When you realize what it's all for.

We all have that moment occasionally.

You know the one I mean. That one.

A sharp, stabbing realization that you see the big picture, even if only a glimpse and only for the briefest of moments. A break in the fog bank over our eyes appears and we see, with what can be stunning clarity, a vast expanse of knowing. Knowing ourselves, knowing the ones we love, knowing the world for what it is and what we are and, sometimes, knowing what it all means. It is a thrilling, scary, nauseating, exhilarating little stutter of the heart.

There are often precipitating events which bring us 'round about to these little seizures of focus; sometimes a hurt, sometimes a joy, oftentimes nothing more than a question that you get the unexpected answer to.

Our lives are a singularly directed, focused stream of chaos which is distilled down into an essential kernel of something true. Amidst all the running and the pondering and the posturing there is a purpose, a drive to have, to be, love. I mentioned to a friend recently that humans are delightfully complicated creatures who are all, ultimately, motivated by the same simple thing; the need to love and to be loved. Human life at its core is nothing more than a physical expression of what love truly is.

What is this, then? What is this that drove Almighty God to form us from dirt, to breathe into us the very Breath of life itself, and then to set us free to wreak havoc and pain and destruction on everything we see?

When you are willing to give your entire heart, your entire being, over into the hands of another, to see them happy, to sacrifice whatever you have to give in order to bring them a single second of joy. When God Himself was willing to yield Himself in the body of His Son to cruel death, to spill His own blood to bring us the single hope for the fulfillment of our selves, of our souls. This impulse is when you know that you've seen it.

When you realize what it's all for. To give the love our Father gave us. To break down the walls around your heart, yield your throat to the blade, and just love.

To see this love in yourself is a frightening thing, and a beautiful thing. Nothing in life really seems so important once you have been staring your own evolution of spirit directly in the eye.

Notes from an insomniac

Observations on life at 4:30 a.m.
Television is at its total worst at this time of day. It's easy to see the visual representation of the downfall of our world played out in grand scale through early morning programming. Now, don't get me wrong. If you need to buy makeup or acne skin care items, or have a burning urge for K-Tel's current version of Classic Soul Ballads, or want to be blessed by some guy promising you a miracle cure if you plant a seed of a thousand bucks (because then you get his super-duper groovy prayer piece of lint, or holy lint roller, if you will) because then you will reap the benefits of the MONEY that you sow, then this is your time. Quite possibly you might stumble across a program explaining the benefits of a ballistic blender or a roaster/juicer/grill/rotisserie that will not only cook your chicken at RECORD SPEED but will also juice all the vegetables before roasting them and then drain all the fat away. Then it cleans itself and puts itself in the cupboard. If you call in the next 6 minutes you get the extra special version which will sing to you while it cooks/drains/juices. If you don't need all that extra juice because you spend too much time in the bathroom as it is, there's some medication advertised around 5 which will fix you right up.

I think that maybe Satan's giving us a little preview of Hell here. Quite possibly, aside from the eternal burning and stench of rot and total deprivation from the presence of God, there might also be this little corner of the Outer Darkness which is devoted entirely to infomercials and muzak. And I think there's a nice, extra horrible spot reserved for fake preachers and false prophets.

I wish

Yesterday I put up the family Christmas tree. It was a day-long endeavour, filled with trips to get more and more lights since my others were burnt out. The intricate wrapping of each branch, the scratches from the bristly needles, the yearly attempt to make sure each ball and ornament was evenly spaced...an undertaking that normally delights and satisfies. The creation of a beautiful, gleaming monument to the season, to family, to hearth, to home. To God.

Not so much this year.

My father loved Christmas. To this day I am not certain as to precisely why. He was a man made hard by life; surly and taciturn at best and patently offensive and abrasive at worst. He was the sort of person who loved only by degrees, doling out his meager little affections in such distilled doses that you felt you'd won the world when you earned so much as even a passing praise. However, each year's descent into winter and the approach of the Christmas season literally transformed this man from dour to delighted. He found the greatest joy in searching high and low for just the right gifts, and my father was a gift giver par excellence. He put thought and effort into his gift giving, trying to choose exactly that one thing that would mean the most to the recipient. In this way, I suppose, he found he could best express the love he felt.

