The Living Word of God

 I love you, Lord, my strength;
O Lord, my rock, my fortress, my savior;
my God, my rock where I take refuge;
my shield, my saving strength, my stronghold,
I cry out, "O praised be the Lord!:
and see, I am saved from my foes.

The waves of death rose about me;

the torrents of destruction assailed me;

the snares of Sheol surrounded me;

the traps of death confronted me.

In my anguish I called to the Lord;

I cried to my God for help.

In the heavenly temple my voice was heard;

my crying reached God's ears.

From on high God reached down and seized me,

drew me forth from the mighty waters,

and saved me from my powerful foe,

from my enemies, whose strength I could not match.

(Psalm 18, portions)

As I pondered this psalm this morning in my daily reading, I thought of St. Peter reading/praying this psalm after his rescue by Jesus on the waters of Galilee.  The Jews prayed the psalms regularly, both in their daily prayers and in the Temple or synagogue services.  Much like Catholics today, they worked their way through all 150 Psalms on a yearly basis.  

What must have he thought, reading this Psalm after his experience of trying to walk on water and having Jesus reach down to save him from the deep?  Who was this Living Word of God who "reached down and seized me, drew me forth from the mighty waters, and saved me from my powerful foe"?

I think anyone over 30 must have had some experience like that of Peter, where we have felt scared, trapped, like we were drowning in waters too deep for us to tread.  Most of us at some point, I would think, have called out to God in our anguish -- and have somehow also experienced in some form that "My crying reached God's ears!"  

Last week, my brother was dying from ALS and COPD, and I hardly knew how to pray for him in his suffering.  Alternating between oxygen therapy and a BiPap machine to breathe for him, he said, "This is no way to live."  We all knew, and the doctor said, that this was not a permanent solution.  He was literally drowning in carbon dioxide, which his lungs could no longer expel on their own.  My sister called asking for prayer as he struggled with each breath.  

Feeling numb at the approaching death of one of my brothers, I glanced down at the cover of my daily meditation book, which pictured Jesus reaching down to snatch St. Peter from the waters of Lake Galilee.  Spontaneously, I prayed, "Lord, my brother is drowning! Reach down from on high and pull him out of these waters too deep for him."  Within half an hour, my brother took his last breath.

Although I was saddened to lose him, I was overwhelmed with gratitude that the Living Word had once again become incarnate in our lives.  Once again, God showed me that His Word is "living and active, more powerful than a two-edged sword...."  Jesus came in the flesh, living and active, to touch our lives and remind us that God is still with us.  All of the Old Testament takes flesh and lives in Him.  

The prophet Isaiah said, "Here is your God, He comes with vindication; With divine recompense, he comes to save you.  Then the eyes of the blind shall see, and the ears of the deaf be opened; then the lame shall leap like a stag, and the mute tongue sing for joy."   Jesus fulfilled each word of the prophecy during His lifetime on earth --- but His mission as the Living Word of God continues today, even 2000+ years later. 

When our lives become such that we too experience the anguish that causes us to "cry out to God for help," as Psalm 18 expresses, we too will know the power of God's Living Word reaching down to save us!

Divine Choreography

 Fr. James Martin maintains that one of the easiest ways to pray -- or to jumpstart your prayer life -- is to practice the Examen, a simple prayer practice inaugurated by St. Ignatius Loyola.  The Examen is an invitation to see where God has been active in your life over the past 24 hours.  Usually done at night, we place ourselves in the presence of God (in order not to just ruminate within ourselves, but instead to initiate a conversation.)  Then we recall moments of "grace" throughout the day, where God was present to us, and for which we are grateful.

Once I began this practice with the encouragement of a friend, it took only a few days before I began to notice the "grace moments" as they were happening, instead of waiting until the end of the day.  And they became moments of joy and gratitude during the day, as well as just before sleep at night.  God is always present to us, though we are rarely present to Him.  And the Examen takes us readily into His presence throughout the day.

