Luke Skywalker and the Spiritual Life

You've heard it said many times, "Seeing is believing." But in the walk of faith, in the realm of the spiritual life (which always envelops and permeates our physical life) the opposite is actually true: "Believing is seeing."

Don't believe me? Stay tuned!

Two weeks ago we heard in Sunday's reading about Abraham's walk of absolute trust. "Go forth to a land that I will show you." In other words, Abraham didn't see it.... yet. And neither do we see this Promised Land... yet. Though we're told the Kingdom of God is among us, and within us, can you put your finger in it? Can you place your hand in its side? Not exactly. But faith can. 

Faith is like Superman's x-ray vision. The only thing blocking its power to "see through" things and events is human pride and self-righteousness. That's our Kryptonite. Our blind spot in the spiritual drive. 

The best things happen when we trust in the dark. When we can't see around the corner. Luke Skywalker closed his eyes before he dropped that photon torpedo that destroyed the Death Star. Elliot closed his eyes and trusted E.T. knew the way home in that classic bike chase, and the two of them suddenly flew over rooftops to freedom just when all seemed lost! Hawkeye's fateful leap through the waterfall into darkness in The Last of the Mohicans seemed utterly foolish but it proved the right thing to do at just the right time. The Indigo Girls sing "It's in our blind trust that Love will find us, just like it has before..."

There is a blind man in this Sunday's gospel. Jesus says it isn't his fault, or his parents fault. As Forrest Gump once said, "It happens." Suffering can blind us, but at the same time, it can give us a deeper vision of life. It's the suffering of the blind man that drew Christ in, after all. Maybe we need to look to those blind spots in our own lives. The tangled webs of our mistakes, the knots of confusion that we can't see a way of unravelling. Don't solutions often come after a good night's sleep.... in darkness? Maybe we should approach these mysteries with eyes closed in faith. The singer-songwriter Nicole Nordeman once sang "Maybe I'd see much better by closing my eyes."

Sometimes it seems God has to do the closing for us to teach us to see in the dark; to see with faith. I don't know why but I've been in the dark and I know it's true. The Pharisees were the only blind people Jesus couldn't cure. They believed they had eyes full of light, full of the Law. Turns out they were full of something else. The problem was their eyes were so full of their own reflection of holiness there was no room for anything else! 

When Luke Skywalker was learning the "Ways of the Force" Obi Wan challenged him to go blind and gave him a helmet. "But with the blast shield down, how am I supposed to see!" he whines. "Trust your feelings Luke! Use the Force!" That's pretty good advice this Lent. But our Master says, "Use your faith!" 

The Golden Sea

"Tell me how many songs that I must sing before I can see you in your glory, hear your whole entire story, bathe inside your golden, golden sea?"

- Trevor Hall

I realize you just read the above quoted lyric, and maybe you liked it. I ask you to please read it again, and drink it in slow like hot, honeyed tea. Go ahead... It's delicious, isn't it? The song is 31 Flavors by Trevor Hall and is one of my favorite hymns to love. I discovered his music through one of my senior students last year - thanks Tosti!

So now.... give yourself a minute to ponder this: How many people do you really know on Planet Earth? I don't mean know about, or have encountered in your travels, or clicked "confirm friend" with on Facebook. I mean face to face, heart to heart, soul to soul friends.

How many people do we really know, deep down, to the core, and to the point of practically being able to finish their thoughts for them, predict their actions, read their hearts, swim in their golden, golden sea of experiences? Is it one? Two?

The only soul I can honestly say I know on that intimate, almost spousal level, is... well, my spouse.

As we approach our 7th wedding anniversary (just three weeks away), I've been thinking of her more and more. I mean really thinking of her. This whole marriage thing is pretty earth-shattering you know. What a blindingly brilliant thing it is to be able to say to another human being, "Come in..... look around. The place is yours." What a crazy thing it is to say to another person, (you with all of your sins and weaknesses, they with theirs) "Let's become One. I give you sovereignty here. I turn over the key. What's mine is yours and what's yours, I ask of you, let it be mine."

I am convinced that God gave us marriage as an aid or a preparation for Something More, Something Big. Namely, HIS entrance into the human heart, and our hearts entrance into the Communion of Saints in Heaven some day. Marriage is a "school of love" and a fertile field where the fruits reach high, "so high that I can almost see eternity" (that's Anne Murray by the way, not Trevor Hall). But to plant Heaven's seed you need to dig up that soil, scour those fields, remove the rocks and old roots of selfishness and greed and ego. Marriage is farming the fields.

We all speak of a forever love too. We want it to spread wings big enough to escape the fields of earth, of the gravity of time and death. We want to soar. But we know simultaneously that even as it soars, "at death do we part." As wonderful as my marriage has been these past seven years, I know it's not the be all and end all of my existence. We don't exactly "complete each other" - what human being could really do that for another? The sooner couples realize this the healthier the union will be! A certain debilitating pressure comes off the shoulders. Who is the ultimate Bridegroom after all? It sure ain't this Jersey boy. And who is the spotless Bride of Revelation, the wife of the Lamb? I say Rebecca is a close second ;)


And I would lay down and die
For one glimpse of those open eyes
How am I to describe
The one who holds the Sun's Fire

Earthly marriage is a foretaste of a Heavenly one. "The Spirit and the Bride say 'Come, Lord Jesus!'" The Immaculate Daughter of Jerusalem and the reflection of the Son's Fire in her eyes is what I see in Rebecca. And I can only hope she sees the Fire of the Son in me. Therein lies the daily work of marriage! What she shines with is more than her own making. In fact, when she shines brightest is when she is outside of herself - transparent in her mothering of our son, of her nieces and nephews, caring for those marginalized, the poor, the lonely and abandoned, and in her patient love and support of me, inspiring me, serving me in so many thoughtful ways throughout the day, always thinking of me. She shines with a "heavenly" light, like stained glass.

