Tairseacha

On a recent January Sunday morning I arose well before the dawn, made a pot of coffee and Lori settled down for our early morning prayer, meditation and contemplation time. She reads random selections from the Bible and I pray the Hours. She then spends some time in meditation, and I engage in the first novice steps of Centering prayer.

I have always been drawn to times of change in the rhythm of the day. During the winter I will pull open the drapes even though it might still be pitch black as though it were in the dead of night. As the hour unfolds, I try to watch the gradual shift from darkness into light. The shift of colors is something watch, and I find myself disappointed some days when there are clouds enough to block the sunrise but not enough to bring out the ambient glow of the early day that come when there is a thick overcast sky.

On this day, there has been a heavy frost even though the temperature had not dropped more than a degree or two below freezing. Hoar frost clung to the myriad of branches of my beloved tree and on all of the other shrubs in my sight around the yard. I thought it curious how the frost seemed to gather light that was still just a promise to come and allowed it to glitter light gray against a dark blue and black backdrop. The sky was jet black which promised a clearing sky by daylight although I could not see stars through the pane glass windows.

I had filled the feeders with peanuts and cubes hoping the corvids might come to visit. Strangely enough they seem to have slowed down the visits to my feeders and when they do come they rarely consume everything except for the loose peanuts I might spread on the ground. As I finished up prayer I noted the dawn had begun to slip in and their flittering shadows zipping and pausing the through the tree limbs. I noticed the feeders were spinning and swinging as if they had been hit by some invisible force. The corvids, crows who have been hit and miss since the onset of winter, ever faithful magpies and my frisky smaller jays materialized out of the dark to literally buzz the feeders. They remained coal black in the predawn light, even the blue jays were still without any other color, not even gray yet. I had never experienced visitors to the feeders before first light but here they were dive bombing the feeders light fighter planes buzzed ships during the war. A constellation of frozen shards and crystals showered down from the tree, knocked loose by the fervent flights of the birds darting through the branches to steal a turn at the feeders. 

They continued to fly sorties against the food stores until well after dawn and were still raiding the feeders as we left for church. I felt more at peace than I had for months.

The story and lessons I learned that day are too broad and too deep to convey all at once in once setting so I will break this telling into three parts with just few comments about the direction of journey.

I have long been fascinated by the theology and Spirituality of the Celts and I have become nothing less than a disciple of Irish poet John O'Donohue because of the way his words can awake the unknowable and unseen in a human to suddenly feel a connection with is known and can be seen.

All of life is spent in a threshold where we are caught in perpetual coming and going. No matter where we stand, we are always on the verge of step into what is to become. There is no resting, only brief pauses while we catch our breath and consider where our next foot fall will land. In this year, I am standing threshold of a crucible as I move from a lifelong vocation into the next lands of avocations. Every second there is another hope and the next a fear that is followed by fear and then comfort of something precious to come into play.

Thus says the Lord:

Stand at the crossroads, and look,
And ask for the ancient paths,
Where the go way lies; and walk in it,
And find rest for your souls.
-Jeremiah 6:16

Crossroads are decision points and the pondering of which direction to go places us in a threshold where we not only must choose whether to retreat, remain or proceed forward but to also choose the way we will go forth. It is a near certainty that to be on the threshold means there is no option to turn back nor is there any hope of remaining in place. The winds of life only blow us ahead of themselves and we can never do more than pause until we are too exhausted to resist and have to the forces of life push us onward.

Jeremiah, speaking to the ancient Hebrews warned to stand in the threshold and consider carefully which way to go. What are the ancient paths? We can look to our faith history and understand what they are and where to find them. Don’t choose as Cain did and throw himself down a road of betrayal. Choose as David did, seek forgiveness and for the wisdom to make right decisions. The message to us is to choose the path the Lord has planned for us. The trip will be far simpler but not always easy.

Take this passage and make of it a personal Lectio Divina this week. What is God trying to teach you as you study the versus? Don’t just take what I have said as being the full truth for that is a cape you must make for yourself.

My blessing this week? May you find rest for your soul.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Gl1bECIx0E

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CGXrKaFt8EE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ec77ClWz1g0

Who Is Your Goliath?

