Posts tagged december 2010

Father Luis Padillo, administering last rites to a solider before he died from sniper fire, Venezuela Civil War, 1962 

What do I have a GIVENNESS NOW to?

The courage that is almost a contradiction.

“Paganism declared that virtue was in a balance; Christianity declared it was in a conflict: the collision of two passions apparently opposite.

Of course they were not really inconsistent; but they were such that it was hard to hold simultaneously.


Let us follow for a moment the clue of the martyr and the suicide; and take the case of courage.  No quality has ever so much addled the brains and tangled the definitions of merely rational sages.  

Courage is almost a contradiction in terms.  It means a strong desire to live taking the form of a readiness to die.



“He that will lose his life, the same shall save it,’ is not a piece of mysticism for saints and heroes.  

It is a piece of everday advice for sailors and mountaineers.  It might be printed in an Alpine guide or drill book.  This paradox is the whole principle of courage; even of quite earthly or quite brutal courage.  A man cut off by the sea may save his life if he will risk in on the precipice.

He can only get away from death by continually stepping within an inch of it.

A soldier surrounded by enemies, if he is to cut his way out, needs to combine a strong desired for living with a strange carelessness about dying.  He must not merely cling to life, for he will be a coward, and will not escape.  He must not merely wait for death, for then he will be a suicide, and will not escape.  He must seek his life in a spirit of furious indifference to it; he must desire life like water and yet drink death like wine.  

No philosopher, I fancy, has ever expressed this romantic riddle with adequate lucidity, and I certainly have not done so.  But Christianity has done more: it has marked the limits of it in the awful graves of the suicide and the hero, showing the distance between him who dies for the sake of living and him who dies for the sake of dying.”
G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy

Who is most courageous?

The man who is losing “his” life or the man who is saving “his” life?  






Most courageous is “he” who becomes one and the same man.


He who simultaneously loses and saves “his” life.






…to almost become this ‘contradiction’?




Courage.


I have a GIVENNESS NOW to the courage that is almost a contradiction. 

What do I have a GIVENNESS NOW to?

Each knot made in my string.


“One of the disconcerting - and delightful - teachings of the master was: “God is closer to sinners than to saints.”

This is how he explained it: “God in heaven holds each person by a string.  When you sin, you cut the string.  Then God ties it up again, making a knot - and thereby bringing you a little closer to him.  Again and again your sins cut the string - and with each knot God keeps drawing you closer and closer.”Retold by Anthony de Mello, One Minute Wisdom

Whenever I will “not”

…God will “knot”.



Disconcerting 

…and delightful.





The tension of the teaching…


I have a GIVENNESS NOW to each knot made in my string.

What do I have a GIVENNESS NOW to?

Not even finding the place in the forest.


“When the founder of Hasidic Judaism, the great Rabbi Israel Shem Tov, saw misfortune threatening the Jews, it was his custom to go into a certain part of the forest to meditate.  

There he would light a fire, say a special prayer, and the miracle would be accomplished and the misfortune averted.


Later, when his disciple, and the celebrated Maggid of Mezritch, had occasion, for the same reason, to intercede with heaven, he would go to the same place in the forest and say: ”Master of the Universe, listen!  I do not know how to light the fire, but I am still able to say the prayer,” and again the miracle would be accomplished.


Still later, Rabbi Moshe-leib of Sasov, in order to save his people once more, would go into the forest and say, “I do not know how to light the fire.  I do not know the prayer, but I know the place and this must be sufficient.”

It was sufficient, and the miracle was accomplished.  


Then it fell to Rabbi of Rizhin to overcome misfortune.  Sitting in his armchair, his head in his hands, he spoke to God: “I am unable to light the fire, and I do not know the prayer, and I cannot even find the place in the forest.  All I can do is to tell the story, and this must be sufficient.”


And it was sufficient.

For God made man because he loves stories.”
Elie Wiesel, The Gates of the Forest


“For once upon a time, people told stories.

In the midst of sorrow and in the presence of joy, both mourners and celebrants told stories.  But especially in times of trouble, when a “miracle” was needed and the limits of human ability were reached, people turned to storytelling as a way of exploring the fundamental mysteries:

Who are we?  Why are we?  How are we to live?


