Shining Spirit

Sometime today, make an appointment with yourself. Find a quiet corner or a place that has special meaning for you. Sit quietly for a while and then focus on three things: A beautiful friendship and why it’s beautiful. Or, someone you love deeply and why you love that person. Or, something that is good in your life right now. An everyday dose of Gratitude will do us all good. Let a new bloom of Thanksgiving open in your heart. May peace find full expression in your life today. You are capable of love and you are loved. What else is there that really counts?

I’m so sad. It’s Valentine’s Day and I forgot to buy a card for you. Can you forgive me? What? It’s your birthday, too! Oh, no! What can I do? I know! I’ll make a card for you and this is what it will say on the inside: “You add light to life, as only you can. And I, my dear, am one lucky man.” So, I announce to all the earth: “This is the day of my beloved’s birth. Let bells ring out across the land. Stand up and give her a birthday hand! And, while you’re at it, some chocolates, too. Poor thing, today she has the flu!”

Note to reader: If you came here today to find a Shining Spirit, you’ve found one. Now, if you’ll forgive me: I have to go. It’s time for the Tylenol. Thank God for all whom we love in this life and thank God for those who love us back.

The Jesus most of us learned about in our faith-formative years was gentle, kind, loving, and compassionate. He held children in his lap and made sick people well. He taught and demonstrated what real love was about. While not diminishing these characteristics and actions, there is another aspect of his life that didn’t get the same emphasis. Jesus was confrontational. He never flinched from challenging what he knew to be wrong, unethical, or damaging to the human race. Jesus knew how to say “NO” and to say it with emotion and courage.

No! to those who said the Sabbath laws and rules took precedence over human need.
No! to the Roman occupiers by staging a “different” entry into Jerusalem on “Palm Sunday.” A direct challenge to the Roman Emperor.
No! to economic abuse when he attacked the moneychangers in the Temple
No! to Pilate when he was arrested and told to retract his statements about the Kingdom of God.
No! to looking away from human need.
No! to the idea that we live in scarcity by feeding thousands of people from God’s abundance.
On and on it goes: to his own disciples who wanted social privilege and special favor by getting reserved seats in the Kingdom; to hypocrites who painted the outside pure and white while being corrupt on the inside. This is a Jesus we don’t hear about very often. This is the Jesus who said “NO!” to priests, politicians, the powerful, and the proud.

This is the Jesus I would like to meet on the street today. If I did, do you know what he would say?
“So, what are you waiting for? You can say “NO!” just like I did, “NO!” to power and greed that hurt people, to any government, institution, organization, or individual who wraps him or her self in a flag of self-righteousness with no regard for the welfare of God’s beautiful creation. As people of Christ, there is only one throne we are meant to kneel before and it is not in a state or national capitol. “Yes” is a wonderful word, but so is “No!” when it is spoken from the mouths of people who have the courage to live by spiritual, moral, and ethical convictions.

Where the “Yes” affirmation of God’s love is spoken, let there also be “No!” from priests and pastors who tend the altar of His sacrificial mercy and justice.

That little thrust of ocean water on the Oregon beach used to be a powerful wave that crashed over huge underwater stones and roared toward the shoreline. And that powerful wave used to be an enormous swell in the ocean, churning and rolling toward land before it met the underwater obstacles. Now look at it. Weak and spent from all its tumbling life, the thin layer of once strong ocean wave slows and slows until it finally stops.

And then. And then it begins to retreat in the direction from which it came. It picks up speed as it hurries toward the ocean. The little wave, exhausted, goes back home. A side thought: I like the word “return” better than “retreat” because retreat has the feel of failure about it whereas return suggests a reasoned thoughtfulness. The tired wave goes back to the ocean, back to its place of strength, back to the source of its very nature. It returns to be reshaped, refreshed and renewed.

I wonder how life would be different for many of us if we copied the wave? When life gets hard and I am spent from various efforts, worn out, depleted, what if I intentionally went back to the Source? What if I stopped the struggling and rested in the Sacred? “Come to me, all of you who are tired and carry a heavy load.” Come.

