Gaudete Sunday, Opening ourselves to a God of Surprises

Advent is a time of preparation, a time when we ready ourselves to see God acting in our world in a new, special, and surprising way --- a way that comes to us from beyond anything we have ever imagined. Many of the season's readings encourage us to pay attention and do so in a way that allows a response that is truly worthy of us and the God who comes to dwell with us in smallness, powerlessness, and homelessness. One of the most striking to me is the passage from Matthew 11: They are like children sitting in the marketplace and calling out to one another: ‘We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we sang a dirge, and you did not weep.’ What I have said about this before is: . . . it occurs to me that the people of "this" generation to whom Jesus spoke were seen as incapable of or entirely resistant to being themselves in response to whatever "tune" God plays or sings. It is an almost inconceivably tragic portrait of who we have become when the best analogy to that is of children who themselves resist or have actually become incapable of play! In light of this, I want to make two suggestions folks might practice in this preparation time for the celebration of Jesus' nativity. 

Approaching the Rest of Advent:

First, take time to play --- take time for serious play in something both easy and absorbing. Jesus' example of children who are incapable of playing in ways that prepare them for adult roles in the Kingdom is a devastating one. Again, there is nothing more tragic than children who cannot play, who cannot enter into the games their playmates begin and encourage them in. The Jewish theologian Martin Buber once called play "the exaltation of the possible." Adults often have had the capacity for play bred right out of themselves and this has serious consequences for their capacity to be surprised by a God who is the ground and source of the (unimaginably) possible. We have been so conditioned to work incessantly (even at recreation) and to have the answer to everything (or to Google it immediately!), that we are often incapable of the play which allows the deep questions of our lives to surface. Therefore, the first thing we need to allow ourselves the freedom to do is play in a way, perhaps, we have not done in a while. Perhaps you paint or color, or love jigsaw puzzles; maybe you used to do photography. If so, time to take these up again --- gently, not obsessively, but with a quiet focus that increases attentiveness and openness to the new and unexpected. Play!! It's important and serious work, especially in preparing for the surprising coming of God!

Secondly, while at play ask yourself the question associated with this Friday's Gospel and one of those associated with Advent in general, namely, [[What am I looking for?]] (This, along with the corollary, [[What am I being asked (or allowed) to see?]] would be wonderful questions to allow to rise within us before peering at the world through the lens of a camera, for instance. We are so apt to become aware of the unexpected and hitherto unseen at such times.) God is coming to dwell amongst us, even within us, so what are we looking for? What are we yearning for, dreaming of? What do we need this Christmas to be in light of Christ's birth amongst us?? We have taken the time to travel into the "desert" of play (and yes, it is a desert where we ourselves, God, and demons may be met!), we have relinquished control and allowed the eyes of our hearts to open gently and wide in this way. It is a perfect time to consciously "live the question" as Rainer Marie Rilke once reminded a young poet. We must allow ourselves to stop and explore the question, [[what did you come to see?]] Was it merely the expected or was it the unexpected? And how will we respond if and when the God of surprises comes? Imagine this!!! Prepare yourself!! Allowing the serious yet joyful living of such questions seems to me to be part of the very essence of play --- and also of Advent!

May we each open ourselves this Advent to become people who exalt in the possible, people who play and dream, and in this way are readied to partner with God in God's unimaginable enterprise of love!

Followup on the Foundational Ministry of the Eremitical Life

[[Hi Sister Laurel, you aren't saying that only hermits represent the heart of the Church are you? I hear you saying all Christians love others and their ministry conveys that. You also say that hermits represent the heart of the Church and witness to that largely without doing active ministry. I just wanted to be sure when you cite the idea of one body and many members, that you are not saying the hermit alone represents the heart of the Church. Thanks.]]

Hi there, yourself! Thank you for the question, and I apologize for not being clearer. I don't believe, and was not saying that only hermits reflect the heart of the Church. I believe every Christian reflects that heart and mediates that in their ministry. At the same time, I believe that in a really radical and dedicated way, the hermit represents the heart of the Church and does so apart from active ministry. Some represent the hands of the Body of Christ, some the mind or brain of the Body, for instance. All members reflect the heart of the Body, whether their ministry is scholarly or otherwise pastoral in any way whatsoever, and to some extent, then, they also represent the heart of the Body. 

