Thinking Out Loud…

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creation, Garden of Eden, Genesis, miracle, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

Because we are now again reading from the Book of Genesis, the stories about the creation of the world and today from the Garden of Eden give me pause. I understand the difference between history and story but I do wonder, when humans began to people the earth, how they learned to do the things that would help them to survive. I’m thinking about food and shelter…and how they came to know what was good for them and what was dangerous. Fast forward to 2021. How do scientists determine what makes up a vaccine that will work against a disease that is ravaging the world? And what about the means to communicate among the nations about what is good for us? How did languages develop? And religions? And a sense of family ties? How did people learn to love one another—or not? Trial and error…?

I am at the same time awed and concerned at the way the world is developing. It seems we have been given what we need of intellect and possibility to survive but I also have a feeling that humanity, having been given all that, must pay attention at a deeper level to what composes a life at this juncture in history. Where did thinking enter the scene? I mean deep thinking that inaugurated a new consciousness of responsibility for one another. The fact that the world has survived this long seems both a mystery and a miracle and seems the best reason to believe in a “Higher Power.”

Forgive my meandering this morning. I began with only the second creation narrative and traveled swiftly through the creation of humanity all the way to this moment in time. There are so many questions…and amazements! I just looked down at my hands—two identical sets of fingers that know how to type words in the English language that I have learned over the past 72 years to express my thoughts to send to you for your reflection. And I realize what a miracle it is that you may understand what I’m saying! So on we go…

Imperceptible Growth?

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growth, hear, Matthew, miracle, see, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, understand

Yesterday, we had our first taste of corn on the cob for the season of 2020. This morning it occurred to me as I read the gospel for today’s liturgical services (MT 13: 1-23 or 13: 1-9) that I had been deprived of one of my favorite Scriptural images and on-going meditations this year since the farmers along NY Route 81 had plowed and planted their fields of corn early on, before the pandemic took hold. I often travel that route and wait each spring and early summer for the miracle. First there is just a tinge of green throughout the rows of soil. Then tiny shoots appear and a week later, should I be passing by again, the soil has been overtaken by the planted corn. From then on everything speeds up and within weeks—by the 4th of July—the exponential growth is clear and we begin to look for the vegetable stands along the way.

I always say that corn is my favorite miracle because once the planting is complete it seems as if the effort is over and all that’s left is to wait. The waiting, I imagine, is the most difficult for farmers who have no control over the weather or diseases of the crops. And their livelihood depends on the corn for the feeding of the cattle—or the hungry New Yorkers, as the case may be. But the farmers are certainly busy throughout these months. It is the time of the invisible work for the passersby. We can’t see them checking the weather or inspecting the ears or watering thirsty fields or loving the earth and the relationships that exist between grower and the growing.

I feel as if the longer version of the gospel selection is the one we ought to reflect upon today, where Jesus is asked why he speaks in parables and answers that the people look but do not see, hear but do not understand…Gross is the heart of this people...It brings to mind the news story yesterday of a young woman who went to a party recently, (no masks required), contracted the coronavirus and, on her deathbed said, “I thought it was a hoax…but it wasn’t.” How long will we—as a nation—persist in our willfulness, hearing but not understanding, doing as we please, refusing to remember that we are endangering others when we ignore the rules?

May we listen in this growing season with our inner ears, hear with our hearts and pay attention to what we cannot see in order that we will live to see another spring.

All At Once…A Mix

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God's work, gratitude, heartbreak, James, John, kindness of God, lessons of life, Matthew, miracle, multiple emotions, Peter, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, Transfiguration of Christ

As I read Matthew’s account of the Transfiguration in today’s lectionary readings (MT 17: 1-9) I was struck by the reported mix of emotions that the “lucky” three disciples (Peter, James and John) felt in that experience. I always wonder how the disciples were changed in their everyday life after that day on the mountain with Jesus.

This morning I was gratified to read something that I have come to hold as a deep truth in life experience but have never before seen in print. (Perhaps I have come late to this reality and everyone else takes it for granted by now, but I’ll recount it anyway…)

Tami Simon of Sounds True speaks today on the internet of her encounter with Lance Allred, the first legally deaf basketball player in the U.S. National Basketball League. In answer to her question about what he was feeling as they spoke, Allred says, “A mix of heartbreak and gratitude…A new alpha* is someone who is unafraid of heartbreak because he knows that as he works through it, he will have so much gratitude for the lessons learned. What makes us human is not our ability to think and analyze. It is our ability to feel multiple emotions at once.”

