In love with Christ; in love with the Church

"You have seduced me, O Lord, and I let myself be seduced."
--Jeremiah 20:7a

Catholic theologian Tim Muldoon, reflecting on Father Robert Barron's Catholicism series, recently pondered over the meaning of the Catholic faith in today's world.  "I find myself dwelling on the basic question of how one can describe this faith, this Church, this tradition, this religion, this community, this worldview, this theology," he writes.  "It is an impossible task!"

Muldoon describes the standard narrative (SN) of the history of the faith and its place in helping build Western civilization, but concludes the standard narrative is no longer sufficient for explaining the hold Catholicism continues to have on over one billion believers worldwide.  No, Muldoon argues, Catholic Christianity continues to thrive because it answers the deepest need and longing of the human heart:

Unlike what many of its critics seem to think, [Catholicism] is not fundamentally about a kind of military-like uniformity of taking orders from the general. It is much more like the way that beachgoers watch the ocean: we go because we respond to a summons from the heart. What the SN cannot convey, and what the critics tend to miss, is that Catholicism is fundamentally about a real encounter with the risen Christ, a response to God's own initiative to seduce us into falling in love with him...[A]t the grass roots, it is about an individual person coming to know another individual person, and repeating what the centurion said at the foot of the cross: surely this is the Son of God.

Muldoon remind me of how I have often described my own journey to the Catholic faith, which I consummated by being Confirmed in the church eleven years ago.  "When you fall in love with someone, it doesn't mean you agree with everything they say or always feel peace and bliss in the relationship," I have said many times, "But it does mean you can't imagine living without them in your life."


And that's true of my relationship with the Church, but increasingly I see that it is so much more.  My faith is more than my love of the Church and what keeps me there is not always the same thing that led me there, as Abbot Christopher Jamison says in his book Finding Sanctuary: Monastic Steps for Everyday Life, of his own vocation as a monk.  "I do not know why I became a monk," he writes, "because the reason I joined is not the reason I stayed."

Originally, I fell in love with the Church - its beauty, its history, its majesty, its people.  Then gradually, I fell in love with Christ, a response to how He first loved me, and relentlessly pursued me and seduced my soul.  Now, I remain in the Church because it is there, through its beautry, its history, its majesty, its people, that I find so many wonderful ways to love Him and be loved by Him still.

O Lover of my soul, you have seduced me and I am so glad I have let myself be seduced!  Continue to woo us through your earthly Church, O Lord, and draw us ever deeper into your love.  Amen.

Of Godly Men

Last night I finally had the awesome experience of watching Of Gods and Men, the critically-acclaimed French film featuring the true story of Trappist monks caught up in the religious violence of the mid-1990's Algeria Civil War.  Based closely on James Kiser's book, The Monks of Tribhirine, the movie describes how the eight monks, led by Dom Christian de Cherge, prayerfully struggle with how to respond to the escalating threat from Islamic extremists and their violent crusdade against foreigners and "infidels." 

The monks are frightened by the risks, but feel compelled to remain at their monastery, despite entreaties from the French government and local authorities to leave for their own safety.  The monks provide medical services and have close personal ties to the local Muslim population and are loathe to abandon them.  They fight to maintain neutrality between the corrupt government and the militant insurgents and are caught between both in an ever-increasing spiral of danger.

I don't want to give too much away if any readers aren't familiar with the story, but I did find this film to be extremely compelling and inspiring from a faith perspective.  The modern secularist will probably be puzzled by the monks seemingly suicidal decision to hold their ground, as will perhaps a lot of Christians.  But this is no story of religious fanaticism, but rather the story of having a moral purpose and in meeting one's commitments to others in faithfulness that some things in life are worth grave risks.  The world would do well to learn about the kind of love (Christ-imitating love) that leads one to give everything for another, even those who look differently and believe differently than one's self.

