Steve

Going to the Well for All We Need

Steve · March 6, 2021 · 8 Comments

This past week, Sue and I have been attending an online retreat created by the new Office of Ignatian Spirituality of the Jesuit Central and Southern Province. Hosted by Fr. Hung Pham SJ and a host of lay colleagues, the retreat has challenged us to “Fall in Love with Jesus,” a theme adopted from the well-known prayer attributed to Fr. Pedro Arrupe SJ, 28th superior general (1965–83) of the Society of Jesus, that begins:

Nothing is more practical than
finding God, than
falling in Love
in a quite absolute, final way.

If you don’t know the whole prayer, click on the link above. It’ll be worth it.

On Wednesday, we were led by Mona Snider of the Ignatian Spirituality Center in Kansas City in a beautiful meditation of John 4:4-29, the story of Jesus meeting the Samaritan woman at the well. The story is important for a number of reasons, not the least of which is just that it happened in the first place — that Jesus had this intimate, telling conversation with a non-Jewish woman, that he would ask for her help, that he would open up for her a new understanding of God. That he would offer to change her life. It’s a powerful story about Jesus’ openness to all, and perhaps especially to women.

But obviously it’s a story for all of us, too, so I thought this morning I would revisit the story, take out the gender pronouns, references to Jews and Samaritans and women, and just open up my imagination (and hopefully yours) to a new experience of the story. I trust neither John nor Jesus will mind.

Put yourself in the story…

I go to the well at mid-day, as I always do, when the sun is high and hot and the crowd has thinned. I’m an outsider, so I don’t like to fight for a place in line with the regulars. The ones who ignore me anyway. I’m better off going it alone.

Stop, ask yourself: When do I feel like an outsider? Ever?

I walk the dusty approach to the well, the one they call “Jacob’s Well,” because it’s near the piece of land that Jacob gave to Joseph. I’ve heard the story. My head drops to my chest as I approach, tired from the long walk with the jar, and I look up to see someone else already there. A man, clearly a holy person, which I am not. I know from experience he will want nothing to do with me. I come closer and set down my jar. I nod meekly at him, and he looks up and smiles at me. I wasn’t expecting that.

“Can you help me get a drink?” he asks. “My friends have gone into town to buy food and left me here with nothing. Not even a bucket or a cup. Some friends. I’m thirsty.”

Well, you could have knocked me over with a feather. “Uh, you talking to me?”

He knows what I mean. Holy people use nothing in common with the likes of me, and certainly not a cup. He smiles and speaks again:

“If only you knew the gift of God here with you. If only you knew who I am, you would ask ME for water and I would give you something special. Living water.”

“Like you told me,” I say, “you don’t even have a bucket and the well is deep. What do you have in mind? Where are you going to get this living water? I mean, just who do you think you are?”

I think I might have overstepped myself there. But he just laughs.

“Here’s the thing,” he says. “Everyone who drinks the water from this well will be thirsty again. You’ll be back here tomorrow again, right? But whoever drinks the water I can give will never thirst; that water will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

Well sign me up, I think. “I’ll have what you’re giving,” is what I say. “Not having to come here every day would be fine by me and my aching back.”

He smiles again, like he knows me. And then he does something strange. He tells me the dark secret that I hold inside. The one nobody knows about. Yeah, that one.

Stop, ask yourself: What does Jesus know about me that I keep buried deep inside? Listen to him as he speaks the words. Tell him how you feel. Ask for forgiveness if you need to.

I just linger there at the well with him. I take my time. I go deep and let it out. No more secrets.

I get up to leave. I fill my jar from the well and give him some from the small cup I keep tied to my belt. Living water or not, we still need to drink cool water from the well on a hot day.

“That hits the spot,” he says. “Thank you for your kindness. The time will come when these boundaries will not separate us all. The day will come when we will all worship the Father together in spirit and in truth.”

“From your lips to God’s ear,” is what I want to say, but something tells me not to, that it’s not necessary.