As the Israelites began to move into the Promised Land, they recalled the Divine Choreography that had brought them out of slavery into freedom.  Knowing that God had been with them in the past allowed them to recognize times of grace and help in the present and future.  One of the ways they commemorated those times of grace was to establish "altars" or pillars of rocks called Ebenezer, meaning "thus far has God helped us."  When future generations asked about those monuments, it gave the Israelites opportunity to recall and proclaim the stories of how they had been helped at that time and in that place.

We can use Ignatius' Examen not only at night for the day's events but also as a way to reflect upon our entire lives -- to see the Divine Choreography that has brought us to this place and this moment.  Where has God been in your life?  What amazing things has He done for you?  For what "moments" or events are you ever grateful?  

Jump-start your prayer life?  This practice of Examen when applied to our entire lives can lead us to leap with gratitude right into the heart of God!

More.....

 Spirituality can be defined as what we do with the fire inside us, as how we channel our energy.  And how we channel it, the discipline and habits we choose to live by, will either lead to a greater integration or disintegration within our bodies, minds,and souls, and to a greater integration or disintegration in the way we are related to God, others, and the cosmic world. (The Holy Longing, p. 11).

Spirituality is what we do with our spirits, our souls.  A healthy spirit must do two jobs:  

(1) It has to give us energy, or fire, so that we do not lose our joy of living, and (2) it has to keep us glued together, integrated, so that we do not fall apart and die. "What does it profit a man to gain the whole world and suffer the loss of his soul?"    Someone who suffers the loss of his soul has lost his identity, so that at some point, he or she does not know who he/she is anymore.  A healthy spirit keeps us both energized and glued together.  

Our soul is not something we have; it is who we are!  When cynicism, despair, bitterness, or depression paralyze our energy, part of the soul is hurting.  When we no longer know where we are going, who we are, or where we came from, it is the other part of our soul that is limping.  

When Jesus said, "Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes forth from the mouth of God," He was telling us how important the soul -- or our spiritual energy-- is to our lives.  There comes a moment in every life when we must stop and ask ourselves how we are nourishing our spirit.  Much, if not most, of our life consists in nourishing the body, and perhaps the mind.  But what about our spirit?  What is it that renews our energy at the deepest level and helps us to hold together all the parts of our lives that threaten to pull us apart?

Padre Pio once said, "I shudder to think of the harm done to souls by the lack of spiritual reading!"  Our religious practices of going to church, singing hymns, praying, etc. may be a start, but unless we renew our spirits with soul prayer, spiritual reading, and simple contemplation of nature/beauty/wisdom, etc. we run the risk of giving our souls pablum instead of real food.

Life tends to pull us in multiple directions --- all of them good, sometimes, so that we can no longer decide how or where to draw the line on our energy resources.  Our lives need wisdom, peace, and guidance to keep us from falling apart --- and, according to the book of James, God will lavishly give wisdom to those who ask Him (James 1:5).  He never intended for us to slough through the mire on our own; He always intended to be with us a Full Partner in this business of preserving our souls!

What is "Spirituality"?

 Ronald Rolheiser, one of my favorite writers, has a wonderful book called The Holy Longing: The Search for a Christian Spirituality.  I happened to read this book many years ago when I was teaching the 11th grade Confirmation class, and I used his insights as the basis for my teaching for a long time.  One of my students wrote, after the first class that year, "This seems more like a philosophy class than a religion class."  My answer to her was, "It takes an astute mind to recognize philosophy when she sees it!"

Now, re-visiting this excellent book, I would like to highlight some of Rolheiser's insights for other astute minds to enjoy.  Certainly, his words have given me much to think about!

Spirituality is not something on the fringes, an opton for those with a particular bent.  None of us has a choice. Everyone has to have a spirituality and everyone does have one, either a life-giving one or a destructive one.....Spirituality is not about serenely picking or rationally choosing certain spiritual activities like going to church, praying or meditating, reading spiritual books, or setting off on some explicity spiritual quest.  It is far more basic than that.  