Indeed, Of Gods and Men is, in part, a statement of a love that transcends religious differences.  As the situation in Algeria deterioriated in December 1993, the real Dom Christian began to prepare for his own possibly martyrdom, and wrote a beautiful "Last Testament" describing his decision to stay.  The entire text, and a lovely discussion about it, is featured in this 2007 article for Spiritual Life.  De Cherge wrote, in conclusion, an a priori message to the man who might someday take his life:

The final words, in Arabic, are the classic Muslim conclusion to any statement of worth, "God willing."
 
Of Gods and Men is moving, awe-inspiring, and compelling for anyone, believer or no-believer alike.

And also you, the friend of my final moment, who would not be aware of what you were doing.
Yes, I also say this THANK YOU and this A-DIEU to you, in whom I see the face of God.
And may we find each other, happy good thieves, in Paradise, if it pleases God, the Father of us both. Amen. In sha ‘Allah.

A Church Meeting Postmortem

From The Praying Life blog comes this gem, a "Church Meeting Postmortem:"

I cannot for the life of me
figure out
how people who love God,
good people
faithful people

are able to spend so much time
talking about God
reading about God
and running here and there
doing God's work

and not have time to stop.
And bow.
Awestruck.
Lost in love.

Every five minutes or so.
I know the sweet seduction
of anxiety, power, and that little harlot
ego.

I have fallen for their whispered lies,
and empty promises.

I have wakened from a night
in their arms,
unsatisfied, restless, and fretful.

But, I ask you,
do we not have a clue,
that the Beloved is in the room
disrobing
right before our eyes?

How many ephiphanies are omitted
from the minutes
of last month's meeting?

How can we go on pretending
that Holiness is not breathing
shivers of ecstasy
down our necks?

Am I crazy?
Probably.

But I am also sick and weary of sitting on this Wonder.
Don't be surprised then,
when I rise up and prostrate
myself
during Carl Mitchell's report
on the cost of replacing the pews
with moveable chairs.

I just couldn't go on pretending any longer,
and this hungry Love has taken me

beyond propriety,
decency,
and order.

Check out the whole blog here.

Glimpses of Glory

Thursday, 30th Week of Ordinary Time

"When we catch even the tiniest glimpse of God we are filled with joy.  To be aware of his presence, even for a split second, so fills our hearts with love that we must break into praise."
--Fr. Benignus O'Rourke, OSA, Finding Your Hidden Treasure: The Way of Silent Prayer

This is true, but the trouble for me at least (and I always speak for me), is that the instant that glimpse passes, I forget it.  I go immediately back into my grim, relentless push to get things done and check things off my list (a list that never ends or even gets any shorter, by the way).

What a shame.  Because those moments are truly glimpses of glory.  They come on totally unexpectedly.  My daughter looks at me and grins, I get the sudden whiff of rich, earthy fall leaves, I hear the lonesome song of crickets, pining away from a now-faded summer.  And in those moment, there is pure delight, and my heart leaps in praise.

Perhaps my defacto assumption is that, when the moment passes, God is no longer near.  But we know this is untrue.  It is only our openness, our listening, or faith, that has ceased.  These are moments of grace, meant to sustain and inspire us through the ordinary moments, which are never quite as ordinary as we think, when we open our eyes to the shimmering glory all around us.

As St. Paul reminds us today, "I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities,
nor present things, nor future things, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Romans 8:38-39).  Nor checklists, nor grocery shopping, nor bills, nor traffic, nor politics, nor any other distraction we choose to see as more important.

Holy One, I give praise for this glorious moment, just as it is, and pray for the heart of faith to know we are never apart.  Amen.

The Final Word

"The spirit comes to the aid of our weakness;
for we do not know how to pray as we ought,
but the spirit Himself intercedes with inexpressible groanings."
--Romans 8:26

Word comes to us today that a family friend who is battling cancer is slowly losing the fight. His condition has moved beyond human treatment. Body systems fail. Pain overwhelms. A family suffers.

I do not know how to pray for such needs. Words seem empty and hollow.

But this longing for peace, for ourselves and others, this longing for the reconciliation and a resolution to all grief and pain, that longing itself, that is the prayer. Yesterday St. Paul proclaimed that all of creation itself is groaning in labor pains for the fulfillment of our deepest needs and longings.