“You have shown me both spirit and truth today,” I reply. “You’re the One who is coming, the one I need. Am I right?”

“That’s me,” he says. “Nice to meet you. I’ll be here by the well if you ever need me.”

I turn to see his friends coming up the path and, if they are a little shocked that he is just sitting here talking to me, they keep it to themselves. That’s nice of them. Maybe the beginning of something new. But I’m so shaken and changed by this whole thing that I run off, leaving my water jug sitting beside the well but knowing that I will never again be the same.

He knew everything about me. Knew me inside and out. He has to be the One.

Stop, ask yourself: Am I open to this kind of intimacy with Jesus? What happens when I open up and let him in? What am I yearning for right now? What do I need from the well?

Called to be “Poor in Spirit”

Steve · January 31, 2021 · 5 Comments

Artwork above courtesy of the artist, Steve Tadrick.

It’s the first of the beatitudes. It comes easily to mind and rolls effortlessly off our tongues: “Blessed are the poor in spirit.” But what exactly does it mean?

Jesuit priest and author James Martin writes: “If you ask a practicing Christian if he should be charitable, he will say yes. If you ask if he should be “poor in spirit,” he might say, “huh?”

“Blessed are the poor in Spirit” is more than just the first beatitude. It’s the one on which all the others are built and can be likened to childhood, according to renowned theologian Gustavo Guttierez, OP.

“It is a stance of trust and dependence on God as source of life,” Guttierez writes in his book, In the Company of the Poor. “We can all be spiritual children when we place our lives in the hands of God. The requirements of discipleship are stated fundamentally in the first and most critical blessing: being poor in spirit. The other blessings are variations and shades of the first. Disciples are those who make the promise of the kingdom their own, placing their lives in God’s hands.”

So being poor in spirit is not a meditation or a prayer — it’s a stance of our dependence on God and should lie at the very heart of everything we do. It is a reminder that:

God is God and we are creatures: created to praise, love and serve God.
We should have a radical dependence on God for everything.
We are called to be aware and grateful for our gifts and talents, offering them back to the Giver.
We must be willing to let go of these gifts in order to serve others.
We must empty ourselves so that God can fill us.

Jesus is the model for this kind of living. Jesus lived in material poverty, not as an end in itself but as a call to us to deepen our commitment to the poor, to live simply and in freedom with respect to the things we own and have, such as our possessions, talents, reputation and influence.

This “spiritual poverty” is an invitation to freedom — an interior freedom of the mind and heart that allows us to overcome ourselves and our disordered affections when it comes to making the daily decisions (large and small) that come to define us. It is the freedom to know ourselves as we are made by God, complete with both our gifts and limitations. Freedom and poverty of spirit allows us to be honest with ourselves because we are, above all, children of God.

Poverty of spirit is an awareness that we are “coming from God, going to God, and being with God.” (John J. English, SJ)

We begin to live lives “poor in spirit” when we put God — and not ourselves —at the center of our lives. We become more aware of that divine presence, more aware of God’s call and our response. We become more aware of what keeps us from responding and what creates chaos in our souls, leading to poor choices that give into our fears, prejudices, greed, self-interest, need to control, perfectionism, jealousies, resentments and self-doubt.

Without poverty of spirit and spiritual freedom, we become excessively attached to the things that — while they might be good in themselves when ordered and directed to the love of God — become disordered when they push God out of the center. Without poverty of spirit:

We resist admitting our reliance on God.
We are tempted to try and make it on our own.
We are more likely to despair when we fail.

Living “poor in spirit” is a life-giving goal and stance to take, a turn toward living with humility and in the love and grace of God.

“Poverty of spirit is not just one virtue among many,” wrote Johannes Baptist Metz, a 20^th century German Catholic theologian. “It is the hidden component of every transcending act, the ground of every theological virtue.”

It’s where we are called to stand.

