Lone Moutain and a Pair of Psalms

I am privileged to live in Montana and I am further privileged that my job allows me to attend a conference at the Big Sky Resort which is located literally at the foot of Lone Mountain. This evening as darkness fell, I left the party inside the Lodge as the noise of the party rose higher and higher and quality conversation became harder to find. The sun had already set directly behind the mountain and twilight was hard upon the country. While day and night last for hours the distance between them can be breathtakingly short.

I found a quiet place with a view of the mountain to read Evening Prayer. In the short 15 minutes between the invitatory and the final blessing, the western sky shifted from daylight blue to white to red to orange and back to blue but, this time, the darkening blue of night. A new crescent moon was hung to the left of the peak as if it were dangling from the remains of the day clouds that were now rose pink against the ancient night sky.

When prayer ended, I found myself reflecting not on anything I had read in Morning Prayer yesterday from Psalm 139:

Lord, what is man that you care for him,
mortal man, that you keep him in mind;
man, who is merely a breath
whose life fades like a passing shadow?

Looking from my vantage point up to the top of the dog tooth shaped peak and from there left up the Gallatin Range and back to the right and up at Indian Peaks, I felt very small against the primeval immenseness of the mountains.

Who am I that, God should care for me, a mere speck in the spread of the universe and the span of time. My life is merely a breath and for a few minutes, as the blueness of the sky faded to black, I truly felt insignificant.

In twinkling, literally, I saw the first stars poke through the blanket of the night darkened sky, and one of the Psalms from this evening’s prayer slipped across my consciousness. From Psalm 144:

O Lord, you search me and you know me,
you know my resting and my rising,
you discern my purpose from afar.

Later on:

O where can I go from your spirit,
or where can I flee from your face?
If I climb the heavens, you are there.
If I lie in the grave, you are there.

And later still:

For it was you who created my being,
knit me together in my mother’s womb.
I thank you for the wonder of my being,
for the wonders of all your creation.

Finally:

For it was you who created my being,
knit me together in my mother’s womb.
I thank you for the wonder of my being,
for the wonders of all your creation.

Understanding finally filled the empty spaces and what small moment was before suddenly grew tenfold. The hugeness of the mountains and vastness of the wilderness was not meant to make feel small. They are there because God is big. I should wonder at creation and in my wonder continue my trip toward salvage. Worshiping God because he created my very being and gifted me with the ability to see the glory of His creation that I might wonder at it defines me. Tonight God revealed more of Himself to me through His words handed down to me through the generations and through His creation.

Lord, I thank you for the wonder of my being and for the wonders of all your creation. 

 



Words

The late poet priest John O’Donohue once wrote that a blank sheet of paper represents silence. To put pen to paper is to cover up the silence by words. The white space that surrounds words frames the words and gives them perspective. Just as there a two sides to a coin, there are two sides to words – what is written and what is not. The words draw us in but the white space gives us rest and room to absorb what is said.

Looking at a blank sheet of paper with a pen in hand, searching for  the first word is to look deep into a vast wildness that is both compelling and repelling us in the same breath. To look at empty page of white space on a computer screen with the cursor blinking remorselessly and relentlessly is less poetic, however. Poetry can be captured on a napkin, in notebook, on blackboard or even a matchbook cover. The computer screen, however, seems sterile but within the sterility there lies the hope of fertility. The mind is where words capture images that are both visible and invisible to the eye and given the images form that can be shared.

That first keystroke, like the first pen stroke, shatters the silence and page becomes a place of both sound and silence. We struggle to balance those extremes in our limited understanding of that place we live that is life but is moving toward death and a new life. More keystrokes fall and letters appear on screen, seeming random at first, but then words appears and the words create sentences that become something we can grasp.

The words we create – do they mean anything? What do they sound like? What do they feel like? What do we do with them? Word’s make us feel the softness of a baby’s breath against our neck as we cuddle our child close to us. Words help us hear the hard scratch of the lilac branches against the brick outside our house animated by a hard night wind. Words can help us sense the love our pets have for us as our dog looks upon us with an unbroken gaze that is both soft but also direct.

Words allow me to describe a giant yellow moon peering over the brown and tan distant mountains that are fading toward blue and black as daylight fails to hold its grasp on the sun.

Words save me when I find them in time to make a connection that needs to be made. Words fail me when I wait too long and they no longer have the power to make a connection. Words define me. Words define us. Words connect us with God. We call those words prayer. 

