Saturday April 23, 2011

Holy Saturday

1 Peter 3:18-20

"For Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive by the Spirit, through whom also he went and preached to the spirits in prison who disobeyed long ago when God waited patiently in the days of Noah while the ark was being built. In it only a few people, eight in all, were saved through water."

That's quite a thought isn't it: eight people in the whole world worthy of being saved. And yes, the earth's population wasn't what it is now, but eight's a pretty small number for that sort of thing - any way you slice it. Hell, when the number is "how many get to live" 8 out of 9 can seem a pretty small number.

But eight, in the whole world, could pull it together on their own enough to be good enough to survive the Flood. No wonder we needed God to come down. No wonder we needed Him to die and rise again.

I've had some discussions recently about whether or not it should take as much work and ceremony as it did for Dan to become a member of the Catholic Church - but I can't think of a different process that would have drawn so much of his community here in Staunton out to Waynesboro tomorrow morning to support him. Besides the usual three of myself, Amanda and Dan there is Linden, Amanda, Asae and her husband Eddie, and Jeff and Megan Chips. And more will be waiting back in Staunton for us to have a celebratory brunch. And yes, Jeff and Megan go on a weekly basis on their own, but it's nice to see us drawn back together for this. And lapsed Catholic Eddie joining us (or no-longer Catholic Eddie? I am not sure, is that what "lapsed Catholic" means?).

And I think it wouldn't have meant as much to Dan - would have felt like just a thing. Father Rolo was big on that - changing religions should be a big deal. It should have meaning and it should take work, and you should understand what you are now saying that you believe, what you are now identifying with. I get that.

It's a lot like why God didn't just say, "Okay, now you are forgiven." Because it should take work, it should take love. If we can't muster it, if only eight people in the world are even worthy of continuing to try to muster it, then we need the help of God Himself. But it should have weight and heft.

It should have a Saturday in the tomb. Jesus shouldn't just die then leap up and say, "Hey, guys, don't freak out." There has to be the Saturday, to draw his disciples and apostles and friends together. To draw them together, supporting each other, before their joy can be given. Before their salvation can be completed. Before they can join the new world order, the new religion, that is about to finally be born with the Resurrection.

It has to take time. There's work you have to do, building and ark and accustoming yourself to His death, so that the Resurrection can be the gift that it is. Otherwise it looks too silly for us to believe it's real. Otherwise it's a magic trick. Holy Saturday is what helps us to understand the gravity, the weight, the importance of Good Friday and Easter Sunday both. RCIA and Sundays with an hour and a half of driving time to head to a church twice when we're all bone-weary from classes and work and theses make this Sunday mean something.

And yes, it would anyway. But not like this. It wouldn't be as real without the work, without the weight, without the sorrowful Saturday.

Dear Lord, help me to remember when times are hard that all things have their purpose. Help me to find what message You have for me in every time, good bad hard and just confusing, that You send me. Be with everyone who died today.

Friday April 22, 2011

Good Friday

Matthew 26:26-29

"While they were eating, Jesus took bread, said the blessing, broke it, and giving it to his disciples said, 'Take and eat; this is my body.' Then he took a cup, gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, 'Drink from it, all of you, for this is my blood of the covenant, which will be shed on behalf of many for the forgiveness of sins. I tell you, from now on I shall not drink from this fruit of the vine until the day when I drink it with you new in the kingdom of my Father."

Jesus had said things like this before - lost followers because He insisted on saying that we must eat His body. And now was the time. To take bread and bless it and share it - and then to try to explain. The despair on Good Friday was complete, because Jesus broke His body first, as He broke the bread before telling us why. Then again, He had tried several times to warn His apostles about what was coming. But He spoke in parables too often or they didn't think now was the time or something kept it back.

It was an act of love - the most glorious act ever done by anyone. God made Himself human, and He let death touch Him. I can't think about the Death and Resurrection anymore without thinking of the Life of Pi take on the matter - how now death had touched God, that He allowed Himself to be forever changed by being touched by humanity and death. By suffering, by cruelty, by callousness, by jeers and shame. To show us that shame and pain and suffering are things that do not control us. They are things that can be overcome.

To free us from the burden of them. To carry our cross for us.

It was shocking love. It was heartbreaking love. It was unfathomable love. To turn Himself inside out and let Himself be tortured and killed. To change forever. To alter the nature of the universe as we insist on seeing it - to show us that we have it wrong in the most dramatic way possible, also known as the only chance we'll ever begin to understand the magnitude of God's love.

One thousand, nine hundred and seventy-seven years ago, Jesus Christ died on the cross, an executed criminal condemned by His own people and betrayed or abandoned by those He loved most. So that we would understand what love is, and so that we would be free to follow God's path for us. So that we would be free of the burden of death, of the burdens of pain and shame. So that nothing could separate us from God again.

What wondrous love is this? O my soul. There aren't words for this, which is why I'm babbling trying to get at them. Words don't go here. And we all know the story.

We couldn't have made this up.

Dear Lord, thank You.

Thursday April 21, 2011

Holy Thursday

Triduum

I'm going to blatantly break with the Little Black Book today, because while whoever wrote it was fascinated with Judas, I've really said all that I care to about him.

I had thoughts of talking about Peter and how unfathomable it was to him that Jesus wash his feet - that a gesture of debasement could be taken up by God Himself. I think Father Rolo covered my initial thoughts on it pretty well, but as I wrote that down (at this early morning hour), it reminded me of something I wrote down once.

All of our systems of honor and chivalry, all of our shame culture, must look so hopelessly silly to God. I was writing about a scene from Prince Caspian in the Narnia movies (and the book) in which the captain of the mouse cadets, having lost his tail in battle, begs Aslan (Christ-figure) to restore his lost honor. And Aslan looks at him and tries very hard to understand why would ever let anyone or anything take away our honor, our sense of worth, our knowledge of our worth and beloved status in the eyes of God. And Reepicheep sounds foolish trying to explain why his Code of Honor is so important - because it is foolishness.

And I think that's what Jesus was trying to show us. All this pomp, rule, reign is earth and dust. It's a lot of nonsense we've cooked up. Hierarchies and external codes of ethics. Don't get me wrong, they have their uses and manners and etiquette is an easy, shorthand way of showing our sincere respect if so taken. But the principles are not binding. The principles of earthly honor do not actually determine your worth, certainly not before God. Your conformity to a moral code created by society is not that actual measure of your soul.

God Almighty washed feet, like a servant, like a degenerate. Reaching down to heal them was one thing - that was just being decent from the top of the pyramid. Taking up the position of such servitude, and even now we make it a position of honor by its new symbolism and make it just a quick gesture for a lesson at times, upset the whole scale. Or just shows it to be what it is: something that we can use in our mission to fulfill God's will for us but not something that we should ever let get in our way. Because it's not real. It's air.

Terry Pratchett has a character in Unseen Academicals who realizes something similar: "In most situations, people are not allowed to hit you with a hammer." This is a very freeing realization for her, because suddenly she stops worrying about what she's "allowed" to do and simply does what she knows needs to be done, knowing that no one will actually stop her or hit her over the head with a hammer for daring to attempt it.

It's not really quite that that I think Jesus is saying. I think He was trying to show us not just that the greatest should become like the least, that those at the top of the hierarchy should occasionally look down. I think He was saying that those at the top of the social pyramid have a duty to remember that it is all an elaborate illusion, that it's not real, and make that fact clear to those at the bottom of the pyramid, who have the heavier weight of society's constructs bearing down on them. I think He was showing us that every rung on the social ladder is a place where dignity and love can be found - in one way or another, they have a way to offer and receiver respect and ways to show their love. All of our mirages of honor and chivalry and etiquette are a convenient shorthand for the things often so hard to put into words, but that's no good if we don't remember that that's what they are there for: not to define us, not to limit us, not to blind us to others.

Dear Lord, help me to rid myself of my blind spots and untrue assumptions. Help me to find Your grace alive in my life. Lead me where You will have me go, amongst who You will have me go. Help me to know know where to follow You, and be with everyone who died today.

