Are You Clinging to Your Teddy Bear?

Have you ever seen the above image or one like it?

It is quite a good illustration for how God works in our lives.  Although sometimes it seems like He is not quite so gentlemanly about asking us to give Him whatever teddy bear of comfort we are clinging to in our lives.  Sometimes He simply takes things away from us, leaving us in confusion and doubt.  Then we feel lost and abandoned.

He could of course show us the bigger teddy bear first to win our confidence.  Yet He rarely does.  In fact, He rarely even gives us the greater gift immediately after taking something from us.  Perhaps He gives it sooner if we surrender readily to Him whatever pleasure or security He is asking us to give Him.  Perhaps it is only because He is forced to take away the teddy bear that has become a danger to our spiritual health that He waits for us to turn to Him before He gives us the bigger one lest it should become an idol as well.

So many times I find myself wondering why He seems to deprive those dear to me (and myself as well) of things that seem necessary.  Surely if He truly wanted us to live life more abundantly He would provide us with the support and healing we need in order to be able to do so?

It is easy to allow the enemy to work here—so easy to believe the devil's dastardly lies that seem so much more consonant with the reality we experience and to believe them in such subtle ways that we scarcely even realize it.  We end up relying on our own strength.  We believe that God does not wish to answer our prayers and therefore we must accept His will—a truth certainly, but one that so easily becomes rather a lie lived in bitterness because it taints our view of the Father's love and goodness rather than uniting us with the passion of Christ.

"God alone suffices," said Saint Teresa of Avila.

Is that not the only answer to the taking of our teddy bears?

We think we need them.  We think we need to hold something to give us comfort and security and we can't bear the thought of facing Him with empty hands.

Yet His hands were empty as they hung on the cross for us, as He poured out His love for us, a love that would soon be transformed into glory in His resurrection.  He had no teddy bears.  Everything had been taken away from Him by the Father's will to which He surrendered absolutely.

God alone sufficed for Him as Man because He wanted us to know that it is true for us as well.  He really will give us everything we need.

Of course it may mean we need to change our hearts.  We may need to change our prayers.  We may need to quit telling God what He needs to do and asking Him what we need to do and how we can fix things and simply enter into His presence open to receive His love.  Why not come before Him with empty hands and empty hearts and say to Him: "Lord, here I am; I come to do Your will.  Heal me in whatever way you wish."

Oh Providence

There are a great number of people who have difficulty believing in a good God based upon the evils that happen to them or to the world at large.  On the other hand, there are a great number of people who believe in a good God because of the good things that happen to them and how everything works out well for them—adherents of the ol' Prosperity Gospel as it were.

I try not to fall into the latter category.  I try to trust that everything happens for a reason and that everything that God sends me is indeed a gift no matter how difficult to handle.

A beautiful approach to life as a passive recipient, however, can become a mind-crushing vice in taking action.  As usual, I can best find examples from my life to illustrate my meaning: in this case, I have set out to create a work of art in honor of the Epiphany.  For weeks I have trusted that it would all come together even though I was lacking certain necessary elements (i.e. actors).  Now it seems a bit as if everything is falling apart.  What do I do?

I begin to wonder if that will be the cry of my life.  Is that not the cry of all our lives?  What do we do when things don't go as we expect?  What do we do when God does not provide what we think we need? We could give up.  We could decide it wasn't God's will after all.  We could take it merely as disappointment and try to thank Him for that gift.

Or we can go on.

Into the valley of death
Rode the six hundred.

For some reason lines from Tennyson's poem "The Charge of the Light Brigade" often come to mind in these times of struggle and darkness.

Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die.

It isn't our right to command, nor to control the destiny of our lives or the lives of others.  We could flee in terror, cowards that we often are.  Or we can hold our ground, we can advance, we can charge forward when it seems like folly, when it seems that all is lost.  That is trust.  That is faith.  And that is one of the hardest things we can ever do.

What will He do with it?

That remains still to be seen, but He will do something glorious with it.  That we must believe.