So there's joy and struggle and effort and grace as we share in swimming this "golden golden sea" of married love. And it's a beautiful opening hymn to the Communion of Saints that's coming! Maybe it takes us to the sea's horizon in this world, and then the veil lifts, to a Blessed Realm. Then the ultimate Marriage begins! Then we shall know and be known, we shall see and be seen, and we shall "hear our whole entire story, and bathe inside His golden, golden sea"  forever...

The End is Here!

How many times have we seen a movie or a TV show with the iconic "crazy" person on a street corner wearing a placard with "The End is Near" scribbled on it? And how many times have we quickly dismissed that person as extreme, ludicrous, ultimately sad? But have you ever gotten the itch that invites you to scratch and see below the surface? What if it was true?

It seems Hollywood has the itch.... really bad. She can't make the budgets big enough for these gloom and doom dramas about the End of All Things, from Armageddon and Deep Impact to The Day After Tomorrow and last weekend's latest installment "2012."

The box office seems to be saying something as well; people love it. People want to see it. It may be out of a morbid desire to see historic landmarks crumple under a 900 foot tsunami, but behind that, I think there's a bit of good 'ole fashioned Catholic spirituality at work.

Memento mori, as the saying goes. "Remember death."

As creepy as it sounds, we're invited to reflect on our death many times throughout the liturgical year. We're actually entering into the season for this right now. Advent is beginning, and it is more than just a glance backwards to the Birth of Jesus two thousand years ago. It's a glance to the future, to the End, when we believe He will return. This story, History, will indeed end... and simultaneously.... begin.

The readings from this week's Mass matched up quite perfectly with the debut of "2012." (I wonder if Hollywood was reading the lectionary?)

Jesus said to his disciples: "In those days after that tribulation the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will be falling from the sky, and the powers in the heavens will be shaken. And then they will see 'the Son of Man coming in the clouds' with great power and glory, and then he will send out the angels and gather his elect from the four winds, from the end of the earth to the end of the sky.

- Mark 13:24-32

The twist however is that Christians look to this End with, now get this, joyful expectancy. "Lift up your heads, Scripture tells us, for your redemption is near at hand!" Now this doesn't mean we sit around with hands up high like kids waiting for Daddy to pick them up and take them to his warm chest and carry them home. (Although that sounds like the orans position of prayer and a great way to live to me!) It means we keep our feet on the ground and keep working. And we whistle while we work, too, like little dwarves, keeping the Palace of our hearts clean for the arrival of our King and Queen. St. Francis was once approached by a nervous brother friar, who was a bit stressed about the End and perhaps more so, about his conscience. Francis looked up from the patch of earth he was tending in the garden. "Brother Francis, what if our dear Savior were to return this very day. What would you do!"

"I would keep gardening, until He found me" smiled the saint. Now that's peace.

For the believer, the End is not at some remote or proximate point, not a number like 2012, or 3012 for that matter. The End is... here, now. The Kingdom of God is within you, here, now. It is already, and not yet. All of the world that we see is simply a veil pulled over the Eternal Now where God abides. Why should we be afraid?

Can the unborn child in its dark and watery womb imagine the vibrant life that moves about just past that veil of mommy's flesh? Can it be so near and yet seem so distant? Perhaps our End is closer than we think. Maybe our true birthday is about to begin, as it has for the saints. Their death is remembered as their feast day, their birthday into Eternal Life.

In the meantime, as we close off another liturgical year, and step closer to 2010, 2011, and 2012 (wink wink), let's not panic, let's pray.... and keep smiling, with our heads and hands busy in the garden of this world, preparing a harvest of good deeds and much love for the World to come.

God "Loves" Me?

GOD.

Simply saying this three letter word can conjure up different thoughts for different people these days. Thoughts that perhaps are hard to wrap our heads around, let alone our arms: A Bright Light, billowing clouds, a booming disembodied voice, a Force that is distant and yet somehow accessible, or even a kind of Cosmic Grandpa who some say actually hears us through a thing called prayer.

For others today, the word GOD seems small, antiquated, and irrelevant. Hasn't science disproved all that supernatural stuff? "We've evolved as a species and feel it no longer necessary to have a psychological crutch like GOD to get us through this life."

Finally, for others, (and this one perplexes the unbeliever to no end) GOD is as close and intimate and personal as, well, a person. God, they say, is above all a Lover, in fact, and He is crazy about us measly humans! So crazy that He came among us and has now and forevermore, a human face, a human heart! These folks believe Divinity married humanity in Jesus, forever.

Our first experience of God is so important, we either experience Him as the police guard that wants to punish or as Creative Love that awaits. - Pope Benedict XVI

I think in our American culture, so focused on ME that we too often forget about the OTHER, the idea of an objectively real and personal God somehow feels like an affront to our freedom, our reason, and individuality. God? Oh, right. Him again? The Big Landlord? Believing in Him means joining the rank and file and stifling the fun. It means losing your spontaneity and intellectual freedom because every Sunday you have to blindly "pay the rent." Or pay for "fire insurance," as some glibly joke. But this is ridiculously simplistic.

In our deepest being we all know that we were not made for laws. We were made for love.

I think this fear of losing ourselves in a love relationship with God is actually keeping us from true freedom. After all, when we close the door to the transcendent, we fail to become fully human. A caged, clipped bird can forget it was designed to fly.

Humans by nature are religious beings, made for the Infinite, made for the Bottomless Mystery of a God Who loves us. We have a longing for this unending love, truth, and a beauty that does not fade. Need proof? Just listen to your own heart's desires! (or the music of Journey or Foreigner, heh heh). We long to give ourselves to the Infinite, to lose ourselves in Love, but when we close our minds to the idea of it being really real, transcendent, responsive, immanent through grace, then we clip our own wings. Consequently, we discover that we cannot give ourselves fully to anyone.

