Hermits and Attending to the News

[[Dear Sister, do you pay attention to the news? I wanted to ask if you are concerned about the war in Iran? I guess I was wondering if a hermit "withdraws" from all of that kind of thing and just spends his or her day in prayer. Are you supposed to be involved in politics? Are nuns supposed to do that? Do you ever go to the No Kings protests or are you even allowed to do things like that? I have been feeling so angry about the war and the situation with ICE and the murders that happened in Minneapolis that I hardly know what to do with myself! I guess I wondered if being a hermit keeps a person from being involved in all of that kind of stuff since you are trying to learn pure love, and then I wondered if that wasn't kind of irresponsible (no offense!!). . .]]

Thanks for sharing how you have been feeling recently. I understand both your feelings and why you would ask these kinds of questions; I think they are great. Definitely no offense given or taken!! As far as the question of this Administration, the passage of the great big beautiful bill, the actions being taken by ICE, the murders of Alex Pretti and Renee Good et al, the military actions taken before and in Venezuela and Iran (including the bombing of schools and hospitals in Iran,  (13 so far)) or Hegseth's juvenile and depraved video-game-style blustering about our military's power to kill, kill, kill, (as though this is real strength), along with his complete disdain for moral rules of engagement, and now President Trump's comments on Cuba being next, I have struggled with this for months. 

My own pain escalated this past week because of our unauthorized and unjustified attacks on Iran and the immorality and illegality of this war being carried out in our name. All that stunned me last weekend, and then I heard the reporting that some (perhaps) were trying to justify all of this in the name of Christ and so-called "Christian Nationalism" in an effort to initiate Armageddon. And all of this is being done in our name by a president who seems incapable of a coherent thought or of concern for anyone but himself! This (all) is the face of evil, the face of sin, the face of radical inhumanity, and the complete distortion of the universal vocation we share to image a merciful, loving God with our lives. It is what some theologians identified as total depravity being put forward as the idealization of strength and morality.

I do spend a lot of time in prayer, and at the same time, I pay attention to what is happening in our world because it is an important part of my vocation in Christ, to be the intercessory place where God and the world come together. This is part of a call to compassion and one way I participate in the recreation of the world God undertakes in Christ. What you may not have heard me say in earlier posts is "the world" I am called to be more strictly separated from, because I am a hermit living an ecclesial vocation, is that world that is resistant to Christ. What stricter separation means, then, is refusing to become enmeshed in that world because enmeshment makes authentic love impossible. Authentic love requires the ability to see clearly and to open one's heart freely. Enmeshment makes that impossible. What stricter separation allows, then, is an objectivity that sees reality more clearly as it is, and allows one to love it and the God who is its source and ground, freely and generously. 

So yes, I definitely pay attention to what is happening in this world. Everyone I know and love is affected by it. They are hurting, some with disappointment in the way this president has betrayed their hope in his campaign promises, and others who knew there was no chance he would keep these promises. And of course, they are hurting from the suffering being inflicted on the entire country (and beyond!!), on their neighbors of whatever political stripe or religious creed, and especially on those who are the most vulnerable among us in so many ways.

The Three Goods of Camaldolese Life

I hold them in prayer before the living God who loves them so dearly. That is at the very heart of an eremitical vocation. I don't think that makes me particularly political, though I certainly understand the issues and vote, occasionally protest (the last No Kings day, for instance), and give what I can. I think this is integral to being a Christian and a steward of God's good creation, as well as contributing to this world's genuine recreation in Christ.

Nuns, generally speaking, can involve themselves in the political scene in various ways. It's pretty much up to them in discerning the ways and degrees that are appropriate to their vocations and state of life. The same is true of hermits. My own degree and style of participation are measured in coherence with my Rule, with the state of my health, and according to the urgency of the situation. Of course, most of the time my participation is done from here in my hermitage and centers on prayer, though as noted, I will attend No Kings protests, etc., especially if I can go with another Sister or two. I am not sure what you mean by trying to learn "pure love" or how learning genuine love would keep me from involving myself in matters affecting this world in the ways I have described. After all, we learn love by loving and allowing others to love us. My involvement is motivated by growing love, while my participation fosters growth in compassion and the transformation of our world in Christ to something more just and loving. 

While my decisions in this regard are my own, and not necessarily appropriate for others, including other hermits, I can say that not involving myself in the way I have described would, for me, be cowardly, self-centered, and seriously sinful. As you say, it would be completely irresponsible, and, too, it would actually be contrary to my vocation as a hermit. You see, I embrace the characteristics of an eremitic life not for themselves alone, but for a larger purpose than the characteristics themselves. All of the elements of canon 603 (silence, solitude, prayer and penance, stricter separation from the world, the evangelical counsels, etc) are meant to lead each c 603 hermit to something larger than themselves, namely,  a listening and loving heart where we abide in God and God abides in us. This too is meant to serve a larger purpose by creating the intercessory space where God and the world he creates come together. While I continue to live the constitutive characteristics of c 603 with integrity, the paradox is I must also pay attention to the news, especially at times like the present US crisis. Only in that way do I truly grow in compassion and avoid the individualism that the Church is clear every c 603 hermit must avoid.

Sad though this also is, please know that what you are feeling is shared by millions and millions of people of every political persuasion, both in the US and outside it. Bring it all to God, of course, and pour your heart out to him and his suffering and risen Christ. And yes, let us hold one another in prayer, and allow that prayer to widen in scope as God's Spirit empowers it until it embraces even those whose immorality and illegalities are the source of so much suffering and death in our contemporary world. I wish you peace.

Follow-up Question on the Nature of Spiritual Life: On Being Embodied Spirit

[[Sister Laurel, I always thought that spirituality had to do with our spirits and flesh had to do with the material "stuff" of our bodies, but you have turned all of that on its head with the way you talk about Paul's language!!  If you are right then where does the practice of dividing people into spirit and flesh come from? And then to hear Paul doing the same thing, I mean where does the idea of spirit as the non-material in us and flesh is the material in us, come from? Were you taught the same division into flesh and spirit as this or were you taught the Pauline sense of these terms? What about our immortal souls, aren't they the spiritual part of us?]]

I think the way you have summarized things is the way most people think of spirit and flesh. It is also a seriously distorted way that we have to get over reading St Paul. If we read his Letters aright, not only with regard to these two terms, but also in regard to his understanding of the change in reality Jesus' death and resurrection bring about, and the way he understands God's project for the future of both heaven and earth together, we will be much farther along. The Scripture scholar and historian doing the most focused work on all of this today is NT Wright, and those interested in this should read his 1) Surprised by Hope, and 2) his new sequel, God's Homecoming, the Forgotten Promise of Future Renewal. I am reading the second volume now, and am really grateful Wright has done this sequel. Similar work has been done by Gerhard Lohfink in, Is This All There Is? On Resurrection and Eternal Life.

