Thursday, August 28, 2014

A…Spark…To…A…Flame

Life can be challenging at times. Then there are those moments when the challenges appear to be just too much for us. That is when we get into fear and the panic button is pressed. I see that most of the kids are now back in school. Vacation time is now a distant memory and the everyday grind has begun to grind on the nerves of so many. The everyday grind challenges us  in so many ways. Whatever resources that were built up are now being depleted and fast. We are faced with the question, how am I going to survive and keep my sanity, with all that I have to do? When is there going to be time for me, so I can have some time to breathe and have a chance to recharge the battery? On top of that, I hear announcements asking for volunteers for the many ministries that are so necessary for the well-being of others? You are being asked to be good stewards of your time, talent and resources. It is tiring just to think about all that has to be done. I am getting tired just writing this out!

It is good for us to recall this  gospel narrative. Jesus sees the large crowd. He has a very caring response as He views the many, who are coming out to see and hear Him. He asks the question "where can WE buy enough food for them to eat?” He is assuming the responsibility of finding something for them to eat. Again, the caring God-Man is revealed to us. As Jesus is, so is His Father and our Father. Such is the God that is revealed to us through the humanity of His Son and our Brother. Come to think of it, we do have a pretty neat family.  It is essential for us to take the time to think, to reflect, to meditate, on the challenges of the mission of Jesus. Where this does not happen, we will be under the illusion that just because Jesus, was The Beloved, The Son of God, He somehow got an easy ride. Everything was laid out for Him by His father. When we read the gospels carefully and reflectively we will come to see it was the very opposite.

The Gospel of Mark is a great gospel to read. The whole gospel story is about being messy. Not getting the message The Great Teacher wanted to impart, the disciples are hard of hearing and really slow in coming to an understanding on what Jesus was teaching them by word and example. They never truly "GET" the message. We are so lucky to have such a Gospel, and all the people, places and events that inhabit its pages. In John's account of the gospel event we see there is a problem, Jesus wants to feed the people, Philip has been chosen to meet this challenge. He is overwhelmed by it. He is stuck. Then, out of the blue there is a ray of hope. "There is a kid here who has food." "Wow that is great!" Yeah, but it is only five barley loaves and two fish." "Not good." Yet, it is good enough for Jesus. That human act of generosity on the part of the young boy was the catalyst for The Miracle of The Loaves and Fishes. I wonder what was going through the mind of that boy as he heard the adults discussing the challenge. He did not have "two hundred days wages," all he had was the five barley loaves and two fish. To his mind, it was a BEGINNING. "This is what I can do," he must have said to himself. So, the offer was made. What appeared to be an action of little value, turned out to have a tremendous impact on so many. The boy's so-called little offering, built on by divine power did what otherwise appeared impossible.

What can we learn from this? We do what little we can and then allow God to be God. No matter what the challenge, there is always something we can do. At times, it may be to just surrender our powerlessness to God. That is such a simple action it often triggers for us something that can be mind boggling. When life becomes so overwhelming, it may be necessary to withdraw to a "deserted place" for some alone time with, “the alone time." Not a great deal of time, just your "five loaves and two fish worth." Where there are the great challenges to be met, just realize that your presence, not words, that will be used by God to be the reality through which His Presence is channeled to the person in need. Many times, the "less" of us, makes way for the "more" of God. That "young boy" in John's Gospel is nameless. We are told by those who know that whenever a person or persons are not named, we are to place our names there. So, from now on, when the challenges appear, it is not about us coming up with the brilliant, earth changing solutions. Let us be imitators of that boy. Let us make a living presence in our daily living. Let him be the inspiration we need in time of stagnation. Let his courage be that which will strengthen us in times of fear.

When we are faced with all the messiness of our lives, let us reach out, outside of ourselves, to those in deeper need. Let us offer our little offering and then let God do the rest. No matter how brilliant our ideas, unless there is the guidance of the Creative Power all these great ideas come to naught. I have seen, over these many years (as a priest), so many ministries begin with a "simple" thought, idea and are empowered by the Holy Spirit, ended up being the source "of food" for so many. "It is better to light a candle, than to curse the darkness." The Christophers.

 