Luke 6:20-29

 Iam a visual person. Whenever I read this gospel passage, I try to create a mental image of the scene when Jesus spoke these words. I try to imagine what the crowd looked like and what they did as He spoke. Where was he looking when he raised his eyes to disciples. Did the disciples return His gaze? Did Jesus’ body language imply that he was receiving the words he was sharing from above or was He speaking to them matter of factfully like we would talk with each other?

In the end this flight of imagination is largely pointless. His message is timeless and it is directed to us, right now today. We are the poor, the hungry, and the saddened but if we are not any of those we are hated.

Father Jack Peterson share on the Beatitudes:

Look at first beatitude which is the door to the others. It is the logical place to begin our efforts to dive deeply into the Gospel way of life. It describes an attitude that needs to govern the heart of the Christian believer. It shapes the whole way in which one approaches life. The first beatitude is, “Blessed are the poor, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

The poor are those who are fully aware of their profound need for God in every dimension of their lives. They have come to peace with the reality that God is God, and they are not. They are convinced that everything good in life is completely free and flows from the generous hand of God. They trust, like a child, in the goodness of the Father and His desire to take care of His children.

The poor do not rely upon things or people for ultimate meaning or purpose in life, but rather rely upon the love and grace of Almighty God. They are quick to thank God and attribute their blessings and successes to Him. They are also quick to turn to Him when suffering and adversity come, knowing that He will provide strength and show the way through the darkness into the light. They think more about God and neighbor than about themselves, even in times of trial.

This radical reliance upon God that governs the heart of the Christian makes a person truly wise, strong and capable of great acts of love. To be poor is to be Christ-like.

Once God’s grace begins to penetrate our hearts and our lives and we start to become poor, then we will find it easier to understand and desire to live the other beatitudes as well. This realization creates a profound internal struggle.

Yesterday was the 11th year of remembrance of 9/11. How do we respond to the hate that resulted in the destruction of the Towers? How do we react to the renewed sense of rage that might overwhelm as we replay the vivid images of the Trade Center Towers shattering and collapsing?  We also have to measure our individual and personal actions in the years since against the call of the gospel to remember that we are blessed when we are hated for being Christian.

The Gospel says:

"Rejoice and leap for joy on that day!
Behold, your reward will be great in heaven…”

The message for me is that I am called to remember that I am, and we are, among the many called to live today with profound and persevering faith that God will recognize when we have tried to live as though we are poor and tried to remember the example of Jesus in how to respond to hatred.

To Sing A New Song

O sing a new song to the Lord,
sing to the Lord all the earth.
O sing to the Lord, bless his name.

Psalm 96

It has been exactly one year since I have uploaded anything to this blog. I have thought and prayed often the past year in an effort to find a reason why I was so suddenly struck silent after commenting on the 10 year anniversary of the tragedy of 9/11/2001. It was as if I had simply lost my voice. When I sat down to write the next entry, I could not type the first letter of the first word which is all I had ever needed to do in the past to get the words fluid. Instead I just sat impassively staring at the blinking cursor at the top of an otherwise blank page until I finally gave up and closed the document.

The silence could not just be the result of one thing. I had managed to overcome many barriers in the days and weeks prior to 9/11/2011 to get something down but suddenly there seemed to be so many things that got in my way.

It is not as though I was completely silent. I continued to write reflection and research papers for PFLM throughout the fall and winter. My weekly contribution to the prayer group continued on after I stopped writing the blog. In fact I began to study the scriptures we discussed each week so that I could offer more insight into the discussion rather than just showing up and offering up whatever came to mind. My attention to Liturgy of the Hours has continued without a break and I have continued to reflect and live in manner worthy of my vows as a Benedictine Oblate.

During the past year I have studied everything from Celtic Catholic Spirituality to Thomas Aquinas and my knowledge of our Catholic faith, history, doctrine and theology has leapt forward as if propelled by a rocket but my desire and ability to just sit and a reflect on something small simply faded away.

I will likely never know why silence fell upon me. It could have been rawness of emotion that I was immersed in as my family lived through a seeming endless tragic storyline that stilled my voice and stifled my ability to engage in simple introspection. Perhaps I simply needed a sabbatical, some quiet time to let the lessons piled on by the progression of days settle down so I could make some sense of them. May be in time I will be granted insight that I might be able to offer up but for now it is time to sing a new song to the Lord.

