Another One Bites the Dust

Perhaps mainly because I have rather a morbid sense of humor, I found it amusing when I heard that performing CPR on someone ideally should be done at about 100 beats per minute and that in order to count those beats it helps to use a song that keeps that tempo, such as "Another One Bites the Dust."

Who would ever think of using such a song to save a dying person?

I mean do you want those in danger of death to think they might be about to bite the dust?

And yet it can achieve precisely the opposite result: instead of biting the dust and dying, the person can live to face another day.

In the spiritual life, it is much the same.

Die to self.

We are told again and again that we are to die to ourselves.  Yet we hear it as if we were that person lying on the ground receiving CPR and hearing a song about biting the dust.  It makes us think that we are going to die.

Is that true?  Or is that a lie sown by the enemy?

Deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow Me.

Those are the words of Christ.  And why would our loving Savior demand anything of us unless it was for our good?

I recently had another project of mine bite the dust.  It followed on a succession of other various happenings that I could describe as things biting the dust—my hopes and expectations mainly.  When this most recent project bit the dust, its death at first seemed to mean the death of much more.

However, I was not left in that place of despair.  Instead, I began to be led along a path that meant a new way of thinking that follows in the same vein as Christ's call to deny ourselves, take up our crosses, and follow Him.

This perspective also places the words of the aforementioned song in an entirely new light.

Another one bites the dust
Another one bites the dust.
Another one bites the dust.

Each time these words ring in the happenings around us, we too can receive spiritual CPR.  Each time something we hold too dear bites the dust, the Holy Spirit can compress grace into our spiritual lungs, restoring us to new life.

The Tenth of February

The Web of Life

For Grandma

Requiem aeternam dona ei, Domine,
et lux perpetua luceat ei.
Requiescat in pace.
Amen.

How swiftly death strikes silent

The certitude of tomorrow

For her, for you, for us all

Who strive with grasping hands to hold

What life gives freely, to store

Treasured gains that never last.

Swiftly death uproots the heart

From soil of expectation, melts

Blinding judgment's bonds.  The seeds

We sow we may never reap; flawed

Words may seem to do more ill

Than good. Yet Love shines through the mask.

Swiftly death shadows our days,

Divorcing heart from hope that claims

Neat-tied perfect denouement.

The unfinished must go beyond

The grave, her untied strands weave

Into the web that you and I still spin.

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.

Incarnation

Carved wooden altar—wood of manger;

Gold glimmers tabernacle—golden straw.

Stare anew: the sight becomes a stranger

As the piercing star the shepherds saw.

Breath of oxen—breath of God's own life

Exhaled in layers of dust and grime—

There daily work and pain and strife

Did long await His bursting into time.

His two bright eyes stare, imploring

Hearts sheltered, cold, and dim,

Even as we come to kneel, adoring

God in flesh—blind to sight of Him

Who comes to break our shroud of fears,

Of dreams too small, to catch our tears

In tiny hands outstretched. He smiles

To see those weighted down with trials

Stop for one brief moment, darkly gaze

With blank stare at the brightest blaze

Hid in swaddling clothes, flesh to give

To all: to teach us, newborn, to live.

 

Mirror of the Soul

In honor of a certain obscure Franciscan dear to my heart whose feastday happens to fall today, my patron Blessed Jacopone da Todi (to learn the story there read the post from two years ago here and for last year's post go here), I want to share with you a few stanzas from one of his poems:

HOW THE LIFE OF JESUS IS THE MIRROR OF THE SOUL
(Lauda xxxix)

Life of Jesus Christ!
Mirror of Verity!
Mine own deformity
I see in that clear Light.

Somewhat, methought, I was;
Somewhat, methought, I seemed;
The Self of which I dreamed
I gladly did survey.
But gazing on that Glass,
The light thenceforth that streamed
On my true nature gleamed:—
Down in the depths it lay!
Needs must I weep and pray;
For, far as earth from skies,
Seeing from Being lies—
Distant as day from night.
…

O false esteem of self!
How couldst thou dare to bring,
As offerings to thy King,
These worthless works of thine?
Thy nature, all deformed,—
Ah, what an evil thing
To urge it, tottering,
Before that Light Divine!
These errors that are mine,
Must loose me from their sway;
Disorder must away,
Ere God with man unite.

...

I cannot be re-born
Till mine own self be dead;
My life out-poured, out-shed,
Sheer essence to renew: 
On glorious Nothingness
He only can be fed,
Whom God Himself hath led;—
Here man hath naught to do.
O glorious state and true!
In Nothingness to cease.
Desire and mind at peace
In calmness infinite.

May that light of Christ be mirrored in your own soul as you prepare for the celebration of His coming only a few days from now!