Again, what I am saying is that hermits (and contemplatives who are not hermits) radically represent the heart of the Church even apart from any active ministry. It does not surprise me at all that the hermit's life spills over into some limited active ministry as do many other contemplatives', but what I am trying to draw attention to is the way journeying into the deepest recesses of one's own heart and to deeper union with God in Christ as a hermit is commissioned to do in the name of the Church, is itself ministerial and allows the hermit to represent that heart radically. I would go so far as to argue that hermits (and other contemplatives) stand in our world as the heart of the Church. They journey to the depths of their own hearts, where the authentic self stands with the God who would be Emmanuel, both beyond and in spite of all sin and death. This allows them to witness to the risen Christ in a way that is deeper or more radical than that of most Christian ministers and is the ground of all active ministry undertaken by any minister in the Church. Such a witness serves others; to undertake such a journey in the name of the Church for God's own sake and for the sake of all who would know (or be known by) God, is a profound act of faith and love that serves the Church qua Church. In other words, the Church itself needs the hermit (et. al.) to do this!

At the same time, everything in the Church, its proclamation, Scriptures, sacramental life, ministries of authority, and spiritual direction, for instance, supports and makes this journey possible. The journey the hermit makes into the depths of her own heart, her own existence, would not be possible without the Church and the God who enlivens her. It is not that the hermit discovers something the Church did not know and did not already proclaim in season and out. Even so, the hermit makes the journey that the Church's proclamation, support, guidance, and trust enable, anticipate, and, in the case of consecrated (canonical) hermits,  formally commissions her to make. (In a wonderful reference to the ecclesiality of this specific vocation, Ponam in Deserto Viam identifies the Church as "the maternal womb which generates this specific vocation.")** In essence, the Church professing and consecrating the canonical hermit (whether diocesan or a member of a religious institute) says to her, "Go and journey to the depths of solitary life with God. Rest in and reveal the Church's Sacred heart to the Body of Christ and to the entire world!" This, after all, is what it means for a hermit to glorify God (remember that "glorifying" here does not merely mean honoring, but rather revealing). 

The hermit is called to allow God to reveal Godself as Emmanuel. The difference between the hermit and most Christian ministers is that most ministers reveal a God who stands beside us in solidarity and loves us in and by feeding, teaching, clothing us, etc. The hermit gradually reveals the God who is Emmanuel in the very depths of our Selves -- even in our brokenness and the shadows of near-despair and death. Her vocation witnesses to this truth at every moment. Thus, the hermit's witness is more radical (not better or more worthy!!!), more radical (occurring at the roots), and necessary for, as well as implicit within, all other ministries occurring in the Church. The hermit relinquishes many other forms of ministry she might do very well, and she lets go of discrete gifts in the same way so that her life, in all of its marginalization and poverty, might proclaim the Gospel of a God who will allow nothing at all to separate us from his love. This is the hermit's experience, the experience that itself reveals and serves the Church's own life, proclamation, and ministry!

By the way, as a kind of postscript here, I suspect that many religious men and women who are no longer able to minister actively due to age or infirmity have discovered the same truth about their own vocations. Often, these Sisters and Brothers assume a role called the ministry of presence; sometimes it is called the ministry of prayer. After years and years of active ministry and prayer, I believe many know themselves (in Christ and the power of the Spirit) to be charged with being and revealing the heart of the Church to their Sisters and Brothers in community, as well as to others in the larger Church and world. These religious have entered the desert expanses of old age and/or infirmity, and their call there is similar to that of any eremite (desert dweller). My point could also be extended to include those who are chronically ill at almost any age. The difference is that religious have been professed, consecrated, and commissioned to live all of this in the name of the Church. This is the essence of an ecclesial vocation.       

 (PPS. November 21) In sharing and discussing all of this with my director today, she described something she does with Sisters in her own congregation who are no longer able to do active ministry and who suffer, because of course they want to serve. Sister Marietta described reminding them while sitting next to their beds (etc.) and pointing to the walls of their rooms, "These walls don't confine you! These walls don't confine you!! Your heart still roams the whole world, anytime, any day, anywhere!" 

Similarly, in affirming what she heard me saying about the writing and reflection I had done this past couple of weeks, Marietta recalled the Frederick Buechner quote I have used here in the past regarding vocation as "the place where our deep gladness meets the world's deep need." Thus, I was reminded that these Sisters of the Holy Family are in touch with their deepest selves and their life with God, that is their own deep gladness, and they are exploring a new way of imagining and meeting the world's deep need in the Risen Christ. This is precisely the vocation of the hermit and part of the reason one friend of mine (Rev Laurie Harrington) affirms the importance of the hermit being able to hear the cry of the world. One who does this, one whose heart is so attuned because of the journey she makes deep into her own heart and the heart of God and God's Church, is, at least essentially, a hermit.