That carried over into the annual decoration of the house. The best way I could ever describe the scene would be to say it looked like Christmas threw up on our house. Everything that was not nailed down was decorated. There were garlands and lights and at least 3 trees, sometimes more. Christmas pillows on the couch. Christmas linens in the bathrooms. We even changed the artwork hanging on the walls in the living room to pieces we had that reflected the simplicity of a winter scene. Bowls brimming with candy and nuts. Bing Crosby's warm liquid voice creeping from the stereo. It was as close to the perfect holiday atmosphere as one could possibly imagine, all fueled with the fervor of a man who otherwise would've played much closer a Scrooge than a Santa.

Since my father died, the magic of Christmas has faded for me. There is no great desire to decorate, no fevered search for just the right present. What has replaced it is a hollow numb, a feeling of being drained.

I learned quite a lot from my father. Those who know me well know that I am definitely my father's daughter when it comes to gifts. It's one of the few things about me that I really like, to give gifts that show how much love and care I have for the recipient. To give someone a moment's joy when they see that you did remember when they said how much they loved that certain thing, and that it mattered to you, that THEY mattered to you...that is one of the only ways I know to capture a fleeting remnant of that Christmas spark and carry it forward. To show love.

I wish I knew how to love better. I wish my father had known, too. And most of all, I wish I could have just a moment of that magic back; to be home, anchored and certain, instead of feeling adrift in the world, brokenhearted and small.

This year's tree might be one of the prettiest I've ever decorated.

But for the one

Human experience in terms of our spiritual life is a dichotomy of relevance. We know, as God's creatures, that we are irrelevant, in the sense that we as individuals cannot alter the Will of the Almighty, nor can we even perform a single act of goodness without His assistance. However, as the readings today pointed out, each of us as individuals is essential to God's designs, because He desires it.

When God's wrath was prepared to descend upon Sodom and Gomorrah, Abraham engaged in a bit of bargaining. It's almost comical to see Abraham, like a small child, going, "but how about this? And this? And this?" God bears this patiently, each time granting Abraham's requests. I think that a lot of scholarly examination of this would parse God's justice, about how He would never destroy an innocent. I see it totally differently. God didn't spare anyone on account of their innocence. God spared them on account of Abraham.

I am often reminded of the situation with Job, because when it comes to human pain and agony there is scarcely a better portrait of it outside the Passion of our Lord in Scripture. The Book of Job is almost a trial simply to read, watching how this poor man's life was devastated through no fault of his own. What I really like is the end of the book where Job gets it all back times two. However, most people miss the condition that is attached. In Job 42:10 (RSV) it reads:

And the Lord restored the fortunes of Job, when he had prayed for his friends; and the Lord gave Job twice as much as he had before.

We all like to cheer and say, yay! Abraham got Lot's family spared from Sodom's destruction, and Job got back all his family and stuff! The fact is, Abraham and Job weren't granted these things because they deserved them, or even because they were persistent in questioning. The reason that these things occurred is that both Abraham and Job stood as intercessors. Abraham begged for the lives of the righteous to be spared. Job prayed for those who had calumniated him during his trials. For this, and for no other reason, were they rewarded.

The Gospel for today is a valuable one for several reasons. First, it addresses the Our Father and the way in which we should petition God. This is crucial, of course, because no word of the Savior was wasted breath. There's more going on here, though. Jesus stresses that God answers prayers and gives good gifts when we ask for them. I think this passage of Scripture gives people trouble. "Ask, and it shall be given." Well, why am I not getting what I asked for? people think. The honest answer is it depends on what it is you're requesting.

Then there's that pesky Psalm 37:4 (RSV).