The tendency to divide reality into the spiritual as the "more real", and the material as the "less real" (or unreal) and dispensable part of us is Platonic, that is, it comes from Plato's notion of forms or "ideas" as the most real, and it gives us a dualistic notion of the human being. Sometimes people will add the notion that the material of our world is evil and needs to be separated from the spirit or the spiritual. This even more radically dualistic approach is Gnostic. Further, some people think that some have a special kind of knowledge (γνωσις, gnosis) that makes them more spiritual than other folks, or that is the key to salvation. That too is Gnostic and has been with us since the days of the early Church. Finally, the notion that human beings have an immortal soul that will and should one day be separated from the body and exist disembodied in heaven is neither Christian nor Biblical. The eschatology (theology of last things) present in Scripture is vastly different than this.

I was raised mainly in a Christian Science church until Junior High, so I heard this stuff in its purest, contemporary form quite regularly. Christian Science is Platonic through and through, and also profoundly Gnostic (Mary Baker Eddy's "principles" qualify as a form of gnosis, γνωσις, or "knowledge") --- though I doubt any Christian Scientists would admit this. Every Sunday, we recited Mary Baker Eddy's "Scientific Statement of Being" and discussed it and our lives in light of it. We also read Scripture in light of it, which, I didn't realize at the time, ensured we misinterpreted Scripture during each class. The SSB goes like this (and yes, I still know it by heart all these years later), [[There is no life, truth, intelligence, nor substance in matter. All is infinite mind in its infinite manifestations, for God is All-in-all. Spirit is immortal truth; matter is mortal error. Spirit is the real and eternal; matter is the unreal and temporal. Spirit is God, and man is His image and likeness. Therefore, man is not material; he is spiritual.]] Emphasis added.

While I had a basic, nagging conviction that "this just can't be right" and looked elsewhere from Junior High School on, I did not have the theological sophistication or categories necessary to understand how un-Christian this "theology" (and Platonism itself) is, nor to truly counter its errors until sometime after graduate school. Yes, I was given the most important pieces necessary for doing so in both my undergraduate and graduate studies, but it all really came together as I spent more time reading Scripture and exegetes who reminded readers of the Pauline meaning of terms like flesh and spirit (ψυχή, psyche) and who also began to take on the theology of a new heaven and new earth. Part of this "coming together" also came through presentations of the Lord's Prayer and the petition that God's will be done on earth as it is in heaven (God's domain), and further work of my own on prayer and the will of God always involving God's commitment to be Emmanuel, God With Us. The background to all of this included chronic illness and disability, with their challenge to take my entire self, both physical and spiritual, seriously in spite of limitations and obstacles --- something Platonism (or Christian Science) could never have done.

There were some really pivotal theological lessons throughout my schooling that made Christian Science and its "Scientific Statement of Being" impossible to accept. The first was a lesson on the distinction between Christianity and other religions, where I was taught that Christianity is the only faith that has God coming to us rather than us trying to get back to God!! The corollary to that was a lesson on the historical nature of Christianity and the Christ Event; this lesson reminded me that the Incarnation and any truly sufficient theology of the sacraments support a deeply positive evaluation of materiality, but also underscored that God comes to us in history and transfigures all He touches. Another lesson occurred in a graduate class on grace with Kenan Osborn OFM. Kenan was trying to get across the idea that human beings are not dualistic. We are not platonic soul/body dualisms, but instead embodied spirit (or inspirited bodies); that is, we are unities, he affirmed.  During this class, Kenan (a really diminutive man), picked up a chair and clutched it tightly to his side; then he walked up and down several rows of students, repeating, "I don't just HAVE a body, I AM my body!!" (Not that this is ALL we are, but it is an integral part of who we are and how we possess ourselves! In other words, embodiedness is integral to being truly human.) At the time, I didn't really understand the whole lesson he was teaching, but I never forgot the example nor ceased being challenged by it and its urgency for Kenan. Eventually, I came to understand it as I continued to read and do theology.

During ThD work, but especially thereafter, I read more Scriptural exegesis, pointing out God's will to create a new heaven and new earth, and in Christ, as well as in those who are baptised into Christ, God would be Emmanuel in our world. I went back to consider sacramental theology and came to recognize the way God's presence sanctifies even the most fundamental material reality (think sacraments here). It was combined with Christianity's most foundational belief in bodily resurrection (Jesus), with Catholicism's affirmation of bodily assumption (Mary) --- these both imply new forms of embodiedness --- with the affirmation that the intimate, dynamic love that flows between the Father and the Son is present to us in the Holy Spirit and, of course, with the theology of the New Testament that affirms that in Christ, God is in the midst of creating a new heaven and new earth, and science's discovery of our evolutionary universe.

What does all of this mean? Very briefly, it leads to a theology that allows us to take our whole selves and our world entirely seriously because, as it says in Genesis, we are to be stewards of God's good creation. (Think how differently everything would be if we simply lived up to that vocation!) At the same time, this is a reality suffused with the presence and Spirit of God. "Heaven and earth are full of the glory of God!") Spirituality does not allow the denial or denigration of the material, but rather the affirmation of its potential in God. After all, taking the fundamental goodness of creation and the essential embodiedness of the human being is what the Incarnation and affirmation of bodily resurrection demand of us. 

This is also what a theology of Sacraments and the sacramental demands of us, including our sense that the Church, flawed as it is in some ways, is "primordial sacrament". The world (God's good creation) is an evolving reality, and the Sacraments point to creation's potential to be transfigured and transformed by the Holy Spirit. Similarly, our belief in Jesus' "Coming Again" makes sense within this theology. Further, escapist mentalities that allow us to disengage with our Church and world as we focus on "getting to heaven" are entirely disallowed. (Also disallowed, then, are ways of seeing the world that allow us to begin wars to try and bring about Armageddon, a rather timely piece of wisdom regarding a particularly bad way of reading Scripture!!) 

Whatever you take from this post, I hope you will remember the fact that we are embodied spirit, and we neither can nor will remain disembodied. This is one lesson of the bodily resurrection of Jesus. (Following Thomas Aquinas, Joseph Ratzinger (Benedict XVI) once wrote that the soul is the form of the body (not the other way around!), and, reflecting on the future fulfillment of all creation, when God will be All in All, opined that even though disembodied at death, our soul or spirit yearns to build a body about itself once again! (Dogmatic Theology, Eschatology, vol 9) This is exactly contrary to the way so many have been taught to think of the relationship of soul to body and anticipates some New Testament eschatology. I also hope you will take Fr Kenan Osborne's lesson with the chair clutched to his body and his assertion that, "I do not just HAVE a body, I AM my body," with you.

