Notes from FB...should be here, too!
The Grudge 3.1415... a mathematical journey into the irrational
July 21, 2009 at 8:09am
My first degree is in Mathematics. My ex-husband insisted, and frankly, without his tutoring and encouragement, I would not have made it. I thank him for his persistence. He did his best to make me a rational creature, but alas, I exist in the glorious irrational (cf. author Madeleine L'Engle). The number Pi is irrational. That means you can't write it as a ratio of two integers. If I have to explain that, we'll be stuck here all day. Back in the old, old days we pretty much did our math according to our fingers. Pebbles, knots, two doves for the blessing of the birth of a child...you know, tangible things, things we can put in a bag and carry around...until maybe that bag gets so heavy that it is hard to move even one step forward. That's what happened to Cortez' men, when they conquered the Aztec nation. They put so much gold into their pockets that they drowned in the swamps surrounding the city. (Did I mention that I minored in history?)
I had two ideas for this morning, but this one won. The Grudge. I think there are several sequels, like Halloween. But the Grudge needs to have several sequels. For the truth about a grudge is that it breeds like roaches. I think I've eliminated the problem, the thorn in my side, and it just keeps coming back. So I thought it is like an irrational number. It has a beginning, but it never really has an end. I can divide it up into parts and then conquer those parts, but there is always a remainder, some residual matter that hangs around and begins to rebuild the wall between me and God.
So I have to always be on alert. If you have read C.S. Lewis' "Screwtape Letters" you'll know what I am talking about. The 'devil' knows our weakest link. He knows how to make us doubt my whispering half-truths to us, making us think we are making rational decisions based on facts, a nice linear path when the real universe is curved. (Einstein:The shortest distance between two points is NOT a straight line).
A great line from the book "The Science of Star Trek": Oh, Jean-Luc, you are so linear!" says Q, a higher being. When we are reflecting on our spiritual being-ness, we cannot be simply linear. We are more than the sum of our parts. Try to explain love to someone and you will never get the definition correct. It is not just "the organs craving each other" as Joesph Campbell wrote (I've always wanted to use that line!), it is not some romantic poetry...although I will say that "The Hound of Heaven" comes pretty close to the truth of it...but then, that poem speaks to my heart and we each have a different one, with different needs and desires.
And I have gone off on a rabbit trail...with no editor to reel me in.
The Grudge is that thing that continues to separate us from God. Each day in my prayers, I ask God to "Search me O God and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any wicked way in me and lead me in the way everlasting." And then I pray for the strength to hear what God says to me, because most often, it is not what I want to hear. Knowing a truth about myself means that I have to deal with it. I can't un-know a sin or transgression once it has been revealed unless I choose to cover it with yet another untruth (that means lie, but I don't like that word!) Then the Wall gets stronger again and it gets harder and harder to return to the love that is God and that which my soul most deeply desires.
I've watched families hold grudges for years for stupid reasons (this is a good word here, although my grandchildren are forbidden to use that word EVER!-Cudos to Bobby and Stacy for setting that boundary!) and for very justified reasons. But the grudge separates us from God. And who really wants to be separated from God? Aunt Jo forgot to send me a birthday card. Billy got a better present that I did. Why are you paying for her education when you didn't pay for mine? Uncle Bill showed up drunk to the wedding. Jan got the good ring...and on and on and on. I had a friend disown me because I dissed her wanting to watch a Cowboy game instead of having lunch with me. (Alright, I know I have treaded on sensitive ground here, maybe she was justified...but our friendship is gone because of it)
Life is not neat. The stories we tell have beginnings and endings because words can't do more than just remind us of what we thought was important at the time. But living out our lives, well, how far back can we go in our history to know exactly when we were made and why? Does it all end here when we die? I can't tell you for certain. I can't tell you facts about that. I can only tell you what I believe. For some of us, that's faith; for others of us, its just an opinion.
God is always waiting for us. Tear down the walls of
How far is it to heaven?
July 20, 2009 at 9:37am
On my way to Mass every morning, I let Los Lonely Boys serenade me into the church parking lot: "Heaven" resounds through my speakers and mixes with the dawn that rises above me. Dawns and sunsets are such an affirmation of creation. I'm sure God doesn't mind me throwing a little music into the mix.
