Leseur's definition of apostleship as applied to her life.  I have broken her statement into segments for emphasis and reflection:

I know well wht this word apostle means and all the obligations it creates.  First, the necessity of an interior life that becomes stronger all the time,

of drawing more than ever charity and gentle serenity from the Eucharist and from prayer, as well as making wholly spiritual intentions. 

Then, to cultivate my own mind systematically, to increase my knowledge of all those subjects that I am ready to learn;

to do nothing precipitously or superficially;

to achieve, as much as possible, competence in the subjects I study. To transform and make this intellectual effort holy through a spiritual motive, doing it humbly without any self-centeredness, but exclusively to help others.

To bring to all conversation and discussion a tranquil spirit, a firmness, and a friendliness that will eliminate bitterness or irritation from the opponent's mind; 

never to give in where principles are concerned, but to have extraordinary tolerance for people.

Above all, to try, after discovering the opening, to present the divine, unchanging Truth to each one in such a way as to make it understood and loved.

When I read Elizabeth Leseur, I think "Let God be God, and you be you!"  He will accomplish His purpose for my life in His way.  I need only to be still and to listen to Him. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"I Know You! I Know You!"

 A few years ago, I had an experience that intrigued but somewhat puzzled me, and that I continue to think about even to this day.   I had gone to see a friend of mine who now has Alzheimer's Disease.  For several years, she had not recognized her own children, and she was then living in a memory-care residence.  As I came down the hall toward her, she was standing outside her door, as they had told her she had a visitor.  Eagerly, she looked at me, and then gradually broke into a smile as, clearly, some recognition dawned upon her:  "I know you!  I know you!" she cried in some sort of triumph after so long not knowing or recognizing people.

She did not recall my name of course, but there was an instant re-connection of spirit to spirit as we embraced and visited for the next hour.  She and I had been in a prayer group in the 70's, and had additionally spent many hours together visiting, studying scripture, and taking care of one another's children.  She once had walked through a knee-deep flood to rescue my youngest child from school when I could not reach her by car.

What was it that instantly connected the two of us even beyond the limitations of a mind ravaged by Alzheimer's? Why, when she could not recognize her own children, could she recognize me?

Today I was reading the last chapter of a wonderful book by Bishop Robert Barron -- Light From Light: A Theological Reflection on the Nicene Creed.  The final chapter deals with the final statement of the Creed, "we believe in the resurrection of the body and the life of the world to come."  In reflecting on what kind of "body" and what kind of "life" might exist in the "world to come,"  Barron states, "...there must be both continuity and discontinuity between our present world and the world to come."

In speaking of the soul, he characterizes it as "the organizing pattern that guarantees identity over the course of one's life, even as one's body undergoes extraordinary change."  He points out that absolutely none of the atoms and cells that made up the seven-year-old are present in the body of the elderly person.  Yet we confidently affirm that it is the same person, since the selfsame pattern has perdured throughout the changes.

When the person dies, that organizing pattern is subsequently used by God as the template for the resurrection of the person at a higher pitch of perfection.  Ultimately, it is not the literally selfsame matter that guarantees the identity of one's earthly body and one's heavenly body, but rather the enduring sameness of one's soul.

When I thought about that, I remembered that after Jesus' resurrection, no one who saw Him recognized Him at first -- not Mary, not the disciples on the road to Emmaeus, not even the disciples.  They came to know who He was in their interactions with them.  In other words, they knew Him "soul to soul" rather than "body to body."

When I think of Margaret's recognition of me even before we spoke, I think that we must have connected "soul to soul" in that moment, bypassing the limitations of both body and mind.  Barron says, "In seeing God face-to-face, we shall also see all those beings and events that participate in God" (p.174).  I think it was our shared participation in God that sparked her recognition.

St. Paul says, "But our citizenship is in heaven, and we eagerly await a savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body" (Phil. 3:20-21).  In heaven, we will all be physically changed, but to the extent that our souls have been transformed by the divine life, we will continue to cry out to God and to one another, "I know you!  I know you!"

Which is Harder?

 One of the purposes of this blog is to pass on some of the ideas that have touched or inspired me.  We love to give what we ourselves love!  This morning I was reading The Little White Book, a daily reflection based on the writings of Bishop Ken Untener and published by Little Books of the Diocese of Saginaw.  

In reflecting on the Parable of the Landowner and the Workers, Bishop Untener writes that this is one of Jesus' parables that people don't usually like.  Our sympathies are usually with the workers who have borne the heat of the day and then received the same pay as those who have worked only an hour.  But the bishop's insight touched me:

Which is harder? To work all day, or to want a job and not get one?  It comes out about even, which is how the owner of the vineyard paid his workers.

Which is harder? To get married and deal with all the challenges and struggles of married life and raising children? Or to want to get married and get left on the sidelines?  It comes out about even, which is how the owner of the vineyard paid his workers.

Which is harder? To earn your wages by the sweat of your brow? Or to want to work but end up on welfare?  It comes out about even, which is how the owner of the vineyard paid his workers.

One reason this reflection touched me is that yesterday I heard from the workers of St. Vincent de Paul Society about people who have all these years been contributing to the charity and are now forced to come for help themselves.  It is very difficult to ask for help now, after years of being able to help others.  

The next time we hear the Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard, our reaction might be sympathy for those who were forced to stand all day in the marketplace hoping that someone would hire them, and a sense of profound gratitude for those who worked all day in the heat!

 

 

 

On Rescue Cats and Other Pets

 One year after Hurricane Katrina, with the Gulf Coast still in the midst of utter devastation, I found 5 newborn kittens in my garage.  We had stored what little furniture could be salvaged from our home in Metairie after the storm in the garage in Long Beach, Mississippi, while we were working on restoring that house.  Every weekend, we drove from New Orleans to Long Beach to work on the house, and while we were there, we would leave the garage open to air out the furniture.  

