Saturday Morning, 3 a.m.

     It's the quiet time. In the old days it was a formal time of prayer when the brothers or sisters would gather to celebrate the Word of God. Everything begins with the Word. It is the Eternal God, our source.
   If I had to pick something to show you what it's like to become Franciscan, I'd begin with prayer. Our daily prayer, morning and evening, is mostly Scripture. We pray the Psalms, which are Old Testament, and then we pray from the Letters of the Church, which are New Testament. And in between we pray many blessings that all come from the Word somewhere, and intercessions that speak what's in our heart. So in our prayers we are reading and remembering the Bible, and you just can't do that every day without being changed. That probably explains why it is given to us to do.
   I suppose it's only natural to get curious about what you do every day, and that good curiosity leads us quite gently into new understandings, all normal enough. What I see happening though are changes to our hearts, both of us, even as we keep our different personalities, and search from our different perspectives, and understand according to our different needs. But our praying has softened us toward each other--the precious, hidden places that we protect from everyone are not quite hidden anymore. It's nice to have someone on the journey, to share your journey.
   We went to a concert by John Michael Talbot on Thursday evening and it was a wonderful mix of song, prayer and testimony. John Michael and his music have been part of our lives almost as long as we've been married. I first heard him sing when I was seventeen, in Tucson, so to rediscover him as a Christian songwriter and musician was wonderful. But better than anything else is his testimony to the Word of God. When one goes every day, morning and evening, to draw from that well, one appreciates any free gift from another of its sweet water...
   Which leads me to what's happening. As we pray the daily prayer, my curiosity and desire for God grow. The Prayer used to be in eight parts or "hours", which simply means "divisions" throughout the day. The Hours have been changed and combined to form seven periods. Two of these--morning and evening prayer--are called "Major Hours". These are the prayers JoAnne and I are asked to pray daily, though now it's like asking us to receive a treasure, twice a day. The other five periods are called the "minor hours" and the "Office of Readings". They have other names which escape me at the moment. But properly arranged it means that a person who prays all the Hours is praying all the day, with breaks between for working, eating, living. And lately I've been craving them all.
   But blessed be our Practical God, who gently lays his hand on my shoulder and says, "Get up and go to work, Boy!" Not all prayer is from a book, or formally written, or set out in Seasons and Rites. God's plan is for all our life to be a prayer, ceaseless and unending, like a garment woven in a single piece, without seams. To learn to pray like that is quite a journey. Saint Clare says it happens a little bit at a time. But I can witness to you now that it does happen. If you are a fan of the Advent season, if Christmas to you is a time for more than parties and presents, if the darkening days of November seem lit by the glow of an approaching joy, then maybe you know something of what I'm talking about. There comes a point, walking in prayer, where you realize there is light around you. That's the Advent hope; that's the attraction of daily prayer.
   And it's no understatement to say that when it happens to you, you could be content for the rest of your life with nothing more.

   I suppose that's why God gave us curiosity.

Let No One Walk Alone

     We've been reading about a lot of saints. The stories of Franciscans alone astonish me. It's not like I've been hiding in a cave. I was raised on stories of the saints, but... wow! I mean, where do they find these people?
     Then I start looking at myself, of course, and it's pretty clear that I'm not exactly saint material; I mean, I have some awefully ordinary struggles: holding my temper, being patient with school kids, trying to keep Arizona politics in some sort of perspective... The Book says Franciscans treat people gently, listen to all sides, look for the common ground. Then I go out in traffic and look for a short stop light just so I can cross late and, like, dare somebody to honk.
     But I want Jesus. I mean, I want him so bad I can hardly breathe. I have to pull my thoughts away to something else, fixing the lawn mower, struggling over the bank balance, figuring out my next move. And I tell you, at fifty-six years old I'm pretty tired of having to start over every morning just figuring this world out. I want it to change, for me, to be what they promise in the stories: the kingdom of justice, peace and joy. The land and the time ruled by love. I mean, I want it so bad I could just crack heads to speed it up.
     There was a teacher I worked with, Mrs. B. She was Kindergarten, lifetime, full career and then some. She was pretty nice, though I suppose I didn't pay much attention to her, you know? She was pretty old. One afternoon I was leaving school and I saw a bunch of kids crowded around a house across the street. There was a fire truck and police cars and I figured they were probably getting in somebody's way, so I walked over there to shoe them away.
     "What's going on?" I asked a kid.
     "They shot somebody."
     "Who, the cops?"
     "Nah. It was gang-bangers."

