Birthday for Thomas Merton

Photo of Thomas Merton by John Lyons

Thomas Merton (January 31, 1915 - December 10, 1968)

How can I find Him who is everywhere? If He is everywhere, He is indeed close to me, and with me, and in me: perhaps He will turn out to be, in some mysterious way, my own self. But then, again, if He and I are one, then is there an "I" that can rejoice in having found Him?
                                                                                                                       - The Silent Life

My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following Your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please You does in fact please You. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart form that desire. And I know that, if I do this, You will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it. Therefore I will trust You always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for You are ever with me, and You will never leave me to face my perils alone.
                                                                                                                       - Thoughts in Solitude

forgiven much, loving more

But the one to whom little is forgiven, loves little.
                                                            Luke 7:47

Saint Augustine once said the God is always trying to give good things to us, but our hands are too full to receive them. If your hands are full, they are full of the things to which we are addicted. And not only our hands, but our hearts, minds, and attention are clogged with addiction. Our addictions fill up the spaces within us, spaces where grace might flow.
                                                            Gerald G. May, from Addiction & Grace

There is, within the heart of our being, a deep desire, a holy longing. It has been given many names by many people. It is a desire for fulfillment, for connection, for wholeness, for understanding, for meaning, for wakefulness, for salvation, for enlightenment, for love, for......

We are not always conscious or aware of this desire. Or, perhaps a better way of phrasing that would be to say that we are not always aware of its depth and breadth. Perhaps we get an inkling of it whenever we seek to satisfy it in the shallow waters of our living. We may seek fortune, notoriety, influence, professional success, or the security of relationships, only to find that in the end none of these fully satisfy, and some more than others fall woefully short. In our moments of disappointment or despair we may reach for other things to satisfy our holy longing:  entertainment, sexual pleasure, substances like alcohol or drugs to "take the edge off," eating, religious practices, or perhaps buckling down and filling up our hours with worthy work.

In these efforts we may come to find our deep desire misplaced, and attached--and perhaps fully addicted--to patterns and things and people that can never fully offer the satisfaction we long for.

Those who understand this best are those who have done the difficult, agonizing and honest work of recognizing their own attachments and addictions, and who have sought forgiveness. The recognition of our own attachments and addictions is humbling work, and it cannot be done alone. As any person in recovery will tell you, it cannot be accomplished as an individual act of will. We live in need of grace that transcends our own being. This is the heart of the gospel message, though sadly the Christian church has all too often turned faith and religion into another full smorgasbord of attachments and addictions which can also become barriers to our true desire and its greatest fulfillment.

It is said that once when Jesus was eating in the home of a Pharisee, a woman entered and began to anoint his feet. The host and Jesus' companions were troubled by this. After confronting his host's lack of hospitality, and affirming the way the woman has welcomed him, Jesus says, "Her sins, which were many, have been forgiven; hence she has shown great love. But the one to whom little is forgiven, loves little."

Our need for forgiveness is connected to our capacity to receive and offer love. That is a humbling message.

Until we are willing to walk the path--the lifelong journey--of recognizing and releasing our attachments and addictions, and welcome the forgiveness of our neighbor and of God, something within us remains closed. Love is not able to freely flow.

This is not the same thing as saying, "Woe is me, I'm such a lowly worm crawling through a giant dung heap!" It is instead a message of great hope and possibility. To gradually recognize and release attachments and addictions is to move closer and closer to the truth of our being in God, which means moving closer to the full satisfaction of our desires.

The moment we begin this path, the moment we even begin to express a desire to be on this path, we touch that holy longing within us, and love begins to make its way in, and out.

Feast Day of St. Anthony, January 17

Now I no longer fear God,

I love him.

- Abba Anthony of the Desert (ca. 251-356)

koinonia

Shalom Mennonite Church

Sunday, January 6, 2013 -- Epiphany Sunday

Text:  Matthew 2:1-12

Eric Massanari

“koinonia”

I find it difficult sometimes

to move beyond a “manger mentality”

when I hear the stories of this season.

After years of hearing the stories told,

and seeing them reenacted in pageants

and portrayed in art and popular imagery,

it is hard not to feel like a distant observer,

a watcher standing apart from a drama

that unfolds in a distant time and foreign land.

3 kings in their silky raiments,

shepherds in their terry-cloth-towel turbans,

an open faced stable bathed in starlight,

Mary kneeling at a manger,

Joseph silently disappearing in the background,

and of course the special baby--

the extra-special-super-son-of-God-infant--

glowing with a light all his own.

