St Barnabas

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The Lord has made known his salvation;
has shown his justice to the nations.
He has remembered his truth and love
for the house of Israel.
Psalm 98 [97]

. . .
 
 
Justice. Truth. Love. Israel and the nations.
 
I am always struck by the juxtapositions in the psalms. It’s as if the psalmist wants us always to bear in mind that God’s justice is never without God’s love, and God’s love is never without God’s truth; that God’s particular love for Israel is a love that takes in the whole world, that the chosenness of God’s people is a vocation to bless, to be a blessing to the world. This is who God is–the one who loves in truth, the one who is justice and mercy and peace.
 
God is always bigger than we thought. And no matter how long we follow Jesus, or how deep our faith is, we are still susceptible to paradigm shifts, to a still more profound encounter with the Lord. How often I coast along, like my car in neutral on a gentle downhill slope. I am not looking for the paradigm shift. Am I even looking for Jesus? Am I so sure I am following that I have stopped looking ahead on the road for his footprints, his figure in the distance?
 
Probably, yes. More often than I think. I forget to look up, to ask for the eyes to see, the ears to hear, the mind to know, and the heart to love God. Would I hear the Spirit calling, as the community heard the Spirit calling Barnabas and Paul? I am not so sure. Fortunately God remembers, even when I don’t, keeps calling me forward. By God’s grace, eventually, I look up, and I see Jesus there, God’s Truth and God’s Love, and I know he hears the prayer of my heart, and I am grateful.
 
Deo gratias.

The rubber meets the road

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Some days are like that: the sense of the unfairness of the world is overwhelming. I have been following the story of a former student. She's 29. She's a Methodist minister. She is married and has two little girls. She has Stage IV renal cell cancer. Look it up.
 
Doesn't seem fair, does it? I teach theology. Every year, I know which lecture is going to be the hardest. It's the one in which, however the topic is named, we deal with the 'Why?' question. Why do bad things happen to people who don't deserve it? Why does God allow people to suffer? Why? It is the hardest lecture because there are no easy answers. I gave that lecture to this young woman. And however difficult it is to talk about it in a classroom, it is inconceivably more difficult to wrestle with the question when you meet it on the street. There, it lies in wait. It ambushes you. It knocks you down and stands over you, daring you to get up again. It seems–however well you might have coped with it in front of the whiteboard–stronger than you are. You can't answer it.
 
I am amazed, again, by the faith of my students. In the months I have followed her diagnosis and treatment, I have seen an incredible strength and courage, and a refusal to let the 'Why?' question get the upper hand. I often say that my students have the difficult job–to go out, to be the face of Christ in ministry. I teach, and I love teaching; when my students leave the classroom, most of them go out into a world that doesn't know how deeply it needs healing. And when people do seek God, they don't come looking to me. They look to them. I am conscious of this responsibility, and it is humbling. More humbling still, though, is knowing that whatever I have to give pales in comparison to the faith, hope, and love that are the real gifts that the minister requires. All I can do is point to the source, and hope I have gestured accurately and clearly, that I have helped and not hindered the process that began long before students walk into my classroom. Not surprisingly, I pray for my students, all of them, because I know that everything I say and do is useless without the grace of God, without the Spirit of God being poured out into their hearts.
 
And their faith is nothing to do with me–the testimony of so many, especially my cancer-fighting former student. I taught her years ago; now she's teaching me. Next time I give that lecture, I will have her in my heart. I will be more humble in my approach. I will say, 'It's a mystery' with a lump in my throat and tears in my eyes. But I will also say it in hope, in faith, and with love, because the mystery of the unfairness of the world is the same as the mystery of love that redeems the world. Her faith reminds me of that, reminds me that in the face of the question on the ground, faith still flourishes.
 
Amazing.
 
 

St Norbert

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…And together they said, ‘Amen, amen,’ and laid down for the night.
 
Tobit 6: 10 – 8: 9
 
. . .

