Deeper awareness

Wednesday, September 21, 2016

I’m rereading a book called “Writing and the Spiritual Life” by Patrice Vecchione which I would recommend to anyone who is engaged or who wants to be engaged in creative pursuits. One of the things I like about the book is the way she encourages attitudes of mind and heart that are integral to the spiritual life. Today I’m going to quote from a chapter about awareness, and about looking at things not from the mind but from the heart. Here it is:

When I was a child my father occasionally spoke to me about light, particularly how the color of the buildings in certain neighborhoods in lower Manhattan were affected by late afternoon light. We’d be walking together and he’s stop me with a hand on my shoulder and say, “Look,” as he stared down the street. There was no parade going by, no movie star getting out of a limo; it was the light he was referring to, how it changed what he saw and gave everything a glow and warmed the colors. He had a tone of voice that was reserved for those observations alone. I wouldn’t otherwise have noticed that last bit of musty brightness before the dark comes. . . . He was drawing me to notice more than the actual light, to find a quality of attention that came from deep inside . . .  (p. 16)

Can you encourage yourself to see, to listen, to feel from a place within you that is deeper than where you usually see, listen and feel from? Can you reach down to the place within you where God has planted his Spirit that cries out, “Abba, Father,” and prays to the Father when you cannot pray and when you are oblivious to his action? If you could do that even just for a brief moment, you will have lived a more enlightened life than what you usually live.

God bless you!

How do we know we're doing the right thing?

Tuesday, September 20, 2016

A Proverb from today’s first reading:

All the ways of a man may be right in his own eyes,

but it is the Lord who proves hearts. (Prov. 21:2)

One of the effects of original sin is that we are born with a certain kind of blindness; that is, the inability to assess accurately the rightness or wrongness of our actions. It started at the very beginning with the sin of Eve. When she took the fruit from the tree and ate it, she was convinced that she was doing the right thing because Satan had distracted and confused her, and provided her with a right reason for doing what she did.

This happens to us as well, doesn’t it? Especially at times when we need to make good moral decisions. The sad truth is that we can almost always convince ourselves (or does the convincing come from the evil one?) that what we are doing is right.

Our higher nature always desires what is good and true and beautiful, and what will make us truly happy. The problem is that our “lower” nature deceives us and causes us to make wrong assessments of the goodness, truth and beauty of what we are being tricked into accepting.

I remember being in religion class many, many years ago, and having a teacher tell us that a bank robber is convinced that what he is doing is going to make him happy. Of course, in the long run, he finds out that he was wrong, because his action failed to take into consideration its consequences.

AA has a motto that says “think it through.” This is a helpful notion. “What will happen if I disobey the Lord’s command not to eat the fruit of this particular tree?” would have been the right question to ask, but the tempter had so confused her thinking that she became convinced that the consequences of her action would be good.

How about us? Where can we go, at times when we have to make a decision, to get a more accurate assessment of the reality of our actions and choices? To a trusted friend, to a therapist or spiritual director, to a counselor or to a member of the clergy . . . just a few of the resources we can use at times like these. Of course, the greatest resource of all is prayer. As for me personally, I find that as a result of meditation (where I am not asking any questions), I emerge better equipped to make a wise decision, yet still I will often “check it out” with one of my mentors if and when I can.

How about you?

God bless you this day!

Spiritual impoverishment

Monday, September 19, 2016

In today’s Gospel, Jesus says that “To anyone who has, more will be given, and from the one who has not, even what he seems to have will be taken away.” (Luke 8:18)

In Friday’s post, I offered a meditation I wrote for The Tao of Musicianship, and there was a passage in it which makes sense when seen in the light of Jesus’ words. Here it is:

Talk of the ecstasy you have in your song

to one who’s not tasted life’s depths,

   and you will be judged, not understood,

    and your bliss will flee lest it be wounded.

What Jesus says seems terribly unfair, and commentators tell us not to think that He is referring to materialism or finances, but rather to deep qualities of the human spirit. I used to reject this passage because it simply didn’t make sense to me, but as time has gone on I’ve discovered how true it can be.

I suggest that what we need to do is put the emphasis not on Jesus’s fairness, but rather on the reality that people create their own conditions through the choices that they make. I remember once visiting the home of someone who was lost in materialism, who gave me a tour of the house pointing out the beauty and value of the hundreds of knick-knacks and other trifles that she owned, but after the tour she didn’t really have anything to speak about. Even her children, who were adopted, she regarded as possessions. And, having possessed much, she was impoverished in what pertains to the spirit. As time went by, the friendship began to dissolve, because there was no common cord to bind us together, and I was very sad about that because I was quite fond of her.