These most basic questions are spiritual questions, and so the stories that people told concerned spirituality.  They also concerned imperfection - the limits experienced by those subject to failures of knowing and to other “unables” and “cannots.”  

Without imperfection’s “gap between intentions and results,” there would be no story.”
Ernest Kurtz and Katherine Ketcham, The Spirituality of Imperfection



Unable to light fires.  Unable to remember prayers.  Cannot find the place in the forest.



…subject to insufficiency

…the sufficiency of insufficiency

…and the spirituality of insufficiency.






The meditation of misfortune

…the story of the stories.


I have a GIVENNESS NOW to not even finding the place in the forest.

What do I have a GIVENNESS NOW to?

Scoop the poop of pugs.


“The Lord God then took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to tend and care for it.”Genesis 2:15
“Man’s best friend” reminds me of who I am and what I am to do…



Welcomed by waste.  Defined by defecation.  Learned by laxation.

Perspective from poop ‘put’ by pugs.




‘Tend’ to the terds.  ’Care’ for the crap.

Poop after poop.  Scoop after scoop.  Day after day.  Dog after dog.  



…how else will your garden grow?




I have a GIVENNESS NOW to scoop the poop of pugs.

What do I have a GIVENNESS NOW to?

Our torn-to-pieces-hood.


“The spirituality of imperfection speaks to those who seek meaning in the absurd, peace within the chaos, light within the darkness, joy within the suffering - without denying the reality and even the necessity of absurdity, chaos, darkness, and suffering.  This is not a spirituality for the saints or the gods, but for people who suffer from what the philosopher-psychologist William James called “torn-to-pieces-hood” (his trenchant translation of the German Zerrissenheit).  We have all known that experience, for to be human is to feel at times divided, fractured, pulled in a dozen directions… and to yearn for serenity, for some healing of our “torn-to-pieces-hood.”


The Spirituality of Imperfection relates the continuing story of a spirituality that speaks to both the inevitability of pain and the possibility of healing within the pain.”Ernest Kurtz and Katherine Ketcham, The Spirituality of Imperfection

…torn?

…or torn-to-pieces?




The absurd allows.  The chaos clarifies.  The darkness defines.  The suffering surrenders.



It is real and it is necessary


…but also, the spirituality of the “saints”.  

The spirituality of imperfection is the very reason “saints” become “saints”.  




Inevitable incarnation

…’of ’ and ‘within’.





The brotherhood of the broken.

I have a GIVENNESS NOW to our torn-to-pieces-hood.

What do I have a GIVENNESS NOW to?

The errors of the game.


“Baseball teaches us, or has taught most of us, how to deal with failure.

We learn at a very young age that failure is the norm in baseball and, precisely because we have failed, we hold in high regard those who fail less often - those who hit safely in one of three chances and become star players.  I also find it fascinating that baseball, alone in sport, considers errors to be part of the game, part of its rigorous truth.Francis T. Vincent, Jr., Education and Baseball

“Spirituality teaches us, or has taught most of us, how to deal with failure.  We learn at a very young age that failure is the norm in life…errors are part of the game, part of its rigorous truth.


Discovering spirituality in the game of baseball is not so strange as it sounds.  

For literally thousands of years, sages and saints have explored the ordinary and everyday in the attempt to understand the extraordinary and divine.  The ritual of the Japanese tea ceremony - simply carrying and serving tea - is a profound spiritual exercise.  The posture of kneeling in prayer conveys acceptance and mindfulness.  Standing up in a crowded room and saying, “My name is John, and I’m an alcoholic,” calls forth the spiritual realities of humility, gratitude, tolerance, and forgiveness. Ernest Kurtz and Katherine Ketcham, The Spirituality of Imperfection

I grew up playing baseball.  With an old ball torn at the seams.  

Now, I know “why”.  



It is a game of failure

…and subsequently of spirituality.






The beauty of baseball is certainly not in brevity, but in the normalcy of its nuances.  


I need to sacrifice.

I hope to be safe.

