Blessed Advent

In prayer, we dialogue with God “in spirit and in truth.”  One of my heroes, St. Teresa of Avila, said that such dialogue “is the gate through which all good things enter.”  It seems fitting to me to think about this in light of the beginning of the new church year with the First Sunday of Advent. 

I believe that it is through the banquet of our prayer that we can most effectively spread the gospel, radiating out to all whom we encounter, and to all for whom (and with whom) we pray the peace of Christ which passes all understanding.

Let us unite ourselves with the mystery of Advent.  This season of our encounter with God may well bring to birth in us the newborn likeness of Jesus, which we can carry with us into all our daily activities.  Let us devote a portion of our days during Advent to the kind of mental prayer which is intimate conversation between our souls and the Beloved. 

“Come, let us walk in the light of the Lord.”  (Is. 2:5)

“I will be as a wall of fire round about her and the glory in the midst of her”

Once there was an old teacher.  To her young student one day she said, “You seem afraid.”  The student affirmed, “I am about to launch out into the deep in a coracle with no oars.  The seas are wide and dark.  The otherlands are completely unknown to me.  I have no wealth and no weapons to protect me.  Must I go?”

The old woman gathered her robes around her and walked to the edge of the waters where a small hide boat bobbed, waiting on its tether for its pilgrim.  After a time of watching the sun polish the waters to brassy brightness, she spoke:

“Fear is ‘False Evidence Appearing Real’ is it not?”

“Yes, teacher.”

“You ask if you must go.  I ask you that question.  Must you go?”

The student sighed.  “I have been called.  Yes, I must go.”

The teacher sighed as well.  “It has been said that he that is in you is greater than he that is in the world.  Do you believe this?”

“I do believe it.”

“Then?”

But there was no reply, for the student had launched into the deep, and as she was taken by the current, the teacher could hear her singing:  “And I will be as a wall of fire round about her and the glory in the midst of her.”

The old woman on the shore whispered, “Amen.”

Thanksgiving

I am having one of those periods of having nothing to say.  When I look within, all is peaceful.  When I look without, the same.  I am happy.  I have some physical pain, and there is some emotional pain over not being with my kids during the holidays, but for the most part, all is well.  So….

Thanks be to you, O Lord, for happiness;

How I love you and our life together.

In the morning I give thanks for another day with you.

I rejoice with the rising sun;

And laugh with the playful breeze.

I am, all of me, right here, right now.

With you. 

Finding Him

Born in sorrow

Grown in chaos

We struggle to find love

To leave the world a little better

To give away something of ourselves

In hopes of showing just one person

The value of silence in times of confusion

            Of holding on for one more day.

Wise in pain

With suffering a friend

Comes our Beloved

With comfort and with courage

The lord of our quantum dance

Along the lines of probability

To teach us how to find each other

            Finding Him

My Father

I may have told this before, but in honor of Veterans Day just past, I offer it again.

The old man was dying.  He told his visitor about being a Marine in WWII.  He woke in the night in a jungle somewhere in the Pacific.  He saw a line of men passing just beyond the ridge above him and it occurred to him that Marines knew better than to walk a ridge line against the sky.  Sure enough they were the enemy Japanese.  He and his squad wiped them out.  He then walked around and shot each one in the head because “you can’t leave live enemies at your back in the jungle.”  He was 19 years old then.  Now he was over 80 and he still suffered from killing those men.  He looked at his visitor, broken.  The visitor looked at him with love and told him he could forgive himself because in time all would be well between him and those men, who also had had no choice. 

That man was my father.  I believe it was the first time I had truly met him.

Treasure in a Field of Despair

The sadness flows around me

I can neither explain nor escape it.

The sun shines but my heart weeps

An abyss of pain that overshadows all.

Small sorrows yield rivers of tears

I can only say, “Jesus, Son of David have mercy on me”

The disconnect between reality and my feelings

Is jarring

Crazy-making distance between

What’s going on and the wild cry

“What’s going on???”

The music of God is silenced by

Crashing metal noise.

My peace is hidden from me

Behind torrents of anguish.

Jesus, Son of David have mercy on me.

Yet what glint of dawn is this

Arising from the void?

What whisper there upon the wind

Sounds so tenderly sweet, so kind?

            It is the Lord, come with mercy

For me.

            O Jesus, Son of David,

Long have I loved thee.  Long have I sought thee.

And I would again enter the dark if it be thy will,

For nothing can separate us.  Love is stronger than death.

And the dark an illusion created by self-centeredness

And the weakness of humanity.

            O Jesus Son of David,

Let it be done unto me according to thy word.

Amen.