Take delight in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart.

People are all too happy to think about getting their heart's desire that they miss that little verse 5:

Commit your way to the Lord; trust in Him and He will act.

God is infinite in His goodness, His mercy, and His generosity. He desires the best for us, but the best we can have is to desire what He desires, to want what He wants. God desires that all men come to repentance, to come to Him, to love and be loved by Him. However, He won't give if we don't ask.

We are obliged to stand as intercessors. It is the nature of man's relationship with God. While childlike persistence is needed, learning to stand in the gap for all of God's children is the desire God most wishes to grant us.

So here we are, the product of that dichotomy of relevance: invaluable to God, but totally unnecessary. However, as He repeatedly shows us in Scripture, one single person does make a difference. We were individually dreamt of by the Infinite and made perfectly according to His own plan. When we are able to intercede in prayer and action for those others who are the products of His handicraft, He is most pleased. But for Abraham's hope and Job's obedience, the stories end very differently. We might not ever save people from brimstone or double our money, but only will we know in Heaven what our one prayer, said with childlike persistence and faith, could accomplish.

But for the one who hung on the Cross to stand in intercession for us all, we would be lost.

What happens to a dream deferred?

I love Langston Hughes. As the Harlem Renaissance goes, he speaks to the core of what that movement in literature stood for. A Dream Deferred always spoke to me, strangely. I remember reading it for the first time at about age 12 and thinking it an infantile piece of poetry. Only as I grew in age and understanding did I realize that such a wealth of soul, such regret, such yearning, could be packing into such a sparse piece of poetry. For those unfamiliar with it, here it is:

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore--
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over--
like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

The thing that brought this particular poem, and this topic, to mind was watching one of my favorite television shows, So You Think You Can Dance.

OK, go ahead and laugh now if you need to. There. Feel better?

Watching the dancers on this show, and the magnificent work that they do, makes me think of some of my own dreams deferred, or even some that were lost or abandoned outright. One of those was to be a dancer. I danced ballet as a child, and always danced on my own, but never had the money available for the type of lessons that would get me to such a high level of ability. The exquisite ability of the human body, in concert with the power of music, combining to tell a story that needs no words.

Want to know what I mean? Watch this, and then tell me some part of you doesn't understand.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1wr42lSuo8

The power of emotion is such a scary thing. A feeling can take you somewhere you want to go, somewhere you've been, somewhere you might never want to go again. It can thrill you, frighten you, fill you with awe. All the emotion we bank is intrinsically intertwined with all our dreams, deferred or otherwise.

I thought tonight about my own life, and my dreams. Dancing, singing, performing. Writing. I've often been accused of not communicating my thoughts and feelings well, and it's a charge that is not leveled at me without cause. My heart and my mind exist in a world of words, of texture and sound and movement. My feelings and thoughts are better encapsulated in a snippet of a song than in an hour of conversation. I am my own composition of sorts, and the problem is that I have not yet found the medium with which to translate that into a form visible and accessible to others.

The best thing about a dream deferred is that it is not, as yet, a dream denied. I may not ever be a professional dancer, or have a record, or write a book. But that won't stop me from trying. I can still sing for anyone who wants to listen. I can still write whatever the spirit moves me to write. And maybe I can go take a ballet class. Who knows.

Regrets do sag like a heavy load, but we can lighten that load by finding fewer things to regret. Defer the dream if you must, but once you get the chance, grab it and don't let go. A sore that festers cannot heal.

Reclaiming what was lost.

Sit still for a moment. Close your eyes. Let your mind wander.

There, nestled snugly in the recesses of your heart, is a pain. There are days when it comes fully, achingly into view, standing nose to nose and daring you to blink. On other days it is content to nudge gently, unexpectedly, during interludes where you found yourself gracefully blank.

There, amidst the filtered rays of sunlight, you feel it. That anger. That bitterness. The tears you shed, and those you didn't. The resentment. The burning, seething urge for vengeance.

