Last night JoAnne and I attended a convocation of the Valley Interfaith Project where we heard a variety of stories from the community on local issues and concerns. There were a thousand people gathered from groups and associations of many kinds. These groups are organized for community action, and they form a strong coalition working at the grassroots for positive changes. The excitement was real.
It was the first time I can say I was being political. I could feel the underlying process, the real power of democracy. It reminded me of the activism of the Sixties and it gave me hope. I have been praying to be of use to God, as a Franciscan, to find my gifts and use them all while there is time. Change seems to be very important to God and time is the measure he uses, all for our benefit.
One speaker said that "justice is not real unless it is embodied". To me that means it's not enough to talk about things. We must act for change to happen. All my life I've been a talker. Last night I signed a form to attend another meeting in June. The Valley Interfaith Project is building energy for September and will be making itself heard in Arizona. But they are associated by commitment to larger associations reaching beyond our local cities and borders to link hands across the nation. I know I am just beginning, but I feel the connection. I am not just a talker anymore. I am giving my hands to the work of the Spirit in Arizona. How this will turn out I can't even guess. Maybe I will need another blog!
Friday, May 14, 2010
Friday, May 7, 2010
Rain for the Spirit
The days are turning dry. My cactus, after a fat winter, have bloomed and are beginning to shrivel down. The bursage and brittle bush once brilliant with Spring flowers are looking more like natural desert bushes, leggy and lean. By the time real Summer arrives, they will be dead, almost.
It's called "estivation" and that means a strategy among plants that allows them to endure the tough desert conditions. They put their life into seeds and roots. The seeds scatter all over the land and wait, without changing, for conditions to be right. It may rain, it may even thunder and pour, but the seeds will not sprout if it is not enough. Among plants it might take twenty years or more for a seed to sprout.
As for the roots, that's also a pretty nifty development. The roots endure underground, also waiting for the right conditions. They have enough food energy stored to restore what appears above ground, even after it has dried to a crisp. If fire should come by, or an S.U.V., or a cow, and the dry stems and leaves are taken, it can grow a whole new top. The creosote bush, I am told, does this with such skill and determination that researchers suggest some creosote plants are more than forty-thousand years old! We should be so viable...!
So a person living in the desert has a lot to think about. One might walk out into the countryside on pale pink gravel and stand where there is nothing living at all--the whole land is bare. Another year, after a wet winter, go back to the same place and you can walk three feet above the surface of the land! The plants are so thick your feet don't touch the ground. Incredible!
I am looking for this same effect in the Soul. Our faith is like the creosote root that endures many seasons waiting for God's grace. When it comes, no matter how bitter the past, faith is there ready to grow.
I think whenever we pray, we should include a prayer for spirit rain...
It's called "estivation" and that means a strategy among plants that allows them to endure the tough desert conditions. They put their life into seeds and roots. The seeds scatter all over the land and wait, without changing, for conditions to be right. It may rain, it may even thunder and pour, but the seeds will not sprout if it is not enough. Among plants it might take twenty years or more for a seed to sprout.
As for the roots, that's also a pretty nifty development. The roots endure underground, also waiting for the right conditions. They have enough food energy stored to restore what appears above ground, even after it has dried to a crisp. If fire should come by, or an S.U.V., or a cow, and the dry stems and leaves are taken, it can grow a whole new top. The creosote bush, I am told, does this with such skill and determination that researchers suggest some creosote plants are more than forty-thousand years old! We should be so viable...!
So a person living in the desert has a lot to think about. One might walk out into the countryside on pale pink gravel and stand where there is nothing living at all--the whole land is bare. Another year, after a wet winter, go back to the same place and you can walk three feet above the surface of the land! The plants are so thick your feet don't touch the ground. Incredible!
I am looking for this same effect in the Soul. Our faith is like the creosote root that endures many seasons waiting for God's grace. When it comes, no matter how bitter the past, faith is there ready to grow.
I think whenever we pray, we should include a prayer for spirit rain...
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
Tradition
Someone told me this weekend that, by tradition, a blog typically has an entry every day, sometimes several.
Oh.
The problem I see with that (as a poet) is the ordinariness of such daily dialog. Who wants to hear the dull details of what my dog is doing?
So then we get to the heart of things.
Life is not always exciting. I do not always have “great thoughts”. Even the Spirit of God (once our attention is fixed) turns to drum at the dull details that, taken together, so often make up the fabric of our difficulties.
We know that Jesus noticed the daily details, the feathers on a sparrow, the fibers in a blade of grass, perhaps how many seeds there are in a blossom of wheat, which way the wind is blowing… I’ve been getting the message without noticing: God is in the details. So, I suppose that in the spirit of a correspondent sending back bulletins from the wilderness, I might be a little more dedicated to the daily job of keeping you informed. I’m going to work this morning. They will be serving Nachos as a way of showing their appreciation for teachers (and other staff) during Teacher Appreciation Week. My siblings are planning a camping trip in a couple of weeks. My friend, Brother Damien, O.S.B. had earned his Doctoral Degree. The garden waits for my attention. It is getting warm outside. I will leave the laundry on the line this morning to get some fresh air. I am building a bird feeder.
And like most people I worry about many things, definitely not a Franciscan charism, but what the heck… Here’s a news flash:
I’m not perfect.
Oh.
The problem I see with that (as a poet) is the ordinariness of such daily dialog. Who wants to hear the dull details of what my dog is doing?
So then we get to the heart of things.
Life is not always exciting. I do not always have “great thoughts”. Even the Spirit of God (once our attention is fixed) turns to drum at the dull details that, taken together, so often make up the fabric of our difficulties.
We know that Jesus noticed the daily details, the feathers on a sparrow, the fibers in a blade of grass, perhaps how many seeds there are in a blossom of wheat, which way the wind is blowing… I’ve been getting the message without noticing: God is in the details. So, I suppose that in the spirit of a correspondent sending back bulletins from the wilderness, I might be a little more dedicated to the daily job of keeping you informed. I’m going to work this morning. They will be serving Nachos as a way of showing their appreciation for teachers (and other staff) during Teacher Appreciation Week. My siblings are planning a camping trip in a couple of weeks. My friend, Brother Damien, O.S.B. had earned his Doctoral Degree. The garden waits for my attention. It is getting warm outside. I will leave the laundry on the line this morning to get some fresh air. I am building a bird feeder.
And like most people I worry about many things, definitely not a Franciscan charism, but what the heck… Here’s a news flash:
I’m not perfect.
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
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.
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.
Friday, April 23, 2010
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...
"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...
Thursday, April 22, 2010
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.
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.
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
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
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
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