I have to get home.





…but I fail.



Field of ‘failure’ of field of ‘faith’?


I have a GIVENNESS NOW to the errors of the game.

What do I have a GIVENNESS NOW to?

This solemnity of sacred sobriety.


The ‘food’ on our dinner table isn’t always for eating 

…sometimes, it’s for talking, too.


Family feast?  Culinary conversation may be on the menu, depending on what nutrition we need in our daily diet.  No finer Christmas cuisine could’ve been served, than when my son, Zachary randomly chose this question from the ”Food for Talk” box of cards, and I savored his answer:
“Knowing that everyone in your family got out safely, what item would you grab first, if your house was on fire?”Julienne Smith, Food for Talk…the “coin”.
…the coin charged with hope and prayers at his graduation night, from the Banner Behavioral Health - Chemical Dependency Intensive Outpatient Program, on December 1st, 2010.



Consider the significance of this solemnity today. 

The sanctification is not just for the son. 







“…what item would you grab first, if your house was on fire?”


I have a GIVENNESS NOW to this sacred solemnity of sobriety.

What do I have a GIVENNESS NOW to?

The eve of joy.



“I divide the causes of human laughter into joy, fun, the joke proper, and flippancy.

You will see the first among friends and lovers reunited on the eve of a holiday.

Among adults some pretext in the way of jokes is usually provided, but the facility with which the smallest witticisms produce laughter at such a time shows that they are not the real cause.  What is the real cause we do not know.

Something  like it is expressed in much of that detestable art which the humans call “music”, and something like it occurs in heaven - a meaningless acceleration in the rhythm of celestial experience, quite opaque to us.  

Laughter of this kind does us no good and should always be discouraged.  Besides, the phenomenon is of itself disgusting and a direct insult to the realism, the dignity, and the austerity of hell.”C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters

Laughter lifts.  Excitement exudes.  Desire delights.


Doesn’t this journey to ‘joy’ derive from detachment?

Otherwise, I only have ‘happiness’.



An acceleration from agony to anticipation?

Perhaps what’s most probable, is a palpable pleasure that never possesses…




I have a GIVENNESS NOW to entertain the eve of joy.

What do I have a GIVENNESS NOW to?

Dust bunnies or dung.



“She wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.”Luke 2:7

She wasn’t “Mary”

…but “Kathryn”, a twenty year old single mom.



He wasn’t “Jesus”

…but “Vann”, her five month old son.




Where did “she” lay “him”?



Thanks to her husband, Joseph

…free of dung.


Thanks to my wife, Genine

…free of dust bunnies.



No thanks to me…



If it would have been “Mary”

…instead of “Kathryn”

If it would have been “Jesus”

…instead of “Vann”

If it would have been “dung”

…instead of “dust bunnies”




Would I have made “room”?


Dust bunnies or dung, Kathryn or Mary, Vann or Jesus, 

…”this” is Christmas.







I did get to help change his poopy diaper.


Vann’s

…not Jesus’.



I have a GIVENNESS NOW to dust bunnies or dung.

What do I have a GIVENNESS NOW to?

This advent of Achan.


“But the Israelites were unfaithful in regard to the devoted things; Achan son of Karmi, the son of Zimri, the son of Zerah, of the tribe of Judah, took some of them.  So the LORD’s anger burned against Israel.  Now Joshua sent men from Jericho to Ai, which is near Beth Aven to the east of Bethel, and told them, “Go up and spy out the region.”  So the men went up and spied out Ai.

When they returned to Joshua, they said, “Not all the army will have to go up against Ai.  Send two or three thousand men to take it and do not weary the whole army, for only a few people live there.” So about three thousand went up; but they were routed by the men of Ai, who killed about thirty-six of them.  They chased the Israelites from the city gate as far as the stone quarries and struck them down on the slopes.  At this the hearts of the people melted in fear and became like water.