“Once God is forgotten... the creature itself grows unintelligible.”

- Gaudium et Spes

When we deny or dismiss the Infinite as unreal or irrelevant, we end up eventually stagnating in a pool of boredom. or narcissism, or egocentrism. What is the meaning of life if the source of that Life is dead? We then fall back on ourselves, but without the real power to love, to get beyond ourselves, to transcend. Then we settle on giving part of our hearts but not all, or worse, we go through relationships grasping instead of trusting that love will be given to us.

So where is the truth that will set us free? How can we know if God is real, and really loves me? Read Scripture.

When we're quiet and alone with that book, we can get some pretty deep thoughts. You might even catch a thought like the one Augustine whispered to himself way back in the 4th century when he cracked open the Scriptures. "The deepest desire of my heart is to see another and to be seen by the Other." Is God Love? Is it just Law? Well, ask God. Let Him in, and you'll discover you have an infinite capacity for Him. And if God is truly a Person, a Communion of Persons, in fact, then how else could we actually know Him unless we let Him into the heart? I don't think my way through relationships with people, I don't reason out the issues at stake, mentally prep myself to fall in love. "On September 24, 2009 at precisely 9:37am I will fall in love." No, I reach out and speak words. I open the mind and let down the guard a bit with the one standing before me. I listen, wait, gaze long and let myself be looked upon. That look builds a relationship. Why should this be any different with God?

Prayer can progress, as a genuine dialogue of love, to the point of rendering the person wholly possessed by the divine Beloved, vibrating at the Spirit's touch, resting filially within the Father's heart. This is the lived experience of Christ's promise: "He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him."

- Pope John Paul II, Novo Millennio Ineunte 33

___________________________

Originally published in The Publican

This Week's Mission Moment - August 24, 2009

Bad times make good people, as mountainous pressures make diamonds or as fire tempers steel. - Dr. Peter Kreeft

Get On

Oh this is a poor poor translation of the gift of the man Dave Wilcox and his music.... but behold, through the scratchy, smooshed up digitization of YouTube.... pure gold. I'm using this song for the retreat this weekend in Connecticut. The lyrics are key for so many of us, torn between the war of heart and mind...

...right now I only wish I knew Where all of this is leading to I'm working up the courage As I stand here with your hand in mine And I'm running out of time And my heart says, C'mon let's go And my mind's saying, I don't know And the train is at the station But I'm lost in contemplation And this ticket's only good for just so long I can think about it 'til that train is gone Or just get on

Happy Dependence Day!

I think "independence" is overrated. Seriously. So we can vote, drive, use ATMs, and pick up an assortment of wine coolers at the Quickie Mart without question. Big deal! This independence thing has gotten a lot of us grownups into heaps of trouble, by the way.

I think we independent adults could learn a lot from the little ones here. We have a 10 month old baby boy, and he is radically dependent on us, his parents. He has no worries. No car payments. No mortgage. No meetings, no consequences (until the age of reason of course), and no one cares if he toots in public. In fact, we all think it's cute. Everything is cute. He is driven, coddled, cared for 24/7. We carry him, change him, feed him, and all he has to do is LET US DO THIS FOR HIM. In other words, be dependent on us.... Let us love him... Receive the gifts of his father and mother and just wallow in their superfluous care. Is anybody thinking what I'm thinking?

This radical "dependence" is the way to go! So I hereby declare this Sunday, the 5th of July.... Dependence Day! Dependence on Our Father Who Art in Heaven for everything. Dependence on our Blessed Mother Mary's care, who too was and is the model of dependence on the Father. Let us let them carry, coddle, and care for us in our deepest needs this day.

Isn't this the goal of freedom anyway? It's not a gift to be squandered on ourselves, but one to be given back in trust. I love you is ultimately to say "I am lying helpless in your arms. I depend on you. Have your way with me." Paradoxically, becoming dependent on God is what "liberates" us! The more I receive from Him, the more I depend on Him, the more I can give to my wife and son and the micro-world of persons I encounter in my daily walk. So Happy Dependence Day to all! Dependence on the One from Whom all Freedom flows!

Sea and Believe

I love the ocean. It helps me believe in things much larger than me. Transcendent things, eternal things; Beauty, Peace, The Oneness. Ultimately... God. Standing before the sea this morning, here in cloudy/sunny Sea Isle City, I had a physical encounter with a spiritual truth. The sea became a channel of grace. And that's the definition of a sacrament, in a very broad sense. I wasn't alone either. Other daily communicants were gathering for this celebration of the sun, rising in benediction over the new day. Does this sound scandalous? Let's recall that the world was God's first church, or Temple, as the Hebrews saw it. In the beginning, we were all priestly in our vocation of praise and worship to the One Who fashioned it all from nothing. We've spent two nights here and are leaving soon. So I had my farewell coffee sitting in the sand, while Rebecca and the wee lad slept. I snapped this picture with the phone, then just stared and listened for a while as the slow, rhythmic beat of the heart of the sea came into me. Ponderings... Who was the first ancient soul to build a craft and seek to cross this watery road to the world's edge? That took some guts. What is it about the lapping up of water on sand, endlessly, that stirs me, invites me, into endless peace? I truly believe we're drawn to the sea because God is still speaking through it; His first sacramental encounter with us. He sings through it's salty symphony, He shines in the sun!

