Humility and Freedom

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I know Lent is over, but this post from last year has been on my mind lately. I need to write much more about this. Stay tuned.

And please, do share what you need freedom from in the comments so I can pray and ponder with you.

In 2005, on a trip to the island of Crete, I visited the grave of the writer Nikos Kazantzakis. I remember his grave being hard to find, for such a famous landmark. Finally my friends and I drew close to it, the shadows growing long by now. Etched on the headstone in gracefully looping Greek were the words Δεν ελπίζω τίποτα. Δε φοβούμαι τίποτα. Είμαι λεύτερος. I hope for nothing. I fear nothing. I am free.

Holy Week is fast approaching, and what I’ve learned this Lent is that I’m not yet as free as I want to be.

Maybe it’s actually the lesson of every Lent. Many of us give up something that seems minor and silly, chocolate perhaps, and we’re hit in the gut by how much we long for it. We go without food, a minor inconvenience for those of us who don’t have medical or psychological reasons to abstain, and we are shocked by how much our hunger pangs obsess us. More than that, we realize how numb we are to the things that matter more. We are brought to tears over our caffeine withdrawal, but not by footage of war on the news. We thirst for our tiny pleasures and think we can do without Love itself.

What I gave up this year was Facebook. Sounds like a tiny thing, right? Well, for me it’s a tiny symptom of a much bigger problem: online or off, I live to be liked. I have an approval addiction. If my actions don’t provoke praise, I immediately question their meaning. If I incur even the tiniest criticism, my stomach churns, my muscles involuntarily tense.

And here’s the upshot of all this: when I care so much about what people think, I ignore what God thinks. I thrill to hear a random fellow bus rider say I’m pretty; did I forget I am by definition “fearfully and wonderfully made“? I quickly grow impatient with trying to help someone if I’m not thanked or swiftly shown progress; is that my answer to “Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up“?

I am filled with unreasonable hopes and unrealistic fears. There is a lot of “me” in the way of my freedom. And yet I have one hope I know I can count on: that there is a Higher Power than me, that I don’t have to fix my own brokenness. That Jesus will help me empty myself of my ego so I can be filled with love, like he did in his time here on Earth.

I’d like to close with a prayer for freedom for me and for all us approval addicts. Thank you, Cardinal Merry del Val.

O Jesus, meek and humble of heart, hear me.
Deliver me from the desire to be esteemed,
From the desire to be loved,
From the desire to be extolled,
From the desire to be honored,
From the desire to be praised,
From the desire to be preferred to others,
From the desire to be consulted,
From the desire to be approved.

Deliver me from the fear of being humiliated,
From the fear of being despised,
From the fear of being rebuked,
From the fear of being slandered,
From the fear of being forgotten,
From the fear of being ridiculed,
From the fear of being wronged,
From the fear of being suspected.

O Jesus, grant that I may desire that others may be more loved than I,
That others may be more esteemed than I,
That, in the opinion of the world, others may increase and I decrease,
That others may be chosen and I be set aside,
That others may be praised and I unnoticed,
That others may be preferred to me in everything,
That others may become holier than I, provided that I, too, become as holy as I can.

What This Lent Is All About

Now is the time to say to Jesus: “Lord, I have let myself be deceived; in a thousand ways I have shunned your love, yet here I am once more, to renew my covenant with you. I need you. Save me once again, Lord, take me once more into your redeeming embrace.”

– Pope Francis I, Evangelii Gaudium

I’m Praying for You, Insomniacs

Keep watch, dear Lord, with those who work or watch or weep this night, and give your angels charge over those who sleep. Tend the sick, Lord Christ, give rest to the weary, bless the dying, soothe the suffering, pity the afflicted, shield the joyous, and all for your love’s sake. Amen.

I read this Compline prayer from my little prayer-book before I turn off the light.

Sleep’s always come pretty easy to me. Sometimes I joke that I wish it didn’t, given my tendency to sleep through my morning alarm and always want a little more. But these words echo in my mind, and I start wondering who will be awake through the night tonight.