Wednesday April 20, 2011

Matthew 26:20-22

"When it was evening, Jesus reclined at table with the Twelve. And while they were eating, he said, 'Amen, I say to you, one of you will betray me.' Deeply distressed at this, they began to say to him one after another, 'Surely it is not I, Lord?'"

I seem to have a talent for picking the parts out of the full gospel that the Little Black Book is going to highlight later. Unfortunately, this means that I have less to talk about during the week. As a side note, the Little Black Book has also designated Wednesday of Holy Week "Spy Wednesday" for reasons that pass my understanding - but apparently they didn't make it up? It's a thing?

The gospel talks about how they were all eating - so perhaps they had finished the full rite of Passover? And were not relaxing to socialize, and then Jesus hits them with this. But I think He wanted them to be prepared - to start preparing themselves for what was going to happen. And if He told them, they wouldn't understand. So He started the slow process of warning them.

Like cat-on-the-roofing someone, which is a phrase I appear determined to make happen (like the word mensiversary, but that's just so people will stop making me have a small aneurysm when they claim to celebrate their three-month-anniversary). It's an old joke I'll tell you if you don't know what I mean, but it's about preparing someone for bad news by breaking it to them little by little, so they have time to prepare themselves before you lower the boom.

It's a kindness, and here I think it's an act of love. It also gives Jesus the opportunity to try to tell Judas that he always has a choice, that he will always be loved by God.

And it is still so sad that their response is, "Surely it is not I, Lord?" Fear that they will be the one to fall. So close amongst each other that there's no one that everybody immediately suspects. It's not like Judas was the ostracized apostle then. They were the beloved, and they were close amongst themselves, and there was no division. Until there was. Because you are never "safe" from the choice between good and evil. You can only be given more and more tools to help you persevere in choosing good. But it's a choice you make all the time.

One of you will betray Me, He said. One of you will deny Me three times, He said. Most of you will not stand with Me in my hour of need. These were His closest friends, and their first thought was fear that He was right. Fear that they would be the one who fell.

There's so much love in that, for Jesus, in their first thought being utter terror at letting Him down. There's a great testament to the apostles as a group - they were, after all, able to split up the world amongst them and organize the early church without internally imploding in factious squabbling. There's a sadness of not being able to be sure that you won't fall.

I was in a play today, a ten-minute play, where I played a six-year-old boy dying of consumption who just wants his big sister, who doesn't know, to assure him that he won't go to hell when he dies. That's he's not too stupid and horrible to go to heaven. And here the apostles are asking the same thing - to be told that they are not so worthless as to betray Jesus.

But no one is worthless, and we are all God's children. It doesn't mean that the choice isn't important, but it's not the foundation of God's love for us. There is nothing we can do that upsets that.

Dear Lord, thank You for Your unthinkable love of us, for all the myriad ways You have shown it to us and continue to do so in our lives. Bless everyone who died today.

Tuesday April 19, 2011

Matthew 26:17-19

"On the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, the disciples approached Jesus and said, 'Where do you want us to prepare for you to eat the Passover?' He said, 'Go into the city to a certain man and tell him, "The teacher says, 'My appointed time draws near; in your house I shall celebrate the Passover with my disciples.'"' The disciples then did as Jesus had ordered, and prepared the Passover."

I had a conversation with a Jewish friend of mine yesterday about how annoying it is when Passover and Holy Week don't line up, the way that they do this year. It's kind of embarrassing when that doesn't work out, especially since Easter is a mobile season.

Thinking about that - Passover is kind of a big production, even if you don't travel all the way to Jerusalem for it. So I wonder if the question the apostles were asking was partially along the lines of, "So...in this transitory, no-possession, no-home, just-following-a-prophet-around lifestyle...how do we handle Passover?" I suppose they had handled two before, so perhaps they were over that question and simply asking, "So, are we headed back to Martha, Mary and Lazarus's place? I'm sure they'd be delighted considering. Or is Peter's mother-in-law going to requite the healing you did on her?" And I wonder if they were surprised that the answer was, "Go here and talk to the man you see there."

There's showmanship to it, and there's trust. And even for the omnipotent God, considering free will, there's a trust of a human man, right before so many betrayed Him. He trusted that the man would answer the call, the summons, of His God. He put faith in us right before we were about to betray it.

That's quite something, though an admittedly small detail in the story of this week. If we were busily making our plans for one of the craziest times of year in our home city, further exacerbated by the procession of the Messiah (the previous day? earlier that day?), would I immediately drop my plans and make my Passover meal the place where the lamb whose blood protected the threshold of the Israelites in Egypt was spread over the whole world?

Could God trust me to choose that?

Dear Lord, help me to never stop listening for Your call and to take up Your summons whenever You have need of me. Help me to know Your will and to follow it always. Be with me, Lord, and be with everyone who died today.

Monday April 18, 2011

Matthew 26:14-16

"Then one of the Twelve, who was called Judas Iscariot, went to the chief priests and said, 'What are you willing to give me if I hand him over to you?' They paid him 30 pieces of silver, and from that time on he looked for an opportunity to hand him over."

I don't know what to do with this. Honestly. Perhaps I would if I wasn't exhausted and recovering from my tipsy state after having a large glass of wine in response to a full day with a well-performed but highly misogynistic play. But I don't know what to do here.

There's some obvious places to go - don't betray your faith, what is the price of your honesty, your morals, your faith, your soul? We hear a lot these days that everyone has a price - that everyone has a breaking point. Everybody talks under torture - whether it's sense or not is less clear. But that's when you don't have the Holy Spirit to help you. How else would the martyrs do it?

Perhaps my instinct here is to find some way to defend Judas Iscariot, but I don't really want to. Perhaps I would some other day. It's not that I want to throw stones at him either - and it seems like with Judas you can't get say anything about him without doing one or the other. He was a man, who got weak and scared, and made a terrible decision that was selfish and of little faith. Both does and doesn't deserve the rap that he gets. We're responsible for our actions, and he made a series of choices, not mistakes.

But it's not our place to judge, and who's to say we wouldn't be, if not like Judas, than at least like Peter? Is that the lesson we're supposed to take from the 30 pieces of silver? The denying three times? That we're human? We have our own examples of that.

Or is the real answer enshrouded in what I talked about yesterday - how Jesus even at the Last Supper, even at the Garden, was trying to tell Judas that he didn't have to do this, that forgiveness and love was always waiting for him. That after the Resurrection Peter was asked three times, "Simon Peter, do you love me?" to erase the three times he denied knowing Jesus. There is always forgiveness. Suicide is never the answer.

And perhaps - even if you are amongst the holy, even if you are as close to God as a brother - temptation is always present. Evil never stops being one of your options. You have to choose every day. That living by faith and morality is not a choice that you make once but one that you make constantly. Like alcoholics - one day at a time. In AA, according to TV shows anyway, you think "I'm not going to have a drink today" every day. Not "I will never have a drink again" but "I'm not going to have a drink today." And that's how you get through. You have the same choice every day, and it never gets easier. Perhaps you get better at making it, but the temptation is always the same. You grow strong in learning that you can make that choice. And if you screw up, you can come back.

I am not going to sin today. Today, I am not going to be hateful. I am not going to be jealous today. I am not going to pick a fight today. I am not going to marginalize someone today.

Sounds more doable, doesn't it? Than saying, "I will not sin for the rest of my life." But we'd do well to remember - however close we get to God, the temptation to sin never goes away. Judas was an apostle. Living and traveling full-time with the Messiah, the Son of God, listening to Him preach day in and day out, in a small inner circle of those Jesus loved most. And he fell to temptation. We don't get to have it easier, resisting temptation, even when we grow stronger in our faith. We can only get better at resisting, we can only get better at relying on God to give us the strength. The temptation is always there.

If we let it sneak up on us, we're just giving it more power.

Dear Lord, please help me to be strong and resist the temptation to sin. Help me to resist the temptation to turn from You and Your ways. Be with me, and help me to resist, this time and today, and help me and everyone else, when we fall, to know that we can always come back to You. Every time, every day. And bless all those who died today.

Sunday April 17, 2011

Palm Sunday

So it's almost at an end, another season. Holy Week is upon us. I think this might be the first Palm Sunday mass I ever missed. Luckily, Dan brought me a palm. Poor guy had to go alone because Amanda had rehearsal and I have pink eye.

