Sunshine

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coronavirus, Holy Week, infinite mercy, Jesus, Kathleen Deignan, New Seeds of Contemplation, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, Thomas Merton

It was 6:37 a.m. this morning when I looked up from reading the updated statistics of the cases and deaths from the Coronavirus and saw the sun just below the top of my backyard mountain looking like a supersize flashlight that God had turned on just for me. Now it’s almost 8:00 and I am still sitting with a heavy heart because of the state of our state (NY)—highest statistics for infections and deaths from the virus—and the state of our nation and the world. There is no good news as we march toward Holy Week to consider what seemed to be the end of the amazing ministry of Jesus, the miracle worker.

There is no possibility of looking directly out my window now, however, because the sun is too bright. I can no longer see the mountain and I notice a stirring inside me that is totally contradictory of all that I have been considering since my morning began. It rises like the words of Thomas Merton as I read a random (?) psalm prayer to obliterate the darkness and get me off my chair to face the day.

Love comes out of God and gathers us to God in order to pour itself back into God through all of us and bring us all back to Him on the tide of His own infinite mercy. So we all become doors and windows through which God shines back into His own house. (New Seeds of Contemplation, p. 67, quoted by Kathleen Deignan in Thomas Merton: A Book of Hours, p.153.)

Go Deep

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authority, Jesus, John, Lazarus, Martha, Mary, Psalm 30, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, voice

Today’s gospel – the very long story of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead – (JN 11: 1-45) offers several themes worthy of reflection. It’s easy to give it a cursory reading because we know the story from the moment Jesus got the word from Martha and Mary that Lazarus was ill, through the delays, the strange behavior of Jesus (not rushing to the home of the sick man, his dear friend), theological conversation about the end times when all will be raised, to the cinematic moment when Lazarus emerges from the tomb still bound in burial bands, when Jesus gives the order to untie him and let him go and John concludes that many people came to believe in Jesus from that day. (Whew! Try to diagram that sentence, if you will.)

What I noticed today more clearly than ever before when reading this story was the authority in the voice of Jesus at every turn. Clearly, he had come to understand his mission – the reason he had come into the world – and perhaps how Lazarus could illustrate something that Jesus knew about God’s willingness to save us all.

I’m still ruminating on the themes…so I urge you to read the text aloud, stop at each juncture and wait listening (as Psalm 130 urges us today) for deeper understanding of what Jesus was saying and doing to ready us for the events that await us in the remaining days of Lent.

The Power of Image

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image, interpretation, Jesus, mindful, putting the mind into the heart, spiritual teachers, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, wisdom work

I’ve been sitting for quite awhile this morning with nothing worthwhile to say and nowhere to go to find assistance from one of the many books that surround me. I was on the verge of admitting that this moment — while obviously of great import in the life of the world — is unable to be captured in any language that I possess. While that is still true, I now have something to offer.

Each day I wait to see what our talented and thoughtful internet expert adds to my blog as a visual message. I love the pictures that Mary Pat finds to enhance my words. I am sometimes challenged, often amazed and delighted but always grateful for her skill and interpretation. Today as I clicked on the “admin” page, ready to admit that all I had to offer was my silence, I glanced at yesterday’s post which I had yet to see published and immediately found today’s message in the image that greeted me.

One of the most important tenets/objectives of the wisdom work that I have attempted to understand and make real in my life is “putting the mind into the heart.” It isn’t easy to let go of thinking and measuring and judging and all the things that keep us from opening to grace and willingness and, in a word, to love. That is, however, what I have come to know as the most important and reasonable and simple (but not easy) message of Jesus and other spiritual teachers. And there it was in an image this morning on my very own blog page from yesterday. A perfect way to begin another week of dealing with the pandemic that has stopped us in our tracks and calls us to be mindful of our every move and moment.

Who could ask for anything more?

A Time Like No Other

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assess, coronavirus, Jesus, love, patience, surrender, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

It is not lost on me that we are in a situation – a world crisis – the like of which has never presented itself in the entirety of my life. At the same moment I recognize that we are moving deeper into the season of Lent, a moment of opportunity to come to a more conscious understanding of the meaning of surrender.

