Monthly Archives: March 2012

Forgiveness

Much has been written about forgiveness and still its meaning sometimes evades us.  We often think that forgiveness requires that the offending party ask for our forgiveness so that we can then magnanimously forgive them.  But what if the offending party has no clue they have offended us – or what if the offending party is no longer living?  How then can we forgive them?

When Jesus said we must forgive “seventy times seven” times, he left no instructions on how we are to do that.  And, I’m beginning to think that forgiveness is an inside job.  In other words, the forgiveness we need to offer others is something that must come first from inside of us, regardless of what others have done or said to us.  Our forgiveness has to begin with us because when we refuse to forgive, harboring the negative emotions can be like a cancer that eats away at us.  We are the ones damaged by refusing to forgive.

This Lent, let’s work on forgiveness.  Is there a person or persons we need to forgive?  What are we waiting for?  Forgiveness begins when we decide to make the first step.  It begins inside of us and may not even require that we confront the person who we feel has offended us.  Let’s practice taking leave of our grudges or hateful thoughts and think instead about forgiveness.  It is a form of loving that Jesus taught us and it may provide many graced moments.

 

Work

One of the lesser known monuments in this city is a beautiful small garden off of Massachusetts Avenue dedicated to the Lebanese-American author and poet, Khail Gibran.  I visited it today and was moved once again by Gibran’s reflections and incredible wisdom.  One particular quote was carved in the stone of a bench and I was surprised to learn it belonged to him.  For many years I have understood it as folk wisdom, and it is something that I have tried to remember and apply to my life.  He said, “Work is love made visible.”  That is an amazing thought.  What we do with our lives is how we make our love visible to the world.  What work we choose, what work we do, and how we do it is how our love is made visible to others, and to the world.

So, how do we do our work?  Do we do it with the love that shows others how full our hearts are?  Or, do we do it just to be done with it and get on to something else more entertaining?  “Work is love made visible.”  That’s any work we do – our chosen profession – and the mundane tasks of everyday life.  And, if our work is truly how our love is made visible, perhaps we would do well to think about that as we go about our work.  It could be a graced moment.

 

The necessity of dryness

I learned a very interesting little bit of information the other day while catching a tidbit of a cooking show.  I never knew that when you leave bread out in the air to dry so that it will soak up more liquid all that happens is that the bread becomes stale.  If you really want to dry the bread so that it will soak up more liquid, say for French toast, bread pudding, or turkey dressing, you need to put it in the oven for a bit to actually dry it out.  The oven temperature evaporates the liquid content in the bread leaving it ready to receive the liquids you want it to contain for your recipe.

This just amazed me!  And I couldn’t help but think that perhaps we are much like that bread.  If we meet periods of dryness in our lives, without really withstanding any heat, all that happens is we become stale.  But, if we allow ourselves and our spirits to embrace the dryness and endure the heat of arid times in our spiritual lives, then we will be ready – more ready – to receive the wonderful refreshment God has in mind for us and we can be transformed into something new.

Such periods of spiritual dryness may be necessary for us to fully receive the life of the Spirit we are offered.  It may be necessary for us to dry out all that is not of God in our lives so that we can be hydrated again with all that is God, offering the wonderful recipe of God’s love, compassion, and acceptance to the world.

Spiritual dryness and excessive heat in our lives may be graced moments.  Embrace them.

Stories

Stories are really containers.  Our stories are the boxes and packaging, tape and string that hold the graced moments of our lives.  Stories allow us to re-live and re-tell the joys and sorrows of our days; to remember and share what it was we were doing, seeing, thinking, feeling, or experiencing.  Without stories, our days and the experiences of grace we encounter would be lost.  So, our stories become sacred containers!

Yesterday I walked down to the Mall amid the sun and budding spring trees.  I saw “Beau,” the First dog, walking out on his lawn behind the White House.  I marveled once again at the monument to the great courage of those who fought in WWII, both over seas and on the home front.  I wondered about my future and the future of this country, and I inspected the cherry blossoms on the tidal basin to see when they might be ready for picture perfect photographing.

It was a beautiful day!  I felt free and unhurried and I stopped to take all the pictures I wanted.  While some of the trees are beginning to bud, the cherry blossoms are still tightly closed protecting themselves from the fickle weather.  All the cherry trees, that is, but one – a single tree with southern exposure – was just beginning to expose the tiny cracks in its buds that allowed a bit of pink petal to show through.

It made me think of our lives and how sometimes we hold our stories so tightly that no one or no things can penetrate our hard exteriors.  It’s Lent and Spring is approaching.  It’s time to open up and share with others what has been growing inside of us through the darkness of winter.  Let’s use these days to remember our stories, the graced moments, and to relish how God is present and working in our lives.