P.S. I realize I haven't really answered your last question, so I will do that in a separate post as possible. (If I can't do that, I will add a paragraph here later and let you know either way by email. Peace!)

USCCB Weighs in on Administration's Plans for Mega-Internment Camps for Immigrants

The US Conference of Catholic Bishops put out a statement speaking to Administration plans for dealing with immigrants (both legal and illegal) in this country. Some of it will disinfranchise children born here in the US who are granted citizenship, and much of it will change the rules on those who are here legally or in the process of seeking asylum (also here legally). Most have committed no criminal acts of any sort and, in fact, pay taxes, work as hard as anyone else in this country (and harder than many!), and add immeasurably to the quality of this country's culture, diversity, and personal richness. The US recognizes that what we did to Japanese-Americans during WWII, is a stain on our county's foundation vision, values, and history. What is happening now in the all-too-apparent name of white supremacy, and less openly, a nationalism that blasphemously goes by the name of "Christan" is neither American nor Christian. I am grateful the Church is speaking out again the injustice and terrible harm being done to our brother and sisters in the name of the United States.

WASHINGTON - Newly released details show how the Administration plans to double federal immigration detention capacity, spending an estimated $38.3 billion from last year’s reconciliation bill to implement a new detention model by the end of Fiscal Year 2026. This amounts to nearly fifty times the annual budget for the entire immigration court system and almost five times the funding provided this year to operate the federal prison system. The plan partly entails opening eight “mega‑centers,” each of which would be capable of detaining 7,000 to 10,000 people. Aside from the internment camps used to incarcerate Japanese Americans in the 1940s, such facilities have no precedent in American history.

In response, Bishop Brendan J. Cahill, chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ (USCCB) Committee on Migration, urged the Administration and Congress to pursue a more just approach:

“These plans are deeply troubling. The federal government does not have a positive track record when it comes to detaining large numbers of people, especially families, and the proposed scale of these facilities is difficult to comprehend. The private prison industry is who stands to gain the most from this supercharging of immigration detention. 

“Last November, my brother bishops and I unequivocally opposed the indiscriminate mass deportation of people and raised concerns about existing conditions in detention centers. We specifically highlighted a lack of access to pastoral care for detainees. On many occasions, we have also opposed the expansion of family detention, recognizing its harmful impacts on children in particular.

“The thought of holding thousands of families in massive warehouses should challenge the conscience of every American. Whatever their immigration status, these are human beings created in the image and likeness of God, and this is a moral inflection point for our country. We implore the Administration and Congress to lead with right reason, abandon this misuse of taxpayer funds, and to instead pursue a more just approach to immigration enforcement that truly respects human dignity, the sanctity of families, and religious liberty.”

Pope Leo's Brief Talk on the Situation of the US and Iran

Pope Leo exercised his role as universal pastor of the Roman Catholic Church during his Angelus talk. In expressing his deep concern, he urged the US and Iran to return to diplomacy and to find a way to both peace and justice. In what was truly an expression of Christian charity and justice, Leo's heartfelt prayer and exhortation remind us of the witness Christians are called to bear as we take seriously that this is God's good creation, and, as essentially sacramental, it is shot through with the glory of God. At the same time, though the powers and principalities have been essentially defeated by Christ, the victory he achieved must still be internalized by each of us, and, empowered by the Holy Spirit, extended throughout our world so that God might be All in All. 

In Christ, despite the suffering the US government's actions cause all of us in so many ways, in our deep compassion for the whole of God's creation, we must find ways to bring peace and justice throughout; we must find ways to love our world into wholeness. And that task just got immeasurably harder and more painful. Evenso, this newly-exploded situation is the cross we are specifically asked to pick up this Lent and beyond. What Pope Leo asked us all to do in his reference to diplomacy was what Matthew's Jesus referred to as being gentle as doves and clever as serpents in the name of the God whose creation this truly is. After all, negotiating this world with love, prudence, intelligence, faith, hope, and compassion so that God might truly be Emmanuel, is what it means to be Christ's own who are both within and yet not of this world.

Defining "Spiritual Life"

[[Hi Sister Laurel, I wondered how you define "the spiritual life". Did you become a hermit so you could live a spiritual life when it was not possible otherwise? I know you are asked to embrace "stricter separation from the world" so I wondered if a spiritual life is not possible in the world. Though I have that question I also wonder if that isn't elitist because it seems to say ordinary people can't live spiritual lives. Does your definition of spiritual life accept that ordinary people in the world can live spiritual lives or is that ruled out? How do we recognize that? One final question, and I don't mean any insult, but do you think you are at a higher level of spiritual growth than those who are out and about in the world? Are you more spiritual than others you know?]]

Important questions, so thank you for asking. One of the real strengths of Vatican II was its recognition that every person is called to holiness, no matter their state of life. Of course, this is rooted in Scripture. Every person is called to (learn to) abide in God and allow God to abide in them. Every person is made for this. It is actually what it means to be truly human. This "abiding in God/Love-in-act and letting God/Love-in-act abide in us" is what holiness is all about. We sometimes speak of wholeness and being made true and the way this all happens is in the power of the Holy Spirit. All of this points to the fact that we are essentially spiritual beings. That is our truest nature. What we often live are wounded and even distorted versions of our truest selves insofar as we are estranged or alienated from the ground and source of life and love we know as God.

With all of that said, I am in a position to answer your first question and probably a couple of the others as well. I define spiritual life or spirituality in terms of "living and learning to be our truest selves in the power of the Holy Spirit." To be a truly spiritual person means to live an authentically human life in the power of the Spirit of God. It is nothing more nor less than that, though it is true that because of the richness and dynamism of this experience, we can describe it in terms of dialogue with God and a number of other ways as well. This also means that spirituality or "the spiritual life" does not refer to the life of the human spirit disembodied or otherwise divorced from the rest of the person, but rather to the life of the whole person under the power of the Holy Spirit. Because of this, I believe that any person in any state of life, especially if sufficiently loved and supported in this journey to union with God, can learn to allow God to love them "into" their own deepest truth and potential. After all, Jesus calls all of us, though we are in the world, to not be of the world!

This is also the profoundly Pauline meaning of the term "spiritual life" just as "life of the flesh" means the life of the whole person under the sway (or suasion) of the powers and principalities of this world. Folks reading Scripture often fail to understand what Paul means by terms like person of the flesh or person of the spirit, or even just references to flesh vs spirit. It is important to remember that almost all of the time, Paul is speaking of the whole person, and then, under what power or spirit they live their lives, either that of the flesh or the Holy Spirit.  When hermits speak of "the world," they are to be more strictly separated from, the meaning is similar. We are called to stricter separation from the world that is under the sway of the powers and principalities that are resistant to Christ, or resistant to truth, life, and wholeness. We are not called to be more strictly separated from the world that is God's good creation, except to the extent that our time learning to abide in God and allow God to abide in us is better spent in the hermitage.

