EZ 2: 2-5
Personal opinion: I doubt the Holy Spirit feels the same to everyone. I doubt the Holy Spirit works the same way for everyone.
But it's hard not to equate, for me, with the magic of the stage on a sick actor. My platonic example of this is my friend performing Shakespeare with the flu who would bound around the stage with tremendous athleticism then immediately curl up on a makeshift couch backstage. I've done it myself, it's a real thing that feels different from time to time. Like you're dumb determination is the thing that's gonna suddenly fail halfway through a scene to "Wow, I really didn't notice that I was injured until I hit the wings".
A lot of my students are enduring that.
And that's what struck me today from the readings. "As the Lord spoke to me, the spirit entered into me and set me on my feet."
There are any number of ways to do something like that. Ranging probably like the power of Showmanship (the collective kind) from "I can't believe I'm doing this and that it's working" to "Suddenly all of this is easy?"
I wonder how often we have the Spirit enter us and don't clock it because it's not the way we think of the Holy Spirit entering our lives directly? If we call it intuition or it seems hard to us, so we forget how petulant Jonah was all through the Nineveh story.
And I also wonder why I never realized the Holy Spirit is a theatre fan.
Saturday, 24 February 2018
Friday, 23 February 2018
Let it Go
2 Cor 12:7-10
IF grace is the thing that lifts you up, to where you are as elated as St. Paul knows it is dangerous for him to be, and also the thing that knocks you off your little pedestal, then perhaps there's another grace in this story that St. Paul didn't catch or didn't include here.
The grace that says, "Seriously, you're worrying about the shorting out projectors now? When you actors are doing such brilliant work? When your booth is surviving such craziness? When your auditorium is packed with people like it's never been and you are receiving glory from all around? You're choosing to be mad about camcorders and ruined lighting plots?"
Seriously, one angry thorn?
Did the fever drive me past my breaking point today? Or keep me from going too crazy over everything or keep me from being too elated at an acknowledged success?
It doesn't feel like a victory tonight, even if it should. To keep me from being too elated.
There's something so brokenly human about how I don't feel elated tonight.
IF grace is the thing that lifts you up, to where you are as elated as St. Paul knows it is dangerous for him to be, and also the thing that knocks you off your little pedestal, then perhaps there's another grace in this story that St. Paul didn't catch or didn't include here.
The grace that says, "Seriously, you're worrying about the shorting out projectors now? When you actors are doing such brilliant work? When your booth is surviving such craziness? When your auditorium is packed with people like it's never been and you are receiving glory from all around? You're choosing to be mad about camcorders and ruined lighting plots?"
Seriously, one angry thorn?
Did the fever drive me past my breaking point today? Or keep me from going too crazy over everything or keep me from being too elated at an acknowledged success?
It doesn't feel like a victory tonight, even if it should. To keep me from being too elated.
There's something so brokenly human about how I don't feel elated tonight.
Thursday, 22 February 2018
Follow the Hufflepuff Instincts
Today's blog post is redacted. It's too personal for even a only-technically public posting.
Wednesday, 21 February 2018
Then I Remember I Am Strong
2 Cor 12:7-10
I intended to meditate today (and for a good part of the day I did) on the difference between a holy person and a prophet. And how welcome one is wherever they go, even their hometown and perhaps hometown most of all, and how one empathetically is not. At least not usually. The daily mass reading was even Jonah and Nineveh, bucking the trend and annoying the prophet.
But the end of today illuminated something about the elusive St. Paul's thesis.
Toward the end of today a couple of things went wrong in rehearsal. Big things, like dinner being almost an hour and a half late...and accidentally telling them that the food was there 45 minute before it arrived and having to settle their instinct to riot...yeah, I literally had to calm a riot today.
I did it by standing on a chair above them and singing the first lines of "La Vie Boheme" then "Story of Tonight"...and then the riot became a shout-sing old musicals a capella time. It was still 20 minutes until I could corrale them back to work but...I could sense my moment. I knew them. I knew them as a crowd and as individuals. I realized I remembered I can read them.
Sympathetic parents offered help because they could see me struggling. Kind parents who are fellow teachers made a point of telling me how much their children love me and how they could tell I was doing a good job with the crew from watching.
People don't have to remind you you're a good teacher when you feel like one.
The most impressive teaching moments don't happen on perfect, smooth, organized days.
When I am weak, then I am reminded I am strong.
I intended to meditate today (and for a good part of the day I did) on the difference between a holy person and a prophet. And how welcome one is wherever they go, even their hometown and perhaps hometown most of all, and how one empathetically is not. At least not usually. The daily mass reading was even Jonah and Nineveh, bucking the trend and annoying the prophet.
