Spirituality

What’s Inside?

Steve · August 10, 2019 · 10 Comments

I see you. Faust Park greenhouse. SJG photo.

What’s inside, everyone wants to know
what’s inside? And I’ve always told them,
but I feel something needs to change.
You wanna know what’s inside?
I could tell you if I wasn’t hiding.
My whole life is in here,
in this kitchen, baking.
What a mess I’m making.

Sara Bareilles, “What’s Inside,” from Waitress.

I had the privilege a few years ago of seeing the musical Waitress on Broadway with its original Jenna, the remarkable Jessie Mueller (who also portrayed Carole King in the original Broadway cast of Beautiful). What Jenna is hiding inside is, on the surface, the ingredients in her delectable pies. But on a deeper level, she is hiding her insecurities, a bad marriage, an unwanted pregnancy, and her stifled dreams. And the mess she’s making? Oy vey. Go see the play.

We’re all hiding something inside, and we’re all making a mess of it from time to time. We’re multilayered people, all of us, onions (to shift the food metaphor) that need to be peeled away if we’re ever going to get at our centers.

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Today’s Word: Lunacy

Steve · August 1, 2019 · Leave a Comment

_MG_9631 — Detail from Stations of the Cross, White House Retreat, St. Louis, Missouri. SJG photo.

In his book “Peculiar Treasures,” Frederick Buechner calls the story of Jesus and Zaccheus in Luke’s gospel, “the best and oldest joke in the world,” and it’s always been one of my favorites.

Chief among those reasons is a short little ditty of a song that I (and so many others who grew up in Protestant traditions) learned as children:

Zaccheus was a wee little man, a wee little man was he.
He climbed up in a sycamore tree for the Lord he wanted to see.
And as the savior passed that way he looked up in the tree,
AND HE SAID: “Zaccheus, you come down!” (at this we shook our little pointer fingers)
“For I’m going to your house today. For I’m going to your house today.”

I loved the song for its simple melody (If you know it, it’s now stuck in your head for the rest of the day. You’re welcome.) and for its simple hand motions that helped us learn it and bring the story alive in our young hearts. At the time, I think it resonated because I was always short for my age and always quick to climb the plum tree in my backyard in North St. Louis to get a better view of my surroundings. I could relate.

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Today’s Word: Acceptance

Steve · July 30, 2019 · 6 Comments

Free Hugs. Ferguson Farmers Market, Ferguson, Mo. SJG photo.

“For after all, the best thing one can do when it is raining is to let it rain.” Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

I awoke the other morning with every intention of getting an early walk in around a local lake before the heat of St. Louis summer kicked into high gear. Alas, as I came into consciousness, I heard the pounding of rain on the roof and deck outside my window, the steady drum of thunder somewhere off in the distance. Dang. The best laid plans of mice and men and all that…

There are two ways to respond when life gives us rain when all we want to do is get out in the world and walk. We can pound our pillows in exasperation, pull the covers over our heads and go back to sleep. Or we can get out of bed, thank God for gift of his gentle and good rain, and see what else he has for us to do.

Today’s Word: Dazzled

Steve · July 18, 2019 · 2 Comments

Dazzled 2 — "Dazzled," calligraphy by Jenny Givens Deffenbaugh

“In my deepest wound I found you, Lord, and it dazzled me.” St. Augustine

I write a lot, I realize, about this idea of “finding God.” A good deal of the time, this discovery comes down to seeing the divine in the beauty of the world around us, in the kindnesses of strangers and friends, in the sacred burning bush moments of everyday life. And, to be honest, that’s all pretty easy stuff, as long as we’re willing to sit still, be quiet for a while, and recall these moments of God that happen every day, like clockwork, whether or not we deign to pay attention. But good for us for paying attention. Keep at it, for it’s the beginning of all prayer.

But then along comes St. Augustine, reminding us that he found God not in some eye-widening sunset, not in some breathtaking act of charity, not in some simple moment of prayer, kneeling in his cell or chapel, although certainly he must have found God in those places and moments, just like the rest of us. He found God — and was “dazzled” by God — in his deepest wound.

Sacrament and Service Go Hand in Hand

Steve · April 25, 2019 · 4 Comments

Fr. Tom Santen's chalice (made from a cannon shell). SJG photo.

My next “Faith Perspectives” column for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch appeared online yesterday and should appear in the paper on Saturday morning. It’s a reflection on the recent Holy Thursday liturgy and the link between sacrament and service, between sharing in the Eucharist and washing the feet of those around us. You can read my column below or online here: http://bit.ly/sacramentservice

Just a few weeks ago at the evening Holy Thursday “Mass of the Last Supper” at my parish, I sat and kneeled and prayed, contemplating the creation of the sacrament of the Eucharist by Jesus in that upper room so long ago. This simple sacred meal, in which Catholics believe bread becomes Christ’s body and wine becomes his blood, is celebrated daily by Catholics around the world as the true presence of Christ in our midst. It is our center, our gathering place, our source and sustenance.

But the mass and the scripture readings for that evening did not end with the disciples huddled in the upper room, prayerfully professing their faith in this new-found communal meal. For before they had much time to even ponder the meaning this new sign of the divine in the world, Jesus gives them something else to consider.