First Samuel 17
David spoke to Saul:

 “Let your majesty not lose courage. I am at your service to go and fight this Philistine.” But Saul answered David, “You cannot go up against this Philistine and fight with him, for you are only a youth, while he has been a warrior from his youth.” David continued: “The LORD, who delivered me from the claws of the lion and the bear, will also keep me safe from the clutches of this Philistine.” Saul answered David, “Go! the LORD will be with you.” Then, staff in hand, David selected five smooth stones from the wadi and put them in the pocket of his shepherd’s bag. With his sling also ready to hand, he approached the Philistine. With his shield bearer marching before him, the Philistine also advanced closer and closer to David. When he had sized David up, and seen that he was youthful, and ruddy, and handsome in appearance, the Philistine held David in contempt. The Philistine said to David, “Am I a dog that you come against me with a staff? Then the Philistine cursed David by his gods and said to him, “Come here to me, and I will leave your flesh for the birds of the air and the beasts of the field.” David answered him: “You come against me with sword and spear and scimitar, but I come against you in the name of the LORD of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel that you have insulted. Today the LORD shall deliver you into my hand; I will strike you down and cut off your head. This very day I will leave your corpse and the corpses of the Philistine army for the birds of the air and the beasts of the field; thus the whole land shall learn that Israel has a God. All this multitude, too, shall learn that it is not by sword or spear that the LORD saves. For the battle is the LORD’s and he shall deliver you into our hands.” The Philistine then moved to meet David at close quarters, while David ran quickly toward the battle line in the direction of the Philistine. David put his hand into the bag and took out a stone, hurled it with the sling, and struck the Philistine on the forehead. The stone embedded itself in his brow, and he fell prostrate on the ground. Thus David overcame the Philistine with sling and stone; he struck the Philistine mortally, and did it without a sword. Then David ran and stood over him; with the Philistine’s own sword which he drew from its sheath he dispatched him and cut off his head.
Hmmm. Familiar story, I should say. Who did not know how this was going to end? Of course this one of stories from the Hebrew Testament that is more cultural than religious. We see references to underdogs taking on overwhelming odds only to come out on top because of the righteousness of their cause every day. Marvel Comics is based upon that very idea. With faith and a stone, good will trump evil. One of the fun things about growing Methodist was the opportunity to go to Sunday School on a weekly basis. By the age of 10 I was well steeped in the stories from the Hebrew testament. Moses in the basket saved by the princess. Joshua blowing the horn and walls of Jericho fell down. Samson and Delilah, it looked grim for a second and then he pulled to walls down to smite the bad guys. Noah and the Ark. Let's be honest here. The Hebrew Testament makes for pretty interesting reading if you don't give a hoot about the faith lessons they are intended to be rather than historical records.

The rub, however, is we know that the good guy with bravery up the wazoo and absolute conviction in his values which propels into the breech does not always win. Sometimes bad guys take the day. If we look first at Goliath, consider how many lives he took in previous battles with the Hebrews. There was a history of confrontation in which the hero's were struck down by the dozens. Think of the Charge of Light Brigade. How about the Alamo? As long as we are in Israel, how about Masada? There is more recent example that I keep thinking about where the success of one righteous man would have changed the course of History. In July 1944, Claus Von Stauffenberg had a grand idea about ending the war. He would carry a bomb in a briefcase into a meeting with Hitler and then kill Hitler with the bomb. The plot was nearly perfect except Hitler sat on the other side of pillar from the bomb and was protected from the blast. Just think of the lives that would have been saved both on and off the battlefield and in the camps. Von Stauffenberg was convinced the war was going to be lost because of the successful landing at Normandy and he wanted to save Germany the protracted destruction he knew was going to continue. Hitler lived. The war continued and nearly 5 thousand were executed for real or imagined participation in the conspiracy. 

What does this all mean for us today? To not rely on faith when it is time to confront something evil or destructed to your well being? Of course not. After all, the good guys eventually won the war and put Hitler and his gang in the ground, except for the ones who got a way to live out their lives as janitors in places like Winnetka Illinois. 

Our battles are not just about politics, power, riches or influence. They are about who we are as people, how we see the world and interact with others all while trying to operate under the expectation we honor the will of God and to live in accordance with his plans for us. 

Coming back around to David and Goliath, there is something for us to learn today. We are all locked in combat just as David was with Goliath. Our very spiritual existence is at stake. As one who is plagued by fear, I need to carefully some rocks for spiritual warfare and prepare to hit the enemy head on. I have a Goliath to engage, confront and overcome. My Goliath wells up from inside me. He is me, he is my ego. The rocks are tools I need to protect the person I wish to become from the person whom I might become if my aim is not true.

