CowPi
 Journal

Your grief for what you’ve lost lifts a mirror
up to where you’re bravely working.

Expecting the worst, you look, you look, and instead,
here’s the joyful face you’ve been wanting to see.

Your hand opens and closes and opens and closes.
If it were always a fist or always stretched open,
you would be paralyzed.

Your deepest presence is in every small contracting and expanding,
the two as beautifully balanced and coordinated
as birdwings.

— Rumi, from The Essential Rumi

When your eyes are tired
the world is tired also.

When your vision has gone
no part of the world can find you.

Time to go into the dark
where the night has eyes
to recognize its own.

There you can be sure
you are not beyond love.

The dark will be your womb
tonight.

The night will give you a horizon
further than you can see.

You must learn one thing,
The world was made to be free in.

Give up all the other worlds
except the one to which you belong.

Sometimes it takes darkness and
the sweet confinement of your
aloneness to learn

anything or anyone
that does not bring you alive

is too small for you.

— David Whyte, from The House of Belonging

God is everywhere. That’s easy to say, but do we really believe it? Are we willing to admit that God is present even in what looks nothing like holiness or love, i.e. in our sin—before, during, and after?

Here’s a powerful poem from Presence: An International Journal of Spiritual Direction, September, 2008.

After the storm, clouds like blown
milkweed lie in the widening sky.
I still don’t know how we survive

our youth, how in a matchstick boat
we cross the wind-clawed sea. When I
look back, I see no boat. I must have

walked on water, holding fast to false
beliefs: that I was strong;
that the worst

had already happened; that to commit
suicide would disgrace
the memory of my grandparents,

who had survived Auschwitz,
so what excuse might I give
for not surviving America?

Maybe it’s not truth that save us,
but a half-remembered image:
dimly seeing in the dark

a luminous, familiar
figure walking on the sea.
And like Peter, you step

out of doubt as out of a boat,
and start walking across the storm—
not on water, not on air,

barely even on faith—
toward what you don’t dare
call love.

— Joanna Warwick

Oh do you have time
to linger
for just a little while
out of your busy

and very important day
for the goldfinches
that have gathered
in a field of thistles

for a musical battle,
to see who can sing
the highest note,
or the lowest,

or the most expressive of mirth,
or the most tender?
Their strong, blunt beaks
drink the air

as they strive
melodiously
not for your sake
and not for mine

and not for the sake of winning
but for sheer delight and gratitude—
believe us, they say,
it is a serious thing

just to be alive
on this fresh morning
in this broken world.
I beg of you,

do not walk by
without pausing
to attend to this
rather ridiculous performance.

It could mean something.
It could mean everything.
It could be what Rilke meant, when he wrote:
You must change your life.

— Mary Oliver, from Red Bird, 2008

From Br. Joseph —

This is the last reflection of a series on seven signposts. The first reflection began Lent, and now this one bridges us into the Easter season and beyond.

Signposts give us direction. They point to some place. They involve action, movement. Many signposts call us to remember something important, some thing that is already there but is often covered up by the minutia of daily life. Signposts represent a choice—to follow or not to follow. It takes grace to see a signpost and courage to follow where it points.

All is gift.

This signpost points to the attitude of gratitude.

Many people say “everything is gift,” but the word all seems bolder, more encompassing. All excludes nothing. Every thing, every person, every situation, every moment of time, every breath, every molecule, and every ounce of energy in your very existence, every opportunity to choose to love and to give—all is gift.

This means that the present moment—the now, and every thing about it, be it joy or suffering or more likely a combination of both—is gift, a present. It is an opportunity to be present to what is, and to be open to God. And the choice (another gift) is yours to receive or resist. Not in the past or in the future, but only now in the present moment can you have presence, awareness, being. Memories and wishes are good, but they are not reality; they are not what is. Receiving is being; resistance is pride.

The first Beatitude, blessed are the poor in spirit, is a be-like-this-attitude that all is gift, an awareness of our poverty. For if all is gift, then nothing is mine. All belongs to God. And in opposition to everything the world says, those who can accept the humility of this poverty, or accept grace to move toward it, are truly blessed, and “theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

Thus the words from Scripture, “In Him we live and move and have our being” are not only poetic, but are actual physical reality. All is indeed gift.

If the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is thank you, it will be enough. (Meister Eckhart, 14th century German mystic)

All is gift. If we receive, then gratitude, and perhaps awe, is our response.

Keep hope alive.
Dare to trust.
Surrender to grace.
••• Reflect love. •••
Gravitate to humility.
Pray always.
All is gift.