When can their glory fade?

You Are Necessary For His Purpose

Somehow I am necessary for His purposes...

I have a part in this great work;

I am a link in a chain,

a bond of connection between persons.

These words come from the beautiful meditation by Blessed John Henry Newman whose feastday we celebrate today.  If you would like to read the full meditation, you can find it here.

Do you ever think of yourself as being necessary to God?  It is a strange thought to ponder: that the eternal God who is Being Itself should deign to need us for His great work of salvation.  Yet so He does out of love.  He wants us to work with Him, to be one with Him.  He desires it so much that He gives us a part in His cross that we may carry it with Him in order to free ourselves and others from the meaningless chains to which we bind ourselves by our sins.

We may not understand what lies behind each small piece of the puzzle, but He does.  He allows nothing that He cannot bring to its perfect end, like a director of a play who takes the contributions of all the actors and designers and tech team and weaves it all together into one beautiful work of art.

Therefore I will trust Him.

Whatever, wherever I am,
I can never be thrown away...
My sickness, or perplexity, or sorrow may be
necessary causes of some great end,
which is quite beyond us.

The more we trust, the more we allow Him to work.  It is where we doubt or try to force things to meet our expectations that we stand in His way.

Therefore, we may in trust surrender all to our Lord who loves us so dearly:

Let me be Thy blind instrument. I ask not to see—
I ask not to know—I ask simply to be used.

Blessed John Henry Newman, pray for us!

Eight Years Ago Today

It is rather surreal to think that eight years have passed since that feast of Saint Francis when I set out with only one comrade upon a pilgrimage of about two months and three hundred miles.  I marvel at the faith and daring I had then.  I wonder if I would still have that much courage and trust were I to feel the call pull at my heart now.

Many thoughts and feelings still surface as I reflect upon that time.  I am sure it was a time of much grace, but it was also full of so much difficulty and darkness—full of the cross.

For a long time afterward I found it painful to think of the pilgrimage despite the moments of beauty.  Yet time and grace have healed the wounds of things not turning out as I expected and the suffering caused by less-than-pure intentions, bringing me face to face with the mercy and providence of God.

Many times I wondered whether I had chosen wrongly.  It is so easy to think of our efforts being soiled by our pride, selfishness, vainglory, or other sins, and to therefore turn away from action.  That is true especially for those of us inclined toward perfectionism.  We see that we have acted for ourselves and not for God alone and consequently begin to imagine that we can never do anything good or that all our efforts are in vain, but there the enemy trips us up in the age-old lie of pride disguised so falsely as humility.

Peace comes when we unmask that lie.  We can rest serene in the arms of Providence when we know that we are not in control—that He is God and we are not.

We try to love in order to receive the results we desire or to help people to make ourselves feel better.  We try to witness to our faith or support some political agenda in order to strengthen our self-esteem.  So many things we do right for the wrong reasons. Yet whatever our flaws, whatever our sins, He is stronger.

If God can bring good out of something so horrible as the crucifixion, why should we doubt His power to bring good out of our good actions done with flawed intentions?  He does all the time.  We only have to surrender yet again, falling humbly on our knees before Him and letting Him work.

So I try to do now as I continue forward, step by step, day by day, going on into eternity, carrying the burden of my cross forged of my own sins.

I do not remember only the darkness or only the sinfulness.  I remember also the joys, the trust, the abandonment to Divine Providence.  I remember how He provided for us all along the way, often with overwhelming and delightful surprises.

Much has changed since then and much remains the same.  So it ever seems to be.

On pilgrimage 2009

On pilgrimage 2017

I am on a different pilgrimage now.  It is interior more than external, but it is a pilgrimage all the same.  With each passing day, I feel the power and weight of that immense decision made that day that feels so long ago.  I continue on buoyed by faith as I carry you and your intentions in my heart....

Fool for Christ

"Imagine if you were in love with goodness itself—what wacky things you would do."

