Nouwen's Anguish… and Mine

During the last year of his life, Henri Nouwen took a sabbatical from his position as a the spiritual director for L'Arche, a center for for adults with emotion and mental disabilities and difficulties in Canada. During his time away, he kept a very detailed regular journal of his his thoughts and musings on a regular basis. Those who knew Nouwen best acknowledged the journal contained many of his deepest thoughts, observations and opinions. The journal was published a couple years after his death at age 64 and from that final book comes this observation: 

"What to do with this inner wound that is so easily touched and starts bleeding again? It is such a familiar wound. It has been with me for many years. I don't think this wound - this immense need for affection and this immense fear of rejection - will ever go away." 

While I did not have the luxury of taking a sabbatical from my job, the past year I have experienced an immense growth of self-knowledge and self-awareness. The time, while fruitful and critically important, has not been easy or comfortable. While I have read, examined and written extensively, nothing I nothing I have touched has moved me more. It is as if a man gone for 33 years an I inhabit the exact same words, feelings, thoughts and dreams. They are my complete understanding of my essence. Nouwen and I are the same, we are both 

afflicted with a fear of being unloved or rejected that can never be fully relieved. This is true despite the number of people who love me and who loved him and the fact we both are consciously aware of loved and accepted we are, the knowledge never quite makes down to our spiritual cores.

For my first 64 years I lived under the optimistic but ultimately misguided belief that if I worked hard enough or was patient enough I would be relieved of my wounds because I believed they just were a response to a garden variety character defect no different than other that any one of us might bear. I heard I was just too thin skinned. I was just overly dramatic. I was just impatient. I was only insensitive to the sorrows and sufferings of others because I was too self-centered to see beyond my own nature. I thought somehow I would grow out of these things. I expected to learn to anticipate when the hurts were coming on or when the sense of rejection might pop up and take me by surprise. Unfortunately I did not grow out of or get used to the wounds from ancient unknown injuries. I still cannot easily venture beyond myself to notice and embrace the hurts of others despite how greatly I wish to have the ability to be empathetic.

Sorrowfully, the wounds have worsened and have cut closer and closer to my most sensitive hidden places. The bleeding happens more frequently and from nicks that are even less and less serious. A lifetime of accumulated experience has left me more sensitized, not less, to real or imagined offenses whether such offenses were intended or completely unintentional. The vast majority, of course, were purely figments of a misguided brain.

Like Nouwen, who was the exact age I am now when he reduced his thoughts to writing I had to wait until age 64 to get any perspective on the true nature of my sorrows. Perhaps it has takes a lifetime to understand what is essentially beyond understanding. Shakespeare might call them the "slings and arrows of outrageous fortune" that are directed toward all humans but seem so personal to me. Reduced to the simplest terms, all that has happened to me is life, no greater and no less than the life anyone else has lived. The life I have lived is my life, the one I was meant to have and to fulfill. I should be able to dress myself with clothes fashioned from my experience and see I am not any different from anyone else.

This summer I experienced anger, even rage, to be shown that ADD and RSD are real things and they have been my things my entire life. I don’t want them. I don't want to seem cowardly or immature because of how I may react to even the most minor stimulus. It does not serve me well because the people closest to me, those who matter the most are the ones how have to endure and suffer when I lash out in the blink of an eye with little or no warning. I have tremendous appreciation of them. To stay close to me when I can be so unpredictable is something I can't repay. It is the immeasurable grace the people placed in my life receive which they, in turn, share with me that sustains me.

After stating his belief his wound never go away he went to say, "It (the wound) is here to stay, maybe for good reason. Perhaps it is gateway to my salvation, a door to glory and a passage to freedom!"

Reading this reminds me of the first time I heard someone gleefully pronounce at an AA meeting they were a "grateful alcoholic." I about gagged at hearing them be so gleeful for something so awful. After some time I came to understand how they felt and I almost share the emotion except I have never quite been able answer the call to be grateful about being alcoholic. Grateful to have recovered and to live in recovery, absolutely but to be grateful to have been cursed with the disease is a little more than I can choke out even on the best of days.

Hypersensitivity does not seem to be something that could be gateway to salvation. In fact, it seems more likely to be the exact opposite, a locked gate. Perhaps it really has nothing to do with salvation at all and is just burden we (I) have to bear. Nouwen, I have discovered has tremendous insight into the human condition. I have not read a single sentence he has written with which I have any issue so I have to pay attention to what he says here and see if I can learn from it. If he can describe the condition so perfectly, perhaps he can offer an equally perfect understanding of how we can benefit from the same condition.

In the next paragraph he continues:

"I am aware this wound of mine is a gift in disguise. These many short but intense experiences of abandonment lead me to the place where I'm learning to let go of fear and surrender my spirit into the hands of one who acceptance has not limits."

Well, then, here it is. This is exactly what I have been yearning to achieve. I KNOW the countless stabs of fear which plague me are meaningless and serve to irritate something that only my false self believes to be real. I KNOW that if I can simply do as we learned as young adults, to believe in the trust circle, I also should be able to just close my eyes and lean back until I fall into the arms of God, my God who is deserving of all faith. When I am in the moment despair, I can’t do it. I just cannot do it. All that I can do is simply wait it out and hang onto to the knowledge the bleeding will stop on its own and it always does.

In the past year, however, I have come to understand there is more than just waiting out the moment. Nouwen concurs:

"I am deeply grateful to Nathan and my other friends who know me and who are willing to bind my wounds so instead of bleeding to death, I can walk on the full life."

Like Henri, I have people in my life who, whether they know much about the intensity of the affliction, like my wife, or if understand little about the volume of the noise in my head, bind my wounds. Sometimes it is just a sentence or the right word that slows the bleeding. Other times it takes much more to bring me around to a sense of having been found. These peoples are hero's to me, they are the face and heart of the living God who knows all.

What am I am to make of all of this? If Christ can suffer through his suffering and death on the cross for me, is it not possible for me to offer this up as a suffering to help me to know him better?

I suddenly see an answer. As death came near, Jesus cried out in a loud voice, "My God, my God why have you forsaken me?" This, of course, is the first line of Psalm 22. In that moment we believe Jesus, the man dying a horrible death, felt abandoned forgotten by God. It is a little curious I never see my wound as being having been abandoned by God. I blame the people around me for opening the wound that leaves me in a state of abandonment and rejection. When that happens, the pain erupts like molten lava from a volcano and the heat consumes me completely and so quickly I can't imagine there has been a time when I was not feeling like I am in that moment. Is that how Jesus felt? How awful. How terrible. How indescribably profound. In this moment I glimpse just a hint of what empathy might feel like.

Psalm 22 begins as a lament of perhaps greater intensity than any other. From the terrifying first words it builds even to even greater and greater torment verse after verse and then, suddenly, the psalmist is delivered from torment. The cries of anguish were heard and answered. The fear of abandonment and defeat were only imagined. "He has not spurned or disdained the misery of the poor wretch. Did not turn away from me, but heard me when I cried out."

