A Matter of LIfe and Death

God is in me. God is in all people. We look and look for God, and all the time he is right here with us. When we love, he is free to act fully, with all of his power and authority. When we sin, he remains with us, crucified to our destiney. He never goes away. Realizing this, we are faced with our choice: cruicify him, or set him free.

God who is all-powerful, God who is eternal and unchanging chose to do this. He says so himself. "I have given you death and I have given you life. Choose life." We find it difficult to understand how anyone could do such a thing--he who is all-powerful makes himself vulnerable to our choices, and is wounded time and time again, for it is a true death that we give him when we choose badly. Yet, he who lives forever rises again to embrace our next day, our next choice, over and over again until we run out of days. He wants us with him. He wants us to choose love.

Here is the crux of Christian spirituality. The simple difference between life and death. When we choose sin, God suffers death on our behalf so that we might not die. Thus we have time to behold and understand and be converted from the path of death. Not only that, but by choosing life--choosing love--we give others a sign and a vision of hope. It really is so fundamental. We have Christ in us and we are Christ for others to see, until they awaken and understand where they can always find him.

We cannot save ourselves. He has told us it is impossible. But when we love, we turn Christ loose first in ourselves and then in the world, and miracles happen.

Into the Southern Light

I had a dream last night that I was invited to walk to Machu Pichu. It was one of those intense dreams that seem to last all night, intense, clear, thoughtfull. Most of the dream was about a teacher, a man who was leading the hike and helping me prepare. But during the dream we made it all the way to the "jumping off" point, a beautiful, sun-washed overlook at the edge of an immense canyon where a great highway emerged from the rain forest. The juxtaposition of nature, the natural world, and technology, the highway filled with cars, was striking.
     "After the first day," my teacher/guide told me, "the transformation is amazing."

Dreams are interesting things. In our world of knowledge, science and understanding we aren't at all clear about their purpose. But with all the different interpretations a few things are clear. For example, when a dream is vivid and remains in our awareness upon waking, we should pay attention to it. Similarly, we should understand that immediately upon awakening the message of the dream begins to be rewoven in the fabric of conscious thought, which is very different. It is almost like two people talking: one tells a story in a very strange language, and the other retells the story in the language of the day. The best we can hope for is to nail down the general meaning and to act on it. So, without bothering you with the puzzle of an explanation, here's what I know...

     Peru is south and for me South represents the life of the heart--which is interesting because dreams seem to speak and live in the language of the heart telling us what's important emotionally. Saint Francis describes his conversion as "showing a heart filled with mercy" to the world. That suggests to me that an important part of his journey was learning to live from the heart, to follow the heart's lead. Or better yet, to go with love and since Jesus describes God as being love the circle of conversion is intact.
     Yet in my own life the one direction I have never been fond of walking is to the South. I prefer the North, the land of the mind, of consciousness and linear thought. The South is jungle to me, tangled and rich, a place where I need a guide, the place I must walk in the company of others. When it comes to matters of the heart, I'm not the brightest bulb in the box.
     But just last night, before I went to sleep, I told Jesus again (and every saint or angel who would listen) that what I wanted was real conversion; I want to give everything to him and learn obedience... and whatever else I need. So to dream immediately of a journey south into the jungle of my heart certainly suggests a reply...
     The other important part of this dream was to find myself, just before walking over the edge of that cliff, in the company of an old spiritual guide, a woman who has led me and shared with me every major spiritual movement of my life, since I began the journey. She is a whole story in her own right and the fact that I am even speaking of her suggests a significant moment. If I stopped right here, dug a hole and erected a milestone, it could not be more meaningful, or permanent. The journey I am about to begin will be a permanent change to love.

     So you are here, April 22, 2010. We are about to walk into a green, vibrant world. There is a mountain ahead, the biggest one I know. Everything we need, we will carry in our pockets. As we go, I'll introduce you to my companions. We'll travel by day and tell stories at night and watch as the stars overhead slowly change. Its a new day for me. I'm done living in the shadowlands...

