God’s “Law”

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Deuteronomy, Exodus, love your neighbor as yourself, Luke, ten commandments, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

There are many iterations in the Bible of what God expects of us. In today’s lectionary readings we have the text from the book of Exodus (Ex. 20: 1-17) that has come to be known as “The Ten Commandments.” The older I get, the more I find reason to live by “The Golden Rule” which calls us to “Love the Lord your God with your whole heart, all your soul and all your strength.” (Deut. 6:5) I found 25 translations of that verse today and then from the Christian Scriptures a whole other group of texts including one from Luke (10:27) that adds “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

It’s all about love no matter how you read it and I find that the most difficult and necessary way to live. Some people are easy for us to love and some most difficult. The ways that we come to love must be good for each person. For some, it is what is known in our culture as “tough love” while for others it is quite easy to find the road to loving “with all your might,” as the Scriptures say. We can only do our best and wake up each morning ready to try again to move toward the love with which we are loved by God.

Conversion: That “Still Small Voice Inside”

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Exodus, God does not disappoint, John, metanoia, Romans, the elect, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

Here we are, already at the middle of Lent, the the first of three weekends when we are offered two sets of readings from the lectionary, giving us special messages in case we are in the company of someone(s) experiencing a “metanoia,” a turning—in a very public and visible way—a turning toward deeper relationship/commitment to God. The liturgies that call for special messages for “the elect”—those people speaking with their lives as they stand before us in the Church—are for all of us really, to recommit to our faith. You can hear the call in the readings, specially chosen for this day. The Psalm rings out (hopefully in song!) If today you hear God’s voice, harden not your hearts! The Israelites had been grumbling about God to Moses (“Is the Lord in our midst or not?” (Ex. 17:3-7) We hear the answer in Paul’s letter to the Romans (5: 1-2, 6-8) which speaks of the hope that we must have in the God who does not disappoint “because the love of God has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit.” We have the proof of that reality in the people who are throwing in their lot with us. All over the world on this day they will stand to be counted in their intention to join us as they and we listen to the story of the Samaritan woman who recognizes Jesus as the one God has sent as “Messiah.” It is a wonderful story from the Gospel of John (4: 5-42), best acted out rather than read, I think, and if we truly enter in, the conversion of the “elect” will be ours as well.

These are the days when ritual is at its best. Even if we are still hampered by the Coronavirus and can only enter in virtually, it is worth the effort to put yourself in the stories and feel the moments of transformation when God’s voice cannot be eluded because something in us knows that we must listen to the holy longing calling us to step up and hear what God is offering. May we join in prayer with those offering themselves today in a new and deeper way, and may we be similarly moved ourselves to accept the gift that is our “Yes!” to the love of God that surpasses all understanding.

Circles of Hope

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Black Elk, circles, Exodus, family, happiness, holy, hoop of the world, hope, In A Sacred Manner I Live, Jesus, love, Oglala Sioux, sacred, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, wedding

I come late today to this task because I sat with my coffee this morning recounting the story of the wedding reception I attended last evening. I have great hopes for this couple in their mid-twenties who have known each other since their first school dance in 7th grade and have grown in love until, at 1:00 yesterday afternoon, they joined in the sanctuary of the church with tears of joy (both of them!) that this moment had finally come. At the dinner reception I was reminded of the importance of family and friends in the lives of such a couple. Touching toasts to the groom and the bride, spoken by two brothers and two sisters, were concluded by two friends and followed by a beautiful  blessing by the father of the groom. As I heard the hopes for long life and “the blessing of children,” I was aware of the circle of life in this gathered community widening and being strengthened by this new family unit. There is no lack of wisdom in the elders who surround this couple and lots of companionship for the days to come.

I found fitting advice in the readings of today where I heard God warning us not to “oppress the alien, for you were once foreigners in a strange land.” (EX 22:20) and Jesus commanding us to “love our neighbors as ourselves.”

Unable to stop here in this reflection, I am pulled back into something I read during the past week from a book called In A Sacred Manner I Live. It is the line from Exodus, I think, that urges me to share a vision of Black Elk, holy man of the Oglala Sioux (when he was nine years old), that I would wish for our world and see as possible if we hold in our hearts the love generated at moments like those I experienced yesterday. Please indulge me and pray with me for such widening circles.

