What we mean by love

Was not Jesus an extremist for love: "Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you." … So the question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be. Will we be extremists for hate or for love?  - Martin Luther King, Jr., Letter from a Birmingham Jail

Today we honor Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. with a holiday, and I am lucky that many of my friends have spent the day sharing quotes and reflecting on King’s legacy of firm love in the service of justice. I am partial to the quote above, and thought of it when I woke up this morning. I can’t think of a better challenge than to be an extremist for love.

Never satisfied by soundbyte answers, I asked myself this morning "what does love mean?" What does it mean to be an extremist for love? Most people think of themselves as loving, most people think that they are doing the right thing. History fixates on the obviously horrific practitioners of hate, but most people are not that sort of extremist. And yet we, motivated by love, reach wildly different conclusions about how to act justly.

I just started learning a song cycle by Lori Laitman that I will be singing in a recital in April. The last song of the cycle has captivated me – it feels like it was written for my voice, and the poem, like all the poetry in the cycle, regularly moves me to tears (this complicates my learning process, to say the least). The poem, Pioneer Child’s Doll, begins: Here, child, is what we mean by love. 

The poet, Judith Sornberger, described her inspiration in an interview. She saw pioneer child’s doll in a Nebraska museum: The head of the doll was actually an old, beat-up bedpost. You know, the knob at the top of a bedpost. How hard up would you have to be able to love a doll with that kind of head?

Here, child, is what we mean by love:

a block head doll of coarse-grained wood,

eyes two knife-pricks, mouth a crooked stab.

As we are given to love land

that few would covet, where no tree

dares stand up to the sky,

So shall you love her whose grain sack skirt

covers not petticoats, but sticks

whose curls must be imagined in the wood.

And as we break the stubborn sod

of our backs to know what we

can be on this earth,

So by the sweat of your palm

on her brow will you bring

to her flat face a sheen.

We know that love can transform, and we know that we are in need of transformation. About 6 times a day I pray Ignatius’ prayer for generosity: “Lord, teach me to be generous…”. I pray to be loving, to be kind, to be patient, to be fortified and transformed, to be better. And these are the prayers I think of as selfless. Could I sacrifice my prayers and my love to transform others instead?

Could love be the willingness to look at an ugly doll and see something lovely? Could it be the determination to be devoted to that which others would throw away? Could it be beholding the beauty in others? We lament that the world needs transformation, but are the true acts of heroism to see the world and behold in it the possibility of goodness? Isn’t that why we still envision Dr. King’s dream?

Maybe it’s more self-centeredness to imagine that the world hinges on how I see it, that if I look on it with love it will meet my expectations. I’m not sure I know how to pray for anyone other than myself.  A self-emptying prayer that turns me inside out could be the loving extreme to which Dr. King exhorts me.  Perhaps I am called to an outward facing love that wills the other into grace.

Love, grace, God, prayer – these things are the types of wonderful mysteries that we could talk about for eternity and never explain or exhaust.  Dr. King set big, lofty goals that stretch us and our world. For me, it’s goal enough to try each day to discover more of what we mean by love.

The day will come when, after harnessing space, the winds, the tides, gravitation, we shall harness for God the energies of love. And, on that day, for the second time in the history of the world, man will have discovered fire. – Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, SJ

Stuffed with grace

What part of speech is "religious"? If you answered “adjective” you’re right, except, of course, when religious is a noun. Now remember: a religious is religious, but you can be religious without being a religious. Teaching is difficult for countless reasons, but one very time-consuming part of what I teach is that I am constantly clarifying what we mean by words that over centuries have acquired mind-boggling pluralities of meaning. Take Church: I am going to Church, that building on the corner is my Church, she’s part of my Church, I teach Church history. The more ordinary the word, the more meanings it has. Fathers of the Church, desert fathers, our Father, bless me Father for I have sinned, I have to ask my father.  Eucharist is a meal, a sacrifice, a gathering, a thanksgiving. And don’t even get me started on water, the simplest of symbols used in Christian worship. Water gives us life, water kills us, water cleans us, water gets us wet. It’s confusing and comforting – the simplest things in our lives are exploding with meaning. I was talking to a colleague recently about the time my apartment was burgled, and because we both work in theology I pretty quickly turned the conversation to how a concept of sacramentality helped me deal with the loss of objects. Things are important to us. Things, like people, can be stuffed with grace.  I didn’t have to feel guilty mourning the loss of things because my sacramental faith allows me to recognize their meaning. That’s what was on my mind recently when, with a wise and thoughtful group of people, the conversation turned to detachment. I get why detachment is attractive, and brilliant people have promoted it as a path to contentment, but I’m going to take a pass. Give me attachment , a passionate devotion to things, relationships, people, and life. I’ll take the pain when it comes – I’ve known grief, and it has shown me not the foolishness of my attachments but of the blazing heat of my love.  Grace allows the ordinary to be transformed into the extraordinary, and gives us permission to love the thing because we love the grace.