I became a hermit because I felt called to spend my time in prayer, study, and the silence of solitude to truly become my truest and best self with and in God. This is also to say I became a hermit to glorify God, since in becoming our truest selves in the power of the Holy Spirit, we reveal God at the same time. Hermit life gave me the space and time to do this in spite of limitations and outright obstacles. Others are called to do this in more active and less hidden ways, and while I consider hermitage a great gift of God. I recognize others' paths to wholeness are an equally great gift. The key to understanding what constitutes a spiritual life is that it is always a life empowered by the Holy Spirit, God's own Spirit of love, truth, and wholeness. 

That means that, in light of the crucified and risen Christ, there is no place or reality from which God's Spirit is now cut off, no godless place or realm, no part of ourselves the Holy Spirit does not and cannot embrace and transfigure with her presence. In Jesus' crucifixion, death, and resurrection, the whole world is transformed with God's personal presence, and as a result, there is no longer any place we can call godless or even entirely profane. Learning to see reality in this new way, however, requires practice and conversion of mind and heart. This is what Jesus called coming "to see with new eyes," and it is the mark of the truly spiritual person, a person empowered by and able to recognize the Holy Spirit wherever and in whatever surprising way that Spirit "shows up" in our world.

How then, you ask, do we recognize this? (I think this is what you are asking!) Chapter 5 of Galatians has Paul reminding the Church in Galatia of the answer to this same question: the fruit of the Spirit (meaning the Holy Spirit) is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. (Gal 5:22-23) What Paul is describing here is not only the way those empowered by the Spirit behave, but also the way those who have "crucified the flesh" exist. It is not the case that these persons are disembodied or have left their materiality behind somehow. They no longer live under the spirit of the world or of the flesh. They are no longer marked and marred by the fruit of this spirit, and are free of things like enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, and envy, etc. (Gal 5:19-21). They are, that is, free to love.  A "spiritual person" is marked by the fruit of the Holy Spirit. A "worldly (or fleshly) person" is marked by the fruits of the spirit of the flesh.

Regarding your last question and what I believe about myself, I don't tend to compare myself to others in those terms. Secondly, I have no way of knowing how spiritual anyone is (myself included) unless I can see the fruits of the spirit of their lives, and even then, I think, it is impossible (and likely worldly or fleshly) to compare ourselves with others in the way you describe (cf rivalries, envy, and jealousy above). The ability to "see with new eyes" is the ability to see someone's deepest potential, to see God in them, to see them, in fact, as God sees them. At the same time, when I listen to or watch the news, I do see people today who yet leave wreckage and ruination (enmity, strife, dissensions, idolatry, divisions, and rivalries) in their wake, and who appear to be motivated by the spirit of this world (fits of anger, rivalries, jealousy, envy, drunkenness, (sexual) immorality, etc.). 

More and more, I see these persons as "unanswered questions" (where God and the love of others in God are the answers they yearn for and need so desperately), or I see them as people who are tortured by homesickness (as in my last post), and who lash out and hurt others as a result of their own suffering. My prayer for these persons is the same as Paul's was when he spoke to the Galatians regarding those disrupting their faith community: [May they] live by and keep step with the Spirit. [May their flesh] with its passions and desires be crucified in Christ, and, as persons of the Spirit, "Let (the rest of us) not become conceited, provoking one another, or envying one another."

I do know people who are profoundly loving and are marked by the other fruits of the Spirit. Some of them are Christians. These persons are deeply committed to this world and seek to be those who mediate God's presence to it in Christ. Like any expression of the Church and its Eucharist, they allow themselves to be broken open and poured out for the life of this world just as Jesus did and as baptism calls us all to do. As they live their lives in this way, the world is gradually transfigured and transformed. They work with (and belong to) a great "cloud of witnesses" (the Communion of Saints) just as do all Christians living their faith on the way to God's still (relatively) incipient or nascent new creation, --- what the New Testament calls a "new heaven and new earth". 

While these persons do not focus on their own holiness, their commitment to this world as God's own and on God's will to be Emmanuel implies that, in and with God in Christ, they do work towards being themselves more and more fully, more and more authentically and exhaustively. Their lives are marked especially by their capacity for compassion and self-giving love in relationships and in ministry. These are people I recognize as profoundly Spiritual. Paradoxically, the greater this spirituality, the more profoundly they are also rooted in their own psychosomatic truth and in the physical world in which they live, thus affirming the sacramental realities we each and all are called to become in Christ.

Dying of Homesickness

 In Tuesday's post, I shared a poem called "Homesick" by Carol Ann Duffy. While I love the entire poem and the mood it captures (even as it says that such a thing is uncapturable and all of our modes of expression are inadequate to the experience, and reality behind the experience), one of the lines from that poem has stayed with me as particularly moving and intriguing. Duffy writes:

Why is our love imperfect,

music only echo itself,

the light wrong?

We scratch in the dust with sticks,

dying of homesickness

for when, where, what.

It is the second stanza here that most caught my attention and stayed with me because it reminded me of the story in John 8, where Jesus, dealing with the all-too-human tendency to judge others and to execute those we judge, pauses to write with a finger in the dust before looking up again to find the woman (but not the man!) caught in adultery, now standing alone, her accusers having left, their stones uncast and dropped behind them. And I wondered about Jesus' "homesickness", his yearning to be reunited with the One he calls Abba, and our own as well, and the idea of Jesus both living and dying to bring us all home to God, or perhaps more accurately, living and dying to bring God to us so we might finally rest in Him for whom we are made and yearn.

Throughout the poem, every reference to human expression, lovemaking, homemaking, music-making, writing,  is of something that is profound, deeply creative, and simultaneously, profoundly inadequate, a mere echo of something we know deeply and cannot really articulate clearly. But as I reflected on the line I take to be a line about Jesus, I recognized that this deep Mystery is one he knows well, and articulates exhaustively in every moment and mood of his life. His pausing to write in the dust reflects his patience and mercy as he gives the judgmental people in the story time to consider his words, "Let him who is without sin, cast the first stone", and walk away from their chosen course. Jesus' tracing in the dust gives the woman a moment of relative privacy and the chance to imagine a life beyond her terror, and to hear the God of Jesus, revealed in the words, "then neither do I condemn you!" as well as the gift of a future at rest in the peace only this God can give, "Go and sin no more".