Life is certainly complicated these days. We feel so conflicted with personal experiences as well as what we hear and see in events around our country and the world. Sometimes we find ourselves wondering “How can we go on?” The miracle is that we do. I am often amazed, when everything seems so bleak, that I can go outside and stand under a glorious full moon and feel a rejoicing in my heart. (I just looked out my back bedroom window and saw that the sky had become overcast while I was writing. A turn of my head to my side window sees only lovely blue…All part of the same sky.)

What do you make of all this? For me it is the kindness and inexplicable work of God in me and all around. May you find the same today.

*Alpha male or female = “In studies of social animals, the highest ranking individual is sometimes designated as the alpha…”(Wikipedia)

O Radiant Dawn, Come!

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Christ, consciousness, darkness, dawn, give glory to God, joy, light, miracle, O Antiphons, sunrise, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

As I consider the “O” Antiphon for today, so many images flash across the screen of my mind, so many beautiful experiences of sunrise! You have heard me effuse as I watch the color that precedes the approach of morning brighten the sky and give glory to God just outside my bedroom window. The miracle of color is surpassed only by the constancy of morning light. Even on the cloudiest or rainiest of days, we can count on the fact that light will surely come and offer us the hope of a new day.

The memory that spoke the loudest in me this morning was my experience of sunrise at the top of Mount Haleakala in Hawaii. People told me that it was a “must see” that meant getting up and in the car at 3:30AM and negotiating the many hairpin turns (more hair-raising coming down!) to sit in the freezing darkness and wait for the moment of sunrise. As the light began to penetrate, shapes appeared all around us: people who had been hidden by the darkness when we thought we were all alone on the mountain! There was no sound, just a large cohort of people sitting on the rocks, bundled in blankets, facing East and waiting in the silence…and waiting…and waiting. The expectation was palpable; we knew that the sun would absolutely not disappoint. And come it did – first the soft light, then the rays and finally the miracle itself bursting into presence over the mountain to thunderous applause and shouts of joy!

What calls us to such an experience of what happens every day? Can it possibly be the sense that sunrise is one thing that we can count on, regardless of what is happening in the world and in our lives? Whatever the cause, the visceral effect is sometimes so vibrant that the only reasonable reaction is like that day on the mountaintop: unrestrained joy that the miracle has happened again…and again…and again. If only we were willing to wait for it every day, our lives might feel lighter.

If only we might wait for the rise of Christ consciousness with every dawn of our waking, our hope might increase. And so on this fifth day of the “O” Antiphons we lift our hearts and pray: O Radiant Dawn, you bring God’s light into our darkness. You are the rising sun, the morning star that brightens lives and lifts spirits. Come, blaze in us and cast out all fear!

 

 

 

 

 

 

An Extraordinary Visitor

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apparition, blessed, faith, humility, Juan Diego, miracle, Our Lady of Guadalupe, Our Lady of the Lost and Found, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

My sister gave me a book a long time ago entitled, Our Lady of the Lost and Found. A work of fiction, the story is about a middle-aged writer who (the book jacket explains) “on a typical Monday morning, enters her living room and finds a woman standing by her fig tree. the woman is wearing a blue trench coat, white Nikes and a white shawl over her hair. She is holding a purse and a suitcase. She is the Virgin Mary…”

At first blush one might think this a comedic, irreverent story but as it turns out, it is an opportunity for the narrator “to examine life’s big questions and her own capacity for faith” and provides the same opportunity for readers, believers and non-believers alike.

On this feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, I am reminded of this book because it describes an apparition not dissimilar to that of Juan Diego, the “hero” of the story of the apparition of the Blessed Mother that we celebrate today. A 57-year-old widower, he lived in a small village near Mexico City. On Saturday morning, December 9, 1531, while walking to Mass by a hill called Tepeyac, he heard beautiful music like the warbling of birds. “A radiant cloud appeared, and within it stood an Indian maiden dressed like an Aztec princess. The lady spoke to him in his own language and sent him to the bishop of Mexico to say that the bishop was to build a chapel in the place where the lady appeared.” (www.franciscanmedia.org)

The story goes on and is clearly miraculous. My point today, however, is to note that any one of us might be chosen to receive an extraordinary message from the divine realm, whether or not we think we are worthy. The narrator of the book I mentioned first describes herself as follows. “If you passed me on the street, you wouldn’t notice me. This does not especially bother me. I have outgrown the need to draw attention to myself and have no particular desire to stand out in a crowd.” Juan Diego, although a devotional Christian, was a poor peasant who had no reason to expect such an extraordinary favor from God.

The lesson here is, I think, one of humility and of a trust in God that helps us to consider ourselves blessed, regardless of our life circumstances. We never know when we might be called to do great things for God. Perhaps we already are so called. Or perhaps, as Mother Teresa says, We may not be called to do great things, but only small things with great love. Are you listening for that call? Are you already living it unaware?