 

Like a tree

I couldn’t help but be moved by today’s scripture readings.  Both Jeremiah 17:5-10 and Psalm 1 make reference to the person who trusts in the Lord.  Such a person is like a tree planted beside waters where they can stretch out their roots to the stream and never fear the drought when it comes.

Would that we all could let our roots go deep to the still waters of life in the Spirit.  I think that may be another grace Lent offers us.  This season gives us an opportunity to plant ourselves beside the waters so we can grow and stretch our roots out again and again, closer and closer toward the source of life we thirst for.  And, at the end of this Lenten season, we do not go back to the way were before – as if this were just a practice time to see if we could achieve something.  No, Lent is a time to extend ourselves beyond what we are now, to practice new ways of being and living, so that once Lent is over, we will have incorporated new habits and become a new person, more closely conformed to Christ our Lord.

So, we must practice the traits this season that we want to reflect to the world for the rest of our lives.  Like a tree planted near running water, with roots stretching deep to the source of all life, we can find strength and fruitfulness even in times of drought.  Graced moments can sustain us like the freshness of cool water.

Amazing to think about.  Even more amazing to live.

 

A Thought to Remember

As Lent progresses, it would profit us to remember the words and thoughts of the great theologian, Rahner.  He reminds us that if God is going to speak to us, that communication will come to us in the ordinary events of our days and our experiences . . . . the very ordinary events of our days and our experiences.

What is God speaking to you today?

Confused again

Nature is confused again.  The trees are beginning to bud, the daffodils are out, the children’s toys are in the community sand box and today it’s trying to snow.   When nature experiences such moments of confusion, why are we so hard on ourselves when we do?

I often find myself wanting to go back, to revisit something I’ve done before, return to an old place that I found so familiar and comforting, or replay the great successes in my life.  It’s a longing to go back to a more uncomplicated time, a time when we thought we had all things in order and there was no confusion.

But, we cannot go back, no matter how hard we try.  We can hold all those moments in memory and cherish them, but we cannot go back and relive them.  They are gone forever.

Any journey – especially the spiritual journey – is one that only goes forward.  In following Christ we must be willing to face the unknowns, the unfamiliar, the new thing we have never done before.  There is no going back.  We can only go forward.  And every movement forward – in our lives, in our relationships, in our families, in our jobs, in our leisure pursuits, in our life of faith – is a graced moment, with our companion, Christ, traveling with us.  Cherish and remember it.  Because soon this moment, too, will be a memory and we will be moving forward.

The weather forecast for mid week is 70 degrees.

Family

Ever wonder where you belong in the world? Where you can go to be no one but yourself?

Well, we all have a family and families can be the most wonderful of people.  Families can accept us for who we are, or they can add to our levels of stress by encouraging us to be better than we are at the present moment – sometimes both at the same time.

I ran across this quote from Pope Saint John XXIII the other day and couldn’t help but feel inspired.  He said, “I am of the same family as Christ — what more could I want?”

And, aren’t we all?  Christ is constantly and always accepting us as family members.  Accepting us for who we are right at this moment, yet at the same time constantly challenging us to be more.  Such is the life of the disciple.  At each graced moment along the journey we are both accepted and challenged, yet always, always, always loved by God.  What more could we want?

 

 

Awake

As I walked this morning I saw numerous daffodils lifting their heads and awaking from the hard, packed, winter soil.  It’s chilly and only half sunny, but they are arising.  It was a reminder to me no matter how long our winter, no matter how packed our soil, no matter how strongly held our opinions or attitudes, our grudges or our personal hurts, nature and Lent always gives us a chance to awake and begin again.

All that time in winter darkness should give us enough strength and nourishment and enough desire to rise above the darkness, to risk awakening to the present graced moment, and to begin again.

Daffodils do it every spring.  And so can we.

Prayer

How many times have we told ourselves that Lent will be a time where we will pray more?  Yet, after a few days we realize that we are not very practiced prayers and we end up continuing our prayer with the not very creative memorized prayers of our youth.

St. Teresa of Avila may be able to help us.  She said if we know how to speak to a dear friend, we know how to pray.  Marvelous, isn’t it?  Now all we have to do is realize that God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit are our dear friends!  Then we can pray and speak to them with truth and sincerity about what is going on in our lives – just as we would to a dear friend over a cup of coffee.

And, there is no requirement that we be in church, or on our knees, or take some special posture to pray.  We can pray and carry on our conversation with our dear friend while taking a walk or walking the dog; while sewing or knitting; while sitting in our favorite chair.  The conversation is what is important.

And after we have shared what we want to share with our dear friend, take some time to listen, in quiet, for a response.  God wishes to communicate with us as well and each moment of our lives can be a graced moment where God is trying to speak to us.  Let’s not forget the time in prayer for listening.