CowPi Journal

Inspired by this article on constraints and brevity, and the website One Sentence, here is a story in one sentence:

I would have searched the world over to find the words to heal her pain, but there are no such words, only time and someone to just be there.

Yesterday evening, I was reading this certain book by a particular author who was opening windows and doors for me to paths of insights into metaphysics, mysticism, the mystery of God, etc., when all of a sudden, in one paragraph, red flags and klaxon sirens went off in warning. My stomach knotted up, my pulse quickened, a wave nausea engulfed me. A rug had been pulled out from underneath me and I now sat on the floor. What to think? What to believe? This one paragraph has wrecked it all. It’s one of those deal-breaker statements. Can I salvage any thing from the other parts of the book? Do I finish the book? Does any of the author’s ideas still have merit? Are all these windows and doors to paths of insight tainted?

I stumbled upon this prayer of lamentation and humility posted this morning on a weblog I used to visit when I read weblogs regularly. It seems to fit well with my mood today. Another reminder to keep my eyes focused on Jesus, always…

Mystify us, arouse and confuse us. Shatter our illusions and plans so that we lose our way, and see neither path nor light until we have found You, where You are to be found and in Your true form—in the peace of solitude, in prayer, in submission, in suffering, in succour given to another, and in flight from idle talk and worldly affairs. And, having tried all the known ways and means of pleasing You and not finding You any longer in any of them, we remain at a loss until, finally, the futility of all our efforts leads us at last to leave all to find You henceforth, You, Yourself, everywhere and in all things without discrimination or reflection.

For, how foolish it is, O Divine Love, not to see You in all that is good and in all creatures. Why, then, try to find You in what you are not.

— Jean Pierre de Caussade, The Sacrament of the Present Moment

From Br. Joseph —

There are two sides to faith, just as there are two sides to a coin.

One side of the “coin of faith” looks externally, that is, it looks outside of our selves to others for examples and models of living faith. They are witnesses, and it is in accepting their experiences, their testimony, that helps us to believe. (Note: witness, with-ness)

If we look beyond those who have an immediate influence on us, we can see other people have influenced them, and still others have influenced those people, and so. In a very few steps, we begin to see a whole network of witnesses, a web of belief. Follow this web of belief, this chain of testimony, back to its origin, and we find the Apostles, the First Witnesses to Jesus. (Note: testimony, Old Testament, New Testament)

The other side of the coin of faith looks internally, that is, it looks within to our own personal experiences of God. These experiences help us to say internally within our hearts, “I believe.”

In other words, each of us who believe, those who have opened our selves to the possibility of God, can identify certain moments in our lives where we have experienced something that is not of ourselves, something bigger, something more. A few of us may have had specific, big life-changing moments. Or more likely, most of us have had several small moments, almost insignificant in their first appearance, but still very powerful, transformative, and energizing.

It is part of human nature to have preferences, and so we naturally tend to depend on or rub one side of our coin of faith more than the other. That is okay, but over-dependence on one particular side is not healthy faith. It does not make us a whole person, both inside and out. There must be some sort of balance because there will be times when doubt challenges to knock our faith down.

Doubt is not always a bad thing. It makes us stronger and helps weed out the unnecessary stuff that we cling to, much like separating the chaff from the wheat. It makes faith honest. Scripture calls this purification, smelting down the gold till it is pure. And it is the interdependence of the two sides of faith, between the internal and external, that keeps both sides of faith honest, real, and balanced.

At the beginning of our journey, we were given a coin of faith. We chose to accept or reject this gift. If we accepted, then it is our task to carry this coin in our hearts, rubbing it in times of need, times of doubt, in bad times and good. Times of struggle or sorrow polish it to a high luster and remind us that God is with us (Emmanuel). Times of joy allow us to bask in gratitude and the glow of Jesus in its shine, and radiate that to others around us, to make God present in the world, to be witness (with-ness).

And at the end of our journey, we will have to hand our coin of faith back to God. We will not need it in our Father’s home. Faith is needed only for the journey. Besides, the coin of faith was never really ours to begin with. It really belongs to His Son. Jesus paid our way. He gives the coin of faith its value.

Our Lady of Mercy, pray for us…

P.S. If your coin of faith has been lost, do not worry. Jesus promised all things are found again if they want to be.

From Br. Joseph —

From today’s Gospel reading, John 3:16-17:

God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son,so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him.

Here is another way to see this Scripture passage through a beautiful little poem¹ by St. Francis of Assisi.

I think God might be a little prejudiced.
For once He asked me to join Him on a walk through this world.

And we gazed into every heart on this earth,
And I noticed He lingered a bit longer
Before any face that was weeping,
And before the eyes that were laughing.

And sometimes when we passed a soul in worship,
God too would kneel down.

I have come to learn:
God adores His creation.

Reflect love. Surrender to grace.

Our Lady of Mercy, pray for us…

¹ Poem from Love Poems from God: Twelve Sacred Voices from the East and West, translated by Daniel Ladinsky