The Will to Power

"Not by power, not by might, but by my Spirit," says the Lord God of hosts (Zechariah 4). 

 

Fredrich Neitzche was a German philosopher of the late 19th century who wrote about the Uberman, the superior man who challenged all religious beliefs and sought his own health, wisdom, knowledge, creativity, and power from the world itself, not from the world beyond.  He is the source of Hitler's cult of the genetically perfect "super race," and of Ann Rand's Atlas Shrugged.

 

In Abraham Joshua Heschel's Man is Not Alone: A Philosophy of Religion, he begins with the contrast of two attitudes when man views the world (nature).  Mankind either says, "I can control/ manipulate that to my advantage," or he says, "Wow! Look at that -- Awesome!"  According to Heschel, one of my favorite writers, awe and amazement is the beginning of religion.

 

As the stories of Cain and Abel, Lamech, and the Tower of Babel show us, man's natural tendency is the "will to power, the will to conquer, the will to exalt" himself:  We shall be as gods... Let us build a tower to the heavens and make a name for ourselves (Gen.10).  Since the world began, until its very end, there will always be the tension and the struggle between the will- to- power group and the "meek," who will inherit the earth.

 

December 1, 1955.  Early evening.  A small black woman boards a public bus in Mongomery, Alabama.  She has worked all day in a dingy basement tailor shop; her ankles are swollen and her feet hurt.  She sits in the first row of the colored section until the bus fills with riders and the driver orders her to move back so that white patrons can have her seat.

 

Rosa Parks was no Dr. Martin Luther King, but if he was the Voice of the Civil Rights Movement, she was its soul.  At that moment, something strong and powerful and resistant against injustice rose up in Rosa Parks soul.  She had no "I have a dream" speech -- that was to come later; all she had was a simple word: "No."  That word ignited the Civil Rights Movement in America and helped the South change its "Will to Power" culture.  That word ignited the black population of Montgomery to boycott the buses for the next 381 days.  That word made Dr. Martin Luther King stand up and speak for the first time.  That word changed the world as we know it.

 

I Cor. 1:26-31 tells us that God uses the weak and foolish things of this world to shame the strong.  Every one of us, from the age of two, has the natural tendency to power and control:  "I do it myself!"  But submitting to the will of God, to the Spirit of God who wishes to speak through us, is the greater power.  When Jesus says, Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth, He is not at all referring to the "weak."  There was nothing weak about Rosa Parks.  Physically, she may have resembled someone who could be pushed around, but the spirit in her was stronger than all the unjust laws of this nation and the policemen who enforced them.  The title of her autobiography is Quiet Strength.

 

The word "meek" refers to "strength under control;" the best example is that of a thoroughbred race horse that can be controlled by its rider.  It is not "unbridled" strength, but strength that can be channeled in a powerful and useful direction by the will of another.  I am often amazed by the gift of the dog to us.  Here is (in some cases) a powerful animal that could rip us apart with his teeth, and yet, he is gentle enough for a baby to pull on his fur without incident.  That is meekness -- strength that can be trusted to yield and obey. 

 

Are we strong enough to yield to God?  To allow Him to have His way in us and through us?  To allow Him to control our thoughts, words, and actions?  Can we change our world?  The empires of Egypt, of  Rome, of Nazism, of Communism, have all crumbled.  Everywhere man has set out to build a Tower of Babel has seen God confusing the speech of the leaders and dismantling the man-made Tower.  Instead, He has raised up Moses, Peter, Pope John 23, Rosa Parks, and others to build a new "tower," one built on compassion and justice and submission to the Spirit of God.

Choose Ye This Day....

Without a guide, we are like men stumbling in the dark.  We cannot "tell our right hands from our left," according to the book of Jonah.  There are many opinions, but only one Truth, manifested in multiple ways. 

As the Israelites entered the Promised Land, Joshua told them this:  "...choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your forefathers served...or the gods of the Amorites...But as for me and my household, we will serve [Yahweh] (Joshua 24:15).

And David, in Psalm 16:  "I said to [Yhwh], 'You are my Lord; apart from you I have no good thing'...The sorrows of those will increase who run after other gods.  I will not pour out their libations of blood or take up their names on my lips....I will praise [Yhwh] who counsels me; even at night my heart instructs me....You have made known to me the path of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand."

