God's First Language

The poet Czeslaw Milosz was born in Lithuania, raised in Russia, settled with his family in Poland, defected to France because of the Polish communist practice of taking political prisoners, and finally emigrated to the United States. Throughout his moves he kept writing poetry in Polish, even though his books had been banned in Poland and his poems weren’t translated into English until 1973. In 1980, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature. Milosz said, “Language is the only homeland.”

It follows that those who find their home in God need to learn God’s language. According to Thomas Keating, OCSO, “Silence is God’s first language; everything else is a poor translation. In order to hear that language, we must learn to be still and to rest in God.”

Learning a new language entails focused listening, repetition, and practice. Thus, to learn God’s language, we need to sit and listen to God speak through silence again and again and again. This is how Jesus learned God’s language, by repeatedly slipping away from his disciples at night or in the early morning to sit in silence. Clearly he learned to speak God’s language eloquently, as demonstrated by his silence at his trial and crucifixion.

An important attribute of silence is that it allows our actions to speak—thus, you could say that silence allows God to speak through acts of kindness, mercy, forgiveness, and presence. As students of the language of God, we too need to let our actions speak and reflect the goodness of our Creator and Teacher, in whom we find our eternal home. 

Absurd Choices

The Polish writer Wisława Szymborska said, “I prefer the absurdity of writing poems / to the absurdity of not writing poems.” Many people consider writing poems to be a frivolous activity, given that few people are likely to read them and much more important work is always at hand. Poets, on the other hand, find it absurd not to write poems, which help us be attentive to the marvels of the world, grateful for our unfolding lives, and empathetic to the struggles of others.

Similarly, following the way of Jesus is considered to be an absurd choice by many people. Love your enemy? Seek to be last rather than first? Sell what you have and give it to the poor? Yet to persons who see all things as inter-related through Christ, it is absurd to view others as strangers to be feared, ignored, or exploited. Instead, they are to be welcomed and cared for as if they are an extension of oneself—as if they are kin (akin) to me.

Neither writing poetry nor following Christ is easy. As G.K. Chesterton said, “The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult and left untried.” However, an easy life is not necessarily a satisfying life. Seeking what is true, beautiful, and good leads us to fulfillment, and as Plato remarked, “Poetry is nearer to vital truth than history.” And Christ brings us closer still to vital truth, if we dare to embrace the absurdity of loving God with all our heart and loving our neighbor as ourselves.

A Prudent Approach to Peace

This morning at 3:45 I was shaken from sleep by an emergency warning about flash flooding that blared from my cell phone. How can this device be called a “smart phone” when it warns a person who lives on the fourth floor of a monastery about flooding? Clearly I have to outsmart my phone by adjusting the notification settings.

This event reminded me of Jesus’ advice to “Take heed, keep on the alert; for you do not know when the appointed time will come” (Mark 13:33). On the other hand, Psalm 62 says, “God alone is my rock and my salvation, my stronghold; I shall not be disturbed.” How do we maintain a balance between keeping alert and being at peace because of our trust in God?

If we hear on the evening news that a storm is approaching, it is prudent to pull our flashlights out of the closet and make sure they work. Similarly, in the parable that Jesus told about wise and foolish virgins, the prudence of being well supplied with oil for a vigil was rewarded. Prudence is a form of being alert, of anticipating what might occur; it is a characteristic of the wise. However, wise people also know that they can’t rely wholly on themselves. Ultimately, our lives are in the hands of God who is always with us, whatever storms or challenges come our way.

We can both be prudent and be at peace by placing our trust in God. Clearly this is a much wiser course than placing our trust in our cell phones!

Lessons in Moderation and Sufficiency

I have a tendency to be obsessive-compulsive, which is a great characteristic for an editor and a gardener. However, it also has its drawbacks, as I find it difficult to pull myself away from certain activities, such as assembling a jigsaw puzzle, weeding, or reading a book. Integrating moderation into my life is sometimes a challenge.

The Rule of St. Benedict is a helpful tool for people like me because it provides a balanced schedule of prayer, work, meals, reading, and sleep. Perhaps most importantly, “On hearing the signal for an hour of the divine office, the monk will immediately set aside what he has in hand and go with utmost speed…. Indeed, nothing is to be preferred to the Work of God [i.e., prayer]” (RB 43:1, 3). The expectation that we will immediately set aside what we are doing so as to get to the chapel on time for prayer and mass is good training for curbing my own desires and compulsions and placing a priority on spending time with God.