A hallmark of RSD (rejection sympathetic dysmorphia) is the speed with which the symptoms can strike. One minute I am bebopping along and the next I will have been engulfed with negative emotions because somehow my fragile self esteem took a hit. In recent months I learned that humility is the bag that holds the weapons I need to defend myself and those I love from the baseless reactions that can redefine a day that was good into a day of conflict.

I have a bucket of rocks to sling at Goliath and some days I bonk with more that other times the stones just sail by him. The point is there is not just one grand defining moment when Goliath takes it in the forehead, goes down and the battle is over. Every morning, Goliath gets back to his feet before I can get close enough to end the struggle forever. Every day I have to drag the bucket of stones up to confront him and have the courage to make the first throw. That first throw, however, can be overwhelming and can require effort that I can muster. The problem, you see, is I have to want to take on my ego, to knock him down so I can prevail even just for a moment. The problem is harder than you think. Sometimes is just to easy and familiar to wallow in the anger and hurt than it is to take the Herculean first step toward recovery. On those days Goliath wins and what is lost is not just my attitude but my relationships with people who are beyond measure in value to me are hurt as well.

If I can just make up my mind and gin up my courage to take a look at the hurt to see if it is real, the image of Goliath fades and the sound of his taunts becomes lost in the breeze of the spirit. This imagery came to me at Mass this past Sunday. When the time for Eucharist arrived, I realized that the bad guys have already lost because of the surrender of life offered by Jesus. In the end, good will prevail. Today, however, evil still has power over us on an individual basis just as Goliath clearly had the advantage over David. We can lose battles but with faith we will never lose the war. We will overcome if we believe we will. That what God wants for us and it should be what we want for each other. 

As we close, I offer this question for you to ponder. Who is your Goliath?

From Where I Stand - Looking Back on the Reboot

In two days time I will be 14 months out from what I called a "reboot" and I will also be 12 years out since I was reborn with a second chance at life.

When I "rebooted" a year ago, I cataloged a long list of things I wanted to cultivate. The results, as I look back over the year are mixed. Some changes have taken and have been a success. I have broken or, at least, weakened my attachment to things. The need to consume, to acquire or to buy has diminished to a mere shadow of the past. It is not completely banished, there is more to be done, but, if anything, the desire for material things is continuing to shrink. Good.

As I read over my journal entries, I see noble and well considered intentions to make wholesale changes to be a better man, husband, father, friend and so on but what I don't see is any intention to put all these things to God and to give God input into what he wanted me to become. The problem is I was focused on labels, names that people can call me that point to me being a good, honorable and God fearing man. I was completely focused on externals, on how the world sees me but not how I see myself when I ask the question, God what is your will for me. My false self was still in charge even though my true self was kicking at the door to escape and grow into what I was meant to be.

The year has been both awesome and awful. The arrival of Jane marks the high point and a new leaving off place as we, Lori and I, think and marvel into our future.

It has been an awful year for my ego but I have to add the mistreatment my ego encountered has been long overdue. It is time for that miserable thorn in my side to be vanquished. I have seen in dramatic clarity the havoc the false self I mistakenly nourished has caused. A I result I have embraced an immense amount of pain, sorrow and regret but I am slowly coming to understand while the misery is real because the things damaged are not real but are simply constructs by mind of a small boy who was only attempting to frame a sense of understanding of the world and his part in it.

How curious it is that an imagined hurt suffered by an imagined belief about myself can be so persistently painful for so long and lingers on after the false self has been found to be a traitor and enemy of the true self.

As I look back over the years since I came in from the dark, it is readily clear this past year has been the most, hmm, what is the right word? Actually there might not be a word but it will take several. Much has been revealed. More has been learned. Even more has been experienced.

Let's see. I found myself experiencing a real crises of identity. After a lifetime of being willing to step to be a leader and suddenly found myself questioning why I was motivated to seek something that often ended up making me miserable because of the stress caused by a mismatch of ability and demands. When you see yourself as a leader, a manager or a motivator, it is hard to recognize who is looking back at me in the mirror now that I am no longer in that role. What's more, I found myself questioning what I what to be a part of much less being a leader in that thing whether it is at work, in the church or elsewhere.

I acquired some new labels. ADD and RSD. We now understand that things like ADD are not black and white but fall on a spectrum. I clearly have some things that fall on the spectrum but RSD also seems to be something that as a spectrum. RSD? Rejection Sympathetic Dysmorphia. In layman's terms, I am overly sensitive and "get my feelings hurt too easily." What should either be so minimal as to not register can flare me up into a major hurt and I either withdraw as far as I can get or lash out at someone, usually my wife but sometimes at co-workers or family. When it happens, it happens just a when a balloon bursts or a gunshot goes off. The lag time between trigger and response is so fast that I can't even see it coming. I don't even have a needle in my fingers or a gun in my hand when I trigger yet the force of the blast can be bewildering.