The Sway, the Truth, and the Life

I think when Future Bill looks back on the small number of posts that went up for January and February of 2009, he'll be smiling. Smiling because every long stretch of postless days meant the time was wasted on his family. Yes! Wasted. Spilled out like a precious ointment on the feet of his beloved wife and son! Those were the days of grace; of Grace, and the Boy Wonder to be exact. I've written before about the mysterious powers that a child unlocks in a father's heart, powers that lay dormant like seeds awaiting the water of life. Well, they keep coming. I feel like the Greatest American Hero, Ralph Hinkley. Remember that show? In the series, he was given a "super suit" but lost the Instruction Manual in the desert. The series moved along and Ralph just had to discover how it all worked. Some episodes had him getting the knack of flying down a bit better, one show had him learn how to become invisible. Pretty cool stuff. I've already mastered invisibility.... it's called "peekaboo!" Yes, every day is an adventure, and every day Rebecca and I are absolutely blown away by the mystery of this little boy. We're captivated by his smile, the way his face lights up when we look at him, when I come home from work, when he looks around at Sunday Mass at all the faces, and the stained glass, and the marble columns. And how his eyes flash at the sound of the altar bells when Jesus is coming. A few weeks back, at Mass, I was holding the wee lad, and found myself... swaying. Finally, swaying. Ahead of me, a young couple stood, friends of ours, each holding a child, and swaying. And ahead of them, yet another woman, swaying. Like a forest of trees caught up in a great wind, there we were. Mommies and daddies, caught up in the Wind of the Spirit of Life. For years this sight caused a deep pain in our hearts, and now suddenly, we've entered into the Dance... into the Sway, the Truth, and the Life that God wishes all of us to enjoy. It gives me pause to consider those still waiting, still hoping for the gift of children or of the gift of a spouse to build a life with, and to share a life with too. These are words and experiences to deep for tears. All I can do is hold and treasure this life, appreciating the utter gratuitousness of it all. Everything is a gift, everything is a grace. The way to begin healing the wounds of the world is to treasure the Infant Christ in us; to be not the castle but the cradle of Christ; and, in rocking that cradle to the rhythm of love, to swing the whole world back into the beat of the Music of Eternal Life. - Caryll Houselander

“Where Are You?”

It’s one of the perennial questions we ask ourselves throughout the whole of life, as we live and sweat and work out our salvation, both as individuals and as a human family – “Where am I? Where are we?” We look into the deep pool of our human experience (again, as individuals and as a human family), and we hope that we find an answer in our reflection. We hope that we are where we are “supposed to be.” We hope we are happy, at peace, at home with ourselves. Too often, though, we discover that we are exiles. We are, for all of our efforts at settling down, strangers in a strange land. Nomads…. homo viator – man on the journey. How did it come to this? When we look to the book of Genesis we find the answer, and we discover the golden key to finding our way back home as well. God’s plan from the beginning was that we find our home in His Heart – that we find our peace in His Will. That Will, that Eternal Heart, is the model for every person, every family, and every home; it’s a will and a heart for others, for a community of Love and Communion. A place where there is a vibrant exchange of self-giving that moves always in the perfection of the circle. This Love is the dance, the whirlwind that feeds the Other and at the same time is fed by the Love of that Other. God laid out the blueprint for this Dynamic of Love in the Garden of Eden. To the first man and the first woman, created naked in a garden paradise, He spoke the first commandment – “Be fruitful and multiply!” (Notice the lack of any thou shalt not ’s in this directive, by the way). This command is a joy-filled call to Love as God loves! It has the same ring to our ears as that first word given after a bride and groom pledge their love at the altar – “Kiss the bride!” This call to be fruitful and multiply, to give and receive each other completely as a gift, holds within it the key to the question “Where am I?” The answer is, or should be, I am in You. And you are in me. Isn’t this the last wish of the true Bridegroom before He laid down His love on the altar of the Cross for us? “As the Father has loved me, so I love you. Live on in my love.” Our founding father and mother, Adam and Eve, were invited into this dance of self-giving love. But through fear and mistrust, or pride and a grasping at self-autonomy, they failed to step to that Rhythm, to let go and let God take them up and away. After the fall, Genesis tells us, they cover up in shame the very signs of that self-giving love that God called them too, stamped right into their bodies. And through fear, they hide from God. Times are hard, and suffering comes in varied forms for us all. We wonder where we are, where we've been, where we're going. We often retreat to the shadows in our minds, shadows made darker by the abuse of power around us, or by the failure of love to save us. We question God. "Where are You?" I wonder though if the question is misdirected. Has He moved, or been removed by our lack of faith? In Genesis, the first question God asks our first parents after they betray Him is "Where are You?" It is not for His sake that He asks, for He sees all. God asks the question for them, huddled in the dark, so that they can speak it to themselves and step out into the Light again. "Where am I?" Adam and Eve unveil their fear as a reason for hiding from God. Is it fear that locks us in today? Fear in its many splintered forms? Speak it. Step out and make it known. His mercy pours forth in Genesis 3:15, for He is a Loving Father, and we are promised a Redeemer. What door will open for us today, if we just take the time to ask this question of questions? Perhaps opening up to the question will lead us back into the Answer, into that Circle of Love again, that Garden enclosed? For perfect love casts out all fear... and in love we find our way home.