Creation cries out with us. The Spirit itself cries out in response.

We wail for God and God wails back, like a separated mother and child crying out for one another.

A thundering chorus of unformed words, the torrent of all longing and desire, echoes all around us in a mighty, cosmic roar.

We are not alone in this, even when we feel most alone, and this suffering is not the final word.

The final word is one of sheer silence, which we find at the foot of the Cross, where this great call and response reaches its climax and we are finally made One.

Oh my God, words fail. I release all these unspeakable needs to you, listening for your voice crying out to us in response. Enter into our suffering once more, and let us abide in this veil of tears with hope for all that you are about to reveal. Amen.

A Biblical Perspective on Purgatory

The latest issue of First Things features an excellent article by Gary A. Anderson, professor of Old Testament and Hebrew at University of Notre Dame, on the biblical origins of the doctrine of purgatory. Link here but unfortunately it's only available to subscribers at the moment. Will post an update when the full text becomes available.

The essence of Anderson's argument (and I hope I can do it justice here) is that while the atoning and redeeming work of Christ's self-sacrifice effects total forgiveness for the believer, the effect of sin remains, not as a punishment but as a necessary and natural consequence of our actions. We are forgiven but still must undergo sanctification to experience the full richness of the Beatific Vision. To be sure, we don't sanctify ourselves; that's still the work of God's grace and mercy. What we do is continue to surrender ourselves wholly and completely to Christ's redeeming love until that work of sanctification is complete in us - and for most of us that work will not be complete at the time of death.

In support of his point Anderson points to bibical narratives about King David's patience in suffering the long consequences of his own sin, King Nebuchadnezzar's alms-giving after his own repentence, and how the widows who benefitted from Tabitha's charity in the book of Acts appeal for mercy on her in the Acts story of Peter raising Tabitha from the dead.

St. Augustine would have had no trouble with this improbably juxtaposition of grace (free gift) and merit: Through the divine grace, human beings are enabled to participate in the work of God. Though they win merits for themselves, the merits are themselves the fruit of gifts in the first place. A close analogy might be the young girl who buys a Christmas gift for her mother. From one perspective it is no gift at all; the mother simply gives back what she provided in the first place. But from another
angle the gift allows the child to participate in the exchange of love that is basic to the family itself. Her enthusiastic desire to show her love "wins" anew the love her mother has already given her.

We respond to Christ's totally self-giving love, not simply with cries of mercy and an acceptance of forgiveness, but in a return of totally self-giving love. And yes, it was all Christ's love to being with, but now we participate in it fully. And for our loved ones who have crossed over, we can pray for them that this circle of love may be completed and that we might join in it when our own sanctification is complete:

Salvation is, after all, both individual and communal in nature, and the doctrine of purgatory reminds us that our lives are not ours alone. We are linked in a great chain of being (one body, many members, to invoke Paul) to all of our beloved ancestors. We don't have to pretend that all are saved and by so doing make a mockery of our moral choices, but neither must we commend our beloved to eternal suffering.

I've not done Anderson's article justice with these few short paragraphs, but I commend it to others for their study and prayerful consideration. For me personally, I responded deeply to Anderson's metaphor of the child who gives her mother a Christmas gift which the mother herself undoubtedly paid for. I've been meditating lately on the prologue to the Rule of St. Benedict, where the first sentence commands, "Listen, child of God, to the guidance of
your teacher," and pondering over what it means to be God's child. This metaphor gives me new
insight.

Beloved, all that I have comes from you. I am utterly helpless without your grace and mercy. Let your love sanctify me so that I might reflect your light and love back upon you and the world. Amen.

The Greatest of These

Father Robert Barron's mini-series documentary Catholicism has been shown in excerpt the last two Sundays on PBS. I've been deeply moved by this passionate, deeply historical, and extremely thoughtful look at the origins of our faith. See a trailer for the series here, which is scheduled to shown on EWTN during the month of November.

