waiting...waiting

Next Posting is on October 16!

Waiting...waiting...waiting

When I study the work of Michaelangelo, I think he was divinely inspired.  In his "Creation of Adam," I see more and more all the time.  Adam (from the earth) is emerging from the earth, clearly in the image of God (almost a mirror image of bone and flesh and sinew), but he has yet to receive the spark of life that is about to be communicated through the finger of God reaching toward him.  He reaches up; God reaches down -- and we all know what is about to happen:  Man is about to become a living being!

A friend of mine has told me for years that I need to read A World Waiting to be Born by M. Scott Peck.  And for years, I have kept forgetting to pursue her suggestion.  But lately, something has been stirring in me to read that book.  For one thing, the title itself intrigues me -- because I think that it captures the sense that I get from Michaelangelo's painting of Adam, "waiting to be born." 

Every one of us individually, at every moment of our lives, are, in a sense like that title and like Adam, are 'waiting to be born.'  We are reaching up, while God is reaching down.  We are waiting...waiting...waiting for the finger of God to touch us, to re-order the chaos within and without in our lives, to bring energy within and order without in our worlds.  We are waiting to be born -- again. 

I love in Michaelangelo's painting that Adam is fully grown, just as Genesis portrays also, because it is in our fully grown state that we most need the divine touch.  In The Holy Longing, Ron Rolheiser says that "Spirituality is what we do with the passion within us."  Everyone has a spirituality, whether it's creative or destructive.  It's how we channel the energy that makes us live.  Spirituality is what drives us forward in our lives, from moment to moment.  When I look at "The Creation of Adam," I think of what it portrays not just as a moment in time, but as every moment of our lives:  either our energy is being sapped and drained from within and without, or it is being renewed by the Spirit of God touching and energizing and bringing life to our souls.

Rolheiser says that there are two functions of a healthy spirit in us:  it has to energize us -- give us fire-- and it has to "glue us together."   As any mother or businessman will recognize, daily life "pulls us apart" in so many directions, with so many demands.  It is hard to stay focused and moving toward a goal.  People -- including children -- demand energy from us, deflate us, sometimes destroy us.  So where in this world, given its tendencies, do we find a renewal of our flagging spirit?  How do we stay energized and "glued together" instead of "pulled apart from the center"?

We see little children, fresh from the hand of God, as truly spiritual beings, full of energy, full of truth, focused on one goal -- learning and growing and loving.  And so many times, their spirits are quenched by evil, itself focused on one goal -- to destroy the spirit within them.  We have all been participants in evil to some degree or another; that is the human condition, the 'cross' we have to bear-- that we have inherited the tendency to destroy rather than to build up. 

So all of us, whether we have been destroyed, or whether we have had a part in unraveling the work of God in another -- all of us are alike awaiting the rebirth of our spirits.  At every moment, we are like Adam in M's painting -- partially of the earth, partially the "son of God, created in His Image," awaiting the new birth, awaiting the new divine touch, the spark that comes from the very hand of God and breath (Spirit) of God.

At the moment we cease reaching up and waiting for His touch, we begin to die.  God told Adam, "the day you eat of its fruit -- the fruit of experience -- dying, you will die."  Life, experience, has a way of killing the divine spirit within us, so that even while we are living, we are also dying.  But remaining in communion with God, even while we are dying, we are being renewed in strength, in wisdom, and in truth.  Even as we approach old age, our energy is being renewed, and we are being "glued together" by the hand of God.

Abba! (Calling God "Father")

O peoples, bless our God,

let the voice of his praise resound,

of the God who gave life to our souls

and kept our feet from stumbling (Ps. 66:8).

 

Whether speaking to God in prayer or speaking of Him to His listeners, Jesus called God "Father" (Abba in Aramaic).  A priest once told of waiting in an airport in Jerusalem when he suddenly heard a 5-year-old little boy cry out in a panic:  Abba!  Abba!   The little boy had temporarily lost sight of his father and was terrified among all the strangers.  His cry pierced the hearts of all who heard him and brought the father instantly to his side. 

 

When we call God "Father," we call to the One Who has given life to our souls.  The title has nothing to do with gender, but with His role, His relationship to us.  As Paul says, "We see in part and we know in part..."   We can speak only from what we know and understand, and we understand that to be "father" means to pour out the seed of life into a waiting womb, where it is nurtured and grown. 

