Living by Faith

There's a long list in the 11th chapter of Hebrews that recalls the heroes of  Hebrew Testament faith - people such as Noah, Abraham, Jacob and Moses. Some saw a glimpse of the object of their faith - the reign of God - while others died still hopeful, but not satisfied.

I await the reign of God, too. I pray "thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven" and the way I get glimpses that this might be happening is from talking with people who see God working in their lives and reigning in their hearts.

That kind of dialogue is a far cry from the chit chat that passes for most of our conversations, I know, but without it, all of us are left with only our own personal experiences to shore up our faith in God's love. When we share deeply in the lives of others, though, God is seen to be always operating.

God reigns every time we look for guidance, follow an interior urging or reach out in love. Letting others know how God has played a part in our decisions and actions reminds us that the terrorism, evils and hostilities that we see will not be victorious and that love never fails.

The author of the Letter to the Hebrews defines faith as "being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see." That's a lot easier if we see God operating in the lives of our friends, family and fellow worshippers. We all have a stake in each other's faith.

The Desert

In the beginning of his Gospel, Luke tells the story of John the Baptist and Jesus in parallel.

We first read about the angel appearing to Zechariah and then to Mary. Then follows the story of Elizabeth and Mary. After that come the depictions of the birth of John and then of Jesus. Finally,  Jesus goes to the Temple as a 12 year old boy to present himself to the Jewish leaders and John goes to the desert to present himself to the people.

At that point, John's ministry births that of Jesus when, as John is baptizing Jesus, the Holy Spirit descends upon Him in the form of a dove.

What comes next is intriguing. John goes to prison and Jesus goes into the desert. John's ministry ends and Jesus' begins. But how?

His purpose is to discover what being "my beloved son," as he was called during his baptism, means for his life. There he encounters visions that offer various routes to living out the call: to be a provider like Moses, a political king like David or a sacrificial offering and trust that God would do for him what he did for Abraham and Issac.

The Scriptures call these "temptations," but they can't be all bad because Jesus actually did all of them in His ministry. He fed the five thousand and lived out the choice to "command that these stones become loaves of bread." He toyed with the idea of political power by entering Jerusalem to the cries of "Hosanna to the Son of David" and stirred the hopes of the people that He would be their King. Finally, He decided to "throw (himself) down from the parapet of the Temple" by going to the cross willingly.

I think what made these "temptations" was that they were conceived in private. He was being tempted to "try out" His powers before putting them on display for the people. Was God really going to come through for Him?

That's the challenge of faith for us in a nutshell. Is God going to come through for us?

Yes, as Jesus found out, but it may not be in quite the way we expect. John was beheaded by Herod and Jesus was nailed to a cross by Pilate. The angels did not intervene in the Passion so that "he would not dash his foot against a stone." But after the three days of tension, Jesus rose. He lives! And because He lives, we do, too. We just have to make it through the three days...

A Different Kind of Calling

What is the goal of your life? What is the goal of mine?

Some would phrase it differently  - what is our calling, the purpose for which we, as individuals, are put on the earth.There are general ones such as being an "ambassador for Christ" or a symbol of the unity between Christ and the Church or an instrument of grace and love. However, each of us has been given a particular reason for being and our experiences and "chance" occurances are all part of that Divine Plan.

I've been struck by the rather odd calling of John the Baptist as set forth in Luke's gospel. In the New American translation, the angel Gabriel tells Zacariah that his son will "turn the hearts of fathers toward children and the disodeient toward the understanding of the righteous." Other versions substitute wisdom for understanding and narrow the reach of the fathers to their own children (absent fathers aren't a modern problem???).

The translations matter because wisdom and understanding are two different Gifts of the Holy Spirit. The first pertains to judgment and the second to comprehension. The one that interests me is understanding because it is based in communication and therefore within reach if we just work hard enough at it. Understanding involves seeing the whole picture, seeing things from another's perspective and grasping the implications.

So, John's calling is to lead the disobedient to an aha! moment wherein they see why the righteous think that one course of action is better than another. It could also mean leading them to see who the righteous are and that is equally as valuable. When we see into another's fears, motives and background, we find that they are just as we are.

We are all alike under our differences, with the same needs. We are special in our unique expression of them, but if we dig deeply enough, we find the oneness that comes from a common Father who gave life to us all.

To bring understanding requires a commitment to communication - to find the common and build upon it. Not a bad calling, that.