Nouwen seems to have reached a point of acceptance beyond mere resignation of, what shall we call this, an affliction? Condition? Challenge? Whatever. I have no choice but to accept it as well. The challenge for me is to embrace it as a gift because the fact remains I always survive long enough for the bleeding to stop every time it starts. It is gift because my suffering is for things that do not exist and can't really harm me and that every time I complete a cycle without causing harm to others, I can be grateful and appreciative. I can give testimony to the truth of Psalm 22. I have not been spurned or discarded. None of us ever are forgotten by God even if the torment is real.

What remains is the question of how to manage when the sense of being unloved or rejected emerges for me to keep perspective during the experience. So far the answer eludes me. I suspect there is no answer beyond just focusing on the hope, and it is only a distant hope, that the bleeding will once again stop. I hope that grace will be enough. More than I pray God's will be sufficient for me. It was for Paul who wrote in the second letter of Corinth that God responded to his prayers of relief that for Paul, God's grace was enough because God's strength is made perfect in weakness. 

This poignant point also binds me tightly together with Henri Nouwen, if I dare make a comparison to gifted writer and myself. What gifts we both have to share come, not from our strength, knowledge, or knowledge but from the hurts we cannot see in truth with clarity.  Our strengthen does not come from our wholeness but from our brokenness. God, we must remember, will reduce to nothing those whom he will use for his purposes. 

Advent Week 3

When John the Baptist heard in prison of the works of the Christ,
he sent his disciples to Jesus with this question,
"Are you the one who is to come,
or should we look for another?"
Jesus said to them in reply,
"Go and tell John what you hear and see:
the blind regain their sight,
the lame walk,
lepers are cleansed,
the deaf hear,
the dead are raised,
and the poor have the good news proclaimed to them.

And blessed is the one who takes no offense at me."

Week 3. The week of peace and joy.

After reviewing the Sunday gospel reading for what is the Sunday of Joy, Laudate Sunday, The pink candle Sunday, I find little that evokes either peace or joy in heart.

Sure, the business of miracles happening is grand news, maybe even great news but here is a news flash. I am not blind, I can walk just fine, I can hear just fine unless you ask my wife or female coworkers, I am certainly not dead and, if I can believe my bank statements, I am not poor, at least not in terms of, money.

What is more, in today's day and age, healing and cleansing is more a matter of good medicine practiced by competent physicians and there is not much reliance on faith healers except in the margins of our culture.

Where is the joy in all of that? I hate be skeptical and a naysayer which, given the frequency of how often I am guilty of both things, can't be true but, still, what is all of the shouting about?

Hmm, maybe we should revisit the Gospel one more time. I remember hearing, "and the poor have the good news proclaimed to them."

I passed it by the first time because it was so simply and quietly stated. The good news is being shared. What is the good news? The answer is big, huge, in fact. The good news was the entirety of the Gospels were being lived out right in front of them. The gospels that preached forgiveness, redemption, salvation, spiritual healing, eternal life, happiness in spirit and in everyday life. Being loved, being encouraged to love. To care for others and be cared for. A message of how to find peace and to share it. The good news is don't I don't need to be afraid, worried, upset, angry or sad. No one does. No matter what others may say about me or what I say about myself, the words and feelings are meaningless and ultimately without the capacity to hurt what lies at the core of my existence, my soul.

Even if I lose my life or all that I own, those things are not truly of value. What is precious, what is rare but could be shared by everyone who has ever lived, is that if I believe, have faith and hope, I will never die. There will be a day when all that I have lost in terms of people will be restored. I know this. I have, in my dreams, visited the house with many rooms where we will all go when it is are time. I have been reassured by just a glimpse, a tiny glimmer of those gone before me into the hereafter that awaits.

That is why this is the season of joy. This is the time when we celebrate the coming of joy into the world and we celebrate so intensely, so deeply and with so much enthusiasm it is as if we will experience the coming of joy just as we should, as if we were present in the manger the first time and were blessed with the foreknowledge of what was coming into the world, our world.

This is the season when hope is completed in joy and with joy, the peace of knowing we are saved. All of us. The next time I sing "Joy to the world" I plan to remember all of this. I hope, no pun intended, you remember too. May you be blessed with peace and joy this day, always and may you share the tidings with everyone we encounter.

It is the least we can do. This is good news, don't you think?

Merry Christmas. May the hope, peace, joy and love of Christ bless you and yours.

Advent Week 2 - Preparation

Growing up Methodist, week two of Advent was traditionally labeled the Sunday of Peace and I thought Catholic tradition was similar. In doing some background reading I learned week 2 is more often referred to as the Sunday of preparation or, in other places, the Sunday of Prophecy. When Preparation/Prophecy stands alone, Peace is combined with the Gaudete Sunday and so Week 3 is the Sunday of Peace and Joy.

I found it very curious to have one Sunday and the following week be set aside for preparation but also so for prophecy. There is, of course, much preparation involved with Christmas. There is the need to hang the Christmas lights and decorations outside so that passersby can be greeted with the beauty of the season. I also love to be welcomed home by a display of red, green, white and blue lights lining the roof line and laid out across the bushes of our house. It makes me feel homey.

Inside there are villages to set out, lights to string, trees (yes trees, one is not enough) to put up and nativities to display. Also, the regular cups, mugs, plates and linens need to be packed away to be replace with Christmas themed ones. Typically by the end of Thanksgiving weekend, our house has been prepared for Christmas. On this weekend, there is a foot of fresh snow on the ground with snow still falling. There is a distinct Currier and Ives vibe going on not just in our home but in the homes of most people we know. Some stalwarts don't put the tree until Christmas, but we can't wait that long.

Christmas cookies and other holiday treats are prepared and consumed with the benign resignation that comes from knowing the fight against sugar consumption and weight gain is simply futile. In the quiet of the evening before bed, I will just sit in the stillness and take in the feeling, sights and sounds of Christmas. I will feel peaceful for a minute, maybe two, then I will start thinking about what gifts that I still need to buy and then starting wondering about what gifts will come my way. When the tea has cooled off and it is time to retire, I will pat myself on the back for being so well prepared for Christmas. There, we are done. Let's bring on the Sunday of Peace and Joy.

As I reflected further, a little tickle started to distract me. Is this what the church means about preparation? Is it about shiny things that shimmer and blink? Is it about overconsumption of foods I should not even taste? Is it about paying attention to the TV and newspaper ads that promise we will have the perfect holiday if we can just buy the right stuff? Of course. Memories of past Christmas's when my children were little include mountains, literal mountains of boxes and wrapping paper that almost eclipsed the tree. Thoughts creep in. What about Mass on Christmas eve? What about singing carols about the Christ and the holy family without a thought the halls being decked or the bells jingling just so.

