A Time of Refinement

One of the images of God in scripture is that of a refiner. For example, God says in the Book of Zechariah (13:8), “I will refine them as silver is refined.” The beginning of a new year is a good time to follow God’s example and refine our own understanding, assumptions, and intentions.

Our study of scripture shows how human understanding of what God desires of us has evolved. How many animals have been sacrificed throughout history as an offering to God? Yet in Isaiah 1:11, God says, "The multitude of your sacrifices—what are they to me? I have more than enough of burnt offerings, of rams and the fat of fattened animals; I have no pleasure in the blood of bulls and lambs and goats.” What does God ask of us instead? “Make justice your aim: redress the wronged, hear the orphan’s plea, defend the widow” (Is 1:17).

The writer L.P. Hartley said, “The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.” We need to be willing to examine our habits, practices, and customs, refining them to keep what has proved life giving and relinquishing what does not lead us to love God with our whole being and love our neighbor as ourselves.

Living in the midst of a pandemic this past year has been akin to being in the refiner’s fire—many of our past desires and practices have been burned away, revealing what is really of value: eating and celebrating with family and friends, expressing affection through touch, gathering to pray in places of worship and study in schools, tending personally to the needs of the ill and elderly, and mourning the dead with each other. Our painful period of refinement will bear fruit if we make these experiences a priority and change our lives accordingly instead of seeking to resume our former habits and patterns in the midst of a world that is being made new.

The Vulnerable Face of God

During the Christmas season we see a lot of icons, especially relating to Mary and Joseph traveling by donkey to Bethlehem and the infant Jesus lying in a manger. The word “icon” comes to us from the Greek word “eikenai,” meaning “to seem or to be like.” Another name for Jesus is Emmanuel, “God with us,” so in a sense Jesus is an icon of God, showing us what God is like.

It is interesting then, isn’t it, that the first quality we see of God in Jesus is vulnerability? While he was still in the womb, Jesus experienced along with his parents the vulnerability of travel — the threats of being waylaid by robbers or bad weather and the uncertainty of being able to find lodging. Then there was the vulnerability that accompanies birthing and the total helplessness of a newborn infant, followed by the vulnerability to the tyranny of a king who was determined to wipe out any potential rivals.

Perhaps one reason God chose to come to earth as an infant is so we can learn to recognize God’s presence in all people who are vulnerable in our world, especially those still in the womb, children, people who are fleeing from tyranny and violence, families living in poverty, and elders who have fragile bodies and minds. Are we willing to let those who carry God’s vulnerability within them suffer from want and fear? If not, we need to find a way to advocate for them through use of our time, treasure, or talent, and pray that someday someone will do the same for us when we are ill, in danger, or in our elder years.

God’s appearance as an infant reflects the wisdom that it is in vulnerability, rather than power, where we find solidarity with and compassion for each other. For example, our universal vulnerability to the COVID-19 virus crosses lines of power and privilege and unites us in our human fragility. May it also lead us into a new age of compassion so we too, like Jesus, can be icons of our compassionate God.

Hosanna In the Highest

I sit near the Advent wreath in our Choir Chapel, opposite the stained glass window that includes symbols of the prayer life of a Benedictine. I noticed that the swinging censer in the window is perfectly framed by two of the candles on the Advent wreath. How appropriate, to celebrate the birth of Emmanuel with joyful prayer and praise! In a breathtaking act of humility and love, God has come to earth as one of us, to experience our life, offer guidance and healing, and give us a share in his divinity; what could be more wonderful than that?

Then I noticed a station of the cross image on the other side of the wreath where Jesus has fallen under the weight of his cross. He experienced a painful consequence of being human when his message of love threatened the power of political and religious leaders and he was condemned to death.

For Jesus, as for all of us, birth and the cross are linked. The birth of a baby is generally greeted with celebration, but we all carry the cross of our flesh that inevitably leads to death. The good news we celebrate at Christmas is that God is with us in all of it—birth, death, everything in between, and everything to come after we are resurrected in Christ. Therefore, as we celebrate Christmas, it is right to meditate on the following prayer, known as Eucharistic prayer II:

“It is truly right and just, our duty and our salvation, always and everywhere to give you thanks, Lord, holy Father, creator of the world and source of all life. For you never forsake the works of your wisdom, but by your providence are even now at work in our midst. With mighty hand and outstretched arm you led your people Israel through the desert. Now, as your Church makes her pilgrim journey in the world, you always accompany her by the power of the Holy Spirit and lead her along the paths of time to the eternal joy of your Kingdom, through Christ our Lord. And so, with the angels and saints, we, too, sing the hymn of your glory, as without end we acclaim:

“Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of hosts.
Heaven and earth are full of your glory.
Hosanna in the highest.
Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.
Hosanna in the highest.”

Entertaining God's New Ideas

Thank goodness Mary of Nazareth didn’t have misocainea, or Jesus wouldn’t have been born!

“Misocainea” means “a hatred of new ideas” (from Greek “miso” [hate] + “cainea” [new]). And boy, did God have a new idea for Mary: she, a virgin, would give birth to God’s son, the long-awaited Messiah! Most young women would have disdain for such a proposition, and naturally so; pregnancy before marriage would bring shame on her and her family and disrupt her own plans to be wed and have a conventional family. Yet Mary was willing to entertain God’s idea and agreed to be God’s partner in bringing it to fruition. In doing so, she changed the course of human history.

Scripture offers the story of another person, Zachariah, who did have misocainea. When the angel Gabriel announced to Zachariah that his barren wife Elizabeth would bear a son, Zachariah doubted that this new idea was possible and asked for proof before he would believe what Gabriel had to say. As a result of his unwillingness to entertain this new idea, he became deaf and dumb until his child was born.

