Hope

Father,

There was a time when things seemed more obvious, like all of heaven was smiling down on me.  A job came to me without my looking.  I had a great apartment.  My star was rising it seamed.  How suddenly things can come crashing down.

Now I find myself penniless (nearly) and two months from being homeless for a while.  Ahead of me I see a call that is burning in my soul.  How to get there?  I look to see the road ahead, but it is all a mist of "what if."   Common sense says that it can't work.  Pessimism says that many fall and never rise again: why should I be any different.

But there is you, and I know that you hold me in your hand.  You never promised that things would be easy.  You never promised that there would not be real danger.  But you did promise that you would not let me fall.  You hold me in your hand and you will not drop me.

I reach out in faith, knowing that I am loved and called: knowing that he who died for me will sustain me in life.  Now I know that it is not "what if," but "when" and "wait and see how."  My anxiety falls away because I know that there is no chance: there is no "this is what I deserve."  There is only love and grace.

Amen.

Obedience

I have been thinking a bout obedience a lot lately.  I have to admit, I struggle with it some.  As a visionary and a creative person, I sometimes find it challenging.  There are many in my life that I find easy to obey.  They have a way that works well with me.  Their goals and values are much like mine.  But sometimes obedience is more of a challenge.  I may not agree with a law or a policy.  I may think that my way of doing things is better.  I may thing that another way of doing things will be disastrous.

Obedience in the Benedictine sense is not blind obedience.  We are not mindless robots.  We can disagree with a plan or decision. We can speak out humbly if we disagree with something.  However, our ultimate motivation is not being right but love.  It is out of love for Christ and our brothers and sisters that we obey.  It is also out of an awareness of our own limitations.

There may be times when we cannot obey.  A few years ago, I left a job because I felt that I could not in good conscience obey a policy.  There has been another time or two when I had to disobey when I though that I could  not obey in a way that would not violate my values, ethics or the law.. In those times, I acted as respectably as I could and trusted myself to God.  In ever case so far, God has intervened. 

purgation

I am thinking of the song "All to Jesus I surrender."  I grew up with that song.  As many times as I have sung it, I still struggle to surrender parts of my life.  So many things are tied to my identity; career, where I live, what I do with my free time.  Am I willing to surrender all of those parts of my life to God.  What if God does not want me to be successful in my career?  What if God does not want me to live where I want to live.? What if God wants me to surrender some of my favorite pastimes?  I may have given up many things, but I still struggle with key areas of my life.

God does not ask us to give up so much just to make us suffer.  I used to think that.  I used to think that God was a cosmic drill sergeant who wants to break us down so he cam build us back up.  God is not like that, but he knows that we will sometimes make idols in this life.  those areas that we will not surrender are areas in our lives that keep us from God.  God wants to give us more than this live could ever offer: he wants to give us himself.  The only think that he asks is that we be focused on him.

Lately, I have been trying to let go of some things that I have held on to too tightly.  I was convinced that if I wanted to be liked or respected, I had to hold on to my little idols.  I am learning to let go. That is the meaning of purgation: letting go of those things that get between us and God.   I still have a long way to go, but perhaps, by the grace of God, I am getting one small baby step closer.

Thinking of Tomorrow

Father,

I know not what the future holds, whether good or ill awaits me tomorrow.  Speaking as a human, I cannot know if I will have food or a roof over my head next month or next year.  So much of life seems like a torrid wind that blows this little leaf about.  All my planning and dreaming may amount to nothing if the economy goes this way or that.  My fortune may rest in a decision made thousands of miles away by someone who has never met me.

The other day, a man told me that he thought that it was just chance that the church is what it is, that it could have gone the other way if those we called heretics won the day. We talked for a while about those who came long before we were born, as much as we knew of them.  After a while I asked him, “What if it was not all just chance: what if there was providence behind it all?”

We do not live in a world of fate or chance.  Every day is ordered by you.  That day ahead of me, the day that I fear, is already resolved in you.  I need not fear tomorrow, because you are already there making a path for me.  In peace I can lay down tonight and sleep, for it is you Lord who keep me safe.

Humility

Father;

 You have called us to put on the humility of Christ, yet I find that I so fear it.  I so often find myself growing indignant at any little mistreatment.  I feel the need to stand up for my rights.  I raise my chin, square my solders and look the world in the eyes.  How far short I fall from Christ, who bore the scourging of leather, bone and shards.  I so little bear the lashing of tongues.  Christ’s flesh was torn on my behalf, but I shrink from the smallest wounding my pride.

You said that you raise the lowly.  Do I trust you for that?  Do I trust that the more I am humbled on earth, the more I am raised up in Heaven?  Do I trust that you will be my advocate, so I need not be?  How little my faith must appear to you.  Such little trouble and I doubt.  Help my unbelief.

Help me father to bear the heel of man if that means the kiss of God.  Help me to feel so secure in your love and pleasure in me so that I do not care how some devalue me.  Help me, following Christ, to bear the cross that you have given me so that I might take hold of the glory that you have in store for me.  In all that befalls me, help me to feel secure in your love of me.

Amen.

Confession and Peace

It just hit me today that in the Eucharistic liturgy, the confession comes right before the passing of the peace.  I think that this is significant.  It is only after confessing corporately that we are sinners that we approach each other and offer a blessing of peace.  We cannot truly be at peace with each other if we are not penitent in our hearts.  It is only after confessing, "we have not loved you with our whole hearts and we have not loved our neighbors as ourselves," that we can truly enter into fellowship.

This reminds me that St. Benedict instructed that each of the times of prayer be ended with the Lord's Prayer.  He believed that the men and women should go into their days having just prayed, "forgive us our sins as we forgive each other."  Here again, community is dependent on being penitent.

Am I approaching the people around me with a penitent spirit, or do I think that I have all of my ducks in a row?  Am I living a live of humility or am I forcing my way on others.  Are there those whom I am struggling to love and forgive?  Looking to the day ahead, I realize that there is much room for me to grow in these areas.

The Prayer of Sleeping

I have a few times recently found myself praying in my dreams.  I have begun to wonder if it is possible to be in such a state of prayer than, even in my sleep I am praying.