Thursday March 31, 2011

John 4:15-19

"The woman said to him, 'Sir, give me this water, so that I may not be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.' Jesus said to her, 'Go call your husband and come back.' The woman answered and said to him, 'I do not have a husband.' Jesus answered her, 'You are right in saying, "I do not have a husband." For you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true.' The woman said to him, 'Sir, I can see that you are a prophet.'"

So today is not so much the day I back off my agenda of defending the Samaritan woman but it is the day I just take directly to task the Little Black Book.

"Once the woman appears to understand a bit more, Jesus invites her to bring her husband - perhaps so that they can engage in deeper conversation."

WTF?

Serious, I apologize for the disguised profanity and netspeak, but that's really the best way to express my feelings on that sentence. Really? Really? In the twenty-first century, you want to make the statement that the Samaritan woman needed her husband present in order to have a deep discussion about theology? To understand the nature of God? O-kay then.

The Little Black Book continues, "At this point, the woman gets a little bit snippy" which I think the book is confusing for me getting a lot snippy. Plus: if the woman got snippy anywhere in this conversation, it was definitely the bit about Jacob that I talked about yesterday.

In the section today she does exactly what a good disciple should AND she has the courage of honesty.

Now that I have vented that spleen, I will talk about what I mean. Having heard Jesus' promise, she asks for Jesus to help her. And then Jesus throws her a test (because, Little Black Book, your presumption besides being offensive to me also supposes that Jesus didn't know from the beginning of the conversation how this woman lived her life). He asks her to acknowledge her lifestyle, her sins, before He proceeds to grant her a direct line to grace. It must have been heartbreaking moment for her.

Because she must have thought, in this moment, that the man who looked at her and spoke to her as a person, as an intelligent and beloved child of God, in a way she may never have experienced before, was only doing so because He didn't know about her past. She must have thought that His respect for her was about to evaporate when she told Him the truth. And yes, she didn't say everything, didn't spill everything He asked for. She did not have the courage to blurt out all of her sins and imperfections. She just said, "I do not have a husband." I am not the woman you think me.

And yes, His answer showed that He had unearthly knowledge, but that is really oh so very secondary to what it meant that this prophet, this holy man, had known from the start that she was a woman with a "deplorable lifestyle" so shunned by her community. He had known from the start, and He had still spoken to her, still looked at her, in that way. With loving, respecting, knowing eyes. It hadn't been an illusion or a dream - it hadn't been something that could only happen because He was a stranger. There is a man who knew her, every sin and imperfection and dark and twisty bit, and loved her even so.

And when she tells him, "I can see that you are a prophet" what she has truly realized is that the representative of God on earth is that kind of man: not the judging Pharisee but the infinitely forgiving and loving prophet by the well who spoke in truths as plain as day. Who took the task that was her daily shame and made it a metaphor for the glory of God that He still saw within her. The Samaritan woman knew, from that moment on, how she would recognize the Light of God in others. It would be by how they treated her, how they looked at her. How close it was to the way this stranger did - this stranger who could look at her and know every thing she had ever done and love and respect her just as if she had been perfect.

The knowing was a cheap parlor trick in comparison to that.

Dear Lord, thank You for the endless love You have always shared in my life. Help me to be a good representative of You in the world, help me to always see the Light of God in every person that I meet and to treat them accordingly. Help me to show others the Light of God in themselves as You did for this woman. Help me to let Your Light shine out in me.

Wednesday, March 30 2011

John 4:11-14

"The woman said to him, 'Sir, you do not even have a bucket and the cistern is deep; where then can you get this living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us this cistern and drank from it himself with his children and his flocks?' Jesus answered and said to her, 'Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again; but whoever drinks this water I shall give will never thirst; the water I shall give will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.'"

I wonder if at this point, the Samaritan woman was indulging a crackpot, in her mind. I wonder if she thought she had stumbled upon a Jew who had been out in the sun too long - that that was why He condescended to ask even a Samaritan woman for a drink. But - what about Him made her make the comparison to Jacob, to bring up all that history? Because for all it's easiest to imagine it as a tease or an accusation ("Who do you think you are?"), it's also the question that Jesus seems to be begging people to ask Him. To the disciples, "But who do you say that I am?"

Because it is the relevant question - perhaps the most relevant question He is asked, save for the heart of the Law question in my opinion - "Are you greater than our father Jacob?" Are you greater than all of the prophets? Are you something new and better?

Yes.

I don't know if I believe that was the real sense of her question, but I do think it is a more interesting lesson to learn than that we often focus on the superficial, the worldly, the mundane in the face of spiritual truths. By taking the Samaritan woman seriously, I think we see the deeper truth of her conversation with Jesus. After all, how many other non-apostles do we have such elaborate conversations for? For that matter - how many do we have with the apostles? Especially if you remove Peter? And clearly this story was told over and over again in the town.

It's important. It's someone asking the crucial question.

And Jesus answers. He explains that the well of the past, the water from a well precious to her people, the old way of connecting to God through lineage and ancestors, the chosen people of God - will only make her thirsty again. Will satisfy her thirst for the day, a particularly poignant reality to her who suffered so each time she goes for a drink. Who would suffer more every time she reaches for the touch of God's cloak. Who could not find enough peace with God to keep her from seeking it with a series of men, who were apparently mistakes of some kind or another.

But Jesus institutes a new kind of relationship with God - worship not on a mountain or in Jerusalem, not in a place from which she can be shamed from going, not in a place she could be wrong about finding God in. Worship in her heart (and yes, I know we're not there yet. It's probably tomorrow's verse, or Friday's. So I'll hold off a bit.

But what Jesus promises her is a relationship with God, a supply of grace, that renews itself within her. That will be her salvation, and bring her someday to God Himself. A new kind of relationship with God, one which cannot be tainted by community opinion which has poisoned her fetching of water from a well. One which cannot be shamed away from her. One that cannot be misunderstood by bickering theologians. A relationship that never leaves you thirsting.

The love of God, always with you. Something better than the well linking her to her ancestor Jacob. Something better than an ancient promise - that promise finally fulfilled.

Dear Lord, thank You for Your constant presence in my life and Your guiding hand. Please, let me always listen to You, let me always treasure my relationship with You. Be with me always.

Tuesday March 29, 2011

Happy Birthday Amy Bolis!

John 4:8-10

"Jesus' disciples had gone into the town to buy food. The Samaritan woman said to him, 'How can you, a Jew, ask me, a Samaritan woman, for a drink?' (For Jews use nothing in common with Samaritans.) Jesus answered and said to her, 'If you knew the gift of God and who is saying to you, "Give me a drink," you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.'"

This is quickly starting to become "Defend the Samaritan Woman Week." Which is ironic, of course, because apparently we are still doing this same thing to this woman, now making her a pastiche of superficiality and misunderstanding of religion.

And yes, I suppose the Samaritan woman doesn't understand Jesus immediately or anything, but I think that her understanding of Him and appreciation for Him grows by lengths and bounds - an impressive rate of revelation any way you strike it. As Fulton J. Sheen details, she goes from calling Him "Jew" to "sir" to "prophet" to "Messiah" in what I imagine is record time. All because her heart and her mind were wide open. And, again, I can't help but think that she opened up to Jesus so quickly and so fully because of how He treated her - like a person.

But I've said all that before.

She had other reasons to wonder at Him. And this is the first (besides His ability to look at her and see the beautiful child of God that she was, just as she is): that Jesus refuses even to be aware of prejudice and divide amongst His people. He will not be hampered by the societal taboos we have established to keep ourselves from our brothers and sisters.

But that's not all the answer He gives. He doesn't just say, "Don't be silly about the whole Samaritan/Jew thing, I've been wanting to explain for centuries that you people were being stubborn ninnies about that whole thing," (although of course He would be more profound) but rather, "There is a bigger dichotomy that I am bringing down. If you understood that, you would not ask me how I manage to bridge the gap between Samaritan and Jew and ask me how I can help you to reach a greater unity with God."