This woman I’ve known for years through church recently told me she hasn’t had a good night’s sleep in fifteen years. She said this so gently, so lightly, that I almost missed it in the flow of our conversation.

Someone I work with told me she doesn’t ever sleep either, that those days are over for her and I should appreciate the luxury of sleep while I have it.

And then there’s my friend whose husband has Stage 4 cancer right now (click here to learn their story and help them out), who has to be awake before he is, ready to take care of anything he needs.

Or my partner’s father, who is often awakened by noises or just by pressing worries and can’t seem to slip back into dreaming.

Or my friend Andres who works as a janitor late into the night, driving home to his family when they’re all asleep already.

I could go on. There are so many people who are awake through the night, and they need prayer. In the quiet, in the loneliness of the darkest hours of the day, they need prayer. I like that this prayer says Jesus himself is looking after the awake ones, and the angels get deputized to watch the sleeping ones.

I need to pray prayers like this. I need to be reminded that God cares for us, waking or sleeping. I need to keep in mind that God cares for everyone, even in the moments when it seems like the whole world is asleep.

I’ll be thinking of you tonight, friends. I will be wishing peace and rest for you, and most importantly, that you will feel Someone out there caring for you.

This Is My Story

(Photo credit: jakebouma)

Once I was reading Strega Nona to a five-year-old friend, and he expressed genuine anxiety about how it would turn out.

I was surprised. He really thought this book about a friendly witch and her magic pasta pot might end with the entire town being engulfed by pasta? He didn’t see the connection between this story and other stories he knew? I told him I knew it would be okay, and he let me keep reading to the end.

The more you read, the more you learn to make predictions about what may happen next in the narrative. It’s a necessary skill for a fluent reader and it’s a skill that can’t be taught. You just have to keep immersing yourself in the stories over and over until you learn what to expect.

This is why I dive into the Bible again and again. The more I read, the more connections I see between different parts of the story and between the story and my own life. Liturgy does this too; when I attend Mass, I rehearse how to truly live a life centered on Christ. When I recite creeds with other Christians, I’m narrating the common truths that enliven our individual existences. Together, we find the courage to affirm crazy things – that our story won’t end with our deaths, that the poor and those who mourn are blessed.

The culture I live in tells me a different kind of story – a story where death wins, where all suffering is frightening, where illness and imperfection are to be avoided at all costs. It’s this story that makes me wig out over my smallest failures or judge other people. I grew up in a world dominated by this narrative, and it disturbs me how quickly I forget any other. To truly believe in God, I have to insert myself into the great Story over and over again until I learn to see the patterns.

Jesus said, “Out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks.” My heart must beat with God’s story so the words that spill automatically from my mouth in times of stress will be words of peace. My heart must learn over and over again that my struggles in this life are momentary, are nothing compared to eternal glory. My heart must tell itself over and over to truly love God and neighbor. That’s the backbone of this story.

That’s my new year’s resolution in a nutshell. Read the story. Learn the story. Share the story. Remember that it’s a story about love.

This Year, I Really Do Want World Peace

Photo credit: magnuscanis

Reposted from December 17, 2012. Let’s not forget to pray for peace this Christmas – for hearts that are brave enough to be truly nonviolent, and for a peaceful world.

My partner and I light a candle and read together from Isaiah: “The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned.”

We take a walk to look at Christmas lights in our favorite neighborhood. The sidewalk is a river of families and children, and I find myself praying for their safety. I come home and turn on the Yo-Yo Ma holiday album, Songs of Joy and Peace, on which no fewer than five tracks are versions of “Dona Nobis Pacem.” I’m glad to have it repeating, filling my ears and my mind.

I’ve never felt such a desire for peace at Christmas, such an urgent hope for light. The events of the last few weeks have made the darkness seem so great. Not just the darkness of death, but also the darkness of not knowing why. With the shooters dead, there is no way we can really know what was going through their minds when they brought death and terror to so many. We analyze, hypothesize, call for change, and so we should, but deeper questions remain. Why does such darkness exist in our hearts? Why such a thirst for violence? What is wrong with this world?