Today’s reading from Tobit fascinates me, as I see the prayer of Tobit and Sarah in context. I was acquainted to with the prayer, but until today could not have related the story of Tobit and Sarah that leads up to it. It is a lovely prayer, in which the newly-joined couple ask for God’s blessing, especially (in Tobit’s words) ‘that she and I may grow old together.’ Not an unusual prayer for newlyweds.
 
The context, however, shows that Tobit is taking his life in his hands. Sarah’s seven previous husbands all died on the wedding night, before consummating the marriage. Tobit has been reassured by the angel Raphael that the Sarah will be released from the demon responsible for the deaths of the others. Raguel, Sarah’s father, warns Tobit about the fate of the others, but Tobit will not be dissuaded.
 
Going in to Sarah is an act of faith, trusting that the angel of the Lord has kept that promise. If not, Tobit might die like the others. It reminded me of Luke 5, in which Peter trusts Jesus: he goes out again, into the waters in which he’s found no fish, and tries again.
 
‘At your bidding, Lord…’ It is the hardest place to try again, the place we’ve found barren, lifeless, empty. But that is often where the greatest fruit is to be found, and where we discover who we are, and who Jesus is, more profoundly than before.

all quiet

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Some days are like that. All quiet except for the sound of the rain, then hail, then rain again on the skylights. Sometimes it’s a happy quiet. Today, not so much. I’ve been thinking about tragedy. Not Greek tragedy or Shakespeare, but disaster and loss. Because the ethics essays are in, and two of them are about abortion, I have been thinking about that, too. It’s all of a piece, really: tragedy. When things go awry, terribly awry, and things fall apart.

My position on abortion has always been the same: it’s not for me. Beyond that, it’s complicated. It’s complicated because my reasons for not having an abortion are not universal ethical principles. Yes, I do think that the growing baby in my womb (no, not now!) is a baby, whether it’s a baby at the embryonic stage or further along. That’s not a universally acknowledged truth. It is a narrative: it is the story that I tell to describe what is happening. I wouldn’t terminate a pregnancy not because I think an embryo or fetus has ‘rights’. (Does the embryo have the same claim on my care as my four children? On what grounds could I decide?) Rather, I wouldn’t terminate a pregnancy because I take life as it comes. I look for remaking, not un-doing. Pregnancy happens. Ok, now what? I look forward. My story changes. A new character appears.

The ball is in my court. How do I play it? In my story, just passing it back, or grounding it (to switch to an American football metaphor) isn’t an option. I have to be creative, flexible, discerning and focused, to be generous, and move the ball forward.

I have to improvise. There’s no script, just my sense of the movement of the plot. This isn’t what I planned. Not at all. But life happens to us when we’re making plans, right? This life.

I appreciate that not everyone lives life in the same way. Pregnancies disrupt our routines–and not just the timetable, but the rhythms of our lives. Bad things happen. Rape happens. Domestic violence happens. What then?

That’s when it gets complicated. My story doesn’t involve either of those tragedies. It does involve a child with trisomy-21, one wanted but extremely badly timed pregnancy and one truly unwelcome, shock-to-the-system, life-altering, body-damaging pregnancy. A pregnancy so disruptive to my whole world that I thought maybe it would have been better if I had lied about the test being positive and quietly terminated the pregnancy. Why didn’t I?

Because that’s just not the way I play it. I improvised. And I came up with a sheared pelvis and the costs of daycare and a horrible 18 months of depression and sleep deprivation…as well as an absolutely delightful little girl.

My story has changed.

I realize that not every story has a happy ending. Miscarriage, infant deaths, children dying of cancer and all the trauma and tragedy in the world remind me of that constantly. We can’t undo it. I read the tragic stories through tears. I pray for the parents and the children–those I know, and many, many more I don’t know. I only know a very tiny corner of that grief, but I know a little bit about everything falling apart. I know that space and time and grace and healing are oh, so necessary and sometimes so impossible to seek, or even to receive. I pray for strength to remake, to mold something new out of the shards and the tears. I pray for hope to hold together the hearts of the survivors, the life-bearers.