Ask yourself in silence or while watching the music video below:

What are the things keeping you from living in spiritual freedom and poverty of spirit right now?
Of what do you need to be emptied?

Pope Francis’ encyclical a call for dialogue and compassion

Steve · January 25, 2021 · 1 Comment

This also appeared in today’s St. Louis Post-Dispatch as a “Faith Perspectives” commentary. If you’re a subscriber (or want to answer a few questions) you can view the Post online version here.

This past October, Pope Francis signed his third encyclical, “Fratelli Tutti,” on the tomb of St. Francis of Assisi, his inspiration and namesake. In this message, he spoke to the entire world — not just Catholics — reinforcing the ideas and teachings of Jesus about how imperative it is to care for one another. In that sense, this encyclical is nothing new, but it perhaps could not have come at a better time.

In a country and world plagued by individualism, partisanship and violence, Francis invites us into dialogue. He invites us to embrace the message of the Gospel and a love that transcends physical and ideological geography and distance. He invites us to be open and accepting of others and especially those who seem most distant. For those who know and accept the teachings of Jesus, Francis’ words represent a commonsense application of Gospel values.

And yet, this call to love without borders in a polarized world is anything but common, even within the universal church. His message is a radical invitation to love as we have been loved by God. Such talk can often be heard in the general but not the specific. We love and care for the poor, of course, but we all too easily discard and dismiss them — the stranger, the immigrant, the “other.” There are “shadows over a closed world,” to quote the encyclical, and yet there is also hope.

There is hope in the parable of the Good Samaritan the Pope uses to illustrate and underline his letter. In this story, a man is beaten, robbed and left for dead at the side of a road. After being ignored by some leading citizens, the man is saved by a foreigner who finds the compassion required when it would have been easier to just look the other way. The point? Jesus teaches that “our neighbors” are not only those with whom we agree or politically align ourselves. Our neighbors are not just those who live in our neighborhoods and on our side of the artificial divides we have erected. Our neighbor, as Jesus taught so succinctly, is whoever is in need.

For true compassion does not care where the person in need comes from or what he or she believes. It does not stoop to judge before stooping to help. It just reaches down and picks up. It pays out of its own pocket without pausing to count the cost.

“Fratelli Tutti” asks us to begin to envision a world where every person is deemed worthy and valuable, where each can live in dignity because they are seen as integral and valuable parts of the whole. The encyclical asks us to think and act as one community, battling the structural causes of inequality and poverty, caring for the most vulnerable among us. It asks us to be fundamentally open to each other and especially to those on the margins of society. It invites us into the realization that we will be saved together or not at all.

Sitting at the crux of all this is a call to genuine dialogue and friendship, the kind that approaches, speaks, listens, sees, comes to know and finds common ground with the other. At that meeting point, we might come to know that both sides benefit from the exchange. We might learn in this encounter that no one is expendable. We might learn to integrate our differences instead of standing on them and not allowing the other to pass. We might learn that aggression and monologues get us nowhere.

Instead, in dialogue we learn to create paths forward toward peace and healing. Inspired not only by Francis of Assisi but also by Martin Luther King Jr. of America, Desmond Tutu of South Africa and Mahatma Gandhi of India, Pope Francis’ hope for his encyclical is that it becomes a “splendid secret that shows us how to dream and turn our life into a wonderful adventure.”

In a concluding ecumenical prayer, the Pope prays that we all may be seen as, “important and necessary, different faces of the one humanity that God so loves.” That’s a good dream for 2021.

A (Very) Short Story: The Impossible Night

Steve · December 19, 2020 · 4 Comments

The old couple lowered themselves into their chairs by the fire on Christmas eve, the tree lit up and twinkling to the right of the flaming logs. The small manger scene, carved by a Bethlehem artisan and purchased at their parish church years ago, was nestled in its traditional place beneath the tree, surrounded by just a few small presents. They sighed at the same time.

