CowPi
 Journal

It feels like I’m in Advent, waiting. (I never seem to be in sync with the current liturgical season.) I feel like an old dog trying to find a comfortable spot to lay down—he circles and circles around the same spot, but no angle quite looks comfortable enough to settle on.

I am uncomfortable in my own skin. And there is no where to go or run or do anything. Just wait.

I am not comfortable waiting. But there is no other choice. Only God can fill this God-shaped hole in me. It felt like I was standing on His shoulders back in the summer, now it feels like I’m standing on the edge.

Advent Longing

In the darkness of the season,
     in the silence of Mary’s womb,
     new life waits and grows.
     Hope is shaped in hidden places,
     on the edges, in the depths
     far from the blinding lights
     and deafening sounds of consumer frenzy.

In the darkness and silence of my own life,
     I wait,
     Iistening for the whisper of angel wings,
     longing for a genuine experience of mystery,
     hoping for a rekindling of joy
     and the establishment of peace.

I lean into the darkness
     and silence.
     Expectant.

— poem by Larry J. Peacock

My heart is a little giddy with excitement and anticipation for tonight’s Easter Vigil Mass. It is my favorite Mass of the whole year, with Christmas Midnight Mass a close second. It has been a long and dark Lent for me, and the hope Easter brings is fresh and renewed.

It is easy to live this day, the day between Good Friday and Easter Sunday, as a post-Resurrection people. We know what happens tomorrow. But I suspect that this was the longest and loneliest day for Mary, the Apostles, and the other disciples.

Just yesterday, in one day, her only son, their beloved teacher and friend, was arrested, tried, convicted, tortured, and crucified to death. The Apostles scattered for fear for their lives.

Now they wake up today. They sough to regroup. But around what, who? The very center of their lives had been lost in what appears as total humiliation and defeat. What to do? Not much I suppose since it was the Sabbath. All they could really do was wait, and pray. What else is there to do when hope seems lost, faith all but crushed? But wait for what? How much did they really believe about all of Jesus’ talk about rising up on the third day?

Poor Peter. I wonder if he cried all through the night and through the rest of the day knowing his denial? What did Mary do in her grief? What did Mary Magdalene and the other disciples do? When did they learn the truth about Judas? Did the Apostles bicker among themselves? Did they second-guess themselves, playing the we should have done this or not that games?

Oh! The passage from darkness to light, the unknown to the known. At the time, it seems like the slow, long death of everything, but from the other side, it is only the quick, short birth of the new. Death pangs and birth pangs, are they really different?

Found this quote this afternoon. It is a beacon of hope for those lost in between like me.

There are always moments when one feels empty and estranged. Such moments are most desirable, for it means the soul has cast its moorings and is sailing for distant places. This is detachment—when the old is over and the new has not yet come. If you are afraid the state may be distressing, there is really nothing to be afraid of. Remember: What ever you come across—go beyond.

— Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj [via]

Thank You…

Leaves fall and trees wait,
Naked they stand through winter,
Testaments of faith.

My deepest desire and most longing want is to see the face of Jesus Christ. Based on one of the Beatitudes, my daily prayer is for God to purify my heart so that I may see Him, see Him in others, and for others to see Him in me.
I often think or imagine or sense that I can see Jesus in others within their joy and laughter, in their bright shining eyes and smiles, and in their moments of spiritual consolation.
And although it is not my preference, I am far more certain that I see Jesus in others within their suffering and sorrow, in their tears and pain, and in their moments of desolation.
Christ is everywhere, in joy and sorrow, in laughter and tears, in peace and anger, in excitement and boredom, in certainly and doubts, in trusts and fears, in noise and silence, in known and unknown, in hope and despair, in love and hate, in heaven and hell. God is in the and/both, not the either/or—everywhere! Paradox and opposites become doorways to awareness of the presence of God.
Father, please teach me not to limit myself to any notions of who or what or where You are.

The felt the big emptiness this morning. It actually started yesterday afternoon, but I did not notice or label it as such until this morning. It is not depression. I know depression. It’s close, but not the same. There is no despair, no deep sadness or lowness that comes with depression. It is just an empty feeling, an absence, and a deep sense of loneliness and longing.

At first, I noticed myself trying to cover it up with distractions, listening to music, watching television, doing sudoku puzzles, browsing through a bookstore. These are worthy pursuits in their own way, and in their own time, in moderation of course. There are worse types of distractions to chase after, but regardless of the labels, they are temporary, fleeting, ultimately unfulfilling. The emptiness remains. I can get myself all worked into a frenzy about it with this sense of bubbling negative energy that seeks desperately to be released, as the anxiety builds in a claustrophobic.

