We Walk By Faith

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Catholicism, centennial, contemplation, convert, Dalai Lama, education, effortless conversation, faith, Hebrews, Salesians, seek, St. John Bosco, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, Thomas Merton, Trappist monk, will

Thomas Merton

Brothers and sisters, faith is the realization of what is hoped for and evidence of things not seen. (HEB 11:1)

This overarching theme for the day has many strands, just as each of us has our own stories of faith stretching back over our lives. I smiled when I saw that the saint of the day in the Roman Catholic Church is St. John Bosco, the educator from the 1800’s who founded the Salesians, a religious community that follows the spirituality of St. Francis de Sales. John Bosco was dedicated not only to the classical education of children but to teaching trades like shoemaking, tailoring and publishing. His goal was to “unite the spiritual life with one’s work, study and play.” I knew nothing of John Bosco’s life when I was in school except that he was the patron saint of students. The nuns urged us to pray to him as end-of-year exams approached and I know I credited him with much of my success in those most challenging moments throughout my school career. Faith was simpler back then and it was helpful to believe in the power of such a patron to give a boost to our competence.

Faith was a growing thing as well to Thomas Merton, one of the most prolific spiritual writers of the 20th century who was born 100 years ago today. Merton was a convert to Catholicism in his 20s and his desire for God continued to accelerate and be expressed in his books, essays and poetry as he lived a monastic life from 1941 until his untimely death on December 10, 1968. Deep contemplation had led him to study and write on issues of social justice and ecumenism as integral to the spiritual life. His spiritual quest led him to the East, to a great friendship with the Dalai Lama and others, and was culminated in an interfaith conference in Thailand where he died at age 53. We celebrate Thomas Merton today and all during this centennial year for his contribution to the legacy of faith that informs our own spiritual journey. Here is what he said to me this morning:

This is what it means to seek God perfectly: to have a will that is always ready to fold back within itself and draw all the powers of the soul down from its deepest center to rest in silent expectancy for the coming of God. Poised in tranquil and effortless concentration upon the point of my dependence on Him, to gather all that I am and have, all that I possibly can suffer or do or be, and abandon them all to God in the resignation of a perfect love and blind faith and pure trust in God, to do His will. (New Seeds of Contemplation, 44-46, excerpted)

Growing the Kingdom

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attentiveness, consciousness, delicate balance, God, groundwork, growth, Jesus, letting go, Mark, master gardener, mustard seed, seed, spiritual growth, spiritual practice, surrender, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

The question Jesus asks today: To what shall we compare the Kingdom of God? (MK 4:26-34) which he answers with the mustard seed growing into the “largest of plants” is very familiar. He has already spoken at the beginning of the passage about the growth of grain, observable in very clear stages. I always substitute corn for grain because I see it everywhere around me in the early summer and am always amazed at the process. There are lots of ways to speak of growth but the most important thing about the process, I think, is imperceptibility; we don’t know how it happens – it just does if we have done the groundwork. Jesus says that it is as if a man were to scatter seed on the land and would sleep and rise night and day and the seed would sprout and grow, he knows not how. Of it’s own accord the land yields fruit, first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear.

So the question arises: Does the reign of God grow in us the same way? Surely we have to do the “groundwork” of spiritual practice and consciousness of how we are living. Lately though I have begun to notice some changes in myself for which I can’t take credit or blame. I won’t go into the wrinkles that a friend kindly calls “the windstorms of our lives” but I have been surprised in my work by a new sense of confidence and a less judgmental stance than ever before. Once in awhile now I recognize that things which seemed so important when I was younger hold no sway now. Sometimes, it’s other people who tell me I’ve changed and upon reflection I can understand their reasoning.

The moral of this story seems to be once again a delicate balance of consciousness and surrender, an attentiveness to doing the groundwork of planting God’s intention for us deep within while letting go of the need to control the outcome. God is, after all, the master gardener.