At the Last Supper, Jesus promised to send the Holy Spirit, Who would lead us into all truth.  It seems clear that we must choose our Source of Truth -- either the Spirit of God to teach us, or "other gods."  When we choose Yahweh, He is faithful to place in our hearts His own Spirit of Truth and of righteousness.  The first letter of St. John to the church is worth reading, because he has much to say about how we can recognize the Spirit of Truth: 

...do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.  This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God.  This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world (4:1-2).

 

That is very practical advice.  The Spirit that comes from God obviously cannot testify against Jesus Christ.  Nor can He accept the "truth" of the world.  If we want to "test" the spirits around us, we need to bring them to the Holy Spirit and ask for His enlightenment on them.  If we cannot bring ourselves to do this, we will forever be following blind guides.  But Jesus promised that if we ask, we would receive -- and receive not something deceptive, something that looks like the Truth, but is a masquerade for Truth:  Which of you fathers, if your son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead?  Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion?  If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him?" (Luke 11). 

 

In our culture, we are far removed from the Middle East, where eels are considered a delicacy, but look like snakes.  Or where a rolled-up scorpion resembles an egg.  And because these are not everyday experiences for us, it is hard for us to "get it" in these words of Jesus.  But He is promising that the Spirit given to us will lead us into truth, not deception that looks like truth. 

 

Can we trust God to give us what He promised us?

Wild and Waste

If all I ever had to read of the bible were the first chapter of Genesis, I think I could be happy.  Of course, all of what follows adds to, elucidates, and enriches those first few lines -- and of course, Jesus brings the fullness of truth to them.  So maybe without the rest, I wouldn't understand the beginning.  But still, after 35+ years of reading the bible, I go back periodically to Genesis 1, and again and again, I am awed and amazed:

At the beginning of God's creating of the heavens and the earth,

when the earth was wild and waste*

darkness over the face of Ocean,

rushing-spirit of God hovering over the face of the waters--

 

*in Hebrew: tohu va-vohu (wild and waste), indicating "emptiness."

 

Our world tends toward entropy.  If I remember right, that is the second law of thermodyanics.  Genesis, amazingly, does not begin with God creating the world from nothing, the way we learned in catechism, but it begins with the Spirit of God "hovering" over emptiness, chaos, darkness, the abyss.  Everything that follows in Scripture follows this pattern: 

 

The Spirit of the Lord hovered (or brooded) over the chaos created by mankind in the first six chapters of Genesis, leading to the flood, the "uncreation process" that destroyed the entire earth.  Man's rapid slide from paradise -- harmony with God, with one another, and with the earth -- to the total disharmony represented by the flood began with Adam and Eve and intensified with each generation.  Already in the second generation, Cain cries out: My iniquity is too great to be bourne! Here, you drive me away today from the face of the soil, and from your face I must conceal myself, I must be wavering and wandering on earth--now it will be that whoever comes upon me will kill me!

 

The original harmonies between God and man, man and woman, and man and the earth have now become a permanent source of alienation in all three areas. The reason Cain founded the first city was that the earth would no longer yield its produce for him.  Not only nature and energy, but relationships tend toward entropy.  I have a friend who maintains that all relationships end badly, either in alienation or in death.  That, to me, is a rather pessimistic observation, but I do believe that without God, it is indeed true.

 

Fortunately, however, the entire bible portrays the ever-creating, the ever-renewing Spirit of God "brooding" over the chaos that man tends to create, the entropy sliding down into nothingness once again.  Only for those who refuse to look up does "everything end badly."  Our hope is the Spirit of God "brooding" over the darkness.  As long as we continue to stare into the darkness and curse it, nothing changes.  When we look up to the breath of God gently blowing over the waters, we begin to see light.  Once again, the waters part, and order is restored -- not all at once, but gradually.

 

First, we find we have space in which to stand and breathe; we find not confusion, but order, a clear division between Night and Day.  And slowly, our dry land begins to teem with life; our waters are filled with living creatures, and the birds of the air fly in the heavens.  We are no longer drowning in the chaos created by evil. 

 

Psalm 18 is one of the clearest portraits of the entire pattern:

 

The cords of death entangled me;

the torrents of destruction overwhelmed me.

The cords of the grave coiled around me;

the snares of death confronted me.

 

In my distress, I called to the Lord;

I cried to my God for help....

He reached down from on high and took hold of me;

he drew me out of deep waters.

He rescued me from my powerful enemy,

from my foes, who were too strong for me....

He brought me out into a spacious place;

he rescued me because he delighted in me.