Evidently, a very pregnant mama cat had found a comfortable place one weekend to have her kittens, and unknowingly, we closed the garage with mama and 5 babies inside and headed back to New Orleans for the week.  The next weekend, we opened the garage again, still not knowing that we had visitors inside.  But we stayed only one day, during which time mama cat, apparently very thirsty and hungry after nursing her kittens for a week, left the garage.  Again, we closed the garage and left for the week, leaving 5 nursing kittens inside without their mama.  According to the neighbors, the poor mama cat returned later and could not get to her babies.  She cried and screamed unceasingly, but the neighbors had no idea what the problem might be.  By the time we arrived the next weekend, mama cat had disappeared.  Opening the garage, we discovered 5 very weak and almost dead newborn kittens.

I scoured the neighborhood for an eyedropper, obtained some canned milk, and began feeding the babies every 3 hours around the clock --- finally taking them back to New Orleans with us that week. One of the kittens eventually died, but four survived.  We gave one to a friend and kept three.  What wonderful and loving companions they have been to us for the past 17 years!  Now they are part of the family and readily come to us for whatever they need or want.

As I reflected this morning about the joy our pets give us when they so trustingly depend upon us for their needs, I was reminded of two biblical verses:  

Open wide your mouth and I will fill it  (Psalm 81)

God gives us all things richly to enjoy (1 James) 

Psalm  81 begins with a song of thanksgiving:  Sing for joy to God our strength....begin the music, strike the tambourine....  The reason for their joy was that God had rescued them from the slavery of Egypt:  

He says, "I removed the burden from their shoulders; their hands were set free from the basket.  In your distress you called and I rescued you.  I answered you out of a thundercloud....  I am the Lord your God, who brought you up out of Egypt.  Open wide your mouth and I will fill it....you would be fed with the finest of wheat; with honey from the rock, I would satisfy you."

As we so love satisfying the needs of our pets, especially those we have rescued from dangerous or deadly situations, so God our Father delights in satisfying the needs of those He has rescued from the powers of darkness.  It is not simply "salvation from sin" that delights God, but actually providing for His children.  He did not rescue them from Egypt to leave them in the desert, but He always planned for them to richly enjoy the land of milk and honey also.

Jesus never upbraided anyone for asking too much; he delighted in answering the requests of those who came to Him.  "Ask me," He says; "Open wide your mouth and I will fill it."  

I love taking care of my pets, and I love when they come to me and curl up by my side in utter contentment, their needs satisfied and now wanting only the comfort of my presence.  So it is with the God and Father revealed to us by Jesus Christ! 

 

 

 

 

 

A Living Thing

 The Word of God is living and active.  Sharper than any two-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart (Heb. 4:12).

Everything Jesus ever said about the Word of God indicates that it is "living and active."  Not just information or instruction, it is God speaking to me "live."  I am not listening to or reading something God once said.  God is speaking to me now!

John calls Jesus Himself "the Word," the Logos in Greek, or the expression of the mind of God.  We have all experienced the power of words from those around us.  If someone calls us clever, beautiful, funny, or stupid, those words take root in our spirit and begin to shape our future, in some cases in very unfortunate ways.  

Yesterday I wrote about the Room of Self-Knowledge, wherein I imagined seeing myself in all the stages of my life, but seeing through the eyes of Jesus, the Word, the Image of the Father.  In Him, there is no condemnation at all -- He himself said He came not to condemn but to save the world.  So what He sees in us can "always be fixed," in the words of my painting instructor.  Whatever I thought I had supremely ruined as I was learning to paint, the merest touch of the master's hand could transform into something beautiful.  He had the knowledge and experience to take anything I had done and to use it as the basis of a work of art.

Don Quixote called the peasant girl, Dulcinea, a princess.  In his eyes, she was so.  And what is it that God calls us?  What is it that His Word does in us? ---  Redeems us from the ravages of sin and death and transforms us into sons and daughters of God -- and so we are, as St. Peter tells us!

When we begin to believe that God's Word has power in our lives, we begin to transform from what we were into what God sees in us.  Jesus described the Word of God as a seed that "grows night and day without the farmer being aware of it."  When we read, listen to, focus on God's Word, something begins to happen inside of us, whether we are aware of it or not.  Something holy begins to take shape in us.  Thoughts begin to come to us that were the farthest thing from our minds previously.  They may be words of comfort, a flash of insight, or a nudge to do something that would not have occurred to us otherwise.  

In the New Testament, what we translate as "word" actually has two Greek forms, each with a different meaning.  One form is  "Logos," meaning image, expression, the divine wisdom or rational principle manifest in creation, government, and the controlling of the universe.  The other form which we translate as "word" in English is "Rhema," meaning a word spoken in and to a particular situation, a living and dynamic word.  It is not the general principle applied to universal situations, but rather a personal, spoken word applied to our hearts.  It literally means an utterance -- like God speaking to Elijah on the mountaintop.  It is an inspired word birthed within our own spirit for the situation of the moment, a whisper from the Holy Spirit guiding and directing us.  It is spoken by a living entity.

In the desert, in the moment of stress and distress, Jesus said, "Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word (Rhema) that comes forth from the mouth of God" (Matt. 4:4).  That word, Rhema, is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, dividing the soul and spirit and judging the attitudes of the heart.  It has the power to pierce the hardest hard and the darkest mind.  

My prayer is that everyone I know experience Rhema, the spoken Word of God, in their hearts and minds, and through that word come to know the mind and heart of God Himself!