“It‘s just not the same,” she said, pondering this pandemic Christmas and the absence of children and grandchildren. They had shipped the presents a week ago and made arrangements for a Zoom call in the morning. It would have to be enough.

“No, it’s not,” he said, “but he’s still there, waiting.” He pointed to the manger, at the little carved figure of Jesus he had just placed into the scene a moment ago. That was the family tradition — no Jesus until Christmas Eve. She put down the book she had just picked up to read and stared at the tree.

“So much has changed this year, so much of life put on hold,” she said. “But this story never changes and somehow never gets old. The star, the shepherds, the Magi, the poor young couple and their baby. It’s all so hard to believe and, yet, here we are once again pinning our hopes and lives on what happened so long ago.”

“The hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight…” he sang, his once-vibrant voice now cracking and shallow.

She smiled sadly at his attempt at singing, remembering earlier days when his booming voice would fill the house and draw the children toward the tree for the annual reading of the Christmas story. The Bible, opened to Luke 2, sat on the table nearby, as always.

“Everything changed after that night,” she said. “It had to. For the world, for us, for anyone brave enough to believe in all these impossible things — incarnation, virgin birth, angel choirs. It would be easier to not believe, of course, but it would be oh so boring. It would make everything else we do seem meaningless, wouldn’t it?”

He nodded and slowly hauled himself out of the chair. He crossed himself and then crossed the room, lifted the Bible from its cradle and held it in his arms.

“In those days,” he read, “a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed…”

She closed her eyes. She knew the scene. She believed. It was enough.

+ + +

Merry Christmas to you all, and thanks for reading and sharing this year. Below is a brand-new song and video, “After This Night,” created just this week with my musical collaborators John Caravelli and Phil Cooper. I hope this story and this video will both serve as moments of quiet contemplation for you in the days leading up to Christmas. See you in 2021.

A (Very) Short Story: To See Thee More Clearly

Steve · December 5, 2020 · 10 Comments

She sat on the porch, the air around her turning colder, reminding her that the cool days of fall and the memories of even warmer summer days were drawing to a close. It saddened her, as the thought of winter did just about every year. Another year older, another trip around the sun without seemingly much to show for it. What’s the point after so many years, she wondered?

Her eyes turned to the trees. With the exception of a few tough hangers on, the leaves had all fallen, the branches barren and brown and gray. Ugh. She closed her eyes and dreamed of green. “Make it a short winter, Lord,” she prayed.

And then they arrived, birds by the dozens. Or were they already there and she hadn’t noticed? Sweet brown and black sparrows flitting from limb to limb. A pair of cardinals flashing red as they rounded the corner of the house and came to rest on a branch near the feeder. A lone blue jay lurking nearby, his cobalt hue enough to take the woman’s breath away. A red-breasted robin dug for worms in the soggy soil, while a small downy woodpecker worked his or her way up and down the trunk of the maple at the center of the yard. Through the bare branches, high above, a flock of Canada geese noisily made their way to the Missouri River flyway nearby.

So much to see, she thought, even in the deadness of early winter. And the voice deep within her said: “You see so much now because the leaves are gone, because the cycle of life and death continues, because sometimes to see more clearly you must die to yourself. You need to declutter your life once every so often, must set aside for a while the busy-ness of green summer and immerse yourself in the quiet of something sparse and clear. By leaving behind what you think you most want, you open up the possibility of all you need and can only find in the stark beauty of right now. Enjoy my birds. You’re welcome.”

And the woman smiled, pushing away the thoughts of green for the moment, relishing now a quiet moment with a friend, and she sang: “To see thee more clearly, love thee more dearly, follow thee more nearly. Day by day.” Even in winter. Even now.

Ask yourself in silence:

+ What is something new or surprising I saw today?
+ What might it mean?
+ Am I grateful?

And here’s a video that reminds us to pay attention to the ordinary so as to discover the extraordinary and overwhelming glory of God in the world around us. Enjoy.