 

 

When we discover that our lives, our relationships, our work has descended into chaos and confusion, there is only one remedy:  we must look up to the Spirit of God, Who is "hovering" over us.  All light, all beauty, all harmony, all truth have their source in Him.  Only He has the light, the energy, the truth that can restore a darkened world.

Winter Trees

Recently I decided to pull up my vegetable garden and plant blueberries instead.  Since I had not grown blueberries before, the man who sold me the bushes gave me some good advice: "around the first of September," he said, "fertilize the bushes with azalea food, because during the winter, the bushes will grow roots.  In the spring, they will produce fruit."

I've been thinking about what he told me.  I think in our personal lives, most of want to be summer trees: beautiful, shady, restful, and bearing fruit (useful).  We want to be "whole" people, contributing to a peaceful world.  But the only way we are going to be "summer trees" is to nourish our roots during the winter months, when the tree seems bare and unproductive.  The winter is important for root development; without strong and deep roots, the fruit may develop and then drop off.  Soon there is nothing left and no way to grow more fruit.

I remember once growing a Louisiana peach tree.  I was told not to allow the tree to bear much for the first three years, because the fruit would develop too quickly for the growing tree, perhaps breaking branches in the process, but in any case, depleting the tree's small resources.  But I was so excited to see the tree producing fruit that I could not bear to strip away the peaches.  Of course, I had to learn the hard way.  In just a few years, the peaches were of very poor quality and could not be eaten. 

In human life, that's what is called a "flash in the pan" and then a slow (or quick) burnout.  Too much too soon, and then it's over.  We see the pattern a great deal with child movie stars, or teen-age singers. In contrast, Meryl Streep, Oprah Winfrey and others like them who endure through the "heat of the day" have taken the time to hone their craft and to put down deep roots.  Their "beauty" is not superficial, but comes from deep within.  We do not tire of truth or of deep beauty the way we do of the latest fad, the thing without "roots."

In the Parable of the Sower, Jesus spoke of those who receive the word with joy, but then lose it because of the cares and riches of this world.  All of his examples in this parable, in one way or another, refer to those who have not put down deep roots, and so lose the fruit they might have bourne.  It is not merely "hearing" of the kingdom, exciting as it might be, that leads to eternal life, but "soaking our souls" in the word, allowing it to produce in us first deep and wide roots, leading to the bearing of much fruit. 

When we feel that we are "winter trees," not bearing fruit, not doing much, that is the time to fertilize our souls: to read, to think, to pray, so that when summer comes (when people come to us seeking fruit), the tree will be strong, resourceful, and productive.

The Kingdom of Heaven

Jesus called a small child into their midst and had him stand before them.  And He said, "I tell you the truth, unless you change and become as little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven" (Matt: 18:3).

 

Jesus said, "Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these" (Matt. 19:14).

 

 

The reason Jesus came was to bring (not simply announce) the kingdom of heaven to earth.  We do not have to wait until we die to enter the kingdom of heaven; it is here.  It has arrived in the Person of God-with-us: Emmanuel/ the Christ.  Many Jews rejected Jesus as the Messiah because He did not bring the world-wide peace they were looking for.  But he said that His kingdom is not of this world; it is in the world, but not of the world.

 

Not everyone belongs to the kingdom, but we know who does belong.  In His Sermon on the Mount, Jesus listed for us those who enter the kingdom even now: the poor in spirit, they who mourn, the meek, those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers, and those who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness.  

 

Those who cannot enter the kingdom of heaven are the proud, the powerful (in the sense of abusing or lording it over others), the ambitious, the "rich," those who are unchildlike in any way.

 

It is really easy to recognize those who belong to the kingdom, even though we do not judge or condemn others.  We do not have to argue about who has the right doctrine, or which system is the best.  Children do not concern themselves with such things.  A child-like spirit is simpy receptive to the truth and to those who love.  They want to be loved, cuddled, taught.  They know they cannot take care of themselves -- an infant cannot even feed itself, but is dependent on someone to choose nourishing food and to provide it. 

 

St. Peter, in his first letter to the new Christian church, tells believers that they have "been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God" (I Pet. 1:23).  He urges them as newborn babies, to "rid [themselves] of all malice and all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander...and to crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation" (I Peter 2:1-2). 