And a Voice said: “All over the universe they have finished a day of happiness. And looking down I saw that the whole wide circle of the day was beautiful and green, with all fruits growing and all things kind and happy. Then a Voice said: “Behold this day, for it is yours to make. Now you shall stand upon the center of the earth to see…”

Then I was standing on the highest mountain of them all, and round about beneath me was the whole hoop of the world. And while I stood there I saw more than I can tell and I understood more than I saw, for I was seeing in a sacred manner the shapes of all things in the spirit, and the shape of all shapes as they must live together like one being. And I saw that the sacred hoop of my people was one of many hoops that made one circle, wide as daylight and as starlight, and in the center grew one mighty flowering tree to shelter all the children of one mother and one father. And I saw that it was holy.

May it be so. Amen.

 

 

 

 

 

Saturday Morning in the Convent

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community life, community sharing, confidence, convent, Exodus, horarium, Julie Andrews, Luke, Martha, Mary, meals, Moses, praise, prayer, psalm 50, recreation, sacrifice, Saturday, schedule, tasks, teaching, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, The Sound of Music

In the “good old days” when I was young and eager – especially in the novitiate, but also in the convent at my first teaching assignment where I lived in a group of 21 Sisters – life was very structured and predictable. The “horarium” (schedule) of the days was built around times of prayer, teaching school, meals and community sharing time – known in the novitiate at least as “recreation,” a.k.a. the hour after supper when we relaxed and talked to one another while knitting or listening to music or some such simple activity before preparing schoolwork for the next day. Saturdays were set aside for cleaning and other charges (read: household tasks) or meetings and the occasional planning time for community celebration days.

Today is Saturday. Although nearly everything has changed about the rhythm of community life, it seems that the Saturday horarium is part of our DNA that has not disappeared. I woke up today feeling altogether unable to even make a list of necessary tasks, nevermind the possibility of achieving anything. Lying lazily in bed listening to the birds who’ve been up for hours, I heard Julie Andrews singing in my head: What will this day be like…I wonder…as she was getting up her gumption to take on a job as a nanny for the seven children of the widowed Captain Von Trapp.

Having seen The Sound of Music several times over the years, I have learned a lot about attitude – starting with the above-mentioned song about confidence. I was reminded of that in my short reverie this morning and so got up determined to face the day in a positive way. Downstairs I encountered two of my three housemates who had been up maybe longer than the birds – one having already accomplished preliminary tasks that would allow her to concentrate next on what is central to her major plan of the day and the other whose response to a needy phone call of yesterday had allowed her to formulate a plan much larger than the requesting person could have imagined. The most amazing thing about my encounters with all this news was just a smile, knowing that difference does not mean distress and that we are now free to live our commitments as we can and use our energy for the highest good of ourselves and all others.

I practically laughed aloud when I returned to do the one task that is not discriminated by the day of the week. (This blog is a discipline that marks my days, much as the horarium of yesteryear gave shape to everything.) It is all a question of listening to God speaking through whatever is in front of us. Each one of the readings told me that this morning. How can I not proceed in delight?!

1. EX 24:3-8. When Moses came to the people and related the words and ordinances of the Lord, they all answered with one voice, “We will do everything that the Lord has told us.”
2. PS 50:1-2, 14. God the Lord has spoken and summoned the earth, from the rising of the sun to its setting. From Zion, perfect in beauty, God shines forth…Offer to God praise as your sacrifice and fulfill your vows to the Most High…
3. LK 10: 38-42. Jesus entered a village where a woman whose name was Martha welcomed him. She had a sister named Mary who sat beside the Lord at his feet listening to him speak. Martha, burdened with much serving, came to him and said, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me by myself to do the serving? Tell her to help me.” The Lord said to her in reply, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and worried about many things. There is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part and it will not be taken from her.”

Amazing, no? Happy Saturday to all!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Day By Day

Tags

Book of Hours, Exodus, grace, Moses, scattered mind, stubborn, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, Thomas Merton

There are some days that I would rather have stayed in bed. Take today when I woke up to my phone alarm and kept putting in the wrong code until it gave me a message that said, “Phone disabled.” I had never seen that before! Then I realized that the wonderful spring weather of the last three days had disappeared as well; my window view and aching body told me it was likely to be a rainy day. And then there was the reading from Exodus where God’s wrath was about to be visited on the people Moses has led out of Egypt who had come depraved and stiff-necked (Hmm – like me?). They were certainly lucky that they had such a convincing and beloved champion as Moses who was able to convince God not to destroy the whole lot of them. (EX 32:7-14) For some reason all this made me want to turn to the wisdom of Thomas Merton’s Book of Hours where a quote from Thursday shook me out of my grumbling mood. I will try to remember it all day long.