There are two Christmas's. One for the observant Christian and the other one for every one else. What is Christmas really about? It occurred to me readings of the second Sunday are centered on John the Baptist and his role as the last prophet before the rising of Christ. John's message was not about celebrations, gatherings, gifts and decorations. He wore tattered uncomfortable clothes, ate bugs and called us out of our comfortable little niches.

His message was "Repent!" and his call was to come forward for baptism. His ministry was not about being comfortable and relaxed. It called us to action. Why kind of action? Repentance requires us to do things, uncomfortable things that don't seem to be inline with the usual warm and fuzzy ideas we have about the Christmas season. First we have to pause instead of plunging into the lure of Amazon Prime with the promise that if you order now your purchase will be in the air being ferried by drone to the loading dock and from there into cargo hold of a jet which will be airborne to us inside the hour. Yes, we need to give of ourselves to answer the call but what are asked to give can't be charged to the Cabela's card where points are given for every purchase. We and by we I mean I, have to look at ourselves in the mirror and not just from across the room but right up close where every imperfection of our face is literally thrown back at us. This is not something we are compelled to do only at certain times of the year but everyday, often enough to keep us from straying off the course but the fact that Advent is often referred to as "Little Lent" points us to something more than just the ordinary, something firmly tied to the season.

Christmas is not just a birthday celebration for baby Jesus. It was never meant to be an occasion for a cake, ice cream, balloons and trips to Chucky Cheese to play whack a mole, if that is still a thing. The celebration is for the incarnation of God into man, the biggest act of love that could possibly exist. When we look toward Christmas, we are not just remember the event, we are celebrating the coming of the lord into form we that binds the human into the divine. This is celebration that requires preparation. It requires us to look at the whole idea of prophecy. John quoted Isaiah and in so doing became the link between the past and the present through which the prophecies were fulfilled. There is more to prophecy than just predicting the future based upon the past, it is understanding scripture in a way that it can be fulfilled in our understanding and sharing the understanding with each other. In other words we are called to prepare ourselves through assumption of the role of prophet.

This is a vexing and confusing thought but the calming of the storm of misunderstanding is simple. Repentance at this time opens us up to grasp what came by literally recreating the incarnation in our hearts and souls. Advent becomes like lent because discernment of our spirits is our mission. What about me needs to be examined? How am I relating to my soul and to others that needs to be improved or altered? Am I living out the call to love in the manner and spirit that is expected from the Holy Spirit that runs in and through my life and how I live?

When we read how John preached to those of his time to make way for the coming of the messiah, he was not just sending a message that was intended only for that time and place. It is for those of us living today as well. It is for me, today.

This is not just a heavy time of pious reflection and humble discernment, there is a reward for us. A promise that the incarnation has happened and is happening again and again when we receive the Eucharist. If we are prepared, we recognize the return we can expect as we move through the season. If Christ is in us and we are in him, what else could we expect to come next but the peace that surpasses understanding and joy we gain in holding that awareness. Be thorough as we prepare, we are promised the more completely we relinquish what we mistake as important, the greater our peace and joy will grow.

Peace be with you.

Advent Week 1 Hope in the Waiting

In Catholic tradition there is a different theme for each of the 4 weeks in Advent. Week one the theme is Hope. Week 2 is Preparation, week 3 is Joy and the 4th and last week is Love.  

It is curious to me that Hope is the first week and Preparation is the second. I would think the order would begin with Preparation and then follow up with Hope, Joy and Love. 

On further reflection I realize Hope is what draws us in to the magical season of Advent. The name, Advent, comes from the Latin words “Ad” which means “to” and the word “Venire” which means come. Spliced together, we get the word advent, to come, and we wait for what is to come.

Hope. It is such a common word for us, we use it multiple times a day most days. I hope the Broncos get their act together. I hope the weather is nice this weekend so the roads will be good. I hope to be able to get the gumbo caked on my truck washed off before the storm arrives today. I hope my wife makes chicken fried steak this week. I hope to see Jane this weekend. I hope my close friends at work will continue to buoy me up during the week.  I hope my mother’s health holds through the holidays so she can enjoy the season. 

We don’t just use hope for the incidental things that pop day day to day. Hope is, after all, a theological virtue so it carries significance beyond casual use. Hope is what sustains us through the thumps and bumps that interrupt our passage through life. When I look at my image in the mirror in the morning and I find myself looking through the image of what I see to wonder who or what I am or what I have become, hope is what brings me back to contact with my heart and soul. In the night, when what the great Protestant theologian Paul Tillich calls “thoughts of ultimate concern” flood over me and roll me around like a pebble in a rushing river, Hope is what waits for me as the tumbling ends and I begin to make sense of haunting dreams that don’t just wait for sleep to come but can terrifyingly visit me in wakefulness. Hope is what feeds my faith to the sure and

certain knowledge that when I die, I will not truly die but will live on through the grace and mercy of God. 

When we try to understand how hope works, we learn the answer lies somewhere beyond our capacity to capture. Henry Nouwen says this, 

“Hope is willing to leave unanswered questions unanswered and unknown futures unknown. Hope makes you see God's guiding hand not only in the gentle and pleasant moments but also in the shadows of disappointment and darkness.”

In his words, we should not be concerned by the mysteries of hope but to turn our attention to seeing God’s hand in our life. As I type this, a convention of Blue Jays and Magpies are hazing the feeders I stuffed with dog food cubes and un-shelled peanuts. It is a pleasing moment and I am comforted by the energy and conversation they bring. Since I have been away for several days, I hoped they would come promptly when I put out the food and whistled for them to come. Their presence connects to nature to me in a very curious way. I had not expected to become so closely bonded to them when I started putting out food last spring. 

What is interesting is I feel as though I am celebrating creation and giving the creator praise by offering nourishment to his creatures. He did not need to create beauty and wonder, nor did he need to create an ability and desire for us to embrace those things and to wander in wonder but he did. As suggested by Nouwen, I see God’s guiding hand in this. Two weeks ago, wracked by fear and anxiety, it was difficult to settle into the moment, watch the birds and find hope when I needed hope to pull myself back to a path forward and to remind me  fear, anxiety and worry are pointless. As Quoheleth noted in Ecclesiastes, I was busying myself about with things of no concern and yet I was wasting a tremendous amount of energy for no good reason. I hoped, falteringly at first, the time of uneasiness and concern would pass as it always and it did. It faded. My hope was fulfilled. 

Hope is not a constant in our lives, it comes from a willingness to trust and most of us begin to trust in little tiny steps. I don’t remember a time when I did not have the capacity to trust, even if only a tiny bit, it was a virtue my family demonstrated for me every day and they have never wavered enough in their faith to lose the trust they all spent a lifetime building. No matter what challenges they faced even when afflicted by terrible illnesses like strokes  and respiratory diseases like COPD, they never lost their ability to trust in God, to have faith that in the end, everything would be alright. Their hopes of delivery into a life beyond anything we can imagine were answered and we had the privilege of being witnesses.