Today, though, the combination of the music slayed me. I remembered something I forgot.
When I was a pastor in a church, I had the good fortune offer a word for the little ones during
WHOA, IT IS POURING RAIN HERE AT CB! Big thick drops! I love the rain! Thank you, Jesus!
I walked into their presence with a phone book: The yellow pages. I kept flipping pages. I said to them, "I'm trying to find the
I'm sure I said something brilliant at that point that connected it all, but I ended up with telling that the
Somewhere along the way, I forgot that. I forgot what it meant. Or maybe it was just sleeping inside me. But after this amazing retreat, where I had a chance to once again set down my cross and take up a better one, I hear Los Lonely Boys singing "How far is it to heaven?: Locked up in the prison of this world, how can I get to heaven? And it hit me like a brick: the prison is my own creation. I put myself there, I locked it with my own key, the key I made for the lock I made.
How far is it to heaven? Not far at all. It's been inside me all the time. In a box that I put it in. On the cross I made and nailed it to, all by myself.
Time to take Heaven out of the box. Time to step out from the prison and give the keys to God. Why wait for a human death and resurrection? Certainly that will be good in its proper time, but for now, heaven is right here, with me, waiting for me to say Yes. I forgot to say yes.
Father Jason reminded me of something else I forgot: during communion, we accept into our bodies the body of Jesus Christ. What was incarnated in Him becomes Incarnate in us. All we have to do is say yes. I won't argue with anyone, there are more ways to receive Jesus Christ, but for me, this act of humility, this willingness to admit "I need more than who I am to live in this world," that I need God and God's grace every day, in the sacrifice of the Mass, is for me the most perfect way. Each day I admit to God I need him to get through the day. And I admit it in front of witnesses, the other souls who come to be fed, who have their own prisons, their own walls and their own desires for themselves and the community. I suppose it's not for everyone, but it works for me.
Heaven is a place that is not a place. It is a state of being that lives when we love God first and then one another.
I probably shouldn't write so close after a retreat...
HUH? The Spiritual Gift of Listening
Thursday, July 16, 2009 at 10:12am
One of the best parts of my spiritual journey through Perkins School of Theology at SMU was the non-required work I chose to do called CPE (Clinical Pastoral Education) at Children's Hospital. There I met some amazing people, Doug (Lutheran, I believe), Witek (studied to be a priest once, but opted for marriage), Ron (the boss), Linda (my boss, who happened to be an ordained American Baptist Minister- and the best boss I have ever had in my life), Sister Mary _____, who graciously invited me to a special service at her convent while I was considering jumping ship from the UMC and embracing my Catholicism in a whole new way. (Kneeiling beside her in prayer was one of the most humbling experiences of my life)
But I digress. I merely wanted to set up a starting point. CPE was the hardest and bestest work I have ever been privileged to do. The first day after training when they let me out on the floor, I had to take the body of a 16 year old down to the morgue and then I had the deaths of two children who died in an auto accident on their parents' anniversary. I'll say up front that this was not a average day at the hospital, but it was a normal day. Things happen. Sometimes all at once.
The importance of my sharing that with you is that I had to learn how to be present for others during that day. I had to learn how to be present to myself as well. I needed a very clear understanding of where I fit, what I was supposed to do and what I was not supposed to do.
Doug told me something very important as I processed that day and other long ones: The sufferings of another person is their gift from God. You (meaning me) have no right to try to take that away from them. It took me a long time to embrace what that fully means. I am still working on the definition.
How can suffering be a gift? Well, that is a topic worthy of examination, but not today. If it weighs on you, pray about it and see what God tells you. But suffering, like joy, is a gift from God.
I make that statement here because I am concerned about the way we listen to each other. Are we listening at all? Or are we just waiting for our turn to speak? The Desert Fathers had it right when they wrote that every time we open our mouth, we have a very good chance to sin. That's why they suggested silence as a way of living in God's grace. We always want out opinion heard. (Anyone besides me seeing the irony of me making that statement?)
Consider the Book of Job. Job suffered. Job did not know why and lamented to God, I have done nothing wrong? Why is this happening to me? That's a pretty normal human response and a healthy one at that. What is much more interesting here is the behavior of the friends of Job. They thought they could figure it out. They were smart people. Job just needed to confess his sin, and then everything would be OK. But Job continued his self-defense that he did not sin.