 

Like babies, we "grow up" in our salvation as we begin to digest the pure milk of the word of God.  We are told to "crave" the milk, given to us by the Holy Spirit.  Those in Jesus' day who came to Him had no hope of ambition, power, riches, either because, like Joseph of Aramithea or Matthew, they had already tasted the disillusionment of such things and were ready to turn away from them, or like children, they felt helpless in a world of power and glory. 

 

It is so good for us to know how to enter the kingdom of heaven even now:  to become little, powerless, pure of heart, turning away from manipulating the world's systems for our own advantage and seeking only the kingdom of God and His righteousness.

A Way to Pray

Ideally, prayer is a way for us to let go of all the things that constantly race through our minds and clutch our hearts with fear, uncertainty, and anxiety.  Of course, prayer can also be just another way for us to talk to ourselves and ingrain with even more cement the things that worry us.  When we "talk at" God, we are still in control, asking Him to arrange things our way.  But Prayer can also be a way of just piling up at His feet all of our daily burdens and letting go of them for a time.

Prayer can be a way for us to come to really know Jesus, God-who-is-with-us, Who entered the world we live in once only to enter it again and again with every one of us who welcomes Him into our world of uncertainty and anxiety.  He says in Rev. 3:20:  Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone will open to me, I will come in and dine with him and he with me. 

We never "dine" with those who are not our friends.  We may be forced at a wedding or at Thanksgiving or at a family meal to sit at the same table with people we can't stand, but we don't "invite them into" our hearts and minds; we don't really "dine" with them.  If Jesus is knocking at the door of our lives today, we may be embarrassed to open the door and allow Him to see the mess inside our houses, our minds and hearts.  If we are embarrassed enough, we may tell Him He can't come in today, but maybe after we've cleaned up.  But when does that ever happen?  Are we ever "ready" to open the door?  And won't He know that we have not really cleaned up, but just hidden the mess where it is not obvious to the casual observer?

How do we ever really get ourselves ready to "dine" with Jesus?  To allow Him to sit at our kitchen table, despite the clutter and the clatter of our daily lives?  How do we learn to let go of our idea of what we (our homes) should look like enough to really be open to His Person and Presence in our lives?

When Jesus says, "I will come in and dine with him, and he with me," He is not speaking poetically--every word has specific meaning.  It is a matter of who is the host and who is the guest.  When He "sits down" at our table, He willingly and graciously partakes of our daily fare -- the burdens of caring for an elderly parent while trying to raise teenagers and holding down a 9-to-5 job; the worry of having cancer or of not having a job to support one's family; the daily dealing with an alcholic spouse....  He enters into that mess of our lives with everything that John says about Him:  The true light that gives light to every man [is]coming into the world....from the fullness of His grace, we have all received one blessing after another...God, the only Son, who is at the Father's side, has made / [is making] Him known.

But allowing Jesus to enter the mess of our lives and to sit at our table and eat of our daily fare, embarrassing though it may be, also opens the door for us into His life, allowing us to sit at His table and to partake of the food He prepares for us---the food of peace, of joy, of solutions to impossible situations, of power coming down from above.  He became incarnate of Mary so that He could walk with us, among us, in us, so that He could also become incarnate in us, to bring us complete and whole to the Father.  Only He can manage our lives.  Why do we keep closing the door and telling him we're doing fine, when we and He both know we're not managing very well at all?

Maybe we just don't know Him.  Maybe we think He would not really want us as friends, as intimates.  Maybe we think we are supposed to be able to manage things better than we are doing.  Maybe we are just afraid to let go because we think we are supposed to be in control.  When we finally admit that we cannot, do not, manage things, that we are overwhelmed, that we need help; when we finally give up our illusion that we can do better, that is when we finally open the door and allow Him to enter.  Prayer can be just 'giving up' the pretense that we are the people we want to be, the people we think we should be.

I've never seen Hoarding: Buried Alive, but I used to watch the pre-curser, the HGTV show where a professional organizer would come in and help ordinary people sort out and organize their clutter. (I don't remember what the show was called.)  I just remember the three piles: throw away, donate or sell, and keep.  People like myself who just couldn't decide on their own what to do with "stuff" were directed by a stronger wisdom and power to make basic decisions on what they could live without and what needed to stay.  What stayed was given a pleasing and effective space, so that the whole family could "breathe" again instead of having their lives taken over by useless clutter. 