Nature also has ways of thwarting obsessive-compulsive behavior. Today I was picking the last of the cherries, and no matter how I positioned my ladder, pulled branches toward me, and stretched, I couldn’t reach the enticing fruit at the very top of the tree. God provides food for birds and worms as well as for humans, and nature also has ways of teaching us when it’s time to stop. As Wendell Berry says, “We learn from our gardens to deal with the most urgent question of the time: How much is enough?”

We have a freezer full of cherries that will provide pie, cobbler, and jam for the community and our guests. Enough is enough!

Sharpening Our Vision of God

One big impediment to our desire to deepen our relationship with God is that we can’t encounter God face to face. When God’s intimate friend, Moses, begged God, “Do let me see your glory!”, God replied, “I will make all my beauty pass before you, and in your presence I will pronounce my name … but my face you cannot see, for no human sees me and still lives” (Ex 33: 18-20).

Although our senses and our consciousness have not sufficiently evolved to view God directly, God still wants to be known by us. God gets around this dilemma by appearing to us in human form in the person of Jesus, by imbuing the world with the spirit of Christ, and by “making all my beauty pass before you” in the things of the world that we can grasp with our senses.

Unfortunately, we often place our own impediment in the way of knowing God: judgment. The chief priests and elders of Jesus’ day judged him to be an arrogant reprobate. We judge others almost constantly and often fail to see the beauty in many aspects of God’s creation. As a consequence, as Verónica Rayas notes in Give Us This Day, “When we judge others falsely, we blur our vision of God.”

We all know how blurry our vision gets when we get a particle of dirt in our eye. How much more difficult is it to see when our vision is obstructed by a large wooden splinter, which Jesus equated with our judgment of others?

If we really want to live out the prayer that St. Richard of Chichester addressed to Christ, that we may “see you more clearly, love you more dearly, and follow you more nearly,” we must stop blurring our vision of God through judgment. How? It is by cultivating humility that we are able to avoid judgment and enlarge our hearts to encounter Christ in others and in the gift of creation. If we truly wish to see God’s face, the surest way to sharpen our vision is by practicing humility and gratitude.

Splurging on Kindness

According to the National Day Calendar website, June 18 is “National Splurge Day,” which was created in 1994 “as a way to encourage consumers to go out and indulge a little with the hopes of adding a little boost to the economy.” Benedictines, and all people who try to adhere to a simple lifestyle and curb the pernicious effects of consumerism, clearly need an alternate occasion to celebrate. How about “National Splurge on Kindness Day”?

Ideally kindness is part of our daily life, but it wouldn’t hurt to highlight its importance with a special day when we are profligate in our warmhearted-ness. We can start and end the day with prayers of gratitude for God’s unfailing kindness to us and recall the people who have touched our lives throughout the years with their thoughtful support. National Splurge on Kindness Day wouldn’t require us to make any purchases, although payment would be involved in the sense of paying attention to others—seeing them, noticing their struggles, and offering them a compliment or words of support.

Yesterday Valerie Luckey, OSB, made a presentation at the pre-chapter meeting of the Federation of St. Scholastica in which she said, “We’re not called to be consumers of life but creators of life.” Are we simply going to deplete the resources of our beautiful world to satisfy our own desires, or will we choose to create a way of life in which it is easier to see Christ in each other and act with love and compassion? Splurging on kindness—not just one day a year, but on a regular basis—would be a good place to start.

Cultivating the Ability to Be Surprised

The poet Jan Richardson says we must “set aside our inability to be surprised.”

Are you still able to be surprised, or does one day blend into another—the same problems at work, the same conflicts with family members, the same chores to be done?

Surprise can break us out of our ruts and give us fresh perspectives, but we have to cultivate an attitude of anticipation and train ourselves to look for the unexpected. For example, Sebastián Di Martino, director of conservation at Fundación Rewilding in Argentina, wasn’t looking for a wild giant river otter a few weeks ago when he was kayaking on the Bermejo river—why would he? They were thought to be extinct. Then one reared up out of the water and he was able to snap a picture of it. Surprise! Wildlife is more tenacious and resilient than we thought!

If we give God half a chance to surprise us, we will notice opportunities to heal relationships, a green thumb we never knew we had, a new approach to a vexing situation, or support from an unexpected source. Is this magical thinking? No, it is trust in a God who continually makes all things new and invites us to join in the joy of creativity, wakefulness, and the promise of sustenance.