Holy Saturday mass is a long one. Starting at twilight and with something like 9 readings before we get to the opening of the tomb.
But over and over again, they illustrate the great questions of our faith. Why did God create the world? Why did He create it this way? Why play that game with Abraham? Why ask us to sacrifice our children? Why lead the Israelites to Egypt in the first place? Why harden Pharoah's heart so that it takes the plague of the first born to convince Ramses?
Why change the essential nature of God to die. Truly die. Pass out of the world as we will someday pass out of the world. Descend to the dead to free them. Why not just use your phenomenal cosmic powers?
Why create a world with free will? Why test that free will when you know the answer Abraham will make? Why lead Joseph to Egypt to save everyone from famine when the Israelites will end up slaves? Why not soften Pharoah's heart and save the firstborn of Egypt? Why stick by the people who turned from you so often?
Why suffer and die? Why let death sit with You on the Throne of Heaven forever?
Why not be there to greet those who came to mourn you? Why leave angels there to explain? Why appear only to Mary Magdalene, and only after they had gone? Why let death change you so profoundly that at first she did not know You?
Why suffer that for us? Why when you could have made or remade the world however you would have liked? Why love us in this way?
Don't get me wrong, I'm grateful. Don't get me wrong, I see the love you proved to us time and again. Don't get me wrong, it's amazing and wonderful and unfathomable.
As a sacred story there's a lot of bewilderment left in it. Which is why the whole "explain natural phenomena" explanation for religion always seemed a little funny to me. I mean, have you ever had a six year old? Trying to explain something to them and always with a "But why?" for every little story you tell about Persephone and Demeter...a story just opens up more whys.
Sacred stories don't make more sense than the world around us. They make less sense -- at least to us. They sound like patent nonsense. God is omnipotent but we have free will. He created us to live without sin but stuck a tree in the middle of the garden. He tested and caused pain to those who followed Him. He saved the Israelites when they were disobedient and ungrateful. He made himself smaller, finite, and human. God made human. And He let Himself die.
He rose again -- and then He left us alone to tell the story and make a muck of it.
It's all ridiculous, if you think about it. And one of the things we have to hope, to have faith, is that the sense is somewhere beyond us -- but there. Definitely there.
Occasionally we catch a glimpse, and it's beautiful. Those are the moments we go to Church for and think about these things for and work so hard to stay on the straight path for. When for just a moment this story makes perfect sense or at least we can see how large and loving and bright is the piece of it we can glimpse. Before our sight fades back to the mortal spectrum again and we have try to remember enough that we can trust God.
We can't understand how He loves us in this life. But someday we will.
Saturday, 26 March 2016
Friday, 25 March 2016
The Opposite of Pardon
If God had sent a general pardon to the world, through the emissary of His only Son, then Jesus would have arrived in splendor and we would have crawled like supplicants to His feet. The way they did for kings and their nearly-king governors. We would have begged, and He would have kindly obliged, and we would have groveled and loved Him.
Resented it later and questioned our fealty perhaps. But mostly we would have loved Him.
What happened instead is that Jesus took the burden of our consequences on His own body. He took on our faults. And we hate looking at our faults, especially when it is others they are hurting. We have found oh so many creative ways of denying that we are hurting others. So many ways of avoiding looking at our sins.
We spurned Him because we saw our guilt there. We hated Him because we didn't want to own the pain and sin He carried. We spit at Him because it's impossible to spit in your own face.
We draped Jesus's sacrifice in so much worldly grossness to hide the perfect splendor of His gift. Because that would have meant looking squarely at what and who we are. At our own dirtiness, the pain we've caused, the mess we've made. The faults we own.
When I was young, I read Pilate's refusal to change the inscription over Jesus from "King of the Jews" to "He said he was king of the Jews" as a kind of quiet, passive recognition of Jesus's true worth. This was naive. Pilate was making a point. No less a personage than the Chief Priests of Jerusalem brought the Roman governor a messiah and lifted not a finger to stop Pilate from killing Him. So Pilate sent a message to the people -- this is what Rome will do to your Jewish heroes, your budding revolutionaries, your kings besides Caesar. Was there a better moment in all of Pilate's tenure then when the crowd shouted as one, "We have no king but Caesar"?
Pilate and Herod played tennis with Jesus, testing each other and building an alliance. Draping the salvation of mankind with paltry, passing politics. So caught up in the game they never had to look at their own guilt in His suffering.
So much hate flung when Jesus was brought low. Because surely we wouldn't do this to the Son of God. Not so much that the Son of God wouldn't take it -- although if you'd asked us beforehand, we probably would have said so. Oh no, what is unthinkable is that WE would do this to HIM. We wouldn't do that. So it must not be happening.
That's a sad paraphrase of something my students struggled to accept as true yesterday. One even said blatantly that she didn't want it to be true, so she didn't believe it. We can't be doing this to the Son of God -- therefore He must not be the Son of God.
How far we will go to avoid looking at our own sin.
But if we don't. If we don't. If we look away from Calgary. If we join the crowd spitting so we don't have to look at the man suffering as human, if we relegate Him to the position of criminal and thus subhuman (still an ugly pillar of our society's morality). If we drape it in passing politics and temple infighting or dress it up as pragmatic patriotism saving the people of Jerusalem from a losing fight with the Roman Empire. If we make it something that happened but we never think about.
If we look away from our own sin and its consequences on that cross, then we also miss our salvation. We also miss power sacrificing itself for us. We miss deity becoming human and then becoming a corpse. We miss love dying a traitor's painful death.
We miss God's purest love for fear of looking at our own shame. It's a poor trade, but it takes courage to make the choice to look at the cross on the hill of Calgary. I'll never say different. It is hard and painful and it will burn away your life if you're paying proper attention.
I'm not saying it's not hard. I'm just saying it's worth it. I'm just saying that a new life is waiting on Easter morning. I'm not saying you won't be staring at a death you've earned. I'm just saying that God Himself paid the price and bought you a new life.
You are more loved than you can ever know...unless you have the power to look at your faults and the Son of God, wearing them to His death.
Resented it later and questioned our fealty perhaps. But mostly we would have loved Him.
What happened instead is that Jesus took the burden of our consequences on His own body. He took on our faults. And we hate looking at our faults, especially when it is others they are hurting. We have found oh so many creative ways of denying that we are hurting others. So many ways of avoiding looking at our sins.
We spurned Him because we saw our guilt there. We hated Him because we didn't want to own the pain and sin He carried. We spit at Him because it's impossible to spit in your own face.
We draped Jesus's sacrifice in so much worldly grossness to hide the perfect splendor of His gift. Because that would have meant looking squarely at what and who we are. At our own dirtiness, the pain we've caused, the mess we've made. The faults we own.
When I was young, I read Pilate's refusal to change the inscription over Jesus from "King of the Jews" to "He said he was king of the Jews" as a kind of quiet, passive recognition of Jesus's true worth. This was naive. Pilate was making a point. No less a personage than the Chief Priests of Jerusalem brought the Roman governor a messiah and lifted not a finger to stop Pilate from killing Him. So Pilate sent a message to the people -- this is what Rome will do to your Jewish heroes, your budding revolutionaries, your kings besides Caesar. Was there a better moment in all of Pilate's tenure then when the crowd shouted as one, "We have no king but Caesar"?
Pilate and Herod played tennis with Jesus, testing each other and building an alliance. Draping the salvation of mankind with paltry, passing politics. So caught up in the game they never had to look at their own guilt in His suffering.
So much hate flung when Jesus was brought low. Because surely we wouldn't do this to the Son of God. Not so much that the Son of God wouldn't take it -- although if you'd asked us beforehand, we probably would have said so. Oh no, what is unthinkable is that WE would do this to HIM. We wouldn't do that. So it must not be happening.
That's a sad paraphrase of something my students struggled to accept as true yesterday. One even said blatantly that she didn't want it to be true, so she didn't believe it. We can't be doing this to the Son of God -- therefore He must not be the Son of God.
How far we will go to avoid looking at our own sin.
But if we don't. If we don't. If we look away from Calgary. If we join the crowd spitting so we don't have to look at the man suffering as human, if we relegate Him to the position of criminal and thus subhuman (still an ugly pillar of our society's morality). If we drape it in passing politics and temple infighting or dress it up as pragmatic patriotism saving the people of Jerusalem from a losing fight with the Roman Empire. If we make it something that happened but we never think about.
If we look away from our own sin and its consequences on that cross, then we also miss our salvation. We also miss power sacrificing itself for us. We miss deity becoming human and then becoming a corpse. We miss love dying a traitor's painful death.
We miss God's purest love for fear of looking at our own shame. It's a poor trade, but it takes courage to make the choice to look at the cross on the hill of Calgary. I'll never say different. It is hard and painful and it will burn away your life if you're paying proper attention.
I'm not saying it's not hard. I'm just saying it's worth it. I'm just saying that a new life is waiting on Easter morning. I'm not saying you won't be staring at a death you've earned. I'm just saying that God Himself paid the price and bought you a new life.
You are more loved than you can ever know...unless you have the power to look at your faults and the Son of God, wearing them to His death.
Thursday, 24 March 2016
My Head and My Heart As Well
Holy Thursday
In my typical fashion, I want to focus in on a small moment. When Peter hears that this strange thing -- his Rabbi, his Teacher washing his feet -- is the key to his acceptance in the kingdom, he immediately says to wash "my hands and my head as well!" if that is the case. It's charming, really, and Jesus tells him patiently that "he who is clean has no need to wash, except for his feet."
Which works nicely in that we are all made of clay.
But it also strikes me as a good thing to keep in mind. Especially with how hard my girls seemed to be working in today's discussion to set up the world around them such that they were already safe from its worst dangers, from making bad decisions. Tried to make the battle already won and, later, dismissed evidence they didn't like to look at -- proving that the world was unfair.