People sometimes choose to live empty lives. When I used to teach Creativity, my students and I used to talk about people who had simply stopped growing in their lives, and I used to give them this quote to consider. I think it says better what I’m trying to say here, so I offer it to you as well:

Our culture suffers from a negation of the inner self, the god-self

We don't often witness that self in each other. It's important to know

who we are, who others are, where our tender spots are. These are not

mechanized needs, nor needs that can be met in front of computer

screens. When a primary need is ignored, it may express itself in

destructive ways: Our preoccupation with material. possessions is

unsettling. The violence on the part of young people must be, m part,

a call for attention to the soul. There are children I know who, after

school, instead of playing on the street or at the homes of friends,

park themselves in front of the computer and play games. Carl Jung

said, "The cat neglected becomes the unconscious tiger:' We're seeing

a number of neglected cats these days. When the need to attend

to the inner self isn't modeled as valuable, when art and the spiritual

life aren't integrated into the culture, the self may choose destructive

routes for attention, such as reckless displays of violence.    Veccione, Writing and the Spiritual Life, p. 15

Could there be a connection between the spiritual impoverishment that so many suffer from and the fact that reckless violence is constantly increasing in the world we live in? Veccione might be considered as a prophet here.

God bless you!

The mystery of music

Friday, September 16, 2016

Back in 2001 I wrote a little collection of prose poems based on the Chinese classic, the Tao Te Ching. The name of the collection was The Tao of Musicianship, addressed not only to musicians, but to all of us who have music in our hearts. This morning, as I was praying for inspiration for today’s reflection, my gaze was directed towards this little book. Today I offer you the first poem in the series, again encouraging you to take what resonates with you and to leave the rest aside for now. And so, here it is:

Together we share experiences

     that cannot be put into words.

   Trying to describe such moments

                we lose them

                     like one trying to grasp a wisp of cloud.

Do you find this to be true at times?

   The most beautiful, the most precious,

                the most splendid,

       the music that makes life luminous

                is tarnished in the telling.

Try to describe that phrase

where suddenly

   the veil between heaven and earth was rent,

   and you joined the choirs of heaven in concert:

It cannot be done: in frustration, you end up doubting

whether is ever really happened.

Try to tell  another of the joy you find in the lover,

     and you desecrate that love.

Talk of the ecstasy you have in your song

to one who’s not tasted life’s depths,

   and you will be judged, not understood,

    and your bliss will flee lest it be wounded.

‘Tis a mystery, this gift (as all great gifts are),

                that blows where it will,

     eluding description,

          eluding manipulation.

It can be savored, but it cannot be evoked.

It can be tasted only when we do not chase it

     or want it or lay claim to it.

It happens only when we have forgotten these things,

    and give ourselves to the music,

      open and empty,

          without baggage or foothold,

                allowing the flow of the song

                                to take us where it will.

When it is there,

                it leads us to what is eternal,

                    and true, and good,

                                given, not taken,

                                                cherished, but not captured.

© 2001, Bede Gary Camera, O.S.B.

God bless you!

The awesome and awful power of grace

Thursday, September 15, 2016

Memorial of Our Lady of Sorrows

from the first reading of the Mass of the day:

By the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me has not been ineffective. (1 Co 15:10)

If we do anything good in the world, if our work or even our way of being has in any way helped bring the good things of the Lord to another person in need, if our station in life has changed—that is, if we have been rescued from the grip of darkness and set down in the realm of light, or if we have been gifted such as Paul was, to do work that we never ever merited to be able to do, or, perhaps even if our state in life has declined due to age or any other circumstance, and we are no longer able to do what we once did, then we are able to make this statement with Paul.

Remember that Paul was a terrible sinner, a persecutor of the infant church of the Lord, and yet literally like a thunderbolt the Lord entered his life and rearranged it to suit His purposes, and so that is true for many of us in many different ways. This was the work of grace which, we must remember, is a unmerited and free gift bestowed by God for reasons that sometimes never become readily apparent to us.

Perhaps that work of grace is evident in your life as well—and don’t forget that this grace effects a profound change in us, and we find ourselves doing things that we never could have predicted we would be doing just a short while ago. But even if our life trajectory causes us to “fall up,” to borrow the title of a book by Richard Rohr, that does not mean that God is giving up on us or is no longer interested in working through us to reach others.

“and he grace to me has not been ineffective”

This statement assumes one thing: that we cooperate with the grace that is given to us. Paul says that because of this grace he works harder than all; what does it mean in our lives to say that we actively take a part in the gift of grace through our own cooperation, participation, sacrifices and hard work or whatever else it may be?

Hail Mary, full of grace: the grace that was given to Our Blessed Mother was a grace that brought her through a period of terrible darkness and loss. As Simeon had predicted, a sword was to pierce her heart. One commentator on the Gospel story of the crucifixion reflects that when Jesus said to her, “woman, behold your son,” (referring to St. John) that too was a crucifixion for her as her divine Son was to be taken from her and in His place she would be given someone merely human. Another commentator has noted that we all stand in the place of Saint John, and that through this work of the Lord, Mary became the mother of us all, a mother full of compassion because she is a mother who has suffered so much in her life of grace.

