Month: January 2021

“Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the LORD God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the LORD God among the trees of the garden” Gen 3:8

Why do we hide from the very presence we need and long for?

When I am agitated, and restless, I try to sit still and just focus on my breathing and then listen to the voice ofGod within. The question that often arrises is the same one originating in the garden, “Why are you hiding?”

I think we hide from the true presence when we fear that reality is too painful to embrace. We thing going around and not through will save us. We hide in work, in various activities and entertainments when we cannot bear to be fully present to ourselves. Being truly present to ones self is essentially the same as being present to God.

As Adam hid among the trees, I picture myself hiding in the noise and news of each day, in the Netflix-fix, in the compulsive need to work, when it could easily wait. Why am I avoiding the very thing I need to encounter.

In the words of Henry Nouwen, “We need to drink the cup of our own lives”. There is no other way to experience God’s grace, there is no other visitation but the one your are presently hiding from in present moment of life.

Surrender is the core principle of spiritual growth, but it can be missunderstood as passivity when it is really an active and intentional stance. Detachment and letting go is not a withdrawal but a new form of engagement that springs from an inner freedom.

In the spiritual life there is always a tension between action and contemplation, between withdraw into prayer and service in the world. But this is a false dichotomy. The deeper the self-surrender and detachment we are led into, the greater the call to action, justice, and mercy. Detachment does not remove the imperative to love, but set us free love completley.

The Holy Spirit leads us further into our human nature, and draws us deeper into communion with others. It pulls us out from the isolation of ideas into the duty of love. We are made for community, to serve and be served. As St. John Paul 2 says, “We only discover ourselves in the gift of ourselves”.

In the natural order when something is letting go and dying, it is actively giving life to its surrounding community. The creature who lays down to die in the woods transitions from consumer to consumed, becoming one with the woods, the very fertilizer that fuels new life. We must accept and surrender to life in its fullness and the only way to do this is to love.

I am surrounded by abundance. I have financial and physical security. There is healthy fresh food to eat, clean water and rich wine to drink. I am surrounded by natural beauty and in loving relationship to family and friends.

So why is there still the nagging, gnawing question, “Is there something more I should be doing”? Have I turned away from Christ who lives in the disguise of the poor?

There is so much pain and suffering in this world that I am protected from. Should I feel guilty or grateful, or both?

I feel powerless to effect real change but that is no excuse for not engaging in the struggle and doing something, even just one little thing.

I choose security but my truer and deeper need is for purpose. And that only comes with some measure of risk, the risk of engaging with others, the risk of taking up new challenges. The risk of Love that steps into action and make sacrifices.

The late John Lewis, congressman and non-violent civil rights activist made the striking comment during an interview; “In the end, we all have to be willing to place our bodies in the way of injustice and hate”.

If our commitment to justice lives only in our minds and the sentiment of the heart then it is not the radical love that Jesus invites us into. Love involves the full body, because it is the concretizing of God’s spirit active in our world. True freedom involves a willingness to put our very bodies at risk.

If we think about the relationship with our family members and loved ones, we know instictively that we just need to keep showing up for each other. Its natural, no matter if its an exciting moment or ordinary dull expereince. Just to be together through it all is what people in love want to do. They belong to each otther and so they put in the time together. We are God’s beloved children and so it is really natural that we also “show up” to spend time in His presence. Sometimes we will feel a closeness, and other times we just struggle with distraction, frailty and limits. Both are good times spent in our Father’s House.