Memories

There's a line from a St. Louis Jesuits song that has always struck me as particularly important to a peace-full life:

"Take my memory, my understanding, my entire will; give me only your love and your grace..."

It's that first one - memory - that seems to be the key, even more so than the other two because it's how we remember things that shapes our understanding and feeds our will.

Memories are very important to me and our family, right now. How Eleanor is going to be remembered in our minds is taking shape at every moment when we choose to dwell on one aspect or another of her death and the distribution of her property. Each decision forms a memory.

How tempting it is to focus on ourselves and see her through the lens of our own expectations. I've had to fight that. I've had to fight to hold on to the woman I knew and not on some things that have upset me since her death. She deserves that and so do I.

It took me almost 50 years to be at peace with my own mother who died when I was 21. It took that long because of memories - memories that I had cemented into my spirit by replaying them over and over in my mind. Psychotherapists believe that talking about the past helps to heal it. I'm not so sure anymore.

I think St. Paul's counsel may be better - "Love does not brood over injury."

For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also (Matt 6:21)

During the past week, my thoughts, if not my heart, have been on the "things" of Eleanor's apartment which must be cleared out by the end of the month. During our lives, we all put such store on the "things" of our existence, but in the end it is they who are left behind who make the choice as to their value.

The table that we carefully chose and cared for could be sold for $5 at a yard sale or wind up on display in a grandchild's home or be the cause of a family feud. Our most intimate belongings are open to inspection and speculation.

At the moment, the distribution of Eleanor's assets feels a bit like breaking and entering and I want to protect her from prying eyes - even mine. I remind myself that Eleanor isn't in her "things," just as she is no longer in the box of ashes on my dining room table. Her treasure was her faith and she used her "things" to make this life more pleasant for herself and those she loved. But that's hard to remember when "things" stir the heart and we treasure the memories.

Can all of your worries add one day to your life?

So much of what we fret over in our lives seems so futile when death is hovering and waiting to claim us. What came to my mind as I watched Mom hang on was the power of relationships. They are what matter at the end.

Eleanor left us while her caregiver was brushing her hair. It was an insignificant moment with nothing momentous about it. She stopped breathing for awhile and the next breath didn’t start - unlike so many times over the previous ten days.

Somehow, I thought it would be different. That something this important would be preceded by a crescendo of sorts, like any well written novel or movie – cue the string section! But, as T.S. Eliot wrote, she went “not with a bang, but with a whimper.”

And so we all must.

What makes our lives significant is not our dying, but our living.

It seems that Eleanor hung on for ten days so that she could keep a date with an old family friend. And it wasn't an easy hanging on. What she worked out in her spirit during that time I will never know, but I do know that she thought a relationship was so important that she endured so that she could bring closure to it.

Would that we all would value our relationships in life as she did in death.

A Special Lady

In St. Peter’s First Letter, he tells us that everyone has been given a Special Grace. Eleanor’s was to be Grace itself; she was a Lady.

Her long, acrylic nails were always dark red and even in her last illness were kept up by her long time technician who came to her apartment every three weeks. Her hairstyle hadn’t changed since high school and it became her signature: wavy white hair swept up in the front with pin curled waves on the sides. She had never worn any makeup except lipstick, but everyone always commented about how she beautiful she was. She was a self described glamour girl who loved big, goppy earrings and thought that looking good was a mark of respect to others.

But all that doesn’t make her a Lady. They just make her an attractive Lady. She was a Lady because she treated all people with kindness and interest; she recognized their inner dignity and worth. She listened to their story and reflected back their innate goodness. She was kind, even when she was uncomfortable, and she cared about all those whose lives she touched. First Colonial Inn is filled with residents and staff who saw her as a friend.

She loved God and lived her Catholic faith openly and without pretense. When she arrived at the Inn in 2000, the Rosary was a once a month occurance led by a representative from Holy Family parish. Soon after she moved in, she had residents meeting weekly to say it together on their own. She prayed the Mass every Sunday even when she could no longer attend, even when there was no chaplain to bring her Communion.

She noticed and truly loved everyone – from the “lovely couple” and their children who sat on her side of the church aisle to the wonderful doctors, nurses and caregivers who made her life so comfortable, to her dear friends and tablemates, to our friends whom she adopted, and the Inn staff whose comings and goings were important to her. She was always considerate of Paul and me and her conversations revolved around all of the far flung family whose lives she prayed about and fretted over.