Come the Dawn

Another morning, another cup of tea. Sometimes it gets routine. I stand in the kitchen dazed. How many breakfasts? How many sandwhiches? Over and over the same thing. But in my kitchen the sink is at the window and the window makes a balcony to the outdoors, so while I work I can keep an eye on things.

Sandwhiches finished and packed, tea ready, I grab my mug and step outside into the Chapel of Creation. Immediately greeted by many birds in full chorus, a patchwork sky of grey and violet, blue and the palest unnamed tints--a thousand hues wheeling slowly, grandly, a procession for the King. I am small, I admit, and I admit I favor my smallness. But here I am for a moment witnessing the Miracle! Was I just complaining about chores? What does it mean when one finds no inspiration in one's daily work? Isn't this a crucial moment of commitment, a chance to follow the truth? Who is praised in the assembly of the Dawn? Is it God alone? Does he do it for himself?

Then why do the angels come to find me, take me by the hand, divorce me of my dishtowel attitude, my false humility, to bring me out like a Bride dressed in gold of Ophir and hand me over--skin to skin--into his embrace?

A few nights ago we saw something new: The Stations of the Resurrection, produced for the first time anywhere out at Our Lady's. As fate would have it, just as things got started, I became a little ill... long story. So for my own relief I slipped away and walked outdoors in the first warm night of Spring, making miles around the campus, through the shadowed night, alone but not alone, feeling the Kingdom, the Company of Saints, the counsel of my Mother, the hope of Jesus. Coming around the east side I found myself walking behind the kitchen. There had been a retreat dinner and the chef, after supervising the cleaning staff, was locking up. He stood in the kitchen doorway on the loading dock in his white coat, illuminated by a single light and turned one last time to scan the kitchen for anything out of place before leaving. That moment, that vignette, that image stuck with me and penetrated my prayers. For all the beauty, wonder, delight, glory of our worship there is always someone working, quietly, behind the scenes, participating with grace in the most proletariat way to make certain it all works out.

Among the Franciscans I have seen this many times to the point where I would call it a true charism. Brother Bob moving from room to room distributing clean linens. Brother Tito, crouching behind a counter in the gift shop unpacking boxes. Father Barry climbing a hill with a pipe wrench to fix a toilet. Sister Carmel setting out plates at a potluck. Everywhere I see them the Franciscan men and women, single or married, doing the most common chores... all for the sake of the Kingdom, all at the beck and call of the King. In this way, I witness the common labor of humanity transformed, filled with glory, and fullfilled in destiny. Franciscans do chores. They build up the Church with bare, human hands. No wonder people get excited. We want this, even when we're tired of it. And when it's too much, God takes us aside for a moment and shows us the big picture.

I smell the wildflowers. I feel the cool air. I see the gathering light. I am privledged to know God in the coming of the dawn. How often I need this renewal. How faithfully he provides. And then, longing for the full coming of the Kingdom, I return inside to embrace the day.

Within the Darkest Night

Deep in the darkest night, God kindles a fire that never dies away…



I am a dark night. To God the darkest night is like midday. I cannot see, blinded as I am. God sees everything, the whole of me. This is what he was trying to teach the Pharisees about self-righteousness, how whatever I do to make myself right in God’s eyes is blindness. He makes us right, he himself alone without any action on our part. “If this is true,” Peter might say, “who can be saved?”

 I am a dark night. My best efforts cannot avail, cannot reach to him, cannot carry me to him. Only he can re-unite us. Only he can save me. What then can a person do when one sees and knows one’s own darkness?


I am a dark night. There is no escaping it. This is what happened to us all after Eden. We entered a world of darkness and sin. The darkness and the sin were in us, came through us, afflicted the world in which we dwell. The darkness overwhelmed us. We became the people who live in darkness…


I am the dark night. God kindles a fire in me that never dies. He knows how. He knows when and where and why, all beyond my understanding. I cannot strike my own light. God must do it for me, and throughout this journey to which he has drawn me I must remember to ask him to do it. It must become my prayer-of-every-breath; the prayer I have searched for all my life.