When we finally "get over" our embarrassment, and allow Jesus to enter our lives, we can begin to relax.  Yes, it is a mess -- that is the human condition.  We are no better or worse than anyone else; we, like everyone else, are just pretending that we're in control of the situation. Once we're comfortable with His Presence in our lives, once we're not embarrassed any long by our failures, once we can allow Jesus to see what we really do and "eat" on a daily basis, and once we give Him permission to take over and re-arrange things, we can relax and let Him do what we cannot do for ourselves. 

Here I am, Lord; you see what my life is like.  What do you want to do with it?  I surrender it to you, and I am willing for you to take charge and make whatever changes are necessary.  You just tell me what you want to do, and I will do it.

We tend to think that when we get to that point, He will lay on us a heavier burden, one that we will not be able to perform.  If we think that way, it is just because we do not yet know Him -- His hospitality, His gracious kindness and compassion for us.  What will He say to us, but, "Come, sit down and rest for awhile; eat the food I give you; sleep.  When you awake refreshed, we can begin."  He is the perfect host; He sees to everything we need.  When He has fed us, made us sleep in peace, and fed us again, He pours into us His own strength to face our lives.  When He has assured us that He will not leave us or abandon us, we know we don't have to be strong or perfect or wise enough.  He is Emmanuel, God with us.  What more do we need?

In the Gospel, the Roman centurian said, "Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof...say but the word, and my child will be healed."  We can also acknowledge that we are not "ready" for Him to enter our homes, our lives, but allow Him to come anyway.  Like the people whose lives were transformed by the professional organizers, we will never be sorry that we opened the door to Jesus Christ and allowed him to enter our lives:  Come, Lord Jesus!

One Bird Watching

One reason I write this blog every morning is to open my heart and hand to share with others some of the riches I receive each day either from prayer or from reading. 

For many years, I kept a journal so that I would not lose or forget the treasures I received.  But then, one day, I read Mary's Song, a meditation on the Magnificat, by Mary Catherine Nolan (my husband's cousin).  In the introduction, she mentioned that the Dominican vocation is to contemplation and then to share the fruits of contemplation with the world.  That made sense to me; I wondered why I was burying the fruits of my prayer in a journal and not sharing them with others.  Of course, I did not know how to "share" with others, short of publishing a book, which seemed to me then to be an impossible and overwhelming task.  And then, I thought, who would read it?  The expense of publishing a book for 3 or 4 people who may be interested seemed ludicrous to me.

One day, a couple of years ago, I was visiting a friend in Tennessee, who showed me how to begin a blog.  That seemed to me a perfect way to share with others the fruit of my prayer and reading.  So I began.  Whoever reads this blog is God's choice.  If 3 people read it, that is fine with me; everything is up to Him.  But somehow, I find I must write, even if no one reads.  I chose the name for this blog from a poem that I found on a plaque beside a pond in New Harmony, Indiana, and quoted within the first few days of starting my blog.(The back story of the poem can be found in an October, 2010, entry of this blog called "The Title.")

Stranger

When no one listens

To the quiet trees,

When no one notices

The sun in the pool;

When no one feels

the first drop of rain,

Or sees the last star;

Or hails the first morning

Of a giant world

Where the peace begins

and rages end:

One bird sits still

Watching the work of God:

One turning leaf,

Two falling blossoms,

Ten circles upon the pond.

In my time of prayer each morning, that is exactly how I feel:  like a bird sitting still, watching the work of God -- not creating my own work, but watching what He is doing.  And when I walk to the beach at the end of the day and see "my" beautiful blue heron that has taken up his post at the edge of the water, looking out over the waves, I see the image of "one bird watching the work of God."

The reason I so often quote from what I am reading is my great desire not to "hoard" the treasures the Lord opens to me each day.  I want to grab everyone I see and say, "Read this!  It's great!"  (I can see all the eye-rolling going on from here.)  But all of this today is just to explain why I am quoting from God Calling 2.  I have used God Calling for about 35 years now, as a way to enter the quiet space I need for prayer.  Recently, a friend gave me God Calling 2, a sequel to the first book.  Each day now begins with my reading the entries from both books, a practice that never fails to lead me into communion with God.  Today's entry from GC2 is one that I must share in its entirety:

Listen and I will speak.

I seldom force an entrance through many voices and distracting thoughts.

There must be first the coming apart, and then the stilling of all else, as you wait in My Presence.

Is it not enough that you are with Me?

Let that sometimes suffice.

It is truly much that I speak to you.  But unless My indwelling Spirit is yours, how can you carry out My wishes, and live as I would have you live?

My greatest desire is that whoever reads this would hear His voice, and that mine would be stilled.