Let Your Light Shine

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conviction of the companionship of God, darkness, dawn, ignited, lamp, lamp unto my feet, light, light pf God, Mark, Nantucket, psalm 119, see, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

On these winter days, the first thing I do upon rising is turn on a light so I am able to safely navigate around my room and downstairs to retrieve my first cup of coffee. This week, during the huge storm that battered the east coast of the USA, one of the more stunning pieces of news concerned the island of Nantucket, just off the coast of Massachusetts. The report that “the whole island went dark” was stunning – as if it disappeared into the ocean, totally invisible and immobilized until generators, flashlights and candles were called into service. I had an actual visceral reaction to that total darkness and understood in a new way why we use the word as a metaphor for deeper ways of the inability to see. “Stumbling around in the dark” is difficult for those accustomed to the ubiquity of electric and other lights, but stumble we do if caught off-guard or in unfamiliar terrain.

This morning’s readings offer two references to light to which we ought to pay attention. The gospel acclamation from psalm 119 says, “A lamp to my feet is your word, a light to my path. Alleluia!” Having a flashlight or torch to help avoid tree roots and rocky crevices in the dark woods is a relief. Even more important is the conviction of the companionship of God as we walk in those tricky and treacherous environs. The second reference (MK 4:21) is a question that calls us to responsibility to that light. Jesus asks his disciples, “Is a lamp brought in to be placed under a bushel basket or under a bed, and not to be placed on a lampstand?” The easy answer would be “Of course not” if he were really talking about a lamp, but he is obviously hoping that they catch his deeper meaning.

There are so many ways each day to be mindful of the light of God in our midst: my bedroom light switch, the candle that accompanies my morning meditation, the light in the eyes of the happy people I’ll meet today…As I’ve been writing, the dawn has come, slowly but deliberately to light up New York state. So my question to myself today is this: what is the light that God has ignited inside me that I need to uncover and offer to the world?

Making Sense

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blind, deaf, feelings, gift, hearing, inner senses, Jesus, Mark, practice, seeing, silence, subtleties, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

In the parables – like this morning’s “sower and the seed” (MK 4: 1-20) – Jesus often uses the dictum, “Whoever has ears ought to hear.” If it doesn’t just roll by our ears as a fitting wrap-up to the story, we might notice that Jesus is going for something deeper than physical hearing. Everyone who is not deaf has “ears to hear” but not all of us take the trouble to really listen. And actually even deaf people have physical ears so they are included too in what Jesus is saying. Later in the text this morning, Jesus reiterates and clarifies, using two of our senses this time. They may look and see but not perceive, and hear but not understand, he says. He’s talking about the kingdom of God, of course, which he says is a mystery that only makes sense to those who go beyond the senses to understand it. So how do we do that? Practice, practice, practice. Staying awake on a deeper level, letting go of the automatic pilot that we take for consciousness that is our normal way of functioning. (How often do you enter a room and say, “What was I coming in here for?”) Noticing subtleties in conversation, like shifts in tone, or really tasting what you are eating – being aware of the process of chewing and swallowing. Noting as well feelings that arise for no reason or interesting words in what you read, stopping to let them sink into you. Waking up in these ways presupposes allowing some quiet in our lives, so silence is a longer step to take toward that goal of perception and understanding of the reign of God which is already in our midst. If we are silent we begin to activate our inner senses and just might hear God speaking to us in a language that is inaccessible to our physical ears or eyes. No effort can achieve it but practice can open up a spaciousness in us that leaves us ready for just such a gift, given sometimes when we least expect it!

Family Ties

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Australia, bring your entire self to the moment, close family, family, Jesus, Mark, mission, pay attention, right relationship, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, will of God

Yesterday my sister forwarded an e-mail message she had received from our cousin Chris from Australia that included a family photo from 2013, celebrating the 99th birthday of the patriarch, whose wife (only 93 years young) sat beside him. Now Aunt Dory is the last survivor from that generation. The picture is symbolic of a happy reconnection with the Australian branch of our family that began during “The Troubles” in Ireland in the 1800’s. Two of my grandmother’s elder sisters accompanied a childless neighbor couple to Australia to become a family with a chance for a better life – a huge sacrifice for my great-grandparents but a blessing for the two girls. As I scanned the photo trying to see in the 60-something cousins vestiges of the children whose pictures we kept in shoeboxes with our own during my young life nostalgia settled in and I vowed to rekindle my correspondence with my cousin Rosemary, sitting there with her husband, children and grandchildren. The internet will make reconnection easier; I hope I will keep my promise.