But reading over the gospel online, I was struck by two things more than I have been before. One is visceral - what it must feel like to see a group of soldiers dividing up all your earthly possessions. The clothes on his back, stripped away, and then to see them divvied up, because in a short time you could have no possible use for them.

The other is a bit more intellectual. In Matthew the response the apostles have, at the Last Supper, to Jesus saying that one at the table will betray him is to ask Him in turn, "Surely it is not I, Lord?" rather than in other gospels to wonder amongst themselves who it is and then finally get John to get Jesus to give them a sign.

There's something terribly sad about the fact that they all ask, "Surely it is not I?" And I wonder what was going on in their heads. Even Judas asks, and Jesus says, "You have said so." And I've seen movies made of this that make Judas' question face-saving and insincere, but what I wonder is if it really played out like this: Judas wasn't sure yet, or confronted with the idea of Jesus knowing about him was different than, in hypothetical, freeing himself from the association with a targeted man. And Jesus was telling Judas that, even now, "You have said so," but you do not have to do it. Jesus doesn't say, "Yes, you will" or "You know it is you." He tells Judas, who so soon will be dead, that He knows that Judas has offered to betray Him and that He still loves him, still washed his feet with the other apostles, still offers him this love and this table. Jesus still wanted to spend His final night on earth with him.

But Judas could not remember this love when the time came. It was a preemptive declaration of love in any case.

But I also wonder about the other apostles. Had they been approached to betray Jesus? Had they been threatened? Or were they worried that it was going to be through error and stupidity? That they would trust someone they shouldn't with information or speak too loudly out of turn and doom their Master? Were they worried that they would not stand firm if they were pushed too hard, if they were attacked and beaten? Were they asking Jesus if they were the one who was too weak to stand strong in faith.

Aren't we all, I suppose? Afraid that we will not pass the test. We want to know if we have the strength, if we will be the ones who fail. Who crumble under the pressure and sin to get ourselves out of a tight spot.

And Peter will. Not as badly as Judas, but even those who did not explicitly deny Jesus as Peter did, the list of those who stood with Jesus at Calvary is only women and Joseph of Arimathea. John and His mother are included in the Gospel of John, but in Matthew the list is Mary Magdalene, Mary mother of James and Joseph, and Mary the mother of the "sons of Zebedee" or James and John. So they all failed to stand by Him in one way, except perhaps John, who in other gospels is the one who apparently has the right to ask Jesus who the betrayer is and receive an answer. I do wonder if John, having heard that answer, told anyone else. If not, I wonder how long it took them to notice that Judas was gone. If so, I wonder that none of them tried to stop him.

What a terrible, human question. "Surely it is not I, Lord?" We all like to think we would be strong, we would be good, we would stand firm. Blessed are those who know that they would, that they have. The rest of us can only pray that we will have the wit to rely on the Holy Spirit when the time comes.

Which - what Jesus keeps telling them about the Spirit is that when times like this come again, when they are tested again as they will all to one degree or another fail this test, now they will have the Spirit to help them through. So that their weak flesh will not stop the willing spirit again. Without the Holy Spirit's help, all we can do is ask, "Surely it is not I, Lord?" but with the help of the Holy Spirit, we can fall back on our faith and our trust in God and know that we will have help. That it will not be our willing spirit versus our weak flesh. It will be the Light of God shining through us versus the meager enemies of the flesh.

"Surely it is not I, Lord?" has a different answer now, on the other side of the Death and Resurrection. For that we can all be thankful.

Dear Lord, thank You for Your help in our times of need. Be with us always, even unto death. Give us the strength we need and bless us all. Save all of those who died today.

Saturday April 16, 2011

John 11:43-45

"Jesus cried out in a loud voice, 'Lazarus come out!' The dead man came out, tied hand and foot with burial bands, and his face was wrapped in a cloth. So Jesus said to them, 'Untie him and let him go.' Now many of the Jews who had come to Mary and seen what he had done began to believe in him."

It's interesting to me that here it's the Jews who came to Mary. Perhaps it's just a translation quirk, but more likely I think that John means the Jews who followed Mary when she just couldn't take it anymore and ran off leaving the house publicly to find Jesus. Because it says that Mary was followed, in a way that Martha wasn't. Thus Mary's declaration was public. She brought people with her when she went to declare her faith - and she did so less elaborately. She went to publicly ask for answers, to fall at Jesus' feet where she had felt so safe and loved and blessed, and say, "Lord if You had been here, my brother would not have died."

Martha's declaration was far more private, like the versions Peter does in the other three gospels.

I wonder if, in our society, we're more ready to question our faith publicly than to declare for it in a public forum. That might sound ridiculous with all the Christian posturing we see our political leaders doing to varying degrees of sincerity, but I think I talk about the Catholic Church's quirks more than I do the vital tenets of our faith - among my fellow Catholics and among those of other or no religion.

And I can't help thinking that in our rhetoric it's become too okay to default to "I don't know!" I just think of all the television programs or movies where the religious person glories in "not knowing" and thus it's "faith" - but I think that faith is knowing. Knowing even when it's hard. And yes, blessed are those who have not seen but believe. Blessed are those who know without having to have it proven to them over and over again.

Faith is too important. It's something that we should know. It's not something that we should fully understand or something that we should never question - because there's a huge difference between faith and a belief you've never questioned. But faith is something that we should be sure of. It's something that we should know. Something that we should depend on.

And I think it loops back, in ways, to some idea of an Eternal Fire Insurance Policy. Just in case God is real, I'll put in my attendance at Sunday Mass. But if you're waiting for the benefit of Sunday Mass, if you see it as accumulating a reward that you will have someday, then you are missing the point of Mass. Mass is a gift to us.

Faith is something you should know, that you should be sure of. Because when you are tested, you have to know that God will send the Holy Spirit to strengthen and protect you. You have to know what you believe, because there are trials and temptations everywhere and "I don't know" doesn't cut it anymore. The world is complex, and God is unfathomable, but if you are a person of faith, it's not because you don't know but still believe. It's because you know without having to wait for proof. Because if you believe, it means that you know. Not that you think it's probably the best choice so you will act as if it's true.

Like Life of Pi. If you've never read it, go out and buy it and skip this next paragraph. At the end of the book - see, I told you, skip this paragraph, it's so much better if you don't know this going in - at the end the main character backtracks the story we've been told and tells a different version of the events, one that is far less beautiful and poetic and magical but far more realistic and likely. And then he asks those who have been listening to him which they would rather believe. And they say they would rather believe in magic.

But that's not faith. I would rather believe in fairy tales and happy endings and a way to lower taxes and reduce the deficit at the same time. But I don't. I don't know if these things are impossible or universally untrue, but I don't believe in them. Because there is nothing in me that knows them to be true.

But I do know that God, the Father Almighty, is the Creator of heaven and earth and that Jesus Christ is His Son, Our Lord, Who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, was crucified, died and was buried but rose on the third day and will come again. I know that the Holy Spirit is among us.

I don't have any more proof or perhaps too much more tangible reason to believe these things than the fairy tales above - but I do know them to be true. That's what makes faith.

At least, that's what I think.

Dear Lord, thank You for blessing me with my faith and our relationship throughout my life. Help me to always know that I can come to You. Always be with me, Lord, and with those who need You. Help all who need You to know that You are already there.

Friday April 15, 2011

John 11:35-40

"And Jesus wept. So the Jews said, 'See how he loved him.' But some of them said, 'Could not the one who opened the eyes of the blind man have done something so that this man would not have died?' So Jesus, perturbed again, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone lay across it. Jesus said, 'Take away the stone.' Martha, the dead man's sister, said to him, 'Lord, by now there will be a stench; he has been dead for four days.' Jesus said to her, 'Did I not tell you that if you believe you will see the glory of God?'"

So the Little Black Book had an extremely useful detail in its reflection today. Apparently, it was the Jewish belief that the soul hovered for three days after death. But this was the fourth day. Jesus was not a medium communicating with and restoring the detached spirit of Lazarus, Jesus is our mediary to a far more distant and far more wondrous place.

