Pay Attention!

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attention, awareness, compassion, grief, Jesus, John the Baptist, loss, Matthew, needs, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

Sometimes I feel so sorry for Jesus. In today’s gospel (MT 14:13-21) there are three distinct moments when Jesus could have used a kind word but no one noticed. The first line is the saddest:
1. “When Jesus learned of the death of John the Baptist, he withdrew in a boat to a deserted place by himself.” Of course he did!! This was his relative and dear friend who had baptized him and recognized who he was immediately. With him gone, Jesus would certainly have been bereft.
2. Even then, the crowds followed him. (I’m hoping they just weren’t informed about John because had they known they would have given him some space to grieve.) They were waiting from him when his boat pulled in to the shore and in his great sense of compassion, he tended to their needs – putting his own feelings aside. He cured them.
3. I’m wondering why the disciples couldn’t see his sadness. They seemed to just be concerned to have him disperse the crowds so they, themselves, wouldn’t have to figure out what to do next. I love the challenge he offered them when he said, “There’s no need for them to go away. Give them some food yourselves.” Of course they had no idea how to do that, but once again compassion reigned and Jesus taught a great lesson.

All of this in the midst of his grief! What lessons might we learn from this reading? Once again, I would say “Awareness, awareness, awareness!” Look beyond what is in front of you to what is inside the person before you. See always with an eye of compassion in the generous manner of Jesus.

Emmanuel

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comfort, death, Emmanuel, God is with us, grief, loss, Nativity of Mary, Peace, presence, sympathy, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

Later this morning I will attend a memorial service for the son of a woman for whom I have great admiration. His death preceded his 54th birthday by just a few weeks and was quite sudden. The shock was compounded by the death of my friend’s husband just three weeks previous to that of her son. No words of sympathy or attempts to assuage such grief are adequate for one who bears the loss of those she calls the two great loves of her life. All we can offer is presence. And so I go. I suspect that this event will be a lesson in diversity of belief about God and life while also manifesting a depth of unity brought about by relationship and community.

Today is also the feast of the Nativity of Mary, Mother of Jesus, a woman of great love who could never have dreamed of what her life was to hold of joy and pain. We never know but can only hope to live into the happenings of life as we grow and change and accept and endure what comes to us. I take comfort during troubled times as I read and believe lines of the prophecy trusted throughout the Hebrew Scriptures that “the favored one” would “bear a son and call his name Emmanuel, which means God is with us.” May God be with us today and may wives and mothers and all who who endure great losses know peace and comfort in the memories of the love they have given and received.

 

 

 

 

 

Song of the Refugee

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courage, deliverance, fear, grief, prayer, protect, refugees, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

Today we are again tricked by the weather to think it’s still winter. All across the midsection of the country there is a band of snow that I thought was going to miss us. The weather maps tracked it clipping the southeastern end of our state. This morning reconfirms my conviction that the only certain way to tell the weather is to look out a window or walk outside.

The snow will only be a minor inconvenience here at our house. We have winter coats and boots and even someone who comes to plow our driveway, should it be necessary. I am, however, aware this morning of the plight of refugees who do not have such luxuries, nor any basic necessities. When they leave their homes (often walking), they leave everything they have known – even the security of the concept of “home.”

The lectionary psalm for today, Psalm 16, is entitled A Song of the Refugee in an alternate translation. As I read the words I could see the streams of people, forced to leave their homes in strife-torn countries, their faces lined with grief or fear or both, looking toward safety in places foreign to them. There are no “moving vans” accompanying them and no fast food restaurants along their way. They have virtually nothing to sustain them – except their faith in God and a hope of safety. As I pray this psalm for these brothers and sisters of ours, I pray as well for the courage to stand with them to find a solution to the crises that create this shame in our world and to be part of the solution. Hear them speak, if you will, in the psalmist’s words and join them in their hope of deliverance.

