Send Us Your Spirit

Fr. Ronald Rolheiser has observed that after any loss, we are always given new life—“but if we are trying to live that new life with our former spirit, we will find ourselves deeply out of sorts.” He says we need to let Pentecost happen so we can receive a new spirit for the new life we are now living.

The United States has been deeply out of sorts since it was visited with new life in the form of the 13th amendment to the Constitution that abolished slavery. Although black people slowly gained rights through great struggle in the ensuing years, as a whole, the U.S. has been trying to live a new life of equality for all with our former spirit, which held that white lives are more valuable than black lives. As Fr. Bryan Massingale says, “The only reason for racism’s persistence is that white people continue to benefit from it.”

As protests devolve into violence throughout the country after the killing of George Floyd, many people are expressing dismay at the deeply entrenched racism and white privilege of our society and wondering how it can ever be rectified. Mary Stommes offers the following advice in Give Us This Day: “When we…make a mess of things, we would do well to turn to our Blessed Mother. This wisest among all women turns our attention to Christ and tells us simply, ‘Do whatever he tells you’ (John 2:5). Christ is the one in charge of this household of God. Listen to him.”

And what does Christ tell us? “Love one another as I have loved you.” As Benjamin Franklin once observed, “Justice will not be served until those who are unaffected are as outraged as those who are.” Justice will not be served until love compels us to recognize the humanity of all people and act to ensure they are respected and their rights are upheld.

Mary Stommes continues, “Listen also to the Spirit, the Breath of God who loves to enter—sometimes quietly and sometimes with great force—through locked doors and even through walls. Through the barriers of all our doubts and fears.” The Spirit is equal to the task of giving us a new heart. But first, we must let Pentecost happen. It’s way past time for us to stop letting our love of privilege deflect love of neighbor and the new spirit God wishes to bestow on us.

Breath as Prayer

Photo by Steven Depolo. Breath of God Spectrum
 Hospital chapel. 

It is estimated that older children and adults breathe 17,000 to 30,000 times a day, although it is a mostly unconscious activity. With Pentecost approaching, when we remember how the resurrected Jesus breathed on his disciples and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit,” we have the opportunity to be conscious of breathing as an act of prayer, of gratitude, of solidarity with others.

We usually associate prayer with word and ritual, but Thomas Merton offered a different option when he said, “How I pray is breathe.” When we simply sit and breathe, we remember who gives us breath. We recognize how vulnerable we are when we can’t breathe, which leads to humility. We learn that we don’t have to accomplish anything to earn God’s love—awareness of God’s presence through awareness of our breath is itself a gift to our Creator.

In these days especially, our breath can carry a prayer for persons with the COVID-19 virus and other respiratory ailments who are struggling to breathe. Heather Sellers, who had been practicing how to breathe for years as part of her meditation practice, wrote in The Sun magazine that after she contracted the virus, it became her breathing teacher. She said, “It has to do with observing and allowing. Now as I walk…every step is a mindfulness meditation. I can’t believe how hard it is to allow an in-breath and gently let that breath go. There are many moments I think I’m not going to make it…I’m not going to keep breathing. And I must allow that, too. And I do.”

It is typical for us not to appreciate what we have until we are deprived of it, but we can make a different choice. We can let the breath of the Holy Spirit infuse us with gratitude for our own breath, which animates us, unites us to God and each other, and centers us in the present moment. Lenny Kravitz reminds us, “You’re never promised your next breath.” With humility and gratitude, we can set aside time each day to welcome each breath when it comes, so we can let go with no regrets on the day it does not come again.

A Grand Gift for Silence

When people are asked what qualities they look for in a friend, characteristics such as “supportive,” “loyal,” “patient,” and “good sense of humor” are often mentioned. The famous literary detective Sherlock Holmes added a seldom-mentioned quality to this list when he said to his friend, Dr. Watson, “You have a grand gift for silence, Watson. It makes you quite invaluable as a companion.”

Here is a clue as to why being silent is a grand gift to our friends: “silent” is an anagram of “listen.” People who are comfortable with silence are generally good listeners, and to be listened to is healing, because it affirms our worth and leads to clarity.

I recently read an interview in The Sun magazine with Jared Seide, who uses a listening technique called “Council” with people who experience a lot of stress, such as health care providers, police officers, students and teachers in poor neighborhoods, and prison inmates and guards. He reports that simply sitting in a circle and listening generously and without judgment as others speak about their experiences can be “transformative in its ability to cultivate compassion and reduce defensiveness and aggression.” He also notes that it helps us be present to each other and to make sense of our lives.

St. Benedict was careful to school his monks in the value of silence; the very first words of his Rule are “Listen and incline the ear of your heart.” He knew that listening to God and to others is transforming, and that developing “a grand gift for silence” helps us meet the deep longing of others to be heard, to be recognized, and to be healed. May we not overlook the value of silence and listening in our efforts to love God with all our mind, heart and soul and to love our neighbor as ourselves!

We Remember Them

I won't be able to visit graves on Memorial Day this year, but I can remember my deceased family and friends in other ways. In this poem, for example.