     At three a.m. teenagers came to that house and knocked on the door. The man who lived there opened the door and they shot him. It was an initiation. They stepped over his body and robbed his house. Quite a story.
     I ran back into the school and began telling everyone I met what had happened right across the street! I got good reactions. One teacher told me she was afraid to come to work anymore. So I kept telling people. Then I saw Mrs. B. coming down the corridor.
     "Did you hear what happened?" I asked. She hadn't, so I told her the whole gruesome story. She looked me straight in the eye.
     "That is why," she said, "I pray every day, 'Come Lord Jesus! Set this world straight!"

     Did I already tell this story? It feels like I did. But I'll never forget how she walked away leaving me rooted to the spot, convicted. I like to say that after a lifetime of practicing my faith, that was the moment I began my conversion. And though I'm complaining right now, I see an unbroken path from that moment to this one. I am as profoundly convicted here on this journey to becoming a follower of Saint Francis as anywhere along the way. And I'm equally dumbfounded to get a glimpse of how dumb I can be. Especially about God.
     What on earth can I ever offer to this community? It's small wonder that there are so many Franciscan saints. And "sainthood" isn't even the goal! It's about living the life, and people like Mrs. B. are examples of what happens when you do. Nothing makes sense the way it did. The world is not for us; it's the place, but not the destination. What we go after we become, with God's help. Saint Clare says it's a process that happens gradually over time, not all at once...
     Impatient men like me need that hope; that over time we can become like them, the real disciples who live it, not just talk about it. That's what's burning inside of me tonight on a hot Saturday after a summer I'm just about fed up with. I would chuck it all and run away, except that He is here, now, anchored to this spot.
     I'm not going anywhere without him.




 

Human Suffering

     In yesterday's paper... stories about children caught in a nation at war. The horrors of human nature enslaved by evil. They call out for America to help. There is always a cry for help, and it is to our Nation that the cry goes out.
     I work in special education and I meet many children who are changed in extraordinary ways. They don't choose the lives they are given, and they need help to manage their challenges and build success. It is essential for their teachers to believe without doubt that they can succeed, but we must also accept that success can look very different from what we imagine for ourselves. It's no wonder, then, that I meet many teachers who beleive in God. In order to imagine success in the world we must have bigger options.
     Among our population of school children in Arizona there are many refugees. Not everyone wants them here. They make life more difficult and right now when money is short, there are people who would cut expenses by cutting services to human need. This is a mistake. From its beginning, America has always been the Nation to which refugees flee the evils of war, oppression, slavery, hunger, poverty. We aren't a perfect people, but we are a patchwork people. The fabric of our society is the plain cloth of refuge. Many people are forgetting this. We are the ONE PLACE in the world where people who suffer SHOULD find refuge.
     It won't come immediately from government sources, though our government has powerful ability to organize, mobilize, and intervene. The real source of solace comes from the hearts of people who are willing to do what they can, to meet the refugees on the road, to embrace them, lift them up, dress their wounds, clothe their bodies, satisfy their hungers and give them time to recover their inward sense of dignity and worth. It's not magic and it doesn't happen quickly. It is, however, the greatest power in the universe--more powerful than guns and bombs and armies and wars. It is the power that every one of us has and no one can take away from us once we choose it. It is the power of love.

     Find a way today to love someone. Cast yourself onto the tide of love.