Our Amazing Grace

I've shared about our story of adoption, both with our baby boy (so new and so beloved to us), and of our little ones over the last few years, 12 of whom went to God before ever seeing the light of day. I'm so happy to say that, for a short while, Little 13 saw that light. Baby Grace Elizabeth came to us early on Sunday, the feast of the Epiphany and of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton (we think Gracie planned it that way). We waited, praying, while the c-section proceeded. Someone sneezed and we all whispered "God bless you." And the doctor said "That was Grace." What a way to come into the world! Blessed in her very first seconds. She cried and squeezed our fingers, she turned her fragile head towards the light more than once. I baptized her with water from a tiny cup and we prayed, not knowing how long she would live in her condition. Then she fought for 10 hours before going back to God. She gave up her spirit just after the Angelus bells at 6pm. For how this day unfolded in the plan of Our Father, we could not have asked for more. We had the tremendous blessing of family, grandparents, uncles, aunts, and cousins around her, hugging and kissing her all day. Photographs and videos were taken, our pastor came and blessed her, and a dear friend from Maryland came too; he and his wife having lost their own precious daughter at birth, and truly knowing our pain. We sang "Amazing Grace," we prayed together, and Gracie met her big brother too. We wept, wishing she could stay, but at the end of the day we had a sense that she was going. Family left the room after saying their goodbyes, (over 20 people who had shared time with Grace), and then in our dimly lit room, Rebecca, S., Grace and I huddled up. We kissed her and sang hymns, and prayed some more. S. rested peacefully beside his sister for an hour, allowing his parents the grace to cherish every breath Grace took. For an hour, a holy hour, we kept vigil. And then she went home, and now she is whole. We are so thankful for all of the prayers of people near and far. Messages have come literally from all over. What does this mean? That life is precious, that one little life so fragile and so fair as Grace's can have such an impact on our hearts. Grace Elizabeth lived just 10 hours but filled our hearts with enough memories for a lifetime. Every little move she made was magic. We have truly felt "carried" this week by so much love and support. So now, from the hospital, we're just resting, reflecting, and praying. God has been with us at the foot of this Cross; on it in fact with Grace, we believe. We prayed for one miracle and got so much more.... "grace upon grace." Grace Elizabeth Donaghy Born - January 4, 2009, 8:04am Died - January 4, 2009, 6:08pm Baptized, Beloved, and Beautiful. We will NEVER forget you, our little saint. Rest now in your Father's arms. Love you forever, Mommy, Daddy, and your big brother S. "Every human life is sacred, because every human person is sacred."

- Pope John Paul II ________________________ Read all the posts on Grace's Story Listen to Rebecca's Song for Grace Embryo Adoption Amazing Grace

The Forest for the Trees

The other day at school, one of the theology teachers was trying to determine an answer on a crossword puzzle that his students were given in class. The question was “What is the fundamental norm of Christian morality and the fullness of the law.” The answer had 5 letters, the second to the last letter was "u." _ _ _ u _ Now there were a few of us in the department hanging around St. Rita's before class, and we all puzzled over it. We laughed, because no one could figure it out. A combined mass of Masters degrees in Philosophy, Systematic Theology, Church History, etc. Clueless! How the heck are the kids gonna get this if we can't? This got me thinking about how often we scramble and scratch and work incessantly to get an answer for the blank spaces in life. And we feel so limited. It's just a couple of blanks! How could we not guess the answer? Why won't this word fit, or this one? The book must be wrong. It's a typo. It's impossible! I think all of the questions we have ultimately have one Answer, but we think it can't possibly be that simple. And yet it is. The answer was Jesus. Ouch.

We Are Not Alone

Think of the time and energy and the amount of funding that's been poured into the SETI program every year (that's the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence). Think of the fascination, the Sehnsucht, we've all felt at one point in life or another when watching a film like E.T. or Close Encounters or even Star Wars... Haven't we all cried out to the "universe" at some point in life in the words of that classic James Ingram/Linda Ronstadt song "Somewhere out there, someone's saying a prayer, that we'll find one another.... in that big Somewhere... out there." (I'm really hoping you sang as you read that last line, and I hope it sticks in your head all day. Great song.) There's a deep seated desire in many of us to seek friends in high places, to ascertain whether or not we are alone in this universe. They say there's no desire (outside the twisted kind) that does not have its object somewhere to satiate it. It makes sense for us to look up and wonder about the presence of "higher" life forms. After all, when we look down we see myriads of life forms; a plethora of pulsating polycellular organisms. Millions of species in countless shapes and sizes. So who are we to say that above us in the Great Chain of Being there are not also countless species? To this question and this quest, the Church says there is an answer; Angels. They are real, they are here, but not in the same way we are here. They are our true Big Brothers. Well, not brothers (or sisters) ultimately; they are not embodied as we humans. They are as high above the biological realm, male and female, as we are above single-celled organisms; higher actually. Haven't you sensed them in your life? Perhaps in more innocent moments, when you were "fresh from the waters of Baptism" or alone in a wood or by the sea. They love to come to us when our guard is down, when we've slipped off the cynicism of the world and are more open, more vulnerable, more.... receptive. But here is where we need wisdom and a truly informed mind. For just as Angels are spiritual persons (having free will, like we human persons) so they too can manipulate and dominate to an evil end. They are free to serve or to enslave others, just like us. Today we celebrate the Guardian Angels, the Loyal Ones, whose choice was to love and serve God. It is to these holy spirits that we should entrust ourselves more and more, just as they have been entrusted by God to us. “See that you do not despise one of these little ones, for I say to you that their angels in heaven always look upon the face of my heavenly Father.” (Matthew 18) In these days of so many popular, faceless "spiritualities" we need more than ever the protection of God's Angels. And our thoughts should often turn to them. The Guardian Angel prayer should be whispered every day. And this prayed faithfully so that in the end, when the moment of eternity dawns, we might find ourselves safe and carried to Heaven in their care. I'll close with the final letter of C.S. Lewis' Screwtape Letters. It shows the veil pulled back, as a "senior devil" reveals his consternation and despair as another human soul slips through his fingers, thanks to the Guardian Angels: Screwtape to his nephew devil, Wormwood: "As he saw you, he also saw Them. I know how it was. You reeled back dizzy and blinded, more hurt by them than he had ever been by bombs. The degradation of it!—that this thing of earth and slime (that's us!) could stand upright and converse with spirits before whom you, a spirit, could only cower. Perhaps you had hoped that the awe and strangeness of it would dash his joy. But that is the cursed thing; the gods are strange to mortal eyes, and yet they are not strange. He had no faintest conception till that very hour of how they would look, and even doubted their existence. But when he saw them he knew that he had always known them and realised what part each one of them had played at many an hour in his life when he had supposed himself alone, so that now he could say to them, one by one, not "Who are you?" but "So it was you all the time."