____________________________________________________

The Hermit's Way of Life in the Local Church, Ponam in Deserto Viam (Is 43:19), paragraph 13, page 20 Libreria Editrice Vaticana (2021)

Living the Questions: On the Foundational Ministry of the Eremitical Life

[[Dear Sister Laurel, I have read your blog for years and I have considered becoming a hermit myself sometimes. There is one thing that keeps me from doing that. It has to do with active ministry and the fact that hermits don't do active ministry except in a limited way. I know you have written some about this, and about the ministry of the hermit, but I am not getting how it is that a person can be consecrated as a hermit when our world and church are so in need of active ministers. How can someone retire from "the world" when the Great Commandment requires us to love others as God loves us and we love ourselves?]] 

I have a good friend who sometimes supports a cloistered Carmel in his area. They live on the help of benefactors. I admit that I don't get this either. They are healthy, able-bodied women, and yet do no active ministry at all. I'm afraid the story with Mary and Martha and Jesus telling Martha that Mary has chosen the better part just sounds elitist to me, especially since Martha is working so that Jesus can be celebrated as a guest!! It doesn't help me to understand how someone (nuns or hermits) could sit at Jesus'feet while the world around her was so much in need of her active ministry. You can see why I have not gone ahead with my thought of becoming a hermit. Perhaps I will do it when I am older or infirm. I still need to understand how it is hermits minister if they are not doing active ministry. Can you explain this?]]

Thanks for your questions. They are timely. About three weeks ago, I did a presentation for an Independent Catholic Church on the eremitical vocation. The group was hosting its annual Ceilidh, with the overarching theme of "Commitment" and a secondary focus on ministry. What I tried to communicate was the nature of the fundamental eremitical commitment (to allow God to be Emmanuel and to allow ourselves in Christ to become transparent to God, that is, to become Emmanuel ourselves). I also tried to convey the idea of eremitical ministry, which has to do with standing in and even being part of the heart of the Church. Unfortunately, that was a pretty weak piece of what I presented so I have been thinking more about it, mainly in light of the recent writing I have done and the idea of becoming transparent to God. That is why your question is timely and I hope I will be able to say something that is helpful.

One of the criticisms sometimes made of contemporary religious men and women (though mainly women) who have decided not to wear habits, for instance, is that the Church needs religious, not "just" social workers. The idea behind this criticism is that when a religious woman looks the same as everyone else doing the same kind of work, her ministry is somehow reduced to being that of a secular social worker, teacher, or whatever. Women religious, of course, counter this criticism by pointing to the fact that the habit does not make them a religious. It is the person herself who shows what a religious woman is, and this can be done effectively without a religious habit. They do this because of all the virtues, but especially the love they bring to whatever ministry they do. This love and the ministry it informs and inspires is clear to those ministered to. Sisters are not doing this because of the high pay or similar benefits of the work they are engaged in, nor are their commitments grudging or half-hearted as might happen in a job that is not ministerial.

My sense is that this revelation of love is a foundational part of the Sisters' ministry, every bit as (or more) critical as any other dimension or element of what they do for others. A significant part of this also has to do with the reason a religious (or any Christian, really) does what they do. Yes, they do it because God in Christ calls and even commands them to do it, but they also do it because of who this love allows them to see the people they work with to be. When we feed the hungry, or clothe the naked, visit the prisoner, find shelter for the poor, or teach the ignorant, we do so because they are hungry, or naked, or imprisoned, or poor, etc. We do so in part because they are in need. Others (governments, social workers) can easily do all of this effectively without seeing the person as Christian ministers do. What is different in Christian ministry is that Christian ministers do not simply feed the hungry, etc., because the person is hungry, naked, imprisoned, ignorant, or poor. In fact, I would argue they do not even do so primarily because the person has such needs. Instead, their reason for doing what they do is deeper, more foundational. They do what they do because the person is precious to God and thus, to the minister. They do so because the person is of almost infinite value and dignity no matter their joblessness, homelessness, criminality, statuslessness, or whatever else marginalizes them, and because loving them as God loves them and treating them as the gift to the world they are called and have the potential to be, affirms and feeds, sets free and secures them, more foundationally than anything else can.

The canonical hermit (also a religious) is called to this specific and foundational dimension of Christian ministry even more radically than apostolic religious women and men. I say that because hermits' lives witness to who we are in God and because of God's love; no active ministry validates the hermit's life. A hermit lives her life in solitude with God for the sake of others, including all Christian ministers, servants, and shepherds, precisely to make clear the foundational truth all apostolic ministry is based on, namely, that every person is made for and called to union with God, and thus, that every person carries within themselves the spark of divinity and a unique capacity to image God, to be entirely transparent to God in our world. 

