You know the sort of person who thrives on crisis? She’ll leap up from the dinner table when out with friends or family to take a phone call because something came up at work, and for whatever reason she is the only person on the planet who can deal with it. Around the water cooler in the morning she’ll lament the poor night’s sleep she got due to one of the many projects she’s involved with, or a late night phone call from someone who absolutely had to talk to her. It’s easy for people to get hooked on the thrill of being needed, and to court interruption as a way to break up the day and beef up their own self-importance.
I’m ashamed to admit that to an extent I could be describing myself. To have been in a situation like Jesus’ in the Gospel today would be a dream come true. Speaking to the crowds, already the center of attention, from a distance I spy someone dashing through the crowd: “Your mother and brothers want to speak to you!” Hear that, everyone? I’d think to myself. I’m needed. While I went to speak to my family I would only half listen to their concerns, instead imagining the wonder of the crowd at my sudden and mysterious absence. Best of all, I would get to melodramatically complain about it when I got back. What could be better than that?
Once again the Scripture reminds me that God’s ways are not always my ways. Jesus’ reaction to interruption is not to fly into a tizzy or to use the pause to keep the crowds wanting more. Instead he stays present, saying “my family is here”. My people are here. My work is here.
So the moral of the story is not to get interrupted, right? I wish it were so easy. When I look back over my life some of my most important moments can only be described as interruptions. When I decided to throw an application to Boston College into my ambitious Ivy League pile during my senior year of high school, I didn’t know a Jesuit from a hole in the ground, yet now the fact that I completed my undergraduate education here affects nearly everything I do from the moment I get up in the morning until I go to bed at night. Senior year of college I had big plans to go straight on to conservatory, but I came back to my mod one day to find a flyer for a Nativity School on my door. “I like urban education” I thought, and off I went to a life that I had never ever expected.
I was struck two weekends ago by the first reading from Amos, when Amaziah hollers at Amos that enough is enough, and that Amos should get the heck out of Israel and prophesy somewhere else. Amos replies that he wasn’t a professional prophet, that wasn’t his gig, he was a shepherd and a dresser of sycamores. In other words, “I didn’t ask for any of this, buddy. This is not what I had planned. God started talking, and that was that.” More often than not, God’s will is not the same as our plan.
I wish I could take credit for my many blessings by claiming some magical powers of knowing when to let God interrupt my life, but there are just as many times that I have let my life interrupt God’s work, and I struggle every day with knowing the difference between the two. All of us have so many responsibilities in our lives, and I spend a good portion of my prayer on the hope that my responsibilities will never come into conflict, that the tightrope I’m walking will stay taut and still.
I have often imagined God’s call like a tide, rocking me back and forth, pulling me slowly toward God as long as I’m calm enough not to struggle against it. But man, are there days when I splash away against the current, stupidly thinking that I won’t ultimately be overcome by the will of God. I am lucky that I have had experiences of things being just right, so that I can measure my gut reactions against those moments of blissful congruence with God’s will. There has been a lot of ink spilled on what discernment means, but for me the best description I can think of is going with my gut, and making a habit of being present and attentive to God’s working in the world so that I can recognize the action of God when it manifests.
Even on days when I am sick of trying to do the right thing, sick of playing by the rules, I can say along with the psalmist “Your words are spirit and life, O Lord,” because I know that I am most myself when the only interruptions I allow are from God. I have to trust that I have followed God’s words well, that like Jesus in the Gospel I am where I am supposed to be, doing the work that God wants me to do. Then I need to shut up and get out of the way.
On that note, I am going to shut up and get out of the way, with a prayer that both during our silent reflections and in the chaos of our lives we are so attuned to God’s call that it ceases to be an interruption or an anomaly and simply becomes who we are and how we live.
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Thursday, July 16, 2009
Summer morning with friends
You all know that there are days when I want to throw it all in the car and get out of the city. It’s too crowded, I miss grass, I miss family. There are those moments, as you know, when life seems like an episode of Friends, that make it worthwhile.