Spirituality is more about whether or not we can sleep at night than about whether or not we go to church.  It is about being integrated or falling apart, about being within community or being lonely, about being in harmony with Mother Earth or being alienated from her.  Whether or not we let ourselves be consciously shaped by any expicit religious idea, we act in ways that leave us either healthy or unhealthy, loving or bitter.  What shapes our actions is our spirituality. 

When we act, what we do will either lead to a greater integration or disintegration within our personalities, minds, and bodies -- and to the strengthening or deterioration of our relationship to God, others, and the cosmic world.

Rolheiser offers three well-known examples of spiritual lives:  Mother Teresa, Janis Joplin, and Princess Diana.  Mother Teresa, he says, was a dynamo of energy, despite her diminutive appearance.  She was a human bulldozer, dedicated to God and the poor.  She channeled her energy in a creative, life-giving way, and that total dedication was her signature, her spirituality. 

According to Rolheiser, few people would have considered Janis Joplin, the rock star who died from an overdose of life at 27, a very spiritual woman.  And yet she was.  Like Mother Teresa, she was an exceptional woman, a person "of fiery eros, a great lover, a person with a rare energy."  However, her energy, unlike Mother Teresa's, went out in all directions and eventually created an excess and a tiredness that led to an early death.  But those activities --a total giving over to creativity, performance, drugs, booze, sex, coupled with the neglect of normal rest--were her spirituality.  This was her signature.

Most, of us, according to Rolheiser, are more like Princess Diana than either Mother Teresa or Janis Joplin.  Usually, we tend to see other people as one or the other, but not as both erotic and spiritual.  And yet, Princess Diana reflects both dimensions.  She obviously had great fire within her; people were drawn so powerfully to her: "her energy, more so than her beauty or her causes, is what made her exceptional."  She was a person who willed God and the poor, even if she still willed many other things also.

Spirituality is what we do with the spirit that is within us.  For Princess Diana, her spirituality was both commitment to the poor and the Mediterranean vacations...and all the pain and questions in between.  She chose some things that left her more integrated in body and soul and others which tore at her body and soul.  Such is spirituality.  It is about integration and disintegration, about making choices about living and living with what that does to us.

More reflections tomorrow......

 

 

Tohu Vavohu

When God began creating the heavens and the earth, the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.

In the original Hebrew of the Scriptures, the words translated here as "formless and empty" were tohu va vohu, meaning "wild and waste,"  indicating emptiness.   

The words "Spirit of God" come from the Hebrew ruah, meaning "rushing-spirit."  It carries the meaning of breath, breeze, or strong wind.

 And the word "hovering" carries the image of "flitting; the image is that of an eagle protecting its young in the nest.

All of the images associated with the story of Creation are repeated in the history of Israel, taken from nothingness -- the darkness, wild and waste of paganism in the case of Abraham; the darkness, emptiness of life in the case of Hebrew slaves -- and brought into order, balance, and harmony through a living, loving relationship with the Creator of heaven and earth.  Chapter 32 of Deuteronomy echoes all the themes of Genesis, the first creation:

In a desert land he found him [Israel],

in a barren and howling waste.

He shielded him and cared for him;

he guarded him as the apple of his eye, 

like an eagle that stirs up its nest 

and hovers over its young,

that spreads its wings to catch them

and carries them on its pinions. 

The Lord alone led him;

no foreign god was with him.

  Once again, man is led into Eden, where he has fellowship with the divine Creator of heaven and earth. All the richness of the Promised Land (Israel) echo the Garden of Paradise:

 He made him ride on the heights of the land,/ and fed him with the fruit of the fields.

He nourished him with honey from the rock, /and with oil from the flinty crag,

with curds and milk from herd and flock,/ and with fattened lambs and goats,

with choice rams of Bashan,/and the finest kernels of wheat./

You drank the red blood of the grape. 

