Two Cents

The widow gives everything she has to God in today's gospel.  I find myself learning more, the longer I live, what "giving everything to God" means for me.  In my early 40's, I find myself in what feels like a macro transition (ok, a mid-life crisis - but only in the Greek sense of the word, a turning point).  For decades I've tried to "dedicate all I have to God."  Even one of my favorite prayers by Ignatius is all about giving everything to God.  But what I'm learning now is that just like the widow's two coins, what I have I did not make.  It was/is all given to me.  In a sense, I don't know where it came from, and I don't innately know how to use it.  It's the process of coming to understand myself, others, and my relationships that I am now called to "give to God."  "Take, Lord, and receive... my understanding."  Was this prayer written by someone who often felt confused about what he was supposed to do?  The evidence is there: decisions that didn't pan out the way he thought, doing "penance" to the point of permanent self-injury.... So, perhaps the wisdom to discover now is a new level of surrender: of my desire to understand, to make sense; of ideas and habits that seem calcified in my mind and spirit; of people I had grown more to possess than to love.  "Whoever loses his life for my sake will gain it."

The rock n roll spirit of Christianity

I just saw 'Bohemian Rhapsody" in the theater.  The story of Freddy Mercury, as told in the movie, moved me more deeply than I ever would have guessed it would.  The story, for me, was at its heart a story of a person who had no interest in what his own culture or surroundings told him he should be.  Instead, he lived his life according to his discerned vocation as a performer.  This has made me think about similarities between his way of living his life and the way of living life as a Christian to which we who profess this way of life are called.  What would happen if all of us who called ourselves "disciples" would live The Way the way Freddy Mercury lived his life: without compromise with or deference to the culture around us?  What if we lived each moment of each day as an expression of the kingdom of God?  What if we loved each other radically and were unabashedly grateful for every moment of existence?  Freddy Mercury and Queen rocked millions of people.  Could the billions of "Christians" around the world rock the entire human community by witnessing boldly the Way of self-sacrificial love for each other?

Getting to know you...

Apparently, getting to know people is a requirement of truly loving them (borrowed from a Ted Talk by Lee Mun Wah entitled "The secret to changing the world" at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hp5SNpCtiWk).

I'm pretty good at loving people by serving them, thinking about them, praying for them.  I'm not great at getting to know them (I'm calling it an area for growth).  I'm nice to people who look, talk and act differently than I, but I usually don't go out of my way to get to know them.  And as Christmas approaches, it strikes me how very un-Christian this is.

For isn't this what Jesus is: God's decision to get to know humanity, which looks, talks and acts VERY differently than God?  And isn't choosing to pass over those who differ from us the opposite of WWJD?  Jesus chooses to be with those who differ from him - those the dominant culture calls "other".  His language and motivations are different from those who rule, and so are misunderstood, and so are punished by the cross.  When I demand that people of good will suppress their languages and motivations because I don't understand them, I am punishing them with the cross of alienation and shame.  Forgive us, Father, for we know not what we do.


As we prepare to celebrate God's coming into the world, may God grace us with hearts to understand - to WANT to understand - each other, so that our Christmas gift to each other can be not a cross, but life.

(Thanks to my co-worker Heather Malveaux for the inspiration!)

Temples

I've lost about 60 pounds over the last couple of years, and I'm hopefully a few days away from achieving my ideal weight as determined by my doctor, myself, and the internet.  Part of the reason I was carrying those extra pounds in the first place, however, is my powerful enjoyment of eating.  I just like to eat.  And after 40 years of liking to eat, I now know it's simply part of my life, and so I mostly concentrate on how to integrate it, as opposed to trying to "fix" it (think unlimited celery, pickles, and sparkling water!)

It's in this context that I received the Eucharist at Mass today.  Sometimes I half-jokingly tell the students I work with, "you are what you eat," when explaining my limited understanding of the Eucharist.  Today during Communion that concept was bridged within me to Paul's notion that we are temples of the Lord (where "my body is a temple" comes from).  As I consumed the Host, something inside me said, "remember: this system - your mouth, tongue, throat, stomach - the whole thing - this is the system by which All that Is, aka GOD, enters and becomes you.  It's the same - the one and only - system by which you eat everything else."  That's part of what makes the system a "temple."

If this mouth, stomach, etc., is the system by which God joins with me more closely than I can imagine (in the Eucharist), then what does that imply about what else I use this system for?  When I'm sitting around considering eating when I'm not hungry, or eating more than I need, or eating something destructive, what am I really considering doing?  Is it an accident that the destruction of the Temple is regarded as one of the darkest moments in Judeo-Christian history?  In those moments, I pray God to remind me that temples are places where holy things happen, and that the temple of my body is the church wherein Jesus enters to become one with me.  May God grant me delight in maintaining this holy place.