The world is charged with the grandeur of God.         It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;         It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod? Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;         And all is seared with trade; Bleared, smeared with toil;         And wears man's smudge and shares man's smell: the soil Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod. And for all this, nature is never spent;         There lives the dearest freshness deep down things; And though the last lights off the black West went         Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs — Because the Holy Ghost over the bent         World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.                                      - God's Grandeur, Gerard Manley Hopkins

My other church

I received an unexpected blessing a few weeks ago. It took the form of an email stating "the campus ministers have decided there will be no 9 pm mass on December 19". I conduct and worship with a collegiate musical ensemble every Sunday at an hour that to me seems impossibly late. I've written before about how they inspire me, and the assembly with whom we worship has become an important part of my spiritual life.

Still, for someone who works early Monday mornings, a standing Sunday night gig can be a drag. I was not-so-secretly happy to squeeze one more week out of winter break. Ever busy, I had two other church gigs in my neighborhood this weekend. After last night's 6 pm mass I dashed home, got changed, and drove to the apartment of two newlywed friends who are also hosting another couple at whose wedding I sang and who now live in Germany.

We briefly did the basic "catching up" small talk and then conversation plowed right into education: Jesuit schools, charter schools, diocesan schools, rigor, standards, you name it. As the part moved from the living room to the dinner table we talked about the homilies we'd heard at our parishes that weekend, about how parishes (and their liturgies) feed people (or don't). The Dream Act, Vatican II, the SSPX, a train station in Stuttgart - nothing was outside our purview. We agreed and disagreed, challenged, supported and edified each other. And I thought "here is my other church".

I hold the sacramental life of the Church in a place of highest honor. It is the Church's public prayer made up of particular actions that give us grace. But I can only be as positive as I am about the communal prayer of the Church - its liturgy - because I have experience of church that is intimate, local, and relational.

People often roll their eyes at my devotion, because "the Church" does this or that that they - and maybe even I - don't like. In my heart the Church is not just a series of pronouncements or dogma or the College of Cardinals. My Church has always been my people: my family, my parish, my school, my work, my diocese.

If you don't 'get' community, I don't see how you could 'get' Church, or liturgy. Two nights ago with another group of friends - not from my Catholic circles and not monolithically religious - a dear friend looked around at everyone hollering and laughing in one couples' basement and whispered to me "this is magical". Magical it was. A group of people who a few years prior were strangers are now like family. This is my other church.

I come across people who want to get the Church out of the modern world. Let us go back into the fortress, drape the nuns in black habits, cover the women's heads and put back the altar rail to guard the table from the faithful. Let's bring the Church back to a different era (one we have arbitrarily chosen as 'the most Catholic' - give us the 19th century with indoor plumbing). While we're at it, let's make sure we know who's in and who's out . There are "real" - pure, elect - members of the Body of Christ, and then there's everyone else.

The people on that side of the culture war shout the loudest because they know they have lost. The world has turned and they are still in the past. I don't want an anachronistic Church, frozen in time. I like my Church in the here and now, around all the tables of my life. I recognize the current of grace in which I swim  because of real people and relationships. No old-fashioned fantasy can compete with the living, breathing sanctity of my community drawn together by the Spirit of love.

We are unprofitable servants, we have done what we were obliged to do

When you have done all you have been commanded,
say, 'We are unprofitable servants;
we have done what we were obliged to do.' (Luke 17: 10)

I distinctly remember the first time I noticed these verses, which must have been two Cycle Cs ago. They left a strong impression, both because they captured so perfectly a sentiment I share, and because they seem harsh and counter-cultural. I almost felt guilty for agreeing with the idea that we don’t deserve a pat on the back for discipleship or moral behavior.