John Foley notes of Zachariah, “This kind of doubt should never have occurred to him. God's voice had already spoken love into his heart throughout his whole life…. His trust in God’s promise should have been the deepest meaning of his existence. In this sense, Zechariah was already deaf and mute when the Angel spoke to him! He could not receive the words (so was deaf), and therefore would not be able to tell his wife, Elizabeth (so was mute).”

People who hate new ideas (likely because they didn’t come up with these ideas themselves) are deaf to the possibilities God offers us. They reject the God who says with love, “I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future” (Jeremiah 29: 11).

If we listen and incline the ear of our heart, as St. Benedict instructs, we will be familiar with God’s voice and trust the new ideas that God proposes. As in so many things, Mary is a model for us in this regard, and hearing her Annunciation story in Advent primes us to be alert for the annunciations of new ideas in our own lives.

Advent Remembrance

The writer of Psalm 25 begs God, “Do not remember the sins of my youth, nor my transgressions” and in the next breath pleads “In your gracious love remember me, because of your goodness, O Lord.” It appears that the psalmist is hoping that God will have selective amnesia!

“Amnesia” comes from the Greek word amnestia, which means “forgetfulness, oblivion, deliberate overlooking of past offenses.” As I learned in my Psalms class with Sr. Irene Nowell, when God remembers (makes present), then something happens. We don’t want God to remember our transgressions, for the something we fear will happen is that we will be cut off from the goodness of life with God. And what about when God remembers God loves us? Then a very big something happens, as when the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.

During Advent, we plead in the psalms and in music for God to remember us, which is rather ironic, for as God assures us in Isaiah 49:15, “Can a mother forget her nursing child, and not have compassion on the son of her womb? Surely they may forget, yet I will not forget you.” No, it is we, not God, we are afflicted with amnesia; it is we who forget God, not God who forgets us. Advent is a time for us to wake up to the presence of God who is always with us. The baby Jesus who takes center stage in our Christmas creche reminds us of God-with-us, but after the creche is packed away, we need to ensure we don’t fall into a state of amnesia until Christmas rolls around again or until a crisis causes us to cry out, “God, remember me!”

In Our Advent Mist

The other day as I listened to a reading from Scripture, it sounded like the reader said “God is in our mist” instead of “God is in our midst.” As it turn out, both statements are true!

I believe that God is in our midst when we are living in a mist of uncertainty, fear, confusion, or grief. We can’t see clearly when we are in these states; as with trees on a foggy morning, we sense a presence but can’t quite make it out. In a sense, we are “misty eyed,” and when our eyes are no longer teary or clouded, we can see that God was there all along. As it says in Isaiah 41:10, “So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you, I will help you; I will uphold you with my righteous hand.” Further, Psalm 38:10 proclaims, “The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.”

Advent is a particularly misty season; we are aware that Christ has come, but we haven’t yet seen the fullness or clarity of Christ who is in our midst. Advent in the year 2020 is even foggier than normal because so many people in the world are dealing with the hardships and losses caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Still, when we can be present to others who are in a fog as God is present to us, the image of Christ starts coming into greater focus.

In Dickens’ story A Christmas Carol, Ebenezer Scrooge said, “I will honor Christmas in my heart and try to keep it all the year.” To be Christ for one another in the mists of life is perhaps the best way to honor Christmas and keep it all the year.

 

Stretched By God

This year the Advent theme chosen by my former parish in St. Louis, St. Cronan Church, is “Stretched by God.” I have found it helpful to contemplate this concept.

In all our Advent scripture readings, we see people being stretched. John the Baptist is called out of his comfort zone as an ascetic in the desert to become a prophet who calls people to repentance and prepares the way for Jesus. When Zachariah, John’s father, is struck dumb before John’s birth, he is stretched beyond his limited understanding to trust in the mystery of God’s ways. Elizabeth and Mary have their very bodies stretched by pregnancy, and their identities are expanded to include the role of mother. Joseph is stretched by the call to look beyond the strictures of Jewish law when Mary is found to be pregnant before marriage, and he is asked to take on a new identity as a foster father.

In this year of the COVID-19 pandemic, alll of us have been stretched in ways we couldn’t have imagined. Forget about being clay—it feels more like we are Silly Putty as we reimagine the way we work, go to school, worship, shop, interact with people outside our immediate family, grieve and bury our dead, and celebrate holidays. Most of us resist being stretched to such an extent, but the poet Rainer Maria Rilke offers an interesting perspective in his book Letters to a Young Poet:

“Why would you want to exclude from your life any uneasiness, any pain, any depression, since you don’t know that work they are accomplishing within you?”

The stretching we are experiencing is accomplishing a work within us that we aren’t able to see yet. We are called to trust that it will bear fruit as we become more creative, resilient, accustomed to living with less, experienced in new ways of prayer, and attentive to the needs of the people we live with. Living in a pandemic and letting God into your life are both a stretch, but resistance leads to suffering and loss of richness compared with the growth we experience when we flow with life’s realities and mysteries.

The Surprising Places Where God Dwells

I recently learned that our bodies include tiny pockets or gaps of empty space between cells that are called “synapses.” Synapses are the means by which nerve cells pass signals to other cells. The word “synapse” is from the Greek “synapsis,” meaning “conjunction,” or “to fasten together.”

I believe it is in our synapses, the empty spaces within each of us, where God dwells. From that vantage point, God facilitates communication, both among the cells of our body and among persons we encounter outside ourselves, thus helping us create relationships and community. Why would God do this? Jesus told us that God is in relationship with Christ and the Spirit within the Trinity, and I believe God wants us to have the experience of relationship as well. Jesus certainly affirmed this supposition when he said that the greatest commandments are to love God with all your heart, soul, and mind and love your neighbor as yourself. It’s all about relationship.

