Buried Gold

There is so much to bury these days:
Old friends, old loves, dreams, the lamp
At the end of the lane, petals soft and damp
From sweaty hands, voice so loved, so dear,
Expectations of what may be, and fear
Of what may not, the pursuit of happiness
Spent in toil and grasping, fingers that hold
Riches that turn to dirt and grime and mold...

Mound it all up in the dust, pack it down,
Stamp the ground with your boots,
Water it with your tears. Somewhere roots
Will grow. Somehow the seed that dies
Will sprout forth—somehow warmth will rise
To touch the dead hard soil—wither lies
That a bud may blossom and keep tryst
For all that is buried in the heart of Christ.

Surprise

Today I had the absolutely splendid experience of surprise in so many ways.  I had forgotten how delightful surprises are and what joy they bring.

I knew that I had been struggling and that I was becoming weighted down, but I did not realize quite how much dryness I was experiencing until I received the surprising gift of consolation.  Somehow the dryness always comes upon us slowly.  We think we are doing well, joyfully facing life with all of its challenges, taking care of ourselves and striving to be the best people we can be.  Then slowly, bit by bit, the feelings subside without our quite realizing it.

When I think of surprise, I always think of Chesterton's play of that name.  There are some particularly striking portions from that play that talk about our desire for surprise:

POET. Oh, my God, what am I? Mud out of the highway soiling your carpets; a rag blown over the wall. But will you let me speak one moment for all the ragged people on the road, the truth that your officers do not tell you; what I know out of the very mouths of the poor of God?

PRINCESS. What in the world do they want?

POET. They want surprise. They do not want sufficiency or security. They want surprise. They do not want regular wages. They want irregular wealth. You say they can always find a pig at the pig-trough and ale in the ale-cask. If ever, one fine morning, they found the pig in the ale-cask and could drink ale out of the pig-trough—they would think they were in a fairy tale.

Is this not so?  We think that we want security.  We think that we want what we want.  Yet who has ever been happy with receiving exactly what he asks for?  At least not happy for long.  Always we move on to the next thing that we want, the next thing that will fill the aching emptiness in our heart.

Everyone wants the surprise of winning the lottery or some rich relative to appear and bequeath us some vast fortune.  It is not just that we want the money, but we want the surprise.

There is something ingrained deep in our hearts that makes us desire surprise.  I find it particularly fitting today to think of surprise because of it being the Solemnity of the Annunciation, the Incarnation, which is the greatest surprise of all.  For what greater surprise could there be than that God should become Man?  He remains the God of surprises, answering our prayers when we least expect them and bestowing upon us beautiful gifts we never expected, ever moving in new and surprising ways throughout our lives.

Are You Hungry?

There is this popular motto going around these days regarding how to approach Lent: Don't give up chocolate for Lent.  Now that statement is meant to be provocative.  Hence I feel perfectly justified in responding with a similarly provocative statement: that is absolute hogwash.

Now of course if you give up chocolate (or any other little pleasure) for Lent and that is all you do, you may be missing the point.  If giving up that chocolate leads you to an awareness of God and of how you are seeking Him elsewhere, then it is certainly worthwhile.  However, if it merely causes you to substitute something else to fill that hole in your life, it has utterly failed.

Still, the reason I criticize the above statement is primarily because it could lead to a justification for continuing to overindulge simply because you are doing something else for Lent.  Asceticism is a necessary part of Lent, whether that means fasting on bread and water or giving up something like chocolate.

If it makes us hungry, that is a good thing.  For it is hunger that leads us to God.

Here is a young Franciscan, Brother Casey, meditating on the practical fruit of our hunger with an example from the Scriptures (his longer blog post on the same subject is here):

Our society has turned its back on asceticism in favor of a pleasure-driven search that results in momentary happiness, but no spiritual fruit.  Take that influence along with our fallen human nature and we enter a repetitive search for God in all the wrong places, trying to fill our persistent hunger with what will never satisfy.

Yet in the end, as Saint Augustine said: Our hearts are restless, until they rest in Thee.

"We are our own aptest deceiver." - Goethe

"...he forgot for the while what experience had taught him—
that no human being can really understand another,
and no one can arrange another's happiness."

The Heart of the Matter
by Graham Greene

Those last two phrases in particular sound out in bold ringing tones, like a bell struck hard in an old abandoned church tower that grates out a harsh unused and funereal tone, scattering pigeons into flight and drawing the gaze of those working nearby in the fields.  So it might catch us, striking us out of the stolid comfort of our own assurance.

Sometimes we get caught up in thinking we can make others happy.  That desire often places upon us an undue burden, leading to pain or mental illness.  We may despair because of the impossibility of even understanding what will produce another's happiness.

In the sense of the above quotation, trying to arrange happiness becomes a sort of manipulation.  All too often that is exactly what our love is: an attempt to control others.  Thus even what is good—namely love, which is willing the good of the other—has become corrupt.  We may not realize how deep is the decay of our intentions.  We continue to deceive ourselves in focusing on doing the other good, but it is a good that ultimately seeks to give us a sort of power over them.