Things are different now than in the time of Jesus – as well as in the generations before my parents. People were more often born and buried in the same town and it was rare for families to live as far apart as we do now. My nuclear family is a good example. In the years before my parents’ deaths we were one each in New York State, Virginia and California with two in Florida. for a close family like ours that was and is quite a challenge. Our lives have been full and primary commitments keep us busy. Visits are rare but we continue to value the successful jockeying of schedules that brings us together.

I think all of this helps me to understand the situation of Jesus (MK 3:31-35) when the crowd around him said that his mother & siblings were outside to see him. His response of “whoever does the will of God is my brother, sister and mother” points up to me the willingness of Jesus to follow the path before him, the mission he had been given, with an understanding of right relationship. He did not send his relatives away; my guess is that they had a wonderful visit after the crowd had dispersed. I think what he was saying to the crowd was something like this: “Pay attention to what you’re doing and do it until you finish. Then do the next thing fully – bringing your entire self to the moment. In that way nothing is wasted and no one is ignored.”

Torch Bearers

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age and experience, Christian, disciples, Eunice, humanizing, Jew, Lois, mixed marriage, Paul, perspective, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, Timothy, Titus, zeal for Christ

The names Timothy and Titus are known to some of us who read the letters of Paul in the Scriptures but I knew little about them except from cursory readings of Paul’s perspective. Today we honor them as saints. It would be easy to conclude that their sainthood came because of their commitment to keeping up with the indefatigable Paul for whom “globe-trotting” was an everyday event. It appears that Paul was very fond of both of these disciples of his and that he counted on them for support personally and for the mission of spreading the faith. In the one very short letter to Titus Paul speaks of him as “my true child in our common faith” and outlines the essential task he has given to Titus to complete: “For this reason I left you in Crete so that you might set right what remains to be done and appoint presbyters in every town, as I directed you.” (TI 1:5)

I learned a lot more this morning about Titus on the Franciscan website http://www.americancatholic.org where I also found a new detail of my affinity for Paul’s second letter to Timothy. When recalling his ancestors, Paul writes the following: “I yearn to see you again…as I recall your sincere faith that first lived in your grandmother Lois and in your mother Eunice…” (2 TM 1) It seems that Timothy was from a “mixed marriage” – his father being a Greek and his mother a Jew, which made him, in the eyes of the Jews, an illegitimate child. It was through the influence of his grandmother Lois, who first became a Christian, that Timothy was led to Paul and became one of his most trusted friends, sent on many difficult missions by Paul even at a young age.

His relationships with these men have had a humanizing effect on my image of Paul whose words in some of his letters can be off-putting in their directives to the communities who received them. This morning, seeing my name in print in the Scriptures, I remembered the first time I read it and how I was instantly more interested in what Paul was saying. That was in the days when I dismissed Paul because of his “anti-woman” reputation from some of his writings. Now, with the benefit of age and experience, I have come to appreciate the man, Paul, in the totality of his experience and personality. I think sometimes what it would be like to have even a fraction of his zeal for Christ and the gospel. And I am grateful to know that he had companions on the journey to share both the sufferings and the joy of it all.

God Is Good All the Time

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compassion, God is love, goodness of God, kindness, open our hearts, psalm 25, teach me your ways, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, trust

This morning I’m playing “catch-up” because yesterday I was participating in an overnight retreat where the internet was not available to me. What I would have chosen we actually did discuss and I find it a suitable introductory prayer for today – as perhaps any day. The gospel acclamation for yesterday pleaded, “Open our hearts, O Lord, to listen to the words of your Son.”