In the last hours before my grandfather literally suffocated from emphysema, I took my grandfather's hand and asked him if he was afraid. Words were hard for him to speak by that time, struggling for breath, he shook his head and grasped my hand a little tighter. I leaned closer in to him told him choirs of angels were waiting for him and he nodded his head in response and squeezed my handed even tighter. Behind me my mother and grandmother listened and watched while I walked as far down the road to light with my grandfather as I was permitted. My cousin got up, rushed for the door left the room. She was not able to accept what was coming and she was destroyed by it. Hope eluded her then and still does often when she needs hope the most.

Two years later, sorrow struck my wife and I when we lost a child in the last trimester on the seventh day of December. The reading that day was this same reading about John the Baptist. In the days to follow, I thought I was holding tightly to the trust I needed to not lose hope, but that is not what happened. I pretended I still had hope but deep down there was only despair and a hurt that would not heal. The damage I caused to myself was nearly enough to destroy me but in time, through prayer offered by my wife and others, I was redeemed and brought home to where hope could rise up again out of the ashes of faith burned away by anger. 12 years ago on this same Sunday I was visited by hope brought on the wings of forgiveness and the ability to look at sorrow and not despair. It has never left me as long as I remember to ask for it and offer gratitude when it rises up to support me. 

I ask you to think. Have there been times in your life when your faith carried you far enough through adversity to where you could find hope? Has the experience strengthened you? Has the power of your hope allowed you to feed the trust and hope of another? Did you recognize that through your actions you willed the good of another?

Next week we will consider the next them, preparation which can also be understood to be prophecy.

Until, then the may this be a season of great hope for us all.

Faces of Fear - Day 3: Luke 12:22-37

He said to [his] disciples, “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life and what you will eat, or about your body and what you will wear. For life is more than food and the body more than clothing. Notice the ravens: they do not sow or reap; they have neither storehouse nor barn, yet God feeds them. How much more important are you than birds! Can any of you by worrying add a moment to your life-span? If even the smallest things are beyond your control, why are you anxious about the rest? Notice how the flowers grow. They do not toil or spin. But I tell you, not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of them. If God so clothes the grass in the field that grows today and is thrown into the oven tomorrow, will he not much more provide for you, O you of little faith? As for you, do not seek what you are to eat and what you are to drink, and do not worry anymore. All the nations of the world seek for these things, and your Father knows that you need them. Instead, seek his kingdom, and these other things will be given you besides. 

Growing up one of my favorite things growing up was to take my allowance money to the newsstand to buy a the newest edition of Mad magazine. Looking back, I am not sure how rural Montana raised white bread Christian boy might come to be so interested in what was most assuredly a very New York Jewish group of writers. 

The principal character and center piece of the magazine was a tousled haired, gap toothed Jewish boy named Alfred E. Neuman. Playing on the stereotypes of a adolescent Jews being chronically and perpetually worried, Alfred always had a brilliant smile that belied any concern he might have for people taking note of his unsightly front teeth. His classic remark about everything was, "What? Me worry?"

I wonder if there is an connection with the fascination of the 8 year old me with the 60+ year old me on the same subject, fear, anxiety and worry. I will put that aside for a moment and turn to a passage my wife thought should be given some reflection time. She is keenly aware of my fascination with crows and ravens and so she thought I was meant to encounter the passage.

Once again Jesus assures his followers that we are to not worry about food, health or clothing. He reminds us that life is more than material things. Remember the Samaritan woman at the well? His offer was not for life nourishing water but soul nourishing rebirth and salvation.

This passage is very similar to others in the gospel where Jesus points to creatures as being worthy of the favor of God. What is different in this particular passage gives us ravens as an example. I puzzled over the choice of bird. Just a few verses earlier he mentions sparrows which can be purchased for a small amount. The thing to point out is that sparrows had some kind of value to be sold captive in a cage, perhaps they were gifts to offer in the temple or they were kept as pets. Ravens, on the other hand, were, and are, considered harbingers of danger. 

I remember years ago sitting on the porch with an Italian family in our neighborhood in an Italian part of New Jersey. A raven or, more likely a crow, came and perched in a tree across the street. The elderly grandmother who recently come over from the old country immediately jumped from out of a catnap to gesturing at the bird screaming "Malochia! Malochia!" which means "evil eye" in Italian. Clearly she was not happy to see a black member of the corvid family.

Crows, magpies and jays all hang around my yard getting fat and feisty on diet of meat scraps, bones, dog food and peanuts. Sometimes they will line up the branches of the tree and stare right in the living room window at me swawking like they mean murder unless they are fed immediately. The jays will perch on the windowsill and peck on the glass to get my attention. God is not taking care of those ruffians, at least not directly. I am. One particularly raucus morning I made the comment that the birds seemed to know me when I approached the window. My wife responded that of course they know me. Their ancestors ate my ancestors on battlefields throughout history. Ravens and crows cooperate with wolves and they play the long game.

 Remember the raven in the story of Noah? He was sent out to search for land but, when he found dry earth, he did not return the ark. He was no doubt distracted by the abundance of eyeballs to pluck from the eyes of those who drowned. Of course they are not always given a bad rap. Ravens came to feed Elijah in 1st Kings after he escaped into the wilderness to seek safety. 

I have written much about fear and worry in an effort to understand how to vanquish it. We have looked at many different faces of fear and learned to pray the litany of humility. So far freedom from fear and worry remain elusive but I have finally begun to find some relief. How? Instead of reading, writing, or thinking about fear and anxiety, I am taking small steps. When anxiety rises up, I do something, anything to fight it. I pray. I find some way to do something for someway else. I get off my toukas and take a walk. I grab a pen and paper and start writing. I tell someone I trust who I know will challenge me rather than simply offer comfort or compassion. While I need those sympathy, I need to also be called out as a different brand of expression of caring rather than enabling my do-nothing paralysis.

You know what biggest challenge is now that I am doing something? Crazy as it sounds, I need to want to recover from fear and anxiety. You might ask, why would anyone not want to recover. It is simple. Living in a running fight with fear is the only way of life I know. I only have the slightest hint of what a life without burning anxiety might feel like and so I need to gin up courage to seek it all of the of the fullness a completed life in God can offer. How strange. It has taken 6 decades to understand just that small amount. There is so much more to learn.

So what more did we need to learn from the analogy of the raven? Even thought raven is among the most intelligent birds with a problem solving ability that can be stunningly effective, they are not sentient. They don't have to make conscious about whether or not to be worried or afraid. They are afraid or they aren't. They can be wary or edgy when there is a possibility of danger but they don't have the capacity to worry about tomorrow or fret about the dead gopher they passed up on last week. We have to make the choice to do not do fret or worry. Free choice is both our privilege and our curse.