Dying of homesickness is a phenomenon we know very well, especially in today's culture and in the United States' political situation. It's a good way of describing the situation of sin. We yearn for something or someone, we do not know what or who, and we try to fill or assuage that yearning with something other than that for which we truly yearn, sometimes something unhealthy, even like power over others, where we exploit the yearning of others and deprive them in the name of our own hungers. We build lives and careers around this yearning as we search for a fulfilling love and a transcendent meaning we sense we are made for; in our insecurity and resulting voraciousness, we create worlds where others are deprived while we are momentarily satiated. At the same time, this "homesickness" is not merely the situation of sin, but a source and impetus of our greatest potential and creativity as well. We are rooted in some great Mystery we cannot articulate, and we reflect it in both our greatest and least acts of creativity. Because we know both "home" and "homesickness," we create art and music and life and order and religion. We create organizations dedicated to charity, science, art, and authentic humanity. In other words, we live our homesickness, both in great creativity and in great cruelty and destruction.

As I reflected on it during the last few days, I saw that homesickness is a terrifying form of suffering and at the heart of the Christian Faith. It is what caused Augustine to famously acknowledge, "Our hearts are restless until they rest in thee!" And of course, dying of and for homesickness is something Jesus does. It is how we know him best. He did it every day of a life lived for others and their deep homesickness in Galilee and beyond, and he knew it himself as he yearned to come home to the One he called Abba. He did it as he poured himself out for the poor and sick, the bereft and bereaved, as he taught his disciples and the multitudes, or as he emptied his heart to God in prayer. He did it on the cross as he took on the agonizing homesickness of sin we laid across his shoulders. And he does it today as well as do his ministers and disciples (of every faith) as they creatively pour themselves out for others in the streets of Minneapolis, or Chicago, or Los Angeles,* or in any place the poor, the stranger, the hungry, et al are persecuted, deprived of any home at all, and as they seek to find (or others seek to provide) rest, nourishment, meaning, and love in human community. 

We are all called to live and die of and for homesickness because we are all called to live and die for the new creation, the new heaven and earth God has begun creating in Christ. It is that "Kindom" that will ease our universal "pining" for the "somewhen" that Carol Ann Duffy captures so well in her poem. 

Until then, until God is All in All and the new heaven and new earth are brought fully to be, writers will continue "scratching in the dust," --- though more often they use wordprocessors today --- homemakers will do their best to make a true home for those they love, philosophers and theologians will explore a different kind of life and light, and beauty of a different order. In contrast, composers of all sorts continue to write the magnificent music that is still merely an echo of a more profound music/Mystery we each know deep inside us. 

In this first week of Lent, because of Janet Morley's book and a wonderful poem of Carol Ann Duffy, I will take away something new, something I had not really named so clearly before. Specifically, that Jesus, in living and dying to reconcile the whole of creation to God, "dies of homesickness," both ours and his own. Lent thus becomes more clearly a season that calls me to get in touch with my own homesickness and prepares me (and others!) for the homecoming Jesus set in motion with his life, death, and resurrection, as well as with God's sending of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.

* I shall have to add Tehran to this list since Donald Trump, in his own almost infinitely voracious homesickness, has taken the US into war against Iran on 28. February.2026.

A Contemplative Moment: Homesickness

As a way of continuing the theme of "living the questions we are," and entering more fully into this first week of Lent, I wanted to share a poem from the book I recommended in my last post. After all, in Lent we learn to pose the question we are more and more profoundly as we seek more consciously, and prepare ourselves to truly hearken (hear and respond) to the "answer" God is. That answer comes to us in fullness and is exhaustively revealed with Jesus' death and resurrection. For now, though, we continue to fast, pray, and find ways to give alms as we explore more and more deeply the "question" we are, and the really deep needs and seeking that drive us in this life. I hope this poem helps with that exploration.

Homesick

by

Carol Ann Duffy

When we love, when we tell ourselves we do,

we are pining for first love, somewhen,

before we thought of wanting it. When we rearrange

the rooms we end up living in, we are looking

for first light, the arrangement of light,

that time, before we knew to call it light.

Or talk of music, when we say we cannot talk of it, but play again

C major, A flat minor, we are straining 

for first sound, what we heard once,

then, in lost chords, wordless languages.

What country do we come from? This one?

The one where the sun burns

when we have night? The one

the moon chills; elsewhere, possible?

Why is our love imperfect,

music only echo itself,

the light wrong?

We scratch in the dust with sticks,

dying of homesickness

for when, where, what.

from the heart's time 

by Janet Morley

                                                                              

Lenten Resources

[[Hi Sister Laurel, Good Lent to you! I'm getting a kind of late start on asking you about resources for Lent, but I did want to do that.  What are you reading for Lent? Do you have any suggestions for readers here? If there's something I could bring to my parish, I would love to do that. There are a few of us who are going to meet as a group, so we need something to use as a focus. Any ideas? Thanks!]]

You are not getting started too late, though; if you are going to order books, you will miss a few more days. I have three books to recommend. The first two are daily readings (only the second is Scriptural) with accompanying reflection and discussion questions. The third is a new book by NT Wright that is a sequel of sorts to his wonderful Surprised by Hope. So, here they are: 

1) Morley, Janet, The Heart's Time, a Poem a Day for Lent and Easter. Morley has another similar volume for Advent through Epiphany Haphazard by Starlight, which I used last Advent. It is wonderful -- rich, insightful, with well-chosen poems! You don't need to read the entry for every day, and can stay with any poem that really speaks to you for as long as it nourishes. This book for Lent and the first week of Easter seems the same to me.

Morley begins with a poem by a known poet, follows that with an analysis of the poem, and finishes each offering with a reflection question for the day. (I notice she uses two of e.e. cummings' poems, including "i am a little church", and "i thank you god", both personal favorites of mine.) I've used this book for the last several days, and it really is one of those books that screams FEAST!! --- even in a season of fasting. It could certainly work for some parish groups, as well as for priests and religious looking for personal Lenten resources for retreat

2) Wright, N.T., From Wilderness to Glory, Lent and Easter for Everyone. Wright takes a Scripture lection for each day (Monday through Saturday), and supplies a commentary on it. This is followed by several questions for reflection or discussion. One problem here is that Wright does not have the Sunday readings in this volume. (I'm sure you can find a similar volume by Wright for Lent/Easter, and this year, (Year A) which will be similarly formatted and focus on the Sunday readings.) I would recommend this for parishes, for small groups during Lent, for Bible study groups, etc.