It can be difficult to release these characters

from the caricatures they have become,

confined there in the manger,

waiting to be boxed up again until next year’s revival.

Perhaps more difficult than this

is to actually re-connect, re-join ourselves

to this story, and awaken to the truth that

this is not just about “them back then,”

it is a tale that is about “us right here.”

The coming of God through the Christ child

is God announcing not just one time but for all time:

I am.

I am with you.

I am as you are.

You are as I am.

We are one.

The coming of God through the Christ child

is an invitation of God to all people

to receive, to participate in 

the fullness of God’s own being.

to share in the depths of God’s own love.

There are few more powerful, tangible

ways to express such an invitation

to participate in the fullness of life

than a newly born human being.

To hold an infant is

feel in your arms the

beauty, fragility and resilience of life itself.

It is, in a sense, to find oneself

held by that living mystery

by which we all live

and move and have our being.

Alongside such a gift,

gold, fankincense, and myrrh 

are of no value or consequence.

By coming as a child,

God invites people to 

receive and share in this moment

with awe, wonder and great care.

Ysaye Maria Barnwell, a member of 

the women’s vocal ensemble,

Sweet Honey in the Rock,

wrote of this with these words:

For each child that’s born
a morning star rises
and sings to the universe
who we are.

We are our grandmothers’ prayers.
We are our grandfathers’ dreamings.
We are the breath of our ancestors.
We are the spirit of God.

We are
Mothers of courage
Fathers of time
Daughters of dust
Sons of great vision.

We are
Sisters of mercy
Brothers of love
Lovers of life and
the builders of nations.

We are
Seekers of truth
Keepers of faith
Makers of peace and
the wisdom of ages.

We are our grandmothers’ prayers.
We are our grandfathers’ dreamings.
We are the breath of our ancestors.
We are the spirit of God.

For each child that’s born
a morning star rises
and sings to the universe
who we are.

WE ARE ONE.

• Ysaye M. Barnwell

I am, says God.

I am as you are.

You are as I am.

We are one.

Koinonia is the Greek word that

appears dozens of times in the New Testament

to describe this oneness we share 

with God and one another through Christ.

Koinonia means communion,

finding communion through

intimate participation in life together.

It was not just one child long ago

who deserved the homage of magi,

and shepherds, kings and slaves.

Each child is deserving of such homage.

Through each human life, as it emerges

and joins with the fullness of life in this world,

there is the invitation for full

participation in the life and love of God.

The magi who journeyed,

far from home, responding to dreams

and a deep call from a great mystery,

represent the invitation to all 

to become more than distant observers

or mere reactors to life,

but to share fully in the holiness of being.

And the magi, in their foreignness,

in their strangeness, and outsider-ness,

are a reminder that there are no limits

and no boundaries as to who may 

participate in and share this gift.

There are no limits and no boundaries

as to who may receive, participate in,

and share this gift of life in God.

And to share in it we must simply be,

with great love, who we are.  Amen.

the chalice of your life

Each day, the first day;
each day, a life.
Each day we must hold out
the chalice of our being to receive,
to carry, and to give back.
It must be held out empty...
                            - Dag Hammarskjold

For several weeks now this quote has stuck with me, with its image of our life being something like an empty chalice that we hold out each day. It seems a fitting quote as I begin to fill blank pages and lines in my fresh, new day timer. In fact, I made the decision to write this quotation just inside the cover of my schedule book. 

It isn't the first thing to get written on those pages, however. For several weeks now I've been filling in lines on the calendar with all sorts of events that have already been scheduled for 2013. The cusp of a new year is a rather arbitrary delineation, and the plow of life keeps forging ahead without pause!  Each entry on each date consists of a few words: a name, a place, a particular time. Nothing of much consequence at first glance, simply an appointment that has been scheduled and is meant to be kept.

However, each one is an encounter, full of possibilities! What will I bring to each one? A cup that is full-to-overflowing with my assumptions, prejudgments and agendas?  A cup with maybe a bit of room but mostly full of stuff I'm eager to pour out on those with whom I am committed to spending some time? Or, an empty cup, one with lots of room to receive and to also give what only God can provide?

This day is the second of January, the second day in the first month of a very new year. It is also the first day, and a life unto itself.

Author of All,
expand our hearts this day,
that your Word of Love may be 
written anew through our lives.
Amen