 

The Father of heaven and earth is the Source of our life.  Everything we are and have comes from Him and returns to Him.  And the action is continuous, ongoing forever.  Even now, He is pouring forth life, received by the world; even now, He is generating us in His Image and bringing us to a new birth.  Once we move into that ongoing relationship with Him, and acknowledge Him as the Source of all we are, once we can, like Jesus, cry out "Abba, Father," we are His children -- children born not of human will, but of His Spirit, and like Him. 

 

To be created in the image of God is to be male- and- female in relationship to one another, and to be capable of bringing forth new life, as he does.  In Himself, God is both male-female, in that He pours forth His own life and nurtures it into existence.  Biblically, God is both Father -- the Source -- and Mother--the receiver and nurturer of life until it blossoms forth.  That is why the doctrine of the Trinity is so important.  If God is not both Father and Mother, then to be created in His image leaves out one half of humanity. 

 

Everything in the physical world speaks to us of the world of the spirit, if we can only look deeply enough to see it.  Jesus, in human flesh, called God "Father" in acknowledgment of the fact that He was created in the flesh and received His whole being from Another.  He was like us in all things except sin.  Only He, among all born of women, could receive fully the life of the Father and live it.  That is what we were destined to do from the beginning, but we could not do it.  So now, Jesus does the same thing in us if we permit Him to do so.  In us, spiritually, He dwells, receiving all Life from the Father of heaven and earth.  In us, God the Father and God the Son live their eternal, flowing, generating - and- receiving - and giving - back - life - in - relationship - to - one - another. 

 

Life is movement; it is not static, but flowing.  To look up and say, "Abba! Father!" is only to acknowledge Him as our Source, to receive all that He has to give us, from His loving hands-- our daily bread-- and then to return all that we have back into His hands in an eternal giving and receiving. 

 



Seeking Wisdom

When I was in the 8th grade, the nun who taught us loved art, and her art classes were full of inspiration.  She gave us models to copy-- which for me took the pressure off tying to create something from scratch-- and then gave us time to work on our own.  I always found that time peaceful and quiet and restful, as the whole class concentrated on copying an image and then coloring it in.

One day, she brought in images of the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit and allowed us to choose one to replicate.  I chose Sapientia -- Wisdom.  The image was an oil lamp, something like Aladdin's lamp, with the word curved over it.  I remember that while working on that image, I fell in love with the idea of wisdom, and I remember wanting it more than anything else. 

Later, in high school or college, I remember writing a poem that has long been lost.  But it expressed an image of my daily holding up a chalice to the Lord, in order to receive pure, sparkling Wisdom, or Truth, in the form of a clear, refreshing liquid -- maybe it was water, but seemed more than that.  I remember writing that I wanted to receive Wisdom and "pour it out, distilled, into the world."  Later, I puzzled over the word "distilled," as that usually means refining out impurities, an image that didn't seem to fit at the time. 

Now, though, I see "distilled" as more "titration," or in other words, pouring it out drop by drop into the world.  I think this might be all I really want-- to receive wisdom and to give it out as I receive it.  I cannot hold it within; the cup spills over as it fills up, and I cannot hold it in. 

This morning, I began re-reading the book of Proverbs; that book, along with Sirach, or Wisdom, never fails to fill my cup to overflowing.  When I first began reading the Bible, I would race through, eager to know what it said.  Now that I know what it says, though, I find myself reading more and more slowly, drinking more deeply from each word and phrase.  Instead of reading a paragraph or a page, I read a phrase or a sentence.  It is just like sipping wine instead of gulping it.

In fact, Wisdom is personified in Chapter 9 of Proverbs as a woman who 'mixes wine' and offers it freely to those who will enter the house she has built and "hewn out its seven pillars."  Now that I have spent many years seeking wisdom, I begin to understand the treasure that was given to me early in life, when I fell in love with wisdom.  The book of Proverbs enumerates many gifts that Wisdom holds in her hands:  prosperity, straight paths, health, nourishment, longevity, riches and honor, peace, pleasant ways, and a Tree of Life -- the Gift offered to Adam and Eve in Paradise, but which they rejected in favor of the Tree of Knowledge (Experience) of Good and Evil.