Saturday, August 9, 2014

A…Journey…Sans…Ego


     Summertime is a time for relaxation and reading. We need books for travel, for the beach, and for the quiet times. I am most grate-full to be back where I can enjoy reading again. Some gifts can only be appreciated when they are no longer part and parcel of our daily lives. Are not some of the most important gifts taken for granted by us? I am back rereading Henri Nouwen's great classic, "Life of The Beloved." I recently picked up another of his books, which he co-authored, "Compassion." ( Thank God for thrift stores.) It was only when I got into reading both that the thought struck me, they are so complimentary, without compassion we have no chance to live the life of being the beloved. In "Life of The Beloved, "Henri lays out before us on how ESSENTIAL it is for us, not only to know but to embrace this reality. We are, and ever shall be Our Father's beloved daughters/sons. He points out the fact it is not enough to be the beloved, we have to actively claim the dignity of being the beloved. He points out the fact that we must claim our belovedness again, and again. Each and every moment of every day this is our essential task. Let us not fool ourselves, this is hard work. The spiritual life IS hard work. Do not let anyone tell you otherwise. Why is it such a struggle for us humans? Simply put, the spiritual journey is a journey into "subtraction not addition"(Rohr) , and this offends the ego, big time!!!
     To be honest, I have never liked that reality especially when I was younger. How could one be successful if one was not accumulating? When you were an assistant pastor, you were waiting to assume the mantle and power that came with being a pastor. Not just being a pastor but a pastor of a big wealthy parish. What an illusion that turned out to be. The Second Vatican helped to destroy that illusion, with the advent of, servant leadership. The illusion is still alive and well. Thank God Pope Francis is renewing that call. He calls for a new way of serving the poorest of the poor. It is in the service of those whom our God has a fundamental option towards, that we will be challenged to see in them their essential belovedness, the same belovedness that is ours, in our depths. So then it stands to reason that we will have to journey into the depths of all aspects of poverty. Our own FIRST, then the poverty of others. We will be drawn into an ever deepening understanding of what poverty  really means.  With this gradual understanding, we will come to an acceptance of the universal community, and unity of all. When we do not accept this unity and community  in poverty and belovedness, we will be suckered into accumulating "power, property, and prestige" only to find out that this NOT the way to a happy, full life. It is just an illusion, and when followed leads to death. We meet so many of these wailing dead on life's journey. Even though they are many, they are not who they think they are. They are so much more. Right now they do not believe it. There has to be a lot of "letting go" of their precious illusions, the product of the false self.  So as to journey  through the "subtraction," the emptying out into the true self. The Presence of God within. This is the pearl of great price which does not come on the cheap. A great deal of hard work and sacrifice is demanded.
                             It is one of the blessings of getting old that the "get up and go, has got up and gone. "One is forced to face the limitations of what it means to be human. So much of what was looked on as important has fallen by the wayside. So much has disappeared and all that is left is the memories. Since I have been blessed with the great desire to read, and so I was in one way prepared for what I was to face, but I was not prepared for the toll it was going to have on my Irish ego. I had read "the greater the ego, the greater the crucifixion," but that was for others not for me, right? Wrong.  Wrong. Wrong. What a journey it has been to accept the fact that the peace Our Gracious God has in store for us is not "the peace" the world thinks is peace. We are in constant need of lens adjustment. God's ways are not, the non transformed ways of the the world. God's ways, however, are lives lived in union with The Transformed One, Jesus The Christ of God. The transformation necessary happens to us, uniquely through grace, as we follow in the footsteps of The Beloved One. These are not easy steps to follow.
 
     Being The Beloved did not guarantee an easy, carefree life. On the contrary, even though He was The Beloved, He emptied Himself of His power-full divinity, so as to be immersed completely in the human experience. Like all of us He too was betrayed, lied about, bruised, beaten and abandoned. He did this so as to model for us what  the human expression of  our All Power-full God looks like. We must not just look at the events in the life of The Historical Jesus, and ask why, we must go deeper and ask the question how am I living out these same moments and events right now? What is the connection between my daily encounter with suffering, and the suffering Of The Beloved Son? As Jesus, who through His Paschal sufferings, became The Christ of God, so too, we are immersed in, and connected with the same human condition. And  we become today's revelation of Jesus, The Christ as we embrace His model of compassion, and Belovedness. This revelation of God was ridiculed and rejected so we, too  must not be surprised when we do not find easy acceptance, even within ourselves. I must have compassion with my own human faults and failings. I have to ask for the grace to be able to "journey with" them, so as to understand compassion. AS you know the deepest meaning of the word compassion is "to journey with." To journey with someone in pain, and not have a desire to change that person is one of life's great challenges. That is why God, in compassion for us left the heavenly throne so as "to be with us," Emmanuel, and "journey with us" so in a fellow human all that we need is revealed through our reflection on His daily living.

             "In the midst of this painful reality, we have to dare to reclaim the truth that we are God's chosen ones, even when our world does not choose us. AS long as we allow our parents, siblings, teachers, friends, and lovers to determine whether we are chosen or not, we are caught in the net of a suffocating world that accepts or rejects us according to its own agenda of effectiveness and control. Often this reclaiming is an arduous task, a lifelong work because the world persists in its efforts to pull us into the darkness of self-doubt, low esteem, self-rejection and depression. And this is because it as insecure, fearful, self-deprecating people that we can most easily be used and manipulated by the powers surrounding us. The great spiritual battle begins,--and never ends--with the reclaiming of our closeness.
LONG BEFORE ANY HUMAN BEING SAW US,WE ARE SEEN BY GOD'S LOVING EYES.LONG BEFORE ANYONE HEARD US CRY OR LAUGH,WE ARE HEARD BY OUR GOD WHO IS ALL EARS FOR US.LONG BEFORE ANY PERSON SPOKE TO US IN THIS WORLD, WE ARE SPOKEN TO BY THE VOICE OF ETERNAL LOVE. OUR PRECIOUSNESS, UNIQUENESS, AND INDIVIDUALITY ARE NOT GIVEN TO US THOSE WE MEET IN CLOCK TIME---OUR BRIEF CHRONOLOGICAL EXISTENCE-----BUT BY THE ONE WHO HAS CHOSEN US WITH AN EVERLASTING LOVE, A LOVE THAT EXISTED FROM ALL ETERNITY AND WILL LAST THROUGH ALL OF ETERNITY.-----WHEN LOVE CHOOSES,IT CHOOSES WITH A PERFECT SENSITIVITY FOR THE UNIQUE BEAUTY OF THE CHOSEN ONE, AND IT CHOOSES WITHOUT MAKING ANYONE ELSE FEEL EXCLUDED." ( "LIFE OF THE BELOVED ")

              These are words that must not just be read, but reflected on, chewed on so as to be blessed with the recognition of your essential goodness, blessedness, and giftedness. Yes! We are more that we could ever imagine. Do not sell yourself short. Do not, even when tempted, deny that from eternity you have been and are  loved with an Eternal love. We are all in the same boat, and it is Not the Titanic.