We could go down a path that discussed the nature of sin and man...but that's not what I want here. I want to write about the friends.
How do we respond to another person's suffering? Do we deny it? Do we rationalize it? Do we try to explain it away? Do we ignore it? Do we try to FIX it? We are all so good at giving advice without being asked. But the real grace in being a witness to the sufferings of another person is the ability to listen.
Most people don't want my solution to their problems. They just want someone to hear them. And the interesting thing is, until we hear them, they will continue to "cry out" until someone does. I often think that the root of most violence in this world is a result of our inability to listen to each other.
I wrote something on FB perhaps two weeks ago that was important to me. Sometimes we just write crap, but in between the cute little "I'm tireds" and "how does your toilet paper sit on its roll?" are sandwiched some thoughts and feelings from people, letting us know something important...and then there's the poem I read when I was a kid to a bunch of teachers at a breakfast "Please hear what I am not saying" and got a jillion thank-yous for my reading...and I was thinking then, why? Why are they thanking me? I did it to get out of geometry...
I was trying to be brave. There are a bunch of pastors in my Friends group that have to face that decision every day. Will I be brave? Can I be brave? Can I speak the truth in love? Will I be heard? What, dear Lord, do you want me to do?
But one comment from a good friend, and I hit the delete button as fast I could. It took me until now to understand why. I was not heard. BTW, that's OK. I forgave my friend immediately. That's what friends do. But why did I hit delete, when I know the word might have helped someone else?
Stephen Spielberg spoke on the Actor's Studio a couple of years ago. He was asked the standard questions at the end of the interview, one of which was: "If He exists, what do you want God to say to you when you get to heaven?" To which Spielberg responded, "Thanks for listening."
There is debate in some parts of the Jewish community about which is the first commandment, and some scholars say "Shema" is the first commandment. God asks us to listen. God asks us to hear what He says to us. Sometimes that means listening to our brother or sister. Even when they are saying something painful.
Ever wonder about the Sacrament of Reconciliation? Why we have it at all? Maybe it's because we need an incarnation (God's presence in another human being) to get through whatever weighs heavy on our hearts. Whatever is standing between us and God needs to be washed away. No amount of book-reading or psychotherapy will do it. Explaining it will not unburden our hearts of it. But having a flesh and blood person offer love as a response to it will get us back on track.
You may think I am just talking about sin, but I am not. Everything that weighs us down needs a place to go, and that can be dealing with a mother with Alzheimer's Disease, a son with a drug problem, a husband out of a job. Doug said (remember him, three pages back?) people have three basic feelings: they are mad, sad or glad. My job was to listen for what they were saying to me and let them know I heard them. That's about it.
What listening is not is telling someone who says something important that may sound negative to you, "Oh that's not true!" or "Just look at the bright side of things" or "Well, I love you." These comments are dismissing what some person has tried to say. It fits right up there with telling a rape victim "God only gives you what you can handle." or to the mother of a child that died "God just needed another little angel in heaven." What we do when we speak in that way to each other is shut them down so we don't have to deal with OUR pain that we experience when hear things that hurt. Job's friends did not listen to Job, they tried to fix the problem...because if there wasn't a 'good' reason for Job's suffering, then how can they possible protect themselves from the same fate?
We have to learn how to listen to each other again every single day. It is our human nature to try to solve problems. The greatest gift we can give each other is simply to be present with each other in our daily lives. To really be able to hear/listen is 90 percent of the game. Then, we can go about the 'doing part.' The problem solving comes last. First, we have to hear.
My blessings to anyone who wandered through this writing. I hope it helps someone today...but for the moment, I simply felt called to write it and leave the rest up to God.
If it's worth doing, it's worth doing poorly...
Tuesday, July 14, 2009 at 8:16am
I spent years in therapy trying to learn that phrase. I thank the woman who offered it to me in my prayers almost daily. I could argue my Catholic upbringing with very rigid nuns was the source of my perfection issues, but I know there were many contributing factors. Still, I offer it today because a lot of us refrain from 'doing good' because we have an idea in our heads of what that looks like, and when we get our hands dirty in the challenge, we don't measure up to our own standards. We get discouraged. We quit. We leave it to someone else who is "better qualified." In fact, our entire country has a perfection issue. George Bush didn't do it right, Barack Obama isn't doing it right. Oh, how much fun we have throwing bricks at the people who try!