I learned some other things. I am an Enneagram type 6 which means I was born to live in fear and anxiety about virtually aspect of life. I wake up in the morning like an antelope on the prairie and within seconds I am often in full fight/flight mode so I have to wonder if it is time to start running or just put my head down and use my horns to take on whatever might be threatening me. The trouble is there is nothing real to fight or even to run from and it hard to respond to a figment of my imagination.

Also, it was revealed that I am an MBTI ISFJ. There are lots of good things about ISFJ and Type 6 but a common theme is that I am sensitive to push back, confrontation and criticism. Nothing revealed was particularly surprising even though several common areas all validate who I am and how I react to the world.

The reality, however, is that as interesting as of these discoveries might be, they really don't matter. If I have thoroughly understood the overarching message, my personality is just that, personality. What does matter is how well I can develop the skill to separate external factors which I might think impact my ego or self-esteem. The notion that what other people think of me is, bluntly, none of business. The only thing that matters is the opinion of God and the fact he loves all of us unconditionally has been pounded into my head on a daily basis for at least the year and on a frequent basis for the preceding decades back to when I reached the age of reason, whatever that is.

The hardest message for me to accept in the AA big book is the statement that if am disturbed, not matter the reason, the problem is with me but not anything or anyone else. It is not that I spend the day being vigilant for slights or insults, but there is nothing I like more than to feel entitled to good old fashioned self-righteous anger if I have been wronged. My default is to seek to always be right. After all if I am not right, I must be wrong and what use am I if I am wrong. My whole sense of worth is balanced on that narrow, wobbly rail and I tend to fall off of it more than I can stay balanced on it. One peculiar aspect of a relationship I have a with a co-worker is she gets no value out of me if I am right because being right robs her of the ability to tease me, something that we both like, as confounding a notion as that might be.

The need to be right is not good for any relationship, however, when all focus is on focus is on being right instead of being motivated to do the right thing. Being right and doing the right thing are not always lined up. In fact they can be mutually exclusive if I lose sight of the fact that the most important response to anything is to first be kind. I consider myself to be a kind person but being right can pervert that impulse as quickly as striking a match.

The thing about the reboot is that no ground once taken remains forever taken. At any minute of any day, the ground can be to slide like sand turned to slurry by a sudden storm. About the time I decide to say I am just going to sit here for a while and watch the clouds float by, I get hit but an unexpected rain that sends me scurrying for cover while cursing the heavens. This is not a good program for happiness. 

Still, if I were to have to offer a definitive response to the question of whether I am better off today than I was 14 months ago my swift and unswerving answer is yes. Without the silly uproar created by a dramatic plan to reboot the reboot, I intend to keep growing. I have to. The alternative might levy a cost I can't bear to cover. No might here. The alternative would separate me from what I hold most dear. 

Today was not so good. Neither was yesterday nor the day before but none of them bear resemblance to the misery of only 14 months ago. Tomorrow will be better but if not tomorrow than one day this week and we will be off in the right direction again. 

Advent Week Four

There is one school of thought that the Christmas actually extends even beyond the Baptism of the Lord up to the Presentation of the Lord on February 2 so I can weakly argue we can still talk about Christmas. No matter if it is still Christmas or not, we can always talk about the focus of Week 4, Love. When would it not be a good time to talk about Love?

Even so, we are just now taking a breath with the first week of Ordinary times so this whole discussion might feel anticlimactic. When we realize that Lent is steaming in on us in just another 6 weeks, we might even further consider it is too late to take up this topic. Too bad. We are going to take it up anyway.

Why? The message of love we hear at Christmas is timeless and eternal but how we understand love changed completely with the birth of Jesus. The Hebrew people preached, lived and believed the God of Abraham, Isaac and Moses was a God who loved beyond all measure but it was a love of God for his people. There was missing part for us, the thing that makes God's love personal for us. In the person and divinity of Jesus, we as humans can relate to the nature of God even if it is far beyond our ability to understand.

The thing that has always puzzled me is how Jesus taught us to love. Yes, he told us to love on another. He challenged us to love God and devote ourselves completely to Gospel. What brought the message of love home, however, is found as much in what he did as what he said. In the miracles we saw the love expressed in a way that made it real. Even if we can dismiss the miracles as being something reserved for the divine, look how he related to the Samaritan woman. What keeps us from offering the same message of love? How about when he simply said, let the one without sin cast the first stone? How about the exchange with woman at the table when she requested he look past her foreign status.