Today I sing a new song to him, a song of praise and thanks that through peaks and valleys of the past year His love for me has remained steadfast even if my faith and ability to sing out has not.

Let the heavens rejoice and earth be glad, let the sea and all within it thunder praise,
let the land and all it bears rejoice, all the trees of the wood shout for joy at the presence of the Lord for he comes, he comes to rule the earth.

In remembrance of 9/11

I find myself thinking more and more about 9/11 and the impact it had on our lives and our society as we move closer and closer to the ten year anniversary of the event. I believe that it has changed us in ways that would have never anticipated. For example, I would have never dreamed that as we watched the towers burn and fall there would be a momentous shift in the insurance and financial markets that would eventually close the niche our little business operated in here in the backwoods of Montana and we would have to sell out to a larger competitor.

I never would have dreamed that we would still be engaged in what amounts to war operations in the Middle East even after 10 years. If only the world would have taken a step back and reflected on the words of John Paul II who challenged us to find a way to make peace instead of perpetuating more violence.

We pray for those whose lives were shattered on that terrible morning. Help us to take the steps back toward finding a way to mend a torn world without more violence and destruction. Send forth your spirit to renew the face of the earth that we may know peace for our children to enjoy.

  

The Birth of Mary

From this day all generations will call me blessed:
the Almighty has done great things for me,
and holy is his Name.

We read this excerpt from the Magnificat every evening in evening prayer as part of the routine of Liturgy of the Hours. On days when I have my wits about me, I try to envision Mary when she is being visited. I see a young girl with dark skin, dark eyes and dark hair simply dressed in robe style dress of era, a hood pulled over her hair loosely. I imagine her having a plain appearance about her but I also see a countenance filled with a radiance that both attracts but confuses those who encounter her. I try to contemplate if I would be able to match her great faith, to proclaim that the Almighty had done great things for me by choosing me to bear the most precious of gifts only to see him die in the most terrible of ways. I try to always remember to finish prayer with a Hail Mary which always seems to bring the day to a more comforting conclusion, particularly if it is not likely I will be able to recite night prayer. To finish in this way always seems to make the precious mother a real and immediate presence in my life, a true loving intermediary for me with her son, our lord.

I tried to find an image of Mary that matched up with what I seen when I try capture the image of Mary in my mind. I looked at hundreds of images of Mary but did not find anything similar to what I hoped to find. Many were beautiful, haunting, mysterious and, curiously, all clearly recognizable as being Mary. None of them picture a girl as young as Mary, by the custom of her time and era, would have had to have been when betrothed. None of them represented the image of a clearly semitic girl as Mary had to be since she was native to the land. With respect to all of the great artists who have painted Mary through out the years, she could not have been light skinned or light haired or had European features. I come to realize my visualization is just that: my visualization. How I see her makes her seem some how more personal to me and that we all, if given the chance, would create an image of her that would allow us to see her in a way that brings us comfort.

Psalm 57

From Morning Prayer, Psalm 57:

Have mercy on me, God, have mercy on me. In you I seek refuge. In the shadow of your wings I seek refuge till harm pass by.

 A couple of years ago while floating the Smith River we were surprised by a sudden thunderstorm that boiled over the white cliffs and blasted us off the river and into the shelter of the trees along the shore. We had to balance the danger of being under trees while lightening struck all around us, sometimes so near we could smell ozone, with being out on the open where hail could pelt us. I had on a good rain jacket and I had the others with me gather around me and kneel down so I could lean over them, spread my arms and protect them from at least some of the hail that was quickly blanketing the ground around us. We laughed as we talked about my “hooding” them like a hen with chickens when a hawk passes over.

The image that comes to me from the Psalm today is different than the one portrayed in the story. I had been having one of those mornings prior to being able to start Morning Prayer.  My job requires me to engage unhappy and dissatisfied people and there had been a couple of such calls had been referred to me. I also have struggling with making some difficult decisions at work and the weight of those decisions had been wearing me down. When I finally was able to carve out some time for prayer, I was distracted and unable to concentrate on the text of the reading. I finally resorted to reading out loud which an often time brings the ability to focus. Hearing the words of the Psalm prayed out loud triggered an immediate sense of comfort and I found myself reflexively repeated the first stanza over and over again. After a while I was able to finish the rest of Psalm and then eventually Morning Prayer.

That is what God does for us when we finally remember where our refuge lays. In his mercy he provides us with safe refuge until we can face life again buoyed by his grace.