It’s easy for people like me to forget that every Christmas comes to a dark world. Thousands of children die daily around the globe. Some are killed, while others die from hunger or disease, and few of us outside their communities or families notice or care. Jesus was born, too, into a world of senseless violence, especially against children. The Gospel of Matthew reports that, threatened by the birth of a baby King, Herod arranged a massacre of all boys two years old and under in Bethlehem and the surrounding area. While scholars disagree on the historicity of this story, it doesn’t seem out of character for Herod, who famously killed his own sons.

Not a part of the Christmas story most of us think about.

So, yeah, it’s pretty much always been dark out there. It’s dark in here too, in my heart, behind my eyes. That’s harder for me to forget than the outer darkness, but I believe it’s all connected. I used to think I wasn’t a violent person. Little old five-foot-three, skinnybones, Prince-of-Peace-believing me? I’ve never laid a punch in my life, and I’m even gun-shy in video games. Yet when I sleep easy while nations war on my behalf, can I really say my hands are clean? And there are those who know me well enough to give a list of the damage I’ve done in a single moment of stupid rage. Mostly words are my weapon of choice, but who’s to say that in a different situation, I might not make a worse choice? Am I not capable of just as much as anyone else?

So I pray for light to flood the world and illuminate the shameful places in me. I pray for peace on earth, as audacious and crazy as that sometimes feels. But that’s the very beauty of Christmas, the way it calls us to believe six impossible things before breakfast, starting with the idea that a virgin can give birth. That this could be the birth of a person fully God and fully human, the unknowable Divine suddenly with fingerprints and a heartbeat. That God would stoop to sneak into our world one dark night, let himself be shoved into a stable for heaven’s sake, and take the shape of one more fragile little child. That he would grow up to teach enemy-love and the blessedness of peacemakers, then become the ultimate innocent victim of violence. That his horrific death would transform into abundant life for all the world. And that he himself would be Light for us.

Against all reason, even while I mourn the dark, I will cling to that Light this Christmas. Like so many before me, I will pray with all my heart:

Agnus dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, dona nobis pacem. Amen.

P.S. Here is another prayer I like for peace, a peace that starts with me.

My Plan for a Red Letter Year

Happy Advent, everyone! Hard to believe it’s here already. It’s the beginning of a new year for the Church, a new cycle through the liturgical seasons, and the perfect time to discern where Jesus is calling me to go this year.

So I’m listening, trying to figure out how to follow him more closely. Lately, it’s become clear to me that there are a lot of voices easier for me to hear than his. I’ve been conforming to the ways of the world instead of being transformed by the renewing of my mind. I need to listen to the Spirit, a still small voice which is often so hard to hear, and not harden my heart to it.

I’m feeling called to do a few simple things intensely this year. I was just reading another wonderful book by Henri Nouwen called Reaching Out: The Three Movements of the Spiritual Life. The book gives guidelines for building a spiritual life that can move you from loneliness to solitude, from hostility to hospitality, and from illusion to prayer. The basic elements of spiritual life, according to Nouwen, are three:

1. Reading of the Word/Scripture

2. Silent prayer

3. Spiritual guidance/direction

Something clicked when I read Nouwen’s words. I’m being called to focus on all of these things right now, things that may seem basic but which I still struggle to embrace consistently and prayerfully. I want to form small, sustainable good habits this year (15 minutes of prayer, a psalm before bed, a letter written to a spiritual mentor) that can grow and invade my whole life like a mustard tree from a tiny seed, like swelling dough from invisible yeast.

I don’t want these guidelines to be burdensome for me. My New Year’s resolutions often are, often have a subtle tone of Be better this time! No, listening to Jesus in the Word, in silence, in the voices of respected teachers, should help me lay down my burdens and be healed.

Even as I work on basics, the small things, I’m also feeling called to stretch myself. Doing things that scare me is the true test of my faith, and I want to be engaged with the world, like Jesus was. So in addition to my more personal, internal efforts, I’m also going to try this year to engage issues of justice in a peaceful, respectful, caring way that embodies my Christian values.