Walking in the August Light

     August is a palpable time of year. Even if you were blindfolded, you would know it was August by the way it feels. You know other times of year by the way they smell or sound; weather is... personal that way. I suppose God is like that too.
     Summer is the season when things slow down, fall off, relax. I tell people that neckties should be illegal this time of year, but I never wear one anyway. The Bolo--a sort of lariat with a clip--is the official Arizona alternative. But I don't own one of those either. We just muscle through the hot days and ignore pretty much everything else.
     So it's almost a tradition around here that church programs fizzle out. And it's been discussed in the Fraternity that maybe we shouldn't allow that to happen. Our the training period for Candidates is being reduced from two years to eighteen months. Since we knock off June, July, August every year, we already do an eighteen month program. I imagine somebody got stuck over reducing it any more. So the talk is about how to bring life to the summer months when nobody is out moving around, except to look for a cold drink... I wonder how Jesus did summertime?

     Our cohort group began two years ago with more than twelve people. Half have left. With only six actively pursuing profession, I'm feeling a little nervous. I don't like the leaky-boat feeling, but then I remember Peter shouting at Jesus across the waves. We walk on water. It's part of our charism as Christians. He walks on water so if he's out there and we want to arrange a meeting...
     That's what we're doing. The Conversion Journey. Taking  meetings with God, who founded his kingdom on the seas and established it on the rivers and if we're ever going to get there we're going to have to learn to trust him. That's the news at quarter to three in the morning, Friday, August 6, 2010.



     In August the light changes. I call it the "heaven light". It's thick like water but transparent as glass. You can breathe the light here in the desert, and in August it grows so strong that even the city can't hide it. Everything is embroidered with detail, presence, consciousness. Trees, traffic, buildings. The light spangles through, careening from plane to plane like looking through crystals. It fills. August must be special to God because in the middle of our summer doldrums, he enters.
     We are bag-packing to begin new ministry next month. Our Fraternity work of feeding the homeless has ended, and some members are shifting to catechesis for children, also a way of feeding. Enter JoAnne and Tom to fill a gap that appeared, if we can. Such doubt is not Franciscan, we are learning. God calls from out on the water and we go--out of the boat, onto the waves, like it was everyday stuff. We have this one next year to prepare and then we make our Profession. JoAnne is already planning invitations. I understand now that a year is a pretty big thing, with lots of pockets. I only wonder if it will be enough.
    Before we get there, I'm going to have to face the issue of Reconcilliation--not a one-time event or even a big deal, but because it is part of the daily gift. We are a people reconciled to God through Christ. That means a relationship we must live, like our marriage. It means throwing in together, our life and God's life, sharing everything, personal, intimate, real. It's like walking in the August light, enfolded and transformed. We can't just live in God and not be changed. I've been abstaining from Reconcilliation, and it's time to feast.

     The thing about conversion is that we don't do it for ourselves, but there's still so much to be done...

God Knows

     There's more to becoming a Franciscan than I knew. Most of my friends confirm it. Even good Catholics with lots of experience don't seem to know much about Franciscans. We've had people ask questions like "Do Franciscans believe in God?" Some think we're a cult. Some think we live in monasteries. Being married and living in a house and going to work every day seems to throw them. How can you live in a religious order and still have a life? Maybe I'll spend my career in the SFO doing P.R. They could use it.
     But I have to admit I was pretty much the same when I began. For instance, if you asked me to name a Franciscan saint, I could have told you one. Turns out there are lots of them. So many that there's a whole extra prayer book just to fit them in, and there seem to be new ones coming all the time. But that's not what today's blog is about. Today it's about the journey...

     We bought a small TAO for our house. It's about eight inches tall and I put it on the wall over our mailbox, just outside the front door. I didn't want it to blow off the wall in a windstorm, so I used this white kind of glue that comes in a tube and you squeeze it out with a caulking gun. When I was finished JoAnne said, "Well, that's stuck on there. We're never selling this house...!"
     And that seemed to sum up the changes that have been happening this summer. As soon as the TAO was up and the glue was set, our home became a Franciscan place, just like any Franciscan Mission or Retreat House or Church or any other place we've visited since our journey began. I was startled by the thought. I hadn't set out to do that; it wasn't my intent. But JoAnne was right as she always is about such things. Our house is changed. Through the Franciscan way, we have given it to God, as it should be.