But the end of today illuminated something about the elusive St. Paul's thesis.
Toward the end of today a couple of things went wrong in rehearsal. Big things, like dinner being almost an hour and a half late...and accidentally telling them that the food was there 45 minute before it arrived and having to settle their instinct to riot...yeah, I literally had to calm a riot today.
I did it by standing on a chair above them and singing the first lines of "La Vie Boheme" then "Story of Tonight"...and then the riot became a shout-sing old musicals a capella time. It was still 20 minutes until I could corrale them back to work but...I could sense my moment. I knew them. I knew them as a crowd and as individuals. I realized I remembered I can read them.
Sympathetic parents offered help because they could see me struggling. Kind parents who are fellow teachers made a point of telling me how much their children love me and how they could tell I was doing a good job with the crew from watching.
People don't have to remind you you're a good teacher when you feel like one.
The most impressive teaching moments don't happen on perfect, smooth, organized days.
When I am weak, then I am reminded I am strong.
Tuesday, 20 February 2018
Remembering Katherine Drexel
Mark 6:1-6
Whenever I think about this gospel story, I think about St. Katherine Drexel. The hometown (ish) saint. The saint whose foundation board my mother sits on. The saint who walked in halls I've walked.
The kind of thing that's not supposed to happen. Not really. People go on pilgrimages for things like that.
Seriously, people who live in Siena, who live on the same street as St. Catherine of Siena, that might doctor of the church...just like...their neighborhood...
I understand Nazareth's reaction to a living saint because even to a dead saint...
I'm directing a show about fairy tales. The kinds of stories that don't happen where real people live. The kinds of stories that happen once upon a time in a faraway kingdom.
I think we have to work not to think of prophets and saints that way. What is it to live in Lourdes or Fatima? Not to visit, but to be born into a place where the Virgin Mary appeared to holy children? To places where people found direct lines to God?
What would it mean to live next door to a prophet? To a living saint?
It throws even the best-lived ordinary life into rather harsh relief. I understand why Jesus was rejected by Nazareth. It's so much easier than dealing with the Son of God as the kid you grew up with.
It begs the question why you aren't better. Why you aren't holier. Why you don't feel closer to God.
Why you aren't the saint. Like the woman who lives down the street.
Whenever I think about this gospel story, I think about St. Katherine Drexel. The hometown (ish) saint. The saint whose foundation board my mother sits on. The saint who walked in halls I've walked.
The kind of thing that's not supposed to happen. Not really. People go on pilgrimages for things like that.
Seriously, people who live in Siena, who live on the same street as St. Catherine of Siena, that might doctor of the church...just like...their neighborhood...
I understand Nazareth's reaction to a living saint because even to a dead saint...
I'm directing a show about fairy tales. The kinds of stories that don't happen where real people live. The kinds of stories that happen once upon a time in a faraway kingdom.
I think we have to work not to think of prophets and saints that way. What is it to live in Lourdes or Fatima? Not to visit, but to be born into a place where the Virgin Mary appeared to holy children? To places where people found direct lines to God?
What would it mean to live next door to a prophet? To a living saint?
It throws even the best-lived ordinary life into rather harsh relief. I understand why Jesus was rejected by Nazareth. It's so much easier than dealing with the Son of God as the kid you grew up with.
It begs the question why you aren't better. Why you aren't holier. Why you don't feel closer to God.
Why you aren't the saint. Like the woman who lives down the street.
Monday, 19 February 2018
The Shepherd's Rod
Psalm 123
The psalm for the Sunday of the coming ACTS retreat feels like the other side of Psalm 23, "The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want." I love the musical version sung at most funerals and occasionally at Mass.
Psalm 123
Shepherd me, O God, beyond my wants, from death into life.
This psalm, exactly one hundred later, is also about looking to God, all powerful God, our Lord and Master. Watching Him for when punishment might descend. However deserved, this is about fear of God.
"As the eyes of the servant are on the hands of their masters."
Looking for if the master will strike a blow. Pleading for mercy and deliverance.
That's the other side of believing that prayer has tangible change in the physical world. A believe you can't help having under duress. Because it means the terrible things you are afraid will happen...you're watching the Hand of God, watching to see if it will descend. Like a servant -- powerless to stop it, probably deserving it, not sure if the master will be kind and forgiving or strike.
The Lord is my shepherd, and as He guides me, sometimes He pushes me down.
