Hands Off

Perhaps it’s only natural to want to complete a task, to see it through from start to finish. At least it is for me. I get such satisfaction from accomplishing things. It’s like putting a big check against the Bucket List of life: another wish taken care of, another task crossed off. When the finale is delayed, however, I am suspended in mid air, as if hit by an eternal pause button and frozen on a large screen TV, arm upraised, mouth half open and body poised for action.

Prayer is one of those open ended events that doesn’t have a clear cut ending. We often see bits and pieces of the answer, but the whole picture is usually murky and our part is the only thing illuminated. God uses us to advance an outcome, but doesn’t usually explain the game plan or show us where we fit into its unfolding. We are caught in mid stride when the ball is thrown to someone else and we must wait until the play call is back in our section of the field - if it ever is. This is a difficult feeling to process.

God uses each of us - to say, to do, to pray whatever is needed at the moment, but we may not have the final word. All we can hope is that we played our part well and set up the next step in the process. We are not responsible for the outcome, just the ongoing of it. And yes, this is a difficult feeling to process.

There's an optical illusion plaque in our house that when looked at correctly spells out J-E-S-U-S. I was looking at it the other night when apparently I moved my eyes from the foreground to the background and Jesus disappeared. Isn't that a good metaphor for what happens in prayer? At times, God can seem so present and then at others, so absent. My experience with the hidden word reminded me that unless I keep my eyes focused on God, God will seem to be gone from my life.

It is so easy to lose focus when the answer to prayer seems to be delayed. Because nothing seems to be happening, our eyes wander and we feel so small, our problem appears to be so large and God seems so disinterested. Perhaps the answer is being worked out elsewhere and our only task is to keep our eyes focused on Jesus and believe in His love.

J-E-S-U-S. The Word is always there. Where are we?

Old Clothes

I found some old clothes yesterday that I had carefully boxed up and stored in the garage. I remember doing it because I was in one of my "throw it all out" phases and yet I couldn't let these go. The skirts have hand painted designs and I wore them incessantly. I'm not sure why I stopped, just that I did, but I couldn't part with them either.

I tried them on today and they didn't feel right. It wasn't that they didn't fit because they did. Perhaps it's that I no longer fit them. I think I've moved on and though my body has remained the same, my spirit has not. That "old feeling" wasn't there.

This happens in our spiritual lives, too. Suddenly a prayer ritual becomes stale or a new understanding comes about and changes our point of view about who God is or who we are in God. To try to remain in the same place spiritually is to go backwards and stifle the move of the Spirit. As Jesus said, new wine is put into new wine skins, otherwise the fermenting wine will burst the old skins.

The Holy Spirit is a powerful force, continually breaking into our preconceived ideas if we are open to it and revealing God in a fresh way. Scriptures we've read dozens of times may take on a different meaning or we see new possibilities in the standard doctrine. We have the choice of moving into uncharted waters or remaining on the shore, of trying to hang the old clothes in the closet again or making room for a new style.

Some of the mainstream churches seem frantically to be trying to recapture the past while many of  the faithful apparently are hearing from God in ways that are inclusive and empowering.This fermenting wine is stretching the old skins. We can only pray: "Lord, send forth you Spirit and renew the face of the earth."

The Secret of Success

What is the secret of success? I'll share it with you if you promise to tell everybody :)

Show Up.
Show Up On Time.
Show Up On Time and Ready to Work.

I wish I could say that these maxims are original with me, but they are ones that I heard from a business executive who gives talks to high school students. In his experience, most of the people who come to him looking for work fail one or more of his basic principles and, he says, will go nowhere in their careers. I would add this: they will go nowhere in life.

Show Up. It sounds so simple, but what does it really mean? People can be somewhere physically, but miles away in their thoughts and attitude. In relationships, showing up means being present to the other, whether that person be a spouse, a friend or even God. Everything we do is affected by our involvement: Prayer can be a ritual or an encounter; sex can be an act or a joining of hearts; a meal can feed the body or it can feed the soul as well. Showing up means actively searching for the other and experiencing unity.

Show Up On Time. "Time passed is never found again." This proverb is thought to be about diligence, but it's really about delicacy. It is about sensing the moment and taking advantage of the rightness of the fit at that time. In an ideal world, relationships would always be like the gears of a watch with each sprocket fitting neatly into the others. Ours, however, is not an ideal world and we have to be on the lookout for the moment when it is our chance to mesh and not clash. 

Show Up On Time and Ready to Work. The executive wanted his high schoolers to come prepared with tools in hand, bodies primed and minds on the goal of the day. Relationships require the same amount of zeal. Our mission is to become One. This was the prayer of Jesus at the Last Supper: "That they may be one as you, Father, are in me and I in you...". Unity of this sort takes vigilance because it doesn't happen easily. We must be constantly sending out vibes of loving openness that encourage a like minded response from those we meet throughout  the day.

See you on the job.