What if?

Hercule Poirot is a very unusual character. Do you know the name? Yes, that’s the one. Agatha Christie’s famous and fictitious, “little Belgian” detective who always solves the mystery and does so in an elegant way. Poirot is the one sitting on the beach while wearing a perfectly pressed white suit, large straw hat to protect his stylish mustache. The actor David Suchet portrays Poirot perfectly, throwing little quips and comments to impress the “lesser” folks like me. In a very dated but interesting episode, after solving the murder when the incompetent police could not, Poirot turns to an amazed bystander and says: “Poirot is as magnanimous in defeat as he is modest in victory.”

Lift that phrase out of the TV drama and slip it into the puzzle of today’s culture. Think of it as a possible guidepost for how one might act in the face of defeat or victory. In a winner takes all, do anything you can to get ahead, truth and character don’t matter, society, perhaps being modest in victory is not a bad idea. Perhaps being magnanimous in defeat would be better than blaming and name calling. The word means “generous in forgiving an insult or injury; free from petty resentfulness or vindictiveness.”

In our faith tradition, Jesus used to talk about forgiveness and a generous spirit. He endorsed both ideas: forgive as you are forgiven; be generous in both words and actions. He wasn’t suggesting, he was teaching a new way of living, a mandate. So, today, when defeat or victory touches your life, think of Hercule: magnanimous and modest. Then remember the real reason to respond in these ways to life’s ups and downs: the One who loves you most and calls you to his side, Jesus, the Christ of God, is the voice of the universe while at the same time a deeply personal guide to abundant life. He calls us to demonstrate magnanimous spirits of love and modesty in all things, a life lesson for those on the journey to the fulness of God’s kingdom. Press on!

According to the poet Gerald Manly Hopkins, creation is “charged with the grandeur of God.” We and everything around us are infused with the Sacred. God is embedded in the consciousness of humankind. No wonder we have trouble distinguishing God from the aggregate. God is the aggregate, the sum of all things. And every time I try to sort out and define God so that I can better “understand” the wonder and the workings of the world, I fail. But I try again with the same result. There is no sermon, no lesson, no song, no movie, no book that can give me what I desire: a collegial partnership with the Principal Designer of everything. Where did we get the notion that we must “partner” with God to solve the ills of the world, the messes that we make? I don’t think a Divine-Human strategy conference is really necessary. The change we long for, the new direction, is not new at all. It is “embedded in the consciousness of humankind.” From the beginning, from the start, revealed over and over again, most completely in Nazareth’s man, the grandeur of God cannot and will not find a common denominator. It refuses to be watered-down or sanitized, which is another way of saying “compromised.” We don’t go to church or chapel or cathedral to negotiate with God. We don’t walk the path of Jesus for the exercise. We do these things because we have within our humanity the means and the methods to change the world. The day when we live what we say and do what we profess, that’s the day the wheel will slowly begin to turn in a new direction. And here’s the good news of it all: today could be the day for you and for me to become light, to become the enactment of the Prophet Micah’s words: “what is God looking for in men and women? It’s quite simple: Do what is fair and just to your neighbor, be compassionate and loyal in your love, and don’t take yourself too seriously…take God seriously.” Let today be the day we stop wanting and waiting. Let this be the day we start daring and doing. “Charged with grandeur…embedded in our humanity.” Creation awaits the courage of the sons and daughters of God.

Regardless of what I think,
the sun is still in the sky,
a bird flies somewhere,
and fish swim in the ocean.
It’s not about me.

And regardless of how I feel,
someone is born
and someone dies;
Somewhere someone laughs
at a joke and a baby takes her
first steps. It’s not about me.

And regardless of my fear
about the future, my anger
over betrayal, my longing for
days that were simple and
granite strong, regardless,
little drops of Love cause
walls to collapse and
mountains of hate to erode
and vanish. Regardless.
It’s not about me.

There is Something bigger
than my small doubts,
stronger than my weaknesses,
wiser than my diplomas and
momentary insights. Regardless
of the day, Dawn comes and I
know I am loved. And so are
you.