This also means that Jesus would have missed, in the minds of the Jews, any chance of saying goodbye to Lazarus. I feel like that's a plot that happens constantly on television shows these days - "I didn't even have the chance to say goodbye" and then an elaborate gesture of some kind enables the character to after all. But this strikes me as the reason that story can exist. Because here we are given solid proof - it's never too late. Death is merely a trauma that befalls the living, not the end. In death there is a promise, of the reunion to come. Often when hope and memory seems to have faded completely.

The fourth day must have been rough in Jewish mourning periods. For three days you can imagine that your loved one is still here, you can see them in every shadow and echoing off of every surface. Then on the fourth day they aren't there anymore. Having a concrete day, and so soon on the heels of death, when that is true seems more heartbreaking than the way we do it now - when we're ready, we admit that our memories do not constitute ghosts. We admit that the smell has faded from their old clothes. We admit our lives have changed so much it's hard to conjure up just what they would say about our days.

And it's on that day for Martha and Mary, that dreaded fourth day, that Jesus arrived. It was on that fourth day that Martha and Mary both came to Jesus and professed their continued faith, along with their confusion that He did not come soon enough. And that faith was rewarded with unexpected hope. A hope too glorious to let yourself believe you could possess it. Something far better than the shadow you've clung to.

When we have walked the full length of the Valley of Tears with all of our ghosts, then we will find, on that fourth day, not despair and loneliness finally settle in for good, but the reunion we dared not hope awaited us on the other side. Now I understand better what John means, "Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. So when he heard that he was ill, he remained for two days in the place where he was." So that the gift would be truly wondrous, and truly a promise of the many reunions to come throughout time.

Dear Lord, help me to hold on to my faith and hope in my despair and be willing to let go of the past in order to look forward to reunion and reconciliation. Thank You for Your infinite love and blessings and all of the smaller loves You have folded into Your own.

Thursday April 14, 2011

John 11:22-27

"Martha said, '(But) even now I know that whatever you ask of God, God will give you.' Jesus said to her, 'Your brother will rise.' Martha said to him, 'I know he will rise, in the resurrection on the last day.' Jesus told her, 'I am the resurrection and the life; whoever believes in me, even if he dies, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?' She said to him, 'Yes, Lord, I have come to believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one who is coming into the world.'"

I feel like I already wrote about this part of the story yesterday - which might turn out to have been a good thing because I can tell you that I am feverish and not really coherent today. So if it's gibberish, just reread yesterday's.

I talked with Father Rolo today a lot about our Catholic identity, and I think what Martha is given here is a chance, at her lowest, to renew her faith. I think it's why we say the Nicene Creed at every Mass. Because every day we make the choice - I am a follower of Jesus Christ, I believe in Him. It's not something that just happens once.

It's not that I don't think that conversion stories aren't amazing at times, but I remember I was in an online chatroom once for the Left Behind series (I forget why, I did read my way through a good part of the series before I got too annoyed with them) and there was this huge emphasis placed on an inspiring story bringing you to Christ - everyone had one and seemed to me largely evaluated by it. To the point where I felt a little compelled to create one, and then I realized that "cradle Catholic raised to be strong in my faith and active in my church community, never really strayed too far away" doesn't make for a big inspiring story - but that doesn't mean it doesn't make for a good Christian. I still have just as strong a relationship with God than if I had had a great revelation and life-change. Because He was always in my life.

But even for people who do have that experience, its importance can be deceptive. After all, what matters more than an emotional acceptance of Jesus in the midst of choirs singing gospel music (or, you know, something less cliched but powerful and spiritually memorable all the same) is the next day when you wake up and decide that you will live your life for God. And then the next day. And that the next time, even if it is a time when normally you would have turned to bitterness and anger, when someone asks what you believe you choose to say that you believe in God, and His Son Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit and that They are present in your life.

That that profession of faith because an indelible part of your identity, a mark on your soul and present in everything that you do. That you walk by faith and not by sight. That you do not waver when that music fades, that you hold firm. That you know God will always accept you back if you falter.

Because our Christian life is not about conversion. It's about living as a Christian people. It's about letting our faith become something you can't describe us without mentioning prominently. Becoming one of the first and main considerations of how we will live our lives each day, working its way into every decision that we make. That we believe, and that first and foremost we identify as a Catholic, a Christian, a member of the Body of Christ.

And that it's not just words but a true part of our lives.

Dear Lord, may I always remember to foster our relationship, may I always remember what I believe and stand strong in that belief. Be with me, Lord, that I may live my life with constant reference to You, and that others may see who I am, a Catholic, by Your love shining through me.

Wednesday April 13, 2011

John 11:17-21

"When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days. Now Bethany was near Jerusalem, only about two miles away. Many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to comfort them about their brother. When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went to meet him; but Mary sat at home. Martha said to Jesus, 'Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.'"

I've always wondered why Mary sat at home. Well, I suppose not always, but I have from time to time. Was she, who was so much more dependent on her faith, unready to face Jesus who had not saved her brother? Did she hold down the front so that Martha could go and be the first to fall at his feet in her grief? Did she step up in the time of trouble? So that Martha, that busy bee, could have her moment to finally mourn?

I know someone who needs to take the time for that, to let himself grieve. A busy bee trying so hard to do everything except let himself feel the pain. Let himself deal with it and talk to God about his woes. Then again, I think he does talk to God, but the strain is showing.

Especially because in a bit Mary just can't take it anymore and sets off anyway, I guess I like to think of her trying to hold the house down and then just finally realizing that there are more important things. There are people visiting who need to be fed, who are bustling about being helpful and getting in the way, there was a service to plan and arrangements to be made. But that wasn't nearly as important and experiencing grief, as going to Jesus to be reconciled - to try to understand and rest in the comfort of God's embrace.

As for Martha, the Little Black Book talks about the natural tendency to be mad at God, but I don't think that you can get from there to "But even now I know that whatever you ask of God, God will give you" to "I know he will rise, in the resurrection on the last day" to "Yes, Lord. I have come to believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one who is coming into the world." I think she was asking why, more than a little bit, but more than that, she was stating her continued faith.

Because I wonder if, among all these Jews who came down from nearby Jerusalem to comfort her, how many came to ask if she was disappointed, if she no longer believed in Jesus, that He was the Son of God, if He did not help her. I wonder if she was beset by those who assumed that because death touched her family her faith in God was shaken. And I wonder if this was to them as well. Probably it was for herself, and to let Jesus know that she still stood by His side.

After all, she was about to make, as the Little Black Book did point out, Martha in John's Gospel makes the "great profession of faith" that Peter makes in the other three gospels. John was writing later, knowing how important to the early church were women. He knew we could handle it coming from Martha, rather than the man who was to start the line of popes. And it means more from Martha in this moment than it could from Peter in the moments given in the other gospels. Perhaps Peter suffered more for it, and perhaps it meant more to him (I believe they both gave it, to be clear) because he was about to betray Jesus - to know that he had at least believed. But to come to this moment in grief, in disappointment, beset by those who thought this would break your faith, to come to Jesus who did not save your brother from death and say that you still believe, you still love, you still need him - well, it's worth trusting your somewhat spacey sister with a house full of busy craziness to go do.

Dear Lord, help me, in adversity more than ever, to believe and trust in You. Be with me in hard times and watch over all who are experiencing them. Help them to choose to let the hard times bring them closer to You.

Tuesday April 12, 2011

John 11:4-8

"When Jesus heard this he said, 'This illness is not to end in death, but is for the glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified through it.' Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. So when he heard that he was ill, he remained for two days in the place where he was. Then after this he said to his disciples, 'Let us go back to Judea.' The disciples said to him, 'Rabbi, the Jews were just trying to stone you, and you want to go back there?'"

Perhaps someday I should look at a translation of this story closer to the original, because I can't for the life of me read that sentence in this section as anything other than a joke. "So when he heard that he was ill, he remained for two days in the place where he was." It's the "So" that does it for me. Because it makes the rest in response to the sickness - and that doesn't follow for me.

It reminds me of that old saying I feel like I've been fed a thousand times. 'God always answers prayers. Sometimes He answers them "yes" and more commonly "no" but most of all, He answers, "not now."'