 

 

 

 

 

Harden Not Your Hearts

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bitter, failure, God, heart, hearts, Meribah, miracle, Psalm 95, sign, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, voice

The verse before the gospel today is very familiar. It comes from Psalm 95 and if I only see the first clause, I can always recite the second. If today you hear God’s voice…harden not your hearts. I usually pass it by making a quick note to myself of the meaning, i.e. “Don’t get mad at God for anything that happens” or “Don’t forget that God always loves you.” This morning I decided to investigate because I didn’t remember why the psalmist was warning the people in that way. Here’s what I found in a commentary.

The experience of the Hebrew people at the oasis of Meribah was one of those historical markers in their journey from Egypt. The waters of Meribah were bitter (which is the meaning of the name) and they also complained to God bitterly that they were brought out into the desert to die. In the record and tradition of the people a miracle was performed and the bitter waters were turned to sweet, drinkable water. They never forgot what happened, but they also failed the same test of trust over and over again. Meribah became a kind of sign to them of their failure and God’s provision. (Ancient Songs Sung Anew, p. 241)

Thus, I guess I wasn’t far off in my assessment of the meaning of that verse, but now I might recall the whole thing myself before I get all huffy when a situation seems unfair. May it be so – for all of us!

 

 

 

 

 

The Eyes of Our Hearts

Tags

Acts of the Apostles, Ascension, enlightened, Ephesus, eyes, heart, miracle, Paul, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, wisdom

Today Christians celebrate the feast of the Ascension, remembering the day when Christ left the earth after commissioning his apostles to “go into the whole world and tell the good news.” The gospels vary in their descriptions of the event and the book following these accounts, the Acts of the Apostles, opens with its own variation of the fact that “he was lifted up” and disappeared from their sight. It’s one of those events that I think “you had to be there” because it seems like something that has to be seen to be believed. Yet, for over 2,000 years, people the world over have heard and believed and followed the instructions that Jesus gave at that time. That is, perhaps, the best testimony to the truth of what Jesus was all about here on earth – the fact that those he commissioned did what he asked so effectively that the message has endured through all this time.

It’s a miracle, really, given that those same accounts add details about the event that reveal the on-going lack of understanding of the message on the part of the apostles. One says they asked if this was the moment when Christ would restore the kingdom of Israel. Matthew’s gospel says today that as they came to the mountain, summoned by Christ, “when they saw him, they worshiped, but they doubted.” There is a level of comfort – or maybe relief – in those accounts on days when it all sounds impossible to me, never having seen anyone disappear into thin air.

Once again it is Paul who gives the key to a solution today in his prayer for the early community in Ephesus. He says, “May the God of our Lord Jesus Christ give you a Spirit of wisdom and revelation resulting in knowledge of him. May the eyes of your heart be enlightened, that you may know what is the hope that belongs to his call…” So, no matter how hard we try, our minds cannot grasp these mysteries; it is only by opening our hearts and seeing from that place that we can know and trust in a deeper way what Jesus, the Christ, was doing here on earth and continues to do through us in “a Spirit of wisdom.”

The Body of Christ

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call to service, Christ's body, Corpus Christi, Eucharist, loaves and fishes, miracle, signs, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

In the Roman Catholic Church, we celebrate today the feast that I grew up knowing as Corpus Christi (the Body of Christ). I had a strange moment as I navigated to the US Catholic Bishops’ website this morning. I must not have been fully awake because when I read the designation of the feast as The  Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ it sounded unfamiliar, full of pomp and ceremony – something I could not identify…until in the next moment I said to myself, “Oh, of course, it’s Corpus Christi Sunday!” and it became something familiar as in my mind’s eye I saw a procession to the Eucharist table, heard the congregation singing, Precious Body, precious Blood, here in bread and wine…punctuated by the repetition of the ministers of the Eucharist repeating to every communicant, “The body of Christ” in the most familiar and profound ritual of our faith.

Next I read the gospel, Luke’s rendition of the feeding of the five thousand (LK 9:11-17) where all sorts of random thoughts – maybe somewhat connected – followed from the text flowing in and out of my mind. Here are some that stuck. First, when the disciples told Jesus to dismiss the crowds after a day of preaching and healing so they  could go somewhere to find food, Jesus said, “Give them something to eat yourselves.” We know the story: they protest because of the huge crowd and the fact that all they have is 5 loaves of bread and 2 fish and the cost to feed them all – even if they found food in or around this deserted place – would be prohibitive. Then follows the miracle where the food is distributed and everyone is fed. Imagine the surprise of the disciples who were doing the distribution! So next I try to think about that moment. It says Jesus looked up to heaven, said the blessing over the bread and fish, broke them, then handed them to the disciples to give out. So did the multiplication happen in the blessing? in the breaking? or did each of the disciples get a basket (where did those come from?) with some tiny morsel of food inside that then became a fullness as they walked among the crowds? Does any of this matter? The point is, it seems, that people were fed. But maybe just as important as that is the fact that the disciples were agents of the feeding even though Jesus had engineered the miracle. Can you imagine Jesus doing the distribution by himself? They would have been there all night or longer!