I had a magnet on my file cabinet in my office when I was teaching at CCCC (now
From Dorothy Day's Meditations:
"The first unit of society is the family. The family should look after its own and, in addition, as the Early Father's said, "Every home should have a Christ room in it, so that hospitality can be practiced: The coat that hangs in your closet belongs to the poor. If your brother is hungry, it is your responsibility."
Feb 1945
The First Hospice:
"So far three beds have been obtained although fifteen are needed. We also have four blankets, two of them donated by a woman whose family are unemployed, save for one son who is working for ten dollars a week. She washed the blankets herself and sent them down to the office with prayers for the success of the new venture...The winter is on us and we can wait no longer. Even without furniture we have opened the doors. We will borrow blankets for the time being and use those of the editors. They can roll themselves in coats and newspapers, which are siad to be very warm, though we are sure they are also very noisy. However, we hug to ourselves the assurance that all these things, such as blankets, so we are not dismayed...Christ's first bed was of straw."
I've got to get back on the road. Blessings to all!
Working in a church…Read at your own Risk
Sunday, July 12, 2009 at 1:17pm
The blissful days of seminary still a part of my walk in heaven, I was offered a position as a youth minister in a church. I recklessly quit my full time, great benefits teaching job ( at a college) for less pay, more hours and no health care. I thought the unexpected offer to do work in a church was a true 'God thing.' Indeed it was. My first weekend on staff, I took about 40 youth on a retreat to Oklahoma to a place I'd never been before in a van I'd never driven before and found out when I got there I was supposed to lead a couple of sessions on prayer or something spiritual. I had been told before leaving that I was going as an observer. Sigh. As I was closing the door to the van and locking it, I was informed that about 6 teens had gone off into the woods and needed to be found. I found them and 'read the riot act' to them, relying on my Girl Scout training...(which I never had to use with my girl scouts, they were great kids and stayed within the boundaries I set). Short version: we all survived.
I read somewhere that the average life span of a youth director is eight months. I lasted two. My experience led me to question God. What had seemed like so clear a call to ministry faded in the unceasing demands by parents and staff to create and maintain programs that seemed all about entertainment rather than service to God. The reality of it weighed heavy on my heart. How could this be true? How could I have been so blind?
Certainly I expected challenges and growth areas...but I was ignorant to the primitive work that had to be forged first and nothing in seminary prepared me for it. I thought church life was supposed to be all about loving God and loving my neighbor. I thought it was supposed to be about prayer and putting God first. I thought it was about being genuinely concerned for the stranger and making certain he had a hot meal at the end of the day.
I decided after two months in a church that I would finish seminary (I loved every minute of it) and never work in a church again. I dreamed of building a retreat center where people "be still and hear God." I wanted to build a place of quiet that supplied only the "daily bread" and gave people a chance to get calm again. And to have a house where 'forgiveness miracles' could happen. A place of reconciliation and restoration. And I wanted it all to be free to the visitor. As unrealistic as that was, it held me up during the rest of my time in seminary. I could justify my education. I was going to do something beautiful for God.
God of course, had His own ideas about what might happen next...
What God does when you are making other plans…
Tuesday, July 7, 2009 at 12:52pm
I keep starting these notes, never finish them, and then delete them. Right now, I am riding a monster spiritual wave of activity that has not been this powerful since I first entered seminary more than ten years ago. Back then, I thought I was walking on water. Things kept falling into place and it all seemed so easy...hard, hard work without question, but the passion was so alive inside me that it was difficult to keep it under control...sure, like I had a choice in this journey...seems when God comes knocking on the door...and you open it...well, ain't nothing been the same since!
So I'm caught in this non-linear place between my Catholicism and my call to ministry, which in my mind, doesn't include becoming a nun. (I have authority issues...just ask the UMC) So I thought I could get away with loving God deeply inside the frameworks of the
Then I graduated and got a job in a church...
Stay tuned for upcoming posts...;-)
posted by Cindy at
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