Similarly, the desire to please others leads us into the trap of manipulation.  The logic in our heads is as follows: if we do what others wish, they will be happy.  It is good logic.  The problem is in the premises; after all, receiving precisely what we want does not make us happy, ridiculous as that fact is.

Furthermore, as long as we are trying to force a result, we are manipulating, controlling, dominating.  We are not free to give and receive.  Henri Nouwen expresses this idea perfectly in his book called The Inner Voice of Love: A Journey Through Anguish to Freedom:

"A lot of giving and receiving has a violent quality, because the givers and receivers act more out of need than out of trust.  What looks like generosity is actually manipulation, and what looks like love is really a cry for affection or support."

How many times have we gone to others looking for love, begging for them to fulfil our needs while trying to hide from them the fact that we were in need at all?  So many times we reach out in hope that another will fill the void within.  Sometimes we dare not even risk that much vulnerability and turn to pleasures instead.

Yet there is a way to break out of this crippling circle of insanity.  As Nouwen himself puts it, we must first experience love in the depths of our being:

"When you know yourself as fully loved, you will be able to give according to the other's capacity to receive, and you will be able to receive according to the other's capacity to give.  You will be grateful for what is given to you without clinging to it, and joyful for what you can give without bragging about it.  You will be a free person, free to love."

That is the key to achieving the liberty of being able to love generously: we must set others free from our desires for them and accept the fruit of our efforts and offerings made out of love, no matter whether we achieve success or failure.  We must do our duty and leave the rest to the One who is All-Powerful.

Yes, we must surrender our wills.  We must surrender everything to the Creator and Healer of our souls.

Yet if it is love we desire, how could we do better then to lay ourselves in whole-hearted surrender at the feet of the One who is Love?  It is hard many times to receive love from One so intangible.  It seems impossible to entrust ourselves to One so hidden.  How can we reasonably expect One so unseen to care for us?  And yet He does.  And He does so according to our capacity to receive, according to our surrender.

In the end, He is not after all so invisible.  It is we who are blind.

Life is Pain

"Life is pain, Highness; anyone who says differently is selling something."

-Westley in The Princess Bride

These days nearly everyone is selling something.  Whether it is engagement jewelry or cheap soda, vacation home timeshares or the latest technological gadget, our society centers around consumerism.  Our economy improves primarily based upon how many unnecessary bits of paraphernalia you, the consumer, will purchase, even if you must rack up thousands of dollars in debt to do so.

Clearly—if you will believe the advertisements thrust upon you from every quarter—you must own a desktop computer, laptop computer, mp3 player, iPad, iPod, iPhone, new car, new house, stereo system, barbeque grill, printer, scanner, Ninja blender, ride-on lawn mower, golf cart, 4-wheeler, motorcycle, moped, DVD player, CD player, 62GB USB stick, digital camera, telescope, binoculars, electronic keyboard, LED lights, water skis, etc., etc.  You need caffeine, alcohol, drugs, and fifteen different kinds of painkillers.  In short, you need anything that increases your pleasure and decreases your pain.

Consequently, we ought to be the happiest people in all history.  Yet are we?

Depression, anxiety, and other mental illnesses continue to increase dramatically.  Current statistics state that one in five adults in the U.S. suffer from a mental illness each year.  Yes, a fifth of our adult population is struggling, not to mention the prevalence of mental issues among children and teens.  And the number of suicides only continues to rise.

Why is this?

When we listen to the voices of the world and believe that we are not smart enough, strong enough, or beautiful enough, we shrink in our own estimation.  When we are told we have the wrong hair color, skin color, body type, or gender, how are we supposed to be happy?

By changing our exteriors?  Then we only build up layer upon layer of mask behind which to hide.  And we know very well how to hide.

Yet there is another course.  Theatre teaches us how great is the value of vulnerability: in laying bare our very selves and refusing to flee the pain, we find a deep inner strength.  By coming to know ourselves and accepting who we are, we discover the unique perspective we alone can offer the world.

How do we find the strength to face that pain?

Leaving aside the facts, let me speak personally for a moment: I find it daily in the love I receive from my family and my friends who love me because of who I am with all of my eccentricities.  I have found the greatest happiness in my life not by trying to change myself to fit the pressures of the world and become someone else, but by learning to love myself as I am and to become daily more myself.

Sometimes the pain returns when relationships fail.  Caught up as others are in their own pain and hectic lives, they do not see our need for love and support.  Nor do they understand how much their love bridges the chasm of loneliness.

Yet even there we can stand strong in the face of agony, for there is One who never fails.  Looking back upon my life, I see that my Lord has always been there for me.  Even when all around me may seem to fail me, He is there, carrying me along my way, in sickness and in health, in good times and in bad....