This is the type of attitude that gives Catholics a reputation, and I don’t care. Obligation is an important part of our lives. There are things we do simply because they are that which should be done. I run into a lot of people who think the purpose of religion or worship is to make us feel all warm and squishy inside. I’m not wise enough to say what the “purpose” is, but it ain’t that. To congratulate ourselves on our faithfulness is not the same as to affirm the grace of faith. We can be content with our faith and our deeds and still be unprofitable – perhaps we can never truly exceed what we are obliged to do because God’s expectations of us are so high?

Paul writes in today’s reading from 2 Timothy to “to stir into flame the gift of God that you have...For God did not give us a spirit of cowardice but rather of power and love and self-control” (1: 6-17). We are endowed with great spiritual gifts, every one of us, and we choose whether to stir them into flame or to cower and let them decay. Claiming our gifts is dangerous business, because it makes us agents in the world. Our power, inspired by love and tempered by self-control, makes us capable of doing every good thing that God expects of us.

The first reading today is from the small-but-mighty book of Habbakuk. The prophet cries out to the Lord, lamenting the destruction and violence surrounding him. The Lord responds:

Write down the vision clearly upon the tablets,
so that one can read it readily.
For the vision still has its time,
presses on to fulfillment, and will not disappoint;
if it delays, wait for it,
it will surely come, it will not be late. (2:2-3)

Living in hope gives us a vision of what the world could be, with all people responding to the invitation of grace and living together in love and charity. We write this vision on the tablets of our lives, doing our best to manifest the hope that lives inside of us. This is what is expected of us, and may even be what we’re made for. Our labors toward the fulfillment our mission and duty may give us plenty to be proud of, but are nothing more than what we are required to do.

Set Me as a Seal on Your Heart

During my summer of crazy tri-training I had a little phone trouble. There were a few days when I wasn’t getting notifications of messages, so when trying to organize my standing swim-breakfast date with Brendan and Nicole they left message after message and I thought they were blowing me off.

It seemed reasonable that they would want a morning off from me stomping up the vine-covered back stairs at 7:30 to eat their English muffins, so I went straight from the pool to class and didn’t think too much about it. Around noon-time I checked my email and saw about 15 different messages from them. Where are you? Are you ok? What did you do this morning? We went to the pool and looked for you.
For some reason I take great comfort in the image of Brendan, dressed for work, standing at the front desk of the pool in the humidity and heat, asking our favorite lifeguard to check the bottom of the pool.

Those two were married yesterday, in a liturgy that was sacramental in every sense of the word. Over pasta and breadsticks about six weeks ago we put together a ritual that included four languages, three blessings, two pieces by Handel, and a procession to beat the band.

The Gospel reading was the Beatitudes, and as I listened to those words read while my beautiful friends stood side by side, and our other friends and their families surrounded them in joy, my breath was taken away by how perfect everything was. They already live the Beatitudes, they already live the Good News. They are peacemakers who hunger and thirst for justice. They are pure of heart and merciful. The truth that was confirmed in the light of that Gospel passage isn’t displayed in piety or lofty speech, but in the work those two do for other people, the love they show their friends, and that they went out of their way to look for me at the bottom of the pool.

Yes, there is a special grace involved in their sacramental marriage. Still, even before the vows, the air in the church was simply crackling with grace. By doing good work their whole lives they have surrounded themselves with other generous and loving people, and the power of the community’s love was nearly tangible.

Because I’m so practical (and cynical) I know it seems a little incongruous that I am often talking or writing of love. If love were only the romantic, indulgent kind displayed on all of the wedding cards that I browsed the other day, then I doubt I could be bothered for very long. But because of God and the people in my life I know fierce, diligent love. I know productive, gritty love. I know relentless, inescapable, sustaining, thrilling love. I have learned Father Zosima’s lesson that “active love is a harsh and fearful thing compared to love in dreams”, and led by the example of the people in my life I have tried to plunge into that love.

Nicole and Brendan let me tag along on their adventures in goodness, and I am so grateful. This morning I congratulated them once more and sat on the Common with a few of our other friends from our volunteer year. The sun was shining and the breeze was cool: a perfect September morning. We talked about work and family and told dumb jokes, and then I went off to noon mass. Sitting in the pew (a rare occurrence) I had trouble focusing, thinking about the previous day. In my distractedness clarity hit me like a ton of bricks: my whole life is a sacrament. The outward signs of grace are not objects - not my apartment or car or job. Relationships manifest grace, and I have better ones than I deserve.

