Our Time in the Desert

 

Adversity can play a key role in honing our ability to hear what is beyond the usual scope of our ordinary consciousness. No doubt for many of us the Covid 19 pandemic forced us to face stressful challenges that were outside the “norm” of our usual experience. I wonder how this time of confinement and isolation heightened our awareness of events that otherwise would have gone unnoticed.

Many people seek so-called desert “experiences” by way of solitary retreats during which forced confinement might help provide clarity and enlightenment that otherwise might be overlooked or taken for granted during “ordinary times” during which we are surrounded by our family, friends and our routine. 

Unlike John-the-Baptist in Luke 3:1-6 , we don’t always get a chance to choose our desert times and places. They sometimes are provided for us in the form of illness, change in employment, failures in relationships, death of a loved one and in the case of Covid 19, natural disasters. These deserts all hold new possibilities for hearing the word of God at ever deepening levels.

Speaking personally, it’s too soon for me to assess how forced confinement has been a transformational experience. Perhaps it’s still too easy for me to dwell on the things I missed or have been taken away. Perhaps it’s not a matter of addition or subtraction or replacing what no longer is with something else. What no longer exists is not forgotten and may be a springboard to new ways and personal growth. One thing the pandemic taught is that life can turn on a dime and that the present is only as certain as our last breath. It’s all we can count on.

Richard Rohr writes in A Spring Within Us ,“Reframing Our Cosmology” that there may not be an external designer or a micro-managing God working from the outside, but neither is the world devoid of His divinity. God’s divinity is so intimately present in the world, in us and through us, that the world can be regarded as an incarnate expression of the Trinity, especially in times of tribulation. This was very apparent in the selfless dedication and courage of emergency responders, health care workers and “ordinary people” who put their lives on the line to provide support and comfort to those afflicted. I guess for me then, the greatest lesson from the pandemic particularly during this Advent, a time for watchful waiting, is that God is intimately involved in our lives all the time… we just need to open our hearts to see Him and know his presence.

 

Be Vigilant At All Times

 

We continue to try to absorb the devastation and loss of life caused by the effects of global warming. Likewise, we are frustrated that despite the recent meeting of world leaders dealing with global warming, little is said about loss of life among those disenfranchised peoples living in abject poverty. The focus has been on the science and the impact that fossil fuels have had on temperature change. Shouldn’t our efforts be directed to its effect on people as opposed to scientific discourse?  At least we know we can make a difference! It’s no coincidence that this Sunday's Gospel (Luke 21: 25-28, 34-36) asks us to stand up straight, with our heads raised and be watchful. As people of faith we are called to assume a posture of hope in the face of despair. It strikes me that to do so must be an act of determined will, for it runs contrary to our most basic instincts. When we hear of the rising numbers of deaths due to starvation and the lack of water, not to mention the staggering rise of Covid cases in Madagascar, it’s so hard to believe that there will be anything more than what we can now see.  

"How is it that we can stand with our heads raised in hope in the face of suffering and despair? Perhaps our willingness to stand up and be seen and heard in a world that is shaking all around us, and our walking into our own suffering and the suffering of others, is where it all begins? Maybe when we step into the large and small heartbreaks of those who are in pain, we will meet Jesus. For that is where Jesus can always be found: waiting in the midst of the pain to somehow show us the way to new hope and new joy and new life.

And once we've done that for a lifetime and experienced the gifts of God in such unexpected places over and over again, maybe that’s when Jesus does return --- whether it is only to me at the end of my life or to us all at the end of this age? I guess we won't be able to keep ourselves from lifting up our heads in hope to see our redemption drawing near! Because we will have already encountered the source of that redemption in Jesus over and over again!" (adapted from Dancing with the Word, Rev. Janet Hunt)

 

Behold, I make all things new

(The following post is from Richard Rohr's Center for Action and Contemplation, Death and Resurrection, "All Things New," 11/18/18.)

 As I’ve recently faced my own mortality through cancer once again, I’ve been comforted by others who have experienced loss and aging with fearless grace. Over the next few days I’ll share some of their thoughts. Today, join me in reflecting on this passage from Quaker teacher and author Parker Palmer’s new book, On the Brink of Everything: Grace, Gravity and Getting Old.

I’m a professional melancholic, and for years my delight in the autumn color show quickly morphed into sadness as I watched the beauty die. Focused on the browning of summer’s green growth, I allowed the prospect of death to eclipse all that’s life-giving about the fall and its sensuous delights. John 18:33b-37

Then I began to understand a simple fact: all the “falling” that’s going on out there is full of promise. Seeds are being planted and leaves are being composted as earth prepares for yet another uprising of green.

Today, as I weather the late autumn of my own life, I find nature a trustworthy guide. It’s easy to fixate on everything that goes to the ground as time goes by: the disintegration of a relationship, the disappearance of good work well done, the diminishment of a sense of purpose and meaning. But as I’ve come to understand that life “composts” and “seeds” us as autumn does the earth, I’ve seen how possibility gets planted in us even in the hardest of times.

