purpose

Today’s Word: Irresistible

Steve · July 13, 2013 · 17 Comments

Starting something new: With today’s post I’m trying out a new idea. Knowing how pressed we all are for time — and equally aware of how much “stuff” comes into all of our mailboxes each day asking to be read — today during prayer I asked a simple question of God: What do I have to give or say to you that could possibly rise above the noise of our everyday lives? The answer I sensed perhaps should have been obvious to me: Give them less and invite them into silence.

As I have written before, silence is perhaps one of the best tools we have to draw closer to God and continue to make some sense of our lives. So while I may still post the occasional longer entry about something on my mind or something I have read, I’m going to try to write more often and shorter (about the length of one of my Living Faith devotions), all the while inviting you to spend some time in silence, where the God of all of our wants and desires dwells and waits for us. We can find God there, in the midst of family crises, illness, work problems or loneliness, if we only enter in and reach out for the One who created us. “Reaching out for God is reaching God,” as Mark Thibodeaux, SJ, has written so eloquently.

So I’m going to be living and praying each day, searching for one word upon which I can briefly reflect, a word that will also beckon you to spend some time in silence, searching for that word’s unique meaning for you in your journey of faith.

Today’s Word: Irresistible

dragonfly — Dragonfly on my finger. SJG Photo.

I heard this word today somewhere — irresistible. Now there are lots of senseless things that can sometimes be irresistible to us, such as television, eating too much of the wrong things or other such vices. That perhaps is a subject for another time. But the immediate sense of this word that I felt today is a comforting and peaceful notion: We are irresistible to God. God cannot get enough of us.

But we have a hard time believing this, don’t we? Why, we ask, would God want to spend time with us? Why would God care one way or another if we turn toward Him and say, “here I am?” But we also know the answer if we care to take the time to think about it. We are irresistible to God because God made us, and He made us to be in relationship with Him. The beauty and grace of all this is that when we don’t respond, when we forget to turn toward God, God is still there, waiting for us. God never grows weary of waiting because we are precious and perfect creatures of His own imagination and love. God waits because He cannot possibly resist the urge to do so. So believe it: You are irresistible.

Ask yourself in silence: Am I willing to believe this? If so, how do I respond? How does it change my life?

New Year’s Resolutions: To See Goodness

Steve · December 29, 2012 · 13 Comments

hill — Hill adjacent to Volcan Cerro Negro, Nicaragua, 2009. SJ Givens photo

Over the years, here on this blog and in my 25 years of writing reflections for Living Faith, I have often recalled those times of finding and experiencing God through the wonder of the natural word. Indeed, many people say that they often experience God more intensely during a walk in the woods or along the beach than they do sitting in a church. And while I’m a big fan of sitting in churches, both in solitude and as part of a community of faith, I continue to readily find God in the simplicity and the complexity of God’s created world. For me and so many others, it is impossible to separate the created from the Creator, so the earth and all its marvels stand as constant and ever-changing monuments to the One who dreamed and fashioned and set all in motion.

In the creation story told in Genesis, even God seems to be amazed at his handiwork, so why should we not be? Over and over, at the passing of each day of work, God stands back, surveys his accomplishment, and says: “Yes, this is good.” For who can witness a clear starry night, a majestic mountain, or the power of the ocean’s surge without thinking the same? It is good, indeed.

Seeing a Clear Reflection of Ourselves

Steve · October 24, 2012 · 1 Comment

mirror1 — Mirror Lake State Park, Wisconsin. SJG photo

Sue and I are up in Wisconsin this week near the Dells, the state’s version of Disneyland or, perhaps, my own state’s Branson. Like golf, which Mark Twain and others have called “A good walk spoiled,” the Dells (and Branson) are “a beautiful view spoiled.” Anyway, I digress.

It’s mostly closed down for the season here and, in any case, we came to this area not for the cheesy (pun intended) tourist spots or the Midwest’s largest indoor waterpark, but rather to just get away and spend time alone (together). We’re staying just far enough away from the tourist hub that we can imagine what this all looked like before the advent of all-you-can-eat buffets, waterski shows, 81-hole mini golf courses and Las Vegas-like themed hotels.

Book Review: Margaret Silf’s “Just Call Me López”

Steve · August 11, 2012 · 2 Comments

There’s an old chestnut of an icebreaker/conversation starter that goes something like this: What person, living or deceased, would you most like to spend some time with? (Go ahead, discuss…)

Margaret Silf’s “Just Call Me López: Getting to the Heart of Ignatius Loyola (Loyola Press, 144 pages) takes that question on a spiritual journey and allows us to come along for the ride, as long as we’re willing to suspend our disbelief in the impossibility of the premise of the book – the contemporary narrator’s months-long interactions with the 16^th century saint and founder of the Jesuits. Along the way, what we get is far more than a creative approach to Ignatius’ biography (his middle name was López) or an introduction to his famed spiritual exercises, although we get plenty of both. For those who know nothing or little of Ignatius’ life and approach to spirituality, this slim volume will serve as a fine introduction.

In this unlikely tale of a 16^th-century soldier-turned-saint and 21^st-century woman, we see what happens when one person opens herself to a real-life, real-time experience of the communion of saints. The two are as different as pen-and-ink and laptops are as writing instruments, but their conversations show us that life’s really important questions don’t change with the times and technology. And perhaps the most essential question we can ask as spiritual beings (what is God’s will and plan for my life?) is the question to which most of us continue to seek an answer. That introspective and prayerful approach to life is what lies at the heart of Ignatian spirituality.

Holy as a Day is Spent: Our Awareness of the Sacred Around Us

Steve · July 1, 2012 · 5 Comments

flower — The fecundity of life, by Steve Givens

I got out this morning for a walk in the woods near my house before I found myself in the midst of yet another scorching, humid St. Louis summer day. The temperature peaked at 108 the last few days, and more of the same is promised for today.

I was accompanied on my walk this morning by the music of singer-songwriter-teacher-activist Carrie Newcomer, with whom I have had the pleasure to work and learn a few times. As I entered the canopy of the woods, I was greeted in my ear buds with Carrie’s beautiful hymn to the sacred all around us, “Holy as a Day is Spent,” a song that never ceases to make me stop and consider where I am and how I’m taking up space on the earth at the moment. More than anything else, though, the song asks us to see the sacred in the ordinary, beautiful things of daily life. Near the end of the song, Carrie sings:

Holy is the place I stand
To give whatever small good I can
The empty page, the open book
Redemption everywhere I look

Unknowingly we slow our pace
In the shade of unexpected grace
With grateful smiles and sad lament
As holy as a day is spent.