Maybe she wasn't asking, as I would like to believe, how He manages to overcome the prejudices and societal norms which she considers a fact of life - which in their other forms have so wrought her life and reputation - but His answer is that Jesus came to effect an even bigger change. He came down to offer her the living waters of heaven. If she knew to Whom she spoke, she would not wonder that a Jew was bridging the gap to a Samaritan, she would wonder that God Himself was eliminating the divide between Himself and mankind. She would be shocked at such a revolution of the way of things - far beyond what she could imagine when she could not even understand how He bridged earthly gaps - and awed by His love in attempting to do so.

The barriers between Jews and Samaritans, the barriers between her and the rest of her village, were as nothing to Jesus, because the barrier He had crossed by being born, the barrier He destroyed by His death and resurrection, was so much more profound but breaking down all the same.

His response to her was that He came down to change more than the state of affairs on earth, He came to renegotiate the direct contact between Earth and Heaven.

And the Samaritan woman does have trouble making this leap, to understanding this new boundary-altering gift of God. But, well, who could blame her for that? It's not a metaphor she's failing to grasp, it's the idea of God becoming human and dying that she can't wrap her head around. Can any of us really? That's what faith is for. That's what love is for. It doesn't compute, and I know it only boggles my mind.

Dear Lord, help us while we are here on earth to remember that anything which keeps us from our brothers and sisters in You is false, help us to remember that we can always help and we can always reach out in love. Thank You, Lord, for all that You did, all that You suffered, in order to be close to us in our world and in our lives. May we always be blessed to remember Your blessings and be near You.

Monday March 28, 2011

John 4:5-7

"Jesus came to a town of Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of land that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob's well was there. Jesus, tired from his journey, sat down there at the well. It was about noon. A woman of Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, 'Give me a drink.'"

I got to tell you - I was rather disappointed in my Little Black Book when it's first words on this story were about the annoying ignorance of the woman. It expanded to include all of the Samaritans and the Jews and their misunderstandings in this category of annoying human squabbles, but still. See below for my appreciation for this woman.

And honestly, I am going to try to bring my own reflection for the day back to this Bible verse, but I took a step away for I forget what reason just now, and I came upon this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0sILSapUUc.

It is probably the most loving and pastorly response to homosexuality allowed by current Church teachings, and I just can't not rebut it. I do suggest you watch it first, because my summary will be incomplete.

The idea of crosses we all bear is true, and the idea of "victim souls" is there. Saints suffer - but there is no comparing the Long Night of the Soul that saints and visionaries suffer to the cross of homosexuality. Any more than comparing it to other worldly suffering for its degree and kind, for how directly it connects you to God. Also, for how it is chosen - or at least accepted. Homosexuality is not a choice. And yes, many saints have pulled away from their Calling, but they all made the choice, in the end. Homosexuals did not. Comparing them in this way is a false comparison.

And the implication that by abstaining homosexuals will draw souls to Christ - how? When we're talking about a real life choice for these people, then a vague spiritual metaphor just doesn't cut it for me. How does the abstinence of someone else bring you to Christ? Perhaps if you are already faithful, you may see someone to admire. If you are not, are you not more likely to see someone who could be happy if only they let go of what you see as a false belief, driving you further away? Perhaps you would see someone who has lost a worldly joy for a heavenly peace - but are there not ways to achieve this without dismissing the true love felt by so many people in our modern world? Is there not a better way to show the love of God than by rejecting love because it's form makes us uncomfortable?

Homosexuals do not have a choice in who they love any more than heterosexuals do. Should they not have the same privileges to decide to love or turn away from earthly love for a heavenly calling as heterosexuals do? Without it categorically assumed that their love is of such a nature that it can never be holy?

It's this kind of thing - an assumption of something unacceptable, so much softer a word than "deplorable" but it comes from the same place and boils down to the same thing, about the love of a man for a man or a woman for a woman, however purely felt and meant - that kept me from understanding my own sexuality so long. I was so terrified that I might be gay in high school and beyond, with feelings I didn't understand. And I would soothe myself that, no, I was being silly. I was definitely attracted to men. I denied for years and years my bisexuality, and even now, I find myself hoping and praying that when I fall in love it will be with a man so that I can have my love recognized and blessed by the Church that I love so much. But I know that if I fall in love with a woman, my love will be no less precious in the eyes of God.

And if the Church feels this way about homosexuals, who have no choice at all, who could not find the easy way out of this trap the Church is determined to spring - then what hope would I have of the Church, which has meant so much to me all of my life, ever accepting me? But it is because of my bisexuality that I know that the love I feel for a man or woman, homosexual or heterosexual, differs only in this: whether or not it is sanctioned by society and Church doctrine. Not insignificant things, but things which are entirely outside of me and the love I experience and nurture in the world.

I didn't know the word "bisexual" until college, actually. And I tell you, I did a 180 the very first week there when I met the first "out" homosexual person in my life (who wasn't an English teacher making me uncomfortable with information about her sex life and what I was afraid was a pick-up attempt). Because I suddenly couldn't see, face to face with it, why his ability to love and share that love and build a life with someone should in any way be impaired because of his sexual orientation. Nothing else about him was any different. And just like that, I changed my outlook entirely.

It was four years before I really sat myself down and made myself realize the truth - and I do think a lot of what held me back was fear of the Church's disapproval. Of not wanting to put myself right in the crux of that conflict - of my difference in belief from the Catholic Church on this issue but my certainty that my view of the situation was square with God.

I sat a nun down at Rice one day and asked her if a couple known to be infertile wants to marry, then does the Catholic Church object in any way? And she said no, we encourage bringing children into the family by adoption. And she could say nothing when I asked then what would the difference be between a biologically infertile heterosexual couple and a biologically infertile homosexual couple?

I don't know why I feel this is the right forum for this, but I do quite suddenly. Because that video represents perhaps the kindest version of the Catholic Church's policy on homosexuality - and it still breaks my heart and raises my hackles.

Because I don't think that a faithful Catholic homosexual is doomed to suffer abstinence and loneliness because God has chosen them for this special suffering in order to bring that soul and "countless" others closer to Him. I think that turning away from any kind of love is rejecting a way in which to know God and should only be done with an express calling to a different path. I think that a faithful Catholic homosexual is doomed to suffer abstinence and loneliness because we are not ready to handle it.

Jesus came amongst the sinners and told them to go and sin no more. But look at His interaction with this woman, this Samaritan woman with her "deplorable" at its more vicious and, at best, oh so calmly and kindly unacceptable lifestyle, and said "Give me a drink." And He spoke to her, and He revealed truths to her. And when His disciples came they were angry He had spoken to her, and when her community saw Him for themselves they had a kind of respect for her but no need of her anymore.

The thing that makes me saddest about this woman is that we don't know if, after Jesus left that town, anyone else ever looked at her like a person, as He did. And even if they did, did they tell her the love she felt for those men had no connection to God because it was unsanctioned by the church?

I can't believe that love of any kind would ever do anything but bring us closer to God. And I am blessed, in a way, to have come to this belief before I faced my own truth. God's kindness, so that I would never need to parted from His love in my life, from His oh so active role taken in my life.

And I haven't ever really declared my bisexuality in a public forum before (unless you count my drunken declaration at a bachelorette party mostly comprised of strangers) and maybe this isn't the venue - but I feel called to write this. I have to write this, and I hope what I feel is the Spirit because I hope that this is a message that the Holy Spirit has blessed and co-written and has a plan for.

Because I have been afraid of the world's reaction - but I think most because I have been afraid that the world would try to strip away the peace I have made with God over this issue, even before I could admit that it personally applied to me. But that is me being of little faith. God loves me, and nothing can change that. I have said in the past that the precious gift God seems to have given me is the gift of Certainty. I am certain in my relationship with God - it is the rock where I stand.

Dear Lord, please stand with me always and never leave me. Please help me to see Your will and understand Your ways as much as I require to do Your will. Please Lord, bless me to always stand strong and firm at Your side and give me the strength and courage to do Your will. And please, grant me the wisdom to know it.

Sunday March 27, 2011

The Samaritan Woman at the Well

I love this story too. I think mostly because of how much I love the chapter on it in Fulton J. Sheen's Life of Christ which really takes it apart and makes something beautiful better than I ever could.

