Advent and the Path to Peace

The word Islam has often been translated as peace, similar to the word shalom. The Arabic root for the word Islam, however, gives a fuller understanding; it means surrender or submission. This is the goal of Islam; the surrender and submission of everything to Allah, the One Who is All-Powerful and All-Knowing. Allah, the absolute Master and Ruler of the universe. It's believed that peace will come to the one who completely submits to Him.

There is a clarity and a boldness that comes across in this teaching, especially in our pluralistic society. Our hearts are often dominated by a myriad of forces other than God. Many today crave the inner peace that comes from being focused on One, and the submission of the self under the power of Allah is appealing. To lie prostrate before Allah's power and to give all to Him is seen as a path to deep contentment.

But there is another way to peace, subtle in its distinction, and yet revolutionary in the way it affects our understanding and our relationship with God.

Advent has begun for the Christian world. With this holy season we see revealed a more ancient and unique vision of God and our path to His peace. For Christians, God is also the One Who is All-Powerful and All-Knowing, and He is the absolute Master and Ruler of our lives. But He is also more than this. More than Absolute Power, Wisdom or Dominion, God is the Lover, the Suitor, and the Husband of our hearts. And like a lover, he asks for our hand. Like a Gentleman, he will not force love. He made us for it, but He will not make us do it. Like a poet He seeks to woo our hearts.

So this Great and All Powerful God chose from all eternity to come down into our broken world to tell us of His love. And He sent not just a love letter to His wandering, stumbling bride-to-be, but His very Word in the flesh. Himself, disrobed of glory and now wrapped in rags. At a certain time and in a certain place and to a certain young woman, He lowered Himself. And are we not all there in that quiet room, present too in Mary's heart? Are we not all the unborn children in our Mother's eyes?

The Almighty "littled" Himself before Mary to win her heart; He took off His majesty. He became flesh. And that day, Heaven married earth. What God has joined, no man now can break apart. The Word is made flesh... forever.

Whoa...

This is the scandal of the Incarnation. Some shake their heads at this act of humility as if it were a humiliation. How can this great King put on rags and serve the beggars in the street? What about his high office, his dignity? Oh but it's worse than that! His body is not a set of clothes to be changed when the dirty work is done. Now God in Jesus has taken on a body, Jesus is a body, just as you are your body and not "a ghost in a machine." (Now, by the way, the dirty work is divinized. Just wait until Easter! And then the gift of the Eucharist!!)

This is how Love first knocked on the door of our hearts:
- not in great power to bend us to His Will.
- not demanding prostration but offering an invitation.
- not through forcing our surrender but by offering us a wedding proposal.

So for us, peace comes not as a divine mandate, but in Mary's way. It is an opening up of the mind, heart, and yes the body, to Love.

So this Advent, let us submit ourselves. Let us surrender ourselves, but in the way our little Mary did. For in her, God became one of us, small enough to wrap our arms around. Close enough to embrace. This He wishes to be for us all. This is Love.

So let it be done unto us, according to His Word!

Great Thought from Fr. Cantalamessa Of a woman who is with child it is said that she is "expecting"; the offices of important persons have "waiting rooms." But if we reflect on it, life itself is a waiting room. We get impatient when we have to wait, for a visit, for a practice. But woe to him who is no longer waiting for something. A person who no longer expects anything from life is dead. Life is expectation, but the converse is also true: Expectation is life! - Father Cantalamessa Zenit News Agency 06120101

Broken and Beautiful

A few weeks ago, family friends came down from NY (the mom was running in the Philadelphia Marathon) and we met them for dinner in the city. A stream of events happened from there that I can only show as fragmented stills, like works in a gallery; some beautiful, others disturbing, as we brushed past them on the way to somewhere else.

The first frame is of a smiling soul, a homeless man who sat outside the Hard Rock Cafe where we met the family for dinner. He asked for money as we passed by, and he started singing "There they go, just a-walkin' down the street! They look good, they look fine, as they walk, down the line!"

Rebecca asked if he'd like something to eat. "A double cheeseburger and an orange soda!" he beamed. We hit the McDonald's on Market and 11th.