Nicole and I have recruited another friend to our morning swim club, and today was our first day meeting out in JP for some laps. We were to meet on the steps of the community center at 6:30, so I hopped on the bike around 5:45 and pedaled over. After braving the traffic of Newmarket and Egleston Sq, I arrived to find that the pool was closed until 10. I was right on time, but L & N weren’t there.
I’m enough of a Luddite to leave my phone at home occasionally to make sure the world will keep spinning. Without a phone I had no way of knowing where the rest of the team had gone, so I went the half a block to N’s house and knocked on the screen door. Her boyfriend answered the door, and I used N’s phone to figure out where the rest of our party was located.
L had just gotten to the pool, late. It was quickly decided that we should not abandon our plan to have breakfast. N and her bf decided they would come along as well, suggesting Haley House Café in Roxbury.
Two of us got on our bikes while the other two showered and drove, and we got our social justice on at the café. Drinking Thousand Hills Coffee was anti-climactic, since that’s what I drink at home too, but the breakfast was leisurely and laugh-filled.
On the way home I impersonated the Magi and went home by another route. If you can’t explore Roxbury on a bike in the morning, when can you? All this, and home before 9:00 am. Life is good, friends are good, the city is good.
Nicole and I have recruited another friend to our morning swim club, and today was our first day meeting out in JP for some laps. We were to meet on the steps of the community center at 6:30, so I hopped on the bike around 5:45 and pedaled over. After braving the traffic of Newmarket and Egleston Sq, I arrived to find that the pool was closed until 10. I was right on time, but L & N weren’t there.
I’m enough of a Luddite to leave my phone at home occasionally to make sure the world will keep spinning. Without a phone I had no way of knowing where the rest of the team had gone, so I went the half a block to N’s house and knocked on the screen door. Her boyfriend answered the door, and I used N’s phone to figure out where the rest of our party was located.
L had just gotten to the pool, late. It was quickly decided that we should not abandon our plan to have breakfast. N and her bf decided they would come along as well, suggesting Haley House Café in Roxbury.
Two of us got on our bikes while the other two showered and drove, and we got our social justice on at the café. Drinking Thousand Hills Coffee was anti-climactic, since that’s what I drink at home too, but the breakfast was leisurely and laugh-filled.
On the way home I impersonated the Magi and went home by another route. If you can’t explore Roxbury on a bike in the morning, when can you? All this, and home before 9:00 am. Life is good, friends are good, the city is good.
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
The Lord is Kind and Merciful
It's been a week and a day since my family gathered back home for the funeral. As a liturgy buff, I'm not one of those people who says they "hate funerals" - I actually don't mind funerals, it's people dying that brings me down.
If I had anything to do with it, this funeral was going to be a barnburner, for lack of a better word. One of the things I find so helpful about liturgy is that it lets us say what we want to say using words that have been used before, so we don't foul it all up because we are sad. In a situation so devastating we wanted to make sure everything was right - the music, the readings, the prayer of the faithful, the programs. All of these things can help to sum up our belief in the resurrection, in family, and in mercy. The words we use matter.
So that's my academic, overthought rambling on liturgy. Why was it important, in truth, for me? Because I needed to see that I wasn't the only person who had been blind with grief for the previous week and a half. Because when I sang Psalm 103: The Lord is Kind and Merciful I knew that I had a chance to say what I believed, to stand in front of people I loved and sing "Bless the Lord, O my soul" and really mean it in spite of everything. It is rare that singing matters so much to me.
Yesterday was the memorial of Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha, the only Native American on the path to canonization. I learned during reflection at midday prayer yesterday that Tekakwitha was the moniker given to her due to her partial blindness, and that it means "one who gropes in the dark". I can identify with that; and I think most of us can. I have been groping through the darkness of grief with my family, mulling over the wretched questions that we know we can never answer. But day after day I think we all grope through the dark, grabbing onto what we can to orient us, be it liturgy, family, friends, or simple hope.
If I had anything to do with it, this funeral was going to be a barnburner, for lack of a better word. One of the things I find so helpful about liturgy is that it lets us say what we want to say using words that have been used before, so we don't foul it all up because we are sad. In a situation so devastating we wanted to make sure everything was right - the music, the readings, the prayer of the faithful, the programs. All of these things can help to sum up our belief in the resurrection, in family, and in mercy. The words we use matter.