Since I lent out my car and had snow to deal with anyway, I attended church at St. Francis in Staunton (walking distance) rather than St. John the Evangelist in Waynesboro (2o minute drive) the way I usually do. Mostly because St. John's is a much more welcoming parish and I love the priest there. Also, and I had forgotten this, there's a lot of mumbling that goes on at St. Francis - especially the cantor. Perhaps it's the space, but my point being that I'm not entirely surprised that my appreciation of the homily pretty much became sidetracked by one of the pastor's remarks.

He called made a reference to the Samaritan woman's "deplorable lifestyle" and I really just thought that was such a strong word to use these days for someone who has been married several times and is now living in sin. Because, yes, that's not the way you're supposed to do it, especially back then, but, well, I'm sorry but people living together before marriage is just the way it goes these days. "Deplorable" is just really a strong word that risks turning people way off the message - like it did me, and I am still a virgin. So why would you use it? Why alienate? When your point isn't even directly related?

That's what I don't like at St. Francis - how willing to use condemning language (that and their blatant anti-Obama political messages) that closes you out of the community - just like was done to the Samaritan woman. We're not supposed to do that. By shutting her out, by calling her deplorable, her community only sent her running into the arms of more men. Jesus, by accepting her and talking to her and treating her like a person and a good one at that, brought her back into the fold. He made her a leader of her community. He chose her even so. By treating her the same as if she weren't "living in sin" in a "deplorable lifestyle," He brought her back. Calling her "deplorable" just kept her out. That's not what we're supposed to do.

Father's use of the word also made me want to defend her from the rest of his assumptions about her. He suggested that she changed the subject to where we worship God (mountain or Jerusalem) as something "safer" to talk about than her own life and his homily jumped from there to facing our own weaknesses and not giving ourselves a pass on our sins because we have religion. Valid idea, but I was still upset by his utter dismissal of the woman because of her lifestyle. So I took and ran with my thoughts on why she changed topics.

Because she had found a prophet, a man beloved of and speaking for God - and what she really wanted from that person was the central question that divided her people from those who should be her brothers and sisters resolved. She wanted to know the truth of that conundrum that kept the Chosen People of God divided. She wanted a chance to heal that breach. Her instinct was as a peacemaker, a seeker. She sought love in the arms of so many men and now she was seeking truth in the first place she may have ever seen it offered. From the first man to treat her like a full-fledged person. From the first Man she believed could really and truly answer the question.

Would our one question be so wise? At the beginning of the semester, my playwriting professor had us make a lot of lists, and the last one was five questions that we would ask God if we could do so without dying. I don't think any of my questions were aimed at such a thing - at finding the answer that could bring people together, could settle a bitter rivalry and heal wounds that only grew worse over time.

Wouldn't we want to know something more personal? Or demand something? Why did that happen? Why did you build the world this way? I think that my instinct with questions for God's is to go to the "Why?" questions, and I don't think that's terribly uncommon. Rather than the "What?" questions: "What is it that God wants us to do?" "What is the truth"; or, better, yet, the "How?" question that was Mary's: "How shall I serve God?" "How shall I accomplish His will?"

She was curious, and she was smart, and she was brave, and she was a peacemaker at heart. And I have little tears in my eyes for her right now, because I think Jesus might have been the first person in her life to look at her and see that. See her: the beautiful woman with so much more to offer than the world than she had been giving because it was all that anyone seemed to want. Because her lifestyle was so "deplorable" that no one saw her anymore. Never saw the woman living it. Never demanded that she be better because she could be. That's what Jesus did for her, look at her and see her beauty. And it gave her the strength to not care what her community would think, if they would believe her, if they would shy away from the Word of God on the lips of a deplorable woman. He gave her the strength to be what she always was - by seeing it.

That is what we, above all, should seek to do. See the beauty in others, and acknowledge it, and help it to grow. And we should, for that matter, follow her lead. When we ask of God, let it be the kind of question that will bring people together, that will make peace.

Dear Lord, especially as I get ready to start teaching middle schoolers tomorrow, help me to always remember to look for the light and the beauty in others. Help me to empower Your people as You did for the Samaritan woman, to look past what the world sees and to see Your beloved children with Your eyes. Please Lord, when I falter, help me to remember how You see me, and help me to become always the person that I can be.

Saturday March 26, 2011

Matthew 17:8-9

"When the disciples raised their eyes, they saw no one else but Jesus alone. As they were coming down from the mountain, Jesus charged them: 'Do not tell the vision to anyone until the Son of Man has been raised from the dead.'"

I've been waiting to get to this one all week, because it's what I'm currently most interested in in this story. I've also been worried all week that I won't do it justice.

In a way, Jesus' injunction to wait until after the Resurrection was imminently practical - after all, they wanted to make him the prophet who would take down Rome [when, if you look at history, they already had Rome's protection for their religion. They were almost the only religious people that weren't forced to convert to Roman gods because Rome had respect for their Yahweh and their practices so, really, what did God have to interfere about?]. A spectacle like the Transfiguration could be misconstrued easily to be Jesus' coming out as the Son of God.

What it must have felt like to hear Jesus call Himself the Son of Man after that day on the mountain. But this appearance only makes sense in its place with the Crucifixion and the Resurrection.

There are two bits of the book Life of Pi that I think about a lot (great book, if you haven't go read it). When the character talks of his conversion to Christianity (without dropping Hinduism or Islam, long story), he expresses profound confusion over the impatience of the religion (and Jesus' petulance cursing a fig tree) and his utter awe that God would die. Because it could not be a fake death, a meaningless death, he said. Now God would forever have death at His right hand. He allowed Himself to become changed forever in order to save us.

I know, I covered this over Advent when I talked about purity, but I guess it still bear another minute's meditation. Because God also spoke like this at Jesus' baptism, when the Holy Spirit descended on Him, and said the same message: "This is my beloved Son with whom I am well pleased; listen to Him." For the Son of Man, who could hunger and thirst and for whom it was right that any rite of mankind be practiced upon. Then later for Jesus in His true form - although the other would now forever also be His true form, or perhaps His only true form after the Crucifixion - the same message. Listen to Him. Both are His beloved Son, the Son of God and the Son of Man both.

Only when the Son of Man had defeated death could the full extent of this day be understood. Only once this day was revealed could the full gift of the death of the Son of Man be revealed. For this was not just one perfect sacrifice chosen from amongst God's people, His many sons via Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, from the line of David. It was God Himself, who was willing to change Himself forever. By letting humanity overcome Him and death to forever change Him.

By doing so, He defeated death. By doing so, He freed humanity. But by joining the ranks of the humans and the ranks of the dead, God also changed. Gave up part of His nature, or the purity of His nature, in order to save us. And His transformation after the Resurrection made Him strange to His disciples in a way that this Transfiguration did not. It wasn't only the light that made Him strange after the Resurrection, for His three disciples knew Him well enough on Mount Tabor.

But that's also the thing: we always know God on the mountain. But a private little room at what was no doubt a seedy inn perfect for hiding out in? That's where the glory of God appears to His most trusted followers? Really?

We look for God on mountaintops, in burning bushes and great loud voices carving for us the Ten Commandments. But after the Death and Resurrection, God made Himself into the kind of God who shares our entire lives with us - not only the times we climb the mountain in search of holy meditation. He is with us always. He became human, He became vulnerable to death, so that He could appear to us anywhere and everywhere - to share all of our lives with us. So that we could never really turn away from Him again.

And then the Spirit was free to come down and truly into our hearts and souls and spend our entire lives within us. Not only when we were ready to listen to the whisper of wind after thunder and lightning. Not only when we made our way out into the desert. Not only when we climbed the mountain. When we were hiding out in fear in a seedy motel feeling our faith slip slowly away.

God reclaimed the world for Himself, gave Himself the right to be a part of every bit of human experience. He is not something different now, something far away and removed from daily life, kept for places that are sacred and special and always a long journey away - because He joined us. Of course, He is always God, but now He is not a God that we must seek. We must only turn around and have the wit and faith to see Him. He is everywhere. With everyone.