Love is not a noun or a passive verb, it is an action word. To love means to act in a way that wills the good of another as Thomas Aquinas taught. I have been educated recently about how the service that flows from love really works. It is not just about feeding the poor or caring for the sick. For me it is much more close up and personal. I work in a job where I communicate with people who have been injured on the job. Instead of just robotically delivering a product or doing my job by rote, I can remind myself of the humanity of every single person I come into contact every hour of the day and that no matter the circumstances, I can do my job with love even if the message I have to communicate is not what the listener wants to here. I can treat my co-workers with love and charity, giving them of what I have which is sometimes more than I can begin to imagine is inside me to share

This causes me to reflect back over the past 40 years. Have I always acted with love guiding my actions? Hardly. That is not to say I have continually failed to be kind and understanding but sometimes the people who needed it most from me where the same ones I was most reluctant to treat with kindness and empathy.

In recent months, we have been hitting this spirituality thing pretty hard and we have dealt with difficult and complex emotions and relationships. Let's face it, I have been hitting myself and the rest of you with a hammer on weekly basis trying to understand the nature of fear, faith and trust which should all be centered on the Lord and not on our own weaknesses and insecurities. Also, humility has been a recurring theme I have been jabbing myself and the rest of us in the ribs about on a weekly basis. While we have to be ever mindful of our nature, we also need to look beyond the narrow confines of ourselves and look to the rewards we have for being believers with faith and trust.

In looking back over the Advent and Christmas season, I am filled with something I can only call wonder. Not wonder as I wonder but wonder as in awe.  There are no boundaries to wonder, we can just let ourselves go and trust that it ok to just open our eyes and hearts and take it all in. The decorations, the music, the gatherings, the giving and receiving and the amazement we have at what happened 2000 years ago when the word was made flesh and God become incarnate in our world. Wonder creates room for gladness, appreciation, gratitude and a renewed faith in ourselves, the world, our place in the world and the Trinitarian God is in and through it all.

Wonder is one of the greatest gifts of God given us because of his love for us. He did not have to create beauty when function is all matters for the world to go around and around. He did not have to give us the ability to appreciate beauty but he did. In coming weeks we will come back to wonder from time to time  as way of reminding us to just be sometimes because when we do that, we will always be in his presence.

Today, look up at the sky. Take note of the clouds and watch them for a moment so you might hear the song they are singing to you. Wonder and beauty. We can trust in God for those these things.

Next week we will move to the next step of wonder when we look at the 4 elements of creation in Celtic Spirituality.

Now I am going to give you all some homework. Take the sheet of paper I am passing out and write this down:

I experienced the wonder of God last week when I (fill in the blank)

Oh, and I also want you to work Love into your observation.

Faces of Fear - Another Face Appears: Mark 6:45-52

After the five thousand had eaten and were satisfied, Jesus made his disciples get into the boat and precede him to the other side toward Bethsaida, while he dismissed the crowd. And when he had taken leave of them, he went off to the mountain to pray. When it was evening, the boat was far out on the sea and he was alone on shore. Then he saw that they were tossed about while rowing, for the wind was against them. About the fourth watch of the night, he came toward them walking on the sea. He meant to pass by them. But when they saw him walking on the sea, they thought it was a ghost and cried out. They had all seen him and were terrified. But at once he spoke with them, "Take courage, it is I, do not be afraid!" He got into the boat with them and the wind died down. They were completely astounded. They had not understood the incident of the loaves. On the contrary, their hearts were hardened.

As 2019 came to an end, I returned to the previous reflections on fear we shared and I spent some time wondering if we had explored enough of the darkened nooks and crannies of fear to have some assurance the topic of fear received a thorough enough examination. As I re-read the previous explored the previous posts, I felt I had a sense of closure, not that fear won't always be ready for more attention. Something had been left unsaid so I needed to open the lid and take another look in the barrel.

As has long been my custom, I like to keep an eye on the Wednesday daily readings and in doing so I found, purely by happenstance, today's reading in the lectionary. Since there are no coincidences in this world, I decided to spend some time pulling the passage apart. The general theme is, of course, is fear. I quickly realized there was something more in this passage than we found in prior readings, something much more powerful and right on point.