3) Wright, N.T.,  God's Homecoming, the Forgotten Promise of Future Renewal, This is a new book (2025) about the New Testament story of God coming to recreate heaven and earth and dwell with us here. It stands contrary to the idea that the NT is all about how it is we are saved and go to heaven. It also deals with the idea of an immortal soul in what will be a very surprising way to most folks. As Wright begins, [[Most people imagine that the point of Christianity is "to go to heaven when you die." . . . They are all wrong. The point of Christianity is not that we should go to heaven. The point of Christianity is that Heaven [God's own life and dimension]  should come to us." and again, "When (the early Christians) spoke of salvation, they were not talking about people being saved from the present world. They were talking about the creator God's plan of salvation for the present world -- with themselves, as rescued and repurposed human beings, playing an important role in that project." (GH, pp 3-4) 

I recommend this especially for study groups already familiar with Surprised by Hope, or for anyone wanting a fresh and more Biblically accurate approach to the Cross of Christ and what was achieved there, as well as what the mission of every Christian is now. I thought perhaps one needed to read Surprised by Hope first, but now that I have nearly finished this book, I have to say reading God's Homecoming first is just fine. The content of the books overlap, but their purposes differ. In some ways, this book is an easier read than, Surprised by Hope.  Go for it!!!

Finally, since you asked, I've also just begun rereading a book by Gerhard Lohfink, Is This All There Is? On Resurrection and Eternal Life (2017). Lohfink reflects on resurrection (meaning bodily resurrection) in the same way Wright does and rejects the idea of "going to heaven" or disembodied "immortal souls" as contrary to the Biblical story. What is resurrected is the whole person, and Lohfink looks at the credal affirmation "I believe in the resurrection of the flesh" in this sense from almost every perspective possible.

Have a terrific, fruitful, and surprising Lent!! (I find God always surprises me during Lent!!)

What Does it Mean to Say We are Called to Be and Become God's own Prayer?

[[Hi Sister Laurel, could you please say more about what you mean when you write about us becoming God's own prayer in the world? I think it must have a whole lot to do with how we understand prayer, but I am not sure I really get how we can be God's prayer. Our own, yes, but God's?]]

Yes, absolutely! Prayer, from our human perspective, is about allowing God to be God for and within us. Prayer is God's own work within us, in our hearts, in our whole selves. Nothing is excluded from prayer because nothing is excluded from God or the Love-in-Act that God is. Whenever we allow (because we are empowered to allow) the Spirit to open us to the presence of God in all of the ways God comes to us, we are praying. Whenever we pour our hearts out to God, we pray. When we work mindfully, open to what is true, good, real, beautiful, and meaningful, we pray. When we struggle deeply and honestly with the pain and suffering of this life, we are praying. Prayer is, in fact, what God does within and through us in our lives and world and this includes empowering us to pose the question we are as profoundly as possible, and similarly receive the answer God is.

Over the past months, especially, I have written several times about posing the question we are and how that presupposes the answer God is. What I have said is that we question not only because are aware of some lack and have need of an answer, but also because we already know enough of that answer to seek it. And what is also true is that God both is and desires to BE that answer! God desires to complete and transfigure us as an answer completes and transfigures the question it presupposes. In pouring out our hearts, we anticipate the answer God is. In creating us to be complete in himself alone, God anticipates both the question we are without him, and the answer we are with him. In pouring out our hearts in all things, we learn to pray. In allowing God to be the answer on his own terms, we learn to pray even more deeply. And in creating us to be his very own in all things, God pours out his own heart. Every act of creation, then, is part of God's own prayer in our world. And so, then, is every act of healing or recreation, every act of empowerment or completion God does in our own lives.

Most profoundly, we are made for God, made for Love-in-Act, made to be completed and entirely transfigured by God in, through, and with God as Emmanuel. As we allow God to complete us more and more profoundly, we see fulfilled not only the deepest longing of our own hearts, but the deepest longing of God's heart as well. To be Emmanuel and to make of us those who are also Emmanuel is God's heart's desire. In this fulfillment, we become the very embodiment of God's own prayer, the person he longed for us to become with and in him. Moreover, in this mutually-conditioned life, this ongoing heart-level dialogue with the very ground and source of our existence, we will also transfigure our world. In Christ, we become God's own prayer FOR our world as part of the "new heaven and new earth" God is creating now in and through the Christ Event. All of this is what I mean when I speak of being and becoming God's own prayer.

Feast of Saint Peter Damian (Reprise)

Today is the feast of the Camaldolese Saint, Cardinal, and Doctor of the Church, St Peter Damian. Peter Damian is generally best known for his role in the Gregorian Reform. He fought Simony and worked tirelessly for the welfare of the church as a whole. Hermits know him best for a few of his letters, but especially #28, "Dominus Vobiscum". Written to Leo of Sitria, letter #28 explores the relation of the hermit to the whole church and speaks of a solitary as an ecclesiola, or little church. Damian had been asked if it was proper to recite lines like "The Lord Be With you" when the hermit was the only one present at liturgy. The result was this letter, which explains how the church is wholly present in all of her members, both together and individually. He writes:

[[The Church of Christ is united in all her parts by the bond of love so that she is both one in many members and mystically whole in each member. And so we see that the entire universal Church is correctly called the one and only bride of Christ, while each chosen soul, by virtue of the sacramental mysteries, is considered fully the Church. . . .From all the aforementioned it is clear that, because the whole Church can be found in one individual person [Ecclesiola] and the Church itself is called a virgin, Holy Church is both one in all its members and complete in each of them. It is truly simple among many through the unity of faith and multiple in each individual through the bond of love and various charismatic gifts, because all are from one and all are one.]]

Or again, [[Just as in Greek man is called a microcosm, i.e., a little world (cosmos) because in essential physicality the human being consists of the same four elements of which the whole world is made, so also each one of the faithful [including hermits, Peter Damian's special interest in this letter] is a little Church (ecclesiola), as it were, because without violating the mystery of her inner unity, each person also receives all the sacraments that God has given the universal Church. . .]] Dominus Vobiscum, Letter #28 sec 25. (Emphasis added)

Because of this unity, Damian notes that he sees no harm in a hermit alone in cell saying things that are said by the gathered Church. In this reflection, Damian establishes the communal nature of the solitary vocation and forever condemns the notion that hermits are isolated or "lone" persons. His comments thus have much broader implications for the nature of eremitical life than the licitness of saying certain prayers or using communal phrases in liturgy per se. In the latter part of the letter, Damian not only praises the eremitical life but writes an extended encomium on the nature of the eremitical cell. 

The images he uses are numerous and diverse; they clearly reflect extended time spent in solitude and his own awareness of all the ways the hermitage or cell has functioned in his own life and those of other hermits. Furnace, kiln, battlefield, storehouse, workshop, arena of spiritual combat, fort and defensive edifice, [place assisting the] death of vices and kindling of virtues, Jacob's ladder, golden road, etc --- all are touched on here. Peter Damian's rich collection of images serves to underscore the classic observation of the Desert Fathers and Mothers: "Dwell (or remain) within your cell and your cell  will teach you everything."