I identify with Frank Cunningham’s thought…do you? “I struggle for words, for concepts that freshen my imagination as I escape childhood-induced notions of God.” I think it’s called “growing up in faith”. Eugene Peterson’s translation of the New Testament puts it like this: “When I was an infant at my mother’s breast, I gurgled and cooed like any infant. When I grew up, I left those infant ways for good.” On my list of the hardest things to do in this life is this: to leave perceived certainty behind; to take the chance that God calls us to soar, not settle. That certainly matches the mind of the Jesus I know.

When Mamma Bird took her youngster to the edge of the nest and said: Remember to flap your wings when you jump, she offered her precious little one an opportunity fraught with possibility and with peril. Do you want to stay in the nest, or do you want to ride the wind currents? Consciously or unconsciously, we all make that decision. Safer here…scarier there. But it’s not that simple, is it. Not that clearly defined. Back to Peterson’s conclusion of 1st Corinthians 13: “We don’t yet see things clearly. We’re squinting into a fog, peering through a mist.” I believe the sun will break through when I stop looking for new descriptive words, new concepts and begin touching life with my own hands. If you’re tired of the unending chase for new ways to conceptualize God, just go be Jesus for a while. Warning: when you look over the edge of the nest and think: I can’t do that!…trust and try. It’s the only way you and I will discover who and why we are.

If the shoe fits…

As the sun rises on this first day of the week,
may I embrace each day as an opportunity to
reflect and rejoice in the goodness of God.
My first day prayer.

When I encounter beauty, may I announce it;
when I feel pain, physical or emotional, may I
acknowledge it, not deny it. May peace be
the pathway in the coming days. May
gratitude be on my lips and in my heart.
My first day prayer.

May I share the suffering of my sisters
and brothers in my prayers for justice
and mercy. May I recognize Christ in
everyone I meet, no matter what their
station in life might be.
My first day prayer.

May forgiveness wash over me like
cleansing water. May hope live in
my heart and charity be the gift
of my hands. And may God smile
upon me in all my comings and goings.
My first day prayer, remembering
Christ my Lord and the Spirit, my
guide. Amen.

In a moment of casual conversation, I was once asked to name my favorite time of day, as in morning, evening, not a specific mark on the clock. Already somebody in the group had said “Morning” and someone else “Dawn.” Others claimed the same or added new categories and then it came to me. “Dusk,” I said. “I like dusk best of all.” “Really?” I was asked. “You like dusk? But the day is over; everything’s done. It’s too melancholy, kind of sad.” And I thought to myself…and still believe…that dusk is a beautiful, most often calm, “quieting” time of day. The jolt of awakening, the heat of activity, afternoons of meeting deadlines…all done. Dusk, that time just before the sun slips away in the west, just before gray turns to black and shadows disappear into night, is a time when fairy dust and angels’ wings fill the air. I choose Dusk.

I might, though, suggest another name for this special time of day: Vespers. That word appears in the title of Frank J. Cunningham’s book “Vesper Time: The Spiritual Practice of Growing Older.” Published by Orbis, it’s worth a look. Early in the little volume, the author comments on the spiritual practice of prayer in this way: “prayer is much more than addressing volumes of words to God. It means being open to God’s presence in everything we do. Or put another way, everything we do can be prayer.” My kind of book! In case you can’t find your dictionary, Vespers, or evening prayer, is an observance of the day’s progression. “A time of lighting the lamps just before darkness descends,” Cunningham writes. Sounds a lot like “Dusk”. In the Liturgy of the Hours, Vespers is a beautiful time.

And so I make my case for looking upon the Vespers time of life as a potentially beautiful moment. Of course, you have to go easy on the “organ recitals”…my left knee, my right hip, my sciatica…and look at life through a window of Grace and Gratitude. I’m told that the view through that window is remarkable. And it is.

In case you haven’t reached the Vespers time of your life, you’ll get there. When you do, throw open the window and wave at the wonder.