Sailing the Sea of Faith

     At work during the week someone pinned a large piece of paper to the lunchroom wall. At the top of the paper they wrote "Things I Am Thankful For", and left it there, an invitation, or a challenge, perhaps, for the rest of us to contemplate and comment. It was an unexpected holiday greeting, a letter from everyone to everyone, or to be more exact, it was a letter from a few, to the rest of us.
     Just as unexpected, I am awake now wishing I could go back in the anonymity of the darkness and pin a list to that poster because in truth I found it difficult to be spontaneous. I needed to mull it over. It isn't that I find it difficult to be thankful, but that it seems too important to speak in haste. The comments that appeared during the week (there weren't many) were spoken from the surface of life: "I am thankful for my job...", "I'm thankful for my family..." and "I'm thankful that I am healthy..." All good sentiments, of course, but I didn't get the feeling anybody had lost any sleep thinking about it.
     For me, thankfulness opens the door to a great sea of understanding that we don't often risk. The ocean makes us nervous, and rightfully so, because we neither own it nor control it. It is big. To live on the sea means to go with great humility because pride embarks, but never returns. Thankfulness is like that. Pursuing it, following it, tracking it means going out among shifting waters. Our path disappears behind us. Past the horizon, we must find new signposts. We chart our course, but it is only lines on paper--looking up, there is nothing but the sea. That is the life of thankfulness. We go out into the immense heart of God and live in faith and trust.
     The journey of conversion is like making small trips. At first we stay inside the harbor learning the rigging and tackle. We practice our reckoning. We go from end to end and get our balance. We grow used to the sliding, rolling gate of the boat. But eventually we grow eager, dissatisfied, almost hungry for the sea. And so, one day, we head out of the harbor.
     Now we are in open water, but we hang close to the shore, keeping it always at our shoulder, like a walking companion. Day after day we venture farther out to sea, out on the rolling waves, still learning the wind, the currents, the heft of tides. It's a wonderful freedom but on the other side, the outside, there is vast emptiness, and it's scary. But over time cruising the shoreline loses its glamour. This boat is made for making journeys, and at last, as before, we leave the harbor well-provisioned and turn our back on the shore.
     I've never sailed, but I can imagine how it feels, pushing out directly onto the breast of the sea. Now everything is changed, everything is sea and seafaring, and though one is "green" at first, seasoning comes with time. We proceed according to our best skills and understandings and discover that while isolated we are never alone (radios are good metaphor for the connectedness of grace). All things working together bring us safely across the waters to our destination, land, always land. Nobody sails to arrive in the middle of nowhere. And the value of landfall is increased by the journey. We have crossed the open waters. We can now call ourselves sailors. But here's the catch. Once crossed, we are no longer in "our" country. The world has grown.

     I have come to understand, by sailing the sea of faith, that "catholic" is not the whole Christian world. Perhaps it's the contrast of new country, but I have found, across these waters, people who are better Christians than myself. It's not the card you carry that makes you a disciple, it's the years you spend sailing. There are storms out here, dangers and yes, sometimes loneliness. But we embrace them all for the chance to be free of the land, to stand the dancing road for a time until distance and the compass bring us someplace new. We go ashore on unsteady feet. We smell strange smells, taste new foods, listen to new stories, new angles, new perspectives and realize that we know the stories--we take out our own stories from our sea bag and swap them with those we meet and there, in a handshake or in a kiss, we recognize someone familiar. We know these people, and they are us.
     Perhaps we stay awhile, sharing. Perhaps it's just a tip of the hat and wave of the hand before we shove off to new destinations. But as we go from shore to shore across the great waters, we are stitching the many pieces of our world together in a cover that spans everything. Building the body of Christ one heart at a time. Making faith grow.

     Though most of my journeys happen right here at the keyboard of my computer, and though in most respects I have been a timid sailor, I can say this morning that I am grateful for the sea... and I am thankful for all those who have taught me how to sail.

Tom McNamara, Thanksgiving Day, 2010

     On Sunday, at our Fraternity meeting, we saw a short video about Medjogorie. I'm sorry if I haven't spelled it correctly but it's pretty new to me. I didn't know how big it is, or how long the visions have been occuring, or how the area has suffered through the wars and the visionaries and their priests and people have suffered. I didn't know that the whole town is Catholic and I didn't know that the shrine is under Franciscan stewardship. It's about Mary and about her message of God's love for all people, and that's the message Francis taught and we who would walk in his footsteps have the same vocation.
     But I also read this weekend that we are to find the way that is ours to accomplish this mission. Some teach, some proclaim the gospel, some serve, some create, some discover, some plant, some harvest. Some raise families. Some raise nations or raise the conscience of nations. Everyone is given the same message and the same job to bring it to all nations. We don't have to do big things. Sometimes small things have big results and maybe the best result is the change of a single heart.
     I have no great thoughts tonight, only the quiet hope and longing to be of service. My job as a Franciscan is to find out who I am and what I can do in this time of waiting for Christ's return. We are to wait like a bridesmaid with her lamp prepared, ready to run outside at His call. That's the nature of every Christian life. Preparation for what is certain. He will come, soon and very soon. And when he does we will all go out to meet him.

