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