Post-Resurrection Blues

Lazarus, once having been raised, may have lost some of his stature as an authentic person.  He had, though not by his choice, gone beyond usual boundaries and so had now less in common with those who would die only once.  Perhaps they treated him differently, maybe even with respect -- though he was the lesson rather than the teacher -- and maybe even his family was at a loss.  Having already mourned him, they may not have understood what next to do, and there could be no pretending what had occurred never took place.  I wonder too what he told himself, how he tried to fit and maybe to justify his so suddenly being different, since he could ignore it no better than could others.  Perhaps, once the celebrity faded (and the first-century equivalent of the talk show circuit concluded) it was an embarrassment of sorts, one that would make his next death not unwelcome.

The More Essential Part

More than most things people seem reluctant to acknowledge a spiritual dimension to their lives.  Too bad, when it is the more essential part.

Sadness For The Living

At Nain Jesus responded to the woman's distress rather than to her son's death, knowing that dying is sadness only for the living.

Imagined Conversations

I sometimes picture us together and imagine even what we might say.  Not long conversations, and often no more than a glance, a smile, or the touching of hands.  So real for the emptiness that is actually there.

Appreciating Ismael

Ismael is becoming a deacon.  It is the acknowledging by the Church of service and faith that have been present for a very long time.  When I first met him he lent me his faith so that mine might have reason to be.  He was more my father in faith than anyone, except maybe Bo Welsh.  He believed in a very essential God, one who was kindness and concern.  While he might have asked the questions, it was in him that I found the answers.  He was well beyond foolish speculation.  When I wanted to think he was willing to act, and when I would have talked Ismael was not afraid to pray.  If I could complicate things, he had no need to.  I had the title but he had the ability to see God's faith.  I hope the Church appreciates the wonder it is receiving.

Responsible For The Outcome

Trust means we do not feel so responsible for the outcome.  It is doing today and tomorrow only when it comes.  The temptation to manage or control, to minimize the need or inclination to trust and in so doing we take over God's role, providing our own assurance that it will be O.K., that there will have been no need to worry.

Friends With God

The comparison of our relationship with God to that of child and parent is adequate in terms of the trust involved, but as far as the freedom of what is shared, the doubts and speculation entrusted, friends may be a better model.

Free Yourself

Another very obvious notion, one repeated and read so often its significance might be overlooked is that truth will make us free, a freedom that is within us and were we to deny or diminish it we would invite slavery to partake in the lie.  It will make us free, but not popular and it may not always make us happy.  It will not invite contact with those uncomfortable with truth but it will increase our capacity to be close to ourselves.

Saying Yes

I think we were always saying, "yes but..." when there was not "but," only the "yes."

Only if we make it a losing contest need we fear losing

What A Terrible Homily Says

I suppose I occasionally welcome a terrible homily.  It provides a focus for my annoyance at Church, its reluctance to progress or its determination to pursue issues of so much lesser significance.  But the homily this Sunday exceeded what I might, in even my most perverse mood, have anticipated.  At the end, he apologized for its length though content was the more offensive aspect.  Aside from his own prejudices it seemed nothing could be favorably viewed.  While nothing in the readings suggested it might be the appropriate topic, he talked about priesthood using himself as the model.  He went on to speak ill of families, who were self-centered; people who might pursue marital therapy, because it was not the right choice; other priests, since too many were involved in aspects of the ministry he considered less significant and so were neglecting what he considered important; lay ministers and deacons who were deemed fadist; people taking up other careers, since selfishness and money must be their motivation.

He also took up, though perhaps not intending to, the ignorance of his own family noting his father's inclination to hit them should they alter the cadence of a prayer they would say.  I am sure it was as sad a recitation as it was aggravating, but I was not interested in being sad.  To tell him what a blockhead he was would have meant nothing.  Fortunately, I will not be hearing him again.  That is to be the Merciers' distress more than mine, though it is an embarrassment to the Church in general when fools think themselves the soul of our faith.

Contempt for the Unsaved

Here he comes all "born again" and while he does not insist we join him in this salvation he is not so subtle in saying that none other is possible.  It is a very select group, the saved, and I think we might not be impressive enough for inclusion.  One must merit the election.  It is not unlike joining and exclusive club, and once in it is expected you will say there is nothing wrong with the common people, except that they are not (and never can be) us.  He is here now for our edification, and we for his not so well concealed contempt, benign and enlightened though it may be.

Unremembered

At some point in life it seems important to be remembered, if not by the world at large, at least by someone and so we give things to others hoping that looking at them they may remember who it came from.  But there are a number of people with nothing to give and no one with whom they might share.  While all of us cease to be and no one's memory is so very eternal, they will end so much sooner.