From a spiritual perspective, we can consider the importance of having empty spaces within us where God can dwell and facilitate our interactions. If those empty spaces make us uncomfortable and we attempt to fill them with “stuff,” we are effectively closing ourselves off from life—from being “fastened together” within ourselves, as well as with God and others.

In Advent, we are given a model of a person who was able to maintain space within herself through contemplation—Mary, who was quiet enough to sense God’s action within her and affirm that she wanted to be in relationship with Jesus, God’s son who was also to be her son. Mary has been given many titles over the years, but perhaps we should add another one to the list: Our Lady of the Synapse.

 

 

Looking Beyond Appearances

During the second week of Advent at Mount St. Scholastica, we chant the following invitatory at morning prayer:

A branch shall grow from the root of Jesse
The Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon Him

In art, as in the stained glass windows in our choir chapel, the root of Jesse is usually depicted as a tree stump. I’m especially aware of tree stumps this year because I see so many of them on my daily walks, as we have had to cut down more than 30 dead trees on our grounds this fall.

It is sad to observe all these tree stumps when I consider the beauty of the trees that once stood there. Similarly, the people of Israel longed for the glory days of the son of Jesse, King David, who was a mighty warrior and provided an era of peace and prosperity for his people that was unmatched by his descendents.

Our tree stumps appear to be dead, just as Jesse’s line appeared to be weakened and decayed when his descendents failed to maintain the relationship with God that David enjoyed. However, a closer look shows that tree stumps are still connected through their roots to nearby trees, providing nutrients and adding stability to the soil. Similarly, Jesse’s line was not yet dead, for God raised Jesus from among Jesse’s descendents. Like David, Jesus had a special relationship with God, and the Spirit of the Lord rested upon him.

The second week of Advent gives us hope, then, that God can bring new life out of what appears to be dead, even the seemingly dead places within us. This new life comes from grafting ourselves onto the life of Christ, who invites us to feed from his rootedness in God and thus branch out into new life.

Be Here Now

Benedictines take a vow of stability, which is an especially handy practice during the first week of Advent, when we are encouraged to be watchful and alert. How does stability help us stay alert? Christine Valtners Paintner shed some light on this phenomenon when she said:

“Moving about from place to place can be a form of distraction…. We do this in our minds as well; even when the body is still, we let our minds carry us far back into the past or the future.”

Before I read this quote, I hadn’t connected mindfulness, or being present to the present moment, with stability. Yet being where we are includes body, mind, and spirit; when we are preoccupied with reliving hurtful or happy moments or anticipating dreaded or dreamed about events, we are not practicing stability —that is, we are not grounded where we are this very moment.

Now, what does that have to do with being watchful and alert? When our mind is elsewhere, we are not alert to what is happening now, so we can easily miss the ways God is currently present to us. As Jacob said in Genesis 28: 16 after awakening from a dream, “The Lord is here! He is in this place, and I didn’t know it!”

Sr. Imogene Baker, OSB, taught the value of stability when she said, “Be where you are and do what you’re doing!” Her advice can help us be watchful and alert for God’s coming not just during Advent but every day we awaken from sleep. Then we can join our ancestor Jacob in saying, “The Lord is here! He is in this place!” without needing to add, “And I didn’t know it!”

 

God In Our Mist

Several months ago, I took a walk on a foggy morning that seemingly transported me to another world. Landmarks I was accustomed to seeing had vanished and my perspective shifted as trees suddenly emerged from the gray shroud that enveloped the land. My senses were heightened by the shape shifting that was occurring along my path.

Although I didn’t know it at the time, this walk was preparing me for the season of Advent. As Jesus said in the Gospel reading for the first Sunday in Advent, “Be watchful! Be alert!” (Mk 13:33). Certainly, humans can’t be on high alert all the time or we would be nervous wrecks, like people on a perpetual caffeine high. However, walking in the fog reveals a gentler way of being alert, as Christine Valtner Paintner observes:

“…fog…is so much like life. We really can only see a few steps ahead of ourselves. All we can do is put one foot in front of another and pay attention to what is revealed in the mist before us.”

Jesus spoke about being prepared for the return of the “Lord of the House”; in our case, our challenge is to be alert to the presence of God who is already with us. Each day the mist parts for us and, if we are watchful, we can see God’s encouragement in the person who offers us a kind word, God’s compassion in the one who listens to us as we describe our struggles, or God’s delight when we contemplate a beautiful piece of art.

It’s not like we don’t have the foggiest notion of what to do. What Jesus asks is really quite simple: “What I say to you, I say to all: Watch!” (Mk 13:37). The challenge is in training ourselves to be watchful for God among us. It might help to post a note where we will see it in the morning; “Be watchful! Be alert!” Then, as we contemplate our day before retiring at night, we can make a point to consider, “How did I encounter God today?” This practice can help us stay attentive so we don’t miss our daily opportunities to light upon our God who is always present and yet—like a tree in fog—often inconspicuous.

Keep Telling the Story

Recently I read the novel Where the Crawdads Sing and came to a point in the story where a character was put on trial for murder. I had become very invested in the character and had to force myself to read those difficult chapters and not skip over them. This experience reminded me of a bit of wisdom from the poet Malcolm Guite:

“The great thing, in the dark chapters, is not to close the book, but to keep telling the story, trusting that we are not at the end of the story yet, and that we are in the hands of a Good Author.”

Throughout history as recorded in the Old Testament, the people of God experienced many dark chapters of war, slavery, betrayal, self-destruction, natural disasters, plagues, and displacement, but they kept telling the story of how God made a covenant with them and would lead them to a new kingdom of peace and prosperity. They trusted they were in the hands of a Good Author, and indeed, a major plot twist occurred when Emmanuel, God-with-us, was born. This unusual Messiah proclaimed that when we are poor in spirit and are persecuted for the sake of righteousness, the kingdom of heaven is—not will be, but is now—ours.