Outsourcing

They all prayed my father would rest in peace

   whereas he I’m quite certain was much

relieved to discover a long list of chores awaiting

       a watchmaker’s skills in the heavens

            Spinning galaxies

                           wobbling off axis     

   spewing

                                s t a r d u s t

                              were long overdue                

              for synchronization

And angels were in need of precise adjustments

       to maintain their hairspring balance

                        on the head

                             of a

                             pin

Meanwhile, my mother

     was awarded a route filling

              neglected hummingbird feeders

                     with ruby nectar

               My friend Joan assists overtasked bees

           in pollinating the almond trees

My grandmothers ensure that pies

don’t bubble over in the oven

And when my time comes

I’ll be the one who makes your

book of poetry fall open to

j u s t

           the right

                 page

                             —Jennifer Halling, OSB

The Power of Restraint

I recently watched a National Geographic program on U.S. national parks that showed footage of bighorn sheep, which engage in horn-butting battles during mating season. Given the immense force of these collisions, you would think the sheep would experience concussions, but over time they have developed horn and skull structures that protect them from brain damage. Butting horns is what bighorn sheep do, and because their behavior wasn’t going to change, their bodies evolved to protect them from the consequences of that behavior.

Compared with other animals, humans have not had to develop physical adaptations to protect us from our sometimes destructive behavior. Environmentalist and author Bill McKibben explains it this way: “The turtle does what she does, and magnificently. She can’t not do it, though, any more than the beaver can decide to take a break from building dams or the bee from making honey. But if the bird’s special gift is flight, ours is the possibility of restraint. We’re the only creature who can decide not to do something we’re capable of doing. That’s our superpower, even if we exercise it too rarely.”

From a spiritual perspective, Jesus showed remarkable restraint when he was arrested, tried, and convicted on false charges; he did not defend himself or call on legions of angels to rescue him. As he hung on the cross, he also refrained from condemning those who put him to death but asked God to forgive them.

Jesus did not attempt to protect himself because he had learned to trust in a loving, merciful God who would not abandon him, even in the face of suffering and death. His resurrection shows that God’s love cannot be contained by the grave. Jesus used the tools of nonviolence and love, not an impervious physical body, to overcome the human tendency to seek power, prestige, and wealth. As we face the forces of greed that lead to so much human suffering and destruction of the earth today, we can trust that the tool of restraint expressed through nonviolence and love will allow us to be victorious as well.

Honoring God's Imagination

Credit: brianlean.wordpress

We can say without a doubt that God delights in diversity. What else could we believe of a God who created both pygmy seahorses (no bigger than 1 inch long) and the blue whale, which can weigh up to 200 tons? Why else would God create fluid water and dense rock, colors from the deepest magenta to the palest peach, and voices that range from the trill of birds to the croaking of toads?

Somehow, humans came to adopt a much narrower vision. As architect and suffragist Florence Luscomb (1887-1985) noted, “The tragedy in the lives of most of us is that we go through life walking down a high-walled lane with people of our own kind, the same economic situation, the same national background and education and religious outlook. And beyond those walls, all humanity lies, unknown and unseen, and untouched by our restricted and impoverished lives.”

When we create, something of ourselves lives within our song, our painting, our poem, and our children, and the same is true of God the Creator. Thus, when we choose to avoid people who are different from us in race, religion, culture, country of origin, sexual orientation, economic standing, and level of education, for example, we are cutting ourselves off from different aspects of God that are expressed in everything that has being. God offers us richness and the joy of discovery, whereas we often choose constriction and fear of that which is unfamiliar.

We can choose to be seekers of God in all that has being by rekindling our holy curiosity: What does that food taste like? Will that plant grow in my yard? What was it like to grow up in Syria? Why do Muslims fast from sunrise to sundown during Ramadan?

We’ve been given a world created by a very imaginative God. The height of gratitude is to venture beyond our well-trod, high-walled lane to explore and delight in all aspects of creation with our God, who wants to be seen and known.

Our Lovable Father

St. Gertrude of Helfta (1256-1301), a German Benedictine nun, mystic, and scholar, wrote a prayer that included this line: “I sing to you, Lord God, lovable Father.”

I have never heard God referred to as “lovable Father” before. Generally we consider people who are kind, generous, lighthearted, and amusing to be lovable. Yet isn’t God all those things—the one who constantly forgives, provides a fertile earth to meet all our needs, is filled with grace, and creates goofy-looking creatures such as giraffes and platypuses? Despite this evidence that God is lovable, somehow God has gotten a reputation as being aloof, stern, judgmental, and difficult to please.

Jesus certainly thought of God as lovable. He spent as much time with his “Abba” as possible, engaged in intimate conversations with him, and looked forward to returning to him at the end of his earthly life. Jesus not only helped us see God in a different light but invited us to enter into this nurturing relationship: “Whoever loves me will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our dwelling with him” (Jn 14: 24).

St. Gertrude clearly thought of God with great affection. Because she felt reassured in God’s unending love, she was able to ask God to be her all in all, as the conclusion of her prayer demonstrates:

Be my honor, Lord,

my joy,

my beauty,

my consolation in sorrow,

my counsel in uncertainty,

my defense in everything unfair,

my patience in problems,

my abundance in poverty,

my food in fasting,

my sleep in vigilance,

and my therapy in weakness.

May our meditation on this prayer lead us closer to our lovable Father, who invites us into a circle of mutual delight.