There is a light in this world, a healing spirit more powerful than any darkness we may encounter. We sometimes lose sight of this force when there is suffering, too much pain. Then suddenly the spirit will emerge through the lives of ordinary people who hear a call and answer in extraordinary ways.
– Mother Teresa
I see this light in Pope Francis and am very thankful for such light to be recognized in these times. Of course, it would have been sweet to have a Pope Teresa ….
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Yesterday Ireceived a beautiful Hubble photograph of the Orion Nebula rendered on to canvas. It was a gift from my daughter and her husband given with this message: “Hope the divinity of the creation of Orion’s Nebula fills you with joy and awe”. It does. I have a DVD of the Hubble telescope photos set to music and every time I see it, I weep at the exquisite beauty hidden away in the heavens for millennia. And now I also have a beautiful reminder to look at every day.
When I told my mother about this beautiful gift, her comment was, “and to think we all thought Edwin Hubble was a kook!”. Mr. Hubble was from my hometown of Wheaton, Illinois. Mom went to Wheaton Community High School way back in the day when Edwin Hubble’s telescope sat in what is now downtown Wheaton. She remembers walking past it and laughing with her classmates about this kooky scientist!
This reminds me that greatness is seldom either appreciated or recognized in it’s own time. And that perhaps it would be wise to be circumspect when confronted with things we do not understand.
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May nothing wind you up, nothing affright you; everything comes and goes. God, still, is just there; through patience all will be achieved. If you have God, you lack nothing. God alone will do.
– A Prayer by Teresa of Avil (trans. by James Alison)
There is nothing that gets me off track more tham being “wound up” in a way that seems beyond my control. This happens most often when I am feeling insignificant. If I remember this in time, it reminds me to just breathe in God’s presence. If I don’t remember, God has blessed me with an understanding and ever calm husband. He too is God’s presence.
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One of the most annoying aspects of my primary health challenge is my impaired brain, not so fondly called “brain fog” by my fellow sufferers. Perhaps being 60 has something to do with it but most days the Oz song “If I Only Had a Brain” is the background music to my life. At one time, I did have one. A brain that is. I miss it.
Today I’ve been trying to learn to download a book through Dropbox and trying to understand what the excitement about the Higgs Boton is all about. These two things are equally baffling. I think I remember a time when I could figure things out but then I remember the grade I received in Pysics 101. It was a “C” and that was a gift. Maybe I never was as smart as I remember being. Humbling thought.
Thank God for friends whose brains still work. Mike walked me through the Dropbox and told me it wasn’t necessary for me to understand the Higgs Boton thingy. Such understanding would not improve my quality of life in any way.
Do you ever feel left behind in this ever evolving technological world? I’m thinking that maybe it’s okay as we get older to not be on the cutting edge. Perhaps the world needs something else from us like taking the time to think, and communicate, and ponder, and to stay calm in the knowledge that all things will pass. Even when my brain feels like a vat of glue, I still can listen and occasionally be wise. I’m thinking this world needs the wisdom of it’s elders even more than it needs me or any of us non-scientists to understand electromagnetic fields and that thingy called the Higgs Boton.
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I have a confession to make. I am naturally a very judgmental person. Not in the usual ways one might think of but rather in any given situation, I know exactly how things ought to be. Sounds ridiculous I know but I am a natural born fixer. You’ve heard the saying “if you are a hammer, everything looks like a nail?”. Well, if one is a fixer, everything looks like it needs fixing. This is quite an exhausting way to live. One would think that having a chronic, energy sapping illness would have cured me of this “dis-ease” but no. Now I still see most things as needing fixing but know I can no longer attempt the fix. To counteract this foible of mine, I have been intentionally looking at others as beautiful creations of God, perfect just as they are. This has proved quite delightful.
Today, I went to my gym for my own improvement. I do a series of water exercises. As I came to the pool, I asked the gentleman in one lane “Can I share this lane?”. He smiled as he said “Of course!”. Immediately I heard my Grandmother’s voice in my head saying “May I not can I”! As soon as I crossed paths with the gentleman I apologized and said “I should have said may I”. It turned out he was a retired grammar teacher! What are the chances? I think this little joke on me is a reminder to see myself as also beautiful and just as I am meant to be, for purposes beyond my need to know.