Advent reminds us that even after Jesus was killed and resurrected as the Christ, we are not yet at the end of the story. We need to be awake to the presence of God among us even in our own dark chapters of pandemics, racism, and class wars and do our part to bring the kingdom of God to fulfillment. We need to keep telling the story; when we get discouraged, let us not close the book but remind each other to take heart, because we are in the hands of a Good Author.  

Come to the Water

Thanksgiving celebrations will be very different for many of us this year as we weather the COVID-19 pandemic. We won’t be able to enjoy our familiar, comforting rituals, such as going to mass, gathering the extended family for a feast, watching football with Uncle Charley, and preparing for out-of-town guests. Perhaps it doesn’t feel like we have much to be thankful for this year.

The prophet Isaiah offers us an image that might be helpful for this unusual Thanksgiving holiday:

With joy you will draw water

from God’s saving well;

then you will say to each other,

"Praise the Lord! Proclaim God’s name!"

                   —Isaiah 12: 3

The thing about traditional rituals is that you don’t have to give them much thought—just repeat what you did last year and the year before that and the year before that. When those rituals are interrupted, we find we need to draw on deeper wells of creativity and connection and prayer within us that we didn’t even know existed. The joy of digging deep and finding unexpected abundance leads us to praise God, who never lets the well run dry. Then, we can affirm with Shakespeare, “The only answer I can make is thanks and thanks and ever thanks.”

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

Keeping Our Eyes on Christ

In the novel In This House of Brede, a famous sculptor has carved a statue of Our Lady of Peace for a women’s monastery. Mary is holding the infant Jesus, and the statue is described this way: “The Baby looked out with eyes that saw far, while hers saw only Him.”

Because we are immersed in the day-to-day challenges of our lives, it is difficult for us to see far. However, Christ has the vision that we lack—the understanding that we are all interconnected, we all belong to each other. As Cynthia Bourgeault puts it, Christ “sees no separation—not between God and humans, not between humans and other humans.”

Other than the mystics, most humans see God as separate from themselves. Our belief in that separation makes it difficult for us to know the true God, so out of fear we often create an image of God as remote, demanding, and judging. We also see other humans as separate from us, which makes it easier for us to exclude, exploit, and judge them.

We may not yet be able to see as Christ sees, but when we follow Mary’s example and keep our eyes on Christ, our awareness and attention will be focused on the One who can lead us to the truth and fullness of life. Then, our external circumstances will no longer consume us. As St. Paul says, “I know indeed how to live in humble circumstances; I know also how to live with abundance. In every circumstance and in all things I have learned the secret of being well fed and of going hungry, of living in abundance and of being in need. I have the strength for everything through him who empowers me” (Colossians 4: 12-13).

The prayer of St. Patrick makes this invocation: “Christ be ever before me, Christ be ever behind me, Christ be ever within.” When we keep our eyes on Christ, we will find peace and have the confidence to say with St. Julian of Norwich, “All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.”

In God's Name

A former work colleague recently posted on Facebook that religious faith is often used to justify war, genocide, patriarchy, racism, misogyny, bigotry, and the like because people believe all this is God’s will (or see this “belief” as a convenient way to get what they want). It is absolutely and tragically true that through the centuries, millions of people have killed, raped, enslaved, and discriminated against others in God’s name. On the other side of the coin, millions of people have harbored refugees, adopted orphans, fed the hungry, marched for the rights of women and black people to vote, and performed countless acts of justice and compassion, also in God’s name.

Richard Rohr notes that the word “religion” means to “re-ligament” or bind together. The sign of healthy religion is always that it binds up, makes whole, and recognizes the dignity of all people. The sign of unhealthy religion is separation, exclusion, and hierarchy. To have integrity, people with a healthy religious faith need to publicly call out and disempower those who engage in acts of hatred, theft, suppression, and discrimination in God’s name to gain personal wealth, power, and fame. Jesus modeled this need for action when he drove the moneychangers out of the temple and called out the Pharisees for their hypocritical and oppressive behavior.

One way to discern whether our own religious faith is healthy or unhealthy is by observing our appetites. If we continue to be insatiable, dissatisfied, restless, and empty no matter how much power, wealth, or fame we accrue, we have not found the true God. If we have an underlying spirit of contentment and peace, trust that our needs (not our wants) will be always be met, and are willing to share our resources with others, we have encountered the God of life.

Another mark of persons with a healthy spirituality is their abiding faith that God’s goodness will always triumph over evil, despite temporal appearances. Jesus overcame evil by forgiving those who tortured and killed him, and he was resurrected into life as Christ. Our human life spans are short, and not all of us will see the evils of our day overthrown; however, as our consciousness and capacity for wholeness continue to evolve, the inherent goodness of God—the God who lives in us—will prevail.

Repairing the World

Today a common topic of discussion is why there is so much division between people in the United States. The teacher and author John O’Donohue has an answer: “We have fallen out of belonging.”

The scriptures teach us that we belong to God and we belong to each other in the Body of Christ. That basic sense of being connected to God and others gives us a foundation of security and eases our loneliness. It also mitigates inflated feelings of superiority and inferiority; everyone belongs. No one is excluded.

Somehow, the image of a judgmental God who condemns certain people has come to supersede the truth of a merciful and compassionate God. That false image of a dismissive God has created the illusion that we too can decide who is evil, expendable, inconsequential, and/or unworthy of our attention and resources. Not surprisingly, the people who are excluded often become angry and bitter and lash out at their oppressors. Both sides point to the bad behavior of the other and believe they alone are in possession of the truth.