Kindle the fire in me, God. Set me ablaze…






041910 8:06 pm

The Wind

     Last week we helped the kids in our classroom make kites and then took them out to the playground to make them fly. There had been a series of big storms blowing through, one after another for weeks. The sky was jumping alive so, as always, as soon as we got outdoors the breeze faded to teases and whispers, hardly enough to fly a napkin. So with ten kids and plenty of string to get tangled, we formed a line and faced what was left of the winter wind--and took off running.
     Kids don't really need much. They have faith. It is like "I have this kite in my hand, there WILL be wind!"
     And if the wind fails they make their own...

     In spiritual terms, Easter was alive with wind. We could barely keep our hats! Now we are moving into the quiet days when God seems to have moved away, or at least the wind has died. In fact, it is quiet outside this morning: sounds of traffic far away, moon gone over the horizon, not even the birds are awake yet. We go out to the open places to fly our hearts and... everything is quiet. No wind.
     So we pray. Like children running madly across the lawn we cling to the string of faith and run, knowing that we have what it takes. There will be wind. God will come, attracted by our hope.

    It can't all be pie and cakes. We wait for the return of the Wind.

Ready

Early in the morning. Cool outdoors, quiet. I'm waiting to see the blue fires. You have to be there watching because they come so quickly and then it's morning. Teapot on the stove, heating. It's just a step from the kitchen to the patio, which is like my balconey seat for the show, but it hasn't begun yet. The sky is a bowl of jelly bean stars, with the bright flavors of jetliner lights mixed in. Jumping beans. Today I'm making squash tacos for breakfast. I've been changing my diet, post-hospital. Exercising too, sort of. Today I must see the fires.

It's a cosmic world we live in and we rarely take time to adjust our perspective. Perhaps it's just too much to hold in mind, to pay attention, but sometimes, when we take the time to stretch, we can reach so much farther with our hearts and our thoughts... I wonder sometimes about the blog, who will read it, what they will think. Behind such thoughts is the conviction there is someone out there, waiting perhaps in the shadows of their own porch, watching for a single new light to appear on the horizon. That's what the blog will be: the light of a thought shining out from far away, flying straight as an arrow across the space until it hits home, thunk! And there we are, connected.

I think that's how heaven might be. Filled with infinite connections, the nights alive with thoughts, questions, wonder.

The tea is ready. The light is rising. The curtain of this day is about to go up. I'm ready.

The Resurrection of Christ

     Throughout the celebration of the Triduum I have been consumed with desire for God. JoAnne feels the same fire. But as it burned I became afraid that nothing could ever satisfy this desire, because we are weakened by sin and subject to death. Faith tells me that he can do everything, that he has defeated both sin and death, but where does it leave us when we are cast adrift on the sea of our longing, when flesh itself remains imperfect, a fragile vessel for the miracle he wishes to endow?
     Jesus told me to reflect on his conversation with the Pharisees, who criticized him for eating with sinners. He replied that it was for such people that he came, not for the righteous. But he was also explaining their own faith crisis: as long as they were trying to make themselves righteous through ritual and worship, they were impeding the work of grace. They could not know God until they entrusted their righteousness to him...

     None of us can be saved by what we think, do or say. Even when we proclaim him in faith, it is his action, the faith he gives us, that saves us. How, then, do we surrender our self-made faith and accept the faith he gives, every moment, every day? 
     The secret is to love, not the way the world loves, which is always with a price. We must learn to love with power and abandon, for the love we receive from God, is God. He gives himself to us as the answer to every challenge, the tool for every job. The secret is to abandon our weak, imperfect love for his infinite, total love. The secret to any good work, indeed the source and origin of every good work, is God/Love. Having one, we have the other. Having Love, we have everything.

