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November 1999

ADVENTURE OF THE HEART

We learned from him all about how to wish upon a star, and what happens when one tosses a walnut along the lane on a summer's day. Secretly, we always surmised that Grandpa John had traveled with the Magi. His personal goodness and holiness of life annoyed us at times, mostly because our own behavior usually suffered from the contrast.

One late autumn evening, we sat with him, gazing upwards at a spectacular star lit sky. It happened right before our eyes. The star did not simply drop to the earth, as it sometimes does, but instead skipped across the darkness to another star. Grandpa John told us that when this happens, we should make a wish, and added that he always wished he would go to heaven. Our eyes got bigger, and our mouths stayed open, as we pondered all the many wishes in our young hearts. Besides, it sounded like these wishes would come true.

With that, Grandpa John stood up, stroked his long white beard and straightened his suspenders. He said that it was becoming chilly and that he would be going to bed. That night, this other Magi of ours joined the stars.

The ancients believed that we all carry a star within us, that if we follow that star, it will take us where we should go and will bring us happiness and fulfillment.

I have often thought about this personal star. What is it, really, and what is its character? It seems like our heart's yearnings could be a star, as also the continual quest for life's meaning. Then, too, some people have the sense that we all carry a wound inside of us. While the wound certainly could come from one of life's happenings, it could also be a natural God-given wound. The mystics, like St. John of the Cross and St. Teresa of Avila wrote about such a wound. This wound, often painful, keeps us on our pilgrimage to God.

As we follow the star within us, a star sometimes reflected in the sky, our feet may grow tired and, at times, our hearts will be heavy, or may even seem empty. Also, it could appear that we are hearing a different message from those around us.

In the end, the Magi of old found much more than the gifts they brought with them. At that sacred moment of worship, they experienced themselves fully at the same instant that they experienced God. And then, they disappeared from the scene, returning home by a different way, forever changed.

We are left with the story and the mystery. We are left with the star- our star. No matter how faint the glow, no matter how small or far away, this star keeps on shining. It is still in our skies.

By: Sr. Mary Jo Loebig

LIVE THE LIFE YOU IMAGINE

Recently, I participated in a rather unique, but commonplace, type of paraliturgy. The setting was a gift shop in New York. The group consisted of ten people, or so, involved in the ritual of bonding with special greeting cards mounted on tall skinny turntables. The atmosphere was one of quiet and meditation.

When I returned home with the fruit of my probing search, I reflected on the cards I had chosen, and used them for prayer. One of the cards bore a quote from Thoreau. It read, "Live the life you have imagined." Surprisingly, my first thought was not one of my own personal dreams, but that of what an ideal community might be, whether it be that of religious life, the community of married life, or simply the community of common life in the workplace. When I awake each morning, what is the world I would most like to see? It is taken as a given that most people would want to see a world where the poor are satisfied and the oppressed liberated. But as we come closer to our everyday homespun situation, what is the life we imagine?

For me, the life I imagine is a world where people are happy and living in harmony, where there is stimulating and creative work for all. I imagine a world where everyone has adequate rest, companionship and time for exercise, and where people believe that they can profit from any life situation, knowing that God is always at work loving this earth of ours. Secretly, with apologies to John of the Cross, I imagine a world where people have a felt experience of God daily, a felt experience which bolsters and strengthens one's faith. In the quote from Thoreau, the verb is in the present tense. I, myself, am called to live the life I imagine, now, and not wait for another, to get it started, nor wait for the ideal situation. Perhaps, it would be good to expand Thoreau's quote to read: Live the life you imagine, today, right where you are, in the context of God's creation which is yours at this moment. Elsewhere, the acclaimed author, Goethe, tells us that whatever we dream of doing, or even think we can do, we should do at once. In addition, St. Ignatius would encourage us to pray for the grace.

THE MORE OF LIFE

Recently, a friend shared with me what it was like to have an almost near Life experience. Some people would refer to this as a near-death experience. In the aftermath of this ordeal, she said that, upon reflection, she was not consumed with the idea that she had unfinished business or with the thought that there was some great and special mission summoning her. Instead, quietly and gently, she felt called by God to experience the more of life, the more of God.

As Fr. Rahner points out, Easter is not a celebration of a past event. The Easter alleluia is not just for what was but for what continues to happen. The alleluia moves forward to its goal and carries us with it. The Risen One moves among us every day, everywhere, pouring out graces, looking at us and at all of nature, leaving traces of God's image in us, clothing all with the beauty of God. In this ambience, John of the Cross has the soul cry out, "Reveal your presence to us."