This quote resurfaced and I have no recollection of who spoke it or where I heard it.  That matters little enough, though.  It is the thought contained in the quotation and not the speaker to which I wish to draw your attention.

I will digress for a moment first, however.  Yesterday I had the opportunity to go on a spontaneous adventure with a couple of friends.  Having decided upon hiking in the forested park in the middle of the city, we had no expectations of unusual adventure; considering our limited time, it seemed reasonable to enjoy a tamer sort of adventure.  After a brief stop at another friend's house and a dishtowel prophecy—"Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail." ~Ralph Waldo Emerson—we continued on to the trailhead.

As we started hiking up the hill, we soon found ourselves scrambling up a ravine with a few pools and trickles of water left within it.  The trail lost its façade of officiality and turned into no more than a deer path.

We might have turned back to find the actual trailhead, but instead we continued on, scrambling over fallen trees and crawling through brush and ferns, following the rocky bed of the ravine in what seemed like a tropical adventure.  The faint trail grew fainter, twisting back and forth across the ravine, sometimes disappearing entirely.

In retrospect, it would have made much more sense to find the trail proper and likely we would not choose that path again knowing what it held.  Yet that makes us all the more grateful for the experience.

You can extrapolate from this story to the adventure of life.  So often we choose to follow the well-beaten trail.  We give in to the pressure of society or the expectations of our friends—or what we imagine them to be—and find ourselves trudging on doggedly, clamping our jaws in the face of the monotony that drags us down.

Let us return now to the quotation with which I began:

"Imagine if you were in love with goodness itself—what wacky things you would do."

It speaks to the heart of what it means to be a fool for Christ.  When you fall so deeply in love with Him—when you learn to trust Him so entirely—you no longer care so much for the security the world offers.  You learn to leap out in faith, knowing that He will catch you.  You embrace every cross and every trial because you know that behind it lies the Providence of the One who loves you more than you love yourself.

Go my friends and be fools for Christ!

Faith is Easy When You Don't Need It

FAITH IS EASY WHEN YOU DON'T NEED IT

I passed this sign as I biked to Mass this morning.  It seemed particularly relevant in light of my recent experience.  Also its message is uncomfortably true.

When we see the winding paths of our lives wending into a straight course toward the heavens, we do not need faith, for we can see and recognize that God is at work.  We need faith in the darkness when we seem to have lost the path.

Yet sometimes in that darkness faith does not seem enough.  We can have faith certainly—indeed we must have faith—but we must also know how to act.

For example, I recently held auditions for a play to be performed in honor of the feastday of Saint Philomena.  I had been praying that Saint Philomena would bring the actors necessary and trusting that if she wanted it to happen she would indeed bring them.  So as I prepared to audition the fifteen or so people I needed along with my stage manager and designer there to support me, I found my expected cast reduced in the face of only one auditionee.

How would faith have me respond?  It seemed entirely unreasonable to have faith that the rest of the cast would miraculously appear.  Why would God make happen in extraordinary ways what He had chosen not to bring to fruition in the ordinary offered way?

Yet would faith have me turn back?  Certainly faith must be tested and tried and not give up when it meets the very first obstacle, no matter how great an obstacle it may seem.

Often through our lives we face this dilemma: faith gives no answer.  God's will seems muddied beneath our own efforts and desires.  We do not know whether to go on or to turn back.  Is it a roadblock that means we should take the detour or is it only a decoy put there by the enemy to make us lose hope?

So we stumble on in faith as best we can, step by step....

Life is a Storm

"Life is a storm, my young friend.  You will bask in the sunlight one moment,

be shattered on the rocks the next.  What makes you a man

is what you do when that storm comes."

~Edmond Dantés

This quotation comes from the protagonist of The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas.  It illustrates beautifully the tossing waves of our lives in this world and the peaks and valleys of our emotional experience.  Even more than, that, however, it points to our responsibility to respond to the storm.

Often we try to extend the sunlight as long as we can.  We seek to avoid at all cost begin shattered on the rocks.  Yet we cannot maintain that control.