The bird sings softly. The hymn drowns in the pounding of fury in your ears.

It is our brokenness.

No matter what that thing is that lurks inside us, it is inherent to the human condition to be broken. We are the children of the Fall and within each of us lies a portion of that empty space, a space once filled with the unmitigated glory of the Divine that now cries out to be full. We fill it, with fleeting amusement, with numbness we find in a bottle, with the momentary comfort of skin on skin. We try, and we fail, for the space empties as soon as the moment passes, like the sand of an hourglass.

"You have a God-shaped hole." While a basic truth and a well-meaning sentiment, it's a wretched cliche. The problem is not that we have a magic God puzzle piece that, once installed, makes it all good. That just isn't going to happen, and many who fall away from God do so because some well-meaning soul has tried to convince them that finding the Holy Puzzle Piece will make them somehow 'fixed.' The truth is, the emptiness that we have as a result of our first parents' fall from Grace is a gift that God has given us.

A gift? (You're shaking your head.) How could this emptiness, this pain, be a gift?

Simple, really. God crafts perfection out of even the most heinous of sins. Instead of condemning humanity to a life of aimless suffering, He gave us purpose. When Adam and Eve decided to disobey, to follow their own leadings, God in His mercy and wisdom gave them purpose: work the ground. Rear children. Out of disobedience, God prospered a world.

The yearning inside ourselves comes from a deeper desire for purpose. All those angry memories, the betrayals, the disappointments, come from some place where we were following a path of purpose and were thwarted. The impulses God instills in us are quieted, even muted, by the shrieking screams of a heart that has been broken. We lose our way, because we follow the path that leads to destruction.

God permits us this suffering because on the other side of the pain is the purpose. Christ's redemption of the world could have come at the snap of His divine fingers, and yet He found it necessary to shed His Sacred Blood as propitiation. In the suffering, there was purpose. In our suffering, we share something of what Jesus experienced. The physical pains, the humiliation, the loneliness, the betrayals. Every one of these is an opportunity to praise the God who won salvation through the humblest means, but sanctified the suffering to the highest purpose.

God created us, in His image, intended to be not only holy, but whole. By submitting ourselves to the life He has given us, in all its triumphs and tragedies, we learn to be totally in Him. In Being. To embrace this life is to embrace the One who breathed it into each and every one of us, to cherish it, and to live in the purpose for which we were all created: to love and be loved by Him.

Our hearts are the repositories of God's own will. If we let ourselves be still, and submit all our heart's stirrings to Him, then we can see that small, frightened, wounded child huddled in the corner of our self reach out and take the hand of the strong, purposeful, God-filled saint of the Kingdom we were created to be. In the ache of our suffering, we find the hope that only God can provide, allowing us to reclaim our lost selves and guide them safely home.

The same question asked a thousand ways.

Last week, Missy told me that, after I went to Mass, I would write about the readings. I knew upon hearing them that she was right...the only thing was, I had no idea what I was going to say. There are literally a thousand things that could be commented on. I'll start by simply repeating the relevant readings.

1 Kgs 19:16b, 19-21
The LORD said to Elijah:
“You shall anoint Elisha, son of Shaphat of Abelmeholah,
as prophet to succeed you.”
Elijah set out and came upon Elisha, son of Shaphat,
as he was plowing with twelve yoke of oxen;
he was following the twelfth.
Elijah went over to him and threw his cloak over him.
Elisha left the oxen, ran after Elijah, and said,
“Please, let me kiss my father and mother goodbye,
and I will follow you.”
Elijah answered, “Go back!
Have I done anything to you?”
Elisha left him, and taking the yoke of oxen, slaughtered them;
he used the plowing equipment for fuel to boil their flesh,
and gave it to his people to eat.
Then Elisha left and followed Elijah as his attendant.