In the Easter liturgy, the Risen One announces with joy and expectation, "I arose and am still with you, alleluia." The soul cries out, "You rest your hand upon me, alleluia. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, alleluia!" Easter, then, opens up the more of life, hoping that we will desire and look for this more.

But concretely, on a given Monday or Tuesday, how does one get in touch with the more of life? First of all, it is important to desire it, to long for it, to live with our eyes and hearts open to the continuing revelations of God. John of the Cross has the soul going out seeking its Love, heading for the mountains and the watersides, not pausing to gather flowers. Although John attaches his own meaning to flowers, perhaps it would be very good for us these days to pause and notice the flowers, to look for the traces of God as God passes by.

The more of life is in the small moment we take from our busy-ness to commune with the beauties of nature around us. The more of life is in the taste of fresh apple pie, the coo of a baby, the light touch of someone who cares, the brief conversation with an acquaintance. The unasked for lick of a new puppy reveals the traces of God, as does the violet growing in the crack of the sidewalk. The more of life is revealed in the physical ministering to an infirmed loved one. The traces of God as God passes by are also in our tears and darkness. Very likely, it is at times like these that we most palpably experience the tender hand of God resting upon us. Truly, such knowledge is too wonderful.

So, the Easter that took place way back is still happening. It is an Easter continually surrounding us with hope, carrying us into the more of God.

The Risen One has become the heart of the world, the More of Life, the world's secret and inward strength. The Living One has not gone away, but lives among us like the sunlight of day and the air we breathe. This Risen One, so like us, is the eternal restlessness of my heart and of the world. Because of that first continuing Easter, God's story is now lived out in me. Such knowledge is too wonderful!

THE COMPASSION OF GOD

Why is it that the human heart seems attracted to the somberness of Lent? For most of us, Lent means turning inward.

Some people spend this season meditating on the Passion. Perhaps, this is a good place to start. Even though the media is geared to happiness, pleasure and satisfaction, deep down we all know that there is pain, suffering and disappointment in our lives. It seems strange, in some cases, to invite suffering people to do more penance. Perhaps, this is the true meaning of passion.

Lent does us a favor by reminding us that we, by ourselves, will never be able to relieve our own suffering. This relief comes from God working in us, from a God Who so desires to do this for us. The season of Lent can be soothing. In a way, it pours balm on our heartaches.

Lent is also a call to bigness of life. There is a mysticism which could aptly be called the "pain of God", a mysticism in which we come to see dimly as God sees. We come to know that there are some situations in life which God does not intend or desire. Some writers would say that, in these situations, God suffers in us and with us. Our tears and the tears of God become one.

Meister Eckhart says that there is no pain or sorrow which comes to us that has not first passed through the Heart of God. Lent is an invitation to lay our sufferings in that Heart and to walk on bravely, with an air of confidence. Underneath the pain, there is a victory holding everything together. It will not be shaken.

WITH TODAY IN MY EYES

With clever ingenuity and a great kindness, Life somehow put together these two most unlikely people. Buddy was a child of seven. She was a little lady, sixty something, with cropped white hair and a hunched back. Author Truman Capote goes on to recount a childhood memory, he being the Buddy of the story.¹ Buddy referred to the little lady as "My best friend". Marginally, Buddy and Bestfriend lived together in a house with other relatives. For the most part, Buddy and Bestfriend lived their own full and abundant life unnoticed, with few taking note of the deep enviable bond of friendship between the two.

Although Bestfriend was noticeably religious, she allowed her seven-year old friend to be a true boy of his age. Every Saturday, Bestfriend gave Buddy ten cents for the picture show. She herself did want not go. She would rather listen to Buddy tell her the story afterwards. Besides, she wanted to keep her eyes unadulterated and unsquandered so that she would be able to see the Lord clearly when the Lord came.

At gift giving time, Bestfriend had always wanted to give Buddy a bike and Buddy had always wanted to give his best friend a box of chocolate covered cherries. However, buying these gifts was not an option. Instead, they each made gifts for the other, in secret. Usually, both gifts ended up being kites, the most wonderful gifts in the world, we might add. However, one year they did make slingshots.

One day, when the wind was blowing just right, these two champions waded through waist-high grass on their way to the pasture and there, with unfettered hearts, unreeled their kites. After a bit, they sprawled on the grass, warmed by the sun, and watched the expressions of their common spirit play and cavort against a backdrop of clouds. Suddenly alert, almost with a tone of great discovery, Bestfriend smiled at a point beyond and said something akin to, "You know, Buddy, I've always thought that one would have to be sick and dying before they saw the Lord. And, I imagined that when the Lord came, it would be like looking through a church window with the sun shining through. But, I'll wager that this never happens. I'll wager that in the end, a person realizes that she or he has been seeing the Lord all along - in the clouds, in the kites, in the grass and in Queenie, the dog, pawing over a bone. As for me, I could leave this world with today in my eyes."