10,000 Years

When we've been here ten thousand years Bright shining as the sun. We've no less days to sing God's praise Than when we've first begun. - Amazing Grace When I was in college seminary, our rector gave a homily that I've never forgotten. Well, at least the line I'll quote today. I remember it so well because I thought it was goofy when I first heard it. Really goofy. And I think he said the line three times. We all thought it was goofy, and had a good laugh afterwards (wasn't that very Christian of us?), thinking it was one of those "how not to preach" moments to keep in mind, should we be called all the way to ordination. But now, years later, having left those studies and discerned this beautiful vocation to marriage, having experienced so many joys and sorrows already that Life has spilled out before us, watching five fast years unfold like delicate wrapping paper from each "present" moment, the phrase from that homily has come back to me. "The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing." That was it. Want to hear it again? OK. "The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing." You can sort of put your inflection anywhere, which is fun. For example, "The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing." Though, personally, I think I like "The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing." This sentence, of course, begs the question: What is the "main thing"? Right now, it's easier for me to see than ever. In the midst of the fires of our sorrow, of possibly losing our unborn child, all the plans, desires, dreams, worries and wants of a lifetime just melt away, like paper tossed onto a burning wood. What matters most? The main thing is life with God in it; with God all around it, surrounding it... because this life and this suffering make no sense without Him. Honestly, this suffering makes no sense with Him. I think suffering falls sometimes without rhyme or reason; it can be random and reckless. Sometimes we bring it on ourselves, it's the friction caused by the scraping of sin in the world against God's original dream for us. But mostly I think it's the fallout or aftershock of that rebellion, sending rippling waves throughout the universe. "Thorns and thistles grew," nature rocks and rolls and reeks havoc, from the macro to the micro, the physical and the spiritual, and even into the tiny cells of a little baby that should be healthy and whole. I don't know what it is keeping me afloat. I'm not angry at the world or God. I'm just in a white-hot furnace of sorrow. Barring a miracle, our baby will die. This is insane and this is burning us. I'm not carrying the baby, but I'm doing my best to carry Rebecca and the baby. I don't know what to say. But I know God isn't doing it to us. It's not His fault. It's not our fault. His disciples asked him, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?" Jesus answered, "Neither he nor his parents sinned; it is so that the works of God might be made visible through him. - John 9 The main thing, it seems to me, is a life with God in it. The kind of God Who Himself entered into this mess, bore suffering to the extreme, and redeemed it. He tells us to carry on, the way He did unto the Cross itself. The main thing is for us to know we need God. We pray that this suffering might end in a miraculous healing so that the works of God might be made visible through our baby. We are fervently praying for this. But in it all, I remember the main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing. Love is here, burning us in sorrow. But in 10,000 years this sorrow will have passed, have been redeemed, transformed. In eternity we pray that we will be surrounded by the beautiful little ones we've adopted and lost. And the destiny of our 13th little child, who soon will be given a name, we don't yet know. We live in hope for life here and now, to have the grace to walk a little life through the beauty and the brokenness of this world, and we hope for life in its fullness in the world to come for all of us. I must keep alive in myself the desire for my true country, which I shall not find till after death; I must never let it get snowed under or turned aside; I must make it the main object of life to press on to that other country and to help others to do the same. - C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity Pope John Paul II, intercede for us.

"Embracing" Suffering?

I watch the movie The Passion of the Christ about six times a year; five times with the five sections of freshmen I teach at Malvern Prep, and usually once at home with Rebecca during Holy Week. Needless to say, the powerful images, encounters, music, and ancient languages in this film are deeply ingrained in me the way few things are. One of those images occurs as Jesus is pushed by the people outside of the walls of Jerusalem (and this image alone speaks volumes) and encounters his cross for the first time. One of other condemned criminals watches the Christ kneel and take hold of this tool of torture and press his face against it, almost lovingly. "Fool! Look how he embraces his cross!" I've been thinking about that line these days, now two weeks into our own way of the cross. When I was a kid, fresh from my own "awakening" to the reality of God and the call to a relationship with Him, I used to be perplexed by the whole "embrace your cross" mentality. I was reading about it in the lives of the saints, and over and over again I could hear in their voices such a passion for the Passion, a real love for suffering. I struggled with my own attitude towards the cross. I thought... "Well, these guys are saints, I should feel this way too, but this sounds nuts." It was very unsettling, almost morbid, I thought. "Is this what God wants of me? Doesn't He want me to be happy? Am I missing something here?" Suffering is a funny thing. It surrounds us all like air, it trembles beneath nearly every step we take, and sorrow echoes in so many of our conversations every day, but we rarely look it in the eye. Our right to the "pursuit of happiness" as Americans has become an all out mad dash, an arms flailing race towards almost any door that will get us out. Anything but that narrow, cross-shaped Door that seems to lead only to pain. But here's the truth we're coming to see, and strangely it was quoted to me in a movie back in 1986 that seems totally random right now, but perfect. The Man in Black says to the Princess Bride... "Life is pain, highness. Anyone who tells you otherwise is selling something." Well, there it is. Ever since the Fall there has been conflict, pain, death, and war; inside and outside our hearts. So what do we do with it? Most people want to run from it (hedonists), some people pretend it doesn't exist (Buddhists), a few take a morbid pleasure in it (masochists), and a few, a select few, have come to peace with it by allowing themselves to be nailed to it, trusting in a greater plan. So the saints weren't nuts, though some may have been slightly off balance in the penance department. Really they were just.... realists. Just like the One Who came in a body to take on Death like a hero. And He destroyed it. He really did. So all of this is to say that I think I'm going to pray harder every day facing not fleeing from this cross that Rebecca and I have been allowed to carry. Maybe some will say "Fools! Look how they embrace their cross!" (We've already gotten that from the eyes of one of our doctors). Good Friday has come early again. But we hope it leads to a miraculous Easter Sunday, and we're imploring the prayers of a man who bore his cross heroically, Pope John Paul II. We don't know how long this via dolorosa will twist and bend, but I want to feel the wood, let the weight of it sink in. I was encouraged by a good friend to swim into this dark abyss, and keep swimming into Rebecca's pain as a mother, to swim and not to give up. He said that at a certain moment, if I hold fast like an Olympian, then I'll make a quick turn, like Michael Phelps, and we can rise again into golden light. I'm banking on that!