All of the story of the Bible from beginning to end leads to the story of US.  According to St. Augustine in his commentary on Genesis, our souls/spirits are formless and empty, wild and waste, until the Word of God speaks life and order into them: Let there be Light! 

The "Light" of Genesis 1, day 1,  is obviously not the sun, as the sun is created on Day 4.  Rather the Light spoken of here is energy, beauty, order, illumination -- the same Light spoken by the Word of God in the Gospel of John, chapter 1:  In Him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it.

And John 8: I am the Light of the world; whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.

St. Augustine says that for Jesus, the Word of God, to "live" means to live wisely and happily.  But a creature, although it has a spiritual nature endowed with intellect or reason, can have a formless (wild and waste) life.  For Jesus, living is not the same as possessing a life of wisdom and happiness. For when man is turned away from changeless Wisdom, his life is full of folly and wretchedness, and so it is in an unformed state (tohu va vohu).  Its formation consists in its turning to the changeless light of Wisdom, the Word of God.  The Word -- Light! Be! ---is the source of whatever being and life the creature has, and to the Word it must turn in order to live wisely and happily.

The Gospel of John sums up all the lessons of creation and history in one Person -- the Word, the Light, the Alpha and the Omega.  If we read nothing else but that Gospel, we have all the Wisdom we need to turn to the Rushing Spirit of God, hovering over our chaos.  We, too, can become a new creation by allowing the Word of God to enter our tohu va vohu, our emptiness!

What Can I Do?

 Recently I read a book called Sacred Encounters with Mary, an account of visitations people have had with the Mother of Jesus.  Most of these encounters are very simple, and yet profound in their own way.  The following one impressed me:

As I was going into meditation one day, I asked of [Mary], "How can I help to prepare the way for the the return of Christ?"  A little while later, she appeared to me in a vision and I saw her roll up her sleeves....As she rolled up her sleeves, she took me by the hand and led me to a sink where we proceeded to wash dishes together.  In that moment, we were just two women doing what needed to be done.  Interestingly, I have an expression that I have used before and since this encounter: "Talking doesn't do it, reading doesn't do it it; living is what does it."  And I always say that if you can't wash dishes with me, you haven't got it.

 Matthew Kelly, a renowned speaker on the Catholic circuit, always says, "Just do the next right thing!"  We often wonder what we can do to help, especially in view of world-wide hunger and poverty, violence, human trafficking, and just plain ignorance.  I think we have to commit our lives to God and trust that He is able to use our talents in His own way.  We want to be useful; we want our lives to count for something, but we are helpless to know what to do.  

St. Therese lived perhaps one of the most "useless" lives of all, behind the cloister walls, and died at the age of 24.  And yet today she is known world-wide as the patroness of missions.  Her way of life was unbounded confidence in God, trusting Him to accomplish in her all that He desired.

I think we can all wash dishes -- or do whatever is needed at the moment to clean up the world we live in.  It may not seem like much, but as Mother Teresa often pointed out, a pencil in the hand of God can change people's lives.

Gratitude!

 Last week, I had a follow-up visit with the doctor who performed the bronchoscopy, and what she told me then made my post-anesthesia vision even more meaningful.  All the tests for cancer were negative, thank God, although it seems that what they have been seeing in my lung since 2016 is a fungus caused by breathing in mold, usually from decaying plant matter.  It makes sense, as I have been gardening for many years, using leaf mold as mulch, cleaning out gutters and breathing in mold, etc.  

However, the reason I was under anesthesia so long was that the doctor struck a blood vessel in the lung as she removed tissue for diagnosis.  Although she was using a scan to guide the procedure, it seems that blood vessels do not show up on the scan.  As blood spurted all over the room, the doctor's colleague suggested that she not biopsy me another time, and she was not at all sure she could stop the bleeding.  

I asked how she did stop the bleeding, and she simply stated: I prayed.

After hearing her answer, my vision of the 23rd Psalm covering me as a blanket became even more stunning; I had not realized how close I had been to dying.  How can I thank the Lord for what He has done for me?