We want so badly to be DONE becoming good people, I've said a lot this Lent. And sometimes in the pursuit of that, we miss why Jesus is really washing our feet and telling us to do the same. We cease on one of the good things that God tells us to do and think, "Okay, so more of that would be even better!" and go from using our words instead of our fists to never fighting back even to offset a wrong. If peace is better than violence, then cooperation that prevents bloodshed is good! Or we think that if encouraging young people to wait for marriage for their own benefit is good, then shaming and scaring them so that they actually do it must be even better!
Wash not just my feet but my head and heart as well.
The really dangerous thing about this reaction -- seizing on the thing you see that is genuinely good and doing it over and over or more and moreso or harder and harder -- is that you miss what the ACTUAL follow up to that goodness should be. If you're focused on what else Jesus can wash clean to make you better, you will never get around to washing the feet of others.
You'll misunderstand what the next step in service and love of God should be if you are too intent on figuring out the system so that you can game it -- rack up points on the holiness side of the equation. If you don't stay open and listen to God and focus on the simple things He told us. Love God, serve your neighbor. Let God wash your sins away, and then turn and serve the needs of others. Wipe their sins away with forgiveness or relief for the consequences it brings them or healing for their injuries.
Turn and do unto others as GOD has done unto you. Don't just repeat the thing He first asked of you over and over again. Look for what He wanted you to do next, growing out of that first gift of love.
In my typical fashion, I want to focus in on a small moment. When Peter hears that this strange thing -- his Rabbi, his Teacher washing his feet -- is the key to his acceptance in the kingdom, he immediately says to wash "my hands and my head as well!" if that is the case. It's charming, really, and Jesus tells him patiently that "he who is clean has no need to wash, except for his feet."
Which works nicely in that we are all made of clay.
But it also strikes me as a good thing to keep in mind. Especially with how hard my girls seemed to be working in today's discussion to set up the world around them such that they were already safe from its worst dangers, from making bad decisions. Tried to make the battle already won and, later, dismissed evidence they didn't like to look at -- proving that the world was unfair.
We want so badly to be DONE becoming good people, I've said a lot this Lent. And sometimes in the pursuit of that, we miss why Jesus is really washing our feet and telling us to do the same. We cease on one of the good things that God tells us to do and think, "Okay, so more of that would be even better!" and go from using our words instead of our fists to never fighting back even to offset a wrong. If peace is better than violence, then cooperation that prevents bloodshed is good! Or we think that if encouraging young people to wait for marriage for their own benefit is good, then shaming and scaring them so that they actually do it must be even better!
Wash not just my feet but my head and heart as well.
The really dangerous thing about this reaction -- seizing on the thing you see that is genuinely good and doing it over and over or more and moreso or harder and harder -- is that you miss what the ACTUAL follow up to that goodness should be. If you're focused on what else Jesus can wash clean to make you better, you will never get around to washing the feet of others.
You'll misunderstand what the next step in service and love of God should be if you are too intent on figuring out the system so that you can game it -- rack up points on the holiness side of the equation. If you don't stay open and listen to God and focus on the simple things He told us. Love God, serve your neighbor. Let God wash your sins away, and then turn and serve the needs of others. Wipe their sins away with forgiveness or relief for the consequences it brings them or healing for their injuries.
Turn and do unto others as GOD has done unto you. Don't just repeat the thing He first asked of you over and over again. Look for what He wanted you to do next, growing out of that first gift of love.
Wednesday, 23 March 2016
The Judas Explanation
MT 26:14-25
PS 69:8-10, 21-22, 31 AND 33-34
IS 50:4-9A
I've been dissatisfied with Judas Iscariot's story as long as I can remember thinking about it.
I remember vividly a version of the final day of Jesus's life as depicted in a movie I have otherwise forgotten because it offered an utterly human reason for Judas Iscariot. One of the Twelve (I think Peter) saw Judas just after Calgary and shoved him into an alley. But Judas was already hurting himself far worse than Peter could. And he sobbed his explanation -- that he had been trying to force Jesus's hand. He got too impatient waiting for the Messiah to act (politically), so he thought he would force the matter. Even if it made him the villain.
Which is a particularly human version of a reading of Judas Iscariot as the ultimate secret hero. The person who is willing to play the villain or even act the villain in order to make the good things happen. Severus Snape, for my generation, and just like Severus Snape, it's not a clear-cut "He was good after all" so much as a "the worst thing he did was to save us all."
Because it doesn't make sense.
Jesus Christ Superstar is a really, really weird play I have zero interest in working on, but I at least GET the Judas as depicted there. Human, jealous, disenchanted. Full of faith and disappointment and very PERSONAL anger.
Because it just couldn't be for the 30 pieces of silver we hear about here. Yesterday's reading made a huge point about how Judas kept the purse for Jesus's crew and that he skimmed off the top as much as he wanted. Thirty pieces of silver may have been an objectively larger payout, but when we're talking about a man who recently received a gift worth 300 denarii, it seems plainly short sighted if it was all about the money.
Was it about politics? Breaking away from the group because he thought their number was almost up? But the reception into Jerusalem was joyful and Jesus was claiming a method of travel prophesied for the Messiah. Wasn't there every reason to hope that Jesus's star was in ascendance and soon he would see the perfect time to strike back at Rome? If that's what Judas was waiting for.
Or was the pairing of this moment with the Old Testament reading and psalm once again beyond brilliant? Turning the key of understanding.
Because Isaiah starts with what sounds like it will be praise -- gifts of God to do active, concrete good in the world -- and then immediately nosedives into persecution. And the psalm repeats again and again, after describing different torments, "Lord, in your great love, answer me."
And in that I hear something in myself. Left over from years ago but probably still more active than I'd like to think. From when I prayed for God to heal my father and still he died. And I still want to know why.
Something went wrong, and Judas's heart was broken. Was it Mary's sister Martha? "You talk constantly about selling everything you have to give to the poor and now you're letting a beautiful woman wash your feet with a fortune because..." Like suddenly realizing Mother Theresa was Joel Olsteen. Was it the procession into Jerusalem, when suddenly everything was real? Did Judas never want a political leader or was the reality too frightening? Was it the squabbling over who would be the greatest or his lack of inclusion in the Transfiguration on the mountaintop?
Because if something broke his heart, and he cried out, "Lord, in your great love, answer me." Explain it to me. Please, please, explain to me how it's different. Please, please, help me see how it's a good plan after all. Please please please be the person I thought you were yesterday. Please please please tell me it isn't true.
And the cruelest thing there is silence.
I mean, that's probably not true. Any time I say anything is the cruelest thing it just shows a lack of imagination. But if Judas's heart was broken, I could see him testing Jesus one last time. "Surely it is not I, lord?" Please tell me you have an answer for what has broken within me. Please tell me I'm not going to break and turn on you. Please tell me I'm going to go back and spit in those high priests' faces because I was wrong. Please tell me I was wrong. Surely it is not I, lord.
"You have said so."
It didn't have to be him. Judas wasn't trapped. He wasn't given no way out. But sometimes you do have to choose, to pray, to love in God's silence. Without his explicit guidance or His answers to our questions. Even the desperate ones at the core of our souls. That's also what faith means. Not just the warm and fuzzy stuff. The hard and cold and hope-sucking part. You will have to believe when life is hard and your world is scary and things seem contradictory and your heart is breaking. You will have to believe most then.
And when God seems most far away, all He's really doing is reminding us that it's our choice. You don't want to betray me. You are asking if you do anyway. You don't have to. You have said you don't want to do it. So don't.
Sometimes a gentle reminder that we don't have to take the desperate way out is all that we get. Sometimes we get less. We still must have faith. We still must choose love. We still must stay the course.
And perhaps that is what we can finally learn from Judas Iscariot.
Tuesday, 22 March 2016
Contradictory
http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/032216.cfm
This is the first set of Mass readings that I find to be a genuinely bewildering pairing. Were they going for deliberate irony? Or at least contrast?
Bragging about the Lord being your guide in the first reading and the psalm, only to turn around with the gospel and have Peter denying Jesus, Judas betraying Him, Jesus telling the disciples exactly who was going to do it and having them still not understand...
Is this, then, the story of our faith? God is faithful, and when we feel we are with Him with feel invincible. We declare like Peter that we will follow Him anywhere. We bluster like the first reading that we will be safe while we follow Him.
He knows we won't. He knows we won't be safe from earthly terrors, and He asks us to go anyway. He knows we won't be faithful, that we will deny Him in so many ways that seem trivial to us in the moment and even betray Him in great matters. He loves us anyway. He guides us anyway.
Later, He will ask us three times if we love Him and tell us then to feed His sheep. Erase our denials with the chance to profess our love. Take our betrayals on His own back.
Listen to us go on and on about how God is our shepherd and we trust and we will follow Him always and we fear nothing that the world can do to us. Only to watch us give up His ways as we cower in terror of the world's attack.
He knows it will happen. And He loves us anyway.
What wondrous love is this, oh my soul.
IS 49:1-6
PS 71:1-2, 3-4A, 5AB-6AB, 15 AND 17
Bragging about the Lord being your guide in the first reading and the psalm, only to turn around with the gospel and have Peter denying Jesus, Judas betraying Him, Jesus telling the disciples exactly who was going to do it and having them still not understand...
Is this, then, the story of our faith? God is faithful, and when we feel we are with Him with feel invincible. We declare like Peter that we will follow Him anywhere. We bluster like the first reading that we will be safe while we follow Him.
He knows we won't. He knows we won't be safe from earthly terrors, and He asks us to go anyway. He knows we won't be faithful, that we will deny Him in so many ways that seem trivial to us in the moment and even betray Him in great matters. He loves us anyway. He guides us anyway.
