Twelve days, many miles. So much to say, so few words. It seems at this time when so much is happening my job is to remain quiet, or to say little. Sometimes words create a fog that makes it hard to see. Sometimes fog is good. Except when you're trying to get somewhere.
The lessons are about trust, and I'm about as good at it as I am at ice-skating. Fortunately in Phoenix there isn't a lot of ice to deal with. Spiritually, I'm not sure what I'm dealing with. As far as we can tell, out of our original group of almost fourteen Inquirers, we are down to three remaining Candidates, and I admit I feel disappointed. It's like starting out walking to a great celebration, but day-by-day the group gets smaller until there are only a few. It seems harder to celebrate when your companions are gone. I wish everyone had kept a journal. Then we could compare notes and get a better picture of the journey. But all we have is this, and I've been distracted.
Our daily prayer is so important. When we miss--being to busy or otherwise interrupted--I miss it. Praying is like taking a trip, a vacation. It relaxes me. Meditation comes in the evening, or in the night. We've been teaching on weekends, that's keeping us pretty busy with the planning and communicating, more to worry about. I've been changing my diet and exercising, more adjustments. It's like springtime and the garden is being overturned. I think that's God's doing as he prepares to plant new things. It makes me wonder if a garden feels naked, this time of year. I do. And as the Franciscan world opens up before us, it just keeps getting bigger and bigger, and we crave a good guide.
So we try to support each other, our little community here at home, try to listen to the others. Our Fraternity is organizing for elections this Spring and that's distracting, everyone running around with so much to do and it's like "Waiter! Oh Waiter...!" We're not the Princesses in this story. Nobody expects us to stand in the limelight. Rather, it's time for us to take up a dishtowel and pitch in. Plenty of work for everybody.
I've been thinking of Brother Damian lately (Benedictine Abbey, Shawnee) and how he goes to a place in the church where there is a cabinet filled with relics. He prays there, in the candelight, in the company of our family, in the quiet and peace. I guess I can be a little jealous. I have a corner in our bedroom, an old chair, and a picture of Saint Theresa. Same family...
Peace eludes me today. There is a storm in the distance, moving away, like a trainload of sweetness that won't be stopping. Our depot is small, rarely noticed. And I'm never quite certain whether I should be grateful... I suppose it's best to keep praying. Waiting, and writing, are part of the journey too.
I've placed it in His hands. The results will appear in their time... Still, I feel the Saints so close around me. Perhaps I have lost my eyes to see them and it is time to be led, in love. Does the Lord know that his bride is blind now, and helpless?
Thursday, February 17, 2011
Thursday, February 3, 2011
There are, of course, many things God wants to give us. I've heard at least one writer describe grace as "infinite piles" largely unused. So when a person gives their heart to God, is it reasonable to expect perhaps overwhelming abundance? My favorite so far is the abundance of mercy. Only God can truly sort out our tangled hearts, and he is willing to do it. But we... oh my! The process can be overwhelming as we realize the truth in everything we've heard. I don't know which stories I prefer, but it boils down something like this...
At about the end of the First Millenium, the identity of our Church was solidifying, emerging from the military dominance of the Roman Empire and it's necessary aftermath. There were two "schools" of theology, one in the urban centers and one in the country. Saint Augustine appealed to the urban sense of order and design. His theology was similarly ordered, with faith growing in steps and stages, largely through superhuman efforts aimed at mastering the "base urges" of our nature. The other school emerged from many sources almost simultaneously. Saint Patrick epitomizes this other perspective by rejecting his own identity as Roman and embracing the identity of the Irish, who were rooted in Celtic nature-mysticism. This second school was very human and by association saw in most human experiences a natural grace and dignity. The two schools, of course, did not integrate well and as Patrician teaching spread through the world, it came into conflict with Augustinian definitions. A choice had to be made, and the Partrician school bowed to the wishes of Roman law and order. Augustine and thinkers like him became the "rule" of Catholicism and we spent the Second Milennium under the constraints of crime and punishment, with God as the High Judge. Meanwhile, Patrician sensitivities were sublimated, imitating the relationship between male and female thinking in so many other arenas. Patrician openness and acceptance was tolerated as necessary to the promotion of the species, but expected to be burned away in the high fires of spritual perfection. This, of course, did not happen.
It seems to me that if Augustine was black and white about faith, Patrick allowed for many shades of gray. But now we are walking into our Third Millennium, ante Deum, and what we are looking at is something like what my computer calls "millions of colors". Right now we are seeing in Egypt a rebellion driven by the desire to be truly free. That same desire, expressed with infinitely more power and urgency, will drive us beyond the artificial boundaries we have erected in the name of preserving faith. Real faith needs no such attention from us, for it originates from and is preserved by the very nature of God. What we are expecting now is the unification of millions of expressions of faith around a few key concepts. Two of these keys are found in Franciscan life: we are to live the Gospel. Consider it carefully. We are to LIVE and we are to GOSPEL.