Everything in the hermit life marginalizes the hermit in ways intended to help her/him witness to this foundational truth, as no law, dogma, or doctrine can ever do. In the risen Christ, the hidden journey the hermit makes in and to the silence of solitude and its ever-deeper union with God, reveals the double reality that stands at the heart of every single life, deeper than any limitation, brokenness, doubt, or distortion, namely, authentic humanity and the living God. In the hermit, marginalization serves the truth that in the risen Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit, nothing at all can separate us from the love of God. In this way, the hermit witnesses to the nature and heart of the Church as it mediates the presence within our world of the God we know as Emmanuel and the way to the fullness of life that also represents Emmanuel.

That is what I have been writing about here for the past months and weeks, especially when I talk about the person as question seeking and anticipating the only sufficient answer, who is God. This was Thomas Merton's point as well. A friend sent me a copy of a page last night from a book on prayer she was reading. One line from a quote on that page struck me as the story of my own life seeking God and living as a hermit, viz.: [[I enter [my prayer space, prayer] as a suppliant and leave as a witness.]] I am especially reminded that the vocation to assiduous prayer and penance in the silence of solitude assumed by the hermit has always been seen as one of white martyrdom, and martyrdom is, most fundamentally, about witnessing. The word means witness! While hermits are not usually called to red martyrdom, they are called to journey to the depths of human existence where estrangement from God and union with God exist "side by side" so to speak. This is why I speak of living the questions most profoundly, and journeying into the shadow of death and despair or near-despair, where those questions are posed most radically, and where God and the truest Self exist in union with One another.

To summarize, the Body of Christ has many members with different functions. Hermits represent the heart of the Church, the reality upon which all active ministry is built and in which it is rooted. While this is not ministerial in the way most folks are used to thinking about or seeing ministry, the hermit's journey is itself profoundly ministerial. It is a witness to God as the ultimate source of all meaningful life and an affirmation of the value and call of every life to become Emmanuel and allow God to be the one he wills to be, no matter the degree of marginalization or estrangement marking stages or dimensions of the person's life. While hermits do not engage in much active ministry, they remind all ministers of the truth, the incredibly Good News that undergirds, motivates, and informs all genuinely Christian ministry. This, by the way, is what the story of Mary, Martha, and Jesus in the Gospel of Luke (the end of chapter 10) actually illustrates. The Greek (κοινη) text does not say Mary chose the better part, but rather that Mary chose the uniquely needful or necessary part that was identified as good. 

Living the Questions: Sources of my own Sense of this Vocation

[[ Sister Laurel, I have never thought about myself as question and God as answer, but it makes sense to me. That's true when we think of people as seeking God. It is true when we think of them lacking something that calls for a particular fulfilling thing too. Can you say more about this and maybe where it comes from in your own experience? Thank you.]]

Thanks for your questions. I would like to say more about human beings as question and God as answer in light of my last post, so I will try to answer your questions as I do that. I hope that's okay. When I finished the piece on Living the Questions, there were a few points I had not developed regarding the relation of question to answer, and I was afraid perhaps my piece was too negative as a result. In particular, I was afraid I had not done justice to the way a question somehow reflects a deep awareness of the answer and anticipates it, even if this anticipation is still inchoate and relatively inarticulate. I think this is true even when we are looking at little ones whose every word is a question, "WHY?", and whose every question represents a quest for (and experience of) personal transcendence. In every "why?" a little one asks (or demands!), we can recognize that they have an inchoate sense of the need for and existence of meaning, relatedness, completeness and incompleteness, reasonableness, and cause and effect. All of these are called for and, to some extent, presupposed by the question, "WHY?"

In transposing my reflection from the little one asking a still-inchoate "why?" to the human being posing the question of themselves and therefore, of God, it is important to see that one seeks God because in some way one already knows God. When we say we are made for God, we point to both our lack and also to a "possession" (to something we have or know) that drives the direction of and provides courage for our seeking. The direction and courage of our seeking God (and the deepest truth of ourselves) will grow over time as our faith grows and we gradually become people of prayer. 

(I know I have just thrown two new words into the mix here. Let me clarify those: Most fundamentally, faith is about trust and in terms of this specific discussion, faith has to do with trust (a way of knowing and being known that both depends upon and leads to openness and therefore, to even greater being known and knowing) that there is an answer to the profound question of being and meaning we ourselves are. Even more, it leads to a growing sense that this answer gives us life and meaning that is beyond this life's limitations and imaginings. Prayer really is about posing the question we are through all of life's exigencies, joys, sufferings, and struggles in a way that trusts, and so, is open to the answer God is and who God makes of us.) We approach this prayer as we ask God our own painful, "Why's?" for instance. We know this kind of prayer as we pour our hearts out to God, and so, as we simply come to stand securely as our truest selves in God's presence.