Later, He will ask us three times if we love Him and tell us then to feed His sheep. Erase our denials with the chance to profess our love. Take our betrayals on His own back.
Listen to us go on and on about how God is our shepherd and we trust and we will follow Him always and we fear nothing that the world can do to us. Only to watch us give up His ways as we cower in terror of the world's attack.
He knows it will happen. And He loves us anyway.
What wondrous love is this, oh my soul.
Monday, 21 March 2016
Burial Oil For the Living
I read a novelization of Martha's life a couple of years before I chose her as my confirmation saint. There were a lot of things I liked about the novel (although its inclusion of a romance between her and apostle Andrew was a little strange in retrospect), but one thing I always think about with this reading (the version of it that has Mary, Lazarus's sister, perform the action) is the count practical Martha does of the expensive burial oils in her family.
1. Lazarus's were used when he was buried the first time.
2. Mary used hers on Jesus's feet, in a gesture Martha thinks briefly SHOULD annoy her but seems appropriate and right.
Martha ends up offering hers up (or possibly dropping and spilling them?) to dress Jesus's only temporarily dead body. That's why she was headed to the tomb on Easter Sunday. She was going to offer in death what her sister had the foresight to offer during Jesus's lifetime.
A lot of the novelization's tricks of shoehorning Martha into stories she wasn't explicitly involved in felt forced, but that felt just right. True beyond any facts that might have gotten in the way. Practical Martha wouldn't have thought of her burial oils until Jesus's death, but once she did, she would marshal them immediately.
It's the Marys of the world who see properly ahead. Who do objectively crazy things because they feel right and they are open to the inspiration. Because they aren't afraid of Judases who will spit at their approach. Because they realize that the dead don't need burial oil (although funerals can be a comfort to the surviving mourners).
They see past all of the embarrassments and mental blocks that stop the rest of us. It's not that we are opposed to the actions. It's not that we wouldn't do it if we thought of it. We're just Marthas. We think of burial oils as something for recently dead bodies. Present us with a worthy one of those, and we will bathe the feet (and rest) of Jesus's broken body.
It takes a Mary to see the need when Jesus is still alive. Marys are the best of us. They see what is right before the rest of us can. They see beyond the rules of the world we've set up so consistently that we think they are immutable laws of the universe.
The least we can do is learn how to avoid spitting at them when they do their acts of grace.
1. Lazarus's were used when he was buried the first time.
2. Mary used hers on Jesus's feet, in a gesture Martha thinks briefly SHOULD annoy her but seems appropriate and right.
Martha ends up offering hers up (or possibly dropping and spilling them?) to dress Jesus's only temporarily dead body. That's why she was headed to the tomb on Easter Sunday. She was going to offer in death what her sister had the foresight to offer during Jesus's lifetime.
A lot of the novelization's tricks of shoehorning Martha into stories she wasn't explicitly involved in felt forced, but that felt just right. True beyond any facts that might have gotten in the way. Practical Martha wouldn't have thought of her burial oils until Jesus's death, but once she did, she would marshal them immediately.
It's the Marys of the world who see properly ahead. Who do objectively crazy things because they feel right and they are open to the inspiration. Because they aren't afraid of Judases who will spit at their approach. Because they realize that the dead don't need burial oil (although funerals can be a comfort to the surviving mourners).
They see past all of the embarrassments and mental blocks that stop the rest of us. It's not that we are opposed to the actions. It's not that we wouldn't do it if we thought of it. We're just Marthas. We think of burial oils as something for recently dead bodies. Present us with a worthy one of those, and we will bathe the feet (and rest) of Jesus's broken body.
It takes a Mary to see the need when Jesus is still alive. Marys are the best of us. They see what is right before the rest of us can. They see beyond the rules of the world we've set up so consistently that we think they are immutable laws of the universe.
The least we can do is learn how to avoid spitting at them when they do their acts of grace.
Sunday, 20 March 2016
Wombs That Never Bore
Palm Sunday
I always forget just how packed with story Palm Sunday is. I joked with my mom tonight that I feel like I can skip ahead to Easter Sunday now. Although, of course, I'm actually glad we'll have a chance to linger with each of the pieces of today.
The only way to really handle writing about such a big spread of story is to zero in on a single section or pan out and take in the full picture.
A verse got stuck in my head tonight. Jesus telling the women weeping on His behalf that they should weep instead for themselves and for their children. A time is coming when they will say, blessed are the barren, the wombs that never bore fruit.
It takes being at least something of a scholar of history to appreciate what a reversal that is. Right through to the present day, in many ways, women who are barren were thought under a curse and the displeasure of God. Marked as sinful or unworthy or even devilish in significant chunks of our history. Certainly failed women.
Someday soon, that shame will be reversed, Jesus warns.
What a terrible upheaval is coming -- something so terrible a mother will wish her children had never happened.
That's something that is quite literally unfathomable to me as a non-mother. And I didn't spend a lot of time at this exercise for sanity reasons, but I can't imagine thinking that if I saw one of my beloved students in pain. Oh, if only they had never been.
And it's a trope in literature to wish that about yourself, but I confess I do not understand it.
The only time it's ever made a kind of sense to me was actually in the movie Dogma, which the Church rightfully hated as a movie, when a devil character tries to help the (terribly sympathetic) antagonists of the film (who ultimately just want to go home to their family and be with God again) specifically BECAUSE them succeeding will destroy the entirety of creation. Nothingness is better than eternal Hell, he immediately explains.
What could be worth a soul's light going out?
But then, maybe I'm missing the point. Jesus doesn't say that they'll wish they had never had children, just that the luckiest will be the ones who never did. Who don't have to watch someone they love in that ultimate way suffer. Who can make their way on their own through the upheaval?
Man, this is depressing, because I feel we are all bound to each other. Is that just our luxury? To think that we are all in this together because a time of torment isn't sweeping down on us?
Or is that the luxury of the women who have never been mothers? To have the privilege to imagine that if we keep our heads, we can all or most of us get out of this situation alive. Mothers and fathers prioritize their children.
And come to think of it, isn't that the justification in so many terrible stories for why people cooperate with terrible things? Isn't that why Captain Von Trapp tries (briefly, of course) to convince himself to take the Nazi's commission to keep his family safe under the Third Reich? Because if there is someone you love beyond all reason, suddenly taking care of everyone seems like a luxury you can't afford. Suddenly principles cannot be the highest place in your heart.
Perhaps this is the real key to Jesus's insistence that you can't have father, brother, friends, lovers and be His followers. You can't have someone you would choose over the whole world. Someone you can't bear to sacrifice to save others.
Even God didn't have that.
And maybe that's what helps us understand what God did more than anything else. To be a parent in such times and to be a good person is to risk and even lose the child whom you love more than all the world. Oh beware the day, women of Jerusalem, when you know how God felt on the day Jesus carried His cross to Calgary.
I always forget just how packed with story Palm Sunday is. I joked with my mom tonight that I feel like I can skip ahead to Easter Sunday now. Although, of course, I'm actually glad we'll have a chance to linger with each of the pieces of today.
The only way to really handle writing about such a big spread of story is to zero in on a single section or pan out and take in the full picture.
A verse got stuck in my head tonight. Jesus telling the women weeping on His behalf that they should weep instead for themselves and for their children. A time is coming when they will say, blessed are the barren, the wombs that never bore fruit.
It takes being at least something of a scholar of history to appreciate what a reversal that is. Right through to the present day, in many ways, women who are barren were thought under a curse and the displeasure of God. Marked as sinful or unworthy or even devilish in significant chunks of our history. Certainly failed women.
Someday soon, that shame will be reversed, Jesus warns.
What a terrible upheaval is coming -- something so terrible a mother will wish her children had never happened.
That's something that is quite literally unfathomable to me as a non-mother. And I didn't spend a lot of time at this exercise for sanity reasons, but I can't imagine thinking that if I saw one of my beloved students in pain. Oh, if only they had never been.
And it's a trope in literature to wish that about yourself, but I confess I do not understand it.
The only time it's ever made a kind of sense to me was actually in the movie Dogma, which the Church rightfully hated as a movie, when a devil character tries to help the (terribly sympathetic) antagonists of the film (who ultimately just want to go home to their family and be with God again) specifically BECAUSE them succeeding will destroy the entirety of creation. Nothingness is better than eternal Hell, he immediately explains.
What could be worth a soul's light going out?
But then, maybe I'm missing the point. Jesus doesn't say that they'll wish they had never had children, just that the luckiest will be the ones who never did. Who don't have to watch someone they love in that ultimate way suffer. Who can make their way on their own through the upheaval?
Man, this is depressing, because I feel we are all bound to each other. Is that just our luxury? To think that we are all in this together because a time of torment isn't sweeping down on us?
Or is that the luxury of the women who have never been mothers? To have the privilege to imagine that if we keep our heads, we can all or most of us get out of this situation alive. Mothers and fathers prioritize their children.
And come to think of it, isn't that the justification in so many terrible stories for why people cooperate with terrible things? Isn't that why Captain Von Trapp tries (briefly, of course) to convince himself to take the Nazi's commission to keep his family safe under the Third Reich? Because if there is someone you love beyond all reason, suddenly taking care of everyone seems like a luxury you can't afford. Suddenly principles cannot be the highest place in your heart.
Perhaps this is the real key to Jesus's insistence that you can't have father, brother, friends, lovers and be His followers. You can't have someone you would choose over the whole world. Someone you can't bear to sacrifice to save others.
Even God didn't have that.
And maybe that's what helps us understand what God did more than anything else. To be a parent in such times and to be a good person is to risk and even lose the child whom you love more than all the world. Oh beware the day, women of Jerusalem, when you know how God felt on the day Jesus carried His cross to Calgary.