Let's start with setting the stage. The previous reading, in the style of Mark, breathlessly and with great urgency told the story of the feeding of the five thousand, something that clearly warranted telling with dramatic flair since it was a miracle that happened in plain sight of thousands.

Consider first the crowd. Here they were, sitting in rows jammed side by side on a hill overlooking the water. They heard teachings the likes of which they had never heard of proclaimed with confidence, authority and power. What they heard was nothing less than revolutionary. As the day grew late, they grew hungry so a wondrous rabbi worked a miracle that brings the story of the Hanukkah to mind right in front of them. Just as one day's oil somehow lasted for 8 days, food enough for only for a dozen became a meal for the multitudes. Would they not expect more from this unknown master after seeing what they saw? If I were in the crowd, I certainly would have expected to crown him a king so he could open a can of whoopy on the Roman overlords. The Lord spoke of love and salvation. They heard that but somehow turned the words into a call for rebellion and that is not what the Lord in mind at all. Not even close.

Consider next the disciples. They had seen miracles before but the miracles were small in terms of the number of people who were impacted or witnessed the event. This was big, huge beyond any possible understanding and it happened right in front of them. Not just that, they took part in the miracle as they distributed fish and bread from an un-exhaustible supply. It is almost the exact same thing we experience as Eucharistic ministers. If I were present I might have been doing a Carlton dance and high fiving the other guys, boasting noisily about this righteous dude we were hooked up with. A display of power like they encountered had to have been life altering. It should have been life altering but when we read this passage further I have to wonder it was.

We learn that Jesus made the disciples get in a boat and precede him over the water about 5 miles away to Bethsaida. Why? No doubt it was to keep them away from the 5 thousand who might have gone from well fed to being well stirred up with an eye toward causing rebellion. It makes sense. Get them in a boat and get them the heck out of there. Keep in mind some of the guys were fisherman so they knew a thing or two about boats and how to make them move.

As for Jesus himself, he went off to the mountain to pray. Doing so would have also allow him to escape the potentially dangerous crowds but to also seek communion with the Father. This is something we see over and over again throughout the ministry of Jesus. He immerses himself teaching, preaching and drawing multitudes to himself and then withdrawing into silence, solitude and stillness to renew and recharge with new energy granted from the Father. While this is a topic to explore for another day, is this not an example for us? Contemplation and prayer is not intended to create only more of contemplation and prayer but is, instead a call to action. This flies contrary to my current desire to simply melt deeper into the silence of mysticism.

I want to take a pause for a moment in the narrative to dream up the reality of the moment for disciples as the night unfolded. We read, "When it was evening, the boat was far out on the sea and he was alone on shore." Is this not our greatest fear? To be far out to sea being tossed about by winds and waves we can only see when they break over the bow of our oh so tiny boat? How alone they must have felt even if they were in the company of others. I would have wondered how we got in a place of such peril. As an act of obedience I got in a boat to follow what should have been a simple request, row from here over to there. As an experienced sailor, I would have not been worried at all. But then when the waves kicked up so high the shore disappeared from sight, I would not have just been terrified but also infuriated that obedience was rewarded with the horror of going down with a capsized boat.

I could stop right there and ponder that moment for a long, long time. In fact, I have I have wrestled with and been paralyzed by the twin dragons of fear and anger. It is a story I know so well I can tell it from memory and also tell it in a way that will make you believe the story is your own too. Perhaps it is. But this place should not be the end of the story, there is more to come. Fear and anger can be overcome by the sure and certain knowledge that there is no storm so great our Lord can't see us through to the other side.

Take a breath so we can continue.

Ok. Let's go at it again.

Then he saw that they were tossed about while rowing, for the wind was against them. About the fourth watch of the night, he came toward them walking on the sea.

As is always the case, He sees us first and knows our needs before we can open our minds to the possibility He will deliver us from our perils even if it may be in ways we can't predict or even comprehend when deliverance arrives. Remember the Father in the Prodigal Son story? He saw his son coming from far away and ran out to greet him. Here Jesus as the second face of the Holy Trinity walked on water out to meet the disciples.

Next we read the most perplexing sentence in the whole passage, "He meant to pass by them."

He MEANT to pass them by? What! Our Lord, our Savior, means to pass us by at the exact time we need him most? How can this be? Is He going to let us go to wrack and ruin a second time? As I work on this further, I find myself turning back to the Prodigal Son. What is the very next thing that happens after the father runs out to the greet the son?