The Rock is Our Faith

     I don't know why I always think of these things at night. Maybe it's easier for the Holy Spirit to get my attention. In the day I am rushing, like a river in a hurry to get down a mountain. By night I am a single raindrop high on the peak, on a granite stone that never moves, just me, the earth, the sky, the wind which is Spirit all around and... light.
     This is a quiet place I've been searching for. I suppose I always knew where it was. Maybe I never turned inward long enough to feel the breeze on my face. But slowly, over time, Jesus has led me here, to sit on the stone and be still. There can be much life, much activity in stillness. I suppose the difference is that this isn't my activity, it's his. And so I take the time to step into the quiet and see what he is doing, and he shows me the Fraternity.
     From the visitor who enters our door for the very first time, to the oldest, most experienced member about to launch on the adventure of a lifetime, we are all desired and honored by God, each and every one of us. As is true in the full community of His own heart, nobody is without value, and our value is equal--the great blessing of his Heart. Some of us are conservative, some liberal, some in transition from one to the other and back again. All of us are on a journey, even if, for the moment, we are sitting quietly on the firm stone of his divine heart. That's what I was trying to understand. I was trying to figure out where I've found myself, why the storms swirl around me even here, how to still myself enough to hear and feel and see. The Fraternity is woven of people like myself, all of us blustered and driven by this current life--disturbed like the surface of a wind-blown pond. Yet this wind we so often seek shelter from is the breath of the Spirit, creating us new each moment. Even our quiet silence breathes with the passion of his close touch. It is all so profoundly intimate that even as we struggle and strive to touch him, we are changed.

     Outside the weather is changing. They say a large storm is coming. My daughter, traveling in Colorado, says it is already snowing. Here in the desert we might get some rain, chilly days, a freshening of the land, relief for the parched cactus, warm food indoors. Just in time for the holiday. But outward change is nothing compared to the change he brings to our hearts. From stony hearts to hearts made for loving--it is the answer to our prayer: that we might come to a place where we can see and know, beyond our individual weaknesses, the power he brings, the power to be united in faith, one Body in Christ where all are welcome, all are valued, all are loved. And every one of us can find Peace.

The Rule of Love

     It's one-thirty in the morning and I've been awake for at least an hour. I was going to catch up on sleep, but...
     I took four days off work for some surgery and recovery and thought Friday would be a quiet day back, just to get into the swing of things. Before noon I'd helped get one kid suspended and another well on his way to similar difficulties. It's not that they were little angels, of course. Like teetering rocks at the brink of a cliff they just needed a little push... and I was there to lean on them.
     So the Holy Spirit wakes me up for a little reflection time and I realize how easily I'm pushed over the edge myself, how easily a kid with an attitude sets me off. It's why I work in Special Education--my students have plenty of problems, but they don't have attitudes. So after tossing and turning and realizing sleep has fled, I came here to try and work things out.
    
     I've come to a conclusion that the difference between myself and what I consider a successful teacher must be love. I don't mean ordinary love, an affection for children and belief in their potential. I mean real, converted, Gospel love that changes everything--an avid sense of purpose and direction that engages the world proactively and makes change happen. It's the love of Christ who changed Zaccheus and Matthew and Simon and the leper. It's the love that set the thief free forever, even as he was dying on a cross. It's the love I need if I am to continue following Him...
     There's nothing sappy about this love. There is also nothing weak or timid or uncertain or confused. Even more difficult, there is nothing independent about this love, for it is never my work. It is profoundly surrendered to the will of God, and if there was any identifiable mistake in my choices and actions this long day, it was that I failed to go first to God, to seek and to know His will.
     People who are not on the journey of conversion will never understand that last sentence. I never understood, and even now I have to read it over and over again because the light is only beginning to break through. Francis and Clare's great love was the love of surrender and conversion to love itself, more than a way of life. They accepted love as identity. Like Jesus on Calvary, they became love--and it was all God's doing. Well, it was like getting married: two people deciding to do it together.