How do we get out of this mess? The first step is to “Be still and know that I am God.” Recently Sr. Bettina Tobin told me an anecdote about Sr. Mary Ann Fessler, who taught her first graders that God lives in a house within their hearts. Each day she asked them to be quiet for a few minutes, go into their hearts, and visit God. If first graders can learn to be contemplative, so can we. And when we encounter God within ourselves, we are met with a love and mercy so powerful that we are inspired to extend those graces to others.

Another step is to admit what the COVID-19 pandemic and climate change have revealed: We need each other. We need everyone to wear masks to prevent the spread of the virus. We need undocumented immigrants to harvest our food and factory workers to manufacture personal protective equipment and vaccinations. We all need to switch to renewable energy, stop our wasteful consumption, and plant trees to slow down the global warming that is feeding drought, fires, and hurricanes. In pandemics and environmental degradation, we have a common enemy that unites us in our desire to survive and leave a habitable world for our children.

We who have fallen out of belonging can each choose to participate in what the Jewish people call Tikkun Olam—repairing the world. By practicing contemplation and acknowledging our kinship with all people, we reveal Christ who is at the heart of everyone and everything and affirm our universal web of belonging, which will help us create a more peaceful and harmonious world.

Giving Christ Room

Most of us know a few people who are so full of themselves that you can’t really have a relationship with them. We rarely think of ourselves in these terms, but with regard to our relationship with Christ, the question is worth considering: Are we sufficiently empty of self to allow room for Christ within us? In her book Grace in Every Season, Catherine de Hueck Doherty put it this way: she tells us to “give Christ room, not only to grow to his full stature in you, but to have a place within you to roam as he may wish, a place for him to breathe and stretch.”

It is intriguing to think what our life would be like if we allowed Christ to grow to full stature in us, to give him room to breathe and stretch and expand our horizons. One person who achieved this goal was St. Gertrude of Helfta, whose wholehearted devotion to God allowed her to empty herself to make possible the Spirit’s in-dwelling. As a result, she described herself as “happy, carefree, and liberated.” She had gained the inner freedom to overcome fear and worries and unconditionally follow her convictions.

St. Gertrude learned from Jesus to let go of her ego by being humble of heart; in this sense, she took his yoke upon herself and found that the burden was light. As a result, she had a joyous attitude, and love of and praise for God flowed from her.

Richard Rohr says that we come to know God by loving God. That advice sounds simple, but to love anyone, we have to shift our focus from ourselves to the beloved. When we let God be God in us, we are able to shed our false self and replace fullness of ourself with the fullness of joy, freedom, and the fruits of the Spirit.

Before Our Very Eyes

To be humble is to be authentic—accepting who we are, acknowledging our gifts and weaknesses, and not longing to be more intelligent, more popular, more attractive, or more athletic. Benedict says that the first step of gaining this humility is to keep the fear (that is, awe) of God always before one’s eyes (Rule of St. Benedict [RB] 7:10). When we remember that God is God and we are not, the pressure is off to be anyone other than who we are.

In our technological age, we are much more likely to keep our smartphone rather than God always before our eyes. Some of the consequences are that we are exposed to a stream of ads telling us that who we are is insufficient—we need to wear a particular type of clothing to fit in, use cosmetics to “improve” our appearance, or buy latest fitness equipment so we can lose weight. We are encouraged to seek approval of others through the number of “likes” we receive on our posts. We become easily distracted and less able to concentrate. We seek to be entertained rather than enlightened. Furthermore, social media is designed to show us what we want to see, so we become encased in a bubble with like-minded people and lose the ability to listen to and engage with people who have different views and interests than we do.

Rather than letting our phones and other technological devices control us, we can choose to recenter our focus on God, who is present to us through nature, other people, and in contemplation, not just in a 2” X 4” (or smaller) phone screen. Many of us say we don’t know where the time goes, but if we were to count the number of hours we spend in front of a screen every day, the answer likely would become clear.

St. Benedict says “We believe that the divine presence is everywhere” (RB 19:1). Let’s not be so preoccupied with our technological devices that we miss the awesomeness of God who is present in the beauty, diversity, and flesh and blood that exist outside the boundaries of our screens. Expanding our awareness in this way will help us become more humble, authentic, centered, and content—important keys to the good life.

Christ is Ever Within

Advent will commence in a few weeks. However, the coming of that liturgical season does not mean that God is adventitious! As I learned today, “adventitious” means arising from an external source, happening by chance, or appearing in an unusual place.

Although we may have learned once that we who are on earth are separate from God who is in heaven, that is not true. God is not external to us—God is as close to us as our breath, which comes from within us. Nor does God’s presence in our lives happen by chance; God chose to create us and be in relationship with us, whether or not we acknowledge and respond to that gift. Finally, if we believe that within us and within others is an unusual place for God to appear, we have a limited understanding of our worth, dignity, and potential as people created and loved by God.

The incarnation of God in Jesus is a wonderful event to celebrate. However, it is important to remember that through his humanity, Jesus the Christ invites all humans to participate in the divine nature, which is already present in and among us. There is nothing adventitious about that!

Witnesses of God's Goodness

Liturgically, November is the month when we especially remember our loved ones who have died. It seems appropriate, then, that Sr. Elaine Fischer and her maintenance crew have been cutting down dead trees on the Mount St. Scholastica campus the past several weeks—35 at last count. These trees are our beloved dead too. Most of us have treasured memories associated with trees—climbing them, harvesting their apples or walnuts, napping under them, watching them bend in the wind, or marveling at their vivid blooms in spring and leaves in autumn. As with our deceased grandparents, parents, aunts, uncles, teachers, and friends, trees that are now gone witnessed to us of God’s goodness and provided shade, fruit, and beauty to nurture us.