They Came to listen and be healed. . . Nevertheless Jesus Would Withdraw to Pray (Reprised from 2019)

 It happened that there was a man full of leprosy in one of the towns where Jesus was;

and when he saw Jesus,
he fell prostrate, pleaded with him, and said,
"Lord, if you wish, you can make me clean."
Jesus stretched out his hand, touched him, and said,
"I do will it.  Be made clean."
And the leprosy left him immediately.
Then he ordered him not to tell anyone, but
"Go, show yourself to the priest and offer for your cleansing
what Moses prescribed; that will be proof for them."
The report about him spread all the more,
and great crowds assembled to listen to him
and to be cured of their ailments,
but he would withdraw to deserted places to pray.

 I have written in the past (and recently) that, had Jesus healed every person that came to him in need, it would still not have been enough; Jesus' mission was the reconciliation of all of creation, the destruction of sin and death themselves and not merely the healing of this illness or that form of "demonic possession", this dimension of social dysfunction, or that aspect of personal distortion or alienation. Jesus' realization that his mission has various differing priorities may have grown as he matured and grew, "in stature and grace", but gospel writers clearly recognized and do convey to us that he was more than a healer or exorcist.  They do this by comparing him with other healers and exorcists or by identifying him as King and Messiah; they do it by noting his refusal to heal or exorcise at times, and of course they do it by focusing on the import of Jesus' death and resurrection --- where no one was healed and nothing exorcised, but creation as a whole was reconciled to God and sin and death were transformed forever on the way to their eventual total destruction.

But the Gospel lection two Fridays ago ends with an even more surprising, even shocking, set of priorities. After healing a leper and having reports of this and other healing activity spreading far and wide, and after crowds of people actually assemble to hear him teach and  hea,l Luke says, BUT he would withdraw to deserted places to pray. The coordinating conjunction "but" makes it very clear that, despite the clear need for his capacity to teach and heal, Jesus recognized and embraced a greater priority; crowds of people had assembled so he could minister to them, nevertheless, he would withdraw (the meaning of the Greek here is that he would regularly withdraw even in these circumstances) to deserted places to pray. Granted, as a hermit, this clear statement of priorities is something I am sensitive to and appreciate; it is a way the gospels indirectly justify my own vocation to mainly eschew active ministry and embrace a contemplative life of prayer in the silence of solitude. At the same time, it is a salutary reminder to everyone in active ministry that withdrawal (anachoresis) to the desert is a priority that must be embraced in significant ways even when crowds clamor for our teaching and (mediated) healing.

I think sometimes we treat Jesus' clear pattern of regular withdrawal to pray as some sort of icing on the cake of his mission --- something which adds sweetness or depth but is not strictly necessary because, after all, "he is both human and divine". But with Christmas, we recognize that his mission is to be and truly allow God to be Emmanuel, God with us; this means that Jesus' prayer is the very essence of his embracing this identity because prayer is the very act of allowing God to be present to and active within us. Incarnating the Word of God demands and implies the lifetime dialogue of a human being with God. Incarnation itself is the result of this dialogue; it is the acceptance of a covenant relationship, the actual embracing of an identity as covenant reality. It is to be a person of prayer, and for Jesus, it is to be THE person of prayer or even THE embodiment of God's own prayer (God's Word, plan, will, desire, the very content of God's heart) in our world.

The Incarnation of the Word of God is real at the moment of Jesus' conception but God's desire to be Emmanuel is not fully accomplished at the moment of Jesus' conception and nativity; it requires Jesus' entire life for its full revelation (remember revelation is not just making known or manifest; it also means making real in space and time}. Christmas marks the nativity of the Incarnation, but Jesus' "growth in grace and stature" clearly points to an understanding of Jesus' fuller and fuller embodiment and revelation of the Word of God in every moment and mood of life. This covenantal identity implies his continuing dialogue with the One he calls Abba; again, it implies being a person of prayer and more, the incarnation of God's own prayer in our world. Whether we use the language of dialogue or covenant, prayer and the embodiment of prayer are the priority of Jesus' life, identity, and mission. I believe our own prayer is meant to serve in the same way.

It is not unusual to hear from those in active ministry for whom prayer is important but quite often seen as a way of "recharging one's batteries", or in some other way serving as a break from the activity of their ministry. Perhaps it is understood as something that allows one to recover energy for further active ministry. The problem I suspect with these views is that they do not see that Jesus' prayer witnesses to the fact that prayer is essential for one's identity as authentically human, as a covenantal reality who can only minister to others when and to the extent they are authentically human and live from, for, and with God. Maybe for some the idea of prayer (and retreat) as a way of recharging one's batteries is a colloquial way of describing this truth, but it seems to me when one really understands the importance of prayer for one's very identity and only then, for one's capacity to minister God's own Good News to others, "recharging one's batteries" simply fails to capture the truth of the situation. But prayer was essential to who Jesus was; it is meant to be at the heart of who we are as well.

Recently, as I was working through something in spiritual direction, my director asked me, somewhat rhetorically, "Why do you pray?" And looking around briefly to the space in which we were meeting (my hermitage prayer space) she continued, "It is the heart of your life; why do you pray?"  My answer was that I pray so that God might be God in me and, through me, in and to our world. Of course I also pray so that I might be made whole and holy, so that I might become the person God calls me to be --- a counterpart God created the cosmos in search of, someone who can be loved and love in response and therefore, in whatever way possible, reveal the God who is Love-in Act and the nature of the human being as covenant partner of that same God. But all of this is covered under the affirmation that I pray so that God might be God. In this way, my life of prayer is also my mission, and I think the same is true of Jesus. This, it seems, is what Luke is saying about Jesus and Jesus' prayer when he points to the striking priority this has in Jesus' life; according to our vocations, I think it is the priority that Luke is asking we each and all embrace with prayer and to whatever else we do in our own lives as well.

When We Pray for Healing: God as the Answer to Every Prayer

[[Hi Sister, I have always struggled with the feeling that God is not answering my prayers. I also have seizures, and God has not answered my prayer that they be stopped and healed. When you said "this gift of God's Self is the . . .answer to all prayer," what did you mean?]]

Thanks! I am grateful for your question! I sometimes hope folks will ask about certain things I say, and I often wait for it, or decide to say more later on anyway. Still, when the question I had been hoping for is asked, it is wonderful, so thank you! Also, thanks for sharing a bit about your situation.  My own seizures are medically and surgically intractable, so I think I know at least a little of what you mean about your prayer for healing. In any case, please know that I will hold you in prayer!

Now, about your question. I remember hearing someone explain in a homily, "God always answers our prayers; sometimes he says 'No'!" and at first, I thought that was a really clever answer. Until, that is, I had studied some theology and realized it raised more questions and created more difficulties than it answered or resolved. Over the years of reading theology, I saw several "mainline" approaches to the problem of suffering, and the struggle was always, 1) to do justice to the nature and will of God,  2) to do justice to the reality of our world and of sin, and 3) to respond in a truly pastorally sensitive and effective way. It seemed to me that if we were able to do justice to the nature and will of God, the rest would work itself out. I continue to believe that, and now, I would add that that often happens in unimaginable ways.

