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answers, intention, Letters to a Young Poet, live, patient, perspective, Rainer Maria Rilke, Rilke's Book of Hours, Sunday, the Lord's Day, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, unfinished business, unsolved
It has become my practice every morning to consider each day a clean slate for my living. Of course there are on-going concerns or projects and I have my lists of “unfinished business” from the previous day (or week or month…) but my intention is to look at everything from the perspective of this day and leave yesterday to the history books. Even more important does that intention become on Sundays for two reasons. It is, after all, the first day of the week, the beginning of a new cycle of events. Additionally it is for Christians the Lord’s Day, the day of Resurrection, thereby giving impetus to thoughts of God and my own sense of hope for myself and the world.
My desire to catapult myself from sleep into newness this morning led me to Rilke’s Book of Hours. As I leafed through the pages, out fell a small sheet of notebook paper that I’ve kept for almost 50 years. A little yellowed by the years, it is otherwise in good shape, having been passed from one book to another from time to time. On it my friend Jan had printed a famous quote from Rilke’s work, Letters to a Young Poet, that was probably encouragement for me during a moment of uncertainty in the novitiate. It was the first time I had encountered Rilke and that text but it has stayed with me and been shared countless times with others. I am fairly certain I have even shared it here. Sometimes, though, repetition is good for the soul – and even the mind. Such is the case for me this morning so I offer it as a new beginning for a new week. May we all be blessed in our seeking!
Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves. Do not now seek the answers that cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will gladly, without even noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.
This morning for some reason I was thrown back into thoughts of “Saturday in the convent,” my early days in the novitiate when Saturday was the day for housework. It made (and probably still makes) sense for people who worked a “regular work week” to consider Saturday that way. Now, in our country, there seems to be little that is “regular.” A recent addition to our shorthand is 24/7, a concept that sometimes seems less than advisable or even possible. Grocery stores, pharmacies and fast-food restaurants are open 24 hours a day, seven days a week – necessary perhaps because there are three shifts now in many businesses. People are always “on the go” and even “Sabbath” – that concept of a holy rest day – has become a thing of the past. For me there’s still something in the feeling of waking up on Saturday that seems possible, some sense of putting things aright that comes from cleaning house and straightening things out. Whether it’s paying bills or washing windows, the inner renewal that is a by-product of such activities sometimes sets us on a more balanced course for the week to come.
I’ve had a bit of a theme running through the past several days of my thinking – and reflected somewhat in different ways in my writing. It started on Saturday where I heard Ezekiel asking God to “create a clean heart in me” and has had several threads constellating around the fact that my hope, not only for my own renewal but that of the world community, resides in large part in the young people of the world, especially those who have seen good in their elders. It may be a stretch to see the last five days like that but let me explain my reasons for that conclusion.
It is sometimes counter-productive to read the news in the morning. I don’t often do so before taking up this writing task. I should always move toward what I know to be my priorities. After twenty minutes or so this morning of breaking my own rule and falling deeper into distress, I moved away from stories of corruption, violence and division in the world and turned to Thomas Merton for solace. Here is what he gave me as a motivational word for today:
Today the Roman Catholic Church celebrates the feast of the Assumption of Mary, the Mother of Jesus, into heaven. It is one of many feasts observed by Catholics the world over – in both Eastern and Roman rite – and gives pride of place to the woman who said yes to the call of God to bring Christ to the world in the most significant way possible: by birth. In the renewal of the past half century, begun at the Second Vatican Council, we have come to appreciate Mary in perhaps more expansive ways. What I mean is that if we do indeed recognize her as a young woman (probably still a teenager) who lived in a small village in the Middle East, perhaps illiterate and certainly not privileged in any social way, her “yes” to God seems as extraordinary as it always has, but with one additional understanding that generations rarely if ever conceded – or even considered. This seemingly ordinary, humble young woman who cooperated with grace in an uncharacteristic way is the same girl who responded to the recognition by her kinswoman Elizabeth that she was carrying the Messiah with the following words:
Last night again I stayed up late watching amazing young people engage in sports. And again I was heartened to hear them tell not only of their joy at winning medals but also of their gratitude for the support of their teams, their coaches and all others who have supported them in their efforts. They also spoke of the privilege of representing their country at the Olympics – just being there, in such a “world community” as indescribable. In the face of all the negative events swirling around us daily in the news and in our neighborhoods, it is helpful to experience the worldwide cooperation that is evident in the contests in Rio.
I’m pretty well-versed in Scripture passages that call on God to make me a better person. One of the most familiar to me is Psalm 51, which I fell right into reciting this morning as I read: A clean heart create for me, O God, and a steadfast spirit renew within me…I was, however, somewhat surprised by the end of the previous reading from the prophet Ezekiel and went back to read it again after finding what I expected in Psalm 51. It sounds like a slight difference in nuance but makes a huge difference in “job description” between us and God. Here’s what it says at the end of a long commentary on the virtuous and unvirtuous in “the House of Israel”:
