Got an enemy?

One day when I was eleven years old, for no reason at all (other than he could) a school bully pushed me off a low foot-bridge in the town park and laughed as I landed in the shallow creek a couple of feet below.

Now, in my childhood household, my mother ran things on a very tight budget. It was a really big deal when we went shopping for new school clothes and shoes, and we were told to watch out for grass stains on the kahkis and mud on our loafers. They had to last.

So, in addtion to being shocked by the petty assualt on the foot bridge, I was alarmed because I knew that my new shoes were ruined and my mother would be upset. Upset with me.

So I stood up dripping, and as the bully walked away chuckling, I prepared my response to his attack.

I walked in my squishing shoes, right up to the front door of his parents' house and rang the doorbell, dripping creek water onto the step. His father, who happend to be the school supernintendent, was surprized to see me, but listened carefully as I explained through my tears what had happened. I wanted the bully to get his comeupance at his father's hand, but I also wanted a witness who could help with my mom's upset. Good plan, right?

What I didn't realize was that I had dramatically escallated the conflict. I had made my first enemy.

The bully must have heard from his father for he walked well out of the way whenever he saw me coming...but he would glower at me with hate. I had made a glowering enemy...one a foot taller than I was. I tried to ignore him, but he haunted me a bit. Our emnity lasted nearly a decade, unspoken but real, until we just didn't know or care about each other anymore.

Humans make enemies...it's a long sad story.

And then along comes Jesus and suggests a different ending to the story.

Today (at page 46) Henri Nouwen calls us this Lent to consider this different ending...an ending without emnity...an ending grounded in God's love of us. Knowing, as Nouwen writes, that people who make our lives difficult and cause us frustration, pain or even harm are least likely to receive a place in our hearts, Jesus directs us to love them, to pray for them, to do that which is the most contrary to our impulses, whether we're eleven years-old or just acting like it.

I hope you do not have glowering enemies, but all of us have suffered injury, and we know this love of enmey is a hard, hard thing to ask. A Lenten thing to ask. But you see, the asking of it is a gift.

For we're invited to know God's love not as an idea or concept, but as a lived experience. Let's live it, pray for your enemy.

Tim+

The Great Chicken Caper

"Maybe the reason it seems hard for me to forgive others 

is that I do not fully believe that I am a forgiven person."

Guilt is an incredibly complex emotion.  When we feel it, we are desperate to get rid of the sensation.  At the same time, letting go of guilt is also letting go of control, an action many of us are a lot less interested in.

So often when we make a mistake and we cause injury, we like to think that we can make up for it somehow.  It's called restorative justice.  If I steal your chicken, the way to restore the situation is for me to get you a new chicken.

Or is it?  

What if that chicken was a gift from your great Aunt Sally who has since passed away?  I can give you a new hen that will lay eggs and do chicken things, but it's not Sally's chicken.  It's not going to restore the situation to it's previous state, nor is it necessarily going to mean that you'll trust me around your chickens in the future.  

So in this great chicken-thieving caper, there are two kinds of injuries.  The first is the tangible loss of the physical object which can in someway be replaced.  But the second is the emotional injury that comes from the sentimental value of the object and/or the damage done to the relationship.

Sometimes I think we confuse these two kinds of injuries, and I think we hold onto guilt as a result.  We hold onto the guilt because we are able to control some aspects of the situation (like chicken replacement), and as a result, we think we can erase the guilt by erasing the loss.  But while we are able to easily replace the lost chicken, we can't easily replace lost trust.  We can't easily repair the emotional harm.  But in our confusion between the two kinds of injuries, sometimes we think we do have the power to fix the emotional harm too.

We think we can earn our way out of guilt, earn our way into that emotional forgiveness.  We think we can control our own destiny on forgiveness, we just have to work hard enough to get there.  And if I believe there is a way for me to work hard enough to earn forgiveness, then gosh darn it, it's possible for you to earn it too if you just keep trying.  As a result, I don't believe I'm forgiven and I won't forgive you either.

But the sandy ground on which this argument is built washes away when you realize that forgiveness can't be earned.  There is no way to replace emotional harm the way we can replace the loss of an object.  We simply can't control that.  And Nouwen is right when he says that this is the "lifelong struggle at the heart of the Christian life."  It's another example of the reality that God is in control and we are powerless.  That can be a really scary thing to have to admit, but it's at the center of the possibility for forgiveness.

So I guess the question is, can we admit our lack of control over guilt and our need of forgiveness, or are we too chicken to do so?

To Be Like Jesus

"Our lives are destined to become like the life of Jesus."

This sentence really stood out for me in today's reading. Our lives to become like the life of Jesus??  Wow.  How can our lives, absorbed as they are with ourselves, with our own concerns and anxieties, our human foibles and restlessness, become like the life of Jesus?

Nouen gives us a clue when he writes of Jesus' obedience. That is not a word we moderns like much; perhaps it takes us back to our youth when mindless obedience was called for - no questions asked, just do what you are told.  I don't think this is the kind of obedience Nouen is talking about.  Jesus obeyed his Father because he was in such a loving, intimate relationship with him that it came as naturally as breathing to him to do what he knew his father would have him do.

Jesus came to bring us closer to God, to show us what God is like, to bring us to the same kind of intimacy that he shared with God.  When we look at the life of Jesus we see a life of giving - of his time, his energy, his love, his passion, his entire self.  All this he gave for us, at the bidding of his father.   Were there moments of doubt, fear, in that life?  You bet there was, just as there is for us.  But Jesus was in such a close relationship with God that to do other than what God hoped for was, ultimately, out of the question.

So what does that mean for us, living in the sometimes crazy world of the 21st century?  How do we go about making our lives like the life of Jesus?  It seems such an impossible goal!  But Nouen says that our lives are destined to be like his.  Somehow, that gives me hope.  And with hope we can set out to fulfill our destiny, right?  So we keep on plugging, listening to that little voice inside that tells us what we need to do, how we need to cherish what is good and right, how we need to look with compassion on all around us, how we need to keep our hearts open to a closer relationship with each other and with our creator - not because we are ordered to do so, not because we fear eternal damnation if we don't, but because we long for the intimacy with God that Jesus had.

I think back to my relationship with my grandmother, surely one of the people I loved most in the world. I obeyed her wishes (most of the time) not because I was afraid of her, or because she was some remote Being that demanded total obedience, but because I loved her so much, was so close to her, that I naturally wanted to please her and maintain that closeness and love.

Hmmm.  Could it be as simple as that?

Audrey

Just a Wednesday word on God.

In our reading for today (p 36-37) Nouwen asks us to look with him at an assertion: God exists.

He says, When we make that statement, all the distinctions between intellectual, emotional, affective, and spiritual understanding fall away and there is only one truth left to acclaim: God exists. ...when God exists all that is flows from him.

For people of faith the very existance of God is a given...or is it? I think these words of Nouwen's are shared in Lent because it's a good time to look at some basics. I encourage you to read his short passge again with an ear for how the words touch your own understanding of what it means to assert God exists.

In the first century, shortly after his founding of the church at Thessalonica, Paul visted Athens .

So what?

Well, while there he must have noticed all the images and symbols erected to the many pagan gods worshipped by the Greeks. Athens was famous for its profusion of religious images, including tributes to "unknown gods." 

Paul seizes on this particular Greek concept of the identity of the gods, God-the-unknown, as a way into the mind and hearts of his broadest Gentile audience.  He, like Nouwen, makes for them an assertion that God exists and he offers two phrases that serve us well this Lent.

First, he acknowledges that God is a mystery, yet he invites the Gentiles and us to accept, setting aside all idols, that the unknown God is the single living and true God. And then he describes, just as Nouwen does in his own words, the implications for us all that this unknown God exists.

This God he says is one in which we live and move and have our being.