The Problem With Martha

I've always been somewhat miffed by the gospel story of Martha and Mary. They have a houseful of guests and Mary isn't being any help at all. When Martha asks Jesus to tell Mary to help her, Jesus takes the burdens of hospitality very lightly and chides her: "Mary, He says, "has chosen the better part and it will not be taken from her."

Tonight, however, I realized something. One can be hospitable without being loving and if that's the case, then one has served food, but not changed the world. I was impatient with one of the guests at my home tonight and complained to some people present - including her - and it didn't make for the best night for either of us.

St. Paul maintains that everything should be done with love. He tells us in 1Corinthians that even if he gave away all his possessions to the poor, if he didn't do it lovingly, it would not profit him at all. My impatience affected the amount of love that was in my home tonight and maybe that was what Jesus was telling Martha: Mary was making her guest feel loved and all Martha was doing was filling his stomach. It was her attitude, not her chores, that was the real issue.

The business of each of us is to create a bow wave of loving kindness that will tilt the world away from judgment and towards acceptance. This was Mary's "better part" and what Martha had to learn when Jesus came to her house. It's what I had to learn to learn tonight, as well.

The odor of...?

There is a story that we have always found funny about a fitful sleeper who seemed to do his best thinking in the middle of the night. Trouble was, he could never remember these blasts of insight when he woke up in the morning. Finally, he put a pad and pen on the table next to his bed and when he had what he thought was an especially brilliant thought one night, he wrote it down. In the light of day, this is what he read: The whole universe is permeated with the odor of turpentine. So much for clarity at 3am.

However, something I read in 2 Corinthians the other day has brought that story to mind and given me pause. The verse says that "we are the odor of Christ." Scholars believe that St. Paul is comparing Christians to the incense that burned in the Temple and that is undoubtedly the original intention, but I've had another thought that uses the metaphor of the joke I just related.

What if the universe really were filled with the odor of turpentine because we who seek to wipe away the faults of others from our mind are using its equivalent on our memories? When unforgiveness attempts to paint pictures of our emotional hurt and inner pain on our psyches, we choose to use spiritual turpentine to clean up the mess.

Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us...

Pass the turpentine, please.

Afraid to be Free

The dog next door lives in a crate. He's a big dog and it's a tall crate, but...it's a crate. Not unusual these days. People have been convinced by "them" that dogs feel protected in this cramped space. From my perspective, though, it's an odd trend. Now that zoo keepers have realized the necessity of letting animals out of their cages and into free spaces for roaming, domestic animals have been "rescued" from their meanderings through the house and yard and put into crates.

People, too, seem to be choosing confinement for themselves, whether it be of the physical or intellectual variety. Children are not permitted to go anywhere without supervision; the elderly are more and more being watched by electronic devices that chart their every move. There are "women only" taxies in cities worldwide in order to protect females from groping hands and cameras on street corners that record faces and track behavior.

All of this oversight started benignly; those with a long memory know where it can lead. Women who fought the "gentlemen only" clubs and drawing room chit chat for the right to mingle with men will be dismayed by those who wish to be protectively separated again. The burqua does that quite well, doesn't it? Electronic surveillance of the frail sounds caring until it is misused and more and more people seem to conveniently fall under that description. The night raids of Latin American death squads cleared the streets of criminals, right?

Hunkering down is taking place in the Church, as well. The open windows of the Second Vatican Council are gradually being shut as the hierarchy looks to the past to combat the messiness of the present. Fundamentalists of all stripes are gaining in popularity because they offer a set of rules to follow that allow little freedom of interpretation. The new capabilities and knowledge unearthed by scientists are seen as frightening and disruptive and these, they believe, must be rejected.

Jesus tells Nicodemus that the "people preferred darkness to light...". I think this is true today, not because "their works were evil" as Jesus explained then, but because today we are afraid. We are afraid to make a spiritual decision because in doing so we might make a mistake. We are afraid to be physically free because we are afraid we won't be able to protect ourselves. We see ourselves as puny, defenseless victims in a scary and dangerous world. While technology is enlarging our vision and expanding our outreach, we are retreating into our homes and shrinking the world, instead.

I think this is because we don't focus on who we really are: We are made in the image of God, with enormous brain power and great physical endurance. We marvel at what people are capable of in the midst of an emergency, but, we often fail to remember that this power is latent within us all the time. It is the power of God which we can harness when He and we walk in step together. Light overcomes the darkness.

The Psalms have many images that I find troubling, but the one thing that is evident is that David knows that God is with him and he is therefore a victor. Jesus says that "the Truth shall make you free." The Truth is, that as St Paul says in Romans 8, "we are more than conquerers through Christ who strengthens us."

The Jews worship standing up, with arms and faces raised to heaven. The Evangelicals do the same, with loud cries of "Halleluah!" and praises to the God "who makes all things new." The liturgical churches in the United States, however, are still on kneelers, with heads bowed and spirits hushed.

Freedom is a choice that has risks, but if we are living our lives in concert with the Holy Spirit, we should be able to use all our faculities and all our capabilities. It's time we walked out of Plato's cave and embraced the potential of life.