My mind is scattered among things, not because of my work, but because I am not detached and I do not attend first of all to God. On the other hand, I do not attend to Him because I am so absorbed in all these objects and events. I have to wait on His grace. But how stubborn and slow my nature is. And how I keep confusing myself and complicating things for myself by useless twisting and turning. What I need most of all is the grace to really accept God as He gives Himself to me in every situation. (p. 148)

I AM

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Exodus, feet, gratitude, holy, holy ground, I AM, Israelites, Moses, pure being, reverence, sandals, simple joy of being, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

I often say that if I lived in a warmer climate, one of the best things about that would be not having to wear shoes all the time. I much prefer to feel the ground under my feet, especially if it is grassy, but even a stony path connects me to the earth in a way that is impossible if mediated by shoes or boots. One advantage that I often take while on retreat is to bring “slipper socks” and spend the days shoeless. Sometimes in those situations I’m even conscious of a connection with Moses whom God directed to remove his shoes at the sight of the burning bush. “Remove the sandals from your feet,” God said, “because you are standing on holy ground.” Shoes or not, that directive took on palpable energy in a song some years ago in a song entitled Holy Ground.

This is holy ground, the lyrics said. You’re standing on holy ground, for the Lord is present and where God is is holy. The second verse was a perfect accompaniment to the anointing that often concluded a retreat. These are holy hands. God’s given us holy hands. God works through these hands and so these hands are holy. As I was signing or being signed with oil as those words were proclaiming God’s presence, not only in the room but in each of the participants, the reality of our call to serve was always clear and our motivation strong.

The deeper recognition from this morning’s reading (EX 3:1-8,13-15) comes from the exchange between Moses and God when Moses asks God about the message to the Israelites whom God is planning to save through the agency of Moses. “When I go to the Israelites,” Moses says, “and say that the God of your ancestors has sent me, if they ask your name, what do I tell them?” God answers, “Say: ‘I AM sent me to you.'” God is saying, it seems, that God’s identity is pure being, not necessarily connected with any doing (as in ‘the God of the Harvest’ or the God of War, etc.) It follows for me, then, that if we are made in the image and likeness of God, we ought to be more concerned with how we are being than with what we are doing. We not only have holy hands; we have holy bodies, holy minds and holy spirits. So the question for today for me is: How am I manifesting the holiness of “I AM” presence in this world? It is, of course, our responsibility to do our best at whatever we do but the doing should flow from our understanding of the primacy of our being. So today, let us walk on God’s holy ground in gratitude for life and the call to live it with reverence and the simple joy of being.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Of Eyes and Ears

Tags

ears truly listening, Exodus, eyes wide open, God, hearing, Jesus, lightning, messages, Moses, Mount Sinai, rain, seeing, storms, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, thunder

We’ve had a couple of powerful storms lately – high winds (tree branches down), thunder, lightning and heavy rain. We have not had the destruction that many places in our country have experienced but it certainly is enough to make sleep difficult in the night! These thoughts were occasioned on this peaceful, sunny morning by the reading from Exodus (19:1- 11, 16-20) where God came down to Mount Sinai in fire with the sound of a trumpet and made the mountain tremble with thunder while Moses was speaking to God and all of the Hebrew people watched in awe. The purpose for this powerful display was (as God had already told Moses three days before) so that the people would not only believe in God but in Moses as well.

Sometimes we would wish for such clear messages – with audio-visual effects from God, but it doesn’t happen that way. God’s messages are mostly more subtle than that so we have to really look and listen from the inside in order to understand. That’s the message of Jesus this morning about the crowds who don’t understand him when he speaks in parables. He says that they look but do not see and hear but do not listen or understand. He’s actually complimenting the disciples in the end saying, “But blessed are your eyes, because they see, and your ears, because they hear.” I think of how often I am so wrapped up in my own thoughts that I hear what others are saying but really don’t take it in; I’m not really listening.

May we all go today wherever we are called to go with eyes wide open and ears ready to truly listen so that God’s messages might get through to our hearts!

Holy Ground

Tags

Exodus, God, Here I am, holy ground, Moses, presence, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, we are not alone, Who am I

This morning’s reading from Exodus (3:1-6, 9-12) is one of those cinematic pieces that includes the image of the “bush that burns but it is not consumed.” Moses was, of course, curious about that bush but in approaching it he is stopped in his tracks as he hears God call his name. When he responds, “Here I am!” God tells him to take off his shoes because he is standing on holy ground. It is in this place that Moses is given the charge to lead the Israelites out of the slavery of Egypt. He demurs, saying “Who am I?” [to accept this role]. Instead of giving him reasons for the choice, God says, “I will be with you.”