We need also learn that God loves us more than we can comprehend in ways beyond our capacity to recognize.

God, let us live free from the fear and anxiety by trusting completely on you.

Litany of Humility - Part 4

This begins the 4th and final time of reflection for the Litany of Humility. In part 1, we renounced desire for esteem and all other manners of adulation, including love. Next, in part 2, we prayed for others to be given more of all also including love. 

In part 3, we prayed for others to get more of everything then we ourselves are granted. We came to understand that despite our prayers to be reduced to nothing, we are challenged to give our all to others. We are called to will the good of another. We are called to love without any thought or consideration of our own self. We pray to find true humility which is to be empty of everything that is of our ego. We will not seek to disappear or fade away in the empty void even though I live as though the complete loss of my self will result in the loss of both my self and my soul. We learned this from Meister Eckhart who promised the void left by the casting out of self will be filled by God.

I want to believe this. I want to chase this dream of true humility which requires absolute trust. This business of trying to keep my ego afloat in the storms of what we call life is exhausting me and leaving me perpetually riddled with anxiety, fear and dread as the goal of ego fulfillment because increasing futile and dangerous.

Society and our culture compel us to seek approval. Ads delude us into thinking the right shampoo or deodorant will make us popular, smart and desirable. The media pours attention most on those who seek it most. Material success is valued far beyond happiness that comes from contentedness and peace. We are constantly pushed, pulled and picked at to do more, be more, achieve more, earn more and on and on. The instinctual drive to be favorably received and admired seems to be the primary driving force pushing society forward through time. Why else we all be waiting for our promised 15 minutes of fame?

We are stampeded through life like buffalo being driven off a cliff. We would seem to rather to rush to our deaths with the herd than to hold back from the others and turn away from the precipice but then to live without the company of others who went over to die. 

Societal pressure squeezed our essence until it can be melted and poured like a molten flow of wasted desire into a crucible where we are reduced to what God will have us be that we might, in desperation, seek to be of use to him. I, like many us, are in the void before the crucible. I am willing to plunge ahead and be smelted then transformed a man totally dependent on God, totally reliant and committed to life without desire for ego and to trust in him. But first, God will reduce to zero that which he will use for his plan. 

What does this look like? My mind floats through my thought up spaces but then bumps into my subconscious which sparks a riot of different images and potential directions. They are translucent, diaphanous thoughts that lack the substance to take root and grow into something tangible until true humility is revealed. The only lasting thought which remains constant is love. Love God, Love others, Love myself. Be loved and let God's love be enough.

Lord let me come to believe and to live in the believe that we will live in him, always.

Litany of Humility - Part 3

That others may be loved more than I, Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.

That others may be esteemed more than I, Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.

That, in the opinion of the world, others may increase and I may decrease, Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.

That others may be chosen and I set aside, Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.

That others may be praised and I unnoticed, Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.

That others may be preferred to me in everything, Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.

That others may become holier than I, provided that I may become as holy as I should, Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.

We now begin the third ascent into the Litany of Humility. In part one we beamed the light on desires or needs which deflect from what we really need, a complete and unflinching desire for unity for God. The next part challenged us to look at baseless fears. Their baselessness does not come because fear does not actually exact but because we are fearing is the loss of something valueless. We have no need of protecting ourselves from humiliation, ridicule or being forgotten. The only one whose opinion really matters would never inflict such hurt on us. We do damage to ourselves by fearing the loss of things that are not just distractions but are dangerous to us because they serve a false self which deflects us from looking toward God and the salvation of our true self.

In part three we now turn away from introspection to look outward toward others. Let's continue. The prayer asks for others to be loved, esteemed, praised and preferred over ourselves. This points toward something curious for self-centered humans to tackle, selfless love. Not only are we deny ourselves food for the ego, we are desire to give it all away. All of it.

This is not just a conceptual fantasy in which we generically endorse someone unknown to us to perhaps be granted a little something that we would not notice is missing. This is all about bowing down, staying down and offering up what we have to give. I find this to be more than a little challenging. It is one thing for me to not get something but to will my portion for the good of another is a whole other thing. If I give something away, I will never get it back. Right? Well maybe this kind of thinking misses the whole point.

Let's turn back to something I sneakily interjected just now. I said I had to be willing to will my portion for the good of another. By cleaning up the verbiage a hair we get something like this: we are called to always to will the good of another. How about yet another shot at this thought, "To love is to will the good of another." That is not from me or even from Bishop Baron whom I heard quote this precept from Thomas Aquinas recently in his podcast.

This can get a little sticky. What is meant by that? It means we have to live up to this gospel passage, Matthew 22:34-40

When the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, and one of them [a scholar of the law]tested him by asking, “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” He said to him. "You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment. The second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.

This is more than a little sticky. We are called to love out neighbor as yourself. So simple but yet so impossible. I said in part one we would talk about love at a later point. In part 4 we will do just that. Until then, Love as we have instructed. Today, tomorrow, this week, commit yourself to will the good of another through one small act of devotion that with expectation of any reward.

Yes, I have to step up right along side you. 

Litany of Humility - Part 2

From the fear of being humiliated, deliver me, O Jesus.
From the fear of being despised, deliver me, O Jesus.
From the fear of suffering rebukes, deliver me, O Jesus.
From the fear of being calumniated, deliver me, O Jesus.
From the fear of being forgotten, deliver me, O Jesus.
From the fear of being ridiculed, deliver me, O Jesus.
From the fear of being wronged, deliver me, O Jesus.
From the fear of being suspected, deliver me, O Jesus

First we asked to be relieved of desires. In the discussion of part 1, it was pointed out that that desires are truly more than just desires. They are more like ravenous longings we desperately crave to create an illusion of value of purpose. Now we will ponder what happens when we fantasize we have achieved some kind of esteem or personal value and we feel threatened to lose the good standing we crave. The desires relate to things we seek but fear will be denied. Now we will talk about the things we have we fear will be taken from us. I believe at some level we all suffer from these kinds of fears at least to some degree. Some of us face fears that might be nothing more than fleeting annoyances. Others live great portions of their lives being afraid.

Which one are you? Maybe the answer varies based upon the stage or characteristics of our lives at any given time.

What of these fears? Oh, I get it. Fear of humiliation and ridicule engulf me, much more than the others. Except being forgotten. In the blink of an eye, fear of being forgotten surges up to the top of the list. While we are all wronged, despised, calumniated or suspected at one time or another, they don't have the ability completed deflate the balloon we call ego.

When it comes to humiliation and ridicule, we all play the sport of heaping grief on each other under the guise of humor. I am myself guilty of giving someone a hard time as way of expressing feelings of affection. Curious how we deflect our genuine feelings in an effort to not risk offering something which might be rejected. Sometimes the give and take is just simple hi-jinks but not always. Sometimes something might be said that stings. Sometimes what might be said in jest isn't really humorous at all but rather is a poorly veiled sword thrust.