It is no longer Mount Tabor only. Golgotha saw to that. Now God is everywhere. Because He became human, and He died. So that He could be with us always.

Such is His love.

Dear Lord, please be with us always, and help me to know that You are always with me. That You are always at my side, watching me and guiding me. Give me the wit to see You there. Thank You for the extent and glory of Your love for me. Give me the heart to love as You do.

Friday March 25, 2011

Matthew 17:6-7

"When the disciples heard this, they fell prostrate and were very much afraid. But Jesus came and touched them, saying, 'Rise, and do not be afraid.'"

I've already talked about what the Little Black Book chose to reflect on for today earlier in the week. Just as well in a way, because it's something different that appeals to me here.

It's amazing how many times I remember, how many stories, in which Jesus says "Rise" and then to let go of the fear or the illness or the sin that was weighing us down. Always, He is saying "Rise." Rise up. Stand up, walk and live. The awe of God can lay you flat - instead, stand up, walk and live. Sin can bring you down, reach up for God, then rise and sin no more.

Fear of God is healthy. It can make you try harder to be a better person. But that's what it should do. Not leave you lying prone on Mount Tabor for the rest of your life. You have to rise up, so that you can do with the voice from on high asked of you in the first place - "listen to Him." You have to stand up, walk down the mountain, and never stop rising higher and higher to meet God.

Because if we experienced heaven even incompletely on earth, we would all be changed people. But it would do us little good if we only fell prostrate and sobbed for the beauty and the love and the terror. We have to stand up, even in the presence of God, when He asks us to rise. We must stand and walk by His side. We must let Him raise us, not fall down in fear and awe. We must rise, because we have been commanded. More than for anything else (I think). He asks us to rise.

St. Catherine of Siena spent three years praying in a small room. Then she was asked to go out and move in the world. She said she would have been happy to stay there always, but for all the glory of God she exalted for three years on her knees, when God asked her to stand, to rise up, she did. And she went to the pope in Avignon, and she wrote to Church leaders. She rose and she wrote.

The experience of God is not meant to flatten us, to push us down into the awareness of our own unworthiness - although I'm sure it does that. It's meant to show us that we can rise. That we were meant to rise. That we are commanded to rise.

Your sins are forgiven. Stand up now, walk and live.

Rise, and do not be afraid.

Dear Lord, may I have the courage to stand for Your people and Your causes. May I be worthy of the trust You put in me, and may I have the strength to stand, walk, take up my cross, and live. May I always remember that You command me to rise and to stand. May I always have Your grace and blessing to help me do so. Thank You, for Your loving command.

Thursday March 24, 2011

100th post!

Matthew 17:5

"While he was still speaking, behold, a bright cloud cast a shadow over them, then from the cloud came a voice that said, 'This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him.'"

The Little Black Book did the thing it often does where it went off on a tangent (I know, who am I to judge for that?) and discussed the difference between here, with only Peter, James and John, and the Last Supper with everyone. It pointed out that there are some personal and some communal experiences of God.

But I wonder - was the Last Supper more for Jesus than for the disciples? A last gathering, one last night before the end, to say goodbye and make for Himself a way to be with us always, always physically present in the breaking of the bread. And John the Gospel Writer has so much more to write about that evening than this day. I've always thought that going to Mass, doing good works, are not for God's benefit but for ours. If you're doing it to curry favor, you're doing it wrong. The blessing doesn't come later, it comes in the moment.

But I think now that I was shortchanging God's love of us to say that going to Mass, receiving communion, is not what we do for Him but He for us. Certainly, it's as lopsided as all of our interactions with God and His infinite love - but as someOne who loves us so, any chance to be with us is for Him. We are making Him happy in that way.

I suppose that doesn't seem a remarkable realization, but He doesn't just speak so that we can go out and praise Him, He enjoys us listening. He enjoys it when we sit at His feet. He enjoys talking to us. He enjoys us.

Again, perhaps it doesn't sound like it should be revelatory - but think about that. Good and hard. The Almighty and All-Powerful and All-Knowing God...enjoys our company. Wants to spend time with us. The silly little creatures who can't stop mucking it up and complaining all the time.

But then, He tells us that we're His children. I suppose I should have known.

Dear Lord, help me to remember to find the time to spend with You, to honor that time and to spend it listening at Your feet. May it bless us both. Thanks You for the outrageous love you have always had for me.

Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Matthew 17:4

"Then Peter said to Jesus in reply, 'Lord, it is good that we are here. If you wish, I will make three tents here, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.'"

First of all - can you believe I'm posting before midnight, even midnight my time?

I think I've talked about this verse in the story most often - Coming Down the Mountain talks and the like for the Teen ACTS Retreat in particular. How Peter wanted to stay on the mountain, stay there and be happy and blissful and beloved and a good servant of God. Except that - of course, he wouldn't really be a good servant of God. God doesn't need houses on Mount Tabor. He needed a Bishop of Rome, an apostle and an evangelizer. He needed a martyr.

The message from the Little Black Book today is how we should think about if we can express Peter's sentiment - is it "good for us to be here" in wherever we are in our lives right now? It's not a bad question, but I can't help thinking - if the answer is yes, are we still ready to move on? To change drastically? Are we able to carry this lesson on to the next thing?

Perhaps my life has been changing, changing, changing all the time so I feel this way, but perhaps the most important part of following God's path for my life seems to be the willingness to go somewhere new or do something unexpected - rather than planting my roots and enjoying the mountaintop's glory or even taking up a steady position in the faith community. I have to move and change. After all, school (at least mine) was obsessed with its own rhetoric on how everything is always changing - and that only becomes moreso when college and grad school come into things. You need to be willing to keep moving when the Spirit calls.

But I think I can get complacent - when I'm doing some good work, to think that all I have to do is keep that going. When I must constantly seek what God has called me to do and be, when I must constantly seek new ways to know and follow Him. I have to stay on my toes and keep searching. I've never reached the point where I can stop, build a little house, and just stare at Moses, Elijah and the Son of Man in His glory. Not yet. Not in this life.

I suppose I'm showing my Martha tendencies, St. Martha is my confirmation saint and everyone always told me that it's Mary in that story that we're supposed to follow. But I've always disagreed. We're supposed to balance the two, do both. We're supposed to be willing to sit and abide with God but also to get up and do His work. That's why I chose the name. We're supposed to want to build the house but only spend the time that Jesus dictates for us up on the mountain. We're supposed to be willing to come down and do our work afterward.

We're supposed to be willing to move on from what is comfortable and even from what is wondrous. We're supposed to be always looking for other and more ways to be close to God.

Dear Lord, may I never stop seeking You in all the ways You call me to look for You. Please help me to follow Your ways and never grow too weary to follow You to new shores and along new paths. Help me to remember the precious revelations You have made to me and always be willing to work to bring Your Kingdom in thanksgiving for all You have done for me.

Tuesday March 22, 2011

Matthew 17:3

"And behold, Moses and Elijah appeared to them, conversing with him."

The obvious sentiment here is the connection to Jewish history and the fulfillment of the promise of the Covenant. And then there's the story from Father Manger's homily that I remember with such bizarre clarity about Moses' fear of going down alone and the summoning of Elijah to accompany him to meet Jesus on the mountaintop.

The Little Black Book took a different tac, talking about how we are all suffused with the Spirit of God. If we had the wit to see, we would see God and such magnificent sights everywhere. If others could see, they would see such a sight in us.

And I am thinking now about how Moses was so hesitant before the Burning Bush, making excuses until he actually had to be let off the hook a bit. Aaron, the better speaker, would deliver God's words to Pharoah, not the stuttering Moses of such influence, who was afraid to let others see the Spirit of God, the Fire at the heart of the bush that it did not consume, running through him. Who feared to be a luminous being in the sight of stepbrother and the old friends and enemies of his court.

All of the movie versions of the story dramatize this but tone it down. And they take out God's concession to Moses' fear. God demands, "Who made man's mouth? Who made the deaf, the mute, the seeing and the blind?" but then "What about your brother Aaron the Levite?"

