Christian

Learning to Ponder in the Age of Social Media

Steve · February 16, 2020 · 2 Comments

This originally appeared as a “Faith Perspectives” column in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch on February 13, 2020.

In an age when impersonal communication happens at lightning-fast speeds and with often very little thought or time given to the responses we make other than the very first — and often the most vitriolic — thought that enters our heads, we might all be wise to consider the time-tested virtues of pondering.

Pondering is not merely thinking or daydreaming or simply observing. It’s the work of paying attention and being open, of connecting the facts of the situation with a greater sense of presence, of recognition of the small within the whole, of finding meaning and perhaps even God in the things and actions of the Earth and of our own lives. All that doesn’t come easy at a time when we can tell someone hundreds or thousands of miles away exactly what we think of their inane idea 30 seconds after they post it and ten seconds after we have formed a response in our gut and before it has spent even a fleeting moment in our conscience minds. Such willingness on our part to slow down and ponder takes intention.

This Christmas: Gathering in the Holy Light of One Another

Steve · December 16, 2019 · 2 Comments

When I was a young teenager — maybe 14, 15, 16 years old — I created my own Christmas ritual. In my small upstairs bedroom in our working-class neighborhood of North St. Louis, I created an altar, of sorts. A table by the lone window of my room held a candle, a plastic manger scene, a small Christmas tree and a King James Bible opened to the Nativity story from Luke’s gospel. On Christmas Eve, after everyone else had gone to sleep, I would light my candle, peer into the manger, and read Luke’s account of the coming of Jesus into the world. Something within me wanted to be there.

And so it was, that, while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered. And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn.

Advent is Our Annual Wake-Up Call  

Steve · December 1, 2019 · 4 Comments

“Therefore, stay awake! For you do not know on which day your Lord will come.” Matthew 24:42

Here we are once again on the first Sunday of Advent, once again just weeks away from the celebration of the great solemnity of Christmas. Here we are once again entering into a period of preparation for the graces to be received as we contemplate what it means to have a God who is willing to come be on our level, to be Emmanuel and be with us. We are no longer in ordinary time, and it’s clear in today’s readings that something extraordinary is on the horizon.

But it’s also a bit strange, it seems on the surface, listening to Jesus in today’s Gospel reading talk and warn about the end of days just as we begin Advent, just as we begin to focus on those ancient events leading up to his miraculous and extraordinary birth in a manger in Bethlehem. What are we doing here — looking back to the cataclysm of Noah’s great destructive flood and forward to the day judgement?

It all seems so out of place in light of our modern celebration and understanding of Advent and Christmas, which has reduced Advent and Christmas in so many ways into a very different kind of “holiday season” that has become, for so many, nothing more than a race to Christmas day. And today the starting pistol has been fired.   And, in fact, there is so much joy to be found in the celebration of Christmas morning as it has come to be defined by western culture and traditions. There is joy in Santa and gift-giving and gathering friends and family for magnificent or simple meals.

But there is more. Today we are asked to ponder a sleigh-load of big ideas at the same time: Jesus was born. Jesus lived and was crucified and rose from the dead. Jesus will come again to judge the living and the dead. This is not just the beginning of a holiday season. This is the beginning of a great and ongoing story that has the power to change us forever.

Advent is not just a time of preparing for the celebration of Christmas. Advent is a time for preparing ourselves for a new way of living and loving.

“Come Lord Jesus. Come.”

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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