The Book of Life

When we are born, our name is written in the book of life — and what is the book of life but the life of God, whose presence infuses all things?

There are many ways in which God is like a book, as I realized when I read the following description of books by Frederick Buechner:

“Something of what they contain gets into the air you breathe…. They are prepared to give you all they’ve got at a moment’s notice, but are in no special hurry about it…. They are giving you their eloquent and inexhaustible silence. They are giving you time to find your way to them. Maybe they are giving you time, with or without them, just to find your way.”

As with books, something of what God contains gets into the air we breathe, because we are inspirited by the breath of God (see Genesis 2:7, Job 33:4, and John 20: 22). Like a book, God waits for our attention and then, at a moment’s notice, utterly enfolds us. Both books and God give us eloquent and inexhaustible silence and time to find our way to them. Even when we don’t seek their companionship, God, like a book, gives us time to find our way.

The books sitting on our shelves issue a continual, gentle invitation to explore their contents. Jesus does the same when, as the Word made flesh, he persists in inviting us to follow him, saying, “…learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls” (Mt 11:29). There is no need to read between the lines with words as straightforward as that.

The Way to Peace

For most people, it seems like there is no middle ground between overconfidence and lack of confidence. Either we believe we know what is best and don’t need help from anyone else, let alone God, or we live in a constant state of low-level anxiety about our ability to be successful in our work and relationships.

It is our relationship with God that helps us find a middle ground between pride and false humility. It is an honor to be entrusted by God with the task of raising a family, teaching, or the like, but as Susan Quaintance, OSB, has noted, “…the one who is asking is also the one who is providing the grace and strength and creativity to do the job. I am not in charge of the big picture, of the how, of the outcome. Taking my fragile ego out of the equation makes it possible not to be afraid.”

The way to peace is to do our best — not more than our best, which is a sign of pride and leads to exhaustion, or less than our best, which is a sign of fearfulness and anxiety — and then let go of the outcome. In his book The Five Agreements, Don Miguel Ruiz says, “Doing your best is going to change from moment to moment; it will be different when you are tired as opposed to well rested. Under any circumstance, simply do your best and you will avoid self-judgment, self-abuse, and regret.”

Dan Schutte has written a beautiful song, These Alone Are Enough, that includes the following lyrics: “Give me nothing more than your love and grace. These alone, O God, are enough for me.” God’s wellspring of love and grace is inexhaustible. The question is whether we truly believe that is enough for us.

What Makes Us Human

On Valentine’s Day, I found myself at Union Station in Kansas City at the exhibit “Not Long Ago. Not Far Away” about the Nazi concentration camp at Auschwitz. You might think that this exhibit, which provides an extensive look at the suffering and genocide of millions of people, has little to do with the celebration of love. You would be wrong.

The exhibit includes stories of people who, in the midst of the most dehumanizing circumstances imaginable, clung to the part of their humanity that could not be stripped of them: the choice to love. One young Jewish mother who was selected to be a laborer chose instead to accompany her disabled son to the gas chamber so he wouldn’t face death alone. Another woman risked punishment by hiding her tin engagement ring, sometimes under her tongue, throughout her imprisonment. The Polish priest Maximilian Kolbe volunteered to die in place of Franciszek Gajowniczek, a married man with children.

Camp survivor Edith Eger said, “We were a family of inmates, we had to care for each other. If you were just for the me, me, me, you never made it.” Similarly, Mindu Hornick said, “It's a notorious thing that people in the camps survived in pairs, or because some other people were taking care of them. When people say, how did you survive? We lived for each other.”

Barry Lopez wrote, “It is through story that we embrace the great breadth of memory, that we can distinguish what is true, and that we may glimpse, at least occasionally, how to live without despair in the midst of the horror that dogs and unhinges us.” The stories that emerged from the camp at Auschwitz, despite the Nazi attempt to silence them, help us distinguish what is true: All people have value. Hatred is what makes people inhuman, not their bloodline, religious/cultural beliefs, or sexual orientation. We are mutually dependent on each other for our survival. And, most important of all: Love is imperishable.

Inspiring Others to a Greater Love

I’ve been swept up in a lot of memories this past week, because February 7 is my father’s death anniversary, February 8 is my parent’s wedding anniversary, and February 10 is the Feast of St. Scholastica, patroness of my community at Mount St. Scholastica. It is appropriate to reflect on their lives as Valentine’s Day approaches, because their legacy of love continues to guide me.

My dad’s love of God and his family was the guiding light of his life, and I was fortunate to have parents who modeled mutual devotion, respect, and companionship in their marriage. As for St. Scholastica, she famously challenged her brother, St. Benedict, to put love above the letter of the law when she asked him to prolong their last visit together instead of returning to his monastery for the night. When he refused, she prayed and God granted her request by sending a fierce thunderstorm that prevented Benedict from leaving. As St. Gregory remarked in his Dialogues, “Surely it is no more than right that her influence was greater than his, since hers was the greater love.”

We know that Jesus valued love above all else, because he observed that the greatest commandment is to love God with all our mind, heart, and soul and to love others as ourselves. Thus the finest use of our lives is to inspire others to a greater love, even after we die.