There are those who love the spotlight, or can find it within themselves to embrace it, and those who will always shun it. It's the difference between my roommate and myself, in a way. I do love the sound of my own voice, and I love attention. I have my fears of being forced to hold everyone's attention, of that being my job in a given situation, but I eat it up. I worry that my roommate will never be comfortable with even a mild and private form of being the sustained center of attention - nor realize how good she is at it.

But I have problems with letting the Spirit in me shine through. I don't want to, and I doubt I'm supposed to, trumpet my own supposed holiness or anything, but I wonder if I would fear like Moses in Father Manger's story or in the one in Exodus. If God asked me to do some remarkable and center stage mission, to represent an enormous and wonderful a group as the prophets and holy Hebrew people, I would shy away. Let me interject from the sidelines. Let me throw down my staff but not make a list of demands. Choose someone better.

But that's not our job. Shrinking away into the excuse of humility - very different than the actual devotion to that virtue - is not our job. It's hiding our light under a bushel. And it reminds me of Akeelah and the Bee and that quote by Marianne Williamson:

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same."

Because perhaps the saddest part of the story of Moses' doubt in Father Manger and Exodus is that God concedes. He gave us free will. Free will to make ourselves smaller and dimmer. He will choose others. We could shine instead. We could overcome our speech impediment rather than entreating that Aaron be given the spotlight - because if we do not step forward to shine with God's light within us, God will find another way. We could go down to the meet Jesus alone, or we could go in company and let Elijah do most of the talking. And that would be fine. Elijah has the same right to come, though he is in a way less successful or at least dramatic a prophet. And Aaron did a perfectly fine job - perhaps the one-two punch of the tag team speakers was even better in some ways. But the choice was not to let the light of God shine in us, because we are a weak vessel.

We are all of clay, earthen vessels. Why do we fear to be more? When we know that we are, by faith? If you will forgive me one more outside reference, a (largely religiously-confused) character on Battlestar Galactica asks and answers a lost prophet, "What is the most basic article of faith? That this is not all that we are." Perhaps the most basic question of a faithful life, of any life, is then, "So why do we fear to be?"

It is frightening - but who made man's mouth? Who gave us His Spirit? Answer His call - before He concedes to your fear.

Dear Lord, please give me the courage to let Your light be seen in me, to let others find You always present in my every action. Help me to embrace Your light and to share it always with those around me. Give me the courage to be all that I can be, to shine with Your light.

Monday March 21, 2011

Matthew 17:1-2

"After six days Jesus took Peter, James and John his brother, and led them up a high mountain by themselves. And he was transfigured before them; his face shone like the sun and his clothes became white as light."

So the question on my mind all day (besides, well, the ten thousand that popped up around this semester's all day thesis festival) was - six days after what?

Well, apparently, six days after telling them that any who follow Him will have to take up their cross, and that some of them will not taste death before they see the coming of the Son of Man.

Which is another tricky little bit I've never quite reconciled. Jesus really seems to be promising, there, that His second coming will be during their lifetimes. I'm sorry, but that's how I would have heard it and it's still how I read it now. What was He saying there?

But that's just my current question for the universe - or you, Father Dempsey!

The description here of how Jesus was transfigured certainly sounds like how you would write down, so long after the fact, how your friends bumblingly tried to explain what it was like. And you didn't want to just recreate the "it just-He was-transfigured guys!" so you latch on to the words they managed to eek out, the words that were fighting and struggling to contain what they really meant and failing miserably - you could tell that much from the light in their eyes and the strain in their voices as they tried to make the words hold the truth.

I wonder why John never tried. If it was because he knew he would never be able to do better than that. Or I wonder if he was asked to explain more, describe it, all the time and he knew that there were other things that needed to be said. That the message was more important and he was, in that way, following the injunction of God, "Listen to Him" rather than describing how it felt to be in that presence.

Because that's not something you could ever describe anyway. It sounds stupid, silly, when words try to wrap themselves around it. They weren't meant to do that, they weren't meant to go there, so they just flail about looking foolish and trying to convince you that you're the one who's silly and foolish and incomplete in some way.

I wonder if it was such a small group, too, because at a certain level of group size it starts to need a structure or to take one upon itself. It can't be a personal event happening to you, it's an event at which the crowd will respond in some way.

Perhaps that last part is bollocks.

I don't know. I think my brain is tired from the day so I'm not being very profound. And I love this story. But, well, all the words are foolish, when you're talking about this part - about the Transfiguration itself. What it was like and how it looked and sounded and how it felt to be there. So I dance rings around talking about the other things - and I try not to let the words sound so foolish that it stops me from speaking, from singing in joy and praise.

What a glorious sight that must have been. How indescribable - God Almighty in His glory while maintaining His human form. The man you have admired and followed and believed in revealing the even more wondrous truth to you on a mountaintop. The great consolation for the next hill, and the presentation of the spotless lamb before the sacrifice and the display of something more beautiful, a truth shocking and gorgeous and loving - that would not be fulfilled our understood until after the death and resurrection. God allowing death to touch Him, in order to defeat it, yes, but forevermore stained with death. No longer beyond death. Here, Jesus was recognizably Himself, unlike immediately after the Resurrection (always a detail that's interesting - because it's a risk to put that sort of thing in there for the sceptic to catch on so it must have been important to them). Because God was about to let Himself be changed forever - and for us to understand that, we had to see the original form.

We don't have words for how Jesus looked on that mountaintop. We've made ourselves words for how He looked on the other. But we don't really have a true comprehension of either. That love is too unfathomable and too deep. Too magnificent for us to fully understand. At least for now. So our words must try, in the hope that they, like everything else in our lives, have the hope of bringing up closer to the truth of God.

Dear Lord, help me to reach for Your truth about all others. May I always seek You and a way to find You in all that I do. May I find the words that will share my journey with others and allow me to share in others' journeys. Bring me someday to see Your glory, I beg of You, and be with me however You will it until then.

Sunday March 20, 2011

The Transfiguration

This is my favorite Bible story. My favorite story. I've written more about it than any other and I've thought about it more than any other. I always find something new and wonderful in it. I've found so many lessons in its details. It's my Bible story.

I do wonder, though, how many of the lessons I've then applied to my own life. The homily today took the injunction of the Father's Voice from on High as its point of focus - and as much as I love Father Rolo, he gave a homily about how all we remember are his personal stories that seemed mainly composed of his personal stories. So I was disappointed.

But the point stands. I'm very good at teasing out lessons, taking the wonder and awe of stories and verses and acknowledging them, reveling in them. Praising God for the extreme degree of His love.

But do I then apply it to my life? And if I don't, then am I really listening to Him? Even if I think I have it all figured out? Probably not because I think so.

I feel like God has to surprise me to get me to listen. Perhaps that will happen as the Little Black Book and I linger over this story for the next week, which I am quite looking forward to, but the surprise today in church was me meditating on how I'd have liked to be a priest and my struggle with the question: does that mean I'm called to be a nun? And, as I ponder this when I should be praying the Intercessions, comes the prayer for artists, who are bringing God's Light into the world. It seemed an answer.

I wasn't really listening for it. I had to be spiritually smacked upside the head because I keep trying to solve these problems for myself - for all I talked such a good game last night.

I'd be up on that mountaintop glorying in Jesus' transfiguration and making plans to built tents, asking for approval. God the Father would have to descend and say, as He did to Peter, 'Please shut up and listen to what I'm really saying.'

So I need to start truly incorporating these lessons into my life. Or why am I asking all these questions? I knew from the start I don't have the wisdom or knowledge to work the answers out for myself.

Dear Lord, please be with me always. Please help me to open my heart and my mind and find enough space in my life to listen to You and Your Word. Please remind me, smack me upside the head when You must, and never withdraw from me. Help me to remember to look to You and to keep Your commandments and Your lessons in my life for all the days of my life.

Saturday March 19, 2011

Happy St. Joseph's Day!

Matthew 4:11

"Then the devil left him and, behold, angels came and ministered to him."