To guide my thoughts and actions and writings about justice, I plan to use the lovely little book Common Prayer: Pocket Edition. Every month, this book gives a value of the New Monastic movement to focus on, to read about, and practical ways to put faith into action (as the book puts it, “becoming the answer to our prayers”). The value for December is “living in the abandoned places of empire” – a pretty appropriate meditation, I think, as we go deeper into that Empire-led season of consumerism.

Again, my aim in all this shouldn’t be political correctness or alleviated feelings of guilt, but rather a commitment to listen more closely to those red-letter words of the Bible, the teachings of Jesus, and not just to listen, but also to act.

I hope you’ll enjoy the ride this year, and as always, thank you for journeying with me as I seek to fall ever more in love with Jesus.

As we enter the season of Advent, do you have any thoughts about how you want to grow spiritually in the coming year?

When It Doesn’t Feel Like a Wonderful Life

Is there such a thing as Holiday Baking Anxiety Disorder? Because if so, I definitely have it.

I made some pie crust on Wednesday night, and it came out tough and brittle, and I didn’t have time to redo it, and I kind of lost my mind. This comes on the heels of me flipping out over the failed caramel apples for Halloween.

And now I’m remembering many other failed batches of baked goods that I let ruin holidays. Cookies destined for care packages that melted all over the pan. A lemon cake for my little brother’s birthday that looked like it got sat on. No-bakes for a visit to a friend that crumbled in my carry-on bag.

In retrospect, of course, all these things seem totally silly. Baked goods are a way I like to show love, but when they flop, it doesn’t mean my love is worthless or unwanted. But ridiculous as it seems, in the moment, that’s how I feel.

It’s definitely a pattern with me. I hate showing external failure, no matter how small it really is in the scheme of things. And when I’m backed into a corner and can’t help but show it, I feel like my life is meaningless.

In those moments, I always wish for the angel to show up like in It’s a Wonderful Life. I want proof from God that my life does have meaning, that people are better off because I was here, that I have worth even when I feel like I look worthless to the world.

Well, so far God hasn’t sent an angel.

What’s up with that, God? How come only Jimmy Stewart gets one? How am I supposed to know you love me even when my feelings tell me otherwise?

Oh… I’m supposed to just believe it? You mean, have faith? Take seriously all those promises in the Bible about how God will never leave me or forsake me and loves me enough to have died for me? Keep perspective on the things that really matter, remembering that success without love is nothing and humility in failure will always be met with grace?

But that’s so much harder than in the movies.

In all seriousness, I need to stop waiting around for the angel. I can’t truly live if I’m addicted to praise and afraid of messing up. I may never be able to see the true worth of my life while I’m alive – and that’s okay. In fact, it’s even kind of normal.

Paul talks about this in Hebrews. He gives us this long list of Bible folks who did outrageous things because of their faith: Abraham, Sarah, Enoch, Noah, Isaac, Jacob, Rahab, Moses. Did any of these people get proof of the promises God made them while they were alive?

No! As Paul says, “These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised…” Their faith itself was the goal, the ability to believe things would turn out okay even when all signs pointed to worthlessness and failure.

We all need to have “confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.” That’s what helps us keep going when things feel too overwhelming. We need to believe there is hope, hope that is more real than our feelings of despair.

So I’ll try to see my Holiday Baking Anxiety Disorder as an opportunity to strengthen my faith and my patience. I’ll keep you posted on my progress. Christmas cookie season is just around the corner…

Broken and Blessed

So remember that post I did about how I want to be healed?

Apparently I didn’t want it as badly as I thought.

In that post, I announced my intention to get a therapist and/or spiritual director to help with some pesky issues. But then I just didn’t do it.

I didn’t do it because I felt empty, lacking in so many things: time, money, energy to navigate The System of getting help. And I, by the grace of God, am not currently burdened with the kind of mental or physical health issues that can be such a huge drain on these things. Mine are just the normal demands of bills, job, and life.