St Christopher Magallanes and companions, martyrs

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Be sincere of heart, be steadfast,
  and do not be alarmed when disaster comes.
Cling to him and do not leave him,
  so that you may be honoured at the end of your days.
Whatever happens to you, accept it,
  and in the uncertainties of your humble state, be patient,
since gold is tested in the fire,
  and chosen men in the furnace of humiliation.
                                                                 Ecclesiasticus 2
.          .         . 
It was the words ‘humble state’ that caught my attention. Humility is the most highly-praised virtue in the writings of the desert fathers and mothers, and in the theology of St Augustine and many others. But it is a slippery virtue to develop. By what standard might we measure our own humility? 
The very idea of a measurement seems somehow incongruous. Humility is more like flying, in the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy: you’ll never fly by intending to fly. The only way to take off is to aim for the ground and miss. And the only way to stay in the air is not to call attention to yourself. One of my very favorite lines in the flying scene consists of the immortal words (every letter capitalized): do not wave at anybody. 
Flying, like humility, is a matter of the right sort of attention. Concentrate on the flying, and you’ll fall; try to become humble, and you’ll never achieve it. How then, do we do it? “Cling to him and do not leave him…Whatever happens to you, accept it.” The attention is all important: attend to Jesus, and not to ourselves; amid the uncertainties and upsets of life, do not wave at anybody. Look to Jesus, and forget about the laws of gravity. 
The Mexican priests we remember today did that, and we honor them for their humility, for counting nothing so precious as the body and blood of Christ. For them, and for all those who have walked faithfully the path of discipleship, lighting the way for others to follow, I am grateful. 
Deo gratias. 

The Short Day Dying

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It has been many years since I read a book in a day. It is not my usual practice, as I read slowly and with distracted thoughts. Never has my attention been focused on a book in quite this way: I returned to it again and again throughout the day not because I wanted to know what happened next, but because I wanted to listen to the voice of the narrator. I did wonder whether the narrator's own death would be the end of the story, yet I wasn't just reading to find out. (I won't spoil the ending for those yet to discover it.)
 
Peter Hobbs, the author of this beautiful novel, has a rare and amazing gift, I think. The endorsements compare him to Faulkner and Hardy. I see the resemblance to both, but was never drawn in by their prose the way I was by his. Perhaps he lacks their genius, which I failed to grasp, and that is why I was so captivated by his story and the way he tells it. So be it: I delighted in it and was moved by it all the same. You will have to judge for yourself.
 

retreat

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From Thursday to Sunday, I was on retreat, in silence, at Minster Abbey. I kept a record of my time there, and reproduce an excerpt here:

I realized as I sat in the chapel for Vigils this morning that I have hardly reflected at all on the Scripture in which I have been steeped since Thursday afternoon. At first this struck me as odd, since I have long been in the habit of reflecting on the Mass readings, and for many years previous, on the Psalms. So why, when seven times a day I pray the Psalms with the community here, do I not mention the words of the Psalms? As I came up the stairs back to my little room, I thought, because that’s not really what prayer is about. My reflections, daily or thereabouts (whether I write them down or not), are a part of my spiritual formation, to be sure, and a gift that God has given me to keep me close to Jesus. But praying the Psalms does not require that sort of reflection. There is a silence about that contemplation that is inward, and the words–strange as it may seem–give voice not to thoughts or reflections, but to a deep, inner silence. Praying the Psalms is not an act of cognition or emotion primarily, though both may be involved; praying the Psalms is rather an act of obedience. Why do I attend prayers regularly when I am here? No one expects me to come faithfully to Vigils, to stay until the close of adoration following Compline. I do it because it is the Benedictine way of life; it is, in a very real sense, what I have come to do. The daily timetable is an opportunity for an act of submission that is life-giving, that allows me to draw closer to God not by my feelings or my intellect, but by willing obedience.

So as much as I am inspired, cheered, or challenged, by the words I pray and hear in the chapel, I am more deeply restored by participation, by prayer itself. To stand, to sit, to kneel, to bow–in themselves these movements of the body are not significant. But in the daily office they become part of the prayer, they are the prayer. Contemplative prayer is an act of the whole body, in which the words spoken express a deeper silence, and the movements of the body tell of a more profound stillness. Would that all my words and actions were the fruit of such silence and stillness within me.