Protect me, Lord, for I have fled, a refugee, to you and as I fled, I said, “Lord, you are my God; I have no other God but you…Let me offer up the cup of life for you to fill, and hold my life in yours as I hold you…I am here to listen to your counsel, Lord, your inner teachings of the heart…You take my hand in yours and hold me up…This body-mind, this spirit, all are yours, and each part finds a place to rest in you…From birth to death you are the path I walk upon.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

Troubled Times

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9/11, care, end of the world, evil, good, grief, hope, Hurricane Harvey, Hurricane Irma, love, new beginning, pray, psalm 62, refuge, response, safety, Sept. 11, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

There are moments – days – when I sit not knowing what to say here. The words nine and eleven, when taken together, can conjure up only one thing for most, if not all, people in the United States. We were shaken to our core in 2001 with images of planes crashing into buildings and those buildings crumbling like structures in a bad movie. Messages of love on cell phones and lines of people waiting to give blood to the wounded showed us the other side of the tragedy. Remembrance of the outpouring of care for those most affected has helped assuage the grief of those days following the 9/11 attacks but it is like other days in our history that have left indelible scars in our hearts.

As I write this, Hurricane Irma is barreling through the state of Florida, continuing a path of destruction that has already devastated Puerto Rico and the Caribbean Islands. Following on unbelievable scenes of flooding from Hurricane Harvey in Texas and what is predicted for storms to come, people wonder if we are witnessing the end of the world as we have known it.

If asked, I would answer that perhaps this is the case and in the way that I perceive it, an end would be a good thing if it portends a new beginning founded on the kind of behaviors that are not the cause of but rather the response to hatred/prejudice and disaster. Think of those images of first responders on 9/11 or the reports this week of people like the man in Houston that opened his furniture store to 600 people as a refuge from the storm, or the donations that are pouring in from everywhere…In a new order, I would hope for the scales of good and evil tipped toward the good, such that all people would see the benefit and embrace the future in love.

Pollyanna, you call me? Perhaps, but this hope is founded in possibility. It must be believed to be achieved. Until such time as all people see the value of love as a guide for life, I will pray and hope and try to do my part to better the world. I am bolstered in my faith by the testimony of people who have come through disaster with their faith intact or stronger and by the words of Psalm 62 this morning, which calls for patient but constant effort toward peace of heart in the following words:

Alone my soul awaits you in the silence, Lord, for you alone are my whole hope and prayer. You only are my saving rock, a stronghold safe, unshaken sure, my safety, honor and my refuge firm. (vs. 6-8)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Recognition

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grace, grief, Jesus, John, kenosis, Mary Magdalene, Passion, relinquishment, restoration, resurrection, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, weeping

I’m always happy in the Easter season to hear the Sunday gospel readings repeated in the daily lectionary; it can help us to go deeper and maybe allow us to pick up nuances that have previously escaped our notice. Take for example this morning’s text from John 20:11-18 – my favorite of all.

Mary Magdalene has finally achieved her rightful place in the story of Jesus, especially in the events surrounding what we have come to call the Paschal Mystery – the events of Christ’s passion, death and resurrection. Her fidelity is clear as she is mentioned in all four gospels, not only as the one who appears at all these events – from the foot of the cross, through the burial, to the garden of the resurrection. And she is the one who announces to the other followers of Jesus that he has risen from the dead. We know all these things.

What catches my attention this morning (as it often does) is Mary’s state of heart in that garden. I try to put myself in her place: half crazy with grief at the horrible death of the one who has not only loved her but has virtually saved her life – turned it around and given her new meaning. That’s a lot to be thankful for, of course, but there is also the mutual deepening of their relationship over the time since they first met. So when she comes to anoint his body one more time and finds the whole scene disrupted, her mind cannot hold the possibility of grave snatchers or worse so she doesn’t recognize that the “guards” at the tomb are angels. (How did that happen? Where did the human guards go?) To compound her grief, no one will give her information about where he is; they all just keep asking why she’s weeping. Even Jesus, who must have been changed in a way that made her mistake him for the gardener, asks her the same question. (How could she not recognize him? How different might a resurrection body appear?)