Last night's episode examined the critical role of Saints Peter and Paul in the shape and spread of early Christianity, and culminated with a lovely meditation on Paul's "hymn to love" found in the thirteenth chaper of 1 Corinthians.

Fr. Barron pointed out (and I'm paraphrasing here) that in heaven, there is no faith and hope, only love. This seemed startling at first, but makes perfect sense. There will be no need for faith, because we will know God and our True Selves intimate, face-to-face. There will be no need for hope because all longing will be fulfilled. But there will be love, infinite, abiding, overflowing love. Faith and hope will have reach their ultimate end in this eternal dance of love.


As today's first reading points out, "we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ" (Romans 8:16-17). We are heirs to unsurpassing love.


Holy One, strengthen our faith, strengthen and sanctify our hope, but above all, conform us to your love, which is our destiny and birthright. Amen.

Teach Us to Pray

"The LORD is close to the brokenhearted;
and those who are crushed in spirit he saves."
--Psalm 34: 19

"Your Father knows what you need before you ask him."
--Matthew 6:8b

There are many broken hearts in the world, many crushed in spirit. The news is full of tragedy and devastation in Japan following a massive earthquake and tsunami there. Closer to home, a student of mine emailed yesterday to share that her son has died from suicide.

Someone asked me the other day, as we watched the horrifying scenes of destruction from Japan on the television news, "How does one pray for a tragedy so enormous as this?" The scale of suffering is so large, whether it is the massive death toll from an earthquake or the never-ending emotional earthquake of a suicide, we hardly know where to begin in our prayers.

Today Jesus reminds us that God is not concerned with the quantity or the eloquence of our words. In fact, God is so close to the suffering and brokenhearted, he hears their prayers and ours even when those prayers are an unformed, half-choked cry for mercy, even the cry of anger and despair. He hears our prayers, even when our prayer takes the form of a question like, "How does one pray for this?"

That is prayer itself, a turning in awe, horror, fear, wonder, longing, and faith with utter surrender to the One who knows, who loves, who saves.

God of Mercy, hear our prayer.

The Paradox of Lent

"Lord, open my lips; my mouth will proclaim your praise."
--Psalm 51:17

Christianity is a faith of paradox. The examples are countless. We die in order to be reborn. God becomes human so that humans can become like God. The smallest is the greatest, the greatest the least.

These paradoxes come into particularly sharp focus during the season of Lent. We fast in order to become fuller of the things that matter. We give to others so that we can be grateful for what we have. We embrace our brokenness so that we can be healed. We proclaim our sinfulness so that God's grace can be glorified. We mourn our lostness so that we can relish the joy of our salvation. We practice discipline so that we can experience total freedom.

Despite its somberness and seriousness, Lent is not a time of sadness. It is a season to nurture joy, gratitude and love, which will come to full realization in the glory of Easter. It is a time to acknowledge our brokenness, sinfulness, and dependence on God, so that we might revel in His gracious love, which embraces and cherises us with no regard for our dependence, brokenness, and sin.

This phrase from the Psalms, which serves as the opening verse of the Invitatory psalm during the Liturgy of the Hourse, is the consummate Lenten statement. I call upon God to open my lips, because I am utterly helpless to speak when I fully acknowledge my fail humanity And yet, with God's grace, I find my voice, which was made for one purpose.

Holy One, with humble, broken hearts, we fall upon your mercy, our heads bowed in shame. In your infinite compassion, you pick us up, gently turn our faces toward you, and whisper your endless adoration into your ears. We are your children, your beloved. Help us to turn this season of sorrow into the season of endless joy you planned for us from the birth of creation. Amen.

The Calling

Thursday, Seventh Week of Easter
Feast of St. Bernadine, Priest

“Paradoxical as it may seem, it would not even occur to a person – no, nor to an angel or saint – to desire contemplative love were it not already alive within him. I believe, too, that often our Lord deliberately chooses to work in those who have been habitual sinners rather than in those who, by comparison, have never grieved him at all. Yes, he seems to do this very often. For I think he wants us to realize that he is all-merciful and almighty, and that he is perfectly free to work as he pleases, where he pleases, and when he pleases.

