Steve

Today’s Word: Harvest

Steve · August 2, 2013 · 5 Comments

I am no farmer and not much of a gardener. Sue and I grow annuals in flowerpots and once in a while grow some tomatoes, but that’s about it. Something in me would like to be, but I’m not sure I’m up to the commitment it takes to care for the potential harvest, however small. I grew up in urban St. Louis, but even there my father found the time and the space in our backyard to plant (mostly from seed) a healthy, organically grown crop of tomatoes, onions, lettuce, peppers and more. Today, I have friends who participate and work hard in community gardens, and I love the harvest at our local Farmer’s Market.

So I love the harvest (what’s better than a fresh tomato or strawberry?) and stand in awe and gratitude of all those farmers who bring us our daily fruits and vegetables. I am thankful for the often-underpaid farmworkers who plant and pick the produce that ends up in our supermarkets. And, as always, I worship the Creator who waters the fields and blesses the ground with nutrients. I adore the Lord who makes tomatoes taste heavenly and strawberries better than just about anything should be allowed to taste. We too easily take all this for granted. We just go down the produce aisle and there they all are, lined up and waiting for us, freshly misted. Today, let’s remember all those who bring us our food and the God who gives everything that is good: “The earth has yielded its harvest; God, our God, blesses us.” (Psalm 67:7)

Ask yourself in silence: Can our eating (and our gathering together to eat) become an act of worship and prayer?

Today’s Word: Mirror

Steve · July 31, 2013 · 4 Comments

In his Spiritual Exercises, St. Ignatius encourages us to pause before we begin to pray and “become aware of God aware of me.” Consider, he suggests, that God “beholds me.” What an idea! We believe this at some level, of course, or else we would not pray at all, but this idea caught me off guard when I heard it a few weeks ago at a retreat preached by Paul Coutinho. We are so focused on God when we pray that it can be hard to fathom the idea of God being focused on us!

But that is exactly the gift that God offers us when we commit ourselves to times of solitude and prayer. Our all-seeing, all-loving God looks upon us as we pray, like a parent staring down into the crib of his or her new-born child, waiting for the child to move or breathe. (Remember that feeling, parents?) Just so, God watches us for signs of our spiritual life, listens for our words and encompasses us in a divine embrace when we place ourselves in his presence. God beholds us.

When we pray, we have the chance to see ourselves in the mirror of God’s eyes…to see ourselves as God sees us. With that in mind, how much more should we yearn for times of intimacy with God, times for us to look at each other in amazement and wonder?

Ask yourself in silence: While in prayer, can I somehow see myself as God sees me? How does that idea sit with me?

Today’s Word: Empty

Steve · July 30, 2013 · 3 Comments

We say little children are like sponges because their young, uncluttered minds are emptier than ours and thus able to soak up everything around them. We adults, on the other hand, are so filled with information, data, deadlines and headlines that it can feel like we are filled to the brim. No more room! One more reason to become like little children, I suppose.

St. Ignatius (whose feast day we celebrate tomorrow) once wrote that, when we pray, we should become like sponges, soaking up God’s presence. But wait…if we’re so full…where’s the room for God? Ah, exactly. In order to be filled by God, we must empty ourselves, squeezing out the excess of our lives and making room for the divine. We live lives saturated by all the noise — good and bad — that surrounds us on every side, demanding our attention and our response. Only when we shut ourselves off from this constant din and empty our minds of the surplus of our lives can we expect to find God and allow ourselves to be filled in a new, truly refreshing way.

Ask yourself in silence: How can I empty myself in order to make room for God in my life? What has to go in order for there to be more room for God?

Today’s Word: Rest

Steve · July 29, 2013 · 5 Comments

larry — Rest. My friend, Larry, about halfway up our climb up Volcan Cerro Negro in Nicaragua in 2009. SJG photo.

We are called, in the paraphrased words of St. Teresa of Avila, to be the body of Christ to the world:

Christ has no body but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which he looks
Compassion on this world,
Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good,
Yours are the hands, with which he blesses all the world.

In Matthew’s gospel, Jesus issues an invitation that reverberates down through the ages: “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” (Matthew 11:28) Jesus doesn’t promise to take away the hard work of our lives. He never says we will always be healthy or happy or that following him will be easy. He prepares us for quite the contrary, actually. But he promises rest and relief for those who have the courage to walk in his way and the faith to bring their burdens and weaknesses to him in prayer.

When we place ourselves in the service of others and nearly collapse at the end of the day, it is Jesus’ tired arms and legs that fall into our beds. When we work as Christ for those around us, we can know that our labor will never be in vain and the effect of our work will be blessed and multiplied by the divine energy that pervades and transforms our efforts. And perhaps best of all, we are promised rest at the end of the day in the loving arms of God.

Ask yourself in silence: Do I let myself just rest in God once in a while?

Hard at work in Chenendega, Nicaragua, 2009. SJG photo.

Today’s reflection is for some of my friends and a bunch of teenagers from our church who are back in Nicaragua working hard this week at Amigos for Christ. But believe me, they rest well at night in the arms of God…

Today’s Word: Falling

Steve · July 28, 2013 · 2 Comments

Jon & Jess at Joshua Tree National Park. SJG photo.

I was about 14, I think, when I first “fell in love.” It didn’t stick. I sort-of tried it a few more times before I found the one with whom I was meant to spend the rest of my life. (Full disclosure: I met my wife when I was just 16!) Falling in love is a tricky thing, it seems. Some of us get lucky and blessed. Others experience heartache and disappointment. Falling and staying in love has much to do with having mutual respect and faith in each other, as well as allowing ourselves to be changed for the good by the other.

And so it goes with God. When we really decide for ourselves that we are going to allow God to be part of our lives, it is akin to falling in love, to opening ourselves to God’s love and allowing God to change us in ways that we cannot fathom or expect. Nevertheless, we open ourselves to just that kind of transformation, trusting that we’ll come out better than when we started. I can’t imagine how different my life would be if I hadn’t spent the last 35 years or so slowly and hesitantly falling in love with God. This is not a “love at first sight, head over heels” kind of love. This love is a gentle “turning toward” what is already present in all of our lives, a recognition and acceptance of the perfect love that lies within our reach if we will only stretch across the short distance and grasp it.

The following poem/prayer by Fr. Pedro Arrupe, SJ, speaks more eloquently than I ever could about this idea of falling in love with God:

Nothing is more practical than finding God, than
falling in Love
in a quite absolute, final way.
What you are in love with,
what seizes your imagination, will affect everything.
It will decide
what will get you out of bed in the morning,
what you do with your evenings,
how you spend your weekends,
what you read, whom you know,
what breaks your heart,
and what amazes you with joy and gratitude.
Fall in Love, stay in love,
and it will decide everything.

Ask yourself in silence: Am I willing to allow myself to be changed by the One who loves me?