Hard to Believe

Why is it so hard to believe in our goodness?

Waiting on Faith

Having seen Jesus, John can say:  This is God's chosen.  In that moment of recognition all he had been and done, everything he had said, made sense.  It became worthwhile, but it was not always that way.  For a very long time there was no recognition, and he had perhaps looked into many faces for some sign.  He had believed there was a reason for what he had been about.  He had prepared himself and the people, but for what he had not known.  He realized he had to, but there had never really been a why.

It was not easy, but faith is like that.  It is believing and acting on what is believed.  Like love, faith means risking.  It is trusting and waiting, and it can be hurting as well.  It is hoping there really is a meaning, that all the searching and looking and trying will end in recognition of the one who makes it make sense.

There has been no seeing, no understanding to be clutched and held up for others to see.  There may be only a feeling that God will work it out, in God's way.  But it is enough.  It has to be, because it is all there is.  So he searched and wondered.  He was being who he was waiting for God to become who he would be, and as God was getting ready to be recognized John waited to be chosen, by God's chosen.

Walls Between Us

Walls between people are built from both sides and so one person cannot take down more than his or her side.

Worry

If you could just stop worrying there would be nothing to worry about.

God's Limitation

God could easily overthrow their kinds, but not Israel's prophets whom he had called.

Death of a Priest

He was when I saw him so very angry and sad.  In some ways he seemed an almost pathetic person.  He was a friend, a very good one.  He had problems and for the moment it seemed the problems might be winning.  Yet, with all that was wrong, an awful lot was so very right.  He was good and holy, concerned with the present moment and the future both of God and of people.  He could be hurt, and he was, but that is part of love.  Some will be saying he died as a young man, and maybe even a wasted man or a wasted priest.  Some will say he was, or could have been, a scandal, an embarrassment, a man somehow unfaithful to his calling.  But some will always say or think such things, and they would speak ill even of the Lord (in fact, I believe some of their predecessors did).

He is dead now.  He was at one time a drunk and apparently he died all alone.  It was not the least of his problems, but problems are not always there to be overcome and some of them have no resolution.  For all that hurt, he was more a priest than many of us there.  His life and from the beginning, I think, his ministry were marked by moments of failure and frustration.  But that, looking back, should have been no surprise; and I wonder why or how the rest of us avoided or denied those issues that occasion resistance and bring on failure or cause frustration to those who will confront them.

His ideas of what should have been, his determination to make God a reality in a Church and community that seemed so indifferent, had to provide rejection.  Had he not known it could end badly he would have been a fool, and that was not the case.  Had he not hoped what surrounded and hurt him would change he would not have been himself.  Like Jesus, his life required rejection.  There was no room for accommodation; and it might have seemed self-defeating, if not destructive, but sometimes there is no alternative.

He was in some ways weak, or just too human.  His sins, if that is what some want to call them, would not stay hidden.  It is over now.  He is dead.  I hope he will be missed and mourned, that maybe even those who would (and they will) say he was wrong might learn that sometimes priesthood is most itself in sorrow.  That security and ease were not in the contract we made with God.  That there is pain in believing and that faith is sometimes a source of anger unto death.

Fear and Consequences

They were so afraid that without the pound of flesh there would be condoning of the crime.

Knowing We Need Others

The prodigal knew enough to know he needed forgiveness.  It was an important first step.  It is recognizing limitations, admitting need, saying that on his own he is incomplete.  It can be hard to say we have needs, that without someone else's understanding and acceptance something is missing, but once said there is an opportunity to be more complete.

Watching The Birds

I have never been so terribly exciting but lately I've thought sitting here, watching the birds, drinking coffee and reading of someone else's adventures could fill a day.  I am pleased to hear that friends have similar aspirations.

After the Flood

The harmony of the garden is finally over after the flood, when plants stop being their food.  People start eating the beasts, who are free now to devour each other.

Putting Aside the Roles

He asked, "Who do they say I am?"  They told him, "You are called Elijah and John.  They say you are the prophet."  And he asked what they had chosen or wished him to be, what name did they suppose.  Because their name for him was his name; he said it was true.  It was telling them:  put aside what they expect; see me as me.  And to them he was saying the same thing:  be who you are, nothing else.  Don't be John or Jeremiah.  Don't be the prophet; don't even be me.  Be yourselves.

