One Shoe Walking

There are people who come into AA and receive a "Big Book."  This is the AA catechism.  They take it home and read it, by themselves.  They now have information.  They go back out and drink.  It happens over and over.  Why?  Because they did not have a mentor who could share experience based upon the catechism of the literature.  We all need sponsors if we are going to "get it," that is benefit from wisdom that is handed down to us such that we will change our lives.  A true teacher is a sponsor.  To read wisdom literature alone is like walking in one shoe.  Soon we will stop walking.  We are still too sick or dull or uninitiated to put on a second shoe.  At least I have found it to be so.

Dough And Yeast

Catechism is like dough.  Yeast is like experience.  Catechism that is simply a series of answers, statements, doctrine, tradition is flat.  It will never rise to nourish us.  It needs the yeast of our personal experience.  Vatican II said that the laity are called to evangelize, not to parrot answers.  We are called to bring people to Christ.  I am becoming more convinced that the reason so many of our young people drop out of practice of our faith is because they were not evangelized in the first place.  Those Catholic schools gave them the catechism, but the teacher/parent did not bother or could not give them a reason why they believed.  The child knows the answer but has no personal experience to support it, nor has a tradition of experience, a yeast, if you will.   We get turned on by the story, the event in a persons life that brings us to make sense out of a catechism answer.  The reason most of us say little about the Trinity is that we have no experience in which to relate "substance" and "essence."  

What we pass on is the yeast life experience as it relates to items of our faith.  I am moved toward interior prayer and away from pietistic devotions because of the experiences related to me by those who have entered into prayer of silence and solitude and how it has changed their lives in ways that attract me.  I am unmoved by the emotional baggage of people with visions in their novena practices.  So I only talk about what moves me.  This is the only way we can attract anyone to Christ.  I now have the yeast of experience to go along with what I read in my Church prayer tradition.  When a young person asks me to tell them about "mystical" prayer, what they mean is, "Tell me what happens to you."  They want to know my story, my experience.  Evangelization is knowing Christ, not knowing "about" Christ.

Keep Looking

When I go outside to look at the night sky, my eyes are dilated by the lamplight in the house.  I look up at the sky and see a few stars, no Milky Way.  Most of what I see is darkness, but my experience tells me that there is light in the darkness.  I just have to be patient and keep looking into the darkness.  Soon, I begin to see all the stars appear in the clear sky from my 8000 foot altitude stage.

Prayer is the same type of experience.  What seems like darkness is not darkness.  It is simply letting go of the "lamplight" of my thinking, imagining mind.  Interior prayer calls for patience and trust.  Soon enough God will reveal more light in the darkness.  As the star-filled sky is so much more spectacular than the lamplight, so is God's interior light so much more spectacular than our mere mental prayers and devotions.

The Yankees

They say faith is a gift.  I inherited mine from my parents.  I inherited being a Yankee fan from my dad.  My first World Series that I can remember was in 1950.  I was seven. My dad was ironing.  Yes, my dad ironed.  We listened together at the radio in my parents' bedroom.  Mom was not a sports fan.  Pity.  The Yankees won 4 zip.  Why am I remembering this now?  Well, I am reading my second book of this summer on the Yankees.  This is a terrific one, Pinstripe Empire.  It is 600 pages.  Aren't I getting holy, you ask?  Yeh, yeh, but that is in the morning when I pray, read, go to mass, and do ranch work.  Fortunately, it rains a lot, so by mid-afternoon, I say, "Forgive me Lord," and pick up my Yankee book.  When I was seven, I was just learning to read.  Sports pages were my practice.  The Daily News had sports beginning on the back pages.  The Korean War was on the front page.  The world was a mess on the front pages, but all was right on the back pages.  My Yankees always won.

Now, some people hate the Yankees.  Their hate is not caused by the Yankees playing baseball.  That is what the Yankees do.  Yankee haters don't have to hate.  It is their choice.  They blame the Yankees instead of themselves.  They cannot change to acceptance, or actually rooting for the Yankees.  They are wedded to their emotion.  Maybe it is inherited too?  Isn't it that way about a lot of our feelings?  Events unfold, and we decide to have a certain reaction, but blame the event.  We blame people for "making us angry."  Institutions like my church do what they do.  If I choose to get angry, that is my choice.  I choose not to get angry.  Why have a bad day over what is?  I inherited my church.  My Church is imperfect.  I still have the Yankees.  They are in first place.  So are my Giants, but that is for another blog.

Spiritual Ecology

Why is it that we don't mind tearing up or down God's creation, but then spend time, money and effort to build sacred places for God to dwell?  If God is a Creator God, then why tear up God's earth for our own gain?  Why do we tear down a forest to then build a church and say, "Here God dwells."  Maybe buildings are our self-serving way of having a place where we can go to say hello to God when it is convenient.  Nature is inconvenient when it gets in the way of some economic gain, or some preferred creature comfort.  I hear it said that we have too many churches in some dioceses.  There is a reason why we have too little forest.

Sacred Turf

The early church did not have sacred geographical space.  The focus on the sacred was in sacrament, community and transformation.  Then stuff happened.  Constantine came along and began to build churches.  His Mom supposedly found the true cross and the grave of Jesus seemed to be discovered.  Paul preached the cross, but not a physical one. He preached "bearing" our own crosses in imitation of Christ.  Imitate Christ, become Christ.  Instead, we build edifices to visit and then we had to have armies to defend them, or go kill people to get them back, or sell indulgences to fix them up.  Most of the political intrigue of the papacy in history was to defend or expand the "Papal States."

We are not the only religion that does this.  Others war and kill to take or defend their imagined sacred space.  I don't think that Jesus was much about buildings.  He was about building the kingdom of God, which does not need sacred buildings.  I suspect, being God, he knew how commercial it all could become.  There have been and will probably be wars over the "Holy Land."  Personally, I am concerned about the holy land within.

Staying The Course

Mary was told by the angel Gabriel that she was going to have a pretty important child.  She said,"Yes."  Now move to the scene in the stable.  It is cold, dark, dirty and a seemingly unimportant place.  Will Mary stay the course?  Would you?  Yes, she did.  She believed that God was at work and present in that stable scene.  The Annunciation times in our lives can be pretty powerful and convincing experiences of spirituality, a God at work in our midst.  But there are other times and tasks in which we seem to be ignored, or sense a lack of self-importance.  It can be messy, dirty and difficult work for which we get no recognition.  Do you believe God is at work and present in your life in those times?  Is cleaning or maintaining your living environment, room, a time when you recognize the presence of God?  Is cleaning seen as Holy?  Or is it just something to ignore as beneath you, or a time to grumble about messy people around you?