Faith - Try It! You'll Like It!

After dropping off Rebecca for work, and on the way to purchase new hiking shoes for next week's adventure (click here! ... I can't wait!) I decided to catch the 8:30 Mass at Holy Cross, a neighboring parish. I was caught up again in the beauty of the eastern wall o' windows (pictured here, thanks to the iPHONE! Again!)

These bad boys are at least 25 feet high and a blaze of glory. But looking at them, during the homily (sorry Father), I got to thinking:

If the cars cruising down Baltimore Pike should perchance cast a glance towards the church right now, what would they see? Only darkness, blotted shapes, and metal bands holding oddly shaped glass together. Only the people on the inside can see their true beauty.

ENTER: A separate stream of thought that should collide with the first stream like in Ghostbusters when they crossed the streams and there was a huge explosion.

Last night on the radio, I interviewed Jennifer Fulwiler (see post below), a wonderful wife, mother, and former atheist who has entered the Catholic Church and now blogs beautifully about her journey at www.conversiondiary.com. She talked about what it was like having the mind of an atheist; how, when confronted with those dark moments in life, the blotted, tangled, cold metallic shapes of pure science and pure materialism alone, she felt.... outside, alone. It was dark, empty, and somehow detached from the mosaic of color that others seemed, almost naively, to enjoy.... and even in suffering, suffer through peacefully.

I think faith is a mystery to many because they are standing on the outside of the Church, looking in. But faith cannot be understood from the outside. One must step inside. Even if we do it half-heartedly, with trepidation, and taking more or less a gamble on this whole "God Thing," we will discover a warmth and a glow shining through the windows of the mind and heart that could never have been seen in other way.

"Sometimes you just close your eyes and jump, you don't think too long or maybe you just won't. Sometimes you just follow your heart, don't analyze too long or maybe it might just be gone."
- Carrie Newcomer, folksinger

Taste and See!

Today is the Feast of St. Thomas the Apostle. Beautifully, his quest for tangible "proof" in the resurrection of the dead, the turning of the tide that sweeps all of humanity under her tow, was initiated by this man. A man of science we might say. A man who wanted to affirm sensory data, to take in all the reports, not just of hearsay or someone else's witness, but quantifiable, experiential evidence. Thomas wanted to "taste and see that the Lord is good," and would not rest with merely the fragrance of that food from another's plate. He would feast his own eyes on Incorruptible Flesh, and would plunge his own hands into those very real wounds to be sure this was no impostor.

Good for Thomas. Faith needs works like this sometimes. We should all press on to taste and see, to experience the Lord not just through another's feelings or philosophy. We should enter through that Door ourselves with our whole person, and never be afraid of the results. God has given us faith and reason, not as enemies, but as complements. One reaches up from the earth, the other shimmers in the heavenly realms. "Faith and reason are like two wings on which the human spirit soars to the contemplation of Truth." (Pope John Paul II)

I hear a tone of quiet peace and an invitation in Jesus, not an angry tone, when he says to Thomas the Questioner, Thomas the Seeker, “Put your finger here and see my hands, and bring your hand and put it into my side, and do not be unbelieving, but believe.”

On that day, the experiential became the quitessential, the climax of all questions.... So to Thomas the Scientific we are grateful, and we are invited to taste and see ourselves. He is Risen!

God Sleeps in the Womb of the Earth

Yesterday Christ died. He said "It is finished," and He gave up His spirit. The great Lion of the Tribe of Judah, the Alpha and the Omega, the Morning Star was Himself extinguished by the Darkness.

So now we wait, and weep, and wonder. Has Death won? Is faith just a futile attempt to hold off the inevitable night, like a match lit for a brief moment, surrounded by impenetrable shadow, for a few seconds of illumination, until all is night? We wonder if there's more. We wait, we watch, like Mary by the tomb.

I see her sitting there, still stunned by the events of that Dark Friday, a whole cut into her heart, scraped clean. Open hands, cupped, lying on her lap, still breathing out the sweet smell of myrhh and oils from the Jewish burial custom. She stares blankly over the distance between the shade of an olive tree and the Roman guards moving about their watch, mumbling in a language she doesn't know. She is there keeping vigil, but she is not there. She is nowhere, she is no one. Her thoughts can only find rest on a few random phrases of His, like a bird alighting on swaying reeds.

"Destroy this temple.... And I will raise it up."
"Just as the seed falls to the earth and dies, so must the Son of Man...."
"I am the Resurrection and the Life..."

But then the winds of memory and sorrow and unspeakable torture blow through her mind again, and the bird of her heart must fly away, for this wind is too strong. After all, she saw His broken body, washed those wounds with His Mother. She saw the marks, the gaping hole in His chest. "It is finished," she whispers to the wind. And her tears drop into the dusty earth.

But Holy Saturday is a day pregnant with possibility....

"Just as the seed falls to the earth and dies, so must the Son of Man...."