Fire

"Amen I say to you, unless you be converted, and become as little children...."
~Matthew 18:3

Oil light flickers red warning.
Pressing the gas, I lose power.
Smoke billows behind the car.

Seeking safety on the highway's side
Leaves a rainbow trail of oil.
Fire flickers under the hood.

Alone, I know I am not alone.
Calm, I call for help, which comes
In flashing lights.  Fatherly firemen
Clamber down across the ivy.

My heart beats like that of a child
Excited at the moment, unworried,
For the Father has all in His hand.

His Providence pours out in my Dad
Who comes to rescue me and wait
For a tow, while I, wrapped in love,
Go home, lips moving to our Lady.

Two Sparrows

Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and not one of them shall fall on the ground without your Father.
(Matthew 10:29)

It is particular fitting today, on this great Solemnity of All the Saints to ponder the above quotation, which speaks powerfully of the Providence of God.  So many great saints share a radical belief in that Providence and stand as examples for us.

The past decade has made it clearer and clearer to my mind and heart that I am called to live in radical abandonment to His Providence and to share that with the world.  Yet so we all are.

Modern life makes it so easy to forget that.  Everything around us—and indeed our own internal sense of responsibility and rightness—compels us to take care of ourselves.  We become fixated on taking care of everything from our health to our homes and properties.  Even our ministries and spiritual lives suffer from this reliance on our own capacities, our own knowledge, and our own vision of how things should be.

Yet we are called to more.  We are called to be saints.

To be a saint means not to be a great model or even to have heroic virtue, although saints often fulfill these qualifications.  In reality, to be a saint means to be completely reliant on the Providence of God poured out through everything and to be faithful to Him as He is calling us to serve Him in each moment.

It is the simplest and most difficult reality there could be, but also the most freeing.  Recently, I had an experience by His grace that brightly illuminated the latter reality for me.

I was traveling from the Toronto airport headed home.  I tried to allow more time at the airport than I needed, but little delays along the way added up and when I faced the long lines and the realization that I actually had to go through American customs there, my heart quailed a little within me.  Someone near me began fretting about missing her flight; she was told it was her lucky day and let through.  I wondered if I should worry.

In that moment, my Lord made it clear to me: I could worry, but worrying would gain me nothing, whereas the worst thing that could happen would be that I would miss my flight—not what I wanted in the least, but in the grand scheme of things fairly insignificant.  So I chose to accept that.  I told Him that He was in charge and that I would rely on His Providence.

From that moment on I had peace within me.  Any time the doubts or worries resurfaced, I merely gave them to Him again.

Well, when I walked up to the gate, handed the attendant my ticket, and then started walking toward the jet bridge, I heard the announcement for the last call for the flight.  As always, His timing was perfect.

As if that were not enough, I had to fly through Denver where He again showed me His Providence.  During my layover, I was sitting near my gate when two house sparrows alighted on the ground in front me.  My immediate thought was a negative one about this invasive species that had overtaken the country in some ridiculously short time after they were introduced from England.  (My resentment of the species stemmed from my fighting them to allow native birds to nest.  The house sparrows can be quite cruel, kicking out other birds and destroying their eggs and so on.)

Across the way from me sat a pilot who commented upon the birds, as did a couple of women a few seats down.  I spoke up, sharing that these were indeed male and female house sparrows (though restraining my resentment of that fact).  He then said they had made him think about a Scripture verse about the sparrow—a gentle rebuke to my own internal response.

We got talking and he mentioned something about Providence that led me to share with him the title of my favorite spiritual book I happened to have sitting on my lap, Abandonment to Divine Providence.  My description of it as the most eastern book of western spirituality I had read caught the attention of the two women down the way and one of them wanted to take a picture of the cover so she would remember it.  So I found myself a missionary of God's Providence once more.

The pilot and I continued our conversation.  I asked him of his journey to faith and then I shared mine with him.

When he left to go fly his plane, he said I had made his day—that God had made his day.

The meeting had clearly been orchestrated by God, and not just by sending the sparrows to us: the pilot had just happened to sit there rather than by the gate he would be flying out of and I had taken this flight which had not been my preference.  If either of us had done what made sense for us, we would not have met.  Yet somehow, without our intending it, we had allowed God once more to show His presence by our doing what we would not necessarily have chosen.

Fear not therefore: better are you than many sparrows. 
(Matthew 10:31)

We can never rely too much upon God our most loving Father.  Those who seem to rely too much upon God by refusing to act indeed trust not in Him but merely in their idea of Him, for He demands we give Him all in every moment.

Be not afraid to trust Him too much.

After all, He has everything in His hands. There is nothing He cannot do. It is only we who place limits upon what He will do by our need to be in control, our need to do things ourselves, like little children. And surely He smiles upon us, even when we run away from His Providence, for He knows that we run right into His arms....