     Today was God's proposal. Francis found it when he turned to look back at the leper and "discovered a heart of mercy". Clare found it when she rejected her family's plans for her life and followed the one who occupied all her senses. Both of them found, like me, that it was a life-work. A conscious decision to be converted, with all it brings.
     There will always be difficult children at school, kids on the brink of failure at life. My challenge, I suppose, will be to patrol the edge with ropes of love, to go out and rescue, to intervene, to draw them back, to show them a path of life by the expedient of modeling love. It's not a romantic idea--that would be my weakness. "Love," I heard myself whispering in the darkness, "is patient, kind, does not put on airs." It is meek, tolerant, willing to see more than one side of an issue, slow to anger, rich in mercy, building slowly on respect, never threatened by the long haul. It gets better with age. Love converts. It walks with the truth in its hands. It brings liberty to captives. It sets prisoners free. There is no distance love cannot go, no trial it cannot endure, no burden it cannot take onto its own shoulders. I understand now why God has chosen for me to work in public education. So many opportunities to love. So many opportunities to be converted.
    
     At two a.m. on Saturday morning, I don't have a clue how I will proceed, only faith that yesterday will not be wasted, that the difficulties I experienced are no match to God's will, no match to real love. That what he sees, knows and plans for all of us will come to fulfillment. God rules. Creation follows. That's the plan. And God, Jesus tells us, is love.

     The long light of autumn slips across my porch, spangles through the curtains and spatters over the family room floor and wall. It is November now, after many days of waiting. Though we waited for it, longing for cooler days, the light brings sadness for the strength of summer is no longer in its hands. It is the Old Light, the light that remembers, and I am profoundly moved.
     In Arizona, summer can be so strong as to cause forgetfulness. Winter clothes need to be aired by the expedient measure of draping them over the backs of chairs. The furnace grill must be hosed and scrubbed, the filter washed. Our puppy, Francis Clare, can't resist the hose and drenches herself while I work. So I grab a bar of soap, rub her down, shower her off and leave her running in the still-green grass to dry in what's left of the sunlight. She's had her first bath.
     Indoors I'm at loose ends. I dislike this time of year, this slant of light, this sorry waiting for the inevitable darkness. Over and over I must remind myself that "there is a light that has overcome the darkness." Yes, I have to pray my way into November.
     But it's a good lesson when I think of all the things I get myself into only to find I must pray, usually to be rescued. I don't need to be rescued from autumn, for it is a season rich with celebrations. Today we are remembering veterans. Tommy put our flag up, stretched beneath the porch eaves, clear and shining in the platinum light of the all-too-early afternoon. I can't help thinking I need to go into the chapel and get on my knees--something I owe God, perhaps, or just a sense that I must be avidly open and ready.
    Tommy's birthday is in three days. We will go to the restaurant for sandwhiches and salad, a rare night out these days. I worked on the car, cleaning and charging the battery, shaking dust out of the filters. It's due for a day at the shop, a good going-over for all the ordinary things cars tend to need about the time one makes the last payment. Katie stopped in and is looking well and happy. She's been seeing her doctor and has made decisions with good results. It's nice to know she is well. Marie and Ann are both working and going to school, very busy, but pretty sure they will stop by on Thanksgiving. Then it will be advent and the sweetest season of all begins; the wanting, the waiting, the hoping, the fulfillment of the infinite promise.
     Is my heart ready? So many simple things, tidied up and stored away. A great longing has grown all summer, like a new tree in the garden, still young, but promising both flower and fruit. Soon, soon enough we will go down to the church to be received by the Secular Franciscan Order. The date has been set: June 13, 2011. And as we wait, as we prepare, all things are gently removed from our hands. At least in heart and soul, we hope to go naked into His arms, and live.

     A cup of coffee would be nice about now; laughter, visits from friends. Perhaps I'm just reacting to my time in the hospital, the necessary ministrations of the surgeon, the ambivalent results, the plan to watch, wait, take care, keep healthy. Growing, I suppose, never ceases. I am eager for the distractions of the holidays, but even as I confess it, I'm pretty sure I will turn from it. Because there is someone out there with something more for me. This is the year of giving, and the exchange will be mutual. Two-way. Covenant.

     I can feel him waiting somewhere, out where the wind is blowiwng and the clouds are hurrying, where the desert speaks hymns of praise and the flowers of tomorrow dream of blooming...

Theater of Creation

Not everything is sumblime. Most of life, I suppose, is as ordinary as washing dishes. But God is in everything and that sort of changes the tenor of the game. I'm wondering tonight how much we should be looking for God in what I call the "holy ordinaries..."
     Several things have been drawing together to help me with this. First is the presence of God in everything he created, like a fingerprint. There is grace in all of creation, and we can go from grace to grace simply by walking from flower to tree to stone to rainstorm. To annoint ourselves with the natural world is to bathe in grace, and a healthy spirit craves such encounters.
     Then there is the grace in all people, since we also are creatures and by the same action, God's grace is present. So we go from hand to hand, person to person, voice to voice, constantly bathed in his presence.
     But it is just as true for our interior life, for we ourselves are created and imprinted by grace. Every thought, feeling, emotion, understanding makes God present. Granted, we need faith sometimes to believe it, but it means that as long as we have breath, we have God.
     So the spirit life needs nature, community and contemplation, to say the least. But I am never content with groups of three; I always look for the fourth, the completing element. And tonight I would have to say that the one other thing that is essential is God himself. No containers, no patterns, no plans or strategies. For faith to grow there must be undefended encounter with God. Direct encounter. The Old Testament writers warned against any attempt to do such a thing, as the encounter would mean death. But our saints tell us it is possible, not only possible, but destined. If not in the daily fabric of our lives, then eventually. Thomas Merton said it well when he said "There comes a time in ever man's life when he must stand on his own two feet in the presence of God."
     What this says to us, is that God wants to be intimate with us. To touch us without any protections, any barriers or distances. I think this touch comes in infinite forms, that anyone can have it but that we'd better abandon our predictions about what it will be like. Remember, God is present to us in things, people, even in our own selves. So what are we to do the day He steps out of the theater of creation and shows himself plainly?