I feel like this is the real lesson of the story - or the clearest expression of the message repeated thrice - that the devil is lying when he tempts. It's nice that we go through the ways that the devil lies most commonly and some of the basic tricks he plays, but the real message is here: his choices are lies. There is always another way. All of Sophie's choices, Hobson's choices, the lesser of two evils - it's lies. You can transcend the dichotomies created by impossible choices. Look beyond, look above, and ask for an answer you haven't considered.

The angels will come.

People get into impossible situations. That's what miracles are for. The act of looking up to God in those terrible situations is the miracle, a lot of time. And if we have the strength to listen in those moments, we have to believe than an answer will come. To guide us out.

When we look back on periods in our lives, we often think how silly we were to take the things we took so seriously, to accept the premise handed to us and think that these were our only options. I think I wrote a rant once that featured the perhaps unfair principle that anyone who told you "These are your options" was manipulating you. Because you always have ten thousand options. Ten million. You could, instead, quack like a duck and wander off into the sunset. You could trust in God that everything will work out and be willing to let it. You never have only the options stated. You never have only the options you yourself could come up with.

You can always look up, and ask the angels to minister to you in your need. That act of looking up, that is the miracle. That's what impossible situations are for.

Dear Lord, please give me the wisdom and the courage to turn to You in all of my struggles. Help me to remember, when I am beset, that there is always another way, that there is Your way, and that You will guide me if I ask it of You. Please Lord, be with me always.

Friday March 18, 2011

Matthew 4:10

"At this, Jesus said to him, 'Get away, Satan! It is written: "The Lord, your God, shall you worship and him alone shall you serve."'"

The Little Black Book has been hovering around the message all week of not letting anything stop you from being who God has called you to be. Strangely, it's with this verse that the writer changed tactics. The meditation today was a warning about the end of Lent, of how the devil only pounced at the end of Jesus' communion with God, fasting night and day. Coming out of that state of being with God.

I remember how many times my mom was horrified at how my sister and I would start sniping at each other right when we got out of Mass when we were little.

But perhaps the real deal is the same one as the Transfiguration, a later gospel in Lent. It's easy when you're in the Desert or atop the Mountain, to make God your only focus. To worship and love and serve only God. And then the world comes back and demands, well, everything. Offers everything. If only we will turn away - or just include other things.

After all, the three apostles on the Mountaintop came charging down full of the awe and wonder and started sniping with the others about who was the greatest. Why do we do that?

Perhaps it goes back to the idea of the difference between trying to do good and moral principles. Because moral principles don't let you get confused about whether you could do more good as ruler of the world than as God's stalwart tin soldier. Moral principles don't let you start tearing down everything you experienced with God. They don't let you bend a little because it seems like it will help. They give you the strength to say, to quote, "The Lord, your God, shall you worship and him alone shall you serve." To know who you are and what you believe and what you will do.

Lord God, bless me to always find my strength and to live my life by moral principles. Be with me in hard times and confusing ones and help me to be strong enough to find my way not by good intentions but by the light of Your way and my faith in You and the principles by which You have asked me to live my life. Give me the strength, o Lord.

Thursday March 17, 2011

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Matthew 4:8-9

"Then the devil took him up to a very high mountain, and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in their magnificence, and he said to him, 'All these I shall give to you, if you will prostrate yourself and worship me.'"

This entry may well sound crazy, because the last time I felt this feverish, I spent a significant portion of a Saturday afternoon working myself into a spiritual-themed delirium panic. Still feeling sane right now but, well, I only barely knew I was being delirious - and typing that statement did make me laugh a lot - yep, I'm still going.

The Little Black Book suggests in the meditation for today that what shows you if you're worshipping God or an idol is to think about what you spend most of your time doing and thinking about every day. And my honest answer was...a lot of things? I suppose my first thought was "my thesis" but as many jokes as I could make about what a cruel god that would make, it's not really true. The two weeks I devoted to the thesis were so crazy and miserable because it took quite a bit to make me focus. I feel like growing up I was always praised for having great focus. But my tunnel vision hasn't been around in awhile.

Mock trial competition - when every time I approached a witness and then turned around to head back to my seat and received an acute shock at the sight of the rest of the courtroom - the rest of the world still existing. Or a rehearsal room where it all fades away - but then, there are always ten thousand things to think of in those situations - all those things are just amounting to the same thing.

So what is my rival to God, my spiritual life? Trivia? Attention deficit? Boredom? Television? That's probably closest, but then how do you account for brickbreaker or reading through my old stories or that Terry Pratchett book on my nook that I keep pulling out and losing the plot of?

I think I need something that really feels worth my time - preferably something that will bring me closer to God. I think the Stuart Hall class will be just what the doctor ordered (not for my fever) in that regard. I'm starting a show with the middle school class in less than two weeks (OMG I'M NOT READY FOR THAT) and when I have a show going, not to mention a class I'll be teaching four times a week, that's where most of my thoughts will go. And I though it's not a religious school, empowering students is always a good work. And I know that God will pull me through it.

Perhaps trivia is the new strategy - because I won't bow down and worship something dumb like a thesis.

Dear Lord, I love You. Be with me, and help me to always look for You wherever I go and whatever I do. Never let me lose my devotion to You. Give me a project that we can work on together.

Wednesday March 16, 2011

Matthew 4: 5-7

"Then the devil took him to the holy city, and made him stand on the parapet of the temple, and said to him, 'If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down. For it is written: "He will command his angels concerning you" and "with their hands they will support you, lest you dash your foot against a stone."' Jesus answered him, 'Again it is written, "You shall not put the Lord your God to the test."'"

I'm fond of occasionally saying that there's nothing that annoys right-wing Christians more than arguing back to them Bible for Bible. I used to make something of a sport of it - mostly freshman year at Rice. And you could do it.

You can argue whatever you want with the Bible, more and more the smaller chunks you take it in. So then how can we be sure we are being guided truly by it? The heart of the Bible is given to us. Jesus tells us how to find the core of the Old Testament and clarifies the renewed message of the New in doing so:

'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments."

Matthew 22: 37-40

And the first part comes from Deuteronomy 6:5 apparently. I actually totally didn't know that.

It's too easy, somehow, to say then that as long as you abide by these two principles you must look to your own conscience for interpretation of the rest. After all, there's a difference between wanting to do the right thing and living your life by a moral code, I agree with the Little Black Book on that. There's a difference between looking to the Bible for confirmation of what you already think and looking to your Guide, the Word of God, for answers.

Perhaps as usual our only hope is prayer. Perhaps another way to weed out the false interpretations is to think about which came first. Did we or the person pontificating have their mind made up before they went to the Bible, or did we sit down and ask our God for guidance and then examine His holy Word?

I know that I've often been guilty of the former. But I found when I'm surprised by what I read as affirmation of beliefs I have come to is far more rewarding than trying to seek out some kind of theological or Biblical argument to confirm my own opinions. Because in the latter way I'm just making excuses and trying to make arguments to God with how I think He should be. When I find Him preparing the answers for me and putting them in my way, I feel blessed by His care.

I still don't know if I get all of it right. I come up against the interpretations of the Catholic Church in a lot of my personal beliefs, after all. But I don't think that any of them violate the core of the scriptures or of the tenets of faith of Catholicism. Except perhaps obedience to the clergy, in rejecting their opinions in the first place.

We need to not think of the Bible as a source of easy answers - and not just in the answers it gives. It's all too easy to find "easy answers" and "simple answers" and justifications for whatever we thought before. The Bible is a long book that's been through a lot of time periods and had contact with a lot of cultures. Looking to the Bible takes work and humility and prayer. And it takes letting go of what we want the Bible to say and truly listening.

That's kind of frightening.

Dear God, please give me the courage to look. And the wisdom to discern truly. But the courage most of all.

And Lord God, please be with the country of Japan - and it's people in this time.

Tuesday March 15, 2011

Matthew 4:3-4

"The tempter approached and said to him, 'If you are the Son of God, command that these stones become loaves of bread.' Jesus said in reply, 'It is written: "One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes forth from the mouth of God."'"