Wisdom is better than gold and richer than silver; she watches over and protects those who seek her: when you lie down, you will not be afraid; when you lie down, your sleep will be sweet.  As I read those words again this morning, I thought to myself:  Wisdom is better than winning the Publishers' Clearinghouse Sweepstakes!  From what I hear, those who win the lottery are forever plagued with pleas and requests to share their good fortune.  But Wisdom brings riches along with sweet rest and peace. 

I wish I could hand everyone I meet the Book of Proverbs and say, "Eat This!  It is sweeter than honey and richer than wine, and you will find rest for your soul."

The Poetry of Jessica Powers

Yesterday's entry in Give Us This Day included a poem by Jessica Powers, whose poetry has touched me before and now once again:

I am copying down in a book from my heart's archives

the day that I ceased to fear God with a shadowy fear.

Would you name it the day that I measured my column of virtue

and sighted through windows of merit a crown that was near?

Ah, no, it was rather the day I began to see truly

that I came forth from nothing and ever toward nothingness tend,

that the works of my hands are a foolishness wrought in the presence

of the worthiest king in a kingdom that never shall end.

I rose up from the acres of self that I tended with passion

and defended with flurries of pride;

I walked out of myself and went into the woods of God's mercy,

and here I abide.

There is greeness and calmness and coolness, a soft leafy covering

from the judgment of sun overhead,

and the hush of His peace, and the moss of His mercy to tread.

I have naught but my will seeking God; even love burning in me

is a fragment of infinite loving and never my own.

And I fear God no more; I go forward to wander forever

in a wilderness made of His infinite mercy alone.

 

I read and re-read this poem and know its truth.  There is nothing I can add that would not take away from her words.  

Witness!

You shall be my witnesses, even to the very ends of the earth...(Acts 1:8).

 

That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched -- this we proclaim concerning the Word of life.  The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us.  We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard...(I Jn. 1-2).

 

Go home to your family and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how he has had mercy on you.  So the man went away and began to tell in the ten cities how much Jesus had done for him.  And all the people were amazed (Mark 5: 19-20).

 

In every church sooner or later, the members will hear that they should tell 'the good news,' that they should be evangelists, or witnesses to Christ.  While the Catholic church is not really 'evangelical' in the sense of either training people to be witnesses, or even putting an emphasis of being evangelical, from time to time, I have heard that we should be witnesses.  Usually, the method of 'witnessing' is to be by the way we live, as children of God in a dark world.  Back in the 50's, when I was confirmed in the 6th grade, we were told that we would be "soldiers" of Jesus Christ.  As an 85 lb girl at the time, I was not sure what kind of 'soldier' I would be, or how bravely I could 'stand up' against Communism, the threat of the day.

 

Ever since I have truly 'met' Jesus Christ, as John the Apostle did, now that I have truly "seen with my eyes, and my hands have touched," I can witness to "what the Lord has done for me," as the man in the Gospel was told to do.  As long as our faith is just 'belief in ideas," we have nothing to witness to, nor any reason to do so.  Every religion has doctrines to believe in, and therefore, one doctrine is for the most part, as good as another in keeping people on the straight and narrow.  One church accepts divorce and re-marriage; another does not.  One church is culturally oriental and introverted, in the sense of looking within for reality; another is culturally extroverted and looking without for its reality. 

 

As children, we believe because someone in authority has outlined for us what we are supposed to believe -- and we accept it.  That's fine; that's the way the world works.  The child accepts almost everything on faith -- even mathmatics.  The adolescent begins to questions what he has been told; he typically needs to test the waters and find out for himself what is true, what is not --- that is what is meant by the "Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil," or "eating the fruit of Experience," of finding out for ourselves.  If we don't kill ourselves in the process, it is a normal and natural process.

 

Somewhere along the way of Experiencing Life for Ourselves, (and usually rejecting the wisdom of the past), some of us may encounter the Jesus of the Gospel -- the Word of Life, who was with the Father, and now is with us, as John says.  Maybe there is a "witness" who has himself come to know Jesus Christ and who can tell us about Him.  Or maybe, as in the case of C. S. Lewis, there is a specific moment of profound grace that causes us to drop to our knees in recognition of a Presence in our lives that was not there before, but now has come to us in a personal way.  (To be fair, Lewis had actually heard the 'good news' from J.R.R. Tolkein, his good friend, for some years -- but, although Lewis respected and loved Tolkein, what he said about Jesus was just another philosophy/ fantasy until that moment when the door opened and Lewis walked through it for himself.)