     I think the best plan is to live in such a way as to be able to say, "I was expecting you..."
  

Where do I find God?

Sex is not a bad thing, but God has given us boundaries because of the life that comes through intimacy. Now, that being said, it occurs to me that life comes through every kind of intimacy. Blessed are those who understand this.

A hug is a moment of intimacy that brings life.
A conversation is a moment of intimacy that brings life.
Planting a flower is a moment of intimacy.
Sharing a meal is a moment of intimacy.

It goes on, and it is a worthy experience to contemplate life in this way. All life comes through intimacy. There cannot be life, where we do not touch.

I bring this to the table because of the Gospel yesterday in which Jesus teaches us that God is the God of the living, not the dead. I saw in one commentary these words: "To God, everything is alive."
     These are profound words because they mean in every direction we turn, in every encounter, we find life. But we have to be there. There has to be vulnerability. We have to touch life and allow it to touch us.
     Now consider this: it works both ways. We can open up to life, go out to meet it, let it touch us and in the encounter we can receive intimacy. But we can also go out to life, we can touch it, and in that gift we can give intimacy. And into every one of those encounters, life comes. Not through, but into. Present. Active. Now.
     Every ringing step, every thrilling breath, every sight, sound, beat of our heart, is filled with life. We are made intimate with Creation which God made good and alive. And so, as we awaken to this truth, we are changed. We become alive too, and life is in us--the life which is God.

    I have searched for God and God is helping me to find him. But today, when I go out to get the paper, when I meet my neighbor, when I pick a stone out of the yard or admire the autumn flowers--I am having intimacy with God, and God is making life in me.
     Perhaps this is why Francis loved Mary so much.

I'm sorry I haven't written lately. It's been a little busy; October is always busy in Arizona as we come out and begin living again after the heat of Summer. We had a lot happening, not the least of which was a visit from the NAFRA leadership for their annual convocation. (see http://www.nafra-sfo.org/ ) We were helping out with little things like taking tickets and serving cake, but they swept us into their events and experiences as though we were important people. I didn't know how to handle myself so I kept smiling and kept shaking hands. I think it helped since many of them were visiting Arizona for the first time and wondered "how we arranged such nice weather..." The truth is, we're having a drought so the Autumn rains have kept far away.
     But the thing I wanted to talk about tonight is a book that came into my hands at the school where I work. It is called "Willow" and it was written by Denise Brennan-Nelson and Rosmarie Brennan and it was illustrated by Cyd Moore. It is a story about an Art teacher who learns to let go of her art, a decision that liberates the creative power locked inside of her. It's a children's story, but I think as parables go, it's a good story for all of us.
    As an artist and a writer I know what it feels like to have inspiration locked up inside and no way to let it out. The answer seems simple enough. You just have to trust the art, trust it to create it's own path, trust it to live it's own life and not consume you.
    But artists know this inner force as a fire with such power that... well, it's scary. It takes us over and commands us to work all night in the grip of the creative impulse. John Paul II said it is "a sharing in the Eighth commandment; a commission to 'tell the truth' about the world and it's inherent beauty." Not a bad task for a Franciscan, I would say.
    But all my life I've been hiding the light, allowing only glimmers to escape before clamping down the lid and forcing myself to look and behave like everyone else. In "Willow", the art teacher, Miss Hawthorn, was cold and alienated from her world by the wall she built between herself and her art. There is risk to the vocation of truth-telling.

     And tonight, it reminds me of the Christian call to trust Jesus beyond all our wants and all our fears. That kind of courage, that kind of trust is what an artist must grasp to be fulfilled in their work. It's the kind of courage anyone must have to find and follow their vocation, for every work is sourced and completed in Christ. Those who wish to walk with him must take up the life He has given them, and live it to the fullest. In the living of that life, we are brought to completion.
     So here's to Miss Hawthorn who was brave enough to let go, and to little Willow who was alive enough to show her the truth. May we all have such angels when we need them.