Personal Sources:

There are two sources for my work here. The first is mainly intellectual and academic. When I was an undergraduate beginning theological studies, I was introduced to the German notion of question. It was explained that a question meant both the lack of something that made the question necessary, and the presence of something that made the question possible. Questions were impossible unless both conditions were met. I was fascinated by this analysis/definition. In my senior year I was assigned Paul Tillich's Systematic Theology, vol 1-3 for my senior majors' project. There, I was introduced to Tillich's "method of correlation," where (to simplify things significantly) philosophy poses the questions of being and meaning, and Theology articulates the answer (that God is). 

Later (during MA work), I studied the work of Gerhard Ebeling and Ernst Fuchs and was introduced to the idea of "theological linguistics" and the idea of human beings as "language events". (John Searle's work on performative language was also important here.) At the same time, I was studying Scripture (especially Paul!), which underscored all of this with Jesus as the revelation (articulation in space and time) of the truly human and the truly divine --- the one in whom the Word is made flesh and God is allowed to be Emmanuel in an exhaustive way. During doctoral work, I returned to Paul Tillich's ST and to a more concentrated reading of the doctoral dissertation written by my undergraduate and Master's professor, John C Dwyer (Tubingen): Paul Tillich's Theology of the Cross. Everything I have done since remains tied to and grounded in these theological roots.

The second and more important source of my reflections on the human person as a question and God as the corresponding and only sufficient answer, the one for whom we are made, is personal or existential. Various events in my childhood, adolescence, young adulthood, and adulthood raised the questions of life and death, meaning and meaninglessness, and the possibility and nature of God, with a particular intensity and seriousness. I was seeking God before I knew there was a God to seek! Later, that quest became more focused when, at 14 or 15, I attended my first Mass and had an experience of the Catholic Church as the place where every need (emotional, intellectual, aesthetic, spiritual, etc) could be met! I began instruction that week, was later baptized a Catholic, and then entered the Franciscans when I could. 

Unfortunately, I developed an adult-onset seizure disorder (epilepsy) and had to leave the Franciscans. This disorder eventually proved to be medically and surgically intractable, and left me disabled. Additionally, the epilepsy co-existed with a chronic pain problem (Complex Regional Pain Syndrome, once called Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy). In all of this, my own questions led me to understand myself as question, and over time, I understood even more clearly or explicitly that God was the answer I sought, needed, and was made for. In @1984 or 1985, I became a hermit doing some limited writing (mainly in Review for Religious)**, and then, when the diocese was (finally!) open to professing someone under c 603, I became a diocesan (canonical solitary) hermit for the Diocese of Oakland and was perpetually professed and consecrated in 2007. 

Throughout much of this time (from 1983 onwards), the work I have done with my spiritual director has supported, encouraged, and empowered this journey, particularly over the past decade or so. I owe her more thanks than I can say. The academic theology I did as a student was tailored to my personal needs in some ways (I can't thank John Dwyer enough for teaching me Paul's Theology of the Cross, assigning me Paul Tillich in my senior year, and introducing me to the work of Ebeling and Fuchs during my MA studies!!). I say this because some of this was anticipated by writing (poetry and journaling) I did as an adolescent and young adult when, at one point, I came to describe myself as a scream of anguish. I understood at that time that I needed to better understand and articulate what that was all about. More, I knew I was (or was made to be!) a good deal more than that! All of this and more led me to understand the human person not only as a question presupposing and seeking a sufficient answer, but as an inarticulate cry requiring and seeking greater and greater meaningful articulation as a word or language event. The influence of Jesus as the Word made flesh during this early period was undeniable, yet still obscure.

Meanwhile, especially since @ 2007, the time I have spent living and reflecting on c 603 and the nature of the solitary eremitic vocation, coupled with my work with c  603 candidates, and the experience I had at the beginning of last Lent, has drawn all of this and more, together into something of a summary of my own theological-spiritual journey. Other elements of this journey include my deepening love for John of the Cross, my longstanding respect for the writing of Ruth Burrows on Prayer and (more recently, her anthropology and mystical theology -- which I completely resonate with***), the reflections of Carmelites more generally, the friendship and sharing of diocesan hermits like Sisters Anunziata, CH and Rachel Denton, Er Dio, and the writing of various Camaldolese (cf The Privilege of Love) and Cistercian writers, not least, of course, Thomas Merton!! It has been a difficult journey, sometimes fairly dark and often obscure, but above all, it has been a journey sustained by love and illuminated by growing or emerging hope.****

_______________________________________________

** This was an important time, and three of the articles I wrote had to do with prayer as something we do for God's own sake (e.g., Prayer, Maintaining a Human Perspective, and That God Might be Father) and Chronic Illness and Disability as Vocation and potentially, an eremitical vocation: (Eremitism: Call to the Chronically Ill and Disabled, 1989).