The Nature and Will of God in our Evolving World:

So what is the nature and will of God? I begin with the most foundational thing I think we can say, namely, God is Love-in-Act. God is the dynamic, eternal act of loving, and everything that comes to be comes to be because of this. God loves without ceasing and wants to create those who would be his counterpart. As far as the will of God goes, when we pray, "Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven," with what are we concerned? What is the will of God in every situation and circumstance? It can only be one thing, and that is that the God who is Eternal and the source and ground of existence, seeks to give Godself to us and love us into wholeness, or, stated somewhat differently, the God whose deepest desire is to be Emmanuel and to transform us and our world with His presence, is allowed to be and do that. This is always and everywhere the will of God. It was the will of God revealed most exhaustively on Golgotha when Jesus, in the face of godless sin and death, which he wholly took on, also remained open (obedient) to the one he called Abba, redeeming the situation and transforming godless reality with his presence. 

Remember that in our lives, ultimately, the one thing missing to one degree or another is God. Every person is made for union with God, and every person is born into a world subject to estrangement and alienation from God. We are incomplete and threatened by death in all of its forms, large and small. Every illness, every sin, every source of serious anxiety, and every failure to love or to be loved,  every act of inappropriate self-assertion and misguided autonomy, every instance of idolatry in its infinite number of forms, all of these and more, stem from the fact of this estrangement or alienation. Life has, to some extent, lost touch with its source and ground, and that source and ground is God. In Christ, God is about the larger project of reconciling all things to Himself. This constitutes both our ultimate healing and the definitive resolution of the lesser forms of illness and suffering we each encounter. We are perfected or brought to wholeness in God.

If all of reality is estranged or alienated from God, it is important to realize that in the Gospel accounts of Jesus' life and purpose, Jesus' healing ministry was "not enough". Even if Jesus had healed every person he came into contact with in his public ministry, it would never have been enough. After all, these illnesses, etc., were symptoms of a much deeper and more extensive situation. Thus, what God willed was to be with us, truly and personally present to, with, and for us in every moment and mood of our existence. God willed to reconcile all things to and in Himself. Our openness to letting him be God is the necessary way forward here. We had (and still have) to learn to be obedient (attentive and responsive) as Jesus was obedient, not because God willed Jesus' suffering nor ours (he did not and does not!), but because God willed Jesus' exhaustive integrity, as God's own counterpart here, in the face of our world's brokenness and hostility. 

Learning to be God's Covenantal Partners:

If we could learn to allow God to be Emmanuel (God With Us), if we too could become his counterparts, and never be alone, ultimately never be incomplete, never be without comfort or hope, the suffering that also and inevitably comes our way would lose a great deal of its sting; it could even be made meaningful as something that puts us in touch with our deepest yearnings and thus too, opens us to God's presence which is the source of our yearning in the first place. It is as though we ask for smaller gifts (healing, the easing of certain situations, etc) because we can't see any further than these things allow us to see, and God gives us the greater gift, the ultimately healing and comforting gift of Godself. So now, when I hear the statement, "God always answers our prayers," I complete it with "Yes, He gives us Himself," and I may note that with this presence, he transforms the entire world even in and sometimes through our woundedness!

Aware that in Christ God has become an eternally present, active, and faithful part of my life, I try to remember that God's purposes are larger than the problems I have and may seek healing for. I try to watch for signs of what God is actually doing with my life, despite and even through my illness and pain. I try to remember that my life is meaningful because of who I am and become with and in God, not what I might have been able to do if my desire for healing itself was met. Then, too, I try to discern what God and I are called to do together in these circumstances. A few of the questions I might raise include: Does his presence transform my suffering even though God does not heal me (and especially, not at this point in time)? Is my healing something that occurs on a deeper level? Am I more compassionate? More courageous? Am I less focused on my own limited vision of things? Have I become more vulnerable and less self-centered? Can I truly say, with St Paul, O God, "your grace is sufficient for me, your power is perfected in weakness"? In other words, have I accommodated myself to God's will, or have I failed in this? Do I watch for the unexpected ways my life can glorify God, or do I only see things in one key?

What is Possible When Healing Doesn't Happen:

In my own life, what became possible sans my own healing was a theology of chronic illness or disability as vocation, and as a potential eremitical vocation. I have been able to publish some (though not enough) on this. It has also, therefore, made eremitical life possible for me and led to an approach to eremitical life that broadens the concept of desert existence to include chronic illness and disability. This, in turn, opens the vocation to many who might have been turned away because they could not have met older notions of desert spirituality that required the hermit to live a physically arduous existence in a literal desert. It also contributed to my experiential sense that God did not will Jesus' crucifixion, but rather, God willed Jesus' radical openness and integrity as he continued a ministry that "spoke truth to the powers and principalities of this world" more than it concerned itself with directly or immediately healing every person or illness. 

The point here is that I can consider all of these and more because God has given Himself to me and to this world, not necessarily to heal this specific illness or that particular disability here and now, but instead to help me contribute to his re-creation of the whole world by witnessing to the truth of the Gospel, and reconciling this world to God in Christ. What I know is that God makes our lives abundantly alive and meaningful, even though this side of death, our union with God is imperfect, and we do not have the fullness of life we are called to yet. That God makes his dwelling place with us and acts with us to minister to his world, even in our brokenness and woundedness, is an affirmation of the way God values the whole of our lives. 

When we receive God in our lives, they become a covenantal project we undertake with Him; even illness and disability become potentially sacramental realities that affirm not only that we are made by and for God, but also that every dimension of our lives, including our brokenness and woundedness, is meaningful. With God, we will never be truly alone in anything we undertake, or in any suffering that comes our way. With God, our lives take on a completely new perspective that allows us to make a significant contribution in spite of, and sometimes, even because of illness and disability, not because God said no to our prayers for healing, but because he answered them in the affirmative way he answers every prayer, with the gift of Himself!! 

With this in mind, I would encourage you 1) to continue to pour your heart out to God as fully and honestly as you can, and 2) to practice discerning God's presence in all of the ways God comes to you, even when that does not involve the immediate healing of your seizure disorder. (In fact, if you focus mainly on healing, you may be less aware of the other ways God is at work in your life and miss possibilities for meaningful contributions to God's Church and world.) God will always answer your prayer, and he does that by giving Himself to you again and again, continually in fact. Accept him on his own terms, in his own good time (hard as that will sometimes be!), and try to trust that in this, as in everything, God works his will to bring life out of death, good out of evil, and meaning out of meaninglessness or absurdity. 

Again, know that I hold you in prayer. Thanks for doing the same for me!