Next frame was a cabdriver; his accent thick and lyrical, even though he's been here 27 years! He left Trinidad when he was 7, and now has 4 kids and works a crazy midnight shift. We know all this because Rebecca asked about his family as we drove towards the movie theater. As we paid him and crawled out of the cab at the corner, Rebecca gave him a "God bless" (her standard farewell). He called out the window to us "'Ave a guud life." I think Rebecca's kindness must have been refreshing to him (it always is to me!). How often do we talk to cabdrivers, cashiers and clerks? How many times do we allow the time for a personal, human encounter? As we were walking and he driving away, he pulled over and called to us with a final blast of beautiful advice. "Tr-rust," he said in that rich accent. "Eet's all about tr-rust. If you 'ave it, you 'ave every'ting."

Whoa. These powerful human moments can happen every day. We felt so moved by the simple beauty of this soul; like a prophet he spoke to us a word we needed to hear.

The final frame... We had left the theater (saw Babel; it was raw, moving, mostly sad) and as we made our way up a chilly 2nd Street in the "city of brotherly love," a young, well dressed and deeply intoxicated man crossed the street in front of us. He ran up a few yards ahead of us and mindlessly slapped the cold and calloused hand of a homeless man. Laughing as if he scored a point he shouted "Hey! Homeless guy!" and skipped past him toward us. The dichotomy of these two faces, one broken by life and one breaking it, shocked us. It enraged Rebecca.

"Can you show some respect?" I said to him. Rebecca said "He's a human being!" And there followed a drunken rant from the man, peppered with expletives. There was no sense of reason here. He continued to shout and curse and stagger around, soon joined by two more friends. I took Rebecca's hand and we walked away. We caught up to the man. He was very old, bundled up, and carrying a small bag over his shoulder. His name was George. I said we were sorry about the way the drunk guy treated him, and we asked if he was hungry. "I know a place around the corner, should be open," he whispered.

So we sat with George as he ate half an Italian hoagie at 10:45pm, and stuffed the rest into his bag. He showed us his prize watch (a $5 casio) which was the reason he doesn't stay at the shelters. "They take your stuff. I don' wann'em to take ma' stuff." He spoke of a sister somewhere in NJ, and of the street people he avoids and the kind of which he hopes to find. "Good people, who'll just let you be." He said his boots were steel-tipped; good for working but not for walking. We spoke of the weather, and for George this wasn't small talk. I offered him my fleece vest and he quickly refused. "I got too many clothes on already!" The curious cashier at the deli said they had to close up shop, so we brushed the crumbs off the table and walked down to the corner with this man who had seen more years than both of us combined. A man of quiet strength and a wisdom, I believe, born of suffering. He wished us well, and thanked us. There was a real beauty in George's wrinkled smile and tired eyes.

Of the homeless and the forgotten, the nameless faces we pass on the street, of the hungry poor and the hungry rich, in the malls and on the roads, let us be mindful. Let us be as attentive as to our own souls. For we are one, all of us, broken and beautiful. We are one...

