Gossip and Idle Chatter

•A person too who would talk with thee in idle words, or of the world; or who murmurs at what he cannot remedy or prevent, but who would distress thee more should he be a tattler between friends and foes, thou shalt not admit him to thee, but at once give him thy benediction should he deserve it. 

Be aware of any person or group who by any lack of Charity in word or deed would worry you needlessly or would draw you into sin.  Stay clear of such persons, except if they seek spiritual renewal and blessing.

Reflection:  Life is too short to spend with people who make me lose my peace.  This is not to say I don’t get drawn into things, I certainly do.  Especially if the person knows where my “buttons” are.  But for the most part, I have no discourse with those who might cause me trouble or draw me into gossip or other dark places.  People who are like this and want to change, and are willing to change, can be worked with.  I have seen it in AA.  

One will occasionally run into someone like this in a church setting.  They like nothing better than setting the cat among the pigeons, so to speak.  Because many of us have an innocent heart, we can be drawn in almost before we realize it.  It may be necessary to extricate ourselves from the relationship, although we do not cease to love the person.  I consider myself too weak spiritually to deal with this kind of person, as they tempt me to anger, which is already my chief weakness!  This point of the rule is important, and I don’t think I’ve ever considered it more important than now, in my old age.

Whether the person I decide to stay clear of acts in such manner consciously or not, it is a mercy to myself to avoid the chaos they bring, and a mercy to them because it avoids encouraging their behavior.  

Community

•A few religious men to converse with thee of God and his Testament; to visit thee on days of solemnity; to strengthen thee in the Testaments of God, and the narratives of the Scriptures.

 

Find spiritual communion with those in the Order and with holy Christians who seek union with God.  Join with the community of merciful Christian Sisters and Brothers on holy feasts and whenever possible for prayer and celebration.  Share the Faith you have with others.  Build one another up in Faith, Hope and Charity and in Poverty of spirit, Purity of heart, and Obedience to God through the lessons in Sacred Scripture.

Reflection:  We can’t often get together, except for Cait and I, but even at a distance, we can be together on line or via Skype and email.  I have found the simple knowledge that others are out there trying to live out our vocation of mercy has helped me get through some tough times.  And we are always available by phone to encourage, commiserate, and build each other up.  Some of the best times have included gales of hysterical laughter.  Ask Sr. Peggy about “The Bishop on the Roof” song!

Enclosed in the Love of God

•Let a fast place, with one door, enclose thee.

Whether you live in common or alone, let it be holy ground which is secure, enabling you to live this life enclosed in the Love of God.

Reflection: I hardly ever know what to write about this point of the Rule.  I live in an intentional community.  I do have my private room, but for me the whole property is a holy place, enclosed in the Love of God.  

I think this rule may reflect the way of life of the time it was written, when many people lived in one room, sometimes even with the critters inside, where it would be difficult to find alone time, which is essential for building up the one-to-one relationship with God.  Even today, there are houses crammed with families who cannot afford to live alone.  In that situation, it would be very difficult to live at peace unless one had many years of practice of enclosure of the heart.  It makes me deeply grateful for both the privacy I enjoy and the fact that I live with like-minded people.

What Can We Do?

I don’t recall ever feeling so oppressed by conditions in this country and our dealings with the world as I now feel.  Unless I am very mistaken, our government has decided to go to war in Syria in spite of the will of the people.  If we had any excuse to trust that the government serves anything except the will of multinational corporations, there might be reason to hope.  As it is, I am led to a feeling of helplessness and a kind of free-floating anger.  Who is there to blame?  Is there anything we can do?  Where are we going on this road of endless conflict?

The Old Testament answer from God was, “Where were you when I created the world?” 

The New Testament, however, suggests the new commandment:  “Love one another as I have loved you.”  Christ bids us to love in the face of hatred.  We are to love against all evidence of hopelessness.  We are to love and not rage.  What does that mean in a practical sense?

In my life it takes the form of prayer and generosity with time and resources.  It takes the form of recognition of my poverty – I have no power to change things.  They are beyond my control.  In light of that powerlessness, I find myself called to be peaceful in my heart and in my words and in my actions.  God seems to put in my path the people I am supposed to help and the people who can teach me.  Therefore, my response to chaos is to love, and to remain at peace.

There are those whose vocation it is to fight, and in my youth I fought injustice where and as I could.  In my old age, I must fight injustice with my words and with my prayers, and by loving action.  I weep with those who are suffering and dying in the world.   I pray for those to be called forth who can change the things that must be changed in the world. 

Let us pray for peace.  Let us love one another as Christ loves us, and make enclaves of love wherever we dwell. 

For Love of the One Who Loves Me

Point of OMC Rule:

•Whatsoever little or much thou possessest of anything, whether clothing, or food, or drink, let it be at the command of the senior and at his disposal, for it is not befitting a religious to have any distinction of property with his own free brother. 

Look upon all possessions as loans from God and let them be used for the honor and glory of God and at the service of Charity.