Saturday, 19 March 2016
Letting Go of Your Expectations
Today's Readings
So the second reading today is a rare moment when St. Paul says something which I believe whole-heartedly and often feel is not widely held in the Christian community today:
But the promises of God are not only for the people who follow His Law. Not only for the people who adhere to the catechism and the precepts of an organized faith. But the people true of heart.
I know it's not proper Catholic doctrine, but if you want a more thorough and elegant argument for it, I make a stab at that somewhere in the back catalogue of this blog. Also, there are people who do it better than me out there. Welcome to the Internet, where someone has always said it better, smarter, or at least more entertainingly than you have.
The better lesson for those in the faith, however, might be the way the Old Testament reading interacts with the gospel. We see the promise given to David about his lineage producing the messiah and stretching on forever, similar to Abraham's promise. And then we see Joseph (of the line of David, right?) see that promise fulfilled in a way he would never have seen coming. Never have expected. Never have chosen (certainly not in a vacuum with other options on the menu).
And he accepted them. Joseph was able to take the curveball thrown his world view, his likely interpretation of a key scripture passage, his plans for his life and marriage, his sense of reality and unreality...and assimilate them into his life. Do what God asked of him, even though it had to be nothing like Joseph ever would have thought God would ask of him.
Oh, how hard we take it when our worldviews and expectations fall about our feet...
Accept the will of God when it is not simply hard but contrary to what you thought it would be. Now that is faith indeed.
So the second reading today is a rare moment when St. Paul says something which I believe whole-heartedly and often feel is not widely held in the Christian community today:
the promise may be guaranteed to all his descendants,St. Paul is talking about bringing in the Gentiles, but I think it is a good reminder of things like, say, the Syrian refugee crisis. And also to the theology classes struggling mightily before Spring Break with the idea that just because someone has once heard of Christianity, they are therefore damned because they didn't drop everything to pick up this new religion. The high school students recognize this for the ridiculous unfairness that it is. Or rather would be.
not to those who only adhere to the law
but to those who follow the faith of Abraham,
who is the father of all of us, as it is written,
I have made you father of many nations.
But the promises of God are not only for the people who follow His Law. Not only for the people who adhere to the catechism and the precepts of an organized faith. But the people true of heart.
I know it's not proper Catholic doctrine, but if you want a more thorough and elegant argument for it, I make a stab at that somewhere in the back catalogue of this blog. Also, there are people who do it better than me out there. Welcome to the Internet, where someone has always said it better, smarter, or at least more entertainingly than you have.
The better lesson for those in the faith, however, might be the way the Old Testament reading interacts with the gospel. We see the promise given to David about his lineage producing the messiah and stretching on forever, similar to Abraham's promise. And then we see Joseph (of the line of David, right?) see that promise fulfilled in a way he would never have seen coming. Never have expected. Never have chosen (certainly not in a vacuum with other options on the menu).
And he accepted them. Joseph was able to take the curveball thrown his world view, his likely interpretation of a key scripture passage, his plans for his life and marriage, his sense of reality and unreality...and assimilate them into his life. Do what God asked of him, even though it had to be nothing like Joseph ever would have thought God would ask of him.
Oh, how hard we take it when our worldviews and expectations fall about our feet...
Accept the will of God when it is not simply hard but contrary to what you thought it would be. Now that is faith indeed.
Friday, 18 March 2016
Path to Belief
JER 20:10-13
PS 18:2-3A, 3BC-4, 5-6, 7
SEE JN 6:63C, 68C
I was all prepared to go off on a tirade (of sorts) about how we are meant to see ourselves in the people condemning the righteous man rather than identifying with the pursued righteous man today.
Instead, I'm going to talk about the gospel.
Here we see the failure of rational, legal argument to bring the Pharisees, etc. to true faith. Even when Jesus wins the argument handily, they do not change their ways. I think it's rare for someone to change their ways because of an academic, logical, philosophical argument. It's too easy to challenge the premise. Everyone's too careful about getting pinned down to the absolutes that can tie your hands argumentatively.
Any good debater knows how to argue both sides. They know that the end of the day, you pick your side no matter what else has been said.
It's the attitude I fight so hard with my freshmen students. Because they're JUST young enough that the good habits can set. There's a chance, anyway. Most of us are too far gone.
Most of us aren't like the last paragraph of today's gospel -- the people who look at Jesus's works and John's testimony and draw the obvious conclusion. Less philosophy and historical minutia needed. They look at the evidence before them and dare to draw a conclusion. And it's words more than miracles, notably. John predicted things about Jesus, and then they came true. And that was enough for them.
They looked at the world without having made up their minds. And they came to the truth.
It's amazing how rare that is. Not going looking for evidence to support what you think already should be what's true. Not going out looking for things that confirm what you think, to help you win the argument with someone who's done the same thing. No -- looking at the facts on the ground neutrally and coming to a decision ONLY THEN.
Faith is in that leap -- not in holding dogmatically to pre-conceived ideas in the face of opposing facts. That's what makes the atheists jeer. What they would recognize in us would be the ability to take that intuitive leap off the evidence, to see the pattern suddenly -- all and once and miraculously -- and act on it. Change our lives because of it.
Faith is the leap to look at words, see their truth, and change who we are because of the truth they reveal. Not to hide our heads from strange things that confront our assumptions.
Thursday, 17 March 2016
Fulfillment
GN 17:3-9
PS 105:4-5, 6-7, 8-9
JN 8:51-59
In one of my favorite Terry Pratchett novels, Hogfather, which is a glorious send-up of Christmas in all of its cruelties as well as its hope and kindness, a character insists rather stridently that the hope of presents is better than presents themselves. He makes a rather compelling case that, say, the polished toy horse in the store window will likely break into pieces with a little rough riding. Or that the imagination of just a little bit better tastes sweeter than objectively more things.
Perhaps that's what Jesus is up against.
Think about it: how many people will be genuinely psyched about the Second Coming? Not the least disappointed that their SXSW tickets are now invalid? Or that the thing they've been imagining is about to appear -- and inevitably be different in ways both trivial and important from what you expected?
How many people are going to be furious when the Rapture (which isn't in the Bible, incidentally) is "skipped" and they didn't get to lord it over everyone not worthy yet? Or when people are saved who once hurt them in the Final Judgment.
We humans build up fantasies about with the messiah will be or the Second Coming will be. That's what makes us so ungrateful in the face of miracles.
There are lot of reasons that I think it's dangerous to sit around envisioning the apopcalypse as often as our society does. And I'm certainly not immune. I love the book World War Z and I think that You, Me, and the Apocalypse is a gift to the television world from a very zany aunt. And I've made drastically unrealistic collapse-of-society escape plans.
But setting aside the nihilistic, destructive tendencies that it encourages (why work hard to save the planet when we're going to blow ourselves up within the century anyway?) or the backwards religious motivations it provides (See my previous post) but on a both practical and politic level -- we don't see the whole picture. We're going to get it wrong. We're going to misunderstand very key elements.
We're going to dismiss the messiah when He appears, metaphorically. In some new way. We're going to miss Him and His message if we get too in our heads guessing -- deciding really, in all our finite wisdom -- what that message will be. How He will look when He appears.
We're going to fall for the fake that's doing a better impression of how we thought things would go down. Rather than staying open and waiting for God to reveal His actual plan.
And perhaps we'll even be mad enough about the fact that we were wrong to pick up stones again.
Wednesday, 16 March 2016
Knowing We're Safe
DN 3:14-20, 91-92, 95
DN 3:52, 53, 54, 55, 56
JN 8:31-42
The desire to be Abraham's children -- to be known as Abraham's children -- has morphed over the years, but I think we are looking just as hard for something like it.
Something that proves that we are chosen, we are save from judgment. That we are good people. As if that isn't a continual struggle and journey. As if that were something you could achieve and then relax, done with it, assured that the decisions you will make from here on out will be good ones.
A list of rules we can follow that, however convoluted, will give us a reliable checklist for entrance to Paradise rather than the fires of Hell. Something we can argue with St. Peter about if we receive a surprise at the Pearly Gates.
Saying that we are Abraham's children, or that we go to Church every Sunday, or that we are on the board of 5 charities, or that we work with underprivileged youth -- so how can anything else mean, on balance, that we are bad people after all?
The idea of achieving heaven -- have we forgotten how unworthy we are? How impossible it would be for us to actually become worthy of heaven? That the saints we venerate were in terror on their deathbeds, certain they were worthy of the flames of damnation?
We don't like the idea of depending entirely on God's mercy and on Jesus's sacrifice. Even though it should be the objectively easier and more comforting option. We want to feel that we have done enough. That we are good enough.
That we don't have to change.
Because change is painful, and true faithful living requires constant change. Constant self-monitoring and constant self-improvement. Constant toil in the world. Constant refocusing on others. More and more people to help and serve every day. Cutting away what causes us to sin. Opening our hearts still wider to let in all of those God loves who come our way. Rewriting the neural pathways we've developed when we find our old ways of doing things hurt people we didn't see getting crushed beneath the wheel.
Constant work. That is what it is to be a Christian. It's a light yoke because God is there, and the love and joy that comes with God's work makes any task seem not only possible but easy. Because doing God's work naturally builds a community around you to share the load. Because we are given energy and love and joy by doing it. Because by giving those things, we receive more of them.
But it is not a thing we can cross off the to-do list. There's not a list of things we can do or not do or both and then we are safe. We are good enough in ourselves. We will be forever dependent on God's mercy and forever needful of Jesus's sacrifice.
That makes the work not one whit less worth the doing, but let's not fool ourselves. If we were good enough, we wouldn't need Jesus so desperately.
Where Are Your Accusers?
Saturday's gospel leaves off the end of the story of Jesus and the woman caught in adultery. It pairs more neatly, perhaps, with the Susanna and Daniel story that way.