Reflections on the Word - 1st Sunday of Advent December 3, 2006 - Reading 1 - Jer 33:14-16 What are you waiting for? What are you looking forward to? What is the star you are following? When I was young, I had my markers, my signposts that kept me moving, getting up out of bed every morning through those groggy teenage years. I loved the idea, the sense, the feeling of expectation. So often I would project my thoughts into the future and dream of that next good thing. From the ridiculous to the sublime; getting an Atari 2600 for Christmas (what a classic!) or maybe it was the next Star Wars movie (we had to wait 3 stinkin' years for the Empire Strikes Back!). Perhaps it was the next Sunday, when I might catch a glimpse of the Mysterious Girl Who Always Sat on the Far Side of Church. Oh those nerdy, self-conscious high school years! "The days are coming," says the Lord. So begins the Prophet Jeremiah in this first Sunday of Advent. The days are coming... Jeremiah puts out a signpost for us all this week. It's the something behind every hope, underneath all of the wrapping of expectation and the ribbons of hope. It's the dream of every heart, really. It is the fulfillment of a promise, of THE Promise.... "In those days, in that time, I will raise up for David a just shoot; he shall do what is right and just in the land. In those days Judah shall be safe and Jerusalem shall dwell secure....” That's it. What do we want? To be safe. To be secure, finally! This is the hope of humanity! To rest in the Strong Arms of the One Who won't let us go. The Prince of Peace Who will cast away all danger, all fear, and everything that threatens our peace, He is coming. He will save us from our ridiculous anxieties and He will lead us to those sublime moments of decision. He will enable us to dwell secure, confident in hope. So as Advent begins, we set our hearts on this path of expectation. We walk through the valleys and over the hills of a culture consumed with the desire to create its own safety, its own security. We follow a different beat, we walk free and unencumbered by distraction and deception. And in it all we "increase and abound in love," as Paul exhorts us in the second reading from this coming Sunday. (1 Thes 3:12—4:2) We must be careful to keep our hearts from becoming "drowsy from carousing and drunkenness and the anxieties of daily life." Rather, let's listen to Jesus and "when these signs begin to happen, stand straight and raise your heads because your redemption is at hand."

Floundering Faith

When I was young we used to love to go "fluking" at Captain Mike's. We'd get up around 5am and drive through the Pine Barrens to the Jersey shore, to a smelly strip of weathered old buildings on the green fly infested edge of Tuckerton. We'd rent a little boat for the day and tool around the salt water channels, catching the drifts, and catching some rays. Our mornings were spent slicing up squid into slippery strips, and then baiting our hooks with them, as well as the ever faithful "keelies" which were sure to be wasted on the sea robins (very cool to look at but not to eat, by the way). All the while we'd be stuffing chips and sandwiches into our faces with our unwashed hands. Ah, what fun! Makes you want to throw up, doesn't it? Needless to say, it was Dad who took us "fluking." And we LOVED IT.

We'd bring the old radio and pop in our Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem tapes, or maybe some John Cougar (Mellancamp), the Chieftains, or Van Morrison. What a life! Belting out the lines of Four Green Fields or The Rocky Road to Dublin, as we tilted and swayed on the briny foam! We were seeking those treasured pockets of the deep where flounder lay in murky abundance. They are weird little critters, by the way. At one point in their development, the eyes of these flat fish migrate to one side of their bodies so that both eyes are facing up from the ocean floor. And that's where they lay, all the time, those spooky eyes peeping up. Kinda like Picasso fish, if you will.

Let's get theological!
In other news, I have grown weary of the God vs. Science debate. I am tired of the Creationist vs. Evolutionist debate. I'm saddened by the supposition that faith and reason are warriors fighting when the truth is they are two wings flapping, lifting us up to truth! Everywhere we look there is the desire to pull them apart, and it seems so many want to view all of human experience, the vast scope of the entire universe, with a kind of flounder vision. We've settled into a murky, muddy, greyness and let our eyes sort of migrate into a one dimensional plane on the side of the head. It's a kind of tunnel vision, really. Try living a day like this, with just one eye open. Your depth perception will be off, and every time you reach for something you'll have to stumble before you can pin it down.

I think there's a reason why we have two eyes, two ears, two hands and two feet, two lungs, two lips, two nostrils (dang, we have a lot of twos don't we?), all proportioned the way they are... They are opposites and they're symetrical and afford us a harmony when used together. God has stamped right in our bodies the way He wishes us to "see." It's the integration of two planes into one.

Now if this seems difficult at present, with our eyes trying to discern the place of Science with Scripture, Good with Evil, Faith with Reason, then maybe it's because we have this flounder vision. Our culture has devolved our view into a single plane of vision, and we're peering stiffly at either God or Science, and actually limiting our vision. We get pure materialism, a reducing of reality to only the visible, weighable, smellable stuff, or we get a misty, castle in the clouds view of reality that seems completely detached from our every day lives here and now... more a fantasy than a final end. Let the eyes expand, separate but remain in union, becoming more fully human. Don't be a fish head!