“Yet he does not give his grace nor work this work in a person who has no aptitude for it. But a person lacking the capacity to receive his grace could never gain it through his own efforts either. No one at all, neither sinner nor innocent, can do so. For this grace is a gift, and it is not given for innocence nor withheld for sin…

“He who experiences God working the depths of his spirit has the aptitude for contemplation and no one else. For without God’s grace a person would be so completely insensitive to the reality of contemplative prayer that he would be unable to desire or long for it…you will never desire to posses it until that which is ineffable and unknowable moves you to desire the ineffable and unknowable. Do not be curious to know more, I beg you. Only become increasingly faith to this work until it becomes your whole life.”
—The Cloud of Unknowing


We who long for contemplation, though we feel unworthy and completely clueless as to how to be contemplatives, have been chosen for this work by God’s inexplicably mystery and grace. There is nothing to do but start cooperating.

Great Silence, still my racing mind, my searching heart. Allow me to accept this calling, and follow you into the cloud of unknowing, where we are truly, fully known. Amen.

Out of Our Hands

Wednesday, Seventh Week of Easter

“And now I commend you to God and to that gracious word of his that can build you up and give you the inheritance among all who are consecrated.”
—Acts 20:32

I struggle sometimes when people ask me to pray for them, or when I, in my enthusiasm, offer to pray for someone or some situation. When it comes time to pray, my words falter. I don’t know how to pray sometimes. But I have the intention.

Likewise, I often don’t know how to pray for myself.

So, here Paul provides an example of how it is not ultimately our prayers that bless others, but rather the unconditional love and grace of God which we acknowledge through our prayers.

I spend an awful lot of time trying to make the world into my image. I hope that most of the time, my vision for how things ought to be corresponds with the Divine plan for what ought to be, but it’s likely I often miss the mark. And I often wind up frustrated because things don’t unfold as I plan or intend. Then, too, Paul’s example is helpful. We are vessels, and the land to which we are being delivered is beyond our imagining, a place of immense inheritance, where every need and longing will be fulfilled.

Lord of Life, I commend all those in need, including myself, to your gracious word. Build us up and give us the inheritance you so lavishly have reserved for us. Amen.

The Divine Gardener

Wednesday, Fifth Week of Easter

“He takes away every branch in me that does not bear fruit,
and everyone that does he prunes so that it bears more fruit.”
—John 15:2

Well, there it is, isn’t it?

Who can tell the mysterious ways in which we are being pruned? Who is to say that this spiritual dryness I feel isn’t simply the Divine Gardener, weeding my spirit, pruning and shaping the branches of my being so that great fruit can bear forth?

Holy One, be gentle with your shears, but complete your work in me. Reveal all in me that needs to be removed, so that I might abide in your perfect love. Amen.

What Peace?

Tuesday, Fifth Week of Easter

“Peace I leave you; my peace I give you.”
—John 14:27

Some days I just don’t feel it. Maybe I’m going through a dry spell. Maybe it’s acedia, that delightfully old concept of listlessness and spiritual sloth. But maybe not. I’m still praying; I just don’t feel much right now. Maybe it’s the mental and physical exhaustion of being a new parent and facing a new job transition.

At any rate, my tendency is to view this condition as a problem, and specifically as a failure. I am slowly learning, however, that this not the case. Consolations come and go, for reasons beyond our capacity for understanding. Feelings, motivations, desires and fears are conditioned by that mysterious combination of nature and life-long patterns of mind. They are transient. They are impermanent. They are not the essence of my true self.

The peace Christ promises, at least in this life, is not the peace of perpetual consolation and ease. It is the promise that, regardless what I’m feeling at the moment, I am loved, redeemed, and restored in the ultimate sense. Joy will return, and then recede again. Life’s pace will change, and so will my affect. But at the level of my truest self, all is one, and all is well.