Set me as a seal on your heart,
as a seal on your arm;
For stern as death is love,
relentless as the nether world is devotion;
its flames are a blazing fire.


Deep waters cannot quench love,
nor floods sweep it away.

Song of Songs 8: 6-7a

That is enough for me.

“There was a rich man whose land produced a bountiful harvest.
He asked himself, ‘What shall I do,
for I do not have space to store my harvest?’
And he said, ‘This is what I shall do:
I shall tear down my barns and build larger ones.
There I shall store all my grain and other goods
and I shall say to myself, “Now as for you,
you have so many good things stored up for many years,
rest, eat, drink, be merry!”’
But God said to him, ‘You fool, this night your life will be demanded of you;
and the things you have prepared, to whom will they belong?’
Thus will it be for all who store up treasure for themselves
but are not rich in what matters to God.” - from Luke 12, today's Gospel

Sometimes I worry that I am a hoarder. You’re probably thinking that there is not a lot of ambiguity in that designation, that it should be pretty easy to know whether I am or not. And anyone who has been to my itty bitty apartment, or seen me on one of my merciless clutter purges, or knows that I only spend money on books, food, and wine, knows that letting crap pile up probably isn’t among my compulsions.

I wish that made me rest easier about today’s Gospel. Even if I don’t accumulate stuff, I am often tempted to store up treasure for myself. The things I hoard are intangible: affection, esteem, opportunity. There is a fear that we all share, an uncertainty that is part of being human, and we all find ways to fight the fear off by building up reserves of what we think we need.

Yesterday was the feast of St Ignatius, whose famous Suscipe concludes “Give me only your love and your grace, that is enough for me.” I wish I were able to mean those words. Would God’s grace been enough for me if I had to do something that caused people to not like me? Would it be enough if I abandoned my self-centered charm? Would I be satisfied by divine love if I made a choice or commitment that closed certain doors to me? Rather than putting all of my eggs in God’s basket, I have spread them out over countless baskets, just in case…

If we are going to hold the saints up as our idols, we need to be realistic enough to acknowledge the cost. One of the most treasured quotes from Pedro Arrupe reads: More than ever I find myself in the hands of God. This is what I have wanted all my life from my youth. But now there is a difference; the initiative is entirely with God. It is indeed a profound spiritual experience to know and feel myself so totally in God's hands. He offered that reflection after a stroke that rendered him unable to speak. Perhaps to truly surrender to God involves a destruction, a shattering. After all, surrender is a war metaphor.

Is that part of the beauty of prayer, that we repeat these phrases, like “that is enough for me” even when our heart isn’t in it? Lots of people call us hypocrites because we pray “Thy will be done” or “peace be with you” and then go off and behave in the silly, destructive ways we always do. I’m not sure it’s hypocrisy – I think it’s hope. We are hopeful that someday we will conquer ourselves, or be conquered, and be able to truly mean the things we pray for. All of our prayer is a plea for transformation. We want nothing more than to arrive at the day when God’s grace is enough for us, even though now we let all our little wants get in the way of that larger goal.

Augustine wrote How shall I call upon my God, my God and my Lord, when by the very act of calling upon him I would be calling him into myself? And still he prayed. Knowing how hard it is should be no excuse for stopping. It is dangerous to offer our memory, our understanding, our will, our freedom as Ignatius did, because someday God might take us up on our offer. When the things we think define us are stripped away, may we find consolation in what we think is desolation. May we understand more fully that our hearts are made for love, restless until they rest in God. May the barns and silos we can’t help but fill with ourselves not come between us and the grace for which we are destined.

Abide with Me

Abide with me, fast falls the even tide
The darkness deepens, Lord, with me abide.
When other helpers fail and comforts flee,
Help of the helpless, O abide with me.

Darkness. Last night as I drove out of the city I happened to be driving just at sunset, which has never been a good time for me. Like a lot of people sensitive to light and seasons, my mood dips when the sun goes down in the late fall and winter. I am helpless against the power of the earth as it turns and tilts.

I need Thy presence every passing hour
What but Thy grace can foil the tempter's power?
Who but Thyself my guide, and stay can be?
Through cloud and sunshine, O abide with me.

Grace. I teach about grace a few times a year, always with a sense of guilt - how can i stand before people and try to explain that which cannot be explained? Grace - friendship with God. Grace - participation in the life of God. Grace - God working in the world, on us and with us.