To be forgotten is the worst because to be forgotten is something that should only happen after being dead for generations. It is a unequivocally a tragedy to be forgotten. How many times have we witnessed people who stay in abusive situations rather than be alone and, they fear, forgotten.

Can we look to scripture to find some solace against these kind of fears? Where might we find some hope?

I have long relied on one of my Grandmother's favorites, Psalm 121. Let's pray it:

I raise my eyes toward the mountains. From whence shall come my help? My help comes from the LORD, the maker of heaven and earth. He will not allow your foot to slip; or your guardian to sleep. Behold, the guardian of Israel never slumbers nor sleeps.

The LORD is your guardian the LORD is your shade at your right hand. By day the sun will not strike you, nor the moon by night.

The LORD will guard you from all evil; he will guard your soul. The LORD will guard your coming and going both now and forever.

There is a curious thing about the first stanza. Most who pray the Psalm assume that when the psalmist is looking from the mountains. Think of the old movies. The hero's are surrounded. The enemy is closing in on them. Thinks look ever so bleak, the end is near. Suddenly the camera lens raises up to look at a distant hill. Dust clouds are rising up as a harbinger of a coming army. Help is coming! In a few more frames, the infantry, cavalry or tanks tops over the ridge and zooms down to the engagement. The tide of battle turns and all that was threatened is now saved.

Rousing story. Seen it a thousand times. OK, lets take another look. Picture the opposite happening. The good guys think they are safe when suddenly a war cry whoops over the top of the ridge and a 100 jillion bad guys plunge down the hillside toward the encampment. It is over less time then it takes a white man to eat lunch - as was the case for Custer and his hapless soldiers.

The inference is clear. The psalmist sense danger coming down from on high. Think about it. Even today it is a military objective to seize the high ground. It is easier to defend and it is easier from which to launch an attack. Our feckless writer is not expecting help from on high, he wonders where is help is coming from to defend him from what is about to land on him.

When we fear that what we hold dearest is about to be taken from us, our best help will always come from God. Always. Another curious thing about this, however, is this. It is in this exact moment of staring down the crucible we have to decide, to evaluate and to consider is if what is in peril is what God would have me choose to guard zealously?

Fear of humiliation or ridicule? I might be hearing some muffled laughing here. The message is we should not protect what we fear will be lost, we should answer the fears with a resounding shout, "Get away, go away and don't come back!"

Look to the psalm once more. The promise is for God to protect our soul. Everything is nothing more than a series of disdainful follies thrown before us to trip us by the other guy. You know the one. Ya, him.

God thank you for helping us to discern what we should hold and what we should discard without fear or distrust.

Gathering Light Against An Fearful Darkness

When the light around lessens and my thoughts darken until my body feels fear turn cold as a stone inside,

When I find myself bereft of any belief in myself
And when all I unknowingly leaned upon has fallen, when one voice commands my whole heart, And it is raven dark:


May I steady myself and see that it is my own thinking that darkens my world. 



May I search and may I find a diamond-thought of light, May I know that I am not alone, and that this darkness has purpose; gradually may it school my eyes, to find the one gift my life requires hidden within this night-corner.

I invoke the learning of every suffering I have suffered. 

I close my eyes.

I gather all the kindling about my heart to create one spark that is all I need to nourish the flame that will cleanse the dark of its weight of festered fear. 

May a new confidence come alive to urge me towards higher ground where my imagination will learn to engage difficulty as its most rewarding threshold! 

May God grace my journey and sturdy my resolve
To find peace in the chaos
That is my life

Blessings Against a Dangerous Tide - Facing Fear

Poetry has never been my long suit but I thought I would post a couple of recent attempts

When battered by turmoil and uncertainty,
    May I return to the present noticing what is Ok and not just what isn’t.

When doubt overwhelms me and loneliness fills in my inner being,
     May I have faith in myself and those who connect with me.

When uncertainty clouds my path,
     May I have trust in the process of life itself.

When confronted the blackness of what might come next,  
     May I enter into fear and never shy from it.

When my heart pounds and my mind races from place to place,
    May I find time to reach for tranquility and turn inward to find sense of comforting eternity.

Instead preparing for war and painting my face for battle,
    May I make a friend of fear and not just believe its story and give into despair.

When I am buffeted by apprehension and tremble at what others might think,
    May I cultivate an ease of being and push back against magnifying hurt.

When I feel nothing but fear and despair in the sudden turmoil of any given day,
    May I nourish courage rather than grasping for a nonexistent certainty.

When the day is darkest and the storm approaches close in,
     May I trust that nothing destroys essence, my presence is spiritual and incarnate

Litany of Humility Part 1 10/23/2019

O Jesus! meek and humble of heart, hear me.

From the desire of being esteemed, deliver me, O Jesus.

From the desire of being loved, deliver me, O Jesus.

From the desire of being extolled, deliver me, O Jesus.

From the desire of being honored, deliver me, O Jesus.

From the desire of being praised, deliver me, O Jesus.

From the desire of being preferred to others, deliver me, O Jesus.

From the desire of being consulted, deliver me, O Jesus.

From the desire of being approved, deliver me, O Jesus.

Cardinal Merry Del Val, the Secretary of State under Pope St. Pius X, is widely considered to be the author of this beautiful prayer but there is not much evidence of this. As with many of our most beautiful gifts of language, there is likely many adapters but the original creator will never be known. I would like to imagine the author so I could look into his or her mind when the prayer poured forth from heart through the pen to paper. Even if Cardinal del Val did not originally author the prayer, the fact it is credited to him strong suggests it was important to him. This devotion to humility by one of the most important princes of the church has caused me to stop and consider that if someone of his stature seeks to ardently to be bent low, what lesson or lessons are there for me to embrace?

Several weeks ago I began to pay attention to when fear and anxiety seeped into my consciousness. Most instances could be traced to something that triggered something that challenged my false self when I was not keeping watch over it. I can almost check them off.

The desire to be esteemed? Of course that is a important to me. If I lack esteem, what purpose to I have to those around me. How about approval? There is a big one. A few weeks ago my wife was walking beside my truck as I backed up to the garage door so we could unload our camping gear. She was looking directly into the sun she had a scowl on her face as squinted to see into the darkened garage with sun directly in her eyes. The scowl, of course, meant I was doing something wrong and I would soon be criticized. Even if she did have something to say, rather than thinking she was giving me important information I needed, a positive communication, I would take the comment as negative because I was doing something wrong and get angry.

When compliments are being passed out or praise given for things I was not even a role in, I get a knot in my stomach because I was being overlooked. Sure those other people richly deserve the acclaim, but what about me? Don’t I count? Am I not valuable? The woe is me reaction is followed by sadness and a period of time spent gazing at my navel wondering what I did wrong.

If a couple of friends or coworkers wander off to get coffee and they don’t bother to ask me to join them, even if I am not there, I immediately convince myself I am not cared about or they would have at least asked me to come with or tell me where they are going.