To say that grace is a gift is not to say that grace brings us blessings and happiness all the days of our lives. Like Mary, we too may be brought through periods of loss and darkness and suffering so that we can emerge from it all larger than what we were before and more capable of becoming blessings for others.

If your grace is bringing you through a difficult time, especially, look to the Mother of us all and ask her to bring you a greater awareness of whatever may be going on in your life.

“Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.”

Where would we be without the cross?

Wednesday, September 14, 2016

The Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross

Let us reflect first on one simply reality: if it were not for the cross, we wouldn’t be here now. I would never have written these words, and you would never have read them. Without the cross of Christ, our lives would be so much different, and, dare I say, so empty and meaningless and ultimately hopeless. So let us first of all give thanks for that.

Without the cross, where would we go to make sense out of the many sufferings, big and small, that are part of the fabric of our lives?

Without the cross, where could we go to be fed the Food that leads to eternal life?

Without the cross, how could we realize that our God is a God who did not look upon suffering from a safe seat in heaven, but who entered into human reality and endured suffering Himself so that we may be united with Him in both the misery and the triumph of existence?

Without the cross, how could we endure the many contradictions that are part of our lives, considering that the cross itself is a “sign of contradiction” itself and that Our Blessed Lord literally bore the tensions between the two cross-bars of the tree?

And when we look upon the cross and consider it as a sign of contradiction, can we realize that reality itself is a contradiction. It is neither fully perfect nor totally miserable and defeated. Can we also acknowledge the fact that we ourselves are neither perfectly holy nor miserably un-holy, and can we bring that contradiction itself to the cross and to our prayer, and accept the fact that the two exist side-by-side. It is only when we evolve to the point where we can do this, without trying to insist that only one side is true or that only one side is valid, that we begin to experience a mature spirituality.

Fr. Richard Rohr writes that “The price you pay for holding together the contradictions within yourself, others and the world is always some form of crucifixion, but the gift you receive and the gift you offer is that—at least in you---“everything belongs” (Things Hidden, p. 205).

May the Lord bless you this day!

Shunning the light

Tuesday, September 13, 2006

At about 7 am this morning, I was driving to a doctor’s appointment. The fierce glow of the rising sun made it hard to drive whenever the road I took was facing east. Even with the visor down and sunglasses on, it was hard to make my way. I also noticed that the front windshield of the car, when seen in the light of the sun, looked terribly dirty. Small spots on the window actually glowed and sparkled and it was as if I was trying to see past a sheet of diamonds to make my way up the road. I’m not describing anything that you haven’t experienced yourself from time to time, I am sure.

All this caused me to think about how our souls must look when pierced by the light of God’s glory. The things that we barely notice of pay attention to might suddenly appear to be significant blemishes in such a light, things that we would find it hard to wipe away by our own efforts. And sometimes, we would try to block out the light, much as I did this morning by wearing sunglasses and putting the visor down---but even then, the blemishes still remained, for the light overcame any attempt to shield myself from it.

Down through history, there have been prophets who spoke with the light of God, and they often were annihilated because the people couldn’t bare to look at themselves in the light of what they were saying. I think of John the Baptist who spoke about Herod’s unlawful relationship with his brother’s wife, whom Herod eventually had beheaded. And I think today of Saint John Chrysostom (“Chrysostom” means “golden mouth” and was given this name because of the renowned beauty of his preaching).

St. John spoke out about the luxurious vane life style of the empress Eudoxia (of Constantinople—4^th century). Eventually he was driven into exile on the basis of trumped up charges, and suffered so much that he died en route from one place to another.

The Psalms often speak of one betrayed by the false accusations of another. Look especially at Psalms 52 – 59). And we need not forget that Jesus was condemned to crucifixion because of the lies uttered against him by his enemies who could not bear the bright light of his teaching or the bright witness of the many miracles he had worked.

The great hope our Catholic faith offers us, however, is that the blemishes on our own souls which become evident in God’s holy light will indeed be wiped away and we will be made perfect. The doctrine of the purification of our souls makes logical sense. Who, in fact, would be happy walking around heaven with all their failings, weaknesses, peccadillos and even crimes being made fully visible in the kingdom to come, where there will be no need for sun or moon, for Christ will be the light?

In a few short weeks, the Church will provide a special day when we pray for the dead (Nov. 2—all Souls’ Day) which gives us a special opportunity to remember those who have gone before us and to pray for their ultimate purification. And meanwhile, we can continue to pray for our own, at the beginning of every Mass and through frequent repetition of the Jesus Prayer, and in the Hail Mary, where we ask to blessed Mother to pray for us sinners “now and at the hour of our death.”

And may Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, have mercy on us all. And may he bless us all. Amen.

P.S. For a list of very challenging quotes by St. John Chrysostom, go to this address:

http://www.azquotes.com/author/21940-Saint_John_Chrysostom