I admit I've never really thought about this particular answer of Jesus'. The next two responses of Jesus are pretty much the straightforward, what they say on the tin. And this response isn't complicated or anything, his general sentiment is clear, and as a fan of puns and overly clever retorts (I felt the need to "defend" a classmate against another by engaging in a technical debate on his word choice just today - I won), I was always just pleased that Jesus could come up with such a good comeback.

I've never really thought about what He was saying. I got the general message that God's things are more important than earthly ones, but I never really thought about it - we cannot live without the Word of God. Without God's love, we are not living. We are starving. Every word that comes from the mouth of God is keeping us alive - and I don't think just our souls. Our minds are part of our bodies, I think. All our cleverness will come to naught in the end, it will just be a thing that brought us closer to God in the course of this life or did not, like every other talent and attribute we have been given. Without God's words, we would not have hope or optimism or grace. Our world needs more grace. I suppose it always does, always has, always will.

There was actually a cheesy commercial for a church in Beaumont when I was growing up that listed how many days you can live without food, without water, and one other thing I can't remember and then finished, "but how many days can a man live without hope?" It ended on the image of a man picking up a Bible. I suppose it, too, was right in a way I never thought about before.

Our lives are sustained by the grace and love of God. I know that I forget that all too easily and wait for something that makes me remember his presence, a blessing or a comforting hand needed in crisis. We would not survive without the light of God in our lives. That is how we can know that He is always with us.

I think most of us fall into this boat. We forget, at times, to attend to this need - the spiritual need - which is practicing anorexia of the soul. Or bulimia, stuffing ourselves full and then vomiting it straight back out rather than letting spiritual growth become a part of our everyday lives. I apologize for the graphic nature of that last comparison, but you get the idea.

Lord God, may I always remember to nurture our relationship. May I never forget that I need Your grace to live, that You are the light of my life. Be with me always, Lord, even when I do not remember that I do not live by bread alone, may I never close my ears or my heart to Your every word.

Monday March 14, 2011

Matthew 4:1-2

"Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil. He fasted for forty days and forty nights, and afterwards he was hungry."

This verse has always made me want to laugh. Whenever I hear it in Church or Bible studies or class or anything - I can't help smiling in amusement. "He fasted for forty days and forty nights and afterward he was hungry." Well, I guess He would be.

Of course, He presumably fasted by eating very little rather than completely starving himself. My patron saint Catherine of Siena didn't last long on her full hunger strike to end the Great Schism. Gandhi nearly died for his.

Perhaps that's why "everything in moderation" is actually, for me, a hard practice to enact. I tend to be a person of extremes, I think. If I hadn't given up playing that silly game on my phone for Lent, I would be playing it to excess. Even in such a small thing, I have a very limited capacity to make myself able to play it only occasionally, when I am waiting for my friend to meet me at the rendezvous and really have nothing else to do or in the car when I'm a passenger. I worry that my flexible opinions and beliefs also swing wildly from one direction to another if I'm convinced.

I have to make stark lines, even if they are very fine ones. To have subtlety I have to create a series of lines in gradations, a complex negotiation. I'm not very good at it. It's why I'm not very good at flirting - because I try so hard not to be overt that I am unreadable.

I think I simplify things too much in this way. Because something in my brain does not recognize anything but not eating for forty days and forty nights as the definition of fasting - as a reason to be so very tempted to turn the stones into bread.

I don't ask others to live by those rules, but I do wonder if it helps or hurts my morality in general. The true baselines of my faith and my life don't change. But the direction in which they are applied is largely an "all or nothing" fashion.

Perhaps the most troublesome thing about this tendency of mine is that I miss the subtleties of other people. That I forget to take into account everything I should. Look at my post yesterday, about anything you've suffered explaining rather than excusing bad behavior. I don't waffle on that principle, but I hope that I will always have the grace to remember the explanations and judge less harshly lest I be judged.

Lord God, who denied Himself in the desert, please be with me when I make my decisions and judgments. Guide me to see others fairly and generously. Help me to always find the truth and follow Your path in my opinions. Grant me the wisdom to know when I should be dogged and when I should be conciliatory. Grant me Your grace and wisdom, my Lord.

Sunday March 13, 2011

The Temptation in the Desert

Father Rolo said in his homily today that temptations are only suggestions. Everything is only suggestions. Choices are different and those are all ours.

An idea I've been toying with loudly this past year is that, at the end of the day, all the things that excuse behavior are ultimately worthless. Because whatever trauma or neglect or just lack of love or being taught basic decency that you have, that only explains your bad behavior rather than excusing it. Because there's not a part of ourselves, of our past, that doesn't belong to us.

Our hungers, those things we think we need, are a part of us. Our compulsions and addictions are ours. I think this most of all is something Lent is supposed to remind us of. Now that there are not set proscriptions more than ever we are bound to examine our lives and eradicate those things that would make us break everything, if only those stone would become bread. Our addictions are not outside us. They are us. We own them. We are responsible for them. We will be held accountable for our actions concerning them. It is our duty to know that we have power over them, that they do not own us but we them.

Our ambitions, our aspirations and dreams, are a part of us. That one we know now a days. But the ways do not justify the means. The actions that we take, how far we are willing to go - those limitations and those impulses to push against them - they are also ours. Our ambitions and our ruthlessness belongs to us. They are us. We own them. Not they us. We are responsible for them and will be held accountable for our actions. We must know that we have power over them, that they do not own us but we them.

Our desire for power and glory, our fears, are a part of us. Every self-aggrandizing, even every selfish thought, belong to us. That tendency to have tunnel vision for what will bring us glory. To want everything. We own them. Not they us.

God is more important. God is stronger.

If we ignore and repress, we will think that our desires control us rather than the other way around. We can rein ourselves in, we can choose to look for good, we can harness our ambitions and channel them into God's service. We are responsible for that. For our actions. Because everything else is just a suggestion. We don't have to listen. We don't have to act on it. The choices are ours.

Lord God, may I always turn to You in times of crisis. Lord God, may I always choose Your will. Be with me, my Lord, that I may always know that I can overcome, as You overcame. With Your blessing, let me overcome that which would keep me from You.

And Lord, my God, please, bless and keep all those harmed by the tsunami. Protect them, however You can.

Saturday March 12, 2011

Matthew 7:26-27

"And everyone who listens to these words of mine but does not act on them will be like a fool who built his house on sand. The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and buffeted his house. And it collapsed and was completely ruined."

What really struck me today was actually in the commentary in the Little Black Book below the chosen verse. "There is a difference between living by moral principles and simply the desire to do right" (emphasis theirs). They're right - and it's a lot harder. After all, we all want to do what's right. Well, I suppose not everyone because some people get it WAY too wrong to be really trying, but I think that's what it's so easy to lose sight of. The difference between people with different principles and people who genuinely do not mean well.

It also brings up the old point - the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

So then how are we to proceed? If it's not just enough to want to do the right thing and give it our best try? We have principles and guidelines laid out for us, we are encouraged to soul search and look into our hearts and ask God - before the crisis comes. Because in the heat of the moment every idea seems at least somewhat sensible. Every course will cause some harm and do some good.

Perhaps I've just been watching too much of The Tudors, with all of the moral quandaries those characters go through. The difference between those who bend to the king's will each time he changes his mind and those who find a sticking point. It's not their better intentions, their holier souls. It's that those people have found a set of moral principles by which they have determined to live their lives. Everyone else is just meaning well and, quite often, being deceived. When the storm comes most of all.

I have always respected people who have convictions and the strength to stand by them more than others. I have more respect for someone with opposing principles who truly lives and would die by them than I do for someone who agrees with me but will desert at the first sign of trouble or sign of a paradox.

If we have faith in simple truths, from which we will not budge, I think we will also find a base from which to solve the more complicated issues that besiege us. We will have a home base from which to judge. We will have a house on a firm foundation, however undetermined we are about the wallpaper or even the walls themselves.

Lord, may Your Word always be my rock, the base of my decisions, and the code from which I live my life whatever the cost. May I be strong in my principles. Be with me Lord, when the rains come. Be with me Lord, when the issues are muddy and my judgment feels clouded. Remind me of my trust in Your Word, guide me home. I pray of You, be with me, Lord. May I always remember that You are my Rock.