In A Passage About Trees, Herman Hesse says that, like us, trees are made to form and reveal the eternal in their smallest special detail. He goes on to note,

“When a tree is cut down and reveals its naked death-wound to the sun, one can read its whole history in the luminous, inscribed disk of its trunk: in the rings of its years, its scars, all the struggle, all the suffering, all the sickness, all the happiness and prosperity stand truly written, the narrow years and the luxurious years, the attacks withstood, the storms endured.”

Our memories of the lives of our beloved dead, be they people or trees, remind us that we too are called to live with integrity, to reveal the eternal in our own unique lives of love and struggle, joy and suffering, persistence and impatience. Furthermore, as a Jewish Prayer of Remembrance says, “So long as we live, they too shall live, for they are now a part of us, as we remember them.”

Shaped By Waiting

As our technological prowess has grown, humans have become much less tolerant of waiting. We can heat our food within a few minutes in a microwave oven, contact almost anyone at any time with our electronic devices, and access information instan-taneously through the World Wide Web. These abilities that we take for granted today would have been seen as marvels a mere 50 years ago. However, we have paid a price for living in an age of instant gratification; we have lost the ability to be shaped by waiting.

Most of us can look back at our life and offer thanks that we did not receive something we once fervently desired, such as a job or a relationship that would have consumed us, wealth that would have corrupted us, or fame that would have alienated us from family and friends. Waiting gives us the opportunity to mature in our vision of the good life and clarify what we need to thrive.

Waiting gives us time to prepare for a role that awaits us, as a woman begins to learn how to be a mother while awaiting the birth of her first child. Waiting also confers patience and trust that God will bless us, as shown in the stories of Abraham and Sarah who waited for a son, the Israelites who waited to be led to the Promised Land, and the disciples of Jesus who waited for the coming of the Holy Spirit.

We learn things while we wait: how to calm ourselves when we feel anxious, how to conserve water while we wait for rain, how to listen while we wait for God to speak. We also learn that we are not in control, which is an important lesson in humility and an opportunity to practice dying to self.

Although we don’t spend nearly as much time waiting as our ancestors did, life still gives us plenty of opportunities to be shaped by waiting, be it slow election returns, electrical outages, or the prolonged death of a loved one from cancer. Waiting always has and always will be one of the building blocks of our humanity; instead of resisting it, we should consider it a teacher and trust that it offers us a gift in disguise.

Be the Mirror

Elections often seem to make it even more difficult to love our neighbor. We ask ourselves, “How am I supposed to love someone who would vote for that idiot?” Elections reveal our deep divisions and feed our tendency to judge others. Yet, as Thomas Merton says, “Our job is to love others without stopping to inquire whether or not they are worthy. That is not our business and, in fact, it is nobody's business. What we are asked to do is to love, and this love itself will render both ourselves and our neighbors worthy. “

We can love people when we don’t agree with their actions, views, and values. The key is to do what Fr. Ed Hays suggests in his book The Gospel of Gabriel: “Simply be the mirror in which others can see themselves as God sees them.” When we reflect God’s love for others back at them, they are more likely to feel secure, nurtured, and generous rather than fearful, egocentric, and avaricious. Jesus had a heightened awareness of God’s love for him, which allowed him to extend compassion to others; as it was for him, so it is for us. Helping people see God’s love for them is more likely to foster their better nature than judgment, condescension, and criticism.

Like so many of you, I long for justice and unity and the unleashing of our human potential in a world that seems to continually frustrate those aims. However, we are not helpless in this imperfect, maddening world in which we live. Fr. Daniel Berrigan said, “If you want to have hope, do hopeful things.” To be a mirror of God’s love is one of the most hopeful things we can do.

We Will All Be Changed

On the Feast of All Souls, I find it helpful to meditate on this verse from the Book of Wisdom: “God did not make death, nor does he rejoice in the destruction of the living.”

It is natural to view this proclamation with skepticism. If God did not make death, why do we die?

We have difficulty resolving this dilemma because we do not see as God sees. What we view as death, God views as a passageway to a new form of life. As the Book of Wisdom goes on to say, “He fashioned all things that they might have being.” Note that the form of that being is not specified. It is likely that our being will not always be in human form; as it says in 1 John 3:2, “what we will be has not yet been revealed.” We, of course, prefer to maintain our current state of being because it is what we know, but that signals a lack of trust in God’s imagination and care for us.

St. Paul had some sense of this transition when he said, “Behold I tell you a mystery. …we will all be changed, in an instant, in the blink of an eye, at the last trumpet.” What happens to us when we die is a mystery, but we haven’t arrived at the doorway of death yet. Today, we have time to enjoy our current life as a human being on earth, with its delights, challenges, and memories of those who have gone before us. Ultimately the glory of God is that, whatever our state of being, we are fully alive.

Steadying Our Spirits

In one of the psalms we chanted at morning prayer today, we made this request of God: “steady my spirit.” Although we are living in turbulent times as we experience a contentious election, a pandemic, economic instability, and the effects of climate change, I believe God does help us steady our spirits in a variety of ways. Here are a few examples:

• Music can soothe us, center us, remind us of our creative potential, and show us that diverse people can gather together in peace. A beautiful Jewish chant that can help us remember that we are held in God’s love is available at this link: https://youtu.be/__l1fOEmofM

• The actions of other people that affirm human decency and compassion steady our spirits and remind us of the goodness that exists in the world. An example is Scott Warren, a member of the group “No More Deaths,” who was seen giving food and water to two undocumented migrants in an Arizona desert. Mr. Warren was arrested and charged with three felonies; he was later acquitted of all charges.