Sooner or later the sun will be hidden by the dark storm clouds blown by heavy winds, threatening to swamp us and break our ship apart upon the rocks.  We take in sail and strain at the helm, but the current rushes us onward.

As Edmond Dantés said, what matters is not that these things happen, but what we do when we must face them.  Will we throw ourselves overboard to perish in despair?  Will we curse and blame those about us for our peril?  Will we jump into the lifeboat and row away with all our might in an attempt to save ourselves, leaving the rest to their fate?  Or will we entrust ourselves to the One who has power over the storm?

And Jesus saith to them: Why are you fearful, O ye of little faith?
Then rising up He commanded the winds, and the sea,
and there came a great calm. But the men wondered, saying:
What manner of man is this, for the winds and the sea obey Him?

Matthew 8:27

Unless Ye Become Like a Little Child....

The other day at Mass I heard the voices of three young children rising in song behind me. The oldest of the three–a girl who could have been no more than seven–sung out with all her heart, her voice rising above the entire congregation.

It did not matter to her that she sang with more gusto than perfect tune. She did not care whether others thought she sang too loud or not well enough.

It is only we who grow older who lose that innocence of singing with all that is within us. We think more of fitting in, of not standing out, of not drawing attention to ourselves, of being who we ought to be and singing in perfect pitch and tone than of praising the Lord in all simplicity.

If only we could shed those perceptions and go back to that innocent childhood. Then we would find again that complete trust, which seems like utter folly to us, but which is a precious gift to our Lord, who waits only for us to give ourselves to Him without holding anything back. For then He can pour out His Providence in ways beyond our understanding or belief.

Again and again I find my inner doubts holding me back though I long to sing out in praise of my Lord's goodness. Perhaps one day you and I will open myself to that child's courage once more....

To Continue or Not to Continue, That is the Question

After spending Lent in various daily practices it seems strange to discontinue them, particularly the writing each day upon this blog.  As I ponder whether to continue, my inclination is to ask you, my readers, whether it is valuable for me to keep writing daily meditations to pass to you through the pixels of your screen.

Is it folly to thus ask for visible fruits?

We are called to give of ourselves, to give without counting the cost, to give without asking for any reward.  Surely then it ought to be unnecessary to consider whether my efforts draw you, dear seekers, any nearer to our Lord.  Yet I must needs dispense of the time given me wisely.

Discernment of this small piece of the time given me requires thought and prayer just as does every decision of our lives (although the quantity may vary substantially according to the weight of the outcome).  Sometimes we are given a clear answer in exterior circumstances or conviction that strikes our heart.  Sometimes, though, we have no illumination, but must choose to step forward in faith, hoping that in abandoning ourselves in the darkness we choose the right way, trusting that our Lord will guide our steps.

So I step on, pondering and seeking....

Holy Saturday

Continuing with our meditations from said character, here is the one for today:

In silence, our Lady waited, perhaps in grief at the death of her Son and yet with great trust, for she who was conceived with no sin and remained without sin could not doubt the Lord's will. Surely she could not have known, nor understood, that He would rise from the dead any more than the apostles. Yet she trusted, waiting in the darkness of pure faith. What then did she expect? Did she wonder about the future, about what would happen? Her place was merely to accept and embrace all as the will of God, finding therein such intimate union that she needed nothing else. It was not for her to sit and grieve at her loss, at the dashing of all her hopes as some must have done, the apostles no less than the others, but rather she moved among them all with the same peace that had always graced her life, the same smile to encourage those who cowered in fear. Perhaps she spoke words to them of her trust in the Lord, but her presence spoke more than any words, and it was her presence that drew all she touched nearer to Him even without her knowing it.

Even then she must have been praying, pleading for those around her, especially those who seemed to be losing hope. As a mother it was her part to seek first the care of her Son, and so she did, even now in His death, for she served each person she met as if he had been her Son, as if he were indeed God Himself.