But I think about cutting off this vital part of the story, and it puzzles me to no small degree. Why not give the woman her chance to react? Then again, we don't get a TON of her reaction. And shouldn't we address how Jesus deals with her actual guilt?
And what I can't help seeing in their conversation is a kind of parable of Final Judgment. We have all messed up, but what if our fate is decided more by whether or not we have an accuser left at the end of the day? If we have reconciled with those we hurt, or if we have made room for everyone to understand and find love, if we have joined as one big family...
If we all put down our own stones.
Then at the end, there will be no more accusers. So Jesus and God will say the same to us.
Perhaps that seems too easy, but if you think about it, it really isn't. It requires reconciling the entire human race. Getting each and every one of us to really admit that we are imperfect and have done terrible things to good people. That we have been selfish and petty and even cruel. Because we all have.
That's what makes you put down the rock in your hand. The rock perhaps justifiably in your hand, ready to aim at the person who scarred you, who broke you, who made it impossible for you to trust.
I'd like to think that some of the people in that crowd put it down out of love, instead of simply shame. Perhaps that's easier, really. We can feel good about ourselves for taking pity, for acting out of love. So much easier to drop the stone because WE are so good that we can forgive.
What Jesus asks instead is for us to find a way of peace and forgiveness through our own guilt and shame. Which is shocking, really. And harder. Oh so much harder. But if we actually want to BE better people, rather than just FEEL like better people...if we want to put down our rocks permanently...if we want to be safe from the slaughter when our time comes...
Well, that's exactly what we have to do.
But I think about cutting off this vital part of the story, and it puzzles me to no small degree. Why not give the woman her chance to react? Then again, we don't get a TON of her reaction. And shouldn't we address how Jesus deals with her actual guilt?
And what I can't help seeing in their conversation is a kind of parable of Final Judgment. We have all messed up, but what if our fate is decided more by whether or not we have an accuser left at the end of the day? If we have reconciled with those we hurt, or if we have made room for everyone to understand and find love, if we have joined as one big family...
If we all put down our own stones.
Then at the end, there will be no more accusers. So Jesus and God will say the same to us.
Perhaps that seems too easy, but if you think about it, it really isn't. It requires reconciling the entire human race. Getting each and every one of us to really admit that we are imperfect and have done terrible things to good people. That we have been selfish and petty and even cruel. Because we all have.
That's what makes you put down the rock in your hand. The rock perhaps justifiably in your hand, ready to aim at the person who scarred you, who broke you, who made it impossible for you to trust.
I'd like to think that some of the people in that crowd put it down out of love, instead of simply shame. Perhaps that's easier, really. We can feel good about ourselves for taking pity, for acting out of love. So much easier to drop the stone because WE are so good that we can forgive.
What Jesus asks instead is for us to find a way of peace and forgiveness through our own guilt and shame. Which is shocking, really. And harder. Oh so much harder. But if we actually want to BE better people, rather than just FEEL like better people...if we want to put down our rocks permanently...if we want to be safe from the slaughter when our time comes...
Well, that's exactly what we have to do.
Tuesday, 15 March 2016
Realize Too Late
There's an old movie about the soldier who crucifies Christ and how he is haunted in the aftermath and eventually tries to return the cloak he won in a game of lots to the disciples. And is then martyred along with his love interest.
He realized too late that Jesus was important and that killing was wrong in general.
And I've never realized before that that is precisely what Jesus says will happen to the scribes and pharisees. To the soldier who exclaims, "Truly, this man was the Son of God."
Someday you will understand what it is you did to God and to others. And, perhaps, that will be punishment enough.
What a fearful promise -- that someday we will see our sins in their full nastiness and horror and weakness. That suddenly we will realize what we always would have known if we hadn't trained ourselves not to look. That suddenly the world will turn and we won't be the good people we convinced ourselves we were.
Someday we will look up to see Christ crucified and really, truly realize that we put Him there. God Almighty, so full of love He sacrificed Himself, His only Son. And we hammered in the nails.
We won't survive that moment without God's love. And there are two ways to respond to moments like it. Repentance, humility, respect, and working to do better. Struggling all our lives never to feel this way again.
And denial. A litany of good works and excuses. A reason to dismiss our detractors from speaking, even as we know that we see the truth in their words.
God grant us the grace to be humiliated when that moment comes -- but to turn that moment into a reason to rise higher. To do better. To repent by working to prevent the same mistake from ever happening again.
He realized too late that Jesus was important and that killing was wrong in general.
And I've never realized before that that is precisely what Jesus says will happen to the scribes and pharisees. To the soldier who exclaims, "Truly, this man was the Son of God."
Someday, you will realize too late that you had the truth in your hands and you threw it away. Someday, you will realize too late that you had love on offer and you spit at it. Someday, you will realize too late that the people you demonize are good people and you kicked them when they were down. Someday, you will realize too late that the God you worshipped will disavow your deeds in His name.“When you lift up the Son of Man,
then you will realize that I AM,
and that I do nothing on my own,
but I say only what the Father taught me.
The one who sent me is with me.
He has not left me alone,
because I always do what is pleasing to him.”
Someday you will understand what it is you did to God and to others. And, perhaps, that will be punishment enough.
What a fearful promise -- that someday we will see our sins in their full nastiness and horror and weakness. That suddenly we will realize what we always would have known if we hadn't trained ourselves not to look. That suddenly the world will turn and we won't be the good people we convinced ourselves we were.
Someday we will look up to see Christ crucified and really, truly realize that we put Him there. God Almighty, so full of love He sacrificed Himself, His only Son. And we hammered in the nails.
We won't survive that moment without God's love. And there are two ways to respond to moments like it. Repentance, humility, respect, and working to do better. Struggling all our lives never to feel this way again.
And denial. A litany of good works and excuses. A reason to dismiss our detractors from speaking, even as we know that we see the truth in their words.
God grant us the grace to be humiliated when that moment comes -- but to turn that moment into a reason to rise higher. To do better. To repent by working to prevent the same mistake from ever happening again.
Disqualified From Speaking
Today, I listened to a podcast making beautifully the case that formal debate teams have set up a structure that excludes people of color, people from lower income brackets, people who lack the advantages the privileged enjoy.
And I can't help equating it with Saturday's gospel and the Pharisees. The sad thing is that the debate -- however technical and fiddly -- is something I wouldn't mind being explicitly explained. That's usually the thing about debates that devolve into nonsense. They had a legitimate point before they started screaming incoherently.
A point easily cleared up by the census data from Bethlehem, but still.
But what the Pharisees do instead is completely discount all of the people who aren't themselves as unworthy of judging matters for themselves. And then, when one of their number, Nicodemus who spoke with Jesus early in His career and was changed, speaks up (and not even all that forcefully!) in support of Jesus, they sneer that Nicodemus is also from Galilee and so therefore cannot be trusted to judge.
Only they are worthy of judging. Everyone else is stupid, biased, worthless. Nothing.
Anyone who disagrees with them must be stupid and/or evil.
That's what we're seeing all over our politics these days. We say we want everyone to speak, and then the people who disagree with us do, and we must scramble to find some reason that THEY don't get the speak after all. That their opinions don't count.
And it makes me wonder how much we trust our convictions that we don't try to stand up to them with facts and data and logic. Just dismiss them from the conversation. If you don't agree with me, there must be some thing that's making you come to the wrong conclusion. You can't be an intelligent person who looked at the same facts and came to a more trusting, loving conclusion than I did.
Even two thousand years ago, we were refusing to see the other side of the argument. To see the other side as equal and human.
No wonder Jesus always argued with the Pharisees and explained to the rest.
And perhaps we all need a moment to think: do people explain their positions to you? Knowing you'll listen and consider (if not their idea, at least where they're coming from). Or do they argue with you, because you think it's a matter of winning rather than understanding?
And I can't help equating it with Saturday's gospel and the Pharisees. The sad thing is that the debate -- however technical and fiddly -- is something I wouldn't mind being explicitly explained. That's usually the thing about debates that devolve into nonsense. They had a legitimate point before they started screaming incoherently.
A point easily cleared up by the census data from Bethlehem, but still.
But what the Pharisees do instead is completely discount all of the people who aren't themselves as unworthy of judging matters for themselves. And then, when one of their number, Nicodemus who spoke with Jesus early in His career and was changed, speaks up (and not even all that forcefully!) in support of Jesus, they sneer that Nicodemus is also from Galilee and so therefore cannot be trusted to judge.
Only they are worthy of judging. Everyone else is stupid, biased, worthless. Nothing.
Anyone who disagrees with them must be stupid and/or evil.
That's what we're seeing all over our politics these days. We say we want everyone to speak, and then the people who disagree with us do, and we must scramble to find some reason that THEY don't get the speak after all. That their opinions don't count.
And it makes me wonder how much we trust our convictions that we don't try to stand up to them with facts and data and logic. Just dismiss them from the conversation. If you don't agree with me, there must be some thing that's making you come to the wrong conclusion. You can't be an intelligent person who looked at the same facts and came to a more trusting, loving conclusion than I did.
Even two thousand years ago, we were refusing to see the other side of the argument. To see the other side as equal and human.
No wonder Jesus always argued with the Pharisees and explained to the rest.
And perhaps we all need a moment to think: do people explain their positions to you? Knowing you'll listen and consider (if not their idea, at least where they're coming from). Or do they argue with you, because you think it's a matter of winning rather than understanding?
Monday, 14 March 2016
Justification and Forgiveness
I realize it was also the big gospel on Sunday, but I'm going to talk about the alternate gospel for today (Monday the 14th).
It just pairs so well with Daniel's rescue of Susanna through clever use of cross examination and the bravery to stand against the crowd. The crowd willing to stone the beautiful woman whom they all found tempting and -- in the way of the patriarchy -- they therefore did everything in their power to make it HER who was at fault rather than themselves.
