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The Upper Room

The disciples in the upper room were disturbed by the resurrected Christ.

Jesus asks them “Why are you questioning in your hearts”

We typically question things in our minds, so There is something deeper here that the disciples are wrestling with.

We are so afraid of loosing what we have, we grasp and cling to the familiar and we fear the unknown. Jesus is the great un grasper.”He did not count equality with God as something to be grasped but emptied himself”. His self emptying love transcends all barriers, even death.

The challenge of belief is much more than an intellectual ascent of the mind. At its root, it is a decision of the heart, a movement of the whole person. It’s really a decision to let go and risk answering loves call.

Do not be shocked when Jesus appears in your little space. Do not withdraw, or fear. He invites us to touch Him in the disguise of neighbor, daughter, brother, son, stranger. Touch him in the universal wound we share. Discover Him in your humanity. Answer Loves call.

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Joey’s Pizza

A little jewel in the south far away from New York is an authentic New York experience. Joeys is only open four hours a day and no weekends. It’s in a run down industrial park with no other restaurants within  miles. The line wraps around the building. When I reached the counter there was Joey, his wife and two adult children feeding the masses. I hesitated for about two seconds not sure about the pepperoni or the plain and Joey shouts for all to hear, “Come on you’ve been in line for hours and you don’t know what you want?” He didn’t wait for my response, just shouted to his daughter “give em one of each”.

I sat down to wait for my slices and just watched the drama unfold. The daughter was doing everything and it looked like she had eight arms like an octopus, throwing slices in ovens, sprinkling oregano on other slices, serving up salad and pasta simultaneously. Sweat pouring down her face, mascara smeared from the corner of her eyes. she had a ghoulish look about her but she kept a forced smile pasted on permanently while calling everybody “hon”, hon just wait Hun, Its coming hun. The mother stood by the cash register and punched keys, she seemed detached, and had clearly given up control to her daughter.   The son stood in the back staring into his iPhone looking like a deadbeat, do nothing.

A family of six sitting next to me received their 24 inch cheese pie. Steam rising, cheese still in a loose and watery state. I wondered if they would wait three or four minutes until it was perfect for eating or just dive in and and burn the crap out of their mouth’s. It’s amazing to watch human nature, of course they could not wait, they grabbed at slices, pulling them from the mother pie, leaving the cheese behind, and holding up empty crust, and then feverishly trying to scoop the hot heaps and ropes of mozzarella back on to the pie.

All the while Joey is behind the counter cracking jokes and putting on a bit of an act for the whole restaurant. As small sampling of his one liners: “I’m supposed to be retired and look at me sweating my ass off at 65”. “There must be a better way”  “Ah Whadaya gona do”, “hey everybody we have no waitresses but we still take tips here behind the counter”

Finally my two slices came and I could taste my  my old town in NJ, and yes I burned my mouth  but somehow it was worth it.

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Mothers Joy and First Steps

I’m at BWI waiting for a flight to Boston. My mind is on business and all the things that needs to get done today. As I type an email, I notice a woman and child. She is about 30 years old, red top, slender, plain face but magnetic smile and joyful emerald eyes. Her little one is taking his first steps. In an instant busy heads look up from screens, and taught faces soften into smiles. A transient, isolated mass becomes an instant human community awakened in the present moment. It’s was so brief, but the beauty so powerful as to interrupt and trump everyone’s self importance.

As I sit on the plane waiting for takeoff, I make this journal entry and the beauty of the moment hangs around me like a perfume.

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“He did not count equality with God as something to be Grasped” (Phil 2)

Was their an easier way for our God to save us?  Why did he  “empty himself”?

Why did he chose to lead us on such a humble path out of our bondage into freedom?

Perhaps it was the only way to truly reverse the sin of Adam. To lead humanity from its addictive illusion of autonomy and power back to the reality of dependence upon him and intimacy with God. Maybe it was the only way to completely heal our original wound, from the inside out, and return us to a garden more beautiful than Eden.

Why do we “Grasp” ?

Grasping is an act of trying to hold on tightly to something we fear we might lose or can not keep. It is as old as the temptation in the garden. To seek to control an outcome rather than depend on a gift. To put ones life above love.

The deceiver says, surely you will not die, for your eyes will be open and you will become like God. But Adams grasping led to just the opposite, it opened a deep wound, a tear in the fabric of humanity, a degradation of our power to love.

Grasping is both an act of fear and pride. Fear that the gift cannot be counted upon, and pride that I should not need to have to rely upon it at all.

God emptying himself into our humanity is the great Un-grasping, the reversal. It turns all of history, which is about the will to power and control, upside down. It’s the triumph of love over self preservation. Its the conquering of death.