So it was that she found Him where no other could see Him, her heart ever the resting place of the Living God. So it was that she guided the Church in the pangs of its birth, when all seemed lost.

It was easy for others to forget her presence, to take for granted the peace she radiated. Few could have known the tremendous part she played in the salvation of the world; for her it was not enough to be the Mother of God: she had also to give her life for others in union with her Son, becoming the servant of all, and suffering all for love of Him, heeding only His will at each and every moment and never displeased that it was not her way, answering each temptation with the simple “fiat” that was her path to the heavens, leading across the sea to the glory of the risen Son.

That Secret, Lonely Place

A life without a lonely place, that is, a life without a quiet center, easily becomes destructive.  When we cling to the results of our actions as our only way of self-identification, then we become possessive and defensive and tend to look at our fellow human beings more as enemies to be kept at a distance than as friends with whom we share the gifts of life.

In solitude we can slowly unmask the illusion of our possessiveness and discover in the center of our own self that we are not what we can conquer, but what is given to us.  In solitude we can listen to the voice of the One who spoke to us before we could speak a word, who healed us before we could make any gesture to help, who set us free long before we could free others, and who loved us long before we could give love to anyone.  It is in solitude that we discover that being is more important than having, and that we are worth more than the results of our efforts.  In solitude we discover that our life is not a possession to be defended, but a gift to be shared.  It's there we recognize that the healing words we speak are not just our own, but are given to us; that the love we can express is part of a greater love; and that the new life we bring forth is not a property to cling to, but a gift to be received.

-Out of Solitude, by Henri Nouwen

~

Nouwen's words on prayer are so powerful and I find his reflections on loneliness as it relates to prayer all the more piercing.  For truly loneliness does divide us, making us feel as if the whole world is against us, as if we must fight against a tide that never turns, and as if there is no loyal friend to stand beside us.

Yet instead of clinging to that feeling of loneliness, if we can turn it instead into solitude, we will encounter the healing love of God.  We then can learn to love ourselves that we may in turn love others.

In that solitude, in that radiant peace of God filling the depths of our being, we can slowly learn to trust Him, for only when we trust Him can we begin to abandon ourselves to Him and His working within us, just as only when we trust others do we open our hearts to them.  When we know that He is God and loves us more than we love ourselves, then not only shall we be able to trust Him wholly, but we shall rejoice in that love.  We shall know that we are made great because He has become small and come to us.

Lord, Fire!

One more piece from Madonna House's Restoration newspaper on prayer comes to my heart to share with you:

There is another story about St. Cuthbert, an English saint from the holy isle of Lindisfarne.

One day he looked down the coast and saw great flames where a castle was located. He turned towards the blaze, held out his hands and cried: “Lord, fire!” The fire ceased immediately.

What a simple prayer! All he needed to do for the Lord to answer his prayer was to speak of it in one word. So when we do not know how to pray, we can remember this story and know that it is not how many words we use or how eloquently we beseech Him. Even one word can gain His answer swiftly.

When we lift up those we love, we need not know precisely what to ask for.  We need not pour out many words.  It is enough to call upon our Lord and speak to him the names of those we love.

Our Lord loves the simplicity of our prayer.  If we know not what to pray, we need only speak to Him in that simple trust of a child, calling out to Him with a name or word.  If it is a prayer from our hearts and is in accord with His will, then He will surely grant whatever we ask—even if we know not fully what that is.

Perfect Timing

As I sat in the plane on the runway, we were early, but waiting for a gate, directed from runway to runway, waiting—waiting as the minutes slipped by. Soon all minutes gained in flight were lost. Anxiety began to beat within. I had a tight connection and I began to fear I would not make it.

In Thy perfect timing, Lord, I said and let peace return to my soul. If He willed that I should miss the flight, I would trust that it was better that way and that He had arranged it so for a reason.

By the time we finally got a gate, it was still twenty minutes until departure time for my connection, so I was not unduly worried, even though it took a few more minutes to unload. Rather than push past the people ahead of me, I waited patiently, trusting that those few extra seconds would make little difference.