We are not like the flounder, with both eyes on one side of its head, staring blankly up and out from the murky ocean floor. We must see with a fuller vision, viewing all of creation as God intended us to; as sweet sacraments, physical signs pregnant with spiritual meaning, rich in symbolism and yet able to stand up in their own right... solid, sure and utterly sensible.

Minimize Me!

It's Black Friday! Aaaaaggggghhhhhh!!! This is the day when millions of insane people (please don't take this personally) who were nestled in perfectly legitimate turkey comas and invited to participate in National Sleep In Day, willingly (WILLINGLY!) got out of bed at 3am and went shopping.

They are out there right now. They are drinking lots of coffee. Don't get in their way.

The following reflection was inspired by this secular feast day, but let it be known: I like a good deal as much as the next guy, and I too have been snared many times over by.... the BIGGIEMAN.

Lemme 'splain...

In mainstream America, we have BIG culture. I don't mean a lot of culture, I mean BIG culture. We love to maximize and biggie-size. We love those "Buy 6 get 1 free deals," even when the item is a cheese grater.

When someone says "Do you want the Behemoth Burger and Jumbo Bucket o' Fries for only .30 more?"... generally we say "sure." This is not because we need it, but I think because we can. Deep down, you see, we've been seduced by the greasy lies of the BIGGIEMAN: that cloudy and coagulated Spirit of America that whispers to our wallets that bigger is always better.

We are grande mocha gringos who are always on the look out for "upgrades" and "additions" - for the better, the new and improved. From SUVs to giant screen TVs, and now it seems, DVDs. (Yup, I saw it the other day, a new format of the already perfectly amazing disc that is even smaller, and of course, requires that we upgrade to the new DVD player to play it.)

When will it end?! When will America stop the presses? End this madness? Do we need 68 kinds of toothpaste, 259 brands of the same cereal, 2543 different types of shampoo!! Cars bigger than houses, TVs larger than billboards!!!

Never, I fear, so long as we continue to shout out our demand to "Super-Size Me!"

Enter, the Gospel.

"Agghh!" shrieks the BIGGIEMAN, "not that!"

A still, small voice whispers through the leaves of the New Testament, "He must increase, I must decrease."

"He must increase, I must decrease." "I must decrease."

I have a new battle cry for myself, as this season of sales and ceaseless shopping begins, reaching out its neon tentacles to draw me in. Try it if you like. "Minimize Me!"

In all things, make me small. In my wants, and in my needs, minimize me. In my thoughts, in my words, minimize me.

"He must increase, I must decrease."

This is the best way to create a space for the Christ Child to rest His weary head. Unclutter the heart, clear away the things. Let persons take precedence.

Thank you President Abraham Lincoln! You made an inherently religious act a national holiday! Thanksgiving has indeed become one of the most sacred of secular holi(y)days for Americans. Not only does this day give us pause from our little rat races, but it draws us back to the family, where we reminisce, recreate, and invariably recline after some serious FOOD. This is so good, so warm, and so true. For it all, we are thankful. Not to the cold Universe, or to some vague Power, but to the Father, from Whom all good things come! The posture of thanksgiving is one of humility, and that too is so good. We look up with hands that were empty yet now are full and we say again one of the first phrases we were ever taught - "Thank you." Now here's a way to stay in that position, and it works wonders. I used to do this, and God has inspired me to kickstart it again; it's the Gratitude Journal. In this week of Thanksgiving, America, let's start a new tradition. Three times a day let's write in our journals three different things we are grateful for. And I don't exactly mean "brown paper packages tied up with string" but even the tough stuff. The sufferings that have passed over you like a storm and given you a weathered wisdom, the soft chiseling of time that has shaped the way you look at life. Here goes my three cents worth: 1. For the eyes of my wife, ceaseless in their affirmation and tender care. 2. For my work that makes a channel through which my passion can flow. 3. For that new coffee at Wawa that tastes sooooo very good. How 'bout a Bonus Round! 4. For the cold and rain of today that recalls to my mind the blessing of a home and of heat! And the list can go on and on.... How about yours? Happy Thanksgiving!