In These Times…Presence or Absence?

 

Not only do we need to know when to be ‘wise as a serpent and simple as a dove,’ when we are present in these times of ours, we need to decide whether to be present at all.

When we are with those who are so different, so opposite ourselves in belief, in race, in culture, in opinion, we can arrange to be emotionally absent. It’s just safer. I remain aloof. Uninvolved. So my challenge can be to be present at all.

To go as Francis urges, to the periphery, to the frontiers, may just mean to step outside my psychological comfort zone. What might this look like?

When I began to talk with Muslims about twenty-five years ago, I had no idea what I was getting into. I rather ‘felt’ my way. We were to meet at Aquinas Institute, so I suggested we discuss the Qur’an, admitting we Catholics knew nothing about it. This seemed to even out the playing field a bit, because the Imam, Dr. Waheed Rana, was coming to unfamiliar ground in a Christian building, and so we Christians would be on unfamiliar ground discussing the Qur’an. We did this, and Dr. Rana soon felt at ease coming to our building, and we became more and more familiar with the Qur’an. Then one day he said to me, “We ought to be discussing your Holy Book too.” He felt at home enough to risk being introduced to the New Testament.

It was then that I discovered that going out to the edges was first of all a matter of the heart. Dr. Rana had experienced that there was room for him in our hearts. That was why he felt comfortable to explore our scripture. We had shown him we could make room for his difference in our hearts and then in our building. We had offered him, so different from us, a hospitality of the heart, a kind of presence. This encounter continued until he died. He knew he could be present to us, and we knew we were accepted warmly to be present to him. He was different, and so were we. But despite that difference we could be really present to each other.

When we say that these next four years we will be focusing on presence, maybe that is where to begin with others who are very different…risking the offering of a hospitality of the heart.

The Cross…?

 

"What can it tell me, right? It’s a scandal. I don’t even want to think of it. I don’t like to dwell on all Jesus’ sufferings. I feel so helpless to do anything…” If this is you, then you have a lot of company. What good can the cross possibly be? Yet here it is, the Feast of the Holy Cross, right in the middle of Ordinary Time. It’s as if the Church doesn’t want us to lose sight of it, even when we’re in the green “growing time.” Why – so far from Lent, does this feast appear?

 

The Christian community fully accepts the Jewish scriptures as its own. The God of those texts can be pretty tough. They present an image of God that rightfully demands respect and reverence, faithfulness and obedience, and no one wants to dismiss these responses as unimportant. But then we have the New Testament, and suddenly much more emerges. No longer is God speaking through a prophetic writer who puts the word down on dead animal skins. No. Now the Word is speaking in living flesh – in person – the person of Jesus.

 

Catherine of Siena once asked Jesus why he had his heart pierced when he was already dead. He replied that all his human suffering couldn’t capture all his love, so he had his heart opened up so that we could find it there. With this, we have the clue. Here “the more” emerges. Before, we had God speaking through humans. Now we have God speaking human. And what does God say? Jesus is telling us our lives are going to be full of suffering, and he is going to be with us in the midst of it. It’s not just a punishment, it’s not because we deserve it; it’s just because God needs it somehow…the way a gardener needs manure. Make no mistake. We don’t keep manure in the kitchen. No. But put in the right place by a wise gardener, it does marvelous things.

 

So the cross is a revelation. It tells us something of God – how far God will go to be with us no matter what. So take the crucifix down from your bedroom wall and put it in your lap. Let it talk to you. Maybe it’s about that constant arthritic pain you carry day after day. Maybe it’s that relative that has backed off from contact with the family. Maybe it’s that habit of yours that you can’t seem to shake…that drives everyone crazy…you included. Where’s the cross in your life? What is it telling you about God? About you?

 

There you are,

Hanging on that thing like a piece of meat, on exhibition.

That’s no place for a God…!

Or is it.

There you are, all cut open, blood flowing…can’t be stopped.

Are you telling me nothing can stop your love, not even my foolishness?

Flowing, flowing over me, drawing out all my poison, my anger, my bitterness?

You take it to yourself, don’t you…to stop it from destroying me…eating me up.

So the news is out. That’s where the REAL God is …there, telling me all I need to know.

 

 

In These Times…Serpent or Dove…?

It is hard to watch the news these days…so much violence, so much corruption and deceit, so many crude remarks about women, about immigrants, about Muslims. In the face of all this we have our fresh focus statement. We are to be present. But how are we to be present in these times?

The temptation might be to despair at the darkness of it all. Or maybe it would give us some satisfaction if we just allowed ourselves to get enraged and join those who yell the loudest. The “Domination System,” as Walter Wink put it some time back, is having a heyday. Yet the transformative Word and the contemplative presence challenging us points in another direction.

It’s not that we are to be either serpents or doves. No, it’s not an either/or. It’s a both/and. We are to be both. But that’s where the directive ends. Jesus doesn’t say how, when, or where. Wisely, he knows that times change. More, he is confident we will know how to deal with these times.