Angels in the Hallway

Once upon a time my sister was in the hospital for a biopsy.  Only two people could visit her at a time, so I was waiting my turn at the end of the corridor while our parents were visiting her.

All at once the hallway seemed to me to be filled with angels so tall and majestic they barely fit, their wings brushing the walls and ceiling, their very being shining almost too brightly.  Jesus was at the head of them.  He said quietly, “Come, let us comfort our sister.”  With that, he led them into the room.

I thought I had told her about it.  I never told our parents because they already thought I was crazy.  Apparently, I had not told her.  Mea culpa, Sister. 

My sister is so close to God she sometimes thinks it’s dark when she is simply standing in His shadow. 

Amen.

Jesus in the Rain

A certain woman had a dream.  In the dream, she was standing in the rain near the Sea of Galilee.  Not far off was a sort of shelter built of branches and thatched with leaves.  The woman walked over to see who was standing in the shelter, for she could only see a pair of sandaled feet.

When the woman came around the side of the shelter, she saw Jesus.  He wore a pair of jeans and a fisherman’s sweater.  He was standing there watching the rain dimple and ripple across the water.  He turned to her and smiled.

Amen.

The Pilgrim Horde

This is a post from another blog I used to write.  I thought I should share it here too.

 When I think about the People of God, I see them as a Horde of Pilgrims.  Some of them forge ahead, like scouts, finding new paths towards God, exploring byways and wildernesses.  Some report back, some do not.  Some lag behind, having found a pleasing place where they feel comfortable.

Some are slow because they are lame or otherwise handicapped, or because they cannot accept help along the way.  Others decide to settle down and make villages and families.  Some race about trying to convince others that their way forward is the most direct and safest path.  Some set up shop as professional horde guides and refuse to recognize that the entire group is actually headed in the same direction. 

Some build dwellings and say among themselves how good it is to dwell here together.  Many of that group practice a hospitality that enables the whole tribe to keep moving forward.  Some particularly fearful ones try to build walls to prevent others from falling off the edge of the world  and being forever lost.  Of course they won’t explore the other side of the wall, so they never realize how much of the tribe has discovered the wall is permeable and can be simply walked through.

They are infinitely diverse, this horde, and infinitely beautiful.  In a way each of them is Christ on His journey.  It is deeply transformative, this journey, and can be experienced as an adventure, as a perilous quest, as a miserable slog, even as a painful torment.  Much depends on whether or not the pilgrim is the center of her own universe, or whether Christ is the center of that pilgrim’s reality. 

As the least and most lame of the pilgrim horde, I am learning to let them be Christ to me, and to allow the Christ in me be what they see when they look at me.  I have fallen in love with the whole, crazy, clanging, loud, wild bunch of them.  I find them a fascinating, endless, wondrous creation, which shows forth the Glory of God.  I find us to be a fitting expression of the One Who loves us.

Amen.

Originally Posted on another of my blogs. Moving everything here.

Original post was dated March 26, 2013

Are you able to pray about it?

At lunch today in community we were talking about spiritual growth and how one can approach another about  that issue, and about praying for people who don't like us or whom we don't like.  Cait reminded us about the above question she has asked in the past, particularly of  those seeking spiritual direction, who were victims of abuse of some kind.

If we are able to pray about our issue, whatever it is, I think there is hope for healing and for growth.  If we are still suffering too much to pray, the suffering can be a kind of prayer, so long as we do whatever work we must do to ensure it will make us stronger and more wise, rather than smaller and more self-centered.  If we let our suffering become our identity, we can get stuck at our current level and be unable to move on, until we get out of our own way again.


My sister and I began a book, but I got stuck.  I have nothing original to say; the only things unique to me are not actually unique in the world, but maybe the way I express myself might help another human being somehow find the hope to keep on keeping on. (Sr. Sheila, if you have made any pictures for our book, send them on to me and I will post them with the relevant posts in this blog.)

So...are you able to pray about it?  If not, just sit still anyhow, for at least three minutes a day, even if you have to pretend it will make a difference.  As time goes on, if you are faithful to this practice, you will find yourself changing, slowly, until you come to look forward to the sitting still.  You will begin to know interior peace, and growing comfort in your own skin.  You may find, if you are of a certain personality type, that you come to need an hour a day of this.  Other types of persons do better with a rosary or with holy reading, or even walking the dog.  The important point is the faithfulness to the practice, and the intention to grow into conscious contact with the God of your understanding. 

Whoever you are, wherever you are, I am praying for you my brothers and sisters to come to know intimately the One who loves us.  Faithfulness to the practice will, I promise you, change you utterly and you will know you are loved and you will find peace.