• Spending time outdoors is grounding because it reminds us that, like the earth, we go through cycles that always bring us back to new life. Each season has wisdom and beauty, as observed by the poet Wu-Men:

Ten thousand flowers in spring,

the moon in autumn,

a cool breeze in summer,

snow in winter.

If your mind isn’t clouded by unnecessary things,

this is the best season of your life.

Perhaps the best way to steady our spirits is to not let our mind be clouded by unnecessary things. This election, this pandemic, this time of economic instability, even this this threat of climate change will eventually pass. When we occupy our minds with necessary things—how to be loving and creative and in tune with the earth—our spirits will be steady and we will generate peace for ourselves and others.

For The Use Of

Jonas Salk, medical researcher and developer of polio vaccine, was once asked by journalist Ed Murrow, “Who owns the patent on this vaccine?” Salk replied, “Well, the people, I would say. There is no patent. Could you patent the sun?”

Salk was one of those rare people who already live in the kingdom of heaven while they are on earth, because he understood that nothing “belonged” to him, even the fruit of his labor. People who are advanced in spiritual understanding know that everything—sun, water, air, earth, our very lives and what we achieve—is a gift that is not designed to be owned but to be shared for the benefit of all.

People who live in the kingdom of heaven do not worry that they themselves will be in want or won’t have enough of what they need when they share what they have, because they trust in God’s abundance. People who hoard and protect what they see as “theirs” believe that resources are scarce and they have to ensure they have “enough,” although somehow there never seems to be enough to satisfy their desire for security and distinction. In both the abundance and the scarcity mindset, as you give, so shall you receive. 

I’ve been told that members of Mount St. Sholastica once were told not to write their name in books but to write “For the use of” and then their name. It’s a critical distinction, a reminder that this book is not mine but for my use at present, after which I will pass it on. Jonas Salk essentially stamped the vaccine he developed “for the use of” humanity. His generosity was returned a hundred-fold as all the children whose lives he saved gifted the world with their own productivity and contributions to life on earth and in the kingdom of heaven.

Servant Leadership and Humility

I sometimes watch the cooking show Chopped, in which four chefs prepare appetizers, entrees, and desserts in a competition for a cash prize. Some of the chefs have outsized egos, and I had to laugh when, after listening to a competitor talk about what a great cook he was, one of the other contestants said in response, “I like humble people.”

Being humble does not preclude being confident. In fact, humble people often are confident, but you wouldn’t know it because they aren’t braggarts and they don’t look down on others.

Image by Lawrence Lew, OP

Jesus was a great promoter of humility. For example, he advocated taking the lowest place at social functions, which would put one in the company of persons with the least power, wealth, and prestige. An outcome of this approach that I had never before considered was described by Barbara Reid, OP: “If such a person is then invited by the host to a higher position, he or she would be able to represent the perspectives of those at the other end of the table in the discussions and decisions that take place at the head.”

Humility is an asset, then, in being an advocate for others. That is a good thing to remember when we choose the candidates we will vote for in local, state, and federal elections. A humble candidate is well grounded and wants to be a servant leader of all people, not just those with wealth and status. When it comes to elected officials, I like humble people. Fortunately, I can usually find some to vote for.

Anchored in Love

Many people, myself included, are feeling anxious and unanchored these days as we are dealing with chaos on many fronts, particularly the spread of the COVID-19 virus with its attendant disruption in work, schooling, worship, and family/cultural rituals; the U.S. election; and massive wildfires and hurricanes.

From ancient times, people of faith have looked to God to be their anchor, as seen in the scriptures, which are full of imagery of God as rock, refuge and shield. For example, Psalm 18 says, “The Lord is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer; my God is my rock, in whom I take refuge. He is my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.”

At the same time, it appears that we have a God who, as theologian and scientist Teilhard de Chardin says, is at home with incompleteness, chaos, and complexity. God created humans with infinite capabilities for change and creativity, so during our human life span, we can never be said to be “complete.” We on earth often experience the chaos of storms, earthquakes, and war. Every being experiences complexity through  the makeup of our bodies and through our relationships. How can a God who is at home with incompleteness, chaos, and complexity be our anchor?

To be an anchor, refuge, or shield does not require wholeness, stability, and simplicity. Rather, it requires presence, patience, and dedication—in shorthand, “love.” It is because we know God is present to us, devoted to us, and patient with us that we can turn to God when we are feeling overwhelmed. “Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails” (1 Cor 13:7-8). God did all this for us through Jesus and continues to be our rock, our refuge, and our stronghold through the challenges and struggles of our days.

It is natural to be anxious and weary in times of great change and uncertainty. However, if God is comfortable with incompleteness, chaos, and complexity, we should have faith that all will be well when we ourselves face these aspects of life. We are safe in the hands of the One who loved us into being and will forever sustain us in love.

 

 

The Gift of Time

Is time something that belongs to us? We certainly seem to believe so. How often do we say things like “I gave her a hour of my time” or “Sunday afternoons are my time”?

We forget that time is not something we own—rather, it is part and parcel with the gift of life. St. Peter said, “As each one has received a gift, use it to serve one another as good stewards of God’s varied grace” (1 Peter 4: 10). The primary way we use the gift of time to serve one another is to “be hospitable to one another without complaining” (1 Peter 4: 9). When we give up “our” time to be hospitable—to graciously listen and be present to others—God’s varied grace has space to unfold. Who knows? We may even entertain angels unawares! (Hebrews 13:12).

Attending to our own needs for rest, prayer, exercise, and re-creation is also a way of being good stewards of God’s gift of time, because we are no good to anyone else when we are exhausted. Jesus himself modeled a balance of responding to the needs of others and slipping away for prayer and rest. Remembering that time is a gift and not our possession can help us make wise choices about our use of it.