A White Elephant

A "white elephant" is a gift that is more trouble than it is worth. Asian kings used to give the animal to those who had fallen out of favor and the care and feeding of  the sacred beast would drain the recipient of all his resources.

English kings did the same thing when "honoring" a friend with a visit from the royal Court and overstaying their welcome. The cost of this hospitality ruined the host and removed him as a threat.

A "white elephant" can be a gift that is intended to be a burden or it can be one that starts out innocently enough, but through the law of unintended consequences becomes deadweight. Such is the case with a timeshare that we have inherited. It will be hard to sell and will continue to need repair and maintenance forever.

Relationships can become white elephants too. For whatever reason, the outlay in terms of emotional or economic expenditure is more than the payback and the situation becomes untenable.  A job can be a white elephant when it appears at first to be a great opportunity, but then demands too much from family commitments. Addictions are another area where the high of drugs or food or sex is intoxicating at the start, but then deteriorates into a drive whose costs are dear.

White elephants can arrive in our lives through any number of avenues, but, what does one do about an ongoing burden that seems to offer little benefit?

Walking away from it is one option. This has its own consequences in terms of liability and reputation and in relationships, of course, the hurt to the parties involved. It rarely results  in a peaceful spirit, but instead is a wound begging for closure. In the case of addiction, merely walking away is a solution not possible to the millions under its power. The process takes enormous inner strength.

Trying to change the circumstances is another option. Perhaps getting others to share the load, involving counselors or rearranging priorities could help to lessen the onerous nature of the situation. Not all situations are under our control, however.

Accepting the circumstances is yet another possibility, but the stress of living a life of gritted teeth can become its own problem. Acceptance is truly life giving only when there is peace about it. So this third way out is actually a way in - into ourselves and into the personhood of God. Somehow, we must allow God into the situation. If we do, we will be bringing Love into it and Love changes every perspective. "Purify my understanding" is a prayer whose answer might surprise us. We may even come to see the "burden" as a gift.

Looking back now on an illness that was a side effect of a medication I needed, I realize that if I hadn't been sidelined for a couple of years, there would not have been the time to spend in spiritual reflection. I would have had a full time job and not had the freedom to become involved in in Eleanor's life when she came to Virginia. My priorities would have been different when my grandchildren were born.

Examining our perspective with an open mind and heart gives God room to broaden our capacity to love. In the process, we may find that our white elephant is a sacred beast after all.

Chocolate Covered Strawberries

There's a shop about an hour's drive from here that makes the most wonderful chocolate covered strawberries. The chocolate is sweet, but not too sweet. The strawberries are moist and when I bite into them the juice runs down my chin. Can you taste them yet? I can.

I was supposed to have one today, but I've got a cold and the trip didn't seem wise. So, here I am, thinking about chocolate covered strawberries, writing about chocolate covered strawberries and missing them intensely. Ah, the power of memory.

Perhaps memory plays more of a part in our lives than I've really thought about before. Maybe it's the memory of fleeting good times that keep us involved with people or behaviors that we would be better off forgetting. Conversely, it's probably good memories that cement our relationships with those who are a gift. I suppose it's the memory of bad times that keep us mired in unforgiveness and hurt. At the same time, it is memory that keeps us from repeating the same mistakes. Dead people live on in our memory and, as Alzheimer's patients exemplify, living ones are as good as dead if memory fails.

In actuality, then, who we are is the sum of our memories and what we choose to remember or forget. St. Ignatius, at the end of his Spiritual Exercises, makes a point of putting memory under the control of God:

Receive, O Lord, all my liberty. Take my memory, my understanding, and my entire will. Whatsoever I have or hold, You have given me; I give it all back to You and surrender it wholly to be governed by your will. Give me only your love and your grace, and I am rich enough and ask for nothing more.' (Spiritual Exercises, #234)

Theologians have written reams of pages that enlighten our understanding and much about surrendering our will, but there's not been too much focus on memory. Considering how it affects our perception of life, however, maybe that's a bit misguided. How we remember another person, what we remember of our interpersonal interactions and which mental paths we consistently walk in our quiet moments determine whether we are positive people or negative, wounded people or whole.

What do the Christian scriptures say we should remember?

Remember if your brother has something against you and rectify it. Remember the five loaves and how many baskets were gathered and have faith. Remember the words of the Lord Jesus. Remember Lot's wife and don't look back. Remember the poor. Remember those in prison. Remember the predictions of the holy prophets...apostles and the commandments of the Lord. Remember what you have received and heard.

There's nothing about remembering any of the times when people did not meet our expectations.

God chooses what to remember as well. He throws our sins "as far as the east is from the west" and says, "I will remember them no more." His memory is flawless, however, when it comes to His love for each of us. God is at his most awesome when He tells the prophet Isaiah, "I will never forget you. See, I have carved you on the palm of my hands." It was when Jesus stretched out those hands for the hammer and nails that the figurative became literal and the mystical became physical. That's a good thing to remember.