     A teacher once told me that life is like an hourglass. It slowly closes in to a single point, and then, when we pass through that narrow gate, it begins to open and everything that comes is defined by what we discover in the passage. For me it must be Love. Not my old, small love, as hopeful as it ever could be, but the Love that is God himself, alive in me. The Resurrection of Christ is born into my own flesh and I expect things will begin to change. Reading the stories, I couldn't imagine what had happened to the apostles, how they could be so changed after the Resurrection. Now I think I am beginning to understand, and with the same passion that I wanted Christ, I now hope for what he will do.

The Wind

     The wind has been blowing for two days. It rushes like water around the house, sifting, sorting, overturning--taking away whatever is loose. In some ways it's a pain, but it keeps things fresh.
     I realized during the night that this blog really is a journal. It's not simply a place for recording daily events, like a diary, but a place for working out meanings, relationships, significance. And once again God demonstrates that if I show willingness, he won't wait. He sends the wind to sift and sort me, to take away what I don't need.
     Now it's self-righteousness. In Mark 2:17 Jesus tells the Pharisees that he didn't come for those who are just, but rather he came for sinners. To send me to that verse right now, only days after Easter, was a bold move. I don't like having to look at things like a Pharisee, like somebody who doesn't get it, but that's where I am. That's where I've been stuck.
     Because until I get over self-righteousness, I'm going to be stuck. And I can't get over it because I can't make myself righteous. It has to come from beyond me. Everything I long for, all the passion of the Triduum, lays dead on the ground going nowhere if I try to make it go by myself. Somewhere along the line I have to let it go, and let God take over.

    But he may have given me a clue. Easter Sunday was remarkably quiet. All the liturgies were over for us after the Easter Vigil. It gives us the whole day to stay at home and meet people at their convenience: family, friends, neighbors. No effort, really. Just some food on the stove, some chairs at the table and whoever comes, comes. So a member of our family came. She sat at our table the whole day and we spent the hours catching up, talking about politics, the neighborhood, our past year. I learned with some astonishment that she knows someone who is living on ten dollars a week for groceries.
    Ten dollars a week, in my own neighborhood. I did some calculating and realized how little that is. It was hard to imagine. My Catholic Alert System went on immediate alert. How can this be? Right under my own nose! Why wasn't anyone doing anything? How might I cruise in and intervene?
     I started making lists. (I always make lists.) Maybe if I shifted this expense for a week I could get to the grocery for a box of canned foods. Or maybe if I cut out that expense I could add a category to buy food. Maybe I could get a truck and start a small charity, yeah. Pretty soon I was lost in the thicket of self-righteousness. That's when God sent me to look in the Gospel for His word on the matter.
    
     We desire God. Our passion blinds us. We are like Peter on the mountain cutting sticks to build a tent for God. We don't see it. We don't understand. He has to put a hand on our heart, slow us down, get our attention. The desire is righteous, but the response is all wrong...
     The person in my life who suffers want is on a journey. I am on a journey too. Our paths intersect and when I awaken to their need, my heart, the new heart given to me for loving, opens to them. Can I help? Of course I can. Does helping make me holy? No. Holiness comes first. It comes from God through Jesus and it is God's doing, first, last, and always. He comes like the wind, searching for what is loose, what is free to pick up and move. Where will the wind take this bit of loose heart? Will it take me to my neighbor who needs food to eat? Will it take me to the one who lives in the street? Will it find a way to help? Will it only drop me there so that I can see and know that my family is out there, in the world, suffering in so many ways, hoping, as I do, that the Lord will come and find them? He will come. That is assured. But when He comes, will he find us there with them, hearts open and ready? Will he be able to do what He hopes to do through us? Will he be able to help through our hands?

    If there's a rusty truck filled with groceries in my future, God will take me to it. My job is to let go of what I've been holding onto, what's been holding me back when the wind comes blowing. I've had it backwards I guess. I've been trying to catch the wind, when I need to be letting the wind catch me.