Then I came to the monitor with flight times and gates listed. I found mine and stared for a moment unsure what to do, for under boarding it said CLOSED.  And I did not yet know whether I might have to go to another terminal by which time it would surely be too late.

Still I had to try.  What else was there to do?

By perfect orchestration my departure gate was only two gates down from the one at which I had arrived.  It was only a few steps from where I stood staring at the list of departures.

Hurrying to the gate, I found no one ready to let me on, so I went up to the counter.  Others stood before me and I decided not to wait my turn.  Instead, I headed directly to the jetbridge, as if to board, meaning to ask those lounging about there whether boarding was indeed closed.

A woman came over and asked my name and then told me they had been waiting for me.  Of course they had waited.  No anxiety had been necessary.  As usual, the Lord had it all in hand.

In Thy perfect timing, Lord.

Things later that evening did not go quite so much according to plan and work out so conveniently, but that is a story for another day....

In Thy perfect timing, Lord.

Green-Eyed Monster

Iago: O, beware, my lord, of jealousy;
It is the green-ey'd monster, which doth mock
The meat it feeds on. That cuckold lives in bliss,
Who, certain of his fate, loves not his wronger:
But O, what damnèd minutes tells he o'er
Who dotes, yet doubts, suspects, yet strongly loves!

Othello: O misery!

~

Shakespeare was a brilliant man.  One need only feel the tearing effect of jealousy to know at once how truthfully his characters speak and how perfectly they enact the results of jealousy.

Throughout my life, I have found myself wanting to do everything—or at least everything that I perceive as good.  It matters little how many wonderful things I have done or how much I have accomplished, but as soon as I hear of someone else's amazing project I must be jealous.  I begin to wonder why others get to do all these spectacular things while I muddle along where I am.

Someone reminded me recently of how we all make up what is lacking in each other.  If I could do everything myself there would be no need of anyone else.  Yet because I cannot do everything—because after all I am not God—and because I am but one small part of the world's community, I must allow others to be good also.

Their goodness does not take away from mine.  Somehow jealousy twists us up inside so that we believe the opposite, but others' abilities can never lessen ours.

It is folly of course to draw our self-image from our accomplishments anyway, but of course we fallen creatures must persist in that folly.  Then we find ourselves crushed because someone else has done what we wished to do or is better at something than we are.  Yet there will always be someone we will perceive as better than we are at doing something we wish to do.  In such a populated world the statistics of that being true are incredibly likely.

However, that does not take away from our individual contribution.  No matter whether someone else may be better in a particular area, or even in all areas, we still have a part to play that no other can.  We may not know it, but the reality remains.

When we begin to know that reality with our hearts, then we can appreciate others' gifts and talents without jealousy.  That takes much humility.

Blessed John Henry Newman spoke beautifully of our personal vocations.  By reminding ourselves constantly that we are not our own, that we do not live for ourselves but for God, we shall gain greater confidence in accepting what we can and cannot do.  If I live to achieve something great for God, in the end it becomes about me and what I have done instead of what God has done.  Yet if I can truly live for Him, then naught else matters.

I will leave you with Newman's words:

God has created me to do Him some definite service. He has committed some work to me which He has not committed to another. I have my mission.
I may never know it in this life, but I shall be told it in the next.
I am a link in a chain, a bond of connection between persons.

He has not created me for naught. I shall do good; I shall do His work.

I shall be an angel of peace, a preacher of truth in my own place,
while not intending it if I do but keep His commandments.

Therefore, I will trust Him, whatever I am, I can never be thrown away.
If I am in sickness, my sickness may serve Him,
in perplexity, my perplexity may serve Him.
If I am in sorrow, my sorrow may serve Him.
He does nothing in vain. He knows what He is about.
He may take away my friends. He may throw me among strangers.
He may make me feel desolate, make my spirits sink, hide my future from me. Still, He knows what He is about.