Friday March 12, 2011

Matthew 7:23-25

"Then I will declare to them solemnly, 'I never knew you. Depart from me, you evildoers.' Everyone who listens to these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock. The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and buffeted the house. But it did not collapse; it had been set solidly on rock."

I couldn't help thinking today about the way that many members of the religious right view the Constitution and the Bible - as if they are fixed documents which enshrine an unflinching set of standards to preserve us from some imagined ruin that comes with moving with the times. But I think, at least with views on the words of the Bible, that this is a more widespread method of viewing the Good Book.

But the Constitution and the Bible are both living documents. They are being actively interpreted and reexamined, retranslated, and meanings sought in new ways. We could not look to a fixed and therefore dead document for answers to the new questions which confound us. That fact that we can turn to the Bible proves that it is a living document. Fixed documents shrink over time, become less relevant and speak with less authority rather than more. They become relics of times past, whether you aspire to that remembered past or rebel from it.

How could we ever think we had come to full understanding of God's Word? And that it was therefore a fixed set of principles rather than a tool for guidance in our ever-changing world? Surely God would not be so short-sighted as He handed down His holy Word.

No the Bible is a living witness to Jesus's and God's interactions with humanity, with the Chosen People. If we believe that the Bible does or can contain an answer to every question we could pose of God and our faith journey, then we must believe that the Bible is still being discovered anew. For otherwise we must believe that God intended all of society to come to a crashing halt at a time when women were stoned for adultery. Yet Jesus was a radical. He was a revolutionary, so much so that many mistook Him for a political reformer. He wanted something far more profound from us, and a Word designed to stimulate constant revolution, for such must be the path until Jesus' Return helps us to create the perfect world, cannot be a fixed set of principles. It is a tool for finding our way in a complex world throwing new questions at our faith every day.

It is a foundation, not the entire house.

A house cannot be built on sand, but neither can it be unable to stand the test of time. Neither can it refuse to give with wear and weather. Or it will fall all the same. It must stand strong when the river rises, that is a given. But we must trust that the rock is strong - strong enough for us to be able to admit that we do not have all of the answers written down for us in a handy cheat sheet for attaining eternal bliss.

That is what I believe - that the Word of God is not a fixed set of moralities but a guide for how to approach the world with the Grace of God on our side.

Lord, may I always be willing to hear and listen to Your Word in my life. May I always be blessed to follow You. Help me to find my way.

March 10, 2011

Matthew 7:22

"Many will say to me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name? Did we not drive out demons in your name? Did we not do mighty deeds in your name?'"

I remember a conversation I had with my mom once, about a talk she had with Father Jerome. She said she had thought that she would be able to point to things like the ACTS Community - and Vacation Bible School, Friends of Jesus and Mary, etc. - when she was asking God to evaluate her life. But that it wasn't really about that.

I think we can forget that. We won't go to heaven because we went to Church every Sunday. We go to Church every Sunday because that is God's gift to us. It is not something we do to get brownie points, it's for us. Doing good in our world is our blessing. Prayer is for us, not God, who knows our needs and desires and inner selves. It's not so that He can get to know us better - He knew us in the womb. It's so that we can understand how He loves us.

There's a comfort in thinking that we can just do certain things - check off a list. Even if it's the Ten Commandments or even the Golden Rule. But the direction to love the Lord your God with all of your heart and soul and love your neighbor as yourself is so that we have the benefit of accepting God's love in our lives and being a caring part of our community.

If it's not something that enriches your life, if it's something that you're doing out of obligation or because you think it will get you brownie points to help with your transition into heaven, then you're approaching God in the wrong way.

Because even if you've done great work in your life, you need God's grace. I think in our society we focus a lot on what we're entitled to, on what life owes us, on what we "deserve." But we can never deserve the gifts God gives us, certainly not by doing His work - because that is it's own reward. Good works are necessary for heaven because they constitute our experience of heaven on Earth. We all know that doing good makes you feel good, becoming its own reward. It's the experience of God here on Earth. That is it's own reward. It's not a way of "earning" or "deserving" favors from God. A relationship with Him is its own reward.

Lord God, may I always be blessed to find my reward for serving You and find that blessing in the act itself. May I remember that blessing and seek it out in my life more than I do now. Lord be with me, help me to be better. Be with me, Lord, always.

A Quick Word On Ashes

Having spent the day failing to get them placed on my head, I spent a quick moment meditating on them instead.

How you don't wash the smudge of ashes on your forehead away, leaving it to fall in tiny pieces from you as you go about your day. The reminder of death, plastered for the world to see upon you, a mark of sin and death put on our foreheads in order for us to take control of our lives, death being the final part of our lives. In bits and flakes, it falls around the familiar haunts of our daily lives, to be unknowingly picked up again in the days to come when we won't recognize it. Our Lord God has made death something so little to be feared that the pieces of it all around us cause us no alarm. A reminder can be proudly displayed. In that way, any Memento Mori and any morbidity, is really an act of triumph over death. Because God so loved us that He made death something no longer to be feared. It's something we can display to the world proudly, it's something that we can let leave a trail behind us wherever we go, it's something that we can touch unknowingly day after day, and it has no power over us anymore.

The great gift of ashes.

March 9, 2011

Ash Wednesday

So a year ago I started this (liturgically), although I actually I think I started a bit late because I didn't have the idea by this time last year. Seems like a long time.

I'm sponsoring Dan Trombley as he becomes a Catholic this year, and at the session on the Lenten season and liturgical calendar this Sunday, they passed out to everyone a Little Black Book for the season of Lent. I though it would be a good basis for the blog this time around.

The book contains a few little known facts on one page and a Bible verse with a reflection on the other for each day in Lent. Today's is:

"Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven." - Matthew 7:21

So today was a series of mishaps in my attempts to attend a service. I woke up in time to drive to the 9 a.m. Mass in Waynesboro, but I didn't get an answer from Dan and Amanda about a ride. Knowing that their car is restricted to local trips for the foreseeable future, I decided that even if the service available in the evening was an interfaith service rather than a full Mass, with the Blessed Sacrament, I should stick by my tiny but close faith community. And then, despite checking online, I found that we had the wrong church for the interfaith service so we drove back - technically in time for the St. Francis Mass but exhausted. And they needed a grocery run. So we let it slide. I think it might be the first Ash Wednesday in my life I haven't had ashes on my forehead - although I don't know if they put ashes on babies, that seems a bit harsh.

I don't know if this can be said to relate at all to the Bible verse, but I wonder if I can have caught the need for repentance if I choose other things, if I let my exhaustion and the gloom of a cold rainy day, overcome my will to attend Mass. But I justified it to myself that what I'm doing is prioritizing people, people I can help, over my own need to be in a Church to talk to God. Although I worry I don't do that enough these days. Or perhaps it's that we have the same conversation - all the people I want to pray for, my trust in Him.

I am crying "Lord, Lord" regularly, but I don't feel the connection to God except fleetingly. I think that I need a retreat. God knows when I would or where I would do it. I wish there were an ACTS community here.

It's a disheartening scripture verse, especially from someone who wants to believe that God is all good, that He will save each of His children. Who does believe that. That there is no prayer, no action, no sin and no act of grace that changes the love of God for us at its root.

And it's easy to see the false Christian in others. See those who are hypocritical or those who take the Lord's name in hate or twist the message of Jesus into one of intolerance. Or those who ignore the sticking points of the scripture where it doesn't please. You can argue anything about what God's message is in the Scriptures. Where do we find the truth?

And what do we do if that truth isn't something that we like?

Lord, I am Your humble servant. I do not know Your will. I am sorry for the neglectful follower I have been. Be with me, Lord. I love You, beyond all others. I know that I cannot understand Your ways, if it please You, I ask You please, give me the grace to understand enough to know Your path for me. Please Lord, give me the grace to go forward in Your ways. I am not supposed to know, I am not supposed to understand. It is for me only to do Your will. Help me know the path You have for me.