I wonder - was it so it would mirror the three days He lay in the tomb? Or was it so that no one would say that Lazarus was only "mostly dead"? Or was it for Martha and Mary in some way - to allow them to get to the place where they can be, "Lord, if You had been here my brother would not have died" full of love and faith and acceptance rather than blame and regret that Jesus had come that second too late. To get them to the place where Martha could say, "I know he will rise, in the resurrection on the last day."

I suppose I like to think of the two days of waiting not for Jesus' reputation - which with any good skeptic is really a wash anyway. Even if they smelt the tomb as it opened the fact that Lazarus was Jesus' friend was enough to grant any skeptic an excuse to not believe. Which, I suppose, is what happened with the Pharisees and High Priest who decided, because of this, 'Now we have to kill him.' In that way, I suppose it's like Jesus' first miracle at the Wedding at Canaan. It brought His death much closer with that act of kindness and love, and all for a family friend.

But if the wait was for Martha and Mary, or perhaps so that Jesus could fully empathize with our grief from this side of humanity. So that the only bit He would know from experience wouldn't be the bit where you're tearing off in a combination of denial and bargaining to make a desperate attempt to put it right but also the anger, depression and acceptance - before we finally come to the reunion.

Which reminds me of what I wrote last Easter. The Reunion to Come. It's probably one of my favorite entries.

Because you can't have the Winter's Tale statue scene or the Twelfth Night reunion of the twins or the utter joy of Mary Magdalene on Easter Sunday without the two days of death and pain and confusion and uncertainty. Of a false certainty that death can ever have the final victory.

That pain, that time of mourning and separation, is so that we might understand the reunion that awaits us, sweeter than if the union had never been broken. Mourning and death and pain and loss are not an end in themselves, they do not win, they are for the glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified through it. So that we may know the fully might of God's mercy and love.

Dear Lord, help me to be strong to bear whatever crosses I must carry in this life and to always remember that they too shall pass away. Let all that I endure and all that I cherish in this life bring me closer to You. And bless everyone here and everyone who needs my prayers.

Monday April 11, 2011

John 11:1-3

"Now a man was ill, Lazarus from Bethany, then village of Mary and her sister Martha. Mary was the one who had anointed the Lord with perfumed oil and dried his feet with her hair; it was her brother Lazarus who was ill. So the sisters sent word to Jesus, saying, 'Master, the one you love is sick.'"

It's hard to parse this from the translation, but isn't the language here charming? It's like mid-serious-gospel-writing John got to a part that was just "oh, this story. I love this story. Now...oh yes, you remember Mary..." And this is John, who began with "In the beginning was the Word." Poetic and portentous and universal. But for this story, he writes just as if he's talking to us over dinner or at least from a casual pulpit.

It's the story of the (second) man that Jesus rose from the dead, so it's very important, but it's a story about friendship. How Jesus cried because Lazarus was dead. How Jesus' friends reached out to Him as a man and a prophet. How Jesus had three friends in Bethany who were in a spot of trouble. How Jesus knew three people in Bethany who thought of Him as a friend and as the Messiah without seeing any difficulty in the two lying side by side.

Because what I can tell from their friendship is that it was a very down-to-earth friendship - as much as you can have with the Son of God. And that's gotta be something remarkable. Jesus' apostles and disciples followed Him around because they believed in Him as the Messiah, as a prophet, as someone closer to God than they can imagine being. As someone who would lead them. And I think, especially with the three who witnessed the Transfiguration, they must have been friends too. But it really is something that Lazarus, Martha and Mary were: friends as ordinary as pie who also believe fully that You are the Messiah sent from God. Who forgive and accept easily that God's will was not to save one of their number while fully acknowledging that their friend Jesus, the Son of God, could have chosen to.

What a line to walk. Or what a pair of truths to bring together.

I wonder if we do that. I wonder if we could be chums with Jesus without losing grasp of His divinity. It sounds preposterous. But then, so does God Almighty of infinite power taking and limiting Himself to human form. But we always knew how much God cares even about the minutiae. And why wouldn't He experience every bit of human life? That's how He knows what He's asking when He says that we must stand up even to our friends for His sake, that we must abandon our fathers and mothers.

Dear Lord, may I always be willing to accept You into my life in whatever form, never forget the love You have for me and the miracles You can do to transform my life. Help me to accept Your will when You do not without doubting Your ability or Your friendship. Be with me, Lord.

Sunday March 10, 2011

Jesus Raises Lazarus From the Dead

I think this story, more than the other with the three siblings, is the reason that Martha is my confirmation saint. I do know that she's the example of what we're NOT supposed to do in the other story, the oh-so-busy sister running about getting dinner ready and annoyed that her sister is just sitting there, being in Jesus's presence and listening to His words. But I have always thought that I'm good at praying and theology and need a kick to get off my butt and do anything about it.

Especially because Martha got there first. Both sisters tell Jesus, "Lord, if You had been here my brother would not have died." Full of faith and perhaps a gentle reproof but mostly just that utter confusion and sadness of grief, coming to God for comfort if not for a solution. Love and comfort, rather than a miracle. Because when they asked Jesus stayed three days away.

And it's lovely Martha that points out to Jesus, like He was any other man carried away with grief, that if He opens the tomb the body will stink. The practical facts of death do not cow her, she can face them. She is strong enough. And she is the one thinking of those things, those down to earth things, when the world changes around her. When her world becomes one of miracles. Except perhaps for Lazarus himself, that means that Martha had the most profound experience that day.

And that the tomb opened at her okay. She gave her (at least tacit) permission for Jesus raising a man from the dead - publicly.

I think it is the Marthas who will get there first, running headlong to Jesus for help and comfort. I think she is the one who will gasp in the greatest state of awe and wonder. Her focus on the earthly matters she took so much care over may, at the start, have kept her from seeing God, but when she needed Him and after He reproached her, she was always the first to drop everything and run to Him. Always the most touched by His actions.

Dear Lord, help me to live up to my confirmation saint's example, and bless Dan Trombley in his journey to confirmation coming up on Easter. Help us both to always come running when You call, not only when we have need of Your comfort and love but especially then.

Saturday April 9, 2011

John 9:28-31

"The Pharisees ridiculed the blind man and said, 'You are that man's disciple; we are disciples of Moses! We know that God spoke to Moses, but we do not know where this one is from.' The man answered and said to them, 'This is what is so amazing, that you do not know where he is from, yet he opened my eyes. We know that God does not listen to sinners, but if one is devout and does his will, he listens to him.' They answered and said to him, 'You were born totally in sin, and are you trying to teach us?' Then they threw him out."

I think that I wrote something, somewhere in the midst of this blog's history, about that phrase before, "Are you trying to teach us?" It might have been from a different story - does that objection pop up often?

Well, the comment about God speaking to Moses certainly fits in with yesterday's entry. We believe that in the far away and long ago God spoke directly to His chosen prophets. We believe in Mount Sinai and the Ten Commandments carved in the stone by lightning. But if someone dared to claim that today? For a start, that person would be a threat to everything - because if someone has a direct line to God then what they say goes. Because they have that direct connection that the rest of us don't - and I think we've become comfortable with uncertainty or at least ambiguity. We've become accustomed to and comfortable with no one having it quite figured out, with knowing that the Church is a human institution, with knowing that people make mistakes and that priests from the local pastor up to the Bishop of Rome are just people.

And goodness knows I like it. After all, my faithful readers have certainly seen me spin just about everything into whatever issue is currently on my mind. And anyone who's seen two religious people debate (or a religious person and a former believer still up on their scripture and catechism) knows that you can find support for most ideas somewhere in the Bible - especially if you're willing to dive into the more obscure books and occasionally take things out of context.

So the idea of someone like Jesus, someone to whom God listens and who can hear and thus know the true mind of God...let's just say it's always kind of a relief when oracles and prophets talk in metaphor and what can sound like little more than gibberish. Because then we can interpret again and again it's a human translator prone to error and reevaluation and there's a comfort in that. In not having to know exactly what is right and wrong. In being able to determine that for ourselves. It's the appeal of the Forbidden Fruit - to become like God, knowing right from wrong.