*** I have to call this providential, but I just discovered that exactly 2 years ago today, Ruth Burrows (Sister Rachel Gregory, OCD) died at the age of 100. She had been a Carmelite nun for 82 years! That said, it would be hard not to consider her role in guiding my reading and prayer, and God's place in encouraging me to consciously note my indebtedness to her on this day of all days!!

**** Ponam in deserto Viam calls the c 603 hermit a "sentinel of hope" (paragraph 13, p 20)

Living the Questions: Journeying into the Shadows of Death, Despair, and Meaninglessness

[[Sister Laurel, in your piece on Hiddenness and witnessing to the journey to deeper union with God, you quoted Merton on journeying in the desert area of the human heart. I wonder if you could say more about that? I was especially interested in Merton's description that he has been called to explore places most people were not able to visit except in the company of one's psychologist, and that they studiously avoid except in their nightmares. Is this the way you understand your vocation? Can you say more about this? I also wondered what Merton meant by saying that one cannot truly know hope unless one has found out how like despair hope is. Do you understand that?]]

These are particularly good questions, and I appreciate you asking them. Merton's quote here is dense and incredibly significant. It corresponds to the inner journey made by many contemplatives and hermits, and yes, I think I can explain some dimensions of it based on my own experience. Let me quote the entire passage and then comment on it in terms of two things: 1) becoming Emmanuel (God with Us) as we allow God to be Emmanuel, and 2) learning to be one who "lives the questions". These are two of the ways I understand the nature of eremitical life. Merton's passage reads:

When I first became a monk, yes, I was more sure of  'answers'. But as I grow old in the monastic life and advance further into solitude, I become aware that I have only begun to seek the questions. And what are the questions? Can man make sense out of his existence? Can man honestly give his life meaning merely by adopting a certain set of explanations which pretend to tell him why the world began and where it will end, why there is evil and what is necessary for a good life? My brother, perhaps in my solitude I have become as it were an explorer for you, a searcher in realms which you are not able to visit --- except perhaps in the company of your psychologist. I have been summoned to explore a desert area of man's heart in which explanations no longer suffice, and in which one learns that only experience counts. An arid, rocky, dark land of the soul, sometimes illuminated by strange fires which men fear and peopled by specters which men studiously avoid except in their nightmares. And in this area, I have learned that one cannot truly know hope unless he has found out how like despair hope is.

Sinful human beings are profoundly (existentially) alone and threatened by death and meaninglessness. Moreover, because of sin, we also experience estrangement from God even when personal sin is not a particular problem. (We experience this estrangement as a yearning for both being and meaning. This means we are hungry for and seek an ever fuller existence that is full of value and purpose.) We are taught that our lives are meaningful and precious, that we are made in the image of God, and so, that we are called to union with God. We are taught by Scripture (cf. Romans 8:26ff) that nothing at all can separate us from the love of God, and that the hope we are called to live is rooted in the Christ Event and the death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus. Every religion or theology class we may take or have taken throughout our lives, every homily we hear, every conversation we may have with spiritual directors, every book or article on the Gospel we have read, serves in some way to affirm the truth that God is the ground and source of our lives and that ultimately, we cannot be separated from him. This means God is the ground and source of every potentiality, every talent, and gift we have. Further, God transcends any threat to being or meaning we might experience. All of this also means that the anxiety associated with the fact that our lives are marked and marred by finitude and sin (separation from God as ground and source of being and meaning), though these are real and a source of suffering, can be transformed into the peace of God whenever God is allowed to be Emmanuel.

The fact that we are made by and for God also means that without God, we are incomplete. The ways sin, death, and meaninglessness threaten us are reminders of both our need and hunger for the God who completes and makes us whole and wholly or exhaustively alive. All of the ways we seek to give our lives purpose, fulfill them, seek meaning, and create representations of and reflections on these things testify both to what we are made for and what we yet lack. As human beings in search of a more exhaustive being and meaning, that is, as people seeking fullness of life in, with, and through God, we are like questions in search (and in need) of a completing and illuminating answer. Ironically, only once a question is paired with its truest answer can we truly see the full sense, depths, and significance of the question. Only when the answer is provided do we have a complete articulation of the truth. Similarly, it is only when we begin to have a sense of the answer that we find the courage to pose the question as radically as we really need and are called to do. And this is especially true with the question that we each are and the answer God represents.