Play no roles, even if it is expected or demanded by people who seem to know.  Be done with pretense, no matter who demands it or even if you wish it were so.  As I am, so are you.  Be you completely and well.  No more is asked, needed, or of value.  No more acting.  No role, no part to be played.  Put them aside.  No matter what they seem to add, they have nothing to offer.

God's Gifts

God not only created Adam.  He also planted a garden and gave him his first real suit of clothes.

Being Seen

If we look a the painting and see only the darker parts, we have not seen it.  If we look at our lives and see only what is wrong, we have seen nothing of who we are.

Before You Were Born

Before James was born:

I don't know yet who you are.  I only know you are there.  There is as yet no name to call you.  In a way I have said similar things to God, and like him, I love you and the mystery of you, a mystery that will always be, one that is so secret and will become deeper and also clearer as it is lived.  Today, now that we know you are, we are scared, and hopeful, and thankful, and very happy.  We are these things and many more.  We have waited quite a while.  Some people -- people who think themselves so wise -- say you will change things and be something of a burden, and maybe even a problem.  Out of what passes for wisdom and experience, they glance at our apparently naive joy.  Let them.  It would be as inane to glance back with wisdom of our own.

If you change things, as I hope and expect you will, I am sure it will be to add to our lives without taking from our love, and if you are a burden it is one we have been anxious to carry -- a burden not unlike Augustine's wings of the bird.  As for problems, I suppose were we ever so honest all people are or cause problems.  It is part of our nature, but not the biggest part, not the part we remember as we grow old and it is beyond that wisdom that winks.  At this point, no matter who you are or will become, the future is as unknowable as the wonder that caused you to be and for that, for you, for God who is part of it all, I can only be thankful.  So, my friend, thanks.  We are looking forward to meeting you.  Love made you.  It will sustain us as well, making all of us more for being together.

Unknowable

They thought he knew the secret.  He said he did.  He said he had the answer, but when they asked what it might be he said it could not be told.  It could not be explained because they would never understand.  So they went away.  "Truly he must have it," they said, "If it is such that words are beneath it, it must be true.  It has to be the answer."  It must also remain a secret, and so it did.  He had not explained because he could not.  He had not named it because it had no name, and so it was beyond him as well.  It was beyond or above them all, but he knew that it was and they had thought it might be.  This was a secret unlike any other.  It could not be touched; much less could it be spoken.  Even he who was closest dared not understand, since to understand would mean it was not real.  To explain would be to lie.  To say it was or could ever be grasped would be but pretense.

Beyond The Practical

The practical intrudes.  It seems so real and promises so much.  It appears reasonable, even if reason may not be what we need.  Its oughts and shoulds look just right, so appealing but sometimes so silly as well.  There is reason beyond reason, and beyond the practical is what comes of faith.

How Did God Get to be God?

How did God get to be God?  Did he take a test, pursue a degree, have a friend in the business?  Was there an internship, a political appointment, an ad in the New York Times?  What were his qualifications?  From whom did he get references?  Or was it that no one else applied?  God's role in life is not a job.  It is his being and so any comparison we might offer, any understanding based on our experience, is not so very helpful.

The more you cannot walk away from, the less free you will be

Who God Is

Had God been all the things he is and done even more than he has, had he not been love first and been it most of all, we would have no more need of him than people had of the stone gods so easily toppled and so little missed.

Love Is In the Accepting of It

There are those we would so like to love but what we would offer they cannot accept; and the love they would have for us is such we cannot receive it, not and remain faithful to ourselves.  There is then a terrible stalemate.  Instead of the love we might wish there is to offer, and an outdoing in the force with which we each present it, but no acceptance and so it is not love at all.  It is concern and a wish for something more, something that might be shared.  It is the best that can be, but it is surrounded by so much emptiness.