 

My point is this -- until God has "done something for us," we are not really witnesses; we are like the Greek philosophers, telling our ideas about God, but not really what He has done for us, what our "eyes have seen and our hands have touched."    We know--in the sense of experience-- that of which we speak; we are not speculating or philosophizing about what it must be like. 

 

At some point, we must all abandon what we "think" about God and acknowledge the TRUTH about Him -- that He has come in the flesh (Jesus Christ) and has "met us on the road to Damascus," as He did Paul.  While we are "breathing threats against the believers" who are "corrupting our religious beliefs" and wanting to put them to death, we encounter the Living Christ.  Once Paul had that encounter, his religious beliefs melted away.  He knew the Way, the Truth, and the Life -- and later, he was to say after debating with the Greeks, "I resolved to know nothing else but Jesus Christ, and Him crucified." 

 

Of course, neither Paul nor Jesus nor the early church "threw out" Judasim, but then began to study what they believed in terms of their encounter with the Risen Lord.  And that is true of all those who have met Jesus Christ; they do not throw away all they have been taught, but begin to study it in the light of what they have experienced --- and find that doctrine now becomes alive, richer and fuller and more meaningful.  Jesus said, "I have come not to abolish the Law, but to fulfill it." 

 

For those who have met Jesus Christ, they now know what that means.  The "Law," or teachings become as vessels holding living water, not just 'rules to be followed."  But only the Holy Spirit -- or the Presence of the Risen Christ -- can teach us these things.  Then we can truly be "witnesses," not of what we "believe," but of what we know to be true because we have lived it, we have tasted it, we have seen it, we have embraced it in the Person of Christ. 

 

 

 



a Great Teaching

Yesterday, someone asked me a simple question:  When you go for spiritual direction, what is expected?  Since I had never gone for spiritual direction, I could not really answer that question, so we called over our pastor, who had just finished Mass.

His answer,so simple, gave me so much to think about:  The spiritual director is a discerning, another "eye," helping you to see what God is doing in your life right now.

How many of us, whether seeking spiritual direction or not, ask What is God doing in my life right now?  It is a simple question, cutting through all of our theology and pursuits of the mind:  What is God doing in my life right now?

We seek to understand so many things in our lives:  the hurts of the past, the directions of the future -- but what about the present moment?  Is God here, in this moment?  And if He is here, what is He doing right now?

I think of the young man in the Gospel who asked Jesus, "Master, what must I do to inherit eternal life?"  Jesus answered him: You know the commandments...." and the young man said, "all of these I have followed all my life."  So now we know where the young man was at that moment.  And at that moment, the Holy Spirit put his finger on the blockage in the man's life:  Sell what you have, give to the poor, and come, follow me.  The man walked away sad---for him, it was a moment of profound revelation of the next step.  I like to think that his "walking away sad" was not the end of the conversation with God, but the doorway to the rest of his life.  Having seen the truth of his heart in that moment, it may be that he spent the rest of his life parting with the things that ensured his physical security, but left no room for the security of eternal life.  It may be that, by the end of his life, he was truly free of the chains that bound him to earth -- because of that moment of encounter with Jesus Christ. 

Surrendering all that we have to the Lordship of Jesus is the work of a lifetime; it is not accomplished in one moment.  As Jesus said, "The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak."  Our spirits in one moment can attach themselves to the things of God; it takes a little longer for the flesh to follow.  So the young man, though not at that moment "selling all his possessions," must have gone home and taken a good look at all he owned, weighing his possessions against the joy He experienced in the Presence of Jesus Christ. 

Jesus invited him to a life of perfect trust in God; at that moment, the young man was not "there." His trust still resided in his earthly possessions and inheritance.  It was as if Jesus had given him a glimpse of a distant land which he would one day possess.  But the journey was not to be accomplished in one day -- it was the journey of a lifetime.

If we ask God what He is doing in our lives today, will He not also give us a glimpse into where we are going?  We are not yet there, but we might see the future, in a sense, of our souls.  Very few of us can see where we are on the journey, but we can place our trust in the One Who knows the Way and Who is willing to lead us to the next step. 

What is God doing in our lives today?  He is leading us away from clinging to the things of the past and teaching us to cling to Him alone.  He is the Way and the Source of Eternal Life!