Lord of Peace, I honestly wouldn’t mind some consolation right now. Open my eyes and heart to experience joy where you are trying to reveal it to me. But above all, let me rest in the peace of knowing you, even when I don’t feel it. Amen.

A Prostrate Heart

Feast of Sts. Phillip and James

“Through [the Gospel] you are also being saved,
if you hold fast to the word I preached to you.”
—1 Corinthians 15:2 [emphasis mine]

“Any monk or nun who is corrected for anything by abbot or abbess or one of the seniors and perceives that the senior is upset by feelings of anger, even though they may be well in control, then that junior should at once prostrate on the ground in contrition and not move until the senior gives a blessing which will heal the upset.”
—from The Rule of St. Benedict, Chapter 71

Some teachings in the Rule are easier to apply to the modern circumstances of lay life than others. When I read this passage today, I chuckled at the thought of prostrating myself before my wife or my best friend when I have angered them, and refusing to move until they gave me a blessing.

This is funny to think about both because of the imagined looks on their faces and the awkwardness they would feel in response, and secondly because I can hardly picture making myself humble enough to actual do such a thing.

My resistance to this kind of humility is partly socially conditioned. In our modern, egalitarian society, to show this kind of deference to another considered self-diminishing and unhealthy. But the greater resistance comes from my own unwillingness to completely admit my own error without somehow justifying it, minimizing it, or pointing out the error of others. “You shouldn’t be so angry with me,” I want to say. “I am only human. And look at all your faults! You should be prostrating before me!”

This is natural, of course. No one likes to admit their failures, and it is all too easy to justify our foibles by point out the failings of others, especially when one person’s error is tied up in the errors of another.

The relevance of this chapter of the Rule is not for us to actually go around physically prostrating ourselves to each other,(though that might not actually be so bad), but to remind us of the utter humility with which we ought to continuously seek understanding and reconciliation. In reality, if we all applied the Rule, we’d be falling down before each other simultaneously, and the gateway to forgiveness and peace would be instantly opened.

It will require a substantial transformation of our stubborn wills, of course (which is why the physical act of prostration is so powerful), but ultimately, as St. Paul reminds us, through grace God is working out our kinks, and we are being saved, restored to perfect unity with God and one another.

Holy One, I come to you with prostrate heart. Give me the humility, courage, and grace to approach others with the same longing for reconciliation and peace. Amen.

To Be Adored

Friday, Fourth Week of Easter
Memorial of Pope St. Pius V

“You are my Son; this day I have begotten you.”
—Psalm 2:7b

From time to time, I long to be adored.

This is not easy to admit. It sounds thoroughly self-absorbed. My life is good. My prayers this morning were filled with thanksgiving for the many undeserved blessings I have known. There are many people in my life who love me unconditionally and there are so many others in the world who suffer beyond my own scope of experience.

And yet, in the quiet truth of my deepest heart, sometimes I still long to simply be adored, and all the goodness of my life does not quite fulfill this longing. I am filled with some humility and even shame to acknowledge it, but I take a small bit of consolation in that I think every heart longs for this also, though few are willing to own it.

Of course, we are adored, but we don’t see it or accept it. Just as there are people in our lives who genuinely ache for us and our happiness, but we don’t feel, recognize, or understand their love, so it is with God also. The Spirit pours out upon us in desire for our very hearts, and in self-giving adoration, but we are too blind to see it. Or perhaps, we are just still too young and immature in our own development.

When I hold my baby daughter, the word adoration is probably too weak to describe the surge of love and worshipful concern that pours out of me. Does she feel that? Does she know? Perhaps on some level she does. It is such comfort to me when she simply smiles in return. She will likely understand my adoration for her better as she grows and matures, but even if she never fully knows, it makes the love I feel for her no less real.

And this must be how God adores us, with complete and reckless abandon, content with our relative unawareness, delighted in our occasional smile, and totally committed to our well-being and happiness. We are, indeed, adored, and the longing we feel is fulfilled in him.

Holy Parent, Divine Lover, break open my heart so that I may bask in the passion and desire you feel for me. May the adoration of your love pour through the universe this day, and may we have wisdom to return it to you and to one another. Amen.

