Circle Dance

All of us are a part of a number of circles. Two of my circles are prison ministry with the Sisters of Charity of Leavenworth (SCLs) and editing work for WiRED, a nonprofit organization that facilitates health education in developing countries. Recently these circles came together when the SCLs gave a grant to WiRED for a program to teach essential facts about pregnancy, maternal health, and the birth process to women in an impoverished region of Kenya. Because, through me, the SCL and WiRED circles came together, the SCLs and I are now connected to a new circle of women in Africa.

I read somewhere that God dwells in the space that exists between people. This is how the body of Christ grows: circles beget circles, and the space where God exists expands in greater and greater rings of wholeness and connection. We just have to be willing to touch each other and enter into community instead of floating in our own self-contained (and lonely) bubbles.

Honoring God's Wisdom

This month Mount St. Scholastica is hosting a 10-day institute for female Benedictine novices, and I was asked to make a presentation on journaling. Although I have little experience in presenting to groups (other than to inmates in the state prison) and have never worked with PowerPoint, I agreed to prepare this talk. Why?

The Rule of St. Benedict says, “Obedience is a blessing to be shown by all, not only to the abbot [prioress] but also to one another as brothers [sisters], since we know that it is by this way of obedience that we go to God” (Chapter 71:1). Based on St. Paul’s explanation of the gifts of the spirit in his first letter to the Corinthians, I believe that acknowledging and utilizing our gifts is another way to show obedience.

Paul takes pains to explain that God gives people different gifts, such as teaching, preaching, healing, prophecy, and administration. As we undergo schooling and begin working, our gifts generally become clear; we may have a facility for math, mechanics, writing, music, farming, or child care, for example. Sometimes we’d rather not use our gifts—they may seem boring or lack status in society or don’t lead to wealth or just entail a lot of effort and hard work. To be obedient to our gifts, however, leads us to God.

I suspect I may have the gift of helping people grow spiritually by writing, organizing, and presenting information to them in a creative way. If that’s the case, I need to show obedience to that gift by accepting invitations to make presentations and retreats (within reason!). God has given us all gifts; to be faithful in using them is one way to honor the wisdom of God.

Living in the Light

This morning, the gray, sullen blanket of clouds that have been weighing us down in Atchison for the past week finally lifted, and the sun has burst upon us. The leaves of the plant in my window sill were literally glowing, and I could feel its joy in undertaking photosynthesis.

According to Wikipedia, “Photosynthesis is a process used by plants and other organisms to convert light energy into chemical energy that can later be released to fuel the organisms' activities.” It occurs to me that humans engage in a spiritual photosynthesis, for we take the light of Christ and convert it into energy that fuels our activities of loving and serving each other.

At times we experience “power surges” when, like my plant, we glow with the light we absorb from Christ. Paul experienced this glow after he was literally knocked off his horse by Christ’s light on the road to Damascus. That light fueled his fervent preaching and writing for the remainder of his earthly life.

Jesus told us plainly, “I am the light of the world.” Like the light from the sun, this spiritual light is freely available to us; we just need to develop the personal infrastructure (primarily, time set aside for prayer and other forms of contemplation) to plug into it. Then, along with Gerard Manley Hopkins, we can proclaim, “The world is charged with the grandeur of God. It will flame out, like shining from shook foil….”

Calling All the Children Home

In the gospel reading for this coming Sunday, which is Mother’s Day, Jesus tells us, “My sheep hear my voice.” Interestingly, the first voice we come to know, in the womb, is that of our mother. As children, we can always pick out our mother’s voice calling us when we are in a crowd or outside playing, and when our mother uses our middle name, we know we’re in trouble.

Furthermore, like the shepherd described by Jesus, when one of her children is lost or in danger, a mother entrusts the care of her other kids to a family member or friend and goes to be with the one who is in crisis. Mothers, like shepherds, also try to help us make good choices and guide us on the right path.

In a world in which few of us have encounters with shepherds and sheep, our mothers may be the best representation of Jesus as shepherd. Jesus knows us and loves us in the same way that our mother knows us and loves us; recognizing this can help us have a closer relationship with Jesus the good shepherd. Just as Mary, our universal mother, leads us to Jesus, so do our earthly mothers. May they be blessed with the strength, wisdom, and patience that all shepherds need.