So what is the message here? Jesus left many signs in an attempt to teach his disciples (and us) how to be in the world. “Give them something to eat yourselves” was a clear directive – and it couldn’t have been easy to manage that in such a crowd – so the call to service is not always easy and never (if truly understood) prestigious but the “endgame” is worth the effort. My last random thought was “You are what you eat.” What we take into our bodies becomes part of us – for better or for worse. What the crowd – including the disciples, I presume – were eating in today’s reading as well as at the Last Supper and what we eat during the Eucharistic liturgy has been transacted into the body of Christ. Thus, we ourselves become Christ’s body as we eat and as we serve in Christ’s name. Just as the disciples could not understand the reality that they were witnessing in the midst of that crowd, our ordinary minds cannot perceive what truly happens each time we eat at Eucharist and go out to act as Christ’s body in the world. But as we wake up to the possibility contained in our actions, as we give ourselves more and more to a generous “becoming” for God in the world, the transformation becomes more evident, more luminous, and the effort is more than worth the gift.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Food, Eating, Hunger

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fasting, food as a human right, gratitude, healthy, hunger, miracle, modern medicine, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

Today I suspect my thoughts will frequently turn to hunger. The Sisters of St. Joseph, Albany Province, have been focusing on “food as a human right” for some time, being mindful of those who have little or no food and working at both systemic and local solutions to this problem. In my life there is never a problem in finding food; if I don’t have it, I have the means to purchase it – both availability in nearby grocery stores and the money and transportation needed to access it. I am preparing, however, for a routine colonoscopy tomorrow – not a pleasant thought, but an experience I have come to value for several reasons that allows me to put a positive spin on what lies ahead in the next 36 hours – a retreat of sorts…My reflections are listed below:

1. I live in a place where “the miracle of modern medicine” is a constant and access to healthcare a privilege I enjoy.
2. I consider it a responsibility to keep my body as healthy as I can and welcome the opportunity to eliminate toxins and be reminded to begin again to eat in a healthy and mindful way.
3. I live with Sisters whose support includes the willingness to see to my needs (and I to theirs), particularly tomorrow for one of them in accompanying me and spending several hours in the hospital with me.
4. The reality of physical hunger which I may only assuage with liquids or (happily!) jello leads me to reflect and join in solidarity with those who regularly experience a  lack of food.
5. Moving to the spiritual level of interpretation, I will need to trust my physician (as I have for many years and still do) to perform the procedure flawlessly and my body to cooperate.
6. Lastly, I hope to remain conscious of and pray for all those who hunger for a better life both physically and spiritually, for belonging, for love and/or for a sense of God in their lives. All of this, then, becomes an opportunity for gratitude.

The Mother of Invention

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climb a ladder, creativity, healing, Jesus, Luke, miracle, solution, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

We are waiting this morning for the roofers who will put a new roof on one of the buildings on our property. Having assisted in that process on a small roof many years ago, I know it is a job that takes a lot of strength. It’s easier if all that is required is a new layer of shingles but sometimes it means prying off the old roof in its entirety, then replacing the plywood, tar paper, weather shield and shingles – not to mention carrying all those supplies up a ladder! Of course, needs for this process depend on the climate, era and resources of the area about which one is speaking, but the climbing is always a factor no matter the other considerations.

I’m thinking of that because of the gospel reading for this morning from Luke 5:17-26. Obviously, times and customs have changed significantly so that the situation was not surprising, but the players in this brief drama were certainly creative! There was such a crowd listening to the teaching of Jesus that day that some men who had brought a paralytic on a stretcher to be healed couldn’t even get close to the inside of the building to present him to Jesus for the healing. In the best tradition of “where there’s a will, there’s a way,” they went up on the roof and lowered him on the stretcher through the tiles into the middle in front of Jesus. (vs. 19) As a result – because of their faith (and I would say their creative response to a necessity!) – the man was healed.

We are not all equally creative but sometimes we’re called to think quite far outside the box we’re in to find a solution when we can’t see an easy way out. Sometimes the risk is great but the reward of stepping out can be worth taking. And, as in this morning’s gospel, sometimes that risk is on behalf of someone else. Are we willing to step out in faith for the benefit of our neighbor? When is the last time you “climbed a ladder” for a better view of possibility?