The Triduum

Holy Thursday

It's hard to give you a sense for what happens in our Church over the next three days without a lot of explanation. When we worship together as Catholic Christians we celebrate what we call "liturgy" which means "a work of the people". This doesn't imply doing something independently of God. Rather, our worship is about relationship. God has done something to and for us, and it gives us power to do something with him in response. It might take a lifetime to understand, if my experience is a simple measure. Anyway, each year it is a new experience, spread over three days, and our worship is called the Triduum, a liturgy that takes three days.
     I can only give you a snapshot here. There is a moment while the priest reads the Gospel story of Jesus washing the feet of his apostles, that we pause to wash each other's feet. It is an optional experience that I have declined. Until last night. It was all I wanted to do, so I went forward and sat on a bench and took off my shoes and let a man wash my feet.
     It was an intensely private and intimate experience, though we were surrounded by hundreds of people, outdoors in candlight. The water was warm (thank you, hospitality ministers!) the towel was soft and my "servant" both vigorous and thourough. I sat with my head forward as he scrubbed and... it was like going through another door, conversion, finding a truth and following it. I haven't been able to shake that feeling. As soon as he was finished I got up from the bench and turned to wash the feet of the man behind me in line, and though I felt like the most inept servant and I may have sent him off squishing in his shoes, I was at last part of the work of the Church, the Liturgy that never ends. And I knew that while I might not wander the earth with a basin and towel tied to my waist, whatever I put my hand to in loving service is indeed a cleansing gift for the world.
    Wrapping it up, I couldn't find one of my dark socks and had to grope around under the bench while people changed seats. I walked back across the clipped-grass lawn under the palm trees and glistening candles, with my shoes and socks in my hand to where JoAnne waited among the seats. There is so much more to this first evening of celebration, but as I was lost in memories of other places and moments I haven't a place to begin. Just to say that after the washing of feet Father continued the story of Jesus, we celebrated Communion with much singing, and then very quietly folowed the Eucharist out into the desert where a small altar had been erected. The people would remain there, praying, until late in the evening and finally disperse into the darkness, not glumly or despairing, but holding our breath, spiritually as it were, for this is just the first night of our hope. The beginning of everything we live for...


Good Friday

     Watching the weather with a cautious eye. Last year it turned bad over the weekend, but this year we seem to be blessed. A large storm coming from the west split in the middle and passed by, north and south, with hardly more than breezes...
     Last night we stayed late, following the crowd from Palm Court out into the desert where a small altar had been built. We sang and prayed in the darkness in front of the Eucharist, and then, late at night, went home through the same expectant darkness to wait for dawn.
     In the morning we returned to the desert and prayed together. Morning is my favorite time on the desert. It is very lovely in the Springtime, without a hint of the harshness so typical of our area. The desert is covered with wildflowers. All the trees are green. The cacti are bursting with buds, soon to be blooms. The desert greets the springtime with passion, and similar feelings come to heart during the Triduum. It isn't simply a time for mourning Christ's passion and death, but also for celebrating the gift that comes through these events. "Unless the seed falls to the ground and dies, it remains just a seed." On our way back to the parking lot after morning prayers, we notice where all the seed that blew from the brittle bush last summer have sprouted in the bare gravel. Rosemary, our spritual companion from the Franciscans, tells us that the groundskeepers will gather these seedlings carefully and transplant them around the property. Someday the land will be filled with flowers.
     Friday passes quietly. We are off work and I try to keep busy with small projects. JoAnne spends her time around the house and visiting the chapel, shopping for groceries and sitting in quiet prayer. As the sun sets we head out again, back to the outdoor chapel at Our Lady of the Angels. The hospitality ministers need a hand so we agree to help pass baskets for the collection. It is a mix of feelings tonight, sorrow blended with excitement, remorse with expectation. It's hard to participate in the rituals without also admitting our role in Jesus' sufferings. It is personal, painful, hopeful, hungry. This year I feel different, quieter than usual for Good Friday, yet filled again with the same desire, like a flame in dry brush, just beginning to catch... What will he do next? What will he ask for...?

