CowPi Journal

Br. Joseph is a teacher at a Sisters of Mercy school, and his reflections are written with teachers in mind. As with good spirituality, it applies to everyone in some way. His permission has been given to post the reflections here.

From Br. Joseph (Aug. 16, 2007) —

A summer camp counselor noticed Becca early in the season. Becca always had a smile on her face. She was always happy, even if the camp’s activities for the day had been canceled due to rain. No matter what, Becca was always happy despite having reasons not to be. Becca had several major health concerns coupled with some physical challenges. But this never stopped Becca from being happy, and trying her best to join in and compete in camp activities. Everyday it amazed the counselor to see the optimism and joy for life in Becca’s bright smile. The counselor wondered what the source of Becca’s happiness was.

One day while the campers were busy, the counselor happened to walk into Becca’s cabin and notice a letter from her parents sitting out on top of the desk. She had to take a peek into this letter in hope of discovering Becca’s secret. She found it near the end of the short letter: “Of all the children in the world, we would still choose you Becca to be our daughter.”

Becca knew she was chosen. She knew she was wanted. She knew she was loved.

Now, think of each student in your classroom. Would you have chosen them?

Be real. Be brutally honest with yourself. As a wanna-be saint once said, there is no half-assing it with God. He knows your answer whether you admit it to yourself or not. Before reading further, take this moment to visualize each of your students sitting in their desks in your classroom.

 

If you are honest with yourself, you probably said yes to some, and no (or maybe) to others.

But think about it—your students were chosen to be there.

God chose them to be there. God chose each and every one of your students to be in your classroom.

If God chose them, then how can you not?

And if you think a little more on it, you too, you as their teacher, were chosen to be in that classroom.

God wants you too!!! God wants you, not only to be a teacher, but to be His, to be His Beloved.

You are chosen. You are wanted. You are loved. And when you know that, really know that in your bones, you’ll be happy too.

Don’t forget to pray. Don’t forget to give thanks. All is gift. Everything belongs.

Our Lady of Mercy, pray for us…

Reality is flowing. This does not mean that everything moves, changes, becomes. Science and common experience tell us that. It means that movement, change, becoming is everything that there is. There is nothing else; everything is movement, is change. The time that we ordinarily think about is not real time, but a picture of space.

— Henri-Louis Bergson [via]

There is one thing that never changes—silence. Silence never changes, never flows, never moves. Silence just is. Silence is the reality that allows flow.

Silence never changes. Only the connotation, your attitude to it, changes depending on the sound or noise you hear before or after the silence, giving you, as Bergson says above, a “picture of space”, or to mix metaphors, an image of sound. The nothingness of silence remains nothing independent of the sound flowing through the the silence.

Silence can be a metaphor for the foundation of existence or being-itself. Silence, which is no-thing, allows sounds and noise to be, to exist as things to change and move. Silence gives a sound its very existence by marking the beginning and end of a sound. Silence gives a sound space and freedom to move and change, to mix with other sounds, to become. But in order for silence to do this, it must not change.

Maybe this is stretching the metaphor too far (I apologize if it breaks), silence is unknown. It is unknown because it is no-thing. Silence also exists on a level of non-duality with sound where there is neither subject nor object. On the surface, this sounds impossible (sorry, pun intended) because it appears that sound displaces silence—either you hear sound or you hear silence. But it is not either/or, it is both/and.

It is nearly impossible to hear or even imagine silence co-existing in the same moment with a sound, but it is there. If you quiet yourself and listen deeply to a sound (it is easiest with music, especially with headphones), there is an underlying stillness along with, under, about, the movement of sounds. Stillness is part of silence.

The very physics of sound carries silence with its very being among the troughs and crests of its sine wave. As the nothingness of space surrounds and permeates all matter, even atoms and subatomic particles, silence surrounds and permeates sound. But unlike space, which can be bent by gravitation, silence never changes. Silence even surrounds and permeates space itself.

Silence just is. It allows sound to be and to do what sound does, to move, to flow, to live. That is what silence does. For silence, be-ing and do-ing are the same.

I was talking with an older friend whose wife is the middle of battling the second stage of a debilitating disease. They chose to adopt two children years ago instead of passing this 50-50 chance, hereditary disease on to the next generation. Early in their marriage, he witnessed his mother-in-law progress through the disease that prematurely took her life. And now his belove wife is in the middle of it. They knew it was coming. And now it’s here. They have a few years left together, and they both treasure each and every moment of life.

His wife recently had a milestone birthday and all her family (daughters, brothers and their familes, grandchildren, etc.) came to visit and celebrate. This disease stops with her. No more in her family. But she still must battle it, with her husband at her side. Near the end of our conversation, he said, “If I had received everything I had wished for, it would have been so much less than what I did receive.”

Wow! God is a prodigal father. His gifts are always so much more than what we ask for, even when we do not think our prayers are answered. We cannot see.

In the Gospels, Jesus never prayed from a need-base, that is, from what was missing, but always from the abundance of the Father, to fill, to make whole. I am reminded of the line from the “Soul of Christ” prayer:

Jesus, with you by my side enough has been given.

Help me to see this Father; help me to live this. Please continue to bless my friends. Thank You for everything.

O infinite Trinity,
We sing of your glory in this daily prayer,
Because through Christ you have made us sons
And our hearts your dwelling place.

Eternal, beyond time,
The fountain of the life that never dies,
Creation returns to you
In a never-ending stream of love.

We sing to you, O Immense One,
In this brief Sabbath of time
That heralds the great day without night
In which we will see you as living light.

We give praise to you,
O most sweet and blessed Trinity,
Which always flows forth and always flows back
In the calm sea of your own Love.

To the Father, through the Son, in the Holy Spirit.
Amen.

— quoted by Raniero Cantalamessa in Contemplating the Trinity