Jesus opened himself up. This is the great symbol of the cross which is the heart of Christianity. He became loves victim. Into the Fathers hands he placed his life. And that love and obedience raised him to life.

Can I cease from my grasping? Can I truly put my life in His hands and trust in Him?

That is the question of Easter.

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Second Sunday of Lent: Mt. Tabor, Jerusalem, and Camels

Our vocation in life requires that we come down off the mountain of ecstasy and religious experience. If we try to stay on the mountain, then we are escaping life, and avoiding the God of Ecstasy in pursuit of just ecstasy itself. Jesus is heading to Jerusalem. Are we going with him? Mount Tabor symbolizes the spiritual nourishment that comes from a deep relational encounter with the living God while we are on the long journey home. Jerusalem symbolizes the resting place of God on earth, but it is also where Gods will and our cross, and we Surrender to his perfect plan and conform to him.

The journey can be long, and what if there is a dessert between Tabor and Jerusalem ?

This is why we need to be spiritual camels. Drinking deeply when ever we pass a spring of living water, or feasting the eyes when reaching a high overlook on the road. Fill your “hump” and keep moving. You can be sure there is another valley or dessert.

Viaticum is bread for the way. The sacramental Eucharistic presence for the dying. But our lived vocations also  have  little deaths or sacrifices hidden within it each day. How can we embrace those crosses courageously if we don’t also learn how to find the deep joyful presence hidden within the day, the Tabor moment. Discover it, kiss it as it moves by, do not linger, keep walking, hump filled, joy filled, toward your Jerusalem.

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Don’t Cut Corners

“Great souls pay much attention to little things” Escriva.

“How you do anything is how you do everything” Rohr

“The little things are the big things” unknown

If these maxims are supposed to hold for all types of temperaments and personalities then it must be about more than being a detail oriented person. I think the underlying virtue here is having the humility to surrender oneself fully to the present moment and not skip over the details. It is also a kind of reverence before the Divine presence that leads one to truly care for the little things and not to try and control the whole agenda, or to be the judge. It comes down to 1Cor13 and what is love.

Love is patient, kind, ….and does not cut corners!

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How Much is Enough?

This seems to be a root question when confronted with the gospel command to give to the poor. How much do I really need to live?

If I am too busy chasing wealth and building my nest egg, then I have no time for the needy, and in some cases I can’t even see the needs. Wealth can separate us from exposure to the poor. And the pursuit of wealth can separate us from ourselves and the real pursuit of happiness.
How do I break free of the fear that what I have will run out? When am I just being prudent and when have I crossed over into building bigger barns and false prudence?
The parable of the rich man and Poor Lazarus is perhaps the most challenging of the whole gospel. What is the hell that this rich man cannot return from?

The isolation he created by his life choices and his use of wealth was not reversible. By stepping over the poor man each day, he effectively declined his invitation to heaven, and locked himself out through this habit of not seeing, not being aware.
The poor are Gods gift to the rich. They are an invitation to step through our isolation, our fear, and our desire to protect ourselves.  To just donate money from a distance may not be enough, we must embrace and engage with the poor or how else can we discern that question: How much do I really need?

As M. Teresa used to say,  poor are all around us. But can we see them? Can we see our own spiritual poverty? This may be the first is the first step to solidarity with the poor.

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Take Up your Cross Daily

As long as we want to decide for ourselves where we will find God…we will only find a touched up version of ourselves. Genuine spirituality begins when we are prepared to die. Could there be a quicker way to die than to let God form our lives from moment to moment as we continually consent to his actions?”
(Into Your Hands Father, by Wilfred Stinissen)

The Crosses we embrace, even the little ones that arise out of the banality and ordinary service we perform, keep us from creating a God in our own image, or a spirituality of self absorption. God will decide the place of encounter, and we just need to surrender to that moment.

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Humility

Humble-Hummus, grounded and rooted in truth.

Breaking down into simple parts and dying.

Seeping into earth and emptying self.

Not in charge, not in control,

serving and sustaining life.

At peace in the lowest place.

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Cloudless Sky

On the clear blue days we need to just let our souls run out ahead of our minds and expand, absorbing the infinite, and tasting the one we love.

Vastness and beauty allows us, if we are present to it, to see  that we are so much more than the thoughts in our minds.

For the contemplative, the external world is a kind of mirror of our interior world. Landscape reflecting “Inscape” (Hopkins) with both pointing to the same truth and beauty. The sky above is as expansive, vast, and eternal as the spirit within (Hillesum).

Do we allow the external and material things in our life to become icons, sacraments, and inter-faces to open us to the divine unseen depths within us ? And does this inter-face lead us into communion with our creator,  into a loving presence, and a merciful embrace?