I don’t want to talk about the coronavirus because facing it might call me to pay attention in a way that I am unaccustomed to functioning. I cannot, however, disregard all the warnings simply because I am a healthy person. While that is a true fact and I am aware of the great blessing of that reality, I cannot ignore the fact that I am approaching my seventy-second birthday and although I would like to ignore the implications of that in this situation, I do it at my peril. I need to pay attention to what I am eating and how much sleep I’m getting, etc. — if not for my own benefit, for the welfare of the three women with whom I live and for others with whom I interact.

In addition, I need to assess which of my activities I am willing to let go, rather than ignoring the risks because I am not likely to contract the disease. One might not see the connection between the spiritual and practical considerations in such a moment as this but to me it is quite clear.

Patience and love, willingness to surrender for the common good are the virtues needed now by each of us. “What am I willing to surrender?” I ask myself this morning. I would do well to look to the example of Jesus for the answer.

Unconditional Acceptance

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acceptance, enemies, forgiveness, Jesus, Lent, love your enemies, Matthew, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

Beginning with yesterday’s readings, the Lenten path grows more challenging. Not only are we to “make for ourselves a new heart and a new spirit” (yesterday’s challenge). Today calls us to reach out even further when we encounter others — especially those others whom we would never wish to meet. Here it is from the mouth of Jesus:

You have heard that it was said, “You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.” But I say to you, love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your heavenly Father, for He makes the sun rise on the bad and the good, and causes rain to fall on the just and the unjust. (MT 5: 43 –>)

Who are your enemies? Even if it is likely that there may be little chance of you ever meeting an enemy face to face, can you really say there is no one on earth that you could not welcome into the circle of your embrace? How might you move toward acceptance? And, with steadfast love of God, might you hope to come someday to the forgiveness that bespeaks the love of God for all creatures?

Perfectly Me!

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be perfect, be whole, compassionate, Jesus, Matthew, perfection, The Beatitudes, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

Chapter five of Matthew’s Gospel starts with Jesus going up a hill, sitting down and giving a brilliant teaching that we call “The Beatitudes.” The lessons do not stop with the last “Blessed be…” however; there’s much more in that chapter to be ingested.

The last line of today’s teaching is one that we have attempted to find a more kindly or reasonable translation to explain. “Be perfect,” says Jesus, “as your heavenly Father is perfect.” We’ve tried on many synonyms to dress that line in a more realistic way. “Be compassionate,” we say (my personal favorite) or “Be whole.” You may have found your own translations that make it possible to hear and live without cringing at the seeming impossibility of coming close to what Jesus was proposing.

This morning, as I began to ruminate on it once again, I heard inside my head: “Be a perfect Lois…” That was a total surprise but it now seems to me the closest to what Jesus was asking. It isn’t a question of becoming like anyone else here on earth in order to achieve the “perfection” of God (“for God?). We just need to be the best of ourselves — loving and forgiving and accepting ourselves, being and giving the best of ourselves from our waking to our sleeping. I’m fairly certain God rejoices in that every day.

That may be just the thing for a Lenten practice, starting on this coming Wednesday!

What Do You Mean?

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compassion, consciousness, courage, frustrated, Jesus, Mark, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, trust, understanding

Jesus seems somewhat frustrated with his disciples today (MK 8: 14-21). Having just come back from an intense four-day retreat/workshop where the presentations were challenging, I can understand. Sometimes when Jesus speaks he is using language from a different level of consciousness and his friends are just not tuned in to what he means. This is one of those times and he seems uncharacteristically frustrated – so much so that he asks, “Do you not yet understand or comprehend? Are your hearts hardened? Do you have eyes and not see, ears and not hear? And again when he has reminded them of the miracle of the multiplication of the loaves he says, “Do you still not understand?”