I hate how many different ways we do that -- make women the sinners when men desire them and act poorly in response.
Daniel was brave to stand against the crowd that was no doubt leaning toward taking the beautiful wife of a powerful (if wise and generous) man down a peg. After all, as I wrote about today (on behalf of Friday), people are embarrassed by the way that successful and truly good people make the rest of us feel. To find out that the great Susanna wasn't really good, and therefore we don't need to do the work of aspiring to her example, must have been a secret, vicious relief.
That was Daniel's courage -- to trust his own judgement (inspired by God no doubt but only in the level of a gut feeling) and be bold enough to speak out against the tyranny of the majority. To find the truth cleverly, to find that he could, in fact, avert the terrible thing. To be willing to stand up and find that, in fact, he could save the woman who was innocent. The joy of finding that he could save her by stepping out from the crowd.
But then Jesus does something entirely more radical. For a guilty woman (still bearing the sin of the man who desires her, incidentally), Jesus does not just stand up to the crowd. Does not just turn the crowd to guilty victims instead of the innocent. He does not simply reveal the true facts.
He changes the crowd.
Which is how much higher Jesus was aiming than the old testament prophets and heroes, in one simple side-by-side comparison. It's no little cleverness, no trick to beat the system, no advocacy or obvious worldly path.
Jesus changes their hearts.
He doesn't stand up to the crowd and sway them. He tells the crowd that the woman is them. He tells them that the woman is not worse than them. That they will not lift themselves up to tear her down. He tells them that the hate in their hearts is not MISDIRECTED but UNNECESSARY.
You don't need to carry around that hate in your heart, Jesus tells them. Not just, as Daniel said, that you need to be careful who you vent it on. Jesus says that the hate is harmful to yourself as well as to those you punish with it.
If you can say that you are doling out punishment without the slightest hate, the slightest anger, then still, look to your own life and the times you fell. If you are miraculously free of those nasty things that make us want to lash out in acceptable ways, then reach instead for empathy. For understanding. We can all find that.
No one has to die today.
It just pairs so well with Daniel's rescue of Susanna through clever use of cross examination and the bravery to stand against the crowd. The crowd willing to stone the beautiful woman whom they all found tempting and -- in the way of the patriarchy -- they therefore did everything in their power to make it HER who was at fault rather than themselves.
I hate how many different ways we do that -- make women the sinners when men desire them and act poorly in response.
Daniel was brave to stand against the crowd that was no doubt leaning toward taking the beautiful wife of a powerful (if wise and generous) man down a peg. After all, as I wrote about today (on behalf of Friday), people are embarrassed by the way that successful and truly good people make the rest of us feel. To find out that the great Susanna wasn't really good, and therefore we don't need to do the work of aspiring to her example, must have been a secret, vicious relief.
That was Daniel's courage -- to trust his own judgement (inspired by God no doubt but only in the level of a gut feeling) and be bold enough to speak out against the tyranny of the majority. To find the truth cleverly, to find that he could, in fact, avert the terrible thing. To be willing to stand up and find that, in fact, he could save the woman who was innocent. The joy of finding that he could save her by stepping out from the crowd.
But then Jesus does something entirely more radical. For a guilty woman (still bearing the sin of the man who desires her, incidentally), Jesus does not just stand up to the crowd. Does not just turn the crowd to guilty victims instead of the innocent. He does not simply reveal the true facts.
He changes the crowd.
Which is how much higher Jesus was aiming than the old testament prophets and heroes, in one simple side-by-side comparison. It's no little cleverness, no trick to beat the system, no advocacy or obvious worldly path.
Jesus changes their hearts.
He doesn't stand up to the crowd and sway them. He tells the crowd that the woman is them. He tells them that the woman is not worse than them. That they will not lift themselves up to tear her down. He tells them that the hate in their hearts is not MISDIRECTED but UNNECESSARY.
You don't need to carry around that hate in your heart, Jesus tells them. Not just, as Daniel said, that you need to be careful who you vent it on. Jesus says that the hate is harmful to yourself as well as to those you punish with it.
If you can say that you are doling out punishment without the slightest hate, the slightest anger, then still, look to your own life and the times you fell. If you are miraculously free of those nasty things that make us want to lash out in acceptable ways, then reach instead for empathy. For understanding. We can all find that.
No one has to die today.
Instead of Being Inspired
A similar problem is happening in Friday's gospel, but it's once again the Old Testament reading that I think is more revealing of the real problem the Bible is trying to address.
In the book of Wisdom, the passage describes everyone fretting and worrying and eventually plotting to kill the one righteous man in the community. His very life is an affront to them.
And it is.
Proof that they could be better.
There's nothing worse, when you are feeling guilty and helpless to solve a problem in the world or live properly, and you resign yourself to your ultimate powerlessness and give yourself a break because you're only human and come on, you're not Jesus or even Peter or Paul. You're no saint.
How awkward, when someone around you is. When Blessed Katherine Drexel walked the halls of your parish.
Someone proves that it can be done. The teaching equivalent can be hard to swallow. Watching someone settle a class you've been struggling to corral so easily. Watching an expert step in and hold your class's attention.
And what did we do, even at Harmony of the community of teachers as learners? We talked about the special circumstances contributing to the expert teacher's success to explain it away.
Or we were terrified we were being judged.
That's what's really getting to the community. But the righteous man, the great teacher, isn't judging you. Chances are they've been where you were. But instead of being angry and feeling guilty and turning all of that into resentment, they were inspired to be better. They saw that someone was actually fixing the problem, actually succeeding in their work, and they didn't take it as an affront to their current efforts. They saw it as a star to follow. Someone to learn from and help with the work or at least use as a model for their own pet projects/teaching style.
The community was turning their own judgment of themselves and placing it on the righteous man. Sure that he would judge them for not being like him, when really it's THEM who hate that they aren't better. It's them who are afraid to want to be better, so they turn it around so that they can be the victims of unfair standards and judgement. Instead of being inspired.
In the book of Wisdom, the passage describes everyone fretting and worrying and eventually plotting to kill the one righteous man in the community. His very life is an affront to them.
And it is.
Proof that they could be better.
There's nothing worse, when you are feeling guilty and helpless to solve a problem in the world or live properly, and you resign yourself to your ultimate powerlessness and give yourself a break because you're only human and come on, you're not Jesus or even Peter or Paul. You're no saint.
How awkward, when someone around you is. When Blessed Katherine Drexel walked the halls of your parish.
Someone proves that it can be done. The teaching equivalent can be hard to swallow. Watching someone settle a class you've been struggling to corral so easily. Watching an expert step in and hold your class's attention.
And what did we do, even at Harmony of the community of teachers as learners? We talked about the special circumstances contributing to the expert teacher's success to explain it away.
Or we were terrified we were being judged.
That's what's really getting to the community. But the righteous man, the great teacher, isn't judging you. Chances are they've been where you were. But instead of being angry and feeling guilty and turning all of that into resentment, they were inspired to be better. They saw that someone was actually fixing the problem, actually succeeding in their work, and they didn't take it as an affront to their current efforts. They saw it as a star to follow. Someone to learn from and help with the work or at least use as a model for their own pet projects/teaching style.
The community was turning their own judgment of themselves and placing it on the righteous man. Sure that he would judge them for not being like him, when really it's THEM who hate that they aren't better. It's them who are afraid to want to be better, so they turn it around so that they can be the victims of unfair standards and judgement. Instead of being inspired.
Thursday, 10 March 2016
Far Away Things
A lot of science fiction and fantasy that I have enjoyed reading over the past several years (most notably the Thief's Quartet, go read it, it is amazing), talks about how gods are supposed to be something up with the priests and long ago in mythology, not something walking alongside you to the supermarket in the morning.
They make the case that we believe in gods in a quiet way. A never-questioning-it way. The same way I believe in quarks and supercolliders. People more qualified than I have looked into the question, and I see no reason to doubt their word. Also, they sound cool. The world is better for someone out their understanding them and them existing.
I don't change my daily life over it.
Our God is not like that. He's not far away and long ago. I wrote several years back a piece at the end of a television show I'd like to revisit now.
I'm sure the people in the time of Moses were as surprised as anything -- and hostile to boot -- to find that the God they prayed to in a vague way, an actually hopeless way, was real and ready to rain down plagues on their behalf.
What a frightening figure that is -- an active God taking an active daily role.
Science fiction and fantasy are teeming with such stories. We are terrified of artificial intelligences and supervillains with Killgrave powers and a host of other monsters that actually amount to something beyond us not Out There Somewhere but Among Us Right Now.
What I'm saying is that I understand where Jesus's frustration is coming from here, because I read about it all the time. We are actively trying to wrestle with this question right now. That thing we say we want -- that thing we claim we pray for -- we are terrified of it. Petrified of God's direct, unquestionable intervention.
How little do we trust God's love.
Or is it how little we trust ourselves to behave properly? To be glad to be brought out into the light rather than cowering in the darkness? How precious are our lives to us as they are now that we would rather they not change and everything stays worse?
How precious is the world we've built ourselves that we don't want the infinitely love and powerful God to walk in it with us?
They make the case that we believe in gods in a quiet way. A never-questioning-it way. The same way I believe in quarks and supercolliders. People more qualified than I have looked into the question, and I see no reason to doubt their word. Also, they sound cool. The world is better for someone out their understanding them and them existing.
I don't change my daily life over it.
Our God is not like that. He's not far away and long ago. I wrote several years back a piece at the end of a television show I'd like to revisit now.
There is no Robin of Locksley to cast off his titles and surge to our aid. We need Miracle Max to make a pill to bring you back, but he retired long ago when one too many bean counters spit at his craft. The Age of Heroes is over.This is a lie they have been telling since man first invented stories. Because every story serves two purposes: to remind us of the greatness of humanity worthy of songs and remembrance; and to remind us that we don’t do things that way anymore, the Age of Heroes is over, that kind of thing only worked back when everyone was running around in tights, this is the Age of the Bean Counter and the Small Lies of the Politician.