These words, some of the most loved in the Christian language, deeply shape our understanding of what it means for us and our lives and loves to say that God exists.

God exists. ...when God exists, all that is flows from him.

Tim+

Babbling to God

"Do not babble as the Gentiles do..."

  I had to smile as I read that passage from Matthew's gospel.  "Babbling" is a word I have never associated with prayer, but it is a pretty accurate description of some prayer, I think.  Do you ever "babble" when praying?  I know that I do sometimes - usually when afraid, or deeply worried or anxious.  I babble a lot on airplanes.  "Please God, let this thing land safely and I will be a better person!  I will do whatever you want, just don't let this plane crash!"  Babble, babble babble.  When I am struggling with some problem and long for God's assistance in the solution I often find myself chattering away without stopping for breath. Babble, babble, babble.

Nouen is right on the mark when he says that we so often expect solutions, answers, responses, and we want them immediately. NOW.  When that doesn't happen we are frustrated and wonder what the purpose of prayer is, anyway.  We may increase the babbling and hope that God will hurry up and do something.  Trouble is, we don't always know how to be quiet and listen to Jesus, and to our own hearts, where indeed Jesus abides.

I don't know about you, but I find sitting quietly and listening for Jesus, listening to my own heart, is difficult.  There are so many distractions, so many things to do, so many responsibilities to think about - and these distractions seem to attack the minute I try to focus on God.  It takes a certain amount of discipline - a word the modern world does not much like - to stop our babbling and to just be quiet.  To listen.  To open our hearts and to find God there.  To stand with our hands open to the world, as Nouen suggests.  To see the glory that is God in all that is around us.

Outside my window this morning the ground is pristine with snow, and in the snow are little footprints made by myriad creatures who have crossed over our lawn in the night.  It is a sight beautiful beyond words.   It is part of God's secret that the world holds within itself, as Nouen writes. Like most secrets, it is whispered.  We must be still to hear it; we must quiet the confused babbling and rest in the presence of the One who has created us all.

Take some time today to look out at the snow, the bright sunshine, the blueness of the winter sky. Be still.  Listen.  Open your heart to the beauty of it all.  God is speaking, whispering.  Listen. Listen.

Holding Onto Emptiness

These passages from Nouwen on hospitality seem so perfect that I feel like it almost takes something away from them to comment.  I think they are just wonderful.

But that makes for a pretty boring blog post.

So I'll say that the line that jumps out and touches me in this particular moment is when Nouwen says "Once we give up our desire to be fulfilled, we can offer emptiness to others."

It never really seems like emptiness is something we should be proud to offer, or that someone else would ever want to receive.  But as I take some time to dwell in that sentence and what it means, I find it utterly compelling.  It makes me think of my nun.

I have a spiritual director who is a Sister of Mercy affiliated with St. Joseph's College.  Once a month I drive out to Standish to sit in her living room and spend 90 minutes or so talking about my life.  I went and visited with her this past Friday morning, and one of the questions she asked me was why I came to see her; why did I want a spiritual director?

By now you all may have learned that I am a verbal processor, and so I tend to ramble a bit before getting around to answering questions.  Ultimately, I told her that I visit with her because she always leads me back to love.  She gently, patiently reminds me that if I center myself in the love of God, then anxieties slip away and my deepest authenticity emerges.

But as I read this sentence from Nouwen, I think I also go to see Sister Sylvia because she offers me emptiness.  Her living room, her presence is a place empty of expectations and that is an unbelievably liberating place to be.

I realized this week that when I leave Sister Sylvia's for the lengthy drive back to Portland, I never listen to the radio.  I'm an NPR addict who is always looking for something to occupy my mind, but on my drives back from Standish, my mind feels emptied out in the best possible way.  I don't want the radio to fill it back up again.  Sometimes I'll even take a long meandering drive up around Sebago Lake to try and hold onto that emptiness.

It's counter-intuitive, but true.  In my experience, emptiness is a profound gift to receive.