I don't think that God's Truth, if we could know it, would be handed down in a string of absolutes, but I know there would be things that would discomfort me, would discomfort all of us, and I think it's our duty to seek those things out. To never stop questioning and examining our faith until we can get closer to that Truth - so that we need not fear someone who can hand down the Truth of God.

Especially because I believe that if we open our hearts to that Truth, if we seek it, we will stop fearing it so very much. We will find our poor substitute of human error so ridiculous in comparison. We will find only love there, we will find true wisdom. And we will never understand it, but we will always find it there to guide us.

So why do we fear it?

I suppose just because it would change everything. And that's frightening. But everything can be better. And I think it is our duty as Christians to continually seek it.

Dear Lord, help me to seek and find Your way and Your truth. Help me to never be afraid to know Your will, to trust You and Your wisdom and love to guide me and never be afraid of Your answer to my questions and dilemmas.

Friday April 8, 2011

John 9:24-27

"So a second time the Pharisees called the man who had been blind and said to him, 'Give God the praise! We know that this man is a sinner.' He replied, 'If he is a sinner, I do not know. One thing I do know is that I was blind and now I see.' So they said to him, 'What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?' The man answered them, 'I told you already and you did not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you want to become his disciples, too?'"

So I finally really put myself in the place of the Pharisees to see what this story has to say to me. And at least for today, I think it's this: I believe in miracles in theory, in the idea of miracles, and in finding miracles in every second, but if you presented me with an individual miracle I would quibble and I would play the skeptic and I would behave just as these Pharisees did. I'd like to think I wouldn't expel the messenger of the miracle, but I would think of them differently.

But how can I claim that I believe in miracles if I wouldn't believe in a miracle happening? I remember when my father was dying I was afraid to pray that he would get better. I didn't want to "bet my faith" on a miracle happening. And it's not that I didn't believe that God could save him, it's that I didn't think He would. And so right up until the very end I wouldn't even ask. Because I learned long ago that it breaks your heart less to pray that God's Will be done rather than for what you think should happen.

I believe in seeing the wonder of God's love in every moment we don't go spinning off into the vacuum of space - but do I, when you get down to it, believe the stories of miracles? Did I not play the skeptic in my own head when that nun was telling the story of the miracle that finally won her order's founder canonization? A miracle in this day and age? An age when it seems God has chosen a different tactic to reach us. But then, miracles were always rare and wondrous sights.

I think I used to believe in miracles. I believed that the veil between heaven and earth was thin enough that God upset the natural rules of the universe from time to time, for whatever ineffable reasons He had, and showed us His power. Showed us that all the things that have power over us here mean nothing. That death, sickness and pain were things that truly have no power over us, especially once we leave this life. That next to the love of God these things are trifles.

I don't know how you work at believing in something again, but I'm going to try how I can to get back there. Because I think the lesson of the existence of miracles itself, setting aside the lesson from any individual act of wonder, is important. That all the things which have power over us on earth are, in the end, nothing to the love of God.

Dear Lord, help me to believe again. Help me to never lose my faith in an avenue of Your love. Be with me and protect me however You will.

Thursday April 7, 2011

John 9:18-23

"Now the Jews did not believe that the man has been blind and gained his sight until they summoned the parents of the one who had gained his sight. They asked them, 'Is this your son, who you say was born blind? How does he now see?' His parents answered and said, 'We know that this is our son and that he was born blind. We do not know how he sees now, nor do we know who opened his eyes. Ask him, he is of age; he can speak for himself.' His parents said this because they were afraid of the Jews, for the Jews had already agreed that if anyone acknowledged him as the Messiah, he would be expelled from the synagogue. For this reason his parents said, 'He is of age; question him.'"

Perhaps the obvious thing to talk about here is just the meditation chosen by the Little Black Book - on having the courage to stand by the truth and to stand by others under fire. And, more importantly perhaps?, to not simply try to find a way to avoid the conflict. Which is what the Pharisees are doing (as per yesterday) and what the blind man's parents are doing. Trying to keep matters from coming to a head. It's what I did for years about my sexuality. It's what I do when I hope, in my heart of hearts, that it's a man I fall for in the end rather than a woman - and however it galls me that if I did find a man I think most people would feel like my bisexuality was a "phase" of some kind (and if I ended up with a woman that I was kidding myself about men and hiding in the closet my whole life until then), I can't say it wouldn't be a nice way to dodge all the trouble if the relationship of my life was a heterosexual one. I certainly can't pretend I wouldn't rather be married in the Church than in California.

Having gotten briefly lost in that, however, what I wonder about this story from this little snippet is the fact that "the Jews had already agreed that if anyone acknowledged him as the Messiah, he would be expelled from the synagogue" and can't help wondering - when? Before they heard the case - in which case the blind man's declaration of Jesus as a prophet becomes the kind of gentle hedging of which we are all probably guilty even with our pet projects. Or was this in response to the blind man's language? They didn't want to expel someone who had just had a miracle performed on him, but they wanted to warn him off going further and warn anyone else not to take up that cry. Put that comment in a little box and assign it to the overemotional state understandable when he had been given new sight.

It's certainly clear from that declaration that the Pharisees are no longer looking for truth in the least. They have declared what they have decided, in their decidedly human wisdom, must be the truth. By going so far as to shun and expel from their midst any dissenting voice, the Pharisees are bringing the divide to a whole new level. It shows how deeply this would rock their world to its foundations (and chances are: they have no idea. Jesus is a radical.) and how much they fear the ground shifting beneath their feet.

I feel, now, the compulsion to finish that story from Studio 60 (I think) yesterday. The way that the show resolves the argument about gay marriage is by having the conservative character say that the world is changing too fast for the ordinary folk of the U.S. (it being different than the Civil Rights movement - explained after this objection raised - that homosexuals have not been living openly as long which is historically not true at all). I actually have no patience with this line of thought. I know, I should have patience with everything, but I reject it. That's the Pharisees. They just wanted the problem away.

That doesn't change the fact that they expelled a former beggar and cost him his family to one degree or another in the process. The fact that I can find some understanding for them and sympathy won't change the pain and awfulness that they are causing. Validating that, as a society, is encouraging people's souls to stop growing, to shrink.

And I think that Father Rolo was right this Sunday, that we can't think of this parable in terms of "what it says about these issues to my neighbor" but must think of what Jesus is telling us. What I think I have found this week is that I can't let myself shove problems away. I think I do that a lot, especially more knotty theological traps like the Pharisees were dealing with in the section I covered yesterday. You can't put them aside, you can cross-examine them away. You have to deal. Even if it gets you expelled from the synagogue. Even if it would be as easy as telling someone else to speak instead.

Because the Gift of Certainty I have talked before about feeling blessed with is worth far less if I am so afraid of opening myself up to having been wrong about some article of faith or letting God speak to me in a new truth, open my eyes to His real purpose for my life.

Dear Lord, help me to have the courage to open my eyes and to declare proudly what I see there. Bless me, Lord, be with me when my faith and my other beliefs are challenged. Help me have the courage to stand proudly no matter the consequences and help me stand by others in their time of need.

Wednesday April 6, 2011

John 9:13-17

"They brought the one who was once blind to the Pharisees. Now Jesus had made clay and opened his eyes on a sabbath. So then the Pharisees also asked the man how he was able to see. He said to them, 'He put clay on my eyes, and I washed, and now I can see.' So some of the Pharisees said, 'This man is not from God, because he does not keep the sabbath.' (But) other said, 'How can a sinful man do such signs?' There was a division among them. So they said to the blind man again, 'What do you have to say about him, since he opened your eyes?' He said, 'He is a prophet.'"

As the Little Black Book says in the meditation for today: "Nobody really wants to put themselves in the shoes of these Pharisees." True. But in keeping with my apparent mission with this year's reflections of defending those the Little Black Book casts as failed listeners or "the bad guys," I must confess that I have sympathy for them here.