Labels can set limits to someone or something, especially ideas. There comes a sense of peace with labeling this feeling—it is not exactly a feeling, not exactly a knowing, but it is the closest word I can find to describe it—an empitness. I cannot define it. The label is just a pointer, a signpost to it. It is not exactly correct either. It is more like a nothingness. How do you describe or define nothingness, emptiness? Only by its outline, its edges, of where it is not, can you attempt to get a handle on it. But that is not exactly correct either, because there are no boundaries to it, to the nothingness, to the emptiness. It seems to permeate everything, as silence permeates and gives existence to every sound.

There is nothing for me to do. I feel a call to just sit with it, to be with it, and stare into it. Oddly enough, I do not expect it to doing anything in return. I do not expect anything to happen. I just want to be with it.

I repeat the prayer from last week’s post:

Do not take away the hunger of my soul
      or let me fill it with spiritual trifles,
      ready to hand, sweet to the taste,
      but good for only a moment’s satisfaction.
Deepen my hunger.
Enkindle my desire.
Come to me in the longing in my heart,
      for in my emptiness you are present.

Maybe this is what Simone Weil meant by “waiting for God”?

Heard this line in the movie, As Good As It Gets:

Waiting gives the devil time.

Waiting also gives God time.

Father, I don’t know. I don’t quite understand it all.

I read Saint Catherine of Siena and her words are harsh for sinners. She says in her own style, and in the style of her times, to wake up idiots! Your time is slipping away from you. The window of opportunity for choosing heaven is closing. The time that you think you have is not really there. Do it now! Make your choice. Turn toward God. Repent and beg for forgiveness and mercy.

And then I read Julian of Norwich who says, “All shall be well.” In essence, she is saying not to worry, You are in control.

Both are true, but they seem so opposite of each other. It is a paradox, a mystery to hold and turn around in your hand to see it from different angles. Both/and, not either/or.

The prodigal daughter runs away to another state, turning her back on her parents and friends, avoiding the pain and problems she has externalized from within her heart, and decides to live with a guy she met online. A bored teenager steals his mother’s car for a joy ride and wrecks it. Now it’s a police matter. The gossip in the school hallways seem harmless but pierce one heart like an arrow. A young girl across town is shot and killed in a drive-by shooting, another overdoses, and still another unzips her pants before she unzips her heart to a boy she barely knows.

These young people have chosen a long and hard path. There are also all the adults who are still struggling on their own difficult paths they had chosen so many years ago. It seems so much, but yet…

I understand that these are our choices. There are consequences for each choice. We must take responsibility for them. Ultimately, it is us who make life hard for ourselves. Not you. I get that part.

I am reminded of a reflection I recently read about the image of Jesus standing outside of a locked door. There is no handle to open the door from the outside. It is dark outside and the light appears to emanate from Jesus. Jesus is waiting at the door, but the person inside has yet to open it. O’ the humility of Jesus to stand there and wait!

We have shut that door on you Jesus, and I am so sorry. We shut the door in our pride, in our fear, in our mistrust. You wait on us. You always do. You shouldn’t have to, but you do. Thank you. Love is truly patient.

I have heard that hell is locked from the inside. That makes sense. There are people who choose to turn away from you and lock the door. But you still wait on the outside. You still send them your light of grace to show the way towards the door, but they still chose to sit in the dark, alone, isolated from real goodness, to wallow “in the hell of their own will”.

But what about the people too scared, too afraid, too wounded to move toward the door to open it and let you in? Some may see your light of grace, some may be blind, but both are still paralyzed. Do you continue to wait? Or will you appear within the room on the other side of the locked door like you did for your Apostles on the day of your Resurrection?

I hope in your answer. Only you can hear the voiceless cry of a heart.

Only you can make all well. And you will. But we must try, with your help, to open the door to heart for you. Only love can open the door.

Oh Jesus! I pray that my door is open for you, open as wide as possible. If it is not, please help me to open it as far as it will go. And never let me close it on you again.

I want to be with you, Jesus. I will wait with you outside those locked doors of others if you permit me. I know that only you may enter those homes, those hearts, but I will wait with you on the outside.

Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will enter his house and dine with him, and he with me. (Revelation 3:20)

Please continue to send your grace to those locked behind their doors. Help them open their hearts to you and to others.