I fear no foe, with Thee at hand to bless
Ills have no weight and tears no bitterness
Where is death's sting? where, grave, thy victory?
I triumph still if you abide with me.

Grave. In the darkness of night our world can indeed seem grave, when we are confronted with tragedy and sadness, the pain of those we love and the challenges of being alive in an imperfect world. It may be then that our only triumph is our hope.

Hold now Thy cross before my closing eyes
Shine through the gloom and point me to the skies
Heaven's morning breaks, and earth's vain shadows flee
In life, in death, O Lord, abide with me.

Life. Throughout my life, abide with me. Is this not the root of all our prayer? God, whatever you are, however you come to us, as love, as goodness, as blessing, as grace, be with us. Abide with us. Teach us to hope in you, to serve your light, to trust against our senses and against our despair. Prepare us for the dawn of heaven's morning and remind us that the shadows of this earth are indeed vain and no match for your Light.


[Music: Eventide William Monk (19thC)
Words: Henry F. Lyte (19th C)]

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.

On being where I'm meant to be, and finding God in the woods.

Those students who use this blog as a procrastination technique had a disappointing week this week, as I didn’t post during finals when procrastination is needed the most. The reason I didn’t write much is simple busy-ness. I was in a great production at Boston College featuring alumni who work in the arts and current students. We had an open dress for students who wanted to come on Friday night, and then last night was the ticketed benefit. As I was standing back stage waiting to make my entrance while the students sang and the band played, I got goosebumps as I realized that I was doing exactly what I wanted to do and that I was exactly where I wanted to be. I have worked so hard to improve as a performer, and I am so lucky not only to have opportunities to perform, but to have the perspective to appreciate my opportunities.

On a slightly different note, tonight was the last mass out at BC with my darling choir. I remember when I was growing up it was very cool to say “I don’t believe I need to go to Church, I just like to go out to the woods to pray”. I was pretty skeptical that those people ever actually went out in the woods, but I think I also was starting to have an inkling that faith is not just about us and God, but about us and us. I knew that I found God my family, but that was so normal that it almost seemed like cheating, and I didn’t feel like I could make the argument that you need others to encounter God without some stronger evidence.

I no longer have much of an interest in making any arguments, but I have a little more evidence toward my initial thesis. Worshipping with the community at Boston College brings me closer to God. I have people there who know me, and I see the students there live their faith every day in a way that educates me. They walk the walk when we leave liturgy, and in my limited time that I am on campus I am able to see that. We come together in love every week, and I believe more strongly in God’s grace because I hear their testimony to it.

It’s hard to find that these days, especially for Catholics. Parishes are not always the neighborhood centers they used to be, and it is easy for us to gather for worship not as a new Body but as collection of isolated islands, still bearing our burdens alone. On the occasions that I imagine what it was like for the early church (I probably do that more than most people, but still not so often that it’s too weird), I visualize personalities coming together. It’s not that these people decided to start a Church because they were all best friends, but because the power of their experience of Christ bound them to each other. Their shared experience made the challenges of being together and loving each other worth bearing. Their community was not about being happy or liking each other, not about power or eloquence (or even music) but about fellowship in the Risen Christ.

The point of this rambling? I experience God’s grace through the community to whom I purportedly minister. I am fortunate and I am grateful.

Bathed in the glory of God

"But I just don't get anything out of Mass!" That's an excuse that has never held much water for me. There's so much meaning in liturgy over and above what little 'motion' we might get from it. I know, I'm a liturgy dork, so I get paid to say that. I go to more church than most people, and most of the time I don't "get" a whole lot by way of profound, emotional prayer, but I just keep going back!

Tonight the BC mass was my 5th of the weekend. I was in a goofy mood and ran a goofy rehearsal before mass. The choir sang beautifully, the preaching was inspired, and as always the community was engaged and prayerful. The choir received communion before singing the hymn, while the pianist 'noodled' (that's a technical term). As I walked back to my stand and waited for the choir to be ready to sing, I thought to myself: I only get one life, and the one that I am living is so sweet. My friends pray for me, I am surrounded by beautiful music, the people around me talk about things like the Gospel of Mark. After receiving communion I was smacked in the face by grace and I felt, as our closing song stated, "bathed in the glory of God". I suppose you could say I "got" something.

I knew that in just a moment I would be back on, conducting the communion hymn, but I stood very still and shut my eyes and let myself be grateful.