Can we say that Bestfriend was a mystic? Most people would agree that she was. Did Bestfriend start at the beginning and grow into a kind of everyday mysticism? Very likely.

The winter months that precede Spring are generally regarded as slump time. In Church circles, this interval is referred to as Ordinary Time. But, in actuality, is any time ever really ordinary?

Aware or not, most people yearn for the more of life and to touch the "Other Side of Silence", an expression used by Morton Kelsey. Along this line, there is an old religious custom called the Examen. In this exercise, the serious seeker is encouraged to pause for a few minutes in the middle of the day and to ask, "In what way have I met God this morning? Looking ahead to this afternoon, where am I likely to see God?"

In the book of Genesis (28:16ff), Jacob had a dream. In it, a stairway reached from earth to the heavens. The Lord stood beside Jacob, not at the top of the stairway. And, God said, "Know that I am with you. I will protect you wherever you go and bring you back. I will never leave you until I have done what I have promised."

Jacob awoke, rubbed his eyes and exclaimed, "Truly, God was in this place and I did not know it!"

As I close this reflection, I say to myself, "Today, where have I met God in this place? With all my heart, I do not want to miss such an experience."

(1) Capote, Truman, "A Christmas Memory," A Christmas Treasury, Ed. Jack Newcombe. (New York: Viking Press, 1982) pp. 36-46.

THE GIFT I MOST DESIRE

Some years ago, our monastery put out a Christmas mailing featuring the theme of "Ask for a Christmas heart." The quote went on to describe what a Christmas heart might be.

It seems that one way of describing a Christmas heart would be to say that it is a heart ever open to the coming of God. This gives birth to other probing questions such as, "How do I most desire to experience the coming of God this Christmas, and how does God wish to come to me?" Are these one and the same?

I asked various people just how they most desired to experience the coming of God this Christmas. Here are some of their responses:

1. I wish to be totally changed, totally different from what I seem to be now. I wish to receive the complement of what I have experienced myself to be so far.

2. I ask that God will come as my felt life vision, a vision that will give my life meaning and purpose.

3. I ask that I may be a more effective community member, with spontaneous positive responses.

4. I desire to experience the coming of God as compassion, a compassion I first experience and then pass on.

5. I ask to be illuminated from the inside out, illuminated because of having been in contact with the depths of the Mystery of God.

In reflecting on these responses, I was struck by the fact that people were quietly, somewhat radiantly eager, to ponder the question of how they most wanted to experience the coming of God this Christmas.

Even though God continually comes, we cannot force the manner in which God may choose to come. We can only desire and yearn for this coming and hope that we recognize the ephiphany when it happens. It would appear that the color and the nature of our prayer has been inspired by God also, and thus is a prior gift.

Perhaps during this Christmas time, we should make a point of being alone and quiet from time to time, so that these promptings may surface within us. As we reflect on our life situations, let us accept our human reality in all its forms. Let us "peek under the edges of the ordinary", knowing that this is where God chooses to come to us, and where, at times, God embraces us. In prayer, let us say again and again how we want God to come to us. With great yearning, let us pray it the way we would a mantra. Let it be a new form of Maranatha. Come, Desire of my heart. Enter and make me beautiful within!

CALL OF THE MYSTIC HEART

We can suppress it, resist it, or even pretend it is not there. Still, it can never be destroyed. If it happens at all, it occurs silently in the concrete events of our everyday, with others or when alone. Even when we are with others, it is a second Abiding Presence.

It is mysticism which makes the human heart restless. It is mysticism which quietly tells us that not only is there a beyond to everything but that there is a Gracious Personal Presence always at work within us and through us, gently guiding and holding us in the most humble unsensational moments of our lives.

This beyondness of the human heart comes upon us in various ways.

We experience mysticism in joyful times, celebrations, being with friends and family, in the Baptism of a God-child, moments of special insight, moments when life makes sense, when things are experienced as fitting together and we have the sense that we ourselves are a part of that harmony.

We experience mysticism in our own longings, our hungers, our sense of incompleteness , our feelings of being separated from the very Source of our being.

And, then there is the mysticism of darkness and suffering, that abiding personal call to surrender to Love and growth, the mysticism of human ache and unfulfilled desires, the mysticism of being called to live life, not even knowing the plan of the project, or so it seems.