Reflection:

This point of the Rule is lived differently by each of us according to our state in life, as most of us do not live together.  Before I retired, the money I made by working went to support myself, and after that to my ministry.  I never felt a need for more than my share of the world’s goods.  That was not a virtue of mine, it was simply the result of having lost everything so many times that they were just things.  I never feared having nothing, having been there before.  Nor did I ever lack anything essential during my ministry.  I have come to believe that in serving Christ, I am supplied by God with all that I need to do just that.

Now that I live in community, I pay the bills I have to pay, and the rest of what I have is for the community’s needs.  It isn’t a lot, but so far amongst ourselves, we’ve had enough to keep on keeping on. 

I have no illusion that God needs honor and glory.  I have no doubt that Christ needs everything I have to give and more.  And because he is my first, best, and last love, I give it with great joy.

The Need For A 21st Century Testament

If you can find a copy of Corpus Reports (September/October 2013), you will see therein a gem:  John Shelby Spong’s address regarding “A Need to Reform Christianity?  A New Language for God.”   My dear Bishop Joe loaned me his copy to read and I must recommend it to anyone who is seeking to reconcile their experience of God and their experience as a 21^st Century human being.  He avers that Christianity is not dying; the explanations of antiquity are dying. 

We have an Old Testament and a New Testament.  What we need is a Current Testament.  The experience of the Christ is not the same thing as a description of that experience.  The descriptions of that experience which we have are rooted in the times they were written.  This is interesting in light of an ongoing discussion regarding the future of the church. 

As a member of a small Independent Catholic Church (the Celtic Christian Church), I sometimes wonder what will happen to us when the present generation of leaders dies.  The roots of the Celtic Church are not buried in the Old Testament, but in the Old Religion, which considered creation as good, and humanity not as fatally flawed, but glorious.  Our leaders are chosen by our members, not imposed by a hierarchy.  Our relationship with God is about relationships and service.  We love one another in a way that others find attractive and want to share.  It is my prayer that we will not lose these characteristics. 

As time moves on, we Christians are beginning to realize that the Christ experience removes all artificial tribal barriers.  Like Paul, we begin to see that in Christ there is no male or female, slave or free, just and unjust, saved and unsaved.  Rather than justifying exclusion, we find the experience demanding the inclusion of all.  A result of the Christ experience is an urgent need to pour out that experience on all who still experience life as suffering, broken, unforgiven and other in any way.  One who has the experience of Christ cannot sit idly by and not feel the injustices of predatory behavior. 

This is my current understanding, at any rate, of the way in which conscious contact with God has changed my life.  It has brought deep peace in the face of my own mortality.  It has brought deep pain in the oneness demanded between myself and the other, who is not truly separate from me, but is another unique expression of the Ground of Being. 

If you find Spong challenging, good!  Keep reading and thinking and most of all, keep on serving God in the People of God.  If you seek the Christ experience, stay in the Silence with the One.  Stay and be loved.  Stay and be changed.  You will find yourself.  And then you will give yourself away. 

Imitation of Christ

OMC Rule – Point for Today

•Be always naked in imitation of Christ and the Evangelists.

In total humility imitate Christ as you proclaim the Good News of God’s Love which is our salvation from our self-centeredness.

Reflection:

The Imitation of Christ  is one of the best ways I can think of to serve God.  So, what did Jesus do and how do we do that in today’s world?  

Jesus spent time with God.  No matter what else was going on, from the time he ditched his parents to go to the teachers in the temple until his arrest and after, he spoke with His Father pretty much all the time.  How can we live in conscious contact with God?  We are instructed to be transformed by the renewing of our minds.  How can we achieve that renewal?  By means of prayer and meditation. 

It has been said that prayer is talking to God and meditation is listening for the answers.  After over 35 years of practice, I can say that it is not easy, but it is very simple.  Be alone in a quiet place.  Don’t do anything else.  Notice your thoughts, let them pass by, and live in the moment, the only place God can be found.  

Because of Jesus’ close relationship with the Father, he constantly reached out to others.  In AA we say, “You only get to keep what you give away.”  I would add that dwelling in constant, conscious contact with God results in an upwelling of love that has to be passed around.  We must give out of the abundance of our love…which can only increase the more we give.  "The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me because He anointed Me to preach the Gospel to the poor.  He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of the sight to the blind, to set free those who are oppressed and to proclaim the favorable year of the Lord."  (Luke 4:18-19)

Jesus taught his closest friends to love each other deeply and well.   “By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another."  (John 13:34-35)  If we love one another enough to abandon our agenda in favor of the good of others, we will be on our way to imitating Christ.  If people can look at our lives and conclude that we are humble people of peace who love each other….if we love each other enough to make other people want what we have, we are on our way to being Christlike.

Loving each other is hard.  It can’t be done at the same time we are being self-centered.  Curiously, the more selfless we become, the healthier we are spiritually.  So we plunge into the messy, hard-edged business of community and treat everyone as Christ.  It will, in the end, cost us everything, and that’s fine.  The servant is not better than her master.  Funnily enough, along the way, we get to be happy, joyous and free!