The Lady…

As the Christmas season ends, we celebrate the Feast of the Purification…a strange feast in a way, because this Lady needs no purification. So why does the Church continue right on with no apologies? Because, says Isaac of Stella, an early  abbot, “…whatever we say of this lady we must say in some way about the Church and about the individual person.” Now that’s quite a statement. I can hear you thinking… “now just wait a minute…I’m no immaculate conception!” As you might guess, the truth is in the theological distinctions.

 

The Feast of the Purification sounds a note at this beginning of Ordinary Time. Our lives as Church and as individuals are one big ongoing purification, if we are honest. We are challenged daily to become more who we really are, and God is relentless… calling us step by step into our becoming that dream God sees so clearly. We are the blind ones. We spend all too much time resisting, and being fearful of where God might be leading.

 

Enter Mary, the woman who signed a blank check and never wavered as God filled it in. So there’s the call. Watch the readings these weeks. Keep asking, “How am I going to be asked to go through the car wash this week?”

 

Not only do you have depths to your soul where no sin has never touched, you will give birth to the Christ day to day, or as Meister Eckhart reminds us “…your life will be sterile.” If that is not shocking enough, you too must be a theotokos or God-bearer, and a pneumataphora, a Spirit-breather, as she is. As the Eastern Church reminds us, we are indwelt by the Triune God, and it is wise to keep our eyes on our Mother, for she will remind us of God’s dream for us. She is already what we shall be in our immaculate completion. Don’t waste time objecting. Keep your focus, and get on with the project!

Lady,

your beauty amazes the angels.

It amazes me too.

Are you the mirror I’m to look into?

Am I to look like you…eventually?

Keep your eye on me…

I tend to forget, and get bogged down with all the struggle.

Pray my ears and heart open to the Word these winter days,

when my faith-walk gets dreary and my heart grows heavy with wondering

what’s the worth of it all.

Star of the Sea, keep me steady, and full of quiet joy

knowing there is a plan for me that your Son always has in mind.

Amen.

 

 

 

2019 – Keeping our Eye on the Prize

As we enter 2019, we will keep our attention on the focus the community has called us to…the presence we bring as a community of dedicated women and men, and as a vital part of that presence, to purify it from any unconscious stench of racism that might cling to us.

To help us reflect on this task, I’m going to tap a treasure. You may have read the apostolic exhortation (which means it’s a kind of  “ cheer-leading” document…!) of Francis called, Rejoice and Exult in English. Its subtitle is “On the Call to Holiness in Today’s World.” Make no mistake, this is much more than a pious-preach. The letter is a solid strategy for authentic discipleship in today’s world, and it fits you and me, whatever our lifestyle. What might it offer to us as a community, as we enter the New Year with a way of being present and anti-racism on our minds?

Francis begins by assuring us he has no intention of just giving us definitions of holiness. He will be offering practical suggestions, what I am calling a strategy for authentic discipleship for today. In other words, what does it look like to walk around as an authentic disciple of Jesus in our time? It seems to me, this is another way of talking about how we present ourselves wherever we are.

First, we are to look around us at very common people who are living lives of uncommon patience and endurance, quietly and without fanfare. Francis insists this call is to every one of us. It is not a membership in an elite club. It is a call issued to everyone, in and outside the Church. It weaves in and out of the most ordinary daily activities, and echoes often in very small ways. With this Francis assures us that holiness is not somewhere “up in the clouds,” but right in the midst of the flow of everyday. It is not a separate aloofness, but a distinctive way of being very human. Watching the evening news with this in mind reveals it popping out everywhere.

This assurance removes the notion of separateness from the call, and locates its distinctness in the presence or witness we each carry with us as we live moment to moment. This is where our efforts on racism might come in. We have long ago rejected conscious racism. We have intentionally turned away from it. Then why is racism still lingering in our hearts and in our nation? The enemy is unconscious bias. We can’t be intentional about what we are not conscious of. So how do we spot this and deal with it?

Bias comes in four subtle and sneaky forms. First, there is the dramatic bias that clings to us because of the influence of a person or event. It’s a scar on our psychic memory, and whenever we’re in similar circumstances, it will operate whether we want it to or not. Then there is individual egoism: “This is the way it is, and nobody is going to tell me otherwise.” My way, or the highway. Or worse, this unconscious tendency goes corporate: “This is the way we do it around here.” Finally, there is plain old general bias: “I don’t want to hear any more about this stuff. I already know enough about it.” These attitudes are sneaky and often not intentional. They are just there. What to do? Bring them to the surface. Admit them. Once they are conscious, we can monitor them! We all have work to do…our presence, our witness, depends on it.

The Lady…

As the Christmas season ends, we celebrate the Feast of the Purification…a strange feast in a way, because this Lady needs no purification. So why does the Church continue right on with no apologies? Because, says Isaac of Stella, an early abbot, “…whatever we say of this lady we must say in some way about the Church and about the individual person.” Now that’s quite a statement. I can hear you thinking…”…now just wait a minute…I’m no immaculate conception!” As you might guess, the truth is in the theological distinctions.