In one sense, my lack in those areas can’t be denied. But aside from that, I think the issue is the very thing I outlined in the original blog post: I don’t want to ask for help. I don’t want to define myself as someone who needs help. In short, the real issue is my pride.

I love to be seen as someone who helps people, who prays for people. I’d rather see everyone else as in need of my help. I want to believe I can fix all my problems myself… with God, of course. But the thing is, if I could just do that, I would have done it by now. And the longer I wrestle with unhealthy relationship patterns and long-buried issues without any real solution, the more I and the people I’m close to suffer. Ironically, I become less and less able to help others. I’m so blinded by the stick in my eye that I cannot see clearly to help others with the things that blind them.

I so easily forget that Jesus loved needy people. He was always hanging out with them. Lepers, outcasts, untouchables: he loved them. And he said God loved them too, maybe especially so. In the end, we are all fragile, we are all broken, in different ways. Blessed, Jesus said, are those who know it.

It’s time to let go of the notion that I’m different from others, that they are the ones with the problems and I’m the one with solutions. The fact is, we’re all struggling at different levels, and we all need help. The time has come to root out my pride and realize I am a broken person… and my very brokenness is blessed.

Now to pick up that phone and call some therapists. But I may need help even for that.

So do you mind if I ask for your prayers: for healing, for wholeness, for the courage to seek it?

What Is Worship? (Why I Go to Church, Part 3)

In case you missed them, here are Part 1 and Part 2 of the Why I Go to Church series.

Not long ago, the question came up in my church community: What is the difference between worshiping Jesus and following Jesus? When our community gets together on Sundays, is what we’re doing worship?

To my surprise, a lot of people immediately said no. They had a lot of negative connotations with the word worship. To them, to call our services worship meant Jesus wasn’t present in our lives except on Sundays.

Now, personally, I love worship and I have no issue with calling it that. So this discussion got me thinking: what is worship to me, and why do I love it so much?

Although I’m a very analytical person at times, for me, worship is an emotional and on some levels mystical experience. Consequently, anything I try to say about it will necessarily be incomplete. But since that’s never stopped me before, I will share some reasons why I love worship and don’t want to part with the word.

The word worship comes from the Old English weorthscipe, meaning “respect” or “worthiness.” Starting my week with a formal worship service reaffirms that God is the center of my life, the most important part, worthy of my love and devotion. And believe me, I need lots of reminding of this. When I put my own desires in the center of my life instead, I give myself implicit permission to hurt other people if my desires aren’t met, and that’s where all the problems start.

Now a little about specific elements of the worship service. I love Catholic worship and other highly liturgical services in particular because they present all my favorite elements all the time. A balanced meal, so to speak.

Things get started with congregational singing. Now, I like singing in my own, in the shower or at karaoke, but there’s really nothing like singing with an entire room of other people.  I mean, not to get too literal about Heaven, but apparently praising God loudly is most of what we’ll be doing there. It feels so good to just sing out your love at the top of your voice in a crowd of others doing the same.

Then, of course, there’s liturgical prayer! First, we declare that we are a community in Christ. Nothing but Jesus brings us together. Despite all of our differences, we are all part of the same Body, which is just as much of a miracle as anything else, if you think about it.

Then we confess our sins as a community. I know a lot of people think this must be horrible, and to be honest it’s not always easy, but with the world as messed up as it is in so many ways, how can we neglect to acknowledge our part in that through the things we’ve done and the things we’ve failed to do, and also voice our desire to change? And as with any apology, when I work up the courage to offer it, and even more when it’s accepted, I feel a great weight lifted and I’m all the more ready to celebrate…

… which is exactly what happens as we raise our voices again to glorify God! This is worship in a nutshell: saying out loud how much God is worth to us and recounting the many blessings we’ve received through Jesus.

Then there is reading out loud from the Word. This is another thing I love about services with more traditional liturgical structures: you get some Old Testament, you get a Psalm, you get some New Testament, and you get some Gospel, every time. This gives you so much valuable food for thought in terms of how they are all connected. And hearing the Word spoken right here and now is such a different experience from just reading it to yourself. The best readers amplify God through their reading, telling it to you like a riveting story, both beautiful and important.