So that's my academic, overthought rambling on liturgy. Why was it important, in truth, for me? Because I needed to see that I wasn't the only person who had been blind with grief for the previous week and a half. Because when I sang Psalm 103: The Lord is Kind and Merciful I knew that I had a chance to say what I believed, to stand in front of people I loved and sing "Bless the Lord, O my soul" and really mean it in spite of everything. It is rare that singing matters so much to me.
Yesterday was the memorial of Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha, the only Native American on the path to canonization. I learned during reflection at midday prayer yesterday that Tekakwitha was the moniker given to her due to her partial blindness, and that it means "one who gropes in the dark". I can identify with that; and I think most of us can. I have been groping through the darkness of grief with my family, mulling over the wretched questions that we know we can never answer. But day after day I think we all grope through the dark, grabbing onto what we can to orient us, be it liturgy, family, friends, or simple hope.
Sunday, July 12, 2009
Sleepy's? More like creepy's.
I take a long time to do things.
I put off moving into my own place for years until one day I walked into a realtor's and put first and last down on the first apartment I saw. Buying a futon took about 7 months from the time I thought I might like one, and a futon cover was another 4 or 5 months in the making.
It's been obvious for more than a year that I need a new mattress and box spring, and a quick look around my apartment reveals that I really need a proper bed and not just a crummy old bed frame. Still, I'm not very particular about those sorts of things, and I can be somewhat lazy, so I keep putting off getting the new furniture.
Yesterday I finally went to Sleepy's thinking this could be the time! I usually think and think about these big purchases and then complete them quite suddenly, and I figured that yesterday's excursion could be the culmination of all my new-furniture-dreaming.
I walked into the store and there were two salesmen in the big empty store, goofing off on their cell phones. I explained that I wanted a mattress and box spring, I didn't want to spend a lot of money, and I sleep on my side. I had hoped that I would lay down on a mattress or two and finally feel "ahhh, this is what a mattress is supposed to be!", but nothing really struck me.
In addition, the salesman I was working with was pushy and dismissive, while the other salesman watched me roll around on the beds with a little too much interest. My gut was telling me that the day of the new bed had not arrived, so I stood up and explained to the salesman that I had been expecting something to really knock my socks off, and nothing had, and my gut was telling me that I shouldn't get anything today.
He proceeded to get somewhat antagonistic and even pushier. "Then what was your goal in coming in here today? What do you mean when you say 'knock your socks off'?" I find it very funny when people think that they can bully me, which was definitely what he was trying to do. I know that I may not always look like a stubborn, firm person, but despite my small stature I have a pretty big will.
Every year there are a few kids who think that they can manipulate me either by bickering or by getting weepy. My co-workers think it's a riot. In fact, most people who know me are amused when someone who thinks they can badger me gives it a whirl, since most of the time there couldn't be a further possibility.
The end of the story is that I didn't buy a bed.
I put off moving into my own place for years until one day I walked into a realtor's and put first and last down on the first apartment I saw. Buying a futon took about 7 months from the time I thought I might like one, and a futon cover was another 4 or 5 months in the making.
It's been obvious for more than a year that I need a new mattress and box spring, and a quick look around my apartment reveals that I really need a proper bed and not just a crummy old bed frame. Still, I'm not very particular about those sorts of things, and I can be somewhat lazy, so I keep putting off getting the new furniture.
Yesterday I finally went to Sleepy's thinking this could be the time! I usually think and think about these big purchases and then complete them quite suddenly, and I figured that yesterday's excursion could be the culmination of all my new-furniture-dreaming.
I walked into the store and there were two salesmen in the big empty store, goofing off on their cell phones. I explained that I wanted a mattress and box spring, I didn't want to spend a lot of money, and I sleep on my side. I had hoped that I would lay down on a mattress or two and finally feel "ahhh, this is what a mattress is supposed to be!", but nothing really struck me.
In addition, the salesman I was working with was pushy and dismissive, while the other salesman watched me roll around on the beds with a little too much interest. My gut was telling me that the day of the new bed had not arrived, so I stood up and explained to the salesman that I had been expecting something to really knock my socks off, and nothing had, and my gut was telling me that I shouldn't get anything today.