 The Feast of the Purification sounds a note at this beginning of Ordinary Time. Our lives as Church and as individuals are one big ongoing purification if we are honest. We are challenged daily to become more who we really are, and God is relentless…calling us step by step into our becoming that dream God sees so clearly. We are the blind ones. We spend all too much time resisting, and being fearful of where God might be leading.

Enter Mary, the woman who signed a blank check, and never wavered as God filled it in. So there’s the call. Watch the readings these weeks. Keep asking, “How am I going to be asked to go through the car wash this week?”

Not only do you have a depths to your soul where no sin has never touched, you will give birth to the Christ day to day, or as Meister Eckhart reminds us “…your life will be sterile.” If that is not shocking enough, you too must be a theotokos or God-bearer, and a pneumataphora, a Spirit-breather, as she is. As the Eastern Church reminds us, we are indwelt by the Triune God, and it is wise to keep our eyes on our Mother, for she will remind us of God’s dream for us. She is already what we shall be in our immaculate completion. Don’t waste time objecting. Keep your focus, and get on with the project!

 

Lady,

your beauty amazes the angels.

It amazes me too.

Are you the mirror I’m to look into?

Am I to look like you…eventually?

Keep your eye on me…

I tend to forget, and get bogged down with all the struggle.

Pray my ears and heart open to the Word these winter days,

when my faith-walk gets dreary and my heart grows heavy with wondering

what’s the worth of it all.

Star of the Sea, keep me steady, and full of quiet joy

knowing there is a plan for me that your Son always has in mind.

Amen.

What Kind of “Coming?”

When Advent comes, we say we are preparing for the “coming” of the Lord. But he has already come, right? So, are we just remembering a past event? Or maybe we mean he will be coming back, right? Both of these are true. He has come, and he will indeed be coming back. So then are we remembering a future event? It’s a little like a sandwich. There is the bread on the top and the bread on the bottom, but where’s the “beef?”

The Church really is reminding us of three comings, and the most important is the one in the middle…that’s the beef in the sandwich. It’s easy to remember the three with a little diddy: History, Mystery, and Majesty.

The coming in History is the surprising revelation that comes “…in the fullness of time.” So why is the time “full?” Because God has been playing a kind of “peek-a-boo” down through the ages. Little by little you are ready to see more of me. First, I create you out of pure love and put you in a garden called earth. Then you mess things up by not doing as I ask. This affects not only your relationship with me, but your relationship with one another and your relationship with the earth. You are evicted from the garden. Then, as the centuries roll on, you try to search for me even though your ideas of who I am are pretty cloudy. You keep thinking I’m like yourself. You make me in your own image and likeness. I show you as much as you can bear through the prophets. Then, finally, the fullness of time comes; you are of age. I show you who I really am. I come as human, a language you understand. I enter History, your flow of time and space.

But you make the same mistake all over again. You don’t do as I ask. In fact, you get rid of me so I don’t bother you. But I’m not one to give up easily, so I will come back and try, try again. Yes, I will come back finally in Majesty to claim you, but I will help you get ready to meet me. I will come to you daily in Mystery. Wake up. Don’t miss me. I will come in a hundred different disguises. I am behind every face you see, every hand reached out to you, every person you touch. Don’t pass me by. This time say yes to what I ask of you, OK?

Close as tomorrow the sun shall appear,

Freedom is coming and healing is near.

And I shall be with you in sorrow and pain

to stand in the wind and walk in the reign.

In days to come the desert shall bloom.

Rivers shall run there, and soon, very soon.

So what shall we fear, though death do its worst?

The word of our God is the last shall be first.

Comfort each other, for pain soon must end.

A day comes when lion and lamb shall be friends.

The sightless shall see then, the speechless sing songs.

The name of our God is the righter of wrongs.

In these times…Being a Person of Peace?

Soon we will be gathering during this Advent time. It is a time of peace, this midnight blue season of waiting. As part of our reflection on the centrality of presence in our focus statement, what might it really mean for us to be persons of peace? What did it mean for the Word to appear among us as a child bringing peace?

From the cradle to the cross, I can’t help but think of the Christ as some mysterious lightning deflector. Wherever he went, violence seemed to find him and try to wipe him out. My observation is that he always deflected that violence to the ground. He grounded it so it couldn’t go any further. This got me to thinking about myself as a person of peace.

Violence visits us all. It might be the thoughtless remark, the snub, or the critical remark, said to me or by me. This can frazzle me, shattering my peace. What if, like some antenna, I simply grounded it, intentionally refusing to send it on, choosing not to react nor to give myself the satisfaction of speaking of it to another? What if I determined violence would die with me, going no further. What would it take for me to do this regularly up front?