No matter how many times I remind myself or shout back at the little voices in my head that I am being irrational and unreasonable, the taint or stain of the emotions can take hours, or even days, to fade-away. If I am fortunate, I can distract myself away from the grinding down of my ego by opening up the tool kit I have learned to keep with me and selecting something equal to the emotions. If I am not, I can get caught in a spiral down that gains speed with each revolution and I will spin out of control and end up a days long funk. When that happens all I can do is to hunker down, give into the feelings while avoiding others and they will eventually run out of steam and I can crawl back into the light and start living again.

The endless, continuous, unceasing, unrelenting search for being esteemed, extolled, honored, praised, preferred, consulted or approved of is exhausting, hopeless and ultimately futile. It makes me miserable and it causes me to sometimes make those closet to me frustrated and angry. Notice I left out mention of love. That is a whole other topic to be tackled some other time.

I have taken up the habit of trying to pray the litany everyday. Strangely enough, it can often help. A little. Sometimes. Strangely enough, something burrowed deep down in doesn’t want it to help. Must that part of me that can’t let go of the need to seek external nourishment of a false self that sound be starved to death so the real self might flourish.

Have mercy on me, God, for I am treated harshly; attackers press me all the day. My foes treat me harshly all the day; yes, many are my attackers. O Most High when I am afraid, in you I place my trust.

Who are my foes? Who are those who attack? Who treats me harshly? Who. Is really my only true enemy? Pogo figured it out a decade before I was born.

I am my own enemy.

Wait did I skip that line about trust. The thing that sustains me most during the dark days lost in fear and imagined isolation is trust. Trust that the darkness will pass. Trust that though I feel bereft and totally alone, I am not alone. He is with me. I trust in that.

About this litany? There will be more to come.

In the wilderness I make a way - Farewell

Isaiah 43:18-19
Remember not the events of the past, the things of long ago consider not; See, I am doing something new! Now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? In the wilderness, I make a way, in the wasteland,

rivers.

Reflection

The 2019 weekends are behind us and it is time to review our successes and celebrate them for a moment but to also consider those areas where we can improve in the future. The process of conversion to the journey model is now complete and now comes the time to think of the future. Leadership has passed to a new man and woman and the first consideration they have to make is who to invite to join them at the table where the future weekends will be divined. My prayers and love go to you both but also to the first vice leaders and the second will soon be chosen.

The scripture points us to the future where God is with us and he promises us great outcomes if we choose to believe and to act in accordance with his will. I am excited for it is to come but courage, forbearance and devotion will be needed to get us to the new rivers that will flow in the wasteland.

There is a new beginning for Lori and me as well as we look forward to moving to Missoula and a new chapter in our books of life. We are gratified and appreciative of the opportunities and growth Cursillo/Journey has brought us over the last 11 years. The weekends were just part of it. It was the weekly 4th day group meetings that provided me with a safe environment to explore new directions in spirituality and faith. There is a kinship in this deanery that I fear will not be found elsewhere and we will miss the personal relationships God encouraged us to create and grow beyond measurable limits.

It has been a pleasure and reward to be of service to the Cursillo/Journey community in Helena deanery. The time for us depart is coming soon and what the future holds for us in Missoula remains through the darkened passageway. I have given all that I have to give, at least for the present time. I have made no secret of an irresistible journey toward silence, solitude, and stillness which answers the need I have to put the ever-present fears and anxieties that haunt me. What this means is that I don’t know how we will grow into the Missoula Deanery Journey movement if mysticism and contemplation remain such compelling lure pulling me into the quiet.

Make no mistake. While we will be cruising to Alaska to celebrate retirement at the time of the weekends next year, I will be back to serve Darwin in whatever capacity he needs and that I will be able to offer. Promise.

In the kingdom of God that even in new beginnings what was before is not lost. The New Testament did not eclipse the Old, it fulfilled. The old weekends have not been replaced, they have been enhanced. The old leaders are not all gone. We remain behind to offer our love, prayers, support, counsel, knowledge, wisdom, and encouragement.

Peace be with you all.

Faces Of Fear - Day 3: Psalm 62

Responsorial Psalm - Psalm 62

R.(13b) Lord, you give back to everyone according to his works.
Only in God is my soul at rest;
from him comes my salvation.
He only is my rock and my salvation,
my stronghold; I shall not be disturbed at all.
R. Lord, you give back to everyone according to his works.
Only in God be at rest, my soul,
for from him comes my hope.
He only is my rock and my salvation,
my stronghold; I shall not be disturbed.
R. Lord, you give back to everyone according to his works.
Trust in him at all times, O my people!
Pour out your hearts before him;
God is our refuge!
R. Lord, you give back to everyone according to his works. Let’s begin with a question. If the Lord is our rock, our stronghold and we know, not believe, this to be undisputedly true, we have the right and, perhaps, even the obligation to trust wholly in Him. The question is this. If we wear the armor of being protected by God at all times, we do we still fear?

I have rolled this idea around so often the edges have box holding my thoughts have been worn into rounded corners. I confess to God. I believe in God. I KNOW He exists. I live in a world and in a life where reminders of His love are ever-present. The giant orange orb that is creeping up over the hills east of my house reminds me there is a cycle and rhythm that exists to balance us from day to day, month to month and even year to year. The seasons bring purpose to all things. I know this. I delight in the brilliant color emerging from the once green blanket of leaves on the trees in my yard. I know God exists. I know he loves me or why else would things exist that range beyond simple function into a beauty that has no purpose but to bring us happiness. I know snow that falls will someday melt, and life will emerge again. I don’t question this in the least. Yet, I fear. Virtually every day.

Why do I fear if I know there is a loving God who, at the end of my days, will make everything right? Because I have free choice. We all have free choice. It is the price we pay for being created in his image. The answer lies in the mystery of the pulling and pushing of the conscious and subconscious. Fear is useful. It has a purpose. If we lived in the Serengeti, it would tell us when to start running. Conversely, Fight is also useful because if running won’t work, we need to stand our ground. In the end, however, whether you run or fight you do so as a response to fear which is a recognition of something which is a threat to our wellbeing.

Over time I have to come to understand the interplay between fear and trust is different than I used to think true. Previously I believed that trust should eliminate fear, to obliterate, to make it disappear from sight and be no more. As my faith has grown, sustained by practice, knowledge, and experience, my trust in God has grown with it. Fear, however, remains constant. My conscious mind can look at the fear that is welling up out of my subconscious and just shake its head in disbelief that the subconscious will not just get the message it hears every single time it pushes fear at me. There is nothing to fear, there is nothing that will harm me. Nothing can happen that can’t be overcome or endured.