Yesterday, Words that can remake the world were spoken, dropped from the mouth of Jesus like seeds full of paradoxical promise. They were spoken the night before as well, at a supper His heart longed to celebrate. These Words convey to the human heart the very secret of human life, the way to the truth of who we are and what we can become. These Words and only these Words, like a magic spell, can rebuild the shattered Dream of Eden, and create a Civilization of Life and Love. These Words have unspeakable power in them.

"This is My Body, given up for you.... Take and eat, take and drink."

To the barren fields of fallen man, the God-Man has given His body as grain. To the earth that has shared in our sorrow, drink. Where thorns and thistles grew now the seed in the blood of Jesus flows. In the dark womb of the earth, He lies broken, sleeps, and germinates, sending out the small, green shoots of promise...And with Mary, we watch and wait for Morning.

Faults and Flames and Forgiveness

I normally start my mornings at Malvern Prep with daily Mass (and I feel it when I don't). Typically, there are about six or seven of us, sometimes just three, with Fr. Baker offering up the Perfect Prayer. With such a small number of people, it's sometimes kind of "weird" giving the responses at Mass... you know what I mean?

Once in awhile you miss your cue, or a word is off, or your mind wanders and sometimes slips up without the blanket of hundreds of other voices covering over your own.

"...and also with you." (easy)

"... thanks be to God." (piece of cake)

"May the Lord accept this sacrifice at your hands, for the praise (glory?) and glory (praise?) of His Name, uh, for our good and ... for the good? of all His (the) Church... I think." (dang it)

One of the awkwardly beautiful parts of this daily Mass of sometimes just four souls (and all of Heaven of course, smiling at us in our awkwardness) is the Lamb of God sequence. I was contemplating it the other day. It was just before the Fire of Love descended from Heaven to consume our sins and set a flame like Prometheus in our hearts through the Eucharist, that me, Gary, and Fran said, three times...

Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world, have mercy on us.
Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world, have mercy on us.
Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world, grant us peace...

Three guys saying this three times in a big, mostly empty, chapel first thing in the morning. Sometimes it's muffled, sometimes robotic. But the other day it zapped me.

There's a scene from the movie Good Will Hunting where the therapist (Robin Williams) says something three times (and then keeps saying it) to the wounded soul of Will Hunting (Matt Damon). "It's not your fault," he whispers.

To this tough on the outside torn on the inside young man, abused as a youth, he speaks these words again and again:

It's not your fault.
It's not your fault.
It's not your fault.

And Will Hunting, at first, says simply "I know."

Then it gets awkward. The good doctor, himself a wounded healer, keeps saying it... It's not your fault. It's not your fault. It's not your fault. Resisting at first, then angry, Will finally collapses in his arms as the terrible weight of guilt and shame and rage and bitterness at the abuse he suffered as a child breaks over him like salty waves. It's a heart-breaking and beautiful scene.

Back to the Lamb of God...

Here, the tides have turned. Standing there in the chapel, we come to a realization that it is, in fact, our fault. It's because of me and my family tree that Love was crucified on a tree. And we need to own that fact. That's why every Mass starts off with the penitential rite. I have sinned! I messed up! Throughout my life I've added many a sour note to the symphony of God's original plan, and sometimes it's led many a fellow musician into discord and dissonance. So we take the time to look at this scribbled parchment and we turn it over to the Master Composer. And get this.... He rewrites it all.... using our notes (I love how He does that!). They are transformed, washed clean in the blood of the Lamb in a beautiful paradoxical spin cycle that can only be done by the Whirlwind of Love that is the Trinity. He takes away the sour notes of the world, the wounds and weeping and grants us peace. "By our very wounds we are healed," so the Talmud tells us.

It's unbelievable. I think that's why we need to say it three times.... he takes away our sins, and the sins of the world. He grants us peace. And we collapse into His Heart at the great and intimate encounter that is the Eucharist... and every morning we get to stand in that Flame of Love, to consume and be consumed, and all our faults and failings become the kindling for that Fire of Mercy.

I Love Darkness

I've always loved darkness. The crisp, cold dark of winter, the thick, warm darkness of sleep, the pre-dawn darkness that shrouds the morning. Sound creepy? Nah... it's creative. Think about it. All things good, true, and worthy of our contemplation spring from darkness.

In the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless wasteland, and darkness covered the abyss...

It seems darkness is the prerequisite of light. The very stars we love to count sprang from the dark womb of the universe. The flowers and trees we marvel over were born in the seed crushing stillness under the earth; in the wet, dark fodder of fecundity that lies beneath our feet.

Our lives began in darkness. We squirmed and struggled, wound and wrapped up in tiny balls of pulsating blood, brain, bone and tissue, and spirit breathed fresh into that darkness from God, in the wombs of our mothers. Our spiritual birth comes so often from the darkness of doubt and of fear, leaping up from the great Whys we shout up to Heaven throughout our lives, from the darkest of moments. Light and clarity come into the tangled shadows of our own minds, our own clumsy attempts to move about in darkness.

St. John of the Cross once said "If a man wishes to be sure of the road he treads on, he must close his eyes and walk in the dark."

Abraham moved in the darkness.
Jacob wrestled in the darkness.
Joseph looked up from a darkened cistern.
Perhaps Moses saw that Burning Bush because of the darkness that surrounded it?

Mary was overshadowed....
Joseph dreamed in the darkness.
Jesus sweat blood in the shadows of Gethsemane, and died under the cover of clouds on the darkest of days.

The singer-songwriter Nichole Nordeman sings "Maybe I'd see much better by closing my eyes."

Maybe in these dark, quiet December days, we'd do well to have a night unplugged, and move away from the tinsel and the lights, the malls and the Christmas movies, just for a night. And for a time, just sit in the dark. In the deep cold stillness like the cave in Bethlehem, where Love came wrapped in shadows. The Love that is the Light of the World.