And then there’s the preaching on the Gospel and how we can apply it to our lives. That is amazing because professional preachers know so much more than me! Some of them are scholars and have great knowledge of the historical and cultural context of Scripture, bringing it alive in new ways. Some of them are truly wise and experienced in serving in radical and humble ways. Some of them are just great at communicating the Gospel and reminding us why it’s such good news. The best are all three! But even taking into account preachers’ imperfections, as long as they are speaking the Gospel, it’s Good News to my ears.

Then, typically, there is a profession of faith of some kind, often in the form of a Creed. Now, often we don’t do this at my current church, although sometimes we do. I think some people in the community are uncomfortable with it in the same way they may be uncomfortable with the word worship: to them it conjures up images of something forced and confining and exclusive and joyless. I respect that, although for me, Creeds are very joyful, a way of expressing unity with other parts of the universal Church, and honestly not all that different from when we affirm our core beliefs in other parts of the service or in songs.

Then there are the communal prayers for the Church and the world. We pray the big prayers: for the Church to actually be Good News to people, for our Church leaders (and our world leaders) to be responsible peacemakers, for God’s presence in the overwhelming issues of the moment and the human response to them. And we also pray the smaller prayers, like for members of our community who are suffering, and for us to carry out the specific mission God gave us.

Then there is Communion or the Eucharist, which of course deserves way more space than I can possibly give it here. To me, this is the most beautiful, most joyful, and most real part of worship. That we get to literally taste and see that God is good! That we get to metabolize God into our bodies, mysteriously! That we get to all be mystically connected in this sacrament! I will never get over what a miracle this is any way you look at it.

And of course, in the middle of the Communion rite we say the Our Father (or the Lord’s prayer, if you prefer) – the oldest and best prayer, from Jesus’s own mouth! And then we get to share the peace, which ironically sometimes makes me quite anxious, since I am an introvert who loves people. However, in my current community I know almost everyone and we’re all very comfortable hugging each other.

As we conclude, the pastor prays for all of us to grow closer to each other and God through communion and worship. Then we are sent out in peace to proclaim the Gospel and bring God’s kingdom nearer. And then, more singing!

Truly, worship is worth it. I can’t think of a better way to start the week.

Book of the Week: New Seeds of Contemplation

It’s Friday again, time for me to recommend another practical book on prayer!

New Seeds of Contemplation, by the late Thomas Merton, is one of the modern classics on this subject. It’s a great one for anyone who wants to live an examined life. Merton goes deep, addressing not only the nature of contemplation but how it affects us as individuals – through this type of prayer, we can become more truly ourselves, and we can gain a better relationship with God and the world. He shows very clearly that prayer brings peace not because it helps us escape from the world but because it helps us engage with the world:

If you regard contemplation principally as a means to escape from the miseries of human life, as a withdrawal from the anguish and the suffering of this struggle for reunion with other men in the charity of Christ, you do not know what contemplation is… For it is precisely in the recovery of our union with our brothers in Christ that we discover God and know Him, for then His life begins to penetrate our souls and His love possesses our faculties and we are able to find out who He is from the experience of His mercy, liberating us from the prison of self-concern.

As with all the books I’ve reviewed so far this month, this one is a collection of potent reflections that can be read in small pieces. I highly recommend reading bits of this book daily – Merton’s strong voice will challenge you to live a more authentic life and inspire you to seek God more wholeheartedly.

Today’s 15 minutes of prayer: Taken on my lunch break. I was feeling stressed about various things, my body almost at the point of fight-or-flight. Sitting there and trying to submit myself to God at that moment, I realized how little I allow myself to experience bad feelings normally. It was definitely different to sit there with the physical feelings of stress and try to give them up to God rather than giving myself some kind of outlet or distraction. That’s part of what I’m working out in prayer, I suppose…

I’m spending this month blogging with other Faith and Inspiration writers at The Nester’s 31 Days challenge. Here’s the complete list of my posts for the month so far.