Gal 5:1, 13-18
Brothers and sisters:
For freedom Christ set us free;
so stand firm and do not submit again to the yoke of slavery.
For you were called for freedom, brothers and sisters.
But do not use this freedom
as an opportunity for the flesh;
rather, serve one another through love.
For the whole law is fulfilled in one statement,
namely, You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
But if you go on biting and devouring one another,
beware that you are not consumed by one another.
I say, then: live by the Spirit
and you will certainly not gratify the desire of the flesh.
For the flesh has desires against the Spirit,
and the Spirit against the flesh;
these are opposed to each other,
so that you may not do what you want.
But if you are guided by the Spirit, you are not under the law.

Lk 9:51-62
When the days for Jesus’ being taken up were fulfilled,
he resolutely determined to journey to Jerusalem,
and he sent messengers ahead of him.
On the way they entered a Samaritan village
to prepare for his reception there,
but they would not welcome him
because the destination of his journey was Jerusalem.
When the disciples James and John saw this they asked,
“Lord, do you want us to call down fire from heaven
to consume them?”
Jesus turned and rebuked them, and they journeyed to another village.
As they were proceeding on their journey someone said to him,
“I will follow you wherever you go.”
Jesus answered him,
“Foxes have dens and birds of the sky have nests,
but the Son of Man has nowhere to rest his head.”
And to another he said, “Follow me.”
But he replied, “Lord, let me go first and bury my father.”
But he answered him, “Let the dead bury their dead.
But you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.”
And another said, “I will follow you, Lord,
but first let me say farewell to my family at home.”
To him Jesus said, “No one who sets a hand to the plow
and looks to what was left behind is fit for the kingdom of God.”

This is one of those unique days when the readings obviously tie together fluidly. They are challenging readings, to be sure, exhorting the faithful to lives of service. My pastor gave an excellent homily on what it meant truly to be Christian in being His hands here on Earth.

However, to my utter discomfiture, one word leapt at me from the page, a stinging slap.

Slavery.

Oh no, I think. No, Lord, not this. Tell me anything else.

No, He says. I won't force you to listen, but he who has ears, let him hear.

While all these readings have tons to say about the Christian walk, they all contain one commonality that breaks down our faith to its most essential nugget. It's the question that was asked a thousand ways.

Elisha asks of Elijah, may I kiss my mother and father goodbye before I come?

The Sons of Thunder ask, may we call down fire from Heaven to consume those who do not like what we stand for?

Jesus asks: can you follow me into homelessness? Can you bury the past? Can you leave behind those you hold dear?

It's not just a matter of semantics. The essential heart of our faith leads us to that singular question.

What are you willing to give up in order to follow Him?

This is so difficult. I have often pondered a situation where I would be forced to choose my faith or death, and it seems a simple choice. No one could convince me to forsake my God. Yet, day after day, I am asked that exact same question, and I give a completely different answer. I sin, just a little sin, but it's the same question. Will you give it up? I say no. Time and time again, those thirty pieces of silver change hands and I sell myself into a slavery of my own making. I think I would proclaim the name of Jesus even with a gun to my head, but it takes far less than that to cause me to forget Him. The cock crows and I have denied Him, over and over and over.

What is so valuable to me, to you, that we should cling to it instead of to our Saviour? What are those little pet habits we won't give up, what 'just this once' sins do we allow ourselves?

The truth of Christ is martyrdom, but not in the sense we typically perceive. It is daily martyrdom, the killing of those impulses that keep us in corporeal ties of servitude. It is the willingness to put our hand to the plow and not look back.

In contemplating this, I realize most profoundly how wretched, how worthless a creature I am, and how unworthy of His love. I think, then, of Jesus looking with love and pity at Peter as he denied Him in the courtyard, and how He is imminently ready to forgive us our infidelities. Praise God for this divine mercy, for without it, we would all be slaves to our baser natures.

We stumble, day to day, through a myriad challenges of our faith, presented with chance after chance to deny Him, to please ourselves. We have to continue to ask ourselves what we are willing to do to belong to Him. Only in His grace will we find the answer.