Of Light Bulbs and Laser Beams

April 28, 2010 – Wednesday, Fourth Week of Easter

“I came into the world as light, so that everyone who believes in me might not remain in darkness.”
—John 12:46

During this recent time of personal and professional transition, I’ve reflected a lot on the meaning and purpose of my work. I am leaving a job to pursue another, related role in the same field, but many of the specific projects I’ve initiated will pass into other hands…or, quite likely, will pass away altogether. This has contributed to my sense of loss and mourning, and my doubts about the impact I’ve made.

With these feelings lingering in the margins of my spirit, I was particularly struck by a comment in John Maeda’s terrific book, The Laws of Simplicity, which we have recently used in contemplative leadership study with one of my work teams:

I was once advised by my teacher Nicholas Negroponte to become a light bulb instead of a laser beam, at an age and time in my career when I was all focus. His point was that you can either brighten a single point with laser precision, or else use the same light to illuminate everything around you. Striving for excellence usually entails the sacrifice of everything in the background for the same of attending to the all-important foreground. I took Negroponte’s challenge as a greater goal of finding the meaning of everything around, instead of just what I directly faced.

There’s probably no better metaphor for the way I’ve approached my own work than a laser beam: hot, intense, searing, cutting away that which I deem imperfect and constructing the ideal product. My approach has worked for me in a number of ways, but being a laser beam, as Maeda notes, brightens only a single point at a time. And it will be many of those specific points of my work that will likely fade away or be tossed away with my departure.

What real impact I leave will be relative to the extent I’ve served, unwittingly, as a light bulb. Where I have brought some illumination, some warmth, some insight, some larger perspective, the light will likely remain.

That light is the light of the divine, shining through me, by grace. I know this because I was trying to be a laser beam and was oblivious to the warmer, softer light that was emanating around me anyway. And this is the light that will guide me in the next chapter of my story.

Light of the World, you have lead me through darkness though I foolishly thought I was leading the way. Humble me and give me wisdom, so that I might know when to be a laser and when to be a light bulb. And may I have the grace to see that either way, the light is yours. Amen.

I Thirst

Monday, Fourth Week of Easter

“Athirst is my soul for the living God.”
—Psalm 42:3a

I am tired and weary today. I am sad. The economy has finally caught up to those of us who work in the public sector, and the organization I work for is facing some sizable budget cuts. People are going to lose their jobs. My own job, which I will soon be departing, will not be filled.

I am left with a deep sense of mourning over this. What does it mean to give your heart and soul for work that, in the end, will either be left incomplete, or will be divided up and doled out to other employees who have no choice but to willingly accept it? What do I do with all this work I have created and all the residual stuff associated with it?

It makes me feel thoroughly expendable.

And, it makes me feel selfish that I’m mourning like this when other people are losing the jobs they have.

We tie up so much emotion, aspiration, hope, and passion in the work we do. There’s nothing wrong with this, I suppose. All such longing is a manifestation, a sacrament, of our deep thirst for fulfillment, meaning and purpose, a thirst that is quenched through our work and our relationships, but ultimately, quenched by God.

Holy One, pour your goodness out upon those who are struggling with the loss of jobs and upon those who must make these difficult decisions. I offer my own work here up to you, and release my attachment to what becomes of it, trusting that, by your grace, any light I have brought here will continue to shine where it is needed. Quench my heart’s longing, and let me rest in you. Amen.

Forever

Friday, Third Week of Easter

“Whoever eats this bread will live forever.”
—John 6:58b

In the past, I have always tried mightily to spiritualize phrases from the gospel like this. It wasn’t that I didn’t believe in eternal life, it just made me uncomfortable to talk about it. Folks always seemed so literal-minded when they’d characterize the hereafter, it felt like they were sapping a great spiritual truth of all its mystery and holiness.

So, I tend to take phrases like this one from the Gospel of John and think about the abundant life we can experience in the here and now through participation in the life of God, even as I acknowledge a belief in life after physical death.