I’m reminded of the story of a woman who said to her husband, who was dying, “Moe, how am I supposed to live without you?” He responded, “Take the love you have for me and spread it around.” That is what the disciples of Jesus did after his death, and that is the best way to honor our own deceased loved ones, so that the unfolding of time and space will continue to be impregnated with their love, and ours.

A Long, Loving Look at the Real

Fr. Walter Burghardt, SJ, said that contemplation is to take “a long, loving look at the real.” Those of us who want a fuller sense of who God really is can take two approaches to our looking. The first is known as the “path of images” where we use our senses — sight, sound, smell, touch — to catch a glimpse of God. In this way artists can reveal the sacred through visual arts, poetry, music, dance, and culinary or gardening skills. People who feel close to God in nature are looking at God through the path of images — trees, mountains, seas, sky, animals, plants. Liturgy is another example of the path of images because of its use of symbols, ritual gestures, and the presentation of ideas through scripture readings.

A second approach to looking at the real is just the opposite: it is to let go of our dependence on thoughts, words, and images, because although these things can point to God, they cannot contain the fullness of God. Just as a cup that is full is limited in its ability to receive anything new, we become limited in our receptivity to new understandings of God when we become overly dependent on our senses. Thus the counterbalance to the path of images is the path of receptivity through silence, emptiness, absence, darkness, and poverty.

We need a balance between these ways of looking to find the presence of God. Jesus demonstrated this when he was approached by a rich young man who wanted to know what he should do to achieve eternal life with God. Because of his wealth, the young man had easy access to the path of images through art, fine linens, rich food, and the like. However, this sensory overload kept him from having a deeper sense of God through silence and emptiness. That is why Jesus told him to sell all his possessions and follow him. And the young man went away sad, just as we do when we are invited to relinquish our preferred way of looking through our senses and enhance our receptivity through absence, darkness, unknowing, emptiness, silence, and poverty.

During the pandemic, most of us have been forced to spend some time on the path of receptivity. Many people have found the experience painful because they are usually so awash in sensory input that they don’t know how to deal with quiet, waiting, and nonproductivity. This illustrates why we need to achieve a balance between the path of images and the path of receptivity; both ways are necessary in our quest to become aware of the presence of God. Holding on to either path too tightly leads to an unhealthy attachment to the pleasures of our senses or self-absorption when we spend too much time apart from others.

St. Benedict shows us the way to achieve this balance through a life of moderation — setting aside time each day for lectio divina and silent prayer (the path of receptivity) and time for work (including creative endeavors and outdoor labor), eating meals, and being with others (the path of images). When we adopt this approach, we will enjoy a fruitful life in God’s presence through our balanced practice of taking a long, loving look at the real.

We Will All Be Changed

In anticipation of making perpetual vows, I was asked to fill out a biographical data sheet for the Mount files. Most of the information requested was straightforward, except for one question: What is your favorite quote from scripture? This quote will appear on my prayer card when I die, so it bears careful consideration. It will reflect what delights me about God and provide a message of sorts for the people I leave behind.

The Bible includes many beautiful and insightful passages I could choose about God’s love, faithfulness, and mercy; our connection to each other through Christ; the wonders of creation; and our call to live with gratitude. The simple verse I kept coming back to, though, was this: “Behold, I make all things new” (Rev 21: 5).

I don’t believe that God’s love for me will come to an end when my body dies. No, my invitation to share in the love between the Source of All Being, Eternal Word, and Holy Spirit is eternal — and thus, my death will lead to new life in Christ. The Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh said, “Thanks to impermanence, everything is possible.” If I didn’t die, I wouldn’t have the possibility of new life, and having seen so much evidence of God’s creativity, I have no doubt that “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no heart has imagined, what God has prepared for those who love God.”

So there you go. You don’t need to wait until I die to take my final message to heart: At death, our life does not end but is made new. Do not fear but trust in the creativity and infinite love of Emmanuel — God who is forever with us.

Listening as a Spiritual Discipline

James Joyce with his grandchild,
Stephen James

The writer James Joyce would have been a good Benedictine. I know this not because of his writings but because of the following observation by Sylvia Beach, who said that Joyce "[T]reated people invariably as his equals, whether they were writers, children, waiters, princesses, or charladies. What anybody had to say interested him; he told me that he had never met a bore. ... If he arrived in a taxi, he wouldn't get out until the driver had finished what he was saying.”

It appears that Joyce had the gift of “listening with the ear of his heart,” as St. Benedict counseled. This type of listening is an important spiritual discipline, because it prepares us to be aware of God’s presence in every person we meet. When we listen to everyone, as Joyce did, we are not surprised to encounter God in a waiter, a child, or a taxi driver.

Today is the Feast of the Presentation, when aged Simeon and Anna recognized that the infant Jesus was the Lord’s Messiah. After years of prayer and fasting, watching and listening, they were prepared to recognize this unlikely manifestation of God’s presence. In Give Us This Day, Harry P. Nasuti asks, “Are we … prepared enough to be surprised by the unexpected ways in which God becomes present among us?” The discipline of nonjudgmental listening is an important tool in our preparation.