Something so subtle we can just take in the words and move on without a second thought but it is of huge significance. The son reaches out to him in sorrow and grief for his horrific sins against the father. What happens next could never happen without the actions of the son to speak out in supplication. Only because the son spoke first, the father could then embrace the son with love and gift grace on the son, returning him to a place of honor in the family. The son asked the father for help. The father responded to the request.

So does the Lord pass them by and leave them to their own efforts unaided? No. The disciples call out in terror because even though they plainly see Jesus, they don't recognize him and think he is a ghost. That might seem normal enough. After all who would ever expect to see a man walking on water in the midst of the turmoil of a storm. I would not nor would you but does that let any of us, even the disciples off the hook? No. The passage begins with the feeding of the 5 thousand, a miracle they participated in as it happened. Why would it be so difficult to expect a man who could work a miracle of with loaves and fishes not also be able to whip a little calm into a little old storm? Rather than taking them to task for the lack of faith and recognition, he comforted them by saying something that should be familiar to us all. He said, "Take courage, it is I." In reality what he said, "I am." Remember when Moses asked God what he should tell the people of Israel when they asked who spoke to him and God said , "Tell them, I am."

"I am."

"Fear not. I am."

We know this. We believe this but we cannot, or at least I, cannot live it.

We fear. The passage reads that rather then understand the message of the loaves and fishes, we miss the point. Our hearts are hardened. Every day, in every different way we can fall prey to fear, the kind of fear that leads to awe and the desire to embrace but fear as in terror that causes us to recoil, to turn away, to separate and that is when we sin. We next repent and we are forgiven and for a moment, or for a day we relax, and live in peace and with a little glimpse of joy that awaits us.

Inevitably we get in the boat and row into the night and a great storm falls on us and we are struck with panic, anxiety and concern. If we ask for help, the night will yield to the day, the storm will pass and we will offer gratitude. We must offer gratitude. It is all we have to offer back as thanks for the gifts from the great I am.

Because I live with fear as an integral part of myself and is my motivation to find comfort in the Lord, fear will be with me always. It is my cross. For others of you, you bear the same burden. The rest of you give comfort to those of us who turn away from the path before us because we don't know what awaits. It is why we live in community, in communion, to serve each other. Fear drives me to speak out about what threatens me, to give it an name that I might give it to the Lord and let Him relieve the fear. My words are intended to be a blessing for you who hear them. My strength comes from my weakness. Take my hand and let us share strength and weakness that one might conquer the other. Let's sing a joyful song of delivery even if is only for that one single moment or day.

Let us love and serve the Lord through our love and service to each other.

Remember. "Fear not, I am."

The Ship Will Run Aground

Introduction

What follows is an excerpted version of chapter 27 of Acts. Normally the passage I reflect in is much smaller in scope but in this reflection it is necessary to hear the story to understand the impact on me.

Acts 27
When it was decided that we should sail to Italy, they handed Paul and some other prisoners over to a centurion named Julius of the Cohort Augusta. We went on board a ship from Adramyttium bound for ports in the province of Asia and set sail.
……
Much time had now passed and sailing had become hazardous because the time of the fast had already gone by, so Paul warned them, “Men, I can see that this voyage will result in severe damage and heavy loss not only to the cargo and the ship, but also to our lives.” The centurion, however, paid more attention to the pilot and to the owner of the ship than to what Paul said. Since the harbor was unfavorably situated for spending the winter, the majority planned to put out to sea from there in the hope of reaching Phoenix, a port in Crete facing west-northwest, there to spend the winter.

A south wind blew gently, and thinking they had attained their objective, they weighed anchor and sailed along close to the coast of Crete. Before long an offshore wind of hurricane force called a “Northeaster” struck. Since the ship was caught up in it and could not head into the wind we gave way and let ourselves be driven.
……
We were being pounded by the storm so violently that the next day they jettisoned some cargo, and on the third day with their own hands they threw even the ship’s tackle overboard. Neither the sun nor the stars were visible for many days, and no small storm raged. Finally, all hope of our surviving was taken away.