     How many Christians get this far? What can God do with a broken-down old joint like this? There was a big crane on the street last week. Our next-door neighbor was getting a new airconditioning unit. So of course I spent the night laying awake worrying about how long our unit will last. Tight times, you know. But we were watching the movie "Jesus of Nazareth" and there's a scene where he is teaching the disciples and he says "Don't worry about such things. Seek the things of the kingdom and everything you need will be given to you."
     It's not easy, to trust I mean. Not like that. Not with full conviction of the Gospel. We start with longing to trust--we want to trust--long before we are peaceful about it. We long to walk with God, before we find peace in God. We long to turn away from sin long before we have either the strength or the courage to do so. We long to be free even before we embrace the Cross...
     God knows all this. He knows the hardships of faith before he calls us to it. And one of Francis' closest companions, Saint Clare of Assissi, wrote that "God moves the soul gradually" until it wants nothing but the Lord, until it can surrender everything to have him.

     We've been listening to Joyce Meyer on tapes. She's really helping us understand what boldness means in the life of faith. How boldness opens our lives up to the promises of Christ. We have to choose boldness before we feel brave. We have to throw our lives in with Christ like the apostles... before we really know him. Maybe that's why the Spirit had us put up the TAO. I was wiping the extra glue off with a wet rag when I looked at it and told JoAnne "I guess this means I'll have to be nice to salesmen from now on..."
     The TAO is out in front now, like a lamp. It's easy to see from the street. People don't know what it means. It looks a little odd. But over the years I've had strangers come to the door on God's instruction, people with a message for us, people with gifts, even people with healing. Before I put up the TAO, God already knew where to find me. Before anything, before we make the first move toward Him, he has already taken us into his arms. It's time to put our faith out front...

Just the All of Us

     Years ago, when our house was full of children, JoAnne and I used to watch a television show called "Just the Ten of Us". It was a sit-com about a Catholic family with eight children. The stories were all about the craziness of trying to get things done in a crowd, with a string of kids all different ages, you know, sort of like home. One kid was a goody-two-shoes and the next was a bit of a devil and while the oldest was on her knees saying her Rosary the next would be climbing out the bedroom window to meet her boyfriend. Har, har. As you can imagine, the show didn't last long. But while it played we enjoyed having a laugh at that oddball family and their really strange habits. Like for instance, one night when the kids were causing trouble, Mom and Dad had to escape to their bedroom just to talk to each other. They sat down on their bed to figure out what they were going to do about the latest problem. I remember sitting beside JoAnne on the couch, pointing at all the props and laughing. I remember there was a small table in the corner, with a statue of Mary and a vigil candle glowing softly.
     "Ha, ha!" I was laughing. "Look at that! NOBODY does THAT anymore...!" It was like looking at a Catholic family in the Fifties, not the Eighties. We began looking more closely at the props and settings in other scenes. We found a picture of the Sacred Heart in one scene. In the dining room there was a painting of the Last Supper. Somebody was using a Holy Card. Somebody else had Holy Water inside the door of her room. "Nobody DOES that any more. Nobody does that..."
     I looked around the empty walls and tables of our home. Then I looked at JoAnne.
     "Why doesn't anybody do that anymore?"