Because if the foundation of your life - like Javert in Les Mis - is a rule of law, then it can be very hard when a good person is on what you have decided is the "wrong" side of the tracks/penal system/religious doctrine. If you'll forgive me a story, I don't think that the onscreen debate really is balanced or a good depiction of how real people have this argument, but I keep thinking about an episode of Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip that had an argument about a comment that a character had made about homosexuality. Her comment was, "The Bible says homosexuality is a sin but it also says judge not lest ye be judged." Her boss/love interest was calling bull on her straddling the line and basically judging the hell out of her for wanting to be tolerant while believing that homosexuality was wrong and should make people second class citizens. And I always wanted to tell him that while Harriet is wrong in a whole host of ways about this issue, her go-to approach on this issue is to express her bewilderment in her attempts to reconcile a Bible verse of God's revealed Word with the all-loving and forgiving God she has known in her life. Far better than the go-to reaction that her boss/love interest had, "Hey, I love the women, but more power to them!" in endorsing only after distancing himself.

Because I think that being willing to engage this issue is the first step. It's how you know you're not just confirming what you really think all along and finding reasons to confirm your beliefs in Scripture. That you are really seeking answers. And in a moment, of course, the Pharisees will take any excuse they can get to ignore the problem and brush it aside - to make the facts that threaten their view of the world disappear. But in this moment, when they encounter a miracle of God that flies in the face of their received wisdom, I think that the courage to put the two together and ask for guidance on figuring out how to reconcile them shows more courage and more open-mindedness than flipping instantly to "then the law must be wrong about this!"

I think we need to have the courage to put contradictory ideas together and see which one gives. Not espouse one so much that we would bend the other out of shape, but truly let God show us the answer when we put our seeming paradoxes before Him.

And, yes, I think that the side we'll usually come down on is, "how can a sinful man do such signs?" and therefore perhaps our vision of sin is not God's, I think that the only way we really grow is to be able to put the contradictory things that we believe into conflict and have the courage to resolve it. To find the real truth - to let the the basis of our moral system be stripped away to accommodate a higher truth. To acknowledge the fact that we have two things we believe that contradict each other and if we discover only one of them can be true, then we must be willing to let something we have clung to pass out of our lives in order to grow in truth and wisdom.

I know the Pharisees are about to chicken out of this, show that really they would prefer if the conflict would just go away rather than give them the rare and beautiful opportunity to find a deeper and higher truth, but in this moment, standing in the Pharisees' shoes may be just what all of us bend over backwards to not have to do - but it is one of the better ways to grow and refine the places where you are spiritually blind and blind to your fellow man.

Dear Lord, help me to seize every opportunity to grow closer to You and to grow in understanding. Help me to understand where I have misjudged and where I misunderstand, give me the courage when confronted with a paradox to allow the truth to emerge even if it hard. Be my strength, Lord, and help me to follow in Your ways.

Tuesday April 5, 2011

John 9:6-7

"When Jesus had said this, he spat on the ground and made clay with the saliva, and smeared the clay on his eyes, and said to him, 'Go wash in the Pool of Siloam' (which means Sent). So the blind man went and washed, and came back able to see."

I have decided that I really like that Jesus didn't just wave his hands over the man born blind's eyes. It's probably related to why God didn't just wave His (probably metaphorical but what do I know) hand and forgive all of our sins or wipe away all of our misconceptions. We have to give our consent, we have to do some of the work.

This might relate back to what I said Sunday (I think it was Sunday, I think yesterday was kind of a mess), about the metaphor people kept going to for the man born blind wasn't really right because blindness is something you're aware of. Perhaps we're always aware, on one level or another, of our prejudices, but the way they kept talking about being spiritually blind was as if you just couldn't see that there was a whole world of Truth that you were missing. And I think the truer metaphor would be if you KNOW that there is a whole world of truth and you are missing. And then you can attack the barriers that are keeping you from it.

And, of course, we usually need help in that. We need God to do this first step for us most of the time - put the mud and His saliva on our eyes, mark the place where we know we should be able to see the world around us, to see God before our faces, and tell us where to go. Then the next step is up to us. We have to make the journey and do the work of getting to the pool and washing away everything that blocks our passage, that God marked for us accordingly.

If you've forgive me a long metaphor, I think it's the difference between the character Eustace in C.S. Lewis's Voyage of the Dawn Treader. That boy is a nasty little piece of work (not, like, compared to all the crappy kids in literature but certainly in comparison to the largely angelic Pevensies of the other books) and thoroughly refuses to see the new world of Narnia around him. He is blind to his own faults but mostly going around with his eyes firmly shut. He knows he's being stupid and making things harder on himself and he's choosing to not let go of his worldview in spite of that. That's spiritual blindness, but it's self-inflicted. And when he gets himself turned into a dragon (long story), that's God putting a Mark on him. So that he has to face his faults and the truth of the world around him. So he can't hide from it and sit down on the ground and pout. So that Eustace, like the blind man, has to go do something. And, eventually, that thing is revealed to be bathing in a pool as well.

I think in order to change us, God decided long ago, He would have to involve us. That He wouldn't just wave a metaphorical (again, it could be a literal one I wouldn't actually know) magic wand and make everything better. He would instead give us the opportunity to seek out change, and only then would He complete the miracle. Especially when it's not blindness so much as sitting in a pout refusing to open our eyes.

Dear Lord, help me to always hear Your call to change in my life. Please give me the chance to continually change for the better and grow in my relationship to You. Help me to realize where I am stubborn and blind and refusing to do the work in order to heal. Be with me and all of those who need You.

Monday April 4, 2011

John 9:1-5

"As Jesus passed by, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, 'Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?' Jesus answered, 'Neither he nor his parents sinned; it is so that the works of God might be made visible through him. We have to do the works of the one who sent me while it is day. Night is coming when no one can work. While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.'"

I will admit to not really knowing what Jesus means by the last bit of this verse. "Night is coming" - what does that mean? Honestly, it makes me think of the Dark Ages, but does He just mean His return to heaven? Because the disciples were certainly busy afterward. I don't know what's going on here. Help?

We had a discussion yesterday in the Doctrinal Session about the sacraments of Reconciliation and Anointing of the Sick. One of the people leading it got on a tangent about how in American society we don't seem to believe in sin - that it's all because your parents were mean to you back then or this trauma happened to you. I disagreed at the time - that I think the problem with the American view of sin is that there are not individual sins that are committed, there is only an inherent evil that could have possibly led to that individual sin. So if you have committed sin, it is because something about you or something that has infected you is inherently and irrevocably evil. And I think a lot of political debates end up hinging on WHAT that thing is rather than rejecting the premise.

I feel like I write a lot of things (an artistic recap of the Narnia movies for example) where I'm trying to write around this idea: reject the premise. When you're fed a hard religious line like - a man was born blind so thus he or his parents must have sinned, to pick an easy example - then don't start quibbling about whether or not future sins could be punished at birth or it's fair/unfair to punish children for the sins of the parents. Reject the premise. That's not how God works. Through Jesus' healing of this man, the glory of God was revealed.

More and more I feel like what Jesus really came down to do is just explain very basic stuff to us. However we would get it. 'Guys, look, stop hating each other and dividing yourselves into these meaningless groupings just so you can fight about it. Don't sin and start loving. God loves you, when you want to know what He wants in a given situation, start with that as the foundation of your argument.'

And here: reject the premise. All binaries are lies. The natural thing to follow here is: even good and evil. I'm not sure that's right though. I think the binary part is a lie. I think that good and evil are things that are at work in everyone. I think the people who deny that there is evil in them, deny it so hard that they start acting it out in "righteous" anger and hurting people. Embracing it isn't right either, so I don't know quite what my point is here. Perhaps it's that you can't be in control of something if you're not willing to admit that it is a part of you. You cannot control your reaction to trauma if you are not willing to admit that it is always something that you will carry with you. You cannot control your love if you are not willing to acknowledge it. You cannot control your dark impulses if you do not know that you have them and deal with them accordingly. We can always choose not to. The idea that we can't is an easy way out lie, but we don't have a prayer of pulling that off if we don't acknowledge the places we are most likely to fail.

And wow have I strayed from the point. More than usual.