As I’ve grown older, though, I’ve given a lot more thought to death and what comes next. Our impermanence and mortality become ever-more apparent as the years pass, I guess. Without giving up my hesitation to talk about what the afterlife is like, I’m encouraged by the faith that there is indeed life everlasting, a continuation of the journey beyond the confines of this body. I won’t speculate as to what it will be like, as I think it surpasses anything we can conceive and imagine. I don’t even know if vestiges of my personality will remain. But I do take comfort in knowing that the energy of longing and love, of passion and desire, of beauty and grace that is the essence of my being, will, through God’s grace, be redeemed and healed and held in perfect comfort in a place beyond time and space.

That’s a magnificent and stunning thing to conceive, and it puts all the small human drama of my everyday life into a context that leaves me humbled and quiet.

Bread of Life, let me dwell ever more deeply in that space at the center of my being where you meet me and redeem me and love me forever. Amen.

Bread for the Cosmos

Thursday, Third Week of Easter

“I am the living bread that came down from heaven;
whoever eats this bread will live forever;
and the bread that I will give
is my Flesh for the life of the world.”
—John 6:51

What does it mean to eat the bread that is Christ?

Eating is the most common and ordinary of biological activities, tied to the whole messy process of digestion, and the deeply mysterious process of cell development, growth, and reproduction that sustains our existence in the fleshy forms of our bodies. When we eat, we enter into the most vivid example of our physical interconnectedness. We literally are what we eat. Cosmologists tell us that our bodies and all physical matter – not only the food we take, but also the gasses and liquids we need for survival, and all other substances in the universe – originated from the infinitesimally tiny ball of cram-packed atoms that exploded at the beginning of the universe.

It was into this matter that the Word became “flesh” (sarx in Greek, which as theologian Elizabeth Johnson points out, means something more akin to matter than actual human flesh, but human flesh is nevertheless sarx also). When God entered into the human experience via Jesus, all divinity identified itself completely with the very cosmos and in Christ’s resurrection it is not just humanity that is saved, redeemed, and restored, but the entire cosmos – sarx itself – as well.

The Incarnation was not simply an historical event in time. Through the miracle of Eucharist and the sacramental nature of the post-Easter universe, we continue to bask in the miracle of the divine-cosmic connection. When we eat Living Bread, we are made one with God and the entire scope of physical existence. All separation and alienation –from God, from each other, and from the very Earth itself – has been healed.

Bread of Life, fill me physically, intellectually, and spiritually. Help me to see your body – and my body – in everything I touch and perceive. Amen.

The Discipline of Joy

April 21, 2010 – Wednesday, Third Week of Easter

“There was great joy in that city.”
—Acts 8:8

“Let all the earth cry out to God with joy.”
—Psalm 66:1

Yesterday we were confronted with one of the greatest prices of discipleship – radical forgiveness. Today, we are greeted with one of the great benefits — radical joy. And yet, joy is more than the by-product of discipleship. It’s part of the discipline itself.

How often do we know true joy in our lives and we recognize it as such? Sadly, like many of the spiritual virtues, we often only recognize joy after we have experienced it, sometimes after it is gone. The moments of greatest joy often accompany the pivotal moments of our lives – marriages, the births of children, birthdays and other events celebrated with dear friends. But just as often, the experience of real joy is sown into the fabric of our everyday existence: quiet moments shared with a loved one; the steady, quiet pace of family life; the rewarding sense of vocational accomplishment; the beauty of the natural world.

As disciples of the Risen Christ, we are called to become connoisseurs of joy. We are to become mindful of the present moment, and the countless ways that God is revealed in the ordinary, to nurture gratitude and a sense of wonder, an appreciation for beauty, stillness, and simplicity. As students of joy, we do not simply wait for joy to come, but actively discipline our awareness to see the joy already imbued in our redeemed lives.

Lord of Joy, your blessings shower upon me in such a steady stream that I hardly take notice. Rattle me into awareness. Shake me awake, reveal to me the joy that flows through each moment, and let all the earth cry out in praise! Amen.