The other side of grace. The side that knocks you flat when you're getting too puffed up. It's the same grace that bolsters you when you're low.
It's the grace that St. Paul is talking about too. The kind that keeps you from growing too elated and proud and insufferable in your righteousness. From overcorrecting to a new kind of sin.
The gentle guidance in your hardest times is the same grace that knocks you flat when you've been soaring so long you are starting to forget those you're passing by.
The psalm for the Sunday of the coming ACTS retreat feels like the other side of Psalm 23, "The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want." I love the musical version sung at most funerals and occasionally at Mass.
Psalm 123
Shepherd me, O God, beyond my wants, from death into life.
This psalm, exactly one hundred later, is also about looking to God, all powerful God, our Lord and Master. Watching Him for when punishment might descend. However deserved, this is about fear of God.
"As the eyes of the servant are on the hands of their masters."
Looking for if the master will strike a blow. Pleading for mercy and deliverance.
That's the other side of believing that prayer has tangible change in the physical world. A believe you can't help having under duress. Because it means the terrible things you are afraid will happen...you're watching the Hand of God, watching to see if it will descend. Like a servant -- powerless to stop it, probably deserving it, not sure if the master will be kind and forgiving or strike.
The Lord is my shepherd, and as He guides me, sometimes He pushes me down.
The other side of grace. The side that knocks you flat when you're getting too puffed up. It's the same grace that bolsters you when you're low.
It's the grace that St. Paul is talking about too. The kind that keeps you from growing too elated and proud and insufferable in your righteousness. From overcorrecting to a new kind of sin.
The gentle guidance in your hardest times is the same grace that knocks you flat when you've been soaring so long you are starting to forget those you're passing by.
Sunday, 18 February 2018
Ez 2:25
"And whether they heed or resist -- for they are a rebellious house -- they shall know that a prophet has been among them."
That's...I'm trying really hard to get my head around that.
I guess I assumed the problem when people don't listen to prophets is their ability to deny that, well, that they are prophets. That challenging the base credibility of someone claiming a direct line to God is the first order of business when you don't like what they're saying. I mean, it's not all that hard to do, attacking the credibility of someone like that.
But do we know? Do we always know, when a prophet has been among us?
Can we sense the people who speak with a direct line to God or as close as we come?
I can't really wrap my head around knowing someone is from God and not listening to them. I see that it's true. I see that it must happen all the time...but again, I always assumed that that was because people were challenging the premise -- that that prophet is from God.
Heaven knows that's what I have to do when I don't like what I'm hearing from a spiritual authority. I go find other authorities and declare them the prophets. I'm not saying I always get it right or my way is better.
But to say, "Yes, that's God's will" and then toss the person out?
By and large my sins are sins of thoughtlessness. Which is worse in some ways because at least I'd be thinking of other people if I actively wished them harm. Because you can attack those lines of thought.
And now I'm hearing a friend in my head who recently asked for the link to this blog. So if you come up with any clever systems to make me more aware of other people, by all means let me know.
It's not that I'm any better than the people who know they have met a prophet and still rebel. After all, I'm the one who's more likely to run that prophet out of town in a swell of self-righteous frenzy.
"And whether they heed or resist -- for they are a rebellious house -- they shall know that a prophet has been among them."
That's...I'm trying really hard to get my head around that.
I guess I assumed the problem when people don't listen to prophets is their ability to deny that, well, that they are prophets. That challenging the base credibility of someone claiming a direct line to God is the first order of business when you don't like what they're saying. I mean, it's not all that hard to do, attacking the credibility of someone like that.
But do we know? Do we always know, when a prophet has been among us?
Can we sense the people who speak with a direct line to God or as close as we come?
I can't really wrap my head around knowing someone is from God and not listening to them. I see that it's true. I see that it must happen all the time...but again, I always assumed that that was because people were challenging the premise -- that that prophet is from God.
Heaven knows that's what I have to do when I don't like what I'm hearing from a spiritual authority. I go find other authorities and declare them the prophets. I'm not saying I always get it right or my way is better.
But to say, "Yes, that's God's will" and then toss the person out?
By and large my sins are sins of thoughtlessness. Which is worse in some ways because at least I'd be thinking of other people if I actively wished them harm. Because you can attack those lines of thought.
And now I'm hearing a friend in my head who recently asked for the link to this blog. So if you come up with any clever systems to make me more aware of other people, by all means let me know.
It's not that I'm any better than the people who know they have met a prophet and still rebel. After all, I'm the one who's more likely to run that prophet out of town in a swell of self-righteous frenzy.
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