Looking back, I see how the job I lost pushed me to find work that was mine to do, how the “Road Closed” sign turned me toward terrain that I’m glad I traveled, how losses that felt irredeemable forced me to find new sources of meaning. In each of these experiences, it felt as though something was dying, and so it was. Yet deep down, amid all the falling, the seeds of new life were always being silently and lavishly sown. . . .

Perhaps death possesses a grace that we who fear dying, who find it ugly and even obscene, cannot see. How shall we understand nature’s testimony that dying itself—as devastating as we know it can be—contains the hope of a certain beauty?

Keep Awake

 

Keep Awake for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or at cockcrow, or at dawn, or else he may find you asleep when he comes suddenly. 

Shortly after 9/11 the words “Fear Not” seemed a little out of place as the world was more than just a little uneasy.  I am forever reminded of the photo of Father Mychal Judge, a Franciscan priest, who served as Chaplain to the New York City Fire Dept, being carried out of Tower One of the World Trade Center minutes before it collapsed. He became the first registered victim at Ground Zero. The details of his death are unclear but some say he was fatally wounded as he administered last rites to a dying firefighter; others recall his being killed while in silent prayer.  Whatever happened, his lifeless body was discovered in the lobby and carried to a nearby church shortly before Tower I collapsed. 

Who knew how that the day that began with skies so blue and air so clear, would end as it did?  In many ways, Father Mychal personified the words of Mark’s Gospel (Mark 13:24-39) in that he was a man who had euphemistically arrived at Ground Zero long before 9/11, as he had proved himself to be ready to lay down his life many times during his career.  For him 9/11 could have occurred on any day or at any time... he was prepared.

If the thought of finding God amidst the devastation of these harrowing circumstances seems strange, it is because we may be out of practice looking for Him.  Yet, we believe that Christ's death and resurrection hold the final answer to all our fears. In sharing in his resurrection, Jesus removed our reasons to fear death forever.  Of course it does no good to recognize this on a merely intellectual level.  Just knowing that Christ loves us may not save us from fear, nor will it save us from death.  The only way to truly overcome our fear of death is to "be prepared" and to live our life in such a way that its meaning cannot be taken away by death.  As with Father Mike, it means fighting the impulse to live for ourselves instead of others.  It means being prepared to die again and again to ourselves, and to every one of our self-serving opinions and agendas. But about that day or hour no one knows.

 

This poor widow put in more than all

 

For us to understand the impact of Jesus’ comparing the scribes to the widow would require knowing who Jesus' audience was at that time, and who Mark’s audience was at the time of his writing (Mark12:38-44). And as far as his Words written for all time, how do they resonate with us today? 

Amen, I say to you, this poor widow put in more than all the other contributors to the treasury. For they have all contributed from their surplus wealth, but she, from her poverty, has contributed all she had, her whole livelihood.

Jesus denounces the scribes for their hypocrisy, as they are seen in all their pompous finery and feigned reverence, and the way in which they amass their wealth. While the scribes are acknowledged for what they contribute to the treasury from their abundance,  the poor widow is blessed for what she contributes from her own need. Whose contribution is greater is rhetorical. 

As the educated class of religious leaders the scribes were regarded as the "professionals" of the time. As such they expected to sit in  the temple's place of honor. In addition to doing nothing for the oppressed, much of their wealth was derived from the poor and the oppressed. This was part of an ongoing much larger criticism that Jesus levies against the temple-based authority that began with the clearing of the Temple earlier. Note, the money referenced is used to fund the Temple’s treasury; it makes no mention of its use to comfort or feed the needy.

I wonder how this message relates to us today. Over the centuries many explanations have been proposed to explain Jesus’ anger with the merchants in the temple and in this reading, the hypocrisy of the scribes. And what about today? I wonder what Jesus would have to say about the church-governing bodies, the high priests, church councils and vestries whose public piety seems to run counter to sharing God’s love. Their focus on the adherence on rituals of worship are empty distractions  to what Jesus wanted for his "church." Jesus was a radical whose focus was preaching the love of God and not about the man-made rules associated with misguiding the faithful in the name of God. Jesus sought to overturn “the tables” and rid the temples of all the false piety, the purity codes and social rules created in the name of God for the sole purpose of control and power.

Church plays an important role in our lives primarily because it provides for a communal gathering in which we can proclaim the Gospel and share God’s grace through the sacraments. But the real "church" exists in the "pots and pans" of our lives. It is a place that has no walls and is not confined to a static place. Here we are sent out to look for God in those who need our love and support, as we partner with him to feed the needy and comfort those who are oppressed. Isn’t that the image we should hold for Church? Jesus’ anger is directed toward those who use the love of power to control their congregations rather than the power of love to create an environment that sets the stage for the sharing of God’s love. Do we have the courage to overturn the tables as Jesus did and tear down the walls that exclude, and to live the Word and let the Word become flesh in us?