If a trust does not destroy fear, what purpose does it serve? The answer I now believe is that trust brings hope to a setting where hope is the best answer to fear that has no basis in reality. Because I trust, I know the fear will eventually dissipate like the steam rising off warming asphalt after a hard rain. The rain will fall again but my trust offers the hope I need to wait out the storm.

What is also true is the fear is not eternal, but it will be ever-present until it is burned away by the hot sun of eternal life.

I fear. I trust. I hope. At first, I was sad to accept that cycle will repeat countless times through the remaining days of my life but then I appreciated the bigger truth. I am human and, as we all do, I live within a human body so I am constrained by the limits of that body. The alternative could be that I could be bound up by fear and not have the faith it takes to trust fear will never win. It cannot because it has already lost.

Faces of Fear - Day Two: Matthew 6:25-39

“I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat [or drink], or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds in the sky; they do not sow or reap, they gather nothing into barns, yet ' heavenly Father feeds them. Are not you more important than they? Can any of you by worrying add a single moment to your life-span? Why are you anxious about clothes? Learn from the way the wild flowers grow. They do not work or spin. But I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was clothed like one of them. If God so clothes the grass of the field, which grows today and is thrown into the oven tomorrow, will he not much more provide for you, O you of little faith? So do not worry and say, ‘What are we to eat?’ or ‘What are we to drink?’ or ‘What are we to wear?’ All these things the pagans seek. Your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom [of God] and his righteousness, and all these things will be given you besides. Do not worry about tomorrow; tomorrow will take care of itself.

. 

Not only does fear have many faces, it has many levels. In first century Israel, fear was different than it is for me today. I have a well-stocked pantry and freezer. I have more clothing than I have a right to possess and money to last my lifetime and, if they are thrifty, for the lifetime of my children Medications and health care providers are easily abundant for me and my home is heated and cooled to deal with all kinds of weather. There is no reasonable expectation anyone will challenge me with a weapon more dangerous than a wicked wit and my enemies, if I have any, don’t really want to destroy me. In the time of Christ, however, hunger was never more than a day away for the vast majority of people. There was no way to predict when the Romans or some other military force might not just march into town and destroy everything. If I am wronged civilly, I have full legal address. In those days justice was more of a theory than an everyday reality.

If someday, water doesn’t flow out of the faucet in my home on demand, there is likely some way to easily remedy the problem. In short, what is there for me to worry about when my present circumstances are compared to those of my ancestors in faith. My ancestors by blood, during this same period of time, had a proclivity of getting naked and painted so they could wage battle on tribes. I suspect they were even worse off from than the those living in Palestine.

Jesus assures me I have nothing to worry about. As compared to birds or flowers, I don’t. In fact I am in far greater danger of harming myself by over consumption than from any physical threat. Yet I fear and I fear greatly and I fear many things. I even am afraid I will never know the extent of my fear. Why? To put a sad spin on Psalm 139, it is because I am built that way.

The last 24 hours I have lived in fear that began with low hum and it rose in volume until it became a silent scream. Now as this day slides toward an end, the fear has drained away like water from an over turned cup. All that is left behind is the residue of the fear that lays on me like a hangover.

The fear was not rationale but it was palpable and it has an understandable origin. My wife and I have experienced 3 pregnancies and only one of them resulted a living child. The other two were late stage losses that remain as tangible as they were when the first happened more the 3 decades ago. The third pregnancy that had a joyful outcome still battered us with long, scary and, for my wife, excruciating, 18 hour battle that was only decided after an emergency C-section.

Where did all of this overarching fear originate? My son called me late morning yesterday with the happy news that his first child, our first grandchild was entering the world. Everyone was in great shape. The baby’s vital signs were strong, my a daughter in law was in great spirits and my son was, well, over the top excited not just for them but for us as well.

I had done fairly well during the pregnancy to not fall into crippling anxiety as I relived our experiences years ago. Yes there was a distant tugging that tried to pull me away from being completely thrilled but I rarely felt much real fear, something that surprised me since I fully expected to be locked in combat with irrational thoughts. Yesterday, however, as the hours stretched out and crawled by, the fear began to rise in me as if it were an unwelcome party guest.

The calls and texts back and forth slowed to a stop and the times between contacts grew further and further apart. Finally by 11PM, I was completely exhausted not only because I had just finished a 3 day retreat that sucked virtually all of my energy but because the past pushed into the present with a vividness and intensity that I found shocking. Lori was feeling and experiencing much of the same feelings and emotions.

Somehow, I fell asleep, and surprisingly slept most of the night and had even fallen asleep after having been roused by my aging prostate. On awakening, however, I realized there had been no contact during the night apart from a brief text around 1AM saying that hard labor had set in. Fear and anxiety intensified incrementally. I prayed the hours, read and reread this passage from Matthew and then began a literal litany of the Jesus prayer. My stomach began to churn and my blood sugar rocketed up and I could feel a rapid heartbeat ramping up incrementally every few minutes.

I was convinced, absolutely convinced something had gone horribly wrong. I knew from bitter experience, things can take a terrible turn. After all, we experienced loss twice and we has also endured a long labor that failed to produce a baby without extreme measures. Finally at about 7:00 a text came. The baby had come. All were well. The concerns were unfounded or at least unrealized.

What happened next didn’t really surprise me. The fear and anxiety did not break as they should have with the great news. All that really happened is they did not escalate further. Without being there to see with my own eyes what was happening, I could not trust what I had been told. As the minutes turned hours without any further news or pictures, the remaining emotions and feelings jelled and refused to abate.

I decided to go work because I had been away from the office for several days and I wanted to deal with any issues that may have arisen while I was gone because we planned to leave for Missoula where my son and his family (gee, it feels good to say that word, family) live as soon as they were ready to see us. One of my co-workers was very concerned by my very surprising lack of high spirits and excitement. She was far more excited for me than I was for myself. I could not really explain why I was down when I should be up. Fear like mine doesn’t lend itself to being easily described.

Later on after we got to Missoula and learned more of the details, there were some complications that made things complicated and very difficult to endure but were never really dangerous. Even once I had Jane in my arms, it took a while for the last of the fear fade away and be replaced with a sense I was looking into the face of the continuum life and all is as it should be. Finally.
I know fear will come back again. Other concerns are already tugging at me but the lesson for me today is that despite how hard it is for me to not worry and to trust, I know worry is pointless but the worry can’t just be shouted down, as much as I wish. The difference is that even if I can’t manage the worry, I can manage my response. Without prayer and hope I would have been lost to despair.

As I was holding my granddaughter, (yes I am actually saying it) I looked out the window into the very tip tops of some 30 feet tall trees and saw 3 magpies sitting on the limb, lined up in a row looking in the window at me. I heard what they had been sent to say about trusting in God.

I can’t make fear go away but I can live through it with the help of faith acknowledged by mercy and grace. No matter how fearful I might become, I will never yield and surrender to it because I know, and not just believe, God will be there no matter how things turn out. That means everything will be ok in the end no matter what the end looks like.