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God be in my pain and in my enduring. God be in my plans and in my deciding. God be in my mind and in my growing. God be in my limbs and in my leisure. Amen.
From Coventry Cathedral
Thoughts: there is only one way to oneness with the Divine which is Christ in us but there are many understandings of the process. It does not matter because we see as if through a mirror darkly , our understanding compromised by our experience and culture and fears. It is God’s grace, God’s will to bring us home to God’s Self. Frankly, it isn’t our business to determine if God is doing that “right” for ourselves or anyone else. What is required is basically self-acceptance, mentally resting in the knowledge that Christ is at work in all our foibles, ideocentricities, talents, passions, even our fears. All that we are is God’s temple.
12/12/11
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Let nothing disturb you, nothing dismay you. All things are passing, God never changes. Patient endurance attains all things. God alone suffices.
-Saint Teresa of Avila
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A dear friend of mine texted the following to me this morning:
My morning mediation I decide to play something different in the background – so I dial up the mediation station in Pandora… Settle into my chair… Relax. Ahhhh
So I’m now about 15 minutes into this wonderful relaxing music and the message come through…”are you tired of waxing and shaving?….” Commercial message that is… Note to self. Don’t meditate to Pandora unless you buy the commercial free package.
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And Mary said: “My soul glorifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has been mindful of the humble state of his servant. From now on all generations will call me blessed, for the Mighty One has done great things for me— holy is his name. His mercy extends to those who fear him, from generation to generation. He has performed mighty deeds with his arm; he has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts. (Luke 1:46-51 NIV)
Mary’s song is my favorite part of the Christmas story even though is is placed while Jesus is still in the womb. There is a peice of Christmas that gets lost in my country and it is this: God despises arrogance. We hear this first in Mary’s Song and then again in the singing of Heavenly Angels to poor, despised, hard working shepherds. We see it in Christ Jesus lowly birth and then in Herod’s attempt to over-power the Promised Messiah by slaughtering untold numbers of baby boys under the age of two. I heard a radio preacher recently proclaim that the one thing God cannot stand, throughout the teachings of the Bible is pride. I believe the meaning of this term is arrogance, not pride in a job well done.
In this season of Christmas and New Years, my prayer is that this country which I so love, and am so hopeful about, will turn from our arrogance of power and bend our knees to the God who deigned to come to earth as a helpless child to inexperienced parents in a place of lowly animals celebrated only by despised and filthy barely awake shepherds. May we open our sleepy eyes. Blessed Christmas to all.
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The least often told part of the Christmas story is the slaughter of baby boys done at Herod’s behest. And now, just a few days ago, in the midst of this Christmas season, we have been horrified at the slaughter of innocents as well as of our own innocence in Conneticut. It is only natural that we look for something or someone to blame other than the murderer himself. I think this is a time for us to mourn together as a nation and ask ourselves how we have gotten to this place. The answers to this question will be many things, not just one thing such the lack of prayer in school or the proliferation of guns. These far-too-often massacres are evidence of a rise of evil in our society, an evil empowered because we have lost our center, no longer seeing ourselves as a nation under God but as a collection of consumers centered in self gratification.
However, I do not believe that these particular children and teachers died because of the lack of prayer in school. These children were children of faith. Psalm 139 reminds us
Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast. If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me,” even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you. (Psalm 139:7-12 NIV)
God’s ways are not ours. I believe there have been many murders of children, including the slaughter of the innocents at the time of Jesus’ birth that are beyond our understanding. It is when we admit that we truly do not understand that our faith is strongest. Breathe in God’s peace even as we mourn. Remember that history is beyond our grasp. But it all is in God’s hands, even the ugliness and horror. This life is merely a flicker of a much larger story. Even so, there is something required of us – we must let God fill our own hearts so that God’s light can shine through us in these very dark days. Be the Light whatever your circumstance. The darkness can not overcome us.
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