It must have been difficult for Jesus as well as for the apostles. It’s a good thing they had the psalms to fall back on (as we do!). And Jesus would have needed to remember lines like those of Psalm 94 this morning when he got frustrated – words like the following:

The God who knows our every thought, how fragile we each are; will not that God in evil days speak words of rest, and instruct our hearts to understand…? (vs. 11-13a)

Take courage when you lack deep understanding of God’s workings in your life or when you feel as if you are missing the point of life in God. Hold on to trust and the overwhelming compassion of the Jesus who was fully human – just like us – and willing to forgive in our moments of confusion.

One of Us

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fully human, Hebrews, Jesus, loss, St. Paul, suffer, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

We’ve been getting a lot of disturbing news at our house over the past week: illnesses and deaths of Sisters, friends and colleagues, as well as difficult national and international event reports. We wonder when it will all end and “normalcy” will return but we are reminded often that “this is the new normal” and that we must step up into acceptance and courage.

I was struck this morning as I read the lectionary text from Paul’s Letter to the Hebrews (2: 14-18) that reminds readers of the mission of Jesus as one who understood the primacy of love and how to practice love to its full measure. As one of the fundamental truths of the Christian faith, it was not a new thought but, as sometimes happens, the power of one line – the last one in the text today – stopped me with the depth of its meaning. It said that “because he himself was tested through what he suffered, he is able to help those who are being tested.”

Sometimes my comprehension stops short of remembering that in addition to Jesus as “fully divine,” my faith also asserts that he was fully human. I always know it, of course, somewhere in the recesses of my brain, but the reality of what it means in the everyday sufferings and sadness and loss – as much as the joy and affection and deeply loving encounters – is really something that Jesus lived as a fully human being even before he ascended to the role of the Christ in its fullness. In other words, he really, really felt the same kind of losses to the same degree or deeper that we are experiencing now and he went even further by losing his own life for love.

I don’t know how to explain the moment of recognition that was mine with that reading this morning. It can only be experienced and that is not something we can give to one another – we can only wish it for each other. All I know is gratitude for the fact that a divine being understands my struggles in a palpable way and shares them as his own.

And that is enough for now.

Bumbling

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bumbling, clueless, hidden life, human, Jesus, mistakes, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

Here’s a unique take on the “hidden life” of Jesus that I read just now from one of the Brothers at the Society of St. John the Evangelist. Even though we have been told that Christ was/is “fully human and fully divine” I wonder how many of us can stretch our imaginations to think of him as bumbling. A worthy exercise today, perhaps. Give it a try.

What was going on with Jesus during those twenty “hidden” years when he was growing up? We don’t know for sure. But his humanity must parallel our own, or he cannot be our Savior. I presume that Jesus was as lost as many of us were, and for long stretches of time. I presume that Jesus made as many mistakes as I have, as you have, in finding his way into life. I presume that Jesus was as much as clueless as you were, as I was, trying to find and claim his identity and destiny. Lots of bumbling. — Br. Curtis Almquist

The Voice of God

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baptism, God's voice, hear, Jesus, John the Baptist, listen, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

Psalm 29 proclaims the power of the voice of God, speaking in myriad ways. Today the Church celebrates the baptism of Jesus by John, citing the testimony of Matthew’s gospel as evidence of God’s voice in the world. “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.” It’s one of those dramatic scenes that we can imagine as we are told that “the heavens were opened for him and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming upon him.”

Was it only Jesus who heard the voice of God that day, or did all the people that witnessed the event hear it as well? Some translations have God saying “YOU are my beloved Son…instead of “THIS IS my beloved…?” Maybe it was a message to all because of the deep meaning of the event for the public ministry of Jesus. Maybe it was a message just for Jesus himself, delivered internally, to strengthen him for that ministry. I like to think of it in that way as it makes Jesus more human and God more accessible, speaking in a softer voice, you might say.

Have you ever heard God speaking in you, for you? It takes a willingness to be silent and listen, as well as trust that God would choose to speak to me personally…I am coming to believe that God is speaking in many ways all the time and is longing for us to hear.

The wind is blowing outside today. Gusts of 35 to 50 mph are expected. Perhaps God is trying to get our attention. The trees are certainly dancing. What can they hear? Perhaps we ought to join them…