Our Lady of Fatima

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A father of the fatherless
   and a judge for the widows,
   is God in his holy habitation.
God makes a home for the lonely;
He leads out the prisoners into prosperity,
   Only the rebellious dwell in a parched land.

Psalm 68[67]: 5-6

.    .    .

In case any doubt remained about God’s preferential treatment of the downcast and oppressed: in his holy habitation, God is the defender and protector of those in need. Holiness cannot be separated from care for the downtrodden; to be holy is to make ‘a home for the lonely,’ not to hide ourselves away somewhere, as God in his holy habitation is not secluded, but opens himself to all those who need him.

Deo gratias.

Tuesday of the sixth week of Eastertide

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I thank you for your faithfulness and love, 

   which excel all we ever knew of you. 
On the day I called, you answered; 
   you increased the strength of my soul.
                                              Psalm 138 [137]
.     .     .
When I was pregnant with Anna, and we knew that something was not right, people would often ask me how I was doing. I had good days and bad days; I said that the bad days were the days I was worried that I wouldn’t be up to the task of parenting in any case, and the good days were the days that I thought that whatever happened, I would be given the strength to see it through. I noted then that it was not that the good days were those when I believed that everything would somehow, perhaps miraculously, work out. The good days were hopeful in a far deeper sense, when I hoped in God’s power to strengthen me for whatever might come. 
Looking back on that time, I ought to thank God for his faithfulness and love: I made it. And I made it through some pretty unpleasant times with a sometimes unsteady soul. I know that God can strengthen my still unsteady soul, and can draw it back from the brink of destruction. I know what it is like to have fresh hope breathed into my despairing heart, and to see the love of God in the eyes of my children. Today isn’t one of those days. Today is more like the unsteady days, the days of uncertainty and exhaustion, of calling out to God, hoping for a speedy answer. 
Perhaps more than anything else, the dark and difficult days have taught me how to call out–as much an exhortation to my soul as a prayer, maybe, but I think God hears the prayer in these words: 
Why are you downcast, O my soul, 
  and why so disquieted within me? 
Hope in God, for again I shall praise him, 
  my help and my God. 
And so I shall. 
Deo gratias. 

Sts Philip and James, Apostles

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Day to day pours forth speech,
   and night to night reveals knowledge.
There is no speech, nor are there words;
   their voice is not heard.
Their line has gone out through
   all the earth,
And their utterance to the end of the world.
                                                       Psalm 19 [18]: 2-4

Jesus said to him, “Have I been so long with you, and yet you have not come to know me, Philip? He who has seen me has seen the Father.”
                                                       John 16: 9

.       .       .

The readings for today are full of puzzles, or so it seems to me. I have always loved the paradoxical character of the words from Psalm 19: “day to day pours forth speech” yet “there is no speech”? How can that be? (If we read on in the psalm, it becomes even more puzzling, I think, since the speech-that-is-not-speech somehow is also a “tent” for the sun…) And then, there is Jesus’ response to Philip’s question: if you have seen me, says Jesus, you have seen the Father. Yet Jesus himself says he is going to the Father, so there is some distinction in the unity between the Son and the Father to whom he is going. I don’t blame Philip for asking, because the whole thing seems far from obvious.

What stands out for me in these puzzles, though, is the way “knowledge” of God comes. There is the knowledge that somehow is revealed in the night, in the way “speech” comes forth in the day; and there is the knowing Jesus by knowing his relationship to the Father–and conversely, the knowledge of the Father by seeing the Father in (through? with?) Jesus. That is, the knowledge of God isn’t like the knowledge that we acquire through reading books, studying nature, or hearing lectures (or even homilies). My friend John Swinton describes the knowledge of God as being known by God. God knows us independent of our senses or our faculties, and God indwells us by the Spirit. If our senses seem to fail us (as Philip’s sight seemed to fail him), or our minds fail us, God does not fail us. We know God by God’s initiative and power, not by our own initiative and power.

That seems to raise more questions than it answers, and doesn’t solve any puzzles. But it does remind us that, in the end, it’s all grace. And that’s good.

Deo gratias.