He proceeded to get somewhat antagonistic and even pushier. "Then what was your goal in coming in here today? What do you mean when you say 'knock your socks off'?" I find it very funny when people think that they can bully me, which was definitely what he was trying to do. I know that I may not always look like a stubborn, firm person, but despite my small stature I have a pretty big will.
Every year there are a few kids who think that they can manipulate me either by bickering or by getting weepy. My co-workers think it's a riot. In fact, most people who know me are amused when someone who thinks they can badger me gives it a whirl, since most of the time there couldn't be a further possibility.
The end of the story is that I didn't buy a bed.
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
Life is not ended, just changed
“All the wickedness in this world that man might work or think is no more to the mercy of God than a live coal in the sea.” —William Langland
Earlier this week there was a terrible tragedy that resulted in the loss of two family members. We're shattered and praying, and I'm trying to fill parts of my days with other things in order not be overwhelmed by what we could never possibly understand.
In lieu of dwelling on all that I can't understand, I have been spending some time with what I do understand. I understand that our tragedy is even more stark because it casts it's shadow over the blinding brilliance of our many blessings of love. I understand that year after year as we have gathered for Christmas Eve, for summer picnics, for weddings, birthdays, and visits, bonds of love have strengthened between us. These bonds weave into a web that lifts us all when we fall and supports us when we can't stand. With a piece of our web missing I feel broken, but I take comfort in knowing that our remnant can carry the lost together in a web of prayer and love.
I understand that even after a month of gloomy weather, I wake every morning with a new chance to see the sun. I understand that when we gather for another cousin's wedding later in the week, we reaffirm that love rises, that futures are possible even in great darkness, and that it is worthy to persevere with new life always as our goal.
I understand that life changes, that it's silly to think that things last forever, and that clutching at blessings, standing very still and hoping that nothing will be altered, will ultimately fail. Perhaps the best practice is simply to develop habits of surviving that allow us all to live with dignity and virtue even through changes and grief, continuing in the paths of our ancestors and of those we love.
On another plane from what I understand (and don't) lie the things I believe. I believe in a God of inexhaustible mercy, who loves like a mother and whose love does not disappoint. I believe that suffering is never God's will and that the phrase "everything happens for a reason" is hogwash. I believe that grace, infinite holiness alive in the world, is always available to us, that God's inscrutable goodness cannot be conquered by death and that hope may be our highest calling.
Earlier this week there was a terrible tragedy that resulted in the loss of two family members. We're shattered and praying, and I'm trying to fill parts of my days with other things in order not be overwhelmed by what we could never possibly understand.
In lieu of dwelling on all that I can't understand, I have been spending some time with what I do understand. I understand that our tragedy is even more stark because it casts it's shadow over the blinding brilliance of our many blessings of love. I understand that year after year as we have gathered for Christmas Eve, for summer picnics, for weddings, birthdays, and visits, bonds of love have strengthened between us. These bonds weave into a web that lifts us all when we fall and supports us when we can't stand. With a piece of our web missing I feel broken, but I take comfort in knowing that our remnant can carry the lost together in a web of prayer and love.
I understand that even after a month of gloomy weather, I wake every morning with a new chance to see the sun. I understand that when we gather for another cousin's wedding later in the week, we reaffirm that love rises, that futures are possible even in great darkness, and that it is worthy to persevere with new life always as our goal.
I understand that life changes, that it's silly to think that things last forever, and that clutching at blessings, standing very still and hoping that nothing will be altered, will ultimately fail. Perhaps the best practice is simply to develop habits of surviving that allow us all to live with dignity and virtue even through changes and grief, continuing in the paths of our ancestors and of those we love.
On another plane from what I understand (and don't) lie the things I believe. I believe in a God of inexhaustible mercy, who loves like a mother and whose love does not disappoint. I believe that suffering is never God's will and that the phrase "everything happens for a reason" is hogwash. I believe that grace, infinite holiness alive in the world, is always available to us, that God's inscrutable goodness cannot be conquered by death and that hope may be our highest calling.
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