But I think that we all have to take a step back from the issues and problems that we have going in the world. Step out of the rhetoric and the binaries and accept everything. Start to make sense of it anew. And you can lose your way in that kind of process VERY easily. All kinds of people have done so. Just like in the above argument I could feel the moment when part of me wanted to go into a "so neither good nor evil is real!" place. But of course they both are. Saying neither is real is just a cheat that will mean that both of them mess you up. That's why you have to have a solid baseline. God loves me and I love Him. Even if I can find no other reason to love all of my fellow men, I will love them for His sake. I would like that to be my baseline. I'm working on it.

What's hard about this process, even done properly, is that I think you're more like to find that both are true than that neither are. Both the man and his parents were guilty of sin in their lives. The reason the man was born blind was entirely different.

We really can't wrap our heads around all of this, can we? And I still don't know what the second part of Jesus' words in the verse meant.

I think this might be my most rambling and crazy blog post. Mondays are hard.

Dear Lord, help me to find my way. May I rely on Your wisdom rather than trying to force my own to be enough. Guide me, help me. I am lost. You are with me, thank You.

Sunday April 3, 2011

Jesus Heals a Man Born Blind

I have decided that I don't like this story as a metaphor for spiritual blindness that makes us unable to see others' suffering or realize that our actions/opinions are hurting others or that we could/should be closer to God. There's something about that metaphor that's just not right and it niggles at me. Having heard not only the homily today but the doctrinal session this evening, I had time to figure out what it was. Because that's not a bad lesson or anything but there's this:

People who are blind know that they are blind. People who are spiritually blind do not. As was said like ten thousand times today (it felt like), spiritual blindness means you don't even know that you're going around being a jerk. [It's not the point I'm making now, but I have always wondered - don't you? Deep down? Don't you know, really, if you are honest with yourself?]

And since Jesus said that you were not in sin when you were blind, this story is essentially us giving ourselves a pass for not being vigilant in our attitudes and treatment of other people. We have to be shown the error of our ways, have or eyes opened. But we could see all the time. We don't get the same pass for insisting on going around with our eyes closed.

Everyone knew he was blind, he knew he was blind. He was prevented from following Jesus by his blindness, from being a pillar of his community, from working to help others. The equivalent here would be not being physical capable of helping others. Not being too blissfully ignorant of their plight to be responsible for helping them.

I think it is our responsibility to purge our prejudices and bad assumptions. How is a question I don't know how to answer. Perhaps the Little Black Book's ideas about having a guiding, steady set of moral principles is right - take those true, deep down principles and honestly apply them to each situation. If our baseline is to love the Lord, our God, with all of our heart and soul and to love our neighbors as ourselves, then what does that say of the way we treat that jerk in our playwriting class? What does it say of how we react to Tea Party nonsense? Do we judge and dismiss, back away from someone who makes us uncomfortable?

We were blind. But that's just it - we weren't. We were just going around with our eyes closed or being too stubborn to get spectacles.

I'm sure there is an appropriate metaphor in there somewhere that I am rejecting baby-with-the-bath-water style, but I think we're giving ourselves passes on some important choices. Because we were blind, we were waiting for God to cure our blindness. When we were always capable of opening our eyes.

Dear Lord, help me to know when I am blinding myself, when I am refusing to be Your servant as You have called me to do. Help me find the way to keep myself from falling into ways that keep me from You. Open my eyes, Lord, and help me to know how to keep them peeled.

Saturday April 2, 2011

John 4:39-42

"Many of the Samaritans of that town began to believe in Jesus because of the word of the woman who testified, 'He told me everything I have done.' When the Samaritans came to Jesus, they invited him to stay with them; and he stayed there two days. Many more began to believe in him because of his word, and they said to the woman, 'We no longer believe because of your word; for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the savior of the world.'"

So, to one degree or another, all of the defaming of the Samaritan woman can be rebutted (if you like to do that sort of thing) by this verse. Because why would they be so willing to believe her word if she were so outcast?

Or was that just the thing? Was the light in her eyes, the Spirit shining through, so powerful that it erased any preconceived notions of who she was? Of how she should speak? Jesus did this a lot - chose people who we normally wouldn't listen to and trust, and then suddenly we do after He has spoken to them. Because of how they changed.

I think we don't believe that change is possible to the same degree that it is. Or we don't believe that something small could provoke it. So when we see a big change like what happened to the woman, we know there must be a significant occurrence that provoked it.

They weren't just curious, because the people told her, "We no longer believe because of your word" meaning that they did at one point believe because of her. The reason that they came to Jesus, in order to have Him make the same transformation in their lives, in order to have the Son of God complete their creation, was because of what they saw changed in the woman. How profoundly she was changed, how she shone with the light of God.

I suppose the question, then, is if we would run to the source if we saw such a change in the lives of someone - especially someone we thought so lost. I think about ACTS and how people flocked to it, wondering what it was that could effect such change. After all, that's what brought it to Beaumont, what seems to me like a new epicenter of ACTS communities spreading out. My mom saw it in the community that surrounded her brother. The change, and she ran to the source.

But I think the tendency to shy away from such a thing is natural too - and happens far too often. There is a retreat I remember being invited to attend, and when I was told, "Everyone comes out of that place different" I went scurrying in the opposite direction. Mostly because the description of "different how?" wasn't very positive, but mostly because I am happy with my life and self enough that I don't want to be changed - not fundamentally. I can admit there are faults I'd like to fix certainly.

But that's what God asks. Again and again, we must remake ourselves anew. We must renew and remake and rebuild and keep emptying ourselves to better shine with God's light. Purge what isn't working in our life, what keeps us from God, and open ourselves to His presence. To His ability to change us.

We must, when we see the Light of God shining anew out of the eyes of a woman who used to hang her head in shame, ask her where she got this transformed relationship with God (if she isn't already trumpeting it joyfully) and go seek it out for ourselves. And then, if we find it good, if it is the real thing, then we must open our hearts to it and come to believe for what we have experienced ourselves.

We must be willing to change.

Dear Lord, please let me never be so attached to what I think should be that I do not listen for Your will. Please let me always be eager to find new ways to grow close to You and come into Your presence, to improve our relationship. Please show me how You want me to serve You and how You want me to come to You.

Friday April 1, 2011

Happy April Fool's Day!

John 4:28-34

"The woman left her water jar and went into the town and said to the people, 'Come see a man who told me everything I have done. Could he possibly be the Messiah?' They went out of the town and came to him. Meanwhile, the disciples urged him, 'Rabbi, eat.' But he said to them, 'I have food to eat of which you do not know.' So the disciples said to one another, 'Could someone have brought him something to eat?' Jesus said to them, 'My food is to do the will of the on who sent me and finish his work.'"

The Little Black Book really wants the lesson of this week to be how mundane matters, of taking things at their surface meaning, is an all too common trait. I want the lesson of this week to be how easily we miss important matters of theology, important matters of people, by dismissing them for petty reasons.

There's something here for both of us today. The disciples blundering around wondering what on earth Jesus is talking about (instead of just asking Him what He means - He is right there) and the Samaritan woman making the final leap from "prophet" to "Messiah."

But what really struck me today was "to do the will of the one who sent me and to finish his work" because I just love that. Jesus came down not just to correct, not just to set everything right again, but to "finish his work." To finish the work of creation, the adoption of man into the heavenly family. The completion of our creation as children of God. He gave us His light from the beginning, Jesus came down to tell us it was there. To see it in us, and to pave the way for the Spirit to be alive in us. To give us, everlastingly, permission to shine.

Permission through the Church which welcomes us and declares the beauty of the Body of Christ, permission through the sacrament of Reconciliation to have forgiveness and keep moving forward, permission through the Eucharist to become one with God. Permission to minister and to build a family and to die knowing that we go into the arms of God.

Permission to be wonderful and kind and forgiving and loving and shining with the light and the strength of God - and also the injunction to do so. That's what He gave this woman. He looked beyond her "deplorable lifestyle" and made her His messenger - declared her worthy and gave her permission to be better than she had been. And what He did, by doing so, was to finish God's work. Complete God's creation of her. Of all of us.

I love that.

Dear Lord, help me to always grow and love You, remind me when I forget that I have Your permission and Your command to grow and love always. Help me to never grow smaller and pettier and less loving. Be with me, Lord. Let Your love and light shine in me. Thank You, for completing my creation.