The Carpenter

Last week I finished a birthday present for my friend's 50th: I built an extension onto his backyard deck.  To those who know me well enough, this will come as a bit of a surprise, because I don't do construction.  In fact, I don't really do anything the project involved: being outside in the heat of summer, or mosquitoes, or manual labor of any kind, really.  My upbringing, education and career have all been in music - a somewhat more "genteel" enterprise.  I was raised by a generation of parents who hoped we would avoid a life of manual labor by going to school ("You don't want to dig ditches for a living, do you?").  I'll save the economic/political/social conversation about the value of labor for another time.... 

But one of the great things I learned through the experience - and perhaps the most valuable - is what the work felt like.  As I got up each morning, put on my jeans (to protect from bugs, even though it was way too hot), sprayed mosquito repellant all over myself, and headed out to the yard, I was reminded that this was the work done by Joseph and Jesus.  What's more, this is the kind of work done by most people in the world.  Most people don't play the piano and think about Mass - or write blogs - throughout their days.  Most people in the world work hard and pour sweat every day. 

One of my desires in prayer lately has been to live in greater solidarity with the poor, which is to live in greater solidarity with Jesus.  It can be a romantic notion, but once it's experienced it quickly becomes evident that being poor is difficult.  (Now the "poor" I'm referring to aren't the professional laborers who actually make more than I do!  The truly "poor" are the ones who have no choice in the matter.)  I've never actually been poor - I've always had everything I've needed, and just about everything I've wanted.  And I don't presume that a 5-day project for a friend in any way qualifies me to say I've experienced poverty.  If anything, it brings into greater relief the vast gulf between my frankly leisurely life and the exhausting, uncomfortable hardship of most of the world's population.

I guess the most conscious takeaway for me is a deeper respect for those who work hard every day in the grueling heat or other uncomfortable situations to support themselves or their families.  I have been issued a serious challenge to my childhood attitude that "those poor bastards should have gone to college."  It turns out those poor beloved children of God are bonded with Christ in a way that I will never be.

Empathy

Last night the dog I'm sitting (Gulley the Border Collie) was having some trouble with one of his ears.  For the past few days he's been scratching and shaking his head, trying to relieve his discomfort.  Being the scrupulous (i.e., nervous) caregiver I am, I had found a home remedy from a vet online and administered it to him a couple of days ago.  To both our delight, it worked immediately and Gulley found relief.  But last night it started up again.  As it happens, his scratching and head-shaking are somehow much louder at 2am when they wake me up.  And I - like many others - am not at my best when I'm awakened in the middle of the night.  So I yelled at him.  Like a jerk.  Then realizing he wasn't going to stop (why should he? I wouldn't stop scratching if my ear itched, either), I got up and prepared and administered the same home treatment (soapy water, clean water, vinegar and water, cortizone cream).  Expecting the same satisfying results as the last time, I went back to bed.......... and Gulley kept scratching and shaking his head.  At that point, I realized to my deep distress that there was nothing more I could do.  So I reached over and just pet him and spoke softly to him. 

It was in this response that I suddenly realized: this was exactly what my dad has been doing for my mom for the past 14 months as she has undergone chemo for cancer (she's fine now).  And it dawned on me that for whatever distress I was feeling at being the helpless caregiver to this dog, imagine what my dad has been feeling night after night as he caresses my mom's back as she vomits into the toilet at 2am.  So many lessons to ponder: the deep holiness of my father, the value of presence even when it is powerless to "fix", and some insight into Isaiah's "suffering servant."  Empathy can suck, but it's part of being human, and part of what connects us to one another.  I hope to be given the grace to desire it more and more.

One of many

Going to Mass is a pretty rich experience for me, both as a congregant and as a minister.  During the summer, I get to be the former pretty often.  But because I spend the school year in a leadership position in Mass, I always go through a kind of self-conscious transition period as a congregant.  After all, I'm taller than average, my voice is louder than average, and I'm guessing that because my career is in liturgy, I have a deeper than average knowledge of what's going on in Mass.  All great characteristics for leading liturgy (well, the tall thing's not that important, I guess), but not great for trying to be a part of a group - one among many, all doing the same thing.  At times I catch myself being louder than those around me, and I lower my voice.  If I were in middle school, the lesson would be to "use my voice just as it is, since God gave it to me."  But as I enter middle age, I far prefer the lesson - and value - of subsuming my individual traits to become one with the group.  Ritually, this is one of the unique values of Mass - and all communal prayer.  Mass is not a collection of individuals praying individually, it is one Body performing one corporate act.  And the individuals draw strength from the experience of each other.  It's great to be reminded of that for a couple of months, before taking up once again - also gratefully - the leadership role in which I'll spend the ten months of the school year.