The most wonderful and telling moment in the whole drama is when Jesus simply says her name. When we are called by name, be it by a relative, a special friend or the person most closely related to us in love, it sounds different from any other time we hear it. Mary recognized Jesus at the sound of her own name. How thrilling that moment must have been! But that moment also had it’s price; the relationship has changed. The moment of restoration also becomes the moment of relinquishment. In order to experience the fullness of their connection, she must not cling to him. In the same manner that Jesus emptied himself to become human, he now resumes his place in the divinity of God and it is Mary who is called to reconcile the meaning of kenosis in her life now. Therein lies the fullness of the mystery of Easter, I think.

Just as Mary had to “let go” of Jesus in order to become the apostolic presence needed in her world, so we also must come to the maturity of faith that recognizes the depth of commitment called for by the Christian path in our day. It couldn’t have been easy for Mary to relinquish the Jesus that had brought her so far in order to gain the Christ whose divine fire was capturing her heart in a new way. Perhaps it is the repetition of the question, Why are you weeping? that is a clue to this “difficult grace” being offered to Mary and to us. If Mary were not ready for this jump in consciousness, she would, most likely, have dissolved in tears and missed the moment. We grieve our losses – some more tearfully than others – but are we willing to dry our tears so that we can see with new eyes what might be right in front of us? Can we identify our name as it is being called toward a new way of being? Can we let go of what might be holding us back (even if what has been in our lives has been good and meaningful) in order to take the next step toward the fullness of the Christ life?

Let us pray for the grace to see in new ways and then to let go into the heart of God.

Cycles

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change, funeral, grief, hearts rejoice, John, joy, lifecycles, part of life, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

In the last two weeks I have been to two funerals of people whose lives have intersected mine and just this morning have news of another passing out of this world. One person was 93 years old, one 69 and the last somewhat younger. At my house we frequently receive pictures of new babies born to younger relatives or friends. And then there are the daffodils. Their long-awaited arrival was delightful; they were brilliant! Because of the sun and the unusually high temperatures last week, however, they disappeared as quickly as they had blossomed. I was speaking to someone on Wednesday about cycles and seasons – the way that our “insides” mimic the seasons or the weather sometimes, either blatantly or in a more subtle, sometimes nearly imperceptible way, when there is just a tiny sense of something different in us.

Whether cataclysmic or “run-of-the-mill” change is a part of life. We do well to stay awake so that it doesn’t catch us unaware with the consequence of upsetting our equilibrium. These thoughts came into focus this morning as I read the words of Jesus as he prepared to leave the earth. He says to his disciples:

Amen, amen, I say to you, you will weep and mourn, while the world rejoices; you will grieve, but your grief will become joy. When a woman is in labor, she is in anguish because her hour has arrived; but when she has given birth to a child, she no longer  remembers the pain because of her joy that a child has been born into the world. So you are now in anguish. But I will see you again and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy away from you. On that day you will not question me about anything. (JN 16:20-23)

Our Tender God

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companion, God, grief, heal, humanity, instrument of praise, majesty, Psalm 147, raise up, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, wisdom

This morning I can do no better than to simply copy out the verses of the responsorial psalm (147:1-7) which lifts my spirit as it reminds me of the God whose constancy has companioned humanity throughout the ages. This same God remains to raise us up and heal us all our lives.

Hallelujah! My whole being longs to be a song in which you, my God, are always the refrain. So let this canticle of praise, which is my life, bring honor to your name. The music for this song began in ages past when you, O God, drew back the exiles from afar, when you rebuilt your ancient city called Jerusalem. And now it sings the healing of our shattered hearts, the binding up of all the wounds our world has caused.

The chorus of the stars each named by you sings out and adds its voice. It sings the majesty of God and wisdom’s boundless name. For God steps down and raises up in tenderness all those who live in grief; and just as surely God subverts all wickedness and casts the wicked in defeat upon the ground. So add your voice and sing this song, become an instrument of praise!