Tags
Advent, caritas, charity, Joyce Rupp, kindness, love, relief, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, tolerance
Yesterday as December roared into being, I was without internet service. Today, I consider that fortuitous because the first Sunday of Advent seems an auspicious day to begin what I had suggested as a practice for the 13 coming months or even 13 weeks to Lent (See blog post “Postscript” – 11/24), considering one word for each. The first word on Joyce Rupp’s list is charity.
Charity is a word whose definition has morphed over time. In an internet search I was mildly surprised to find that the first definition was “an organization set up to provide help and raise money for those in need.” Following that, in the manner of a thesaurus were the words aid, welfare, relief, handouts, largesse – and later -philanthropy, social conscience, benevolence, etc. A third definition included “kindness and tolerance in judging others.” It was only far down the page and with a heading of ARCHAIC that I found what I was looking for: love of humankind, typically in a Christian context.
Coming from the Latin caritas, the word is grouped in theological parlance with faith and hope as one of the three basic theological virtues – those most foundational to relationship with God and others. Interesting to me was a small chart graph of the declining usage of the word charity from 1800 to the present.
Perhaps in our practice for this week or month we should consider all these meanings. Ramping up our solicitousness for the poor and unfortunate might include going beyond writing a check (but still including such donations). We might choose to smile and/or greet people as we walk through a shopping mall or stand in the checkout line at the grocery store. What about visiting someone in a hospital or nursing home or volunteering at an after-school event?
At the top of that list and part of any choice is the way we offer our service. It is the pure openness of heart that accompanies our actions. Love for the sake of love and not for a return on our investment of time or money or ourselves is the best way to grow in charity in any form.
What will you do to deepen the charity of your being this month/week?
Sometimes it’s necessary to count on the words of others for inspiration or solace. That’s one of the primary reasons for my frequent references to biblical texts or modern inspirational writers at this season when bad news seems to vie with inclement weather to wipe out most, if not all, spiritual energy. Joyce Rupp is my “saving grace” this morning with the conclusion to a prayer service for peace in her book, Prayer Seeds. May it be a motivator for you as well.
Today’s gospel has Jesus squarely in the midst of his healing ministry. (MK 5:21-43) On his way to heal the daughter of Jairus he encounters the woman with the hemorrhage. He is so totally present in his healing power that all she has to do is touch his cloak to be healed and he knows that power has gone out of him. That was most likely the easy part of the day. When he arrives at the home of Jairus, he would only allow the parents and three of his close friends to go with him into the room where the child was already dead. It seems that perhaps this was a conscious act of “conservation of energy.” Crowds can so easily suck all the air out of a place and those following him were obviously skeptical of a good outcome since he told them the girl was not dead but asleep. Jesus is confident in his power to heal, gets the job done and tells those in the room with him to keep the incident to themselves so as to be free, perhaps, of those who did not seem interested in understanding who he was and in whose power the healing took place. That would be the work of another day.
Today we will have a meeting of the Sophia Center Advisory Board. It will be our semi-annual look back on where we have been since autumn to see how we think we’ve served the purpose for which we exist. It comes at the precise moment of gearing up for our new season at home – the Spiritual Center where I live – where we offer mostly weekend events during the six months of summer into fall. It’s a fortuitous dance of “changing partners” as the year unfolds. The purpose is the same: to afford opportunities for people who come to us seeking to touch more deeply into the spirit that keeps them on the path of their highest good with companions that share the journey with them.
6:03AM: It’s impossible to stay asleep with all the different birds that are announcing morning outside! I suppose it’s my fault for leaving my bedroom window open all night, but how could I resist? Spring is finally bursting everywhere and it is glorious! It was definitely worth waiting for, although the delay throughout all of April made me wonder if it would ever happen! I celebrate May as the most beautiful month of the year because new life is visible everywhere outside and, as a result, is rising up inside as spontaneous hope. Listen to how Joyce Rupp describes it:
The National Rifle Association Convention begins a second day in Dallas, Texas as I find a prayer for peace by Joyce Rupp. Gun control is undoubtedly the most hotly debated issue in the United States today. I will pray this prayer today and tomorrow as the meeting proceeds, in hopes that demonstrations will be peaceful, that hearts will be turned toward reason and that guns will not be seen as the solution to every distressful situation. It is, at the core, a matter of the heart and decisions must be made from that inner place in each of us.
I went to sleep last night in my safe and warm bedroom with images from the internet news of cars and trucks smashing into utility poles and one another on icy roads in South Carolina and Georgia. Weather gone wild has stranded thousands in airports and shelters and the only happy people are the children who are playing in the snow that has closed their schools. It is a trying time in our country – for this and many other reasons.
I am unable this morning to sort through the many thoughts running through my head to find coherence. Everywhere my eye falls or a synapse fires, another topic appears like a small rivulet that cannot find the stream, so I call on Joyce Rupp for a word suitable for this day. Here is what she offers:
In her book Psalms for Praying: An Invitation to Wholeness, Joyce Rupp has a stunningly beautiful rendering of today’s lectionary psalm (145) that seems quite apt for our time. Let it be our prayer and hope for this day.