It is in our hearts that we hear and struggle with the questions that are part of our being human and made for God. It is in the desert of the human heart that we know the questions that excite and propel us further towards transcendence and those that agonize us with apparent absurdity, loss, limitation, disappointment, contradiction, and crisis. It is in the human heart that we sin against others and, in the process, betray ourselves, those others, and our God as well. Here we make ourselves not just a question, but questionable. Here we battle with demons and seek out angels; here we embrace, then reject idols, and seek the real God even more intensely and profoundly. And in all of this struggle, seeking, and questioning, it is in the human heart that we pose the question of the truth of ourselves and of God, and eventually, that we can discover the union that exists deeper than any brokenness, distortion, or estrangement we might also know or have known.

Thomas Merton knew all of this very well, and as he journeyed more deeply into solitude, he did as every hermit is called to do and began to explore the desert of his own heart. Merton understood that most folks do not make this same journey as consistently or as profoundly as a monk or hermit is called to do. Such a journey is entirely too demanding, too painful, and in any case, everyday life and responsibilities prevent it. This is part of the reason eremitical vocations are seen as second-half-of-life vocations. They arise out of deeper questioning and seeking, out of a more profound posing of the question of self in conjunction with a relatively mature sense of the answer that (who) is God. Eremitism is embraced as a full-time commitment to seek and receive or be received by God, which also necessarily means posing the question of one's own existence as profoundly as one can while remaining open to the answer**. The question of God is not an abstract one. It is a deeply personal question requiring our entire commitment and the exploration of a whole life's experience. This is what canon 603 refers to as a life of assiduous prayer and penance. We approach this question existentially, understanding that the answer is something we must also come to know experientially. Dogma and doctrine, no matter how true and important they are, are not the answer our existence ultimately requires. Only God Godself is the true answer.

I believe that my vocation is about letting God love me as exhaustively as he wills to do. This means opening myself to and allowing God to be Emmanuel in the same way Jesus did, and doing so in Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit. I believe another way of saying this and describing the self-emptying this requires is to define eremitical life as one of living the questions as deeply and exhaustively as I can. In my own experience, this involves journeying into the shadows of meaninglessness, near-despair, and death. Only the Holy Spirit, I believe, gives a person the power (courage) to make such a journey. Thus, Merton speaks of nightmares, or specters, that persons studiously avoid except, perhaps, when working with their psychologist (I would add "with one's spiritual director" here). To pose the question of oneself in all of the ways that question is raised throughout one's life, and to do so ever more profoundly, prepares us to receive God (or, more truly, to be received by God) as the answer. For that reason, it prepares us to receive the ground and source of all hope as well. I believe this is what Merton meant by saying how like despair hope really is. 

_________________________________________

** Here I am thinking of Jesus’ cry of abandonment on the cross. In this moment, Jesus posed the question he was as deeply as possible and remained open to allowing God to be the answer that He would be. On the cross of Christ, the human question (which is also the question of God!) is posed as radically as we will ever see it posed. At that moment, Jesus stood at the doorway of death, despair, and meaninglessness, and was open to God as the only adequate and completing answer. This openness is not assured in most of us, and we can struggle to "achieve" or allow it as our inner journey into the shadows and darkness deepens, but it is this openness or "obedience" that was key to (God's) transforming the cross into the very center of redemptive and revelatory history. I would not be surprised if Thomas Merton had been reflecting on the same event as well as his own profound experiences in solitude as he wrote what he did on the relation and likeness of despair and hope.

________________________________________________________

I will need to reflect on and address this in further posts, but Merton's quotation, and my own understanding of the reason for this contemplative vocation to "live the questions," in the very heart of the Church is precisely so that the experience of God's sustaining love is witnessed to as the assured answer to the human question each of us is. Dogma and Doctrine proclaim this in many ways. The Scriptures witness to and proclaim this truth in the proclamation of a crucified Jesus' resurrection, and perhaps most powerfully in Paul's affirmation in Romans 8:31-39. Merton makes the point that sometimes this is simply not enough for those seeking being and meaning. Experience is necessary. I would also point out that the hermit makes this journey for the sake of others as well as herself, first for God's sake, then for the Church whose task is the mediation of this reality (Emmanuel) to the world, and finally, for the sake of all those whose existential questions require encouragement and, above all, a source of hope.