How can he be so sure? Has he left us orphans after all? Dominic took great stock in the conferences of John Cassian. He carried them with him when he was on the road. For the curious, if you look at those conferences, they’re all about discretion. This is interesting. The founder of a new upstart Order that proposed to fill in the preaching gap in the church is reading about how to know when to be a serpent and when to be a dove. Yes, he wanted to get the Good News out to the common people, but having the truth is one thing, but how you communicate it, Dominic wisely knew, is quite another.

This is where the assurance of Jesus comes in. He has given us a gift to discern how and when to say things. The Spirit, who is the active Love of God, knows these times. More, that Spirit knows us who live in these times. The Dominican truth-bearer of our day discerns what and how to speak by measuring his or her truth-telling by the Love that is personified. Active love is compassion even for the crude liar, for the violent killer, for the out and out bigot or racist. It is concern for the victimizer as well as for the victims. Jesus, serpent-like, never condemns. He questions. Jesus, dove-like, frees demoniacs and they sit quietly before him with their clothes back on, dignity restored. Love discerns. The task before us is to proclaim the truth that loves.

Ah…there’s the rub.

…we know not what we shall be…

The August heat is upon us. The liturgy in the midst of Ordinary Time points to a brilliance from a source other than the sun. We are shown the brilliance of the Son.

The feast of the Transfiguration shows us a Jesus we can barely look at. We are being shown our own humanity in the state of its own transformation. We can hardly believe it. Like a tender mother, the Word shows the three disciples this amazing sight to prepare them for the degraded view of the human Jesus that they are going to witness during the passion. They are being prepared so that hopefully this imprint on their experience will help them get through it. Then on the 15^th of August, we will be shown “…the woman clothed with the sun…” to make sure we get the point. We celebrate the Assumption of Mary, the Mother of God.

What is the point? It’s really quite amazing. In this time and with the world situation what it is, we are told that all the struggle, all the greed, all the violence, all the corruption will end. It will be no more. When all is said and done, the human will look like these two beautiful people. The human will shine.

 Now I don’t know about you, but I have to swallow hard, and fight back tears when I watch the news. I watch children crying for their parents. I see endless bombing. I hear crude speech about women, about blacks, about Muslims, about immigrants. Most of all I feel helpless to do anything to change what they are going through. So maybe what the liturgy during this month says to us is, “Don’t be hypnotized by the evil. Do the loving thing right where you are. Fold the laundry with love, make the bed with love, butter the toast with love, make lemonade with love…for love will win…up the loving quotient and you will really be doing something.” So can I believe that this is what really counts…can you?

 Lord, you shine!

Yet I know what is coming for you.

I can’t wish it away…blot it out.

It’s going to happen.

They are going to take you to the cleaners.

They are going to do you in.

They are going to try to destroy you.

But they won’t win.

You refuse to stay dead – how come?

Because you are Love

and Love wins.

Help me to remember when the heat is on and the yelling starts.

Amen.

“…and my soul will be healed.”

Some of us still chafe at the word “soul” in this newer liturgical text at the time of communion. We prefer “…that I may be healed.” In our present day understanding, “I” just seems to include “all of me.” The real problem is that we really don’t know what the soul is. Maybe it’s that old “ghost in a machine.” We just can’t get a hold on it.

We are now entering deeper into ordinary time. The readings are filled with growth images and the healing of a broken humanness. But how do you heal a broken soul? How do I even know when it’s broken? Ordinary time is that day to day string of plain old moments and events, right? But stop a moment…such ordinariness is just where the Easter Mystery is going on, and much of it is taking place in our soul. So what are we talking about?

The soul is the life force that keeps our digestion and circulation going. It is that mysterious energy that we feel when we take our pulse. The soul not only keeps our physical functions going, it has marvelous functions that go on subconsciously…without our notice. What are the psychic functions of the soul? Well, they are functions that we share with animals, believe it or not. The capacity to image things, to link images and imagine things, to dream at night or in the daytime; and most important, the eleven powerful emotions. Aristotle and Thomas tell us there are two sets of emotions: the spontaneous emotions of love/hate, desire/aversion, and joy/sadness. Then there are the more considered emotions of fear/courage, hope/despair(powerlessness) and anger, with no opposite; it is flight/fight. Now I don’t know about you, but I need a lot of healing in this part of me.

 But that isn’t all. What we have described so far is the lower part of the soul. The upper part is the human spirit, and its functions are distinct because they are open to infinite possibility. So what are the functions of the human spirit? They are four: attentiveness and wonder at our experiences; intelligent questioning for understanding; reasonable judgment on the correctness of my understanding; and finally, responsible decision based on the value judgment of what is really important to me. Again, I need a lot of healing here…what about you? So maybe we need to reclaim our souls…and they really are us…not just a ghost in a machine.

 

Here I am, Lord…

Just ordinary me, in ordinary time, doing ordinary things.

But I’m an embodied spirit, a spiritual embodiment… quite amazing!

 Heal in me the stunted that needs to grow.

 

Draw me into the future you dream for me; be the Soul of my soul.