The Gift of Stability

An important aspect of wisdom is the humility that comes with understanding that other other forms of life have their own wisdom that we need to acknowledge and respect. Humans came along relatively late in the history of the universe, and it shows in the crude way we often go about solving problems. For example, when we needed a source of energy, we created internal combustion—basically, heating things up and smashing them together—which is a very inefficient process. Nature, on the other hand, uses natural sources of energy such as wind to get from place to place efficiently.

Janine Benyus, a naturalist who studies the lessons that the plants and animals can teach humans, notes that ecosystems have three stages. The first species are weeds, which put all their energy into seeds and little into roots, because next year those seeds are going to blow away and seed other fields (think of the gyrovagues that St. Benedict describes in his Rule). Next come perennial plants that put down roots but are rather weak and tempera-mental (sarabaites). Finally, we get a mature forest that will last hundreds of years (cenobites). Instead of going from open field to open field, Benyus notes that the mature forest/person learns to “live in one place, recycle everything, and develop symbiotic relationships. The forest learns to adapt, because it’s not going anywhere…it makes the most of limited resources and develops cooperative relationships.”

Benedictines have been practicing stability, simplicity, and the development of cooperative relationships (with other people and with God) for more than 1500 years. These skills are going to be in great demand in the coming years as humans come to grips with being a large population in a crowded world with limited resources. We need to continue to learn from our much older and wiser plant and animal cousins in creation and give the human family hope by showing that the practice of stability, simplicity, and community is not only possible but fruitful and a source of peace for ourselves and the world.

Affirming God's Goodness

Upon doing lectio with the psalms day after day, it becomes impossible not to notice how often God is referred to as good and loving. “Taste and see the goodness of the Lord.” “Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; his love endures forever.” “For you, Lord, are good, and ready to forgive.” “For the Lord is good; his loving kindness is everlasting.” Why is it important for us to affirm God’s goodness so often?

Mohandas Gandhi observed, “Our thoughts become our words, our words become our actions, our actions become our character, and our character becomes our destiny.” If we think that God is good and loving, we will express that thought in words; our words will lead us to act in trusting, peaceful, and generous ways; these actions help us create a trusting, peaceful, and generous character; and thus our destiny becomes the coming of God’s kingdom on earth.

The artist Milton Glaser said, “If you perceive the universe as being a universe of abundance, then it will be. If you think of the universe as one of scarcity, then it will be.” God gives us enormous freedom to shape the world we live in. It is important for us to pay attention to our thoughts, because often we are unconscious of where they lead us—and then we blame God for the problems we ourselves have created. What we read and watch has a powerful effect on what we think, so we need to choose the media we consume carefully, for it will help shape our world. Personally, I prefer to live in a world that flows out of God’s love and goodness, and I’m grateful that the Psalms have endured through the ages to help us create such a world.

God Wants Me to Do What?

God is constantly asking people to do difficult things, as we are reminded on this feast of St. Joseph the Worker. Joseph was given a particularly challenging set of tasks: marry your betrothed even though she is pregnant with a child you didn’t father; flee to a foreign land to protect the child; model for your exceptional foster son how to listen to and obey the God of your ancestors.

We can only imagine how Joseph felt about these requests. Scripture tells us that he was “troubled” upon learning Mary was pregnant and had determined to pursue divorce quietly as an honorable course of action, only to accede to God’s request that he take Mary and the child into his home. Did Joseph feel resentful? Aggrieved? Betrayed? Embarrassed? Played for a fool? Whatever his emotions, he trusted God, which led him to obey.

When we make the choice to love God and love one another, we can anticipate being asked to do difficult things, because love requires shedding the self that is fearful and desires superiority. Joseph was able to change his idea of what it means to be upright and overcome his mistrust of Mary because love enabled him to do what God asked of him. Thus Joseph became a key partner in God’s plan to become incarnate in Jesus.

Like Joseph, we don’t know exactly what our obedience to God and to one another will lead to, except that it will bring new life both to us and to the world. Yes, we are asked to do difficult things. But as Mary Oliver asks us to consider, “Listen—are you breathing just a little, and calling it a life?”