When many would no longer eat, Paul stood among them and said, “Men, you should have taken my advice and not have set sail from Crete and you would have avoided this disastrous loss. I urge you now to keep up your courage; not one of you will be lost, only the ship. For last night an angel of the God to whom (I) belong and whom I serve stood by me and said, ‘Do not be afraid, Paul. You are destined to stand before Caesar; and behold, for your sake, God has granted safety to all who are sailing with you.’ Therefore, keep up your courage, men; I trust in God that it will turn out as I have been told. We are destined to run aground on some island.”
……
Until the day began to dawn, Paul kept urging all to take some food. He said, “Today is the fourteenth day that you have been waiting, going hungry and eating nothing. I urge you, therefore, to take some food; it will help you survive. Not a hair of the head of anyone of you will be lost.” When he said this, he took bread, gave thanks to God in front of them all, broke it, and began to eat.
…….
When day came they did not recognize the land, but made out a bay with a beach. They planned to run the ship ashore on it, if they could. So they cast off the anchors and abandoned them to the sea, and at the same time they unfastened the lines of the rudders, and hoisting the foresail into the wind, they made for the beach. But they struck a sandbar and ran the ship aground. The bow was wedged in and could not be moved, but the stern began to break up under the pounding [of the waves] He [the centurion]ordered those who could swim to jump overboard first and get to the shore, and then the rest, some on planks, others on debris from the ship. In this way, all reached shore safely.
Reflection

In the first sentence of the next and final chapter of Acts, chapter 28, we learn the island they landed on was Malta. This extended reflection got started when my cousin sent me a humorously intended text about some shared experiences we have had in Malta (Montana, not the island) and Phoenix, the city in Arizona, not the one in Mediterranean.

I understand it might seem odd that two cousins might trade a joke based upon a scripture passage but, hey, it happens because both of us are, well, Jesus freaks. And proud of it.

As is often the case in these things, what was humorous so took on a different tone. The passage is not one I have spent much time but I found myself interested in taking a deeper look so I took a top down view of the whole chapter.

The story was Paul was being sent to Rome as a prisoner. His intention was to preach to the church in Rome and bend it toward the orthodoxy he hammered out of the years of his ministry. It was also to be where his journey would end with the swing of a Roman sword. Paul may not have known the details but he could understand the larger picture. He was ready to embrace the challenges that awaited him in Rome because he was secure in his faith, so secure that he knew nothing would deflect him from his destination … and destiny.

A series of blunders endangered the ship and threatened to end the voyage and the voyagers became concerned, if not convinced, the ship was headed for the rocks and all would be lost.

Paul had another version of the future to offer. Because of the mistakes of the captain and the crew, the ship would be wrecked but because of the grace of God, no lives would be lost. I considered how I would react to the information that we would endure a ship wreck, normally a fatal experience, and survive to continue the journey to the destination? Even if my faith was secure and grounded, my anxiety would soar into the highest levels. Living through a shipwreck would be hard, terribly hard. There would be the sound and fury of the wind and wrenching sound of wood buckling and cracking. The water would feel ominously cold and the distance of the grounded ship to shore would feel endless even it was only a few feet. Once safely on land, it would necessary to find food, water and shelter. Next a search to survey their location would be needed. How would the local residents, if there were any, treat them? It was not likely they would need to fear cannibals but there were other less fearsome but equally fatal potential outcomes depending who inhabited the island. Fortunately they encountered an island populated by a very mellow folks.

The point is just knowing survival is certain is not enough for comfort. I would start a conversation with myself that would start like this, "I might make it through this alive but everything else I have will be lost." It is the same conversation I am having right now.

I know I am headed for a shipwreck. I don't know how bad things will get or what I will have to endure to be able walk off the shore into the future but I know I will survive. What else does Paul teach us? God is not far off waiting on the other side. He was with Paul every slap of the waves against the hull until they hit Italy and with him from that moment for every breath of his life until the end and that was not the end but was a new beginning.

In a previous post I talked about a crucible, a vessel of superior construction, tough enough to survive as a container for molten metal. There is another meaning to the word. Most think it derives from the Latin word cruc or cross and the image that is evoked is that when someone meets a crucible, is they meet a crucifix which implies a life and death encounter. Instead, it descends from the Latin root word, crucibulum which refers to a melting pot. To meet a crucible is to enter into a time of challenge, or intense, life altering change. It is not possible to pass through a crucible un-impacted. The question is what will remain when the heat fades, a purified precious metal or brittle shards of pot metal?

My ship is sailing into a crucible. The collision with reef seems to be inevitable but whether it founders or not, I will meet the crucible. What does that mean? The reef whether I strike it or not is not end of the journey, only a way-point. My Rome remains somewhere over the horizon. The difference between becoming rare metal or cheap tin is determined by faith, trust and reliance on God. There is no way I can steer the course. No one can.

By the time I share this with others the crucible will be in the past. I pray for an outcome derived from faith, trust and total reliance in God.

Lord, help me to learn from Paul and rely only on you.

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.