Faithfulness to Faith

There is a debate in the courts about Christian Science.  It is saying that children of this faith need to be protected from it, that they should not have to rely on spiritual healing, though their parents are free to.  It is the same argument that would say Christian children of the early centuries would not have to join their parents in the Coliseum, since their lives were more important that the community's faith.  If believing, and in some instances believing on behalf of our children, did not sometimes require risk it would not be believing.  There is a risk, and as in this case, there was death but death is not always the worst prospect.  Faithfulness to self and to the faith itself is sometimes more essential.

Healing Those Who Need It Most

Jesus cured all those in need of healing but perhaps others were also ill, though not needing to be rid of what caused their distress.  We can all have pain and none are better for it, but for some it leads to greater despair and so it is better that they have it taken from them.  Others were perhaps left to endure the normal courses of distress.  It was less a question of what was fair than it was of saving or securing people in the ways they had need of, making Jesus' ability to discern an aspect of the cure.

The Sacred

Marriage is a sacrament, but family with all that is shared is the sacred.

Hidden

If we hide things, people may think there were things to be hidden.

A Place To Be

The disciples thought people needed to be fed and to find a place to stay.  Jesus fed them.  They would have to find for themselves a place to be.

Managing Dopiness

When I see people acting as dopey as I sometimes do, I realize it would be O.K. to stop.  Should they wish to continue, that it not my choice.  Only my own dopiness is available to me.

Deepening Life

In the beginning of life, movement is outward away from the center of self into family and then into society, with self seen in terms of relationship to and sometimes in comparison to those around us.  At some juncture, there should be a parallel movement -- beginning in adolescence -- back inward, and this becomes the more prominent track as life progresses, and as reflection enables a deepening rather than just a lengthening of life.

A New Home

As people get older the center of their lives shifts and so they become more like visitors in the homes in which they were born.  It becomes where they had been, but where they now are is different and where they might one day be even more so.  It can be disconcerting and requires some treading on unfamiliar ground, but to not change -- to not call someplace else home -- would be far sadder in the end.

Calling It Love

When we can finally call it love, there is no risk in the sharing.  It has a naturalness and inevitability we could not have thought likely were love not its name.

The Frailty of Church

We become so intent upon defining Church, focused primarily on its mission or role.  We see it as system and society, as component, participant and embodiment of both God's plan and our own.  It is all part of whatever else we would see and for all of its divinity we delight most in the frailty of its being human.  It is what we seem to love and despair of in nearly equal measure.  It is always so essential and at the same time so lacking.  We draw it close and feel driven back.  It never meets our expectation yet it sometimes will exceed itself, going beyond where it is mired and find in practice all of the promise it has always had.

We are critical of Church, bound so inexorably to it and enraged by its failure as much as we are delighted by its ability to be what nothing else might ever become.  Church will never meet our needs, exhaust our speculation or fail to awaken within us the fierce loyalty and intense pain that only family can engender.

Hope With No Conviction

It had become no surprise that anything good or promising would be followed, if not undone, by some disappointment.  It was discouraging and invited despair.  It made it hard to hope with any conviction.

Imagining The Worst

She noticed an inclination to think what might happen -- actually what might go wrong.  She would then decide how she would respond to each problem that might arise.  Soon she was conducting within herself so many dialogues -- more often than not they were arguments and so generated some anger, which turned quickly to frustration, and highlighted new prospects for failures that might occur.  Fortunately none of the feared situations ever materialized.  Had they, there was no energy left with which to face them.

Time For Yourself

The more time and energy you invest meddling in lives other than your own, and the more you respond to questions to which you cannot have the answer, the less will you have available for your own life (and so you should not wonder why you see it as so filled with frustration) or for those questions to which you can offer a reply.

Dedication of the Dilettante

His is the dedication of the dilettante, intense and short-lived.  It is not entirely without value, but neither is it as significant as it might seem in its flash and gleam, busting onto one stage after another.

Why We Serve

Is there in the inclination to provide service, and always to the least able or most needy, a drive to affirm our own value, to continually earn -- but never really acquire -- a sense of worth?  Whatever is given, it is to meet our need and fill our emptiness.  Perhaps, were we to focus instead on the need and worth of this other person, seeing his dignity and celebrating his significance, there might be greater satisfaction for both of us.

In Between Self-Sacrifice and Selfishness

For a time we were consumed in giving, determined to deny any aspect of self not devoted to someone other than ourselves, but that diminished our dignity as well as our gifts since the self we were sharing had but little value.  There followed a consuming desire to move into ourselves, to dig into our souls for what few nuggets we might find and we turned society to our fulfillment-demanding, in some sense, that it repay us for our gift, unsought though it might have been.  But that too was incomplete since it magnified our individuality to gargantuan proportion overriding any sense of shared being.

The Wrong Roles

When we see our roles as containing the pressure inside the cooker, rather than turning off the heat, we have a problem.