Our Lady of Mercy is praying for us…

(See also Certainty and another post titled All is Gift.)

I pulled into an isolated parking spot overlooking the lake. I had been given the precious gift of a couple dozens of minutes of solitude—the absence of the need to be somewhere or by someone. I chose to be quiet and pray and reflect. It was warm enough to roll down the car window to feel the fresh air and listen to the birds. The grayness of February seemed over and the first day of March was coming in as a lamb. It was peaceful.

Several joggers and bikers passed by on the trail between the lake and me. Every one of them had ear phones in their ears, plugged into some iPod or music player. (Mine was tucked away in my pack.) Distractions. They were missing so much right here around them, the sound and presence of nature, the present moment, God…

“I have chosen not to distract myself with such things…”, I heard my inner judge and chief labeler say smugly to itself. “I’m being present to the moment by listening to the birds and the gentle breeze and…”

“Ah! But am I?” Another inner voice softly asked. How present was I truly to the reality of the now? Wasn’t it just a moment ago where I had been lost and distracted onto the trail of my own thoughts? Did I not replace the distraction of music with the distraction of my own babbling discourse in my mind?

Ouch.

Be quiet, Mark. “You talk too much.”

I occasionally venture into the blogsphere. About a week ago, I found this except posted by Julie from the book, Caring for the Dying With the Help of Your Catholic Faith by Elizabeth Scalia. I immediately copied and pasted it in an email to a friend and co-worker whose father had recently refused treatment after fighting for years against several debilitating diseases.

The Long Tunnel
Some people say the process of dying involves the appearance of a long tunnel through which one passes, moving toward the light. Just as those who report back from a “near death experience” say they felt “pushed along” through a tunnel, you may feel like you are being “pushed along” by circumstances, and unable to halt the forward motion — a prisoner of sheer momentum. You would be right. As the journey’s end nears, there seems to be no further chance to hit the brakes or to pull back a bit.

This is a scary feeling. A new skier would never attempt an advanced trail, and yet here you are moving through this experience at a breathtaking pace. Everything seems out of your control. This might be a good time to make an assessment of what you can control. You can control being wholly present to a person who is dying. That doesn’t seem like very much, but it is everything.

Together with Our Lady
When Mary, the mother of Jesus, was told that her Son had been arrested, her world also began to spin out of control. In truth, you are very much Mary’s companion right now, just as she is yours. What you are living through, she has survived:

• Just as your access to your loved one is decreasing as their need for sleep increases, Mary’s access to her Son was closed off.

• Like you, Mary had to stand by and watch helplessly while her loved one took on the “job of dying.”

• Like you, Mary had to watch the one she loved let go of her to take His leave.

• Mary, too, had to let go, and to trust that she would see Him again.

• As you lean on family and friends, remember that Mary had John and Mary Magdalene beside her for support.

• After Jesus’ death, Mary had to live and eat and worship with an imperfect “family,” some of whom had let her—and her Son—down. It is not really a unique experience, as families go.

Being “wholly present” may not feel like you are doing very much. It may seem like a pitiful amount of “control” for an adult to have over any person or event. But as Mary taught us, being “present” to another person has power. It is saying, “I will be a witness to your whole life and death, so that all you are and have been will remain in me,when you have gone. And I will help you say goodbye.”

Being wholly present to a dying person is a great responsibility, one that requires all the control of which you are capable.

My friend’s father passed away Thursday and the funeral was today. I know words are little help, put some words are better pointers to the Word—the one Word that can and does help.

Father, have mercy on Bill. May he be joined with You and all of your saints. Please bless his family. By Your Paschal Mystery, transform their loss into blessing, and draw them deeper into relationship with each other and with You.

From Br. Joseph —

There is a moment in each day that Satan cannot find. (William Blake)

I saw this quote the other day. My mind searched for a specific time or moment to label as “Satan free.” Was it in those precious few moments just after waking before the thoughts of the day rush in? Could it be the moment just before falling asleep? How about the time in prayer? When is this moment in the day that Satan cannot be found?

Maybe the answer is so obvious that it is overlooked all the time. Maybe the answer is now. Now, the present moment, is the moment Satan cannot find.

Many of the saints and mystics say that God can only be found in the present moment, in the now. The past is done and over, and the future is not yet. We exist now, the only time when we are truly free. Being is now, present tense, and God is being. God is eternally present to every when. Therefore, if God is now, Satan cannot be.

But that cannot be completely correct. Although we only make our choices in the present moment, there are times when we listen to the devil’s advice and choose to sin. Does that mean God is now and Satan is too? Does that mean there are no “Satan free” moments and the quote is wrong?