When she arrived here in Va. Beach, she told me she didn’t want a funeral – "who would come," she asked? It’s now ten years later and there are many who count her as friend and who cry at her absence. Rest in peace, dear Lady. You were truly filled with Special Grace.

In the wake of the Fourth of July

Is it any wonder that Christians, who are taught to preach peace, have a hard time practicing it? We don’t know who are our God is. In our worship, God has a split personality.

We hear about the Jesus who is so tender hearted that he describes Himself as a mother hen who would gather her chicks. Then we sing about the cosmic General Patton who storms through the planet tossing bodies right and left.

He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored,
He has loosed the fateful lightening of His terrible swift sword.
Glory, Glory, Hallelujah!

Maybe it's that Hallelujah! part that really gets to me. With that kind of lip smacking, smug, satisfaction about them getting theirs, why are we surprised when people can't get along?

In the Bible, we can find support for any view of God - and God's view of humankind - that we wish. The Psalms are full of vengeful pleas for retribution and there are lines that I just will not read. There are also ones that I pray constantly:

You make wars to cease.
You break the bow,
splinter the spear
and burn the shields with fire.

For me, St. John seems to have the most en-light-end vision. His is the God who is Love itself. God’s mercy triumphs over justice.

Psychic Pain

As Mom continues to hang on to the last threads of her physical life, I'm struck by how tempting it is to hang onto our own psychic pain. There is something comforting about it. Like an old friend, it knows who we are – and reassures us that we know who we are -the victim, the abused or even the school bully. However negative, at least it’s an identity. Changing it is frightening.

Letting go of hurt or of anger requires that we change and move out of automatic responses and perspectives. Of course my mother was emotionally unavailable! Of course my spouse doesn’t understand me or meet my needs! Of course that group is responsible for my lot in life! Of course…of course…of course

And then one day, God gives us the opportunity to see things differently and accept the healing we’ve prayed for or the forgiveness that we need. It requires merely a decision on our part to change the words to the tune we’ve been singing all our life – to “take every thought captive” and replace our Of course with I used to think…

We can live in the past that we can’t change or change the today that we can.

The Third Day

It’s the third day that Mom has been “unresponsive.”
Once again, I try to figure out
as I watch her breath, stop breathing…start breathing
ever weaker, ever fainter, ever more shallow in the air she takes in.
How long can it last?
Why is she hanging on?
What does it all mean?
Can we really will ourselves to remain
– or is God just taking awhile
for purposes we will never know until it’s our turn
to breath…and stop breathing…and then fly into the arms of the all loving One
who made the body we are leaving behind.

The law brought nothing to perfection...

In the Letter to the Hebrews, the author states in chapter 7 that “the law brought nothing to perfection.” How true that is. We can never become perfect by comparing ourselves to a standard because we will always come up short. Trying to perfect ourselves through austerity, abasement and discipline seldom brings anything but failure – any dieter will attest to that. So, why do we judge each other (not in the criminal sense) against a “law”? Why do we hold up a standard and a pointed finger in our relationships? The other is bound to fail.

Perhaps the answer lies in another approach: “Love never fails.” In the Second Letter to the Corinthians, St. Paul lists all that love is and promises that if a person is patient and kind, and not jealous, inflated or rude, not self interested or quick tempered and does not brood over injury, this kind of love will never fail. If we bear all things, believe, hope, and endure, love will finally triumph over woundedness and fear.

This is the kind of standard that is not a law, but an attitude – and a person. “God is Love” the Letter of John tells us. Our God is patient, kind and enduring and God will never fail us. Today, I will believe that.

We are never so helpless as when we are staring at death

It’s fashionable to believe that we have some control over our death – and even over another’s. Just “let go” the hospice directives say, “and relax.” Family members are to utter consoling words of encouragement that reassure the dying person that their work is finished and that what awaits them is much better than this life and this process of death. It sounds so good – we are not helpless; we have control; we can still be “master of my fate; captain of my soul.” SO twenty first century.
But when death doesn’t come despite parroting the script; when the dying person comes so close, but seems to hold back, what do I do then? I go to sleep and dream. Dream of being in the store and losing the cart that contained my carefully chosen purchases. Dream of trying to find the car in the parking lot – several times – and finding that it’s not there. Searching and searching for the car and the cart and finding neither. I am stuck. I am stranded. And so I sit. And wait. For something outside myself, out of my control. With apologies to Robert Frost, “something there is that doesn’t like this wall,” Lord.

Why not consider the Lily of the Pot … ? (See June 4, 2010 Post)

Oh.