Another kind of mysticism could aptly be called "the mysticism of the pain of God," those times when we experience life situations and know that this is not the way God really wants things to be. Writers tell us that for this to happen, one usually has had a previous personal experience of God, often quite ordinary. It is as if one has had a brief prior moment of "flight from the world" into the Heart of God, thus enabling one to see things as they were meant to be.

Lastly, there is the mysticism of being on the way every single day. Citing the thinking of Karl Rahner, Donald Buggert refers to this as the primary mystical experience, "the courageous acceptance of life and of oneself" and the willingness to enter fully into the process of being human, knowing that this is where God is found and experienced.

The above reflection by Sr. Mary Jo Loebig was inspired by "Grace and Religious Experience", by Donald Buggert, O.Carm. Published in Master of the Sacred Page. Editors, Keith Egan, Craig Morrison, Michael Wastag.

THE SILVER LINK, THE SILKEN TIE (Sir Walter Scott)

I BRING NOTHING OF MY OWN EXCEPT THE THREAD THAT TIES THEM TOGETHER.* AND EVEN THAT IS NOT MY OWN.

We cannot live without it. It shapes the human heart and directs the whole of everyone's life. There is something deep within which compels us to look for meaning and purpose in life.

A faithful thread runs through each of our lives, a spun silver link, sometimes golden, that connects all the different, and at times disparate, fragments of our windings, our restings and our searchings. The events, through which this thread courses, not only give meaning to our lives, but hopefully embrace the purpose of God.

For some people, this strong and silken thread involves the hunger for intimacy, or simply the continual quest for meaning. For others, the thread runs through the ache for harmony and unity within and without. Sometimes, the slender thread winds in and out of the different aspects of beauty or the commitment to integrity and personal holiness of life.

As one ponders such a mystery, one is prompted to ask, "What is the slender thread that runs through my life?" Maybe, we only recognize the nature of this thread as we look back over the patterns of peace and happiness. Is there a continuity? Is there a pattern in how God leads me? Where do I usually find happiness?

Although this thread is silken and, oh so fine, it is not at all fragile or highly vulnerable. It is most stalwart. It never gives up, and it keeps reappearing. It is as trustworthy as the color of my eyes or the coming of the morning.

This slender thread is a vital part of our own personal myth. If we honor it, eventually it will lead us into the path of mysticism and ultimately into the Heart of God.

Michel de Montaigne

The above reflection By Sr. Mary Jo Loebig was inspired by Balancing Heaven and Earth by Robert A. Johnson.

Embraced From The Beginning

We are told that there is nothing more important in life than this and that this is our chief task on earth. All that matters is to love God with our heart, our whole mind and our whole soul. But, how does one actually do this? How does one love God with one's whole heart?

The Gospel writer goes on to present a story about one's neighbor. One commentator suggests that it is we, ourselves, who are lying on the roadside, wounded and calling out for compassion, hoping that God will pass by, or at least send someone - anyone.

Fr. Rahner writes that sooner or later, before we die, all of us will be asked to love God with our whole heart. He refers to this event as a moment of total decision, a moment in which we totally opt for God. In this moment, we become more fully what we were created to be before God, in the very beginning. It is interesting to note that this event can happen before physical death. In addition, there are other smaller moments along the way, in which we are asked to opt for God with our whole heart, foreshadowing that other wonderful moment of total decision yet to happen. All of these events are written in the Book of Life. Quite probably, we will recognize them when we come before God.

Henri Nouwen intimates that there is a First Love and a Second Love. All human love, the Second Love, is merely a reflection of God's love for us, a love without condition. This Second Love is limited, broken and very fragile. There is always the possibility of being abandoned, betrayed and left wounded along the roadside.

The First Love is unconditional. It is a love that calls us by name with tenderness, that carves us on the palm of God's hand. Nothing, absolutely nothing, can separate us from this love.

Julian of Norwich has a charming account of a hazelnut. She held the hazelnut in her hand. It was so small and insignificant that she was sure it would fade into nothingness. Then, she was given an insight in her understanding. Everything is kept in existence through God's love. We exist this moment because God loves us.

It would appear that we come close to loving God with our whole heart simply by returning to that First Love often, by touching it and by accepting it. Love for others naturally follows.

We were intimately loved long before anyone else ever loved us, or wounded us. Way back there, a still small voice came into existence, oh so secretly. "You are my Beloved, my favored one. I have hidden you in the shadow of my embrace. I hold you with infinite tenderness. Wherever you may go in life, I will go. I will not hide myself from you. You belong to me and I to you. Nothing will ever separate us from each other."