No, the saints are right, God is now and Satan is not. Satan must work outside of the present moment, and he does it by distracting us. He distracts us from living in the present moment, the only true reality, by tantalizing us with an illusion that appears better—the past and the future.

How often are we truly present to the now? How often are our minds somewhere else? Either we are planning, scheming, seeking, fantasizing, or rehearsing for some future that may or may not arrive, or we are mulling over memories of past glories or hurts? A thousand what-if’s from the past and toward the future pass before our minds each day and nearly none of them become reality. We carry around the memories and pain of old wrongs like heavy, old suitcases as if we would have nothing to our name if we left them behind. We are everywhere but here in the now.

And if we think a little more about it, does not most of our sins occur in the present moment in reaction to the past or from schemes set for the near future?

We let Satan steal our presence to the present moment. We buy into his illusion of trying to live in the past or the future in exchange for reality. We distract ourselves from the now and cheat ourselves out God’s gift to us, the present moment. (Maybe that is why “present” also means “gift”?)

Our Lady of Mercy, pray for us…

The term Body of Christ means three things: 1) the actual physical body of Jesus; 2) the Church (with a capital “C”) because we as individual persons are church, parts of the Body, branches on the Vine; and 3) the Eucharist, the Blessed Sacrament. (Note: Some believers have issues with the third one. There is a plausible explanation below.)

God seeks us. He wants to have an I-You relationship (or I-Thou if you wish to be more formal). That means person-to-person, subject-to-subject, not subject-to-object. Objects are used and manipulated. Persons are in relation with each other, to communicate, to commune, to love, to be together. God will not—cannot—ever be an object. Unfortunately we often treat Him as an object for our own benefit and desires. We try to cajole and manipulate God into doing things for us like we cajole and manipulate other people. We do not seek relationship, union, community. We use. We manipulate. We are selfish. If we do not even treat other people as persons most of the time, how can we treat God as a person?

Some have described the humiliation that God must have endured to lower Himself to become a mere creature—to be born, to live, and to die as a human. Ah! The mystery of the Incarnation. But there is even more humility hidden within this one act. God not only risked becoming human, He also risked becoming an object. In becoming human, He not only bridged the gap between humanity and God to bring home His lost children, but He also showed us how to be fully human. Also in becoming human, God risked the objectification of His person, of becoming an object that could be manipulated and used, idolized or discarded. By risking to become an object to us, God is another bridge for us to rise above the slavery of subject-object, the I-It way of seeing life, to the freedom of the subject-subject relationship, the I-You of union and community.

There is no love or mutual respect in I-It. This is control, judgment, labeling, which leads to pride. (The Biblical term is slavery.) Only in I-You is there love and mutual respect, and the paradox of union and liberation.

So, in the term Body of Christ, I can recognize the person of Jesus in His actual body. I can recognize the person in other people (when I open my heart). Can I recognize the person in the Eucharist? Do I see the Eucharist as an object, some “thing” to be used for consumption? How do I see this little thin waffer of bread as the Bread of Life, as the person of Jesus, as God? How can I rise above the I-It-ness of this object and recognize the I-You-ness of Jesus?

No wonder so many of Jesus’ followers left Him as described near the end of John 6. No wonder some believers still have issues with the Eucharist today. It is hard enough to believe God came in the Incarnation as a mere creature, but it is even harder to believe God is in what appears to be an object. And neither, man or object, can be made an idol.

When I attempt to contemplate the I-You-ness of the Eucharist, I enter into silence. I am speechless, thoughtless. My thoughts and words fade as the objects they are, gently blown away in the sweet breathe of the Holy Spirit. Part of my mind wants to hold onto those thoughts, but mind only deals in objects. You are above that. And I am in silence.

As the sounds and thoughts return, I see kenosis connecting all three connotations of the Body of Christ. You gave Your life for me. I am called to give my life to others. I see the pattern of the Trinity in this. And in the Eucharist, You once again give yourself to me. You are the gift given to me so that I may give to others. You are the energy for me in this giving like the Holy Spirit is often described as the personification of the love between the Father and the Son. I am to risk being object too for others to manipulate and use, to idolize or discard, in the hopes of raising them above the I-It-ness of this world to the I-You-ness of your Reality.

My Lord and my God, Jesus Christ, purify my heart so that I may see You, so that I may see You in others, and that others may see You in me. Help me to see You in the Body of Christ, within your Church, within your Eucharist. Lead me into proper relationship with all people and all things.