Simplifying Life

The aim is the simplifying of life, eliminating what is not ours to control.  We may have interest in those things, and express opinions, but most often it must end there.  We would also do well to not consider what others think of us since the thoughts belong to them and -- right or wrong, accurate or not -- they belong to someone else.  We might be more adversely influenced were we to allow our actions to be tailored by what others think, or how they might respond.  Begin, if you can, to narrow your life, trusting others to live their own, to be who they are with all the thoughts, ideas, hopes, and wishes they would hold.

This does not preclude interest in issues of import, but it does mean they are ours in only a limited way.  However, when we join with others our voices are more readily heard, more easily recognized as transcending what any one of us might offer or have control over.  Giving our identity to the group, giving up responsibility for it and specific choices about it, each of us is magnified as we gather into the entirety.  By becoming a group, not needing for now to be individuals, our influence extends well beyond who we might singly be.  In this way we can make wars end and sometimes bring justice into places where it had seemed unable to breathe.

A Man and His Memories

There he is, eating alone or standing at the edge of some crowd, wishing sometimes he might be invited in but alone people are not members, not even when asked to join.  After the kiss of peace, he is no less a stranger.  There is no one to share every day, no one to receive his kiss when Mass is over, or as each day begins and ends.  He greets people or else looks away, and he reads but has no one to tell what he has learned, no one to ask what he thinks.  But it is at meal time, at his table for two where no one else sits, that he seems most forlorn.

I used to see them together, when there might have been as much silence but it had not been so empty.  They had been a family, something you cannot be on your own.  They had gone shopping together, walked to the corner and back sometimes holding hands, laughing at what was perhaps best in memory, a word or recollection tied fast to what was shared so long ago.

I wonder too is he who I might become when time goes farther on.  It is a thought I do not welcome.  It is one I put aside, knowing too that people with memories, those who've been loved, are maybe less alone than they seem.

Being the Messiah

There may have been a time when John wondered might he be the Messiah.  His message was a good one and in line with the promise.  People were coming to hear and recognized in what he said the voice of God.  He had even the right enemies and critics.  Had he wondered there came too a realization that Messiah was someone else's call, and perhaps he was relieved, glad not to have that role since he was better at being who he was and pointing beyond himself as others had done, others who might also have wondered, "Is it I?"

The Search

Knowing what you are looking for increases the likelihood of finding it.

The Kids Are Alright

Had parents an assurance their children would in the end be all right they could be more tolerant of the stages and phases of life through which the children pass.  But that guarantee is unavailable.  It is another instance calling for faith.  There is no need to like having to believe or trust, but there is nothing else.

More Moral Than Spiritual

As a Church we tend, it seems, to be more moral than spiritual, more focused on what is right and (more often) on what might be wrong; and more intellectual than there may be need to be.  Maybe it is because we are then free from looking into our hearts rather than our will; and can focus inside our minds where feeling is not welcome.

Dignity and Sobriety

"When I thought of having that drink," he said, "this was not the one, but this is the one it always comes to."  He was coming off, or hoping at least that he could, a bout he'd had before.  The drink he'd set out to have, the "just this one," was now about a year ago.  There had been less pleasure in it than he had hoped there might be, and less still in the ones that had followed.  It was soon no choice at all, and back to being compulsion.  It had hold of him and held him very tightly.  In no time at all there was no pleasure, and there had never been satisfaction.

It was time to take back his life, to again take up his dignity, recognizing it as his own and remembering how it ends when you reach for "just this one."  Good luck.

The Cost of Life

Life is a gift.  It is free.  There is no need to pay for it.  And if there were, with what would you pay?

At One With the Desert

John, in Mark's gospel, appears in the desert.  He does not go there as Moses had.  Nor is he driven there as Jesus would be.  Instead, he appears as though sprouting up from it, nurtured by its barrenness. It is where he belongs.  He is one with the desert, not a visitor or its captive.  For John it is not penance or preparation.  It is his fulfillment, and he would never fit where others might flourish.

Faithfulness to Faith

We say that to be faithful to our belief we must be just and must be kind.  To be true in living our belief we must seek peace and must bring life to God's love.  Instead of saying "must," it might be better to talk of "having an opportunity," doing away with the sense of obligation.  Faithfulness to faith is fulfilling, not burdensome.