To live our human nature and all of it's expressions is well-within the life of Christ, for he is human! The meaning and potential of human life will find its fullest expression in Christ. United in Christ, we will finally understand the unity of our human experience.
To Gospel, (think of it as a verb)is also the life of Christ. For as John Paul II said, "Christ is equally present in the Gospel as in the Eucharist." That means that as we receive the life of Christ when we eat the bread he has given (eucharist) so we receive his life when we read and do his word (gospel). Every way we turn, it's about receiving and living the life of Christ--not just the saint-heros, but all of us, every day!
The trick is to understand that none of what we do in faith is done on our sole initiative, but every act of faith is first inspired and consequently empowered by grace. And this without cost to our freedom!
Our hope, then, and our great treasure, is that every act of human love in every expression is a sharing in the nature of God. In this way all of human life is affirmed, and no one can be diminished.
We need, of course, to grow in our understanding. This too is a work of grace and will be accomplished in God's time. But as he said through his prophets "if today you hear his voice, harden not your heart". It makes no sense to go back to the past. God has moved forward and wants us to come with him.
We need each other. We need each other's kindness and faith. It is our history as Church to share the Good News. We must continue in this path, but it is time to recognize that God calls his servants and witnesses from all places and times. Nobody has ownership of the Holy Spirit. We must acknowledge that "God's mind is not our mind". But we can know for certain that he loves us, and I don't know about you, but I'm beginning to understand that if he loves me, he can love anybody.
Peace and Good.
At about the end of the First Millenium, the identity of our Church was solidifying, emerging from the military dominance of the Roman Empire and it's necessary aftermath. There were two "schools" of theology, one in the urban centers and one in the country. Saint Augustine appealed to the urban sense of order and design. His theology was similarly ordered, with faith growing in steps and stages, largely through superhuman efforts aimed at mastering the "base urges" of our nature. The other school emerged from many sources almost simultaneously. Saint Patrick epitomizes this other perspective by rejecting his own identity as Roman and embracing the identity of the Irish, who were rooted in Celtic nature-mysticism. This second school was very human and by association saw in most human experiences a natural grace and dignity. The two schools, of course, did not integrate well and as Patrician teaching spread through the world, it came into conflict with Augustinian definitions. A choice had to be made, and the Partrician school bowed to the wishes of Roman law and order. Augustine and thinkers like him became the "rule" of Catholicism and we spent the Second Milennium under the constraints of crime and punishment, with God as the High Judge. Meanwhile, Patrician sensitivities were sublimated, imitating the relationship between male and female thinking in so many other arenas. Patrician openness and acceptance was tolerated as necessary to the promotion of the species, but expected to be burned away in the high fires of spritual perfection. This, of course, did not happen.
It seems to me that if Augustine was black and white about faith, Patrick allowed for many shades of gray. But now we are walking into our Third Millennium, ante Deum, and what we are looking at is something like what my computer calls "millions of colors". Right now we are seeing in Egypt a rebellion driven by the desire to be truly free. That same desire, expressed with infinitely more power and urgency, will drive us beyond the artificial boundaries we have erected in the name of preserving faith. Real faith needs no such attention from us, for it originates from and is preserved by the very nature of God. What we are expecting now is the unification of millions of expressions of faith around a few key concepts. Two of these keys are found in Franciscan life: we are to live the Gospel. Consider it carefully. We are to LIVE and we are to GOSPEL.
To live our human nature and all of it's expressions is well-within the life of Christ, for he is human! The meaning and potential of human life will find its fullest expression in Christ. United in Christ, we will finally understand the unity of our human experience.
To Gospel, (think of it as a verb)is also the life of Christ. For as John Paul II said, "Christ is equally present in the Gospel as in the Eucharist." That means that as we receive the life of Christ when we eat the bread he has given (eucharist) so we receive his life when we read and do his word (gospel). Every way we turn, it's about receiving and living the life of Christ--not just the saint-heros, but all of us, every day!
The trick is to understand that none of what we do in faith is done on our sole initiative, but every act of faith is first inspired and consequently empowered by grace. And this without cost to our freedom!
Our hope, then, and our great treasure, is that every act of human love in every expression is a sharing in the nature of God. In this way all of human life is affirmed, and no one can be diminished.
We need, of course, to grow in our understanding. This too is a work of grace and will be accomplished in God's time. But as he said through his prophets "if today you hear his voice, harden not your heart". It makes no sense to go back to the past. God has moved forward and wants us to come with him.
We need each other. We need each other's kindness and faith. It is our history as Church to share the Good News. We must continue in this path, but it is time to recognize that God calls his servants and witnesses from all places and times. Nobody has ownership of the Holy Spirit. We must acknowledge that "God's mind is not our mind". But we can know for certain that he loves us, and I don't know about you, but I'm beginning to understand that if he loves me, he can love anybody.
Peace and Good.
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