Life at the intersection of faith, nature, history and art
“Wonder is the beginning of wisdom.” – Socrates
When the heroine of E.B. White’s classic children’s novel “Charlotte’s Web” first writes “SOME PIG” in her web in an attempt to save her friend Wilbur’s life, she was creating more than a PR campaign. She was creating wonder. She was making everyone who saw her web stop in their tracks, stand back, scratch their heads, and try to contemplate something they couldn’t fathom. That seems like a pretty good way to go through life.
Over the past week, I have been reading Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. I’ve seen the B movies and a very good theatrical version years ago at the St. Louis Repertory Theatre, but I’ve never read the book. It was assigned reading this year for all the first-year students at the university where I work, so I thought I would join the throng of readers.
We all read books, poems and sacred texts with different mindsets and personal histories, of course, so these words purposefully and creatively strung together by the authors affect each person differently. As regular readers of my blog no doubt know, I write often on the idea of paying attention to the world around us, of leaving ourselves open to being moved by the things in our lives and, ultimately, by the looming presence of God. So I was delighted to read this passage below, spoken by Dr. Frankenstein about his hike through the woods and mountains, during which he observed the desolation after an avalanche, dangerous and deep ravines, “somber” pines, the distant valley with mist rising off the river and the mountain summits shrouded in clouds. In short, he was paying attention and was deeply aware of the human necessity of being moved. He says:
[Read more…] about The Creative Spirit: The Human Necessity of ‘Being Moved’
“There are no wrong turns, only unexpected paths.” Mark Nepo
I was talking to a friend recently who is trying to make a big life decision – one of those seemingly huge choices that appear to be riddled with opportunities for both success and failure. In the words of those sage rock ‘n’ roll philosophers from The Clash: “Should I stay or should I go?”
He is going about the discernment process in all the right ways, I believe. He’s talking to trusted friends and advisors. He’s doing his homework on the new place. He’s considering what he will be leaving behind. He’s praying and trying to leave it all in the hands of God, who knows him better than he knows himself. Still, it’s a tough decision. He’s not hearing any voices. He’s not receiving any divine telegraphs. As it so often happens in life, we have to make these decisions for ourselves, hoping and praying that it’s the right one. It can be a scary and confusing time.
Well, I haven’t posted one of these for a while…Don’t be shocked! I think it’s the warming spring weather…
Yesterday I took my first real walk of this early spring, a leisurely three-mile stroll around Mallard Lake at Creve Coeur Park near my house. I had my earbuds in, listening to Yo-Yo Ma’s recording of Dvorak’s Cello Concerto in B Minor (which quickened my pace right away with its triumphant beginning), but as I rounded the first corner of the loop nearing the footbridge, the music in my ears was overwhelmed by the music of thousands of frogs in a wetlands area. Let’s just say they were having a good time and were none too quiet about it. I stopped and considered how quickly life and its fecundity pick up when the weather starts to heat up. And I thought where I was standing. It was no place special with no particular beauty — just a bog of sorts — but certainly holy ground at that moment. Here.
It’s almost Christmas. It’s the fourth week of advent. And we wait. But for what?
Well, we say, we wait for the birth of Jesus, of course. We wait to welcome him again to the world because, unlike those people in Bethlehem 2,000 years ago, we would make room for him in the “inns” of our hearts. Good answer. But would we?
Actually, perhaps the better question is, “do we?” For certainly the opportunity still awaits us. In his essay, “The Time of the End is the Time of No Room,” Thomas Merton writes:
“Into this world, this demented inn, in which there is absolutely no room for Him at all, Christ has come uninvited. But because He cannot be at home in it, because He is out of place in it, and yet must be in it, His place is with those others for whom there is no room. His place is with those who do not belong, who are rejected by power because they are regarded as weak, those who are discredited, who are denied status as persons, who are tortured, bombed, and exterminated. With those for whom there is no room, Christ is present in the world.”
I’m not sure there has been another time in my 55 years that I have felt so much like I was living in a “demented inn.” The world seems wracked in pain — in war, terrorism and every conceivable kind of violence. And yet, Christ comes — has come and continues to come — to us all. Whether we invite him or not, whether we are aware or not, Christ is present. He is not far away, waiting on a high mountain for us to struggle up to him. He is not buried deep in the rubble of history waiting for us to excavate him. Rather, he is standing right beside us, waiting for us to turn toward him.
And when we do that and find him in the comfort of our warm homes, we must be aware of all the others to whom he has come as well. For if Christ lives in us, as we Christians so often claim, then it falls to us to be the sane room in the demented inn, available to others. It is up to us to present Christ to the world, and especially to those who seem to have no room to go to. If Christ’s place is with those who are weak and do not belong, then so is ours.
For those who do not belong,
For those rejected by power,
For the weak and discredited,
For those denied status as persons,
For the tortured, bombed and exterminated,
For those who have no room,
For the immigrant,
For the victim,
For the persecuted,
For the unjustly accused,
For the ignored,
For those led into lives of violence,
Yes even them,
Christ comes.
Christ is present.
And where am I?