     A little boat on a big ocean sails far enough that it loses sight of the shore. Experience, however, teaches us to keep the compass point steady on the mark, and the boat will cross over the distance to a place where land can be seen ahead. This is how it's done in the spiritual journey as well. We spend a lot of days learning how to steer our boat--years perhaps--and then one day it is real. The crossing has begun. There is no going back, no looking back. All that matters is the steady, daily rhythm of the waves. In the same way my own journey is settling into the rhythm of the Holy Spirit. No big excitements, just daily progress toward the goal. Going home again, late in the night, we look forward to Saturday and the completion of the crossing...


Holy Saturday, Completing the Vigil

     We get up early and begin the tasks of preparing for Easter. At home it is about cooking, cleaning, getting out extra chairs, making and receiving phone calls as our family gets itself straightened out for Easter Sunday. We alse get ourselves straight, for tonight, after sunset, we return to Our Lady's to complete the liturgy of the Easter Triduum.
    Liturgy, this "work of the people" is worship. It is rich with color and meaning, sound and fragrance. At Our Lady's there are always surprises. Last night during a quiet moment I recognized an Irish tune, played behind the motion. Perhaps that's what got me thinking about boats and sailing. I long to visit Ireland, home of my ancestors, and walk the places of stories and legend. I feel the same way about the Kingdom of Heaven, only much more strongly.
    The Mass we are going to is often itself called the Easter Vigil, since it is celebrated in the night before Easter morning. Vigil means watchful waiting and is one of the charisms of Christianity. All things considered, we are a people waiting and preparing for the return of Christ, who has not left us, but will come in a way that allows everyone to know him. I think he comes through our hands and our hearts, so that the world will know him "by our love". It's a thought that shapes Franciscans profoundly.
     I think of all the people I love and miss, how I can love more freely in the days to come. That's our task: to liberate love in our daily lives, to let it's power run rampant in ways that reflect the Gospels--healing the sick, saving the poor, liberating the captives... raising the dead. This is big stuff in little lives, the way God likes to do things.
     Though we are continuing the same journey of celebration, tonight's Mass is as different from Thursday and Friday as can be. We begin in darkness, sitting under the palm trees while the ministers read, sing, dance and proclaim scripture after scripture, telling over the course of hours the great story of our Salvation. All I can do is to sit quietly and rejoice. It's like Rosemary said, "We already know the story. It doesn't matter where we sit."
    We have journeyed inside the heart of Christ and found ourselves. The passion of many years, many miles of wandering is completed. We are His now, and the only thing we know how to say is "Yes!"
     Out on the desert a faint breeze is moving, hardly a breath. It brings with it the smells of bursage and wildflowers. Now a chorus of coyotes, running amok in the darkness. We stand for a blessing and I feel the roots from my feet reaching down into the Holy Earth. The choir is singing a Native song. I do not know the words, but I recognize the blessing. It pours over us like soft rain. We reach out and drink it. We are planted in the earth like the first Creation. Everything is blessed. Everything is whole.
     Tonight we baptize new Christians and we bless and annoint new members. The journey of belonging takes many forms and we celebrate all of them. Our life is celebration. We take a step across the darkness of Christ's passion and come into the light of God's love and providence. We, the poorest of servants, are called forward to the table of his delight where differences melt away. The celebration is beautiful, made so by the care of many hands and hearts. At the end the ministers gather in the center and dance for the assembly: priests, friars, lectors, musicians, a troupe of women dressed in white, and among them are the shining candles of those newly baptized. Later over coffee and cake, these are the faces who catch my eye and heart. They are rejoicing adamantly in what God has done for them. They are the faces of our destiney.

    Someday, when the Journey is done, we will dance together in the presence of God. We will be home.

Happy Easter!