Today I am drawn again to the direct address of the psalmist. Punctuated by the refrain: Teach me your ways, O Lord, Psalm 25 has an interesting nuance in its reasoning and instruction to God. Remember that your compassion, O Lord, and your love are from of old. In your kindness remember me, because of your goodness, O Lord. (vs. 6-7) As if God needed help to remember or encouragement to teach, the psalmist seems to cajole by mentioning some of God’s significant virtues. My interest lies in the last phrase. The psalmist does not ask anything because of any goodness in humanity but because of the goodness of God. I might ask for a remembrance from God by listing all the good things I have tried to do. (It’s sometimes hard to remember we don’t have to “earn” everything.) But, when prompted, I know that the God I trust cannot wait to shower us with love, kindness, compassion…simply because God is love, kindness, compassion, goodness. It is God’s very being that is at play here, a fact that the psalmist seems to know well. Today, then, as I try to live God’s ways I will open my heart to that goodness, knowing that God is cheering me on to an understanding that it’s not about success but rather about a receptivity that will take me all the way home.

Use Your Imagination!

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English, French, grammar, imagination, justice, kindness, kiss, kiss and make up, message, Peace, personification of virtues, psalm 85, rules, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, truth, words

Although English was one of my favorite subjects in school I was never very enamored of grammar until I began teaching French. Now as I try every morning to write sentences that attend to case and tense while trying to avoid dangling participles, etc. I’m grateful for all the rules that have become (almost) second nature to me. This morning I was struck by Psalm 85 where the fanciful personification of virtues got me thinking.

Kindness and truth shall meet; justice and peace shall kiss. Truth shall spring out of the earth and justice shall look down from heaven.

What does Kindness look like, I wonder. A bespectacled grandmother, maybe, who stands tall when Truth enters the room because she knows the importance of engaging him at every turn. The partnering of Justice and Peace is essential for any success on the world stage and a peaceful kiss certainly goes a long way toward settling issues of justice between siblings. “Kiss and make up” has been advice for as long as I can remember. What would they look like at a world conference, these two hoped for conclusions? What colors would they wear? How would they style their hair?

Silly? Perhaps, but it seems that these words need amplification if the underlying virtues are to help us at all these days. What is true justice and how do we achieve it? It seems that we need to keep it close to peace in our hearts even to approach an understanding. What about the infusion of kindness into our truth-telling? It certainly would help when the message is a difficult one to swallow. Sometimes imagination is more useful than concrete, serious thinking. Maybe today is one of those times.

Delighted!

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aligning our will to God's, automatic, delight, delightful, Here I am Lord, Psalm 40, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

The Psalm refrain (PS 40) for this morning is a familiar one to me. After 48 years of presenting myself saying, “Here I am, Lord; I come to do your will” it sometimes becomes an automatic statement. Therein lies the danger. That is not a statement to be taken lightly and I was reminded – rather jarred a bit out of the complacency of it – by another line that was a partial repetition but shifts the mood quite a bit. “To do your will, O my God,” the psalmist sings, “is my delight!” There are mornings (probably for all of us) when nothing feels delightful even if everything seems necessary. Those are the days when aligning ourselves – our will – to God’s is only possible by conscious attention. No casual repetition will do. What is necessary is the remembrance of the God who delights in so many ways. It may take a little silence, a digging deeper into gratitude, or perhaps hitting the snooze button on the alarm in order to get there. But the reward is sometimes surprising and delightful!

How Can I Help?

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christians, Jesus, miracles, persecution, Pharisees, prostitution, Sabbath, Sisters of St. Joseph, St. Agnes, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, trafficking women

Today, as the Pharisees continue their attempts to trap Jesus in his disregard for the law (healing the man “with the withered hand” on the Sabbath) the Roman Catholic Church celebrates a 12-year old girl, saint and martyr for the faith. The story of Agnes  dates from the third century before Constantine ended the persecution of Christians. Legend has it that Agnes was a beautiful young girl whom many men were interested in marrying. Her refusal prompted one very disgruntled suitor to tell the authorities that Agnes was a Christian, whereupon she was sent to a house of prostitution, tortured and put to death. This situation put me in mind of all the girls and women around the world who are being sold into slavery by sex traffickers or who live in other abusive situations (even in this country) that we would protest as unlawful and morally untenable. There are many organizations and individuals whose outrage at these horrible situations have moved them to action on the part of such victims. My own community of the Sisters of St. Joseph is so committed. I am grateful for that and consider it my moral duty to continue to educate myself and others to these atrocious conditions, to pray for women the world over and to join as I am able in actions that will eradicate such unjust and horrific practices in our time.