I was talking about the BBC's Robin Hood and how the proper lesson of it isn't simply entertainment but a call to take up odds, risk the dungeon, and generally upend the status quo. Just like he did, back when that sort of thing was "done all the time."Like Hell it is.Every age is the Age of Heroes. The Time of Miracles is not past and it is not to come. It is always now. We are all living in the Age of Heroes.The Age of Heroes is now. We are Robin Hood. We are stars in the night sky. And we are waiting for our hero to bring us back to life. We are the stuff of minstrel’s songs. There is too much, far too much for one of us to defeat, but that never stopped you. We are all Robin Hood.The Time of Miracles is now.
I'm sure the people in the time of Moses were as surprised as anything -- and hostile to boot -- to find that the God they prayed to in a vague way, an actually hopeless way, was real and ready to rain down plagues on their behalf.
What a frightening figure that is -- an active God taking an active daily role.
Science fiction and fantasy are teeming with such stories. We are terrified of artificial intelligences and supervillains with Killgrave powers and a host of other monsters that actually amount to something beyond us not Out There Somewhere but Among Us Right Now.
What I'm saying is that I understand where Jesus's frustration is coming from here, because I read about it all the time. We are actively trying to wrestle with this question right now. That thing we say we want -- that thing we claim we pray for -- we are terrified of it. Petrified of God's direct, unquestionable intervention.
How little do we trust God's love.
Or is it how little we trust ourselves to behave properly? To be glad to be brought out into the light rather than cowering in the darkness? How precious are our lives to us as they are now that we would rather they not change and everything stays worse?
How precious is the world we've built ourselves that we don't want the infinitely love and powerful God to walk in it with us?
Wednesday, 9 March 2016
Not My Judgment But Yours
So I spent most of the time reading over the readings just now trying to figure out what part of the readings inspired this morning's priest's homily. He talked about having a family in the parish that he could rely on as a substitute for a family. It was really sweet and deeply sad in ways I think he can't acknowledge even to himself -- longing for children and companionship that's a given like family is.
But his point was that he lost a family who he thought were great only to enter a dark place and then, out of the blue, find the family that he had really wanted to join unofficially. He just had to wait for God to make it clear who had been meant for him.
My guess is that he latched onto the last lines about doing not your own will but God's. The One Who Sent Me, Jesus calls the Father. The one under whose authority He acts and whose mission He fulfills.
It's appropriate that the theology classes are going through the man/God heresies and eventual answers, because most of what Jesus talks about is more about defending His equality with God. Or perhaps we need a stronger word. Equivalency? Oneness?
It's really striking to hear Him talk about how they will do the same thing. God, someday, will raise the dead. Jesus does it now, so that people will listen as he re-explains all the things God told them that has since become garbled or irrelevant. And again we see: you know a tree by its fruits.
Someone not from God wouldn't do all good, wouldn't do God's wonders.
Save your skepticism for someone whose fruit is bad. Don't borrow trouble from the good people and their good works.
But his point was that he lost a family who he thought were great only to enter a dark place and then, out of the blue, find the family that he had really wanted to join unofficially. He just had to wait for God to make it clear who had been meant for him.
My guess is that he latched onto the last lines about doing not your own will but God's. The One Who Sent Me, Jesus calls the Father. The one under whose authority He acts and whose mission He fulfills.
It's appropriate that the theology classes are going through the man/God heresies and eventual answers, because most of what Jesus talks about is more about defending His equality with God. Or perhaps we need a stronger word. Equivalency? Oneness?
It's really striking to hear Him talk about how they will do the same thing. God, someday, will raise the dead. Jesus does it now, so that people will listen as he re-explains all the things God told them that has since become garbled or irrelevant. And again we see: you know a tree by its fruits.
Someone not from God wouldn't do all good, wouldn't do God's wonders.
Save your skepticism for someone whose fruit is bad. Don't borrow trouble from the good people and their good works.
Tuesday, 8 March 2016
Priorities
Reading the gospels of the past few weeks, I begin to think that the real source of sin is a matter of simple priorities.
Do you really think the laws about working on the Sabbath are meant to be adhered to so slavishly that it would be better for a man to suffer than for us to break them? Is it really more important to keep your dignity than to be healed? Is fairness really more important than your poor brother?
It also fundamentally misunderstands the purpose of the Law. When Jesus explained that the whole of the Law was contained in the two commandments -- love God and love everybody else -- He wasn't just saying that they were a handy summary. He was telling us what laws take precedence. What considerations are above all.
And what all the rules were meant to be based on.
I got into a discussion on Facebook one day about codes of conduct. How every school and organization's code of conduct I've taken the time to read has some absolutely ridiculous bits in there. Because I think every code of conduct goes through the same process.
1. You start with one or a few people making good, common sense rules that are fairly adaptable to changing circumstances.
2. These prove insufficiently clear so they are given more detail and thus less flexibility but become very clear.
3. A few people still misunderstand or don't follow the rules, so consequences are written in to encourage compliance with the best practices.
4. Somewhere along the way, there are Those People who really do need to be told "Don't throw rocks at police cars" and a few incredibly specific, strange, and even "why do we need a rule against that?" rules get places in there. All to officially discourage that one person and keep others like them from at least doing the SAME crazy nonsense.
But any good school and organization goes back to that first step periodically and checks in that the original goals, the common sense, heart-in-the-right-place provisions and methods, haven't been overwritten in the important places. That the minutia of running an organization hasn't become more precious than the mission they were put in place to streamline.
That rules about honoring the Sabbath so that there is a holy day set aside for rest and reflection doesn't become a burden keeping the lame from celebrating their salvation.
Do you really think the laws about working on the Sabbath are meant to be adhered to so slavishly that it would be better for a man to suffer than for us to break them? Is it really more important to keep your dignity than to be healed? Is fairness really more important than your poor brother?
It also fundamentally misunderstands the purpose of the Law. When Jesus explained that the whole of the Law was contained in the two commandments -- love God and love everybody else -- He wasn't just saying that they were a handy summary. He was telling us what laws take precedence. What considerations are above all.
And what all the rules were meant to be based on.
I got into a discussion on Facebook one day about codes of conduct. How every school and organization's code of conduct I've taken the time to read has some absolutely ridiculous bits in there. Because I think every code of conduct goes through the same process.
1. You start with one or a few people making good, common sense rules that are fairly adaptable to changing circumstances.
2. These prove insufficiently clear so they are given more detail and thus less flexibility but become very clear.
3. A few people still misunderstand or don't follow the rules, so consequences are written in to encourage compliance with the best practices.
4. Somewhere along the way, there are Those People who really do need to be told "Don't throw rocks at police cars" and a few incredibly specific, strange, and even "why do we need a rule against that?" rules get places in there. All to officially discourage that one person and keep others like them from at least doing the SAME crazy nonsense.
But any good school and organization goes back to that first step periodically and checks in that the original goals, the common sense, heart-in-the-right-place provisions and methods, haven't been overwritten in the important places. That the minutia of running an organization hasn't become more precious than the mission they were put in place to streamline.
That rules about honoring the Sabbath so that there is a holy day set aside for rest and reflection doesn't become a burden keeping the lame from celebrating their salvation.
Monday, 7 March 2016
Eye Has Not Seen
This story seems paired to the one from Jeremiah a couple weeks back (I have precious little sense of time left over from the Sound of Music push). A foreign traveller came to Elissa the prophet and nearly went away furious when told simply to bathe in the Jordan River.
The man whose son Jesus cured did better. But man, what a hard walk that must have been.
The thing is, I know exactly how desperate you are when you finally go to the holy man, to pray for the miracle you know is needed. Not the simple prayers for the best we send whenever we or those we love are in trouble, but when we know deep down in our bones and our souls that only a rewriting of the rules will save us or those we love most.
To be told to walk home? It'll be fine, just leave? No sign but those words.
Nothing magical or mystical or spiritual. Just the Word Incarnate, Speaking.
The faith and bravery that takes floors me. And I've balked at the absence of a similar miracle. The truth though, is that I only briefly had the courage for that kind of faith. I'm pretty sure in the dawn light I was certain once more that my father would die.
I don't know why God chooses the miracles He does. I've been angry for a very long time because I don't.
And all my life, I've been waiting for a big magical sign that makes everything clear. It was my purpose in life for awhile, it was my orientation, it was my faith in miracles and my calling and the life of someone I love.
But every time a big prayer like that has been answered, one way or another, every time my life has turned in the direction God intended and I did not foresee, it's been something simple sliding into place. A chat in a pool leading to serendipity, a well-timed email to the school that rejected me a few months beforehand, a walk home like a hundred before it (even if it was on a literal hilltop). A few words on the staircase I've haunted my whole life.
Which reminds me of Elijah's wait for revelation. When God was not in the bustling storm, the mighty signs but the whispering wind.
In the plain words spoken simply and with no further explanation or light show. Nothing to aid in your belief, simply the opportunity to trust before the world falls into place.
The man whose son Jesus cured did better. But man, what a hard walk that must have been.
The thing is, I know exactly how desperate you are when you finally go to the holy man, to pray for the miracle you know is needed. Not the simple prayers for the best we send whenever we or those we love are in trouble, but when we know deep down in our bones and our souls that only a rewriting of the rules will save us or those we love most.
To be told to walk home? It'll be fine, just leave? No sign but those words.
Nothing magical or mystical or spiritual. Just the Word Incarnate, Speaking.
The faith and bravery that takes floors me. And I've balked at the absence of a similar miracle. The truth though, is that I only briefly had the courage for that kind of faith. I'm pretty sure in the dawn light I was certain once more that my father would die.