A curious aspect of the gift of time is that we don’t know how much of it we have been given. Not knowing when “our time” will run out makes it all the more precious. As Eckhart Tolle says, “The Now is the most precious thing there is.”

All gifts of God are holy. May you wholly enjoy every moment that God gives you today!

Becoming a Master Listener

Over the years, the children of several of my friends have learned to play the violin using the Suzuki method, which entails listening to notes and imitating them. It is interesting that according to the October 17, 2020, issue of The Writer’s Almanac, “Suzuki felt strongly that he was not just tutoring musicians, but nurturing souls, and he encouraged his students to listen to other people as carefully as they listened to the notes on their violins.”

St. Benedict said to “Listen and incline the ear of your heart,” so I believe he would wholeheartedly endorse Suzuki’s method of instruction. We can use the Suzuki method ourselves to become master listeners by imitating how carefully God listens to us.

We forget sometimes how closely God pays attention to us. However, as Psalm 139 reminds us, “O Lord, you have searched me and you know me; you understand my thoughts from afar; with all my ways you are familiar.” Apparently God listens to us very carefully, even when we are not aware of it.

To be listened to is to be known and affirmed. We can offer this gift to others, as God offers it to us. The next time you listen to a beautiful piece of music, may it call you to listen to others with the same level of attention. Listening attentively is a way we can be holy as God is holy.

 

Called As We Are

Robert Ellsberg said this of St. Teresa of Avila: “She could be at turns charming, imperious, irreverent, and impossible, depending on the circumstances and the provocation.” We don’t tend to think of saints as being imperious, irreverent, and impossible. However, as Ruth Burrows notes, “Union with Christ does not mean becoming someone different, renouncing our gifts, changing our temperament; but putting everything we have into our love for God and opening everything we have to his transforming influence.”

Attaining sainthood does not mean becoming a Stepford wife—an unthinking, unchanging, colorless automaton. On the contrary, it is through our humanness that we can appreciate and respond to the struggles of others, as Jesus did. I also suspect that the people Jesus encountered were able to hear and trust his message not because he projected an image of perfection but because of his very human wit, impatience, devotion, unpredictability, and generosity.

For some reason, it is difficult for us to grasp that God truly does delight in our individuality. Yes, we have faults, but they have a hand in helping us develop courage, insight, and patience. When love of God is the basis of who we are, then everything—our gifts, our temperament, our limitations—works together to fashion a life of praise, service, and the joy of union with Christ. As Teresa herself said, “Whoever has God lacks nothing; God alone suffices.” Thanks to Jesus, our brother, we know that there is no one who does not have God—there is no one God does not embrace with love and mercy.

 

Our Borrowed Life

A song by Isaac Watts (1674-1748) includes this line, addressed to God: “All that borrows life from you is ever in your care.” I’ve never thought of us as borrowing life from God. However, if it is true that “In Him we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28), in a sense we do borrow life from God. That applies not just to humans, but to all the created world.

What are the implications of borrowing life from God? First, as Watts notes, anything that carries a piece of God’s life is known by God and is in God’s care. As Psalm 147 observes, “He counts the stars and calls them all by name.” Jesus himself said, “Even the hairs of your head are all numbered; therefore, you shall not be afraid….” (Lk 12:7).

If everything that exists borrows life from God, then everything is holy and deserves to be honored and nurtured. Everything is in God’s care, but it should be in our care as well. This attitude fosters the health and well-being of all creatures and of earth itself.

The habitats that make up our planet are by design connected and rely on each other. As humans slash and burn forests, alter the temperature of the oceans, farm grasslands, and contribute to the melting of polar ice caps, these connections are broken and can no longer sustain life. Yet we still have time to make other choices and take the earth into our care. As Sir David Attenborough observes in his film A Life on Our Planet, “I may not be here to see it, but if we make the right decisions at this critical moment, we can safeguard our planet’s ecosystems, its extraordinary biodiversity and all its inhabitants. What happens next is up to every one of us.”

One day we will be called to return the life we have borrowed from God. We are more likely to have a peaceful death if we have used that life to increase God’s harvest of love and compassion.

Hearing the Word of God

In Luke 11:27-28, a woman calls out to Jesus “Blessed is the womb that carried you and the breasts at which you nursed,” and Jesus replied, “Rather, blessed are those who hear the word of God and observe it.” Jesus was not discounting what his mother had done for him, but rather reframed it; Mary was one who heard the word of God, and in her case, she responded to it by agreeing to be the mother of God’s son.

Most of us think about hearing the word of God in Scripture, but Mary’s experience shows us that God speaks to us in a variety of ways. Our angels generally don’t appear to us in the form of Gabriel, but often they speak God’s word to us through a teacher, grandparent, or friend who helps us find our path. Our intuition is another angelic messenger that warns us against following false paths and gives us the confidence to respond to God’s invitation, wherever it may lead.

Because God’s word may come to us in a variety of guises, we must stay attentive and listen with the ear of our heart, as St. Benedict says. One of the questions I consider in my examen at the end of the day is “How did God speak to me today?” The messages that are filtered through prayer and my encounters with other people and nature are usually simple and direct: “Be kind.” “Be patient.” “Don’t judge.” “Remember I am with you.”

After we have trained ourselves to hear the word of God, we must follow the second part of Jesus’ directive and observe it—that is, let it change our lives. This isn’t easy because, as St. Benedict says in his Rule, it means “Your way of acting must be different from the world’s way” (Chapter 4, verse 20). It is much easier to assimilate to our culture and go along to get along. No wonder Jesus called those who hear the word of God and observe it “blessed.” They have chosen the path less traveled, and that has made all the difference.