Our instinctive reaction is to project it on, to return remark for remark. What if I deliberately grounded it, making sure it ended with me? Could this be just my little contribution to ridding the world of violence? It seems so small a thing…so personal, and no one will even know. But my heart will know, and the One who is the Prince of Peace will know. Maybe, just maybe, there will be peace in my small space, my corner of the world.

I need to stare at the baby asleep in the hay. One day the violence loose in the world will kill him. But in touching him it will die with him. It will go no further. He’s right. The peace he will bring is not as the world gives. It comes from somewhere else. This advent I too want to come from somewhere else.

The Light has Come…

Winter is here…with its dreary overcast days, and bone-chilling cold. The weather sometimes reflects the daily news, and we wonder if it can get any darker. Yet the word of God doesn’t seem to notice…or maybe it is more accurate to say the word of God looks beyond the gloom and doom.

This is the season when we crave light. We need it physically, because we are getting so little sun, so it’s wise to check our lamps. Replacing old bulbs with full spectrum light bulbs can help avoid SAD, the letters for “seasonal affective disorder.” In other words, the lack of light can make us moody and depressed. Why? Because when we really think of it, we are rock-bottom made of light. Yes, it’s true. Our basic ingredient is light energy taking the form of matter in our DNA and cells. Now that’s a place to start for pondering self-worth!

The human Jesus calls himself “The Light of the World.” Then, true to form, he looks at his disciples and says, “You are the light of the world…” He is not just speaking figuratively. He means it.

But first we have to believe it. We need to remember it when we’ve just made a fool of ourselves; when we have done something stupid or unkind. We need to remember it when we get into those holes we get in when we are down on ourselves. He bends down, lifts us by the chin and plants a kiss on our nose. Yes, light to light.

Thomas Merton writes of his experience in Louisville one day while he was in the city square waiting for a brother he had taken to a doctor’s appointment. All the people walking were shining like they had swallowed the sun. His comment when he wrote of this fleeting experience was, “Whatever are they going to say to me when I walk up to them and tell them…do you know you are shining like the sun?” Catherine of Siena too had a similar experience. So beautiful was the sight of light emanating from a person that she was prepared to kneel down before them. God stopped her saying, “No, Catherine, that is not me. It is but my grace working in that person.”

So in these dreary days, when your spirit feels blah…recall what dwells within you, what you yourself cannot see. Be amazed. Then live your day with a knowing little smile.

Light to light, you say.

What have you wrought in making me?

My knobby knees and greying hair?

Even more, what are you making of me…

as your graceful presence works its way in me?

No matter…

I trust the craftsman…and offer myself as your lantern.

Shine through me and make me shine despite my smoky past.

The Fullness of Time…

Time…we have entered 2019. We are all too familiar with “Time flies…” or “I don’t know where the time went!” But here we are, and the New Year is upon us.

As people of the Word, what is so amazing to us is that the Eternal One, who has no time constraints, has entered into the very time constraints that you and I struggle with every day. “Not enough time…time on my hands”…whatever your experience, you know what I mean. It can indeed be a struggle. With the incarnation, the Holy One now knows those same constraints. Perhaps this is what the “swaddling bands” tells us. Can’t move…all bound up…dependent…so limited. You can add to the  list.

Now why ever would the Eternal Word want to do this? Not only take on this, but freely enter the pace of development in the womb, month by month, day by day…pregnancy can’t be hurried. It takes its time. What this step into hidden time says to me is “I’ve been there…I know how tedious it is just to be human sometimes.”

So these days of winter are the time after Christmas when we ponder the “hidden life.” Amazing. Thirty years of hiding out. Doing what we might call “nothing.” But isn’t that how we view our own lives? “I’m not doing much of anything new,” we say. Yet if the Word thought it so important to spend thirty years of doing things so ordinary that they were not worth writing down, maybe we need to take another look at time.

First, love it. Embrace it each morning as you put your feet on the floor. Wrap it around you, as the air wraps you round about. It is the atmosphere where you will do your loving. You will need to be patient as it flows, and above all don’t scream at it, beat it, or abuse it. Be careful not to rush. Merton says this is the first form of self-abusive violence we impose on ourselves. Try not to hurry – ever. Move gently from one task to another. You will be amazed at how this practice can keep you in the presence of God…so we in turn can be present to others. Each of us has exactly as much time as everyone else. Now there’s true equity.

Holy One,

I just don’t have time.

To sit there and just be with you, that is.

What good is it?

But there you are, inside my little time capsule…

waiting for me.

Don’t you ever get tired waiting for me?

Maybe I just have to settle this…

and admit I just keep busy to avoid feeling so vulnerable in your presence.

Maybe I do have the time.

Maybe I just avoid you because I don’t know what to do sitting in your love.

So this year, maybe I just need to learn to waste time with you.

Maybe I just need to let you know…

 you are worth “wasting” time with.