I don't know why God chooses the miracles He does. I've been angry for a very long time because I don't.
And all my life, I've been waiting for a big magical sign that makes everything clear. It was my purpose in life for awhile, it was my orientation, it was my faith in miracles and my calling and the life of someone I love.
But every time a big prayer like that has been answered, one way or another, every time my life has turned in the direction God intended and I did not foresee, it's been something simple sliding into place. A chat in a pool leading to serendipity, a well-timed email to the school that rejected me a few months beforehand, a walk home like a hundred before it (even if it was on a literal hilltop). A few words on the staircase I've haunted my whole life.
Which reminds me of Elijah's wait for revelation. When God was not in the bustling storm, the mighty signs but the whispering wind.
In the plain words spoken simply and with no further explanation or light show. Nothing to aid in your belief, simply the opportunity to trust before the world falls into place.
Sunday, 6 March 2016
You Don't Deserve a Person
I went on a tirade about this several years ago, and my friend Amanda cheerfully repeated the phrase at the crux of the argument, "You don't deserve a person."
At the time, it was about romantic relationships and reacting against "not good enough for her/him" arguments as well as people feeling entitled to reciprocation. I do believe that. You don't deserve a person. They want you back or they don't. Simple as that.
We don't deserve God's love.
We have it, but we didn't earn it.
Today, some parents insisted the contrary to me with the love of the students in my production. The thing is, I didn't have to. To my surprise last semester, girls flocked to the auditions for Julius Caesar. I talked a lot about the trust they offered me freely. I celebrated it.
It was much more like the love of God.
Don't get me wrong, I've worked hard and thought obsessively and opened my heart to them in order to be worthy of the trust and love they gave me. I've rewarded their trust. But I didn't pry it from them. I didn't build it piece by piece. One of the most remarkable things about this past year is not having to do that. Having the students give me the chance to skip the painstaking, slow steps of earning trust. And running as fast as I can to push them harder.
Perhaps that's why it's so easy to feel close to God's love and favor while working at IWA. Good work is acknowledged, but I was trust early. I was loved early. Before I realistically earned it. I've built on the foundation they offered me, just as I try to live my life as God would want me to.
But I didn't "earn" the love of God or my students. It was given as a free gift.
The prodigal son's brother wanted a check list. I will do these things, and then my father will love me. I will be an obsessively worthy son, and then he will trust and honor and love me.
All he had to do was exist.
The thing about it is, the reward for being good is the act of being good itself. The reward for staying in the Father's house all of your days and doing His work and foregoing more worldly excitements is always being in the Father's house and the joy of doing His work. It's not a checklist to get you to the Super Secret Special Level of Heaven.
The Kingdom of God is here now. The joy is the work.
At the time, it was about romantic relationships and reacting against "not good enough for her/him" arguments as well as people feeling entitled to reciprocation. I do believe that. You don't deserve a person. They want you back or they don't. Simple as that.
We don't deserve God's love.
We have it, but we didn't earn it.
Today, some parents insisted the contrary to me with the love of the students in my production. The thing is, I didn't have to. To my surprise last semester, girls flocked to the auditions for Julius Caesar. I talked a lot about the trust they offered me freely. I celebrated it.
It was much more like the love of God.
Don't get me wrong, I've worked hard and thought obsessively and opened my heart to them in order to be worthy of the trust and love they gave me. I've rewarded their trust. But I didn't pry it from them. I didn't build it piece by piece. One of the most remarkable things about this past year is not having to do that. Having the students give me the chance to skip the painstaking, slow steps of earning trust. And running as fast as I can to push them harder.
Perhaps that's why it's so easy to feel close to God's love and favor while working at IWA. Good work is acknowledged, but I was trust early. I was loved early. Before I realistically earned it. I've built on the foundation they offered me, just as I try to live my life as God would want me to.
But I didn't "earn" the love of God or my students. It was given as a free gift.
The prodigal son's brother wanted a check list. I will do these things, and then my father will love me. I will be an obsessively worthy son, and then he will trust and honor and love me.
All he had to do was exist.
The thing about it is, the reward for being good is the act of being good itself. The reward for staying in the Father's house all of your days and doing His work and foregoing more worldly excitements is always being in the Father's house and the joy of doing His work. It's not a checklist to get you to the Super Secret Special Level of Heaven.
The Kingdom of God is here now. The joy is the work.
Saturday, 5 March 2016
Realizing Your Problems
I admit, it took awhile to settle into any understanding of this gospel today. I'm in a very joyful place still, while also being entirely exhausted.
And I kept snagging at, "If you know you're a sinner, shouldn't you be doing something ABOUT it? Shouldn't you be at least asking for the strength and guidance to change your ways?"
In the end, I think that parts probably implied.
But is thanking God really so bad? Because I've been doing an awful lot of that. Not as pretentiously as the man in the story, but isn't that all a manner of degree?
And then I begin to wonder: if I'm always on about how prayer and Mass are about US, if they are for OUR benefit rather than God's...should prayer be more about what we are doing wrong than saying thank you? Thanks and praise are what gods who need US demand. Self-reflection and realization of faults, that's what God asks for.
Not a laundry list of blessings either desired or fulfilled. Painful, studious reflection on how we can be better people.
Maybe that's the real message of this parable -- not speaking against hypocrisy but simply showing us how to pray.
And I kept snagging at, "If you know you're a sinner, shouldn't you be doing something ABOUT it? Shouldn't you be at least asking for the strength and guidance to change your ways?"
In the end, I think that parts probably implied.
But is thanking God really so bad? Because I've been doing an awful lot of that. Not as pretentiously as the man in the story, but isn't that all a manner of degree?
And then I begin to wonder: if I'm always on about how prayer and Mass are about US, if they are for OUR benefit rather than God's...should prayer be more about what we are doing wrong than saying thank you? Thanks and praise are what gods who need US demand. Self-reflection and realization of faults, that's what God asks for.
Not a laundry list of blessings either desired or fulfilled. Painful, studious reflection on how we can be better people.
Maybe that's the real message of this parable -- not speaking against hypocrisy but simply showing us how to pray.
Friday, 4 March 2016
Doesn't Mean You Love God Any Less
An incredibly appreciative, responsive, and laughing audience just greeted my hard working Sound of Music girls, and I'm afraid I will struggle to talk about anything else. But I actually see quite a connection to today's gospel.
It's a new connection, and a much more joyful one. This morning, I read the gospel I chose for my father's funeral and let myself have a very short cry before the long day began. Tonight I'm ready to see very new things in the story.
With the help of Mother Abbess's gentle advice to Maria, "Just because you love this man doesn't mean you love God any less," I see a new element to the two commandments. Loving your neighbor as yourself in absolutely no way conflicts with loving God with all your heart, all your mind, and all your soul.
It's amazing how often Christians get this part confused. To think we must judge, condemn, exclude in the name of the purity of following God's commandments.
And it may be irreverent or at least less on point than the last comment, but I keep thinking that the cardinal rule of directing (at least the way I do it) is similar. Love the show with all of your heart, apply all of your mind to bringing every shade to light, and all of your soul (so the cast feels you loving it). And love your cast as you love yourself -- push them as you would want to be pushed, be gentle as you would want someone to be gentle, be fun as you long to laugh and have fun, and be as sure of yourself as you would want your director to be.
My cast loves each other, and we love the show together. The audience's love is tertiary to all of that, but it's so wonderful to share with them.
Perhaps that commandment is true in all things. All jobs. Love the work with all your heart, all your mind, and all your soul. Serve the cause with heart, mind, soul, time, and self. And love those you work with, those affected by it, and those on the periphery of it. Take them all into consideration when you make your plans. Serve everyone, just as you would want to be considered and served.
I've written about the musical this week not just because it's the main thing going on in my life, but because it really does make you want to love deeper. Love your family, love your cast, love God much truer and deeper. It's that kind of show. You want to go out and love more when you see it. And when you work on it?
It's so easy to love after a show like this. I hope this feeling never leaves. Loving anything means loving God. Loving anything means loving everything else more.
Love is meant to spread, and boy does it!
It's a new connection, and a much more joyful one. This morning, I read the gospel I chose for my father's funeral and let myself have a very short cry before the long day began. Tonight I'm ready to see very new things in the story.
With the help of Mother Abbess's gentle advice to Maria, "Just because you love this man doesn't mean you love God any less," I see a new element to the two commandments. Loving your neighbor as yourself in absolutely no way conflicts with loving God with all your heart, all your mind, and all your soul.
It's amazing how often Christians get this part confused. To think we must judge, condemn, exclude in the name of the purity of following God's commandments.
And it may be irreverent or at least less on point than the last comment, but I keep thinking that the cardinal rule of directing (at least the way I do it) is similar. Love the show with all of your heart, apply all of your mind to bringing every shade to light, and all of your soul (so the cast feels you loving it). And love your cast as you love yourself -- push them as you would want to be pushed, be gentle as you would want someone to be gentle, be fun as you long to laugh and have fun, and be as sure of yourself as you would want your director to be.
My cast loves each other, and we love the show together. The audience's love is tertiary to all of that, but it's so wonderful to share with them.
Perhaps that commandment is true in all things. All jobs. Love the work with all your heart, all your mind, and all your soul. Serve the cause with heart, mind, soul, time, and self. And love those you work with, those affected by it, and those on the periphery of it. Take them all into consideration when you make your plans. Serve everyone, just as you would want to be considered and served.
I've written about the musical this week not just because it's the main thing going on in my life, but because it really does make you want to love deeper. Love your family, love your cast, love God much truer and deeper. It's that kind of show. You want to go out and love more when you see it. And when you work on it?
It's so easy to love after a show like this. I hope this feeling never leaves. Loving anything means loving God. Loving anything means loving everything else more.
Love is meant to spread, and boy does it!
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