Then Joshua tore his clothes and fell facedown to the ground before the ark of the LORD, remaining there till evening. The elders of Israel did the same, and sprinkled dust on their heads.  And Joshua said, “Alas, Sovereign LORD, why did you ever bring this people across the Jordan to deliver us into the hands of the Amorites to destroy us?  If only we had been content to stay on the other side of the Jordan!  Pardon your servant, Lord. What can I say, now that Israel has been routed by its enemies?  The Canaanites and the other people of the country will hear about this and they will surround us and wipe out our name from the earth.  What then will you do for your own great name?”

The LORD said to Joshua, “Stand up!  What are you doing down on your face?  Israel has sinned; they have violated my covenant, which I commanded them to keep.  They have taken some of the devoted things; they have stolen, they have lied, they have put them with their own possessions.  That is why the Israelites cannot stand against their enemies; they turn their backs and run because they have been made liable to destruction.  I will not be with you anymore unless you destroy whatever among you is devoted to destruction.

“Go, consecrate the people.  Tell them, ‘Consecrate yourselves in preparation for tomorrow; for this is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: There are devoted things among you, Israel.  You cannot stand against your enemies until you remove them.

“‘In the morning, present yourselves tribe by tribe.  The tribe the LORD chooses shall come forward clan by clan; the clan the LORD chooses shall come forward family by family; and the family the LORD chooses shall come forward man by man.  Whoever is caught with the devoted things shall be destroyed by fire, along with all that belongs to him.  He has violated the covenant of the LORD and has done an outrageous thing in Israel!’”

Early the next morning Joshua had Israel come forward by tribes, and Judah was chosen.  The clans of Judah came forward, and the Zerahites were chosen.  He had the clan of the Zerahites come forward by families, and Zimri was chosen.  Joshua had his family come forward man by man, and Achan son of Karmi, the son of Zimri, the son of Zerah, of the tribe of Judah, was chosen.


Then Joshua said to Achan, “My son, give glory to the LORD, the God of Israel, and honor him.  Tell me what you have done; do not hide it from me.”

Achan replied, “It is true!  I have sinned against the LORD, the God of Israel.  This is what I have done:  When I saw in the plunder a beautiful robe from Babylonia, two hundred shekels of silver and a bar of gold weighing fifty shekels, I coveted them and took them.  They are hidden in the ground inside my tent, with the silver underneath.”


So Joshua sent messengers, and they ran to the tent, and there it was, hidden in his tent, with the silver underneath.  They took the things from the tent, brought them to Joshua and all the Israelites and spread them out before the LORD.

Then Joshua, together with all Israel, took Achan son of Zerah, the silver, the robe, the gold bar, his sons and daughters, his cattle, donkeys and sheep, his tent and all that he had, to the Valley of Achor.  Joshua said, “Why have you brought this trouble on us? The LORD will bring trouble on you today.”

Then all Israel stoned him, and after they had stoned the rest, they burned them.  Over Achan they heaped up a large pile of rocks, which remains to this day. Then the LORD turned from his fierce anger.  Therefore that place has been called the Valley of Achor ever since.”
Joshua 7:1-26



My “Christmas Letter” may not read as yours. 


Unhiding joy from sorrow.

…the joy of Genine, each Wednesday night, as we attended Banner Behavioral Health - Chemical Dependency Intensive Outpatient Program Family Night, with our son, Zach, and other families supporting husband or wife, son or daughter, mother or father. 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous.

Real from raw.  Relevant from relational.  Restoring from reconciling.  Recovery from revelation.


…the joy of Zach, through September, October, November, and December, proudly collecting his 30, 60, and 90 day “chips” from Narcotics Anonymous meetings, and graduating from Banner.


…the joy of Gabe, earning a “C-” in an Ethics course, while recording music with his Indie band. 


…the joy of Abby, hoping her volleyball serve cleared net and the hated math homework got done. 


…the joy of Grace and me, finally talking about our near drowning.  Telling tears from the torment.  Bond and bereavement.  Reconciliation, restoration and recovery of a dad with his 11-year old.




My “clan”.  My “family”.  My “devoted things”.


…removed. 

…unhidden. 


From the ground inside my “tent”. 




…trouble in the tent? 

…devoted to destruction?


Not if nothing is to be hid.






I have a GIVENNESS NOW to this advent of Achan.