     We were married about ten years at that time and in our closet we had a box filled with gifts people had given us for our wedding, for anniversaries, for days our children were born. And the box was full of Catholic things: a crucifix, a statue of a saint, a bottle of holy water, a blessed candle. We got the box out and went through it remembering all of the gifts, who had given them to us, the occasions they celebrated. It was like taking a walk outdoors, full of fresh air and the scent of the desert.
    JoAnne took the little treasures and found places for everything, and the habit stuck. Over the years we kept on collecting artifacts of faith, signs and symbols of the journey we have been on together all of our adult lives. Today the house resembles a bit of a museum. We have the family china closet which is a shrine to people who have gone before us marked with the sign of faith. In the space where the glass and the doorframe meet JoAnne displays holy cards and pictures from funeral homes of (so many!) friends and family who live now in Christ. Just standing there for a moment is like going with them, if only for a little while. Next to that is the entertainment cabinet, which substitutes for a fireplace with a mantel (I've even gone so far as to put on a DVD with a recording of a fireplace). The top of that cabinet is where we have our best statue of the Blessed Mother, complete with candles, flowers, many pictures of our children at all ages and stages of life. I call it my "standing altar" because I love to stand there in her presence--the prayers that come are too deep for words.
     Turning from there is the big front window that looks out on the street and the front door. There is a saying from Scripture on the outside of that door (which I really should remember when I jerk the door open to chase away salesmen...) but right inside is a cross with an image of Jesus resurrected. It has been in our family longer than I can remember, from the heyday of the Renewal years when Christ was often shown in glory.
     The next wall as you enter has family pictures, my mother on her wedding day, and awards the kids earned in school and beyond. It is our "wall of pride" and there is an icon of Jesus looking somber and holding his hand in a certain way as if he is saying "Remember that all victories come through faith..." The fourth wall of that family room has a bookcase, but there are no books. It is filled with family photos from generations, grandparents and great-grandparents, babies and cousins. There are little carved angels, statues from other places in the world, and a picture of Mary holding Baby Jesus. They are arranged with the oldest pictures of great-grandparents at the bottom and the news pictures of angels and babies at the top as if Family is a tree that grows from ancient roots. This is the closest thing we have to a family altar and it reminds us that we are a family in Christ, always growing, always moving toward the day where all will be gathered in Him, into his Family in Heaven. That's just the Family Room!
     Other rooms are much the same. Our latest creation is the one we longed for most of our lives. It is our family chapel, inspired by other families who invited us into their homes. For years we never had the space, but recently, after clearing out boxes, we realized there was no one hanging around who needed a bed and a little privacy. The room became the place where we gather twice a day--morning and evening--to say our prayers. Like every other place in the house, the chapel must serve double and triple duty... but first and foremost it is our prayer place. In fact, the whole house has become a place of prayer.
     The hallway leading down to the bedrooms is lined on both sides with icons, pictures, placques and displays of faith; images of saints and angels, collections of family pictures all jumbled together and inextricable. We walk as a family in two worlds. Our bedrooms have more signs and icons. There is a statue of Saint Francis on the bureau on our own room. Crosses or crucifixes in every room of the house. In a corner where I get out of bed there are more icons of Saints and under my pillow, a holy card. I wear the Tao around my neck. I even long to eat Christ, and so we go to Mass and join with the Eucharistic Community... sharing the Meal Christ established. Living the life. Praying. Growing. Seeking. If Jesus came to our house, would he recognize us as Believers...?

     "Take all away," Emily Dickenson once wrote, "and the only thing worth larceny is left--the Immortality!"
     Joyce Myers writes that there is an important difference between what we do and who we are as Christians. Our "do" is about following Jesus and living the Gospel life. It is important, yes. But our "who" is about what God has done freely, without our effort or action. The decorations, signs, symbols, memories, artifacts of faith that fill our home fill us with joyful hope while we wait for the coming of God's kingdom. But take all that away and the really important thing, the infinite and eternal thing, remains. He has already made us His Family. Nobody can take that away. Our own weakness and failure can't change it. Wherever we go, he is there ahead of us, and we celebrate what he has done by surrounding ourselves with signs and pictures and memorials.
     And then we walk amid this sacred space which is our home, moving from prayer to prayer, remembering the Grace that saves us, offering ourselves in the hope of the Resurrection to the ongoing work of salvation. As weird as we may appear, people who come to our home say they can feel it: we are all God's Family...

Sunday morning, very early...

Just "blogging in" to say hello. There isn't much happening. This time of year, in Arizona, is repetitive. The sun comes up. It gets hot. The sun goes down. It stays hot. I used to say "There are only two seasons in Arizona--Summer and dark."
     Officially our summer rainy season begins in the middle of June and lasts until mid-September and along the way trees blow down, roofs get torn off, lightning sets fire to air conditioners... the usual stuff. It's all external. Spiritually I think we have similar situations. It's Summer. The grass grows. We stay in the shade and we hope God will handle things. Not much to say except the puppy has grown and loves hugs. Our prayers are a great comfort to us. And just as we wait for the rain we know will come... we wait for God's next move with great anticipation.