Approaching Advent: "What did you come to see?" Letting the deep Questions Surface Within Us (Reprise)

As I look forward to [Advent] I am reflecting on [various] readings . . . and the last blog piece I reposted here on "play" (cf. On the Importance of Play) for one of the things I think we need to consider during Advent and the preparation of our minds and hearts for the new thing God will do among us. Last week the Gospel reading on Friday asked two blind men if they believed that Jesus could heal their blindness. This week the question being asked is implicit but it begins Matthew 11 and continues into the pericope we read on Friday, namely, [[What did you come to see?]]

Both JBap and Jesus have been rejected by the Jewish leadership; the Pharisees and Scribes, for instance, clearly believe these two are unsuitable to be considered chosen Ones of God, either as a prophet or as God's Messiah. The question posed to this leadership at the beginning of the chapter, [[What did you come to see?]] was also answered in two ways, focusing on two possibilities, "A reed shaking in the wind?]] --- were you looking for the expected thing when traveling out in the desert wadis, or [[A man dressed in fine clothes?]] (Were you looking for the unexpected thing when you went traveling in or to desert wadi's --- and even then, were you truly open to the unexpected)? The chapter begins with the implicit observation that neither the expected nor the unexpected that the pilgrims imagined resolved their deepest hunger or needs. They were not really open to the Prophet of Prophets whom we know as John the Baptizer. And Jesus? He definitely didn't fit their expectations. Apparently, they were not ready to repent (change their minds and hearts about) or seriously come to see anyone the God of surprises might send.

When Jesus speaks to them in Friday's readings then, he compares them to children playing in the market square with their playmates; they refuse to enter into the games. Some children play the flute for their playmates, but they refuse to dance and, when the first set of children wail (taking on the adult role of professional mourner), they refuse to grieve. Ostensibly, nothing will satisfy them. Nothing, from joy to grief seems to touch them deeply. They are closed, disobedient, or hardened of heart, and refuse to give God the attentive response God calls for.  Further down the chapter this refusal is underscored as Jesus compares the Jewish leadership of Corazon and Bethsaida to Sodom and finds them in even worse shape. So what can we take from these readings?

Advent is a time of preparation, a time when we ready ourselves to see God acting in our world in a new, special, and surprising way --- a way that comes to us from beyond anything we have ever imagined. Friday's Gospel reading encourages us to pay attention and do so in a way that allows a response that is truly worthy of us and the God who comes to dwell with us in smallness, powerlessness, and homelessness. What I have said about this before is: . . . it occurs to me that the people of  "this" generation to whom Jesus spoke were seen as incapable of or entirely resistant to being themselves in response to whatever "tune" God plays or sings. It is an almost inconceivably tragic portrait of who we have become when the best analogy to that is of children who themselves resist or have actually become incapable of play! In light of this, I want to make two suggestions folks might practice in this preparation time for the celebration of Jesus' nativity. 

Approaching the Rest of Advent:

First, take time to play --- take time for serious play in something both easy and absorbing. Jesus' example of children who are incapable of playing in ways that prepare them for adult roles in the Kingdom is a devastating one. Again, there is nothing more tragic than children who cannot play, who cannot enter into the games their playmates begin and encourage them in. The Jewish theologian Martin Buber once called play "the exaltation of the possible." Adults often have had the capacity for play bred right out of themselves and this has serious consequences for their capacity to be surprised by a God who is the ground and source of the (unimaginably) possible. We have been so conditioned to work incessantly (even at recreation) and to have the answer to everything (or to Google it immediately!), that we are often incapable of the play which allows the deep questions of our lives to surface. Therefore, the first thing we need to allow ourselves the freedom to do is play in a way, perhaps, we have not done in a while. Perhaps you paint or color, or love jigsaw puzzles; maybe you used to do photography. If so, time to take these up again --- gently, not obsessively, but with a quiet focus that increases attentiveness and openness to the new and unexpected. Play!! It's important and serious work, especially in preparing for the surprising coming of God!

Secondly, while at play ask yourself the question associated with this Friday's Gospel and one of those associated with Advent in general, namely, [[What am I looking for?]] (This, along with the corollary, [[What am I being asked (or allowed) to see?]] would be wonderful questions to allow to rise within us before peering at the world through the lens of a camera, for instance. We are so apt to become aware of the unexpected and hitherto unseen at such times.) God is coming to dwell amongst us, even within us, so what are we looking for? What are we yearning for, dreaming of? What do we need this Christmas to be in light of Christ's birth amongst us?? We have taken the time to travel into the "desert" of play (and yes, it is a desert where we may well meet God, our deepest selves, and demons!), we have relinquished control and allowed the eyes of our hearts to open gently and wide in this way. It is a perfect time to consciously "live the question" