faith

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?

Today’s Word: Marrow

Steve · July 27, 2013 · 6 Comments

votive — Votive candle at the Chapel of the Holy Cross, outside Sedona, Arizona. SJG photo.

When we say we sense something in the marrow of our bones, we mean that we sense some truth deep down inside us, at the very core of our being. And although we say this in a metaphorical and perhaps even metaphysical sense, there’s some physical truth involved in the saying. As someone who has had my bone marrow tapped a couple of times (a wonderful experience…) I know what the doctors found there. They found my stem cells, those building blocks of who I am, telltale signs of what makes me, me.

Those of us who feel called to lives of faith sense that call deep down at our centers in a way that is even more profound and meaningful than the biological material that makes us who we are. We sense a quiet voice that beckons us toward a presence that has been named God for us, a divine light that both urges us to serve others and invites us into communion. That’s what we feel, in the marrow of our bones, and so we respond.

Ask yourself in silence: What do I sense in the marrow of my bones? What is at the very core of my being?

With thanks to my wife, Sue, and our good friends, John & Karen and Larry & Dianne, for this “word of the day challenge” and for good conversation and lots of laughter around the table last night. These kinds of evenings remind me of all that is important in life. Yet another thing I can sense in the marrow of my bones.

Today’s Word: Psalm

Steve · July 26, 2013 · 3 Comments

Once, when a friend sensed in my voice some pain, he sent me Psalm 61, written for the chief musician and for a stringed instrument. He knew I’d like that. He also knew, as I do but sometimes forget, that we all long to shout: “Hear my cry, God. Listen to my prayer.” My friend is wiser than he sometimes lets on, for he really knows what it means to say: “I will call to you when my heart is overwhelmed.” We all feel overwhelmed from time to time, and for those times, God gives us the Psalms.

I needed my friend’s prayers and this Psalm, and some day he may need mine. This is what makes us Church, the body of Christ, broken yet unbroken. It is this mutual love and care that leads us to a rock higher than we ever could reach on our own. Together and separately we seek refuge there, dwelling under God’s tent and huddling beneath his protective wings, baby birds open-mouthed and hiding from the storm. Singing.

There we stay, sometimes hiding, sometimes peeking out, but always enthroned in the nest of God’s hands. Seeking to be fed. Always singing a psalm of praise or pain, assured that God hears both.

Ask yourself in silence: Do I have the confidence to cry or sing out to God, even in my darkest times?