There are three things in this short summary that speak to me. 1. Each morning as I try to be conscious in meditation, “Here I am” is the phrase I use to bring me back from random thoughts to presence. It’s as if God is calling, “Lois, Lois…” (just like “Moses, Moses…”) and I am jolted into a deeper silence. 2. The notion of “holy ground” always brings to mind a song of that title that was popular in spiritual circles sometime ago; we often used it in rituals during retreats.  The refrain began with the words: This is holy ground. We’re standing on holy ground, for the Lord is present and where God is is holy. More and more I believe that to be true. It is God’s presence that makes holy each place we visit, each encounter with people, each moment we live. All we need to do is wake up to that presence. 3. The promise that God will be with us in all the days and events of our lives is what makes possible a positive response to challenges. Whether or not we question our ability to rise to those challenges (“Who am I…?”) just remembering that we are not alone should allow us to step forward into what awaits.

So it’s all one really: our presence to God, God’s presence to us, God’s presence everywhere we look…Holy ground is the place we live and where we have the potential for great holiness.

Sacred Promise

Tags

Abraham, blood sacrifice, communion, Corpus Christi, covenant, disciples, Exodus, Last Supper, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

Today is one of remembrance of God’s enduring and evolving covenant with us – from the days of Abraham and then during the Exodus (EX 24:3-8) when Moses related his conversation with God to the Israelites in the desert and they exclaimed, “We will do all that the Lord has told us!” At that time the covenant was sealed by a “blood sacrifice” when half the blood of the animal that had been slain was poured over the altar and half sprinkled on the people. With Christ came a new iteration of covenant which Christians see as the fulfillment of what God and Abraham had promised at the beginning of our salvation history. When Jesus took bread and wine at the Last Supper and said to his friends, “This is my body; this is my blood…Whenever you do this, remember me,” (MK 14: 12-26) he gave us a memorial – a way to remember the love that exists between God and humans – in a way that we could celebrate and which would create the community that would spread that love throughout the world.

Today is the celebration of that covenant, the feast of Corpus Christi (the Body of Christ). Lots of wonderful hymns will be sung today, motivating congregations to the remembrance of Christ’s willingness to pour himself out for us, being a model of God’s side of the covenant while also teaching what is possible on the human side. It’s a day to ask ourselves about the level of our own willingness to act as disciples, recognizing the reality that lives in the words we say and sing, according to whatever tradition of the covenant we follow, and living into that reality with all that we are and all that we are becoming.

Heritage

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Corinthians, Eucharist, Exodus, Hebrews, Holy Thursday, Jesus, John, Last Supper, love, love one another, memorial feast, Passover, Paul, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, washing feet

This morning’s readings remind us that Eucharistic services only happen in the evening of this day as we read in the Hebrew Scriptures the story of the Passover from slavery in Egypt to freedom (EX 12) and in the Christian Scriptures the institution of the Eucharist during what we term the Last Supper. This year’s eight day celebration of Passover for our Jewish brothers and sisters begins tomorrow, coinciding with our remembrance of  the events of the Paschal Mystery as Jesus passes through death to new life.

Today’s first reading, the detailed instruction of how the Hebrews are to celebrate Passover, ends saying: “This day shall be a memorial feast for you, which all your generations shall celebrate…as a perpetual institution.” I will always be grateful for the understanding I received about the way that happens in the Jewish Seder. When the stories of liberation are read, rather than seeing those chronicled events as past history, the Jewish people experience them as present. The stories are entered into as if they are happening as they are being read. After that realization came to me, I viewed the words of the institution of the Eucharist (which we hear from Paul tonight in 1COR 11) in a different and more vibrant way. And it is now when I hear those words that I can see myself in that upper room listening to the conversation about the new covenant that Jesus is instituting at the supper. Even more visual as the example of what that means for us is the action of Jesus in tonight’s gospel (JN 13:1-15) when he rises from the table and begins to wash the feet of his disciples. Having had just such an experience at a supper table on retreat in 2010, washing the feet of a friend and having my own feet washed in turn, I understand that these events are not past history or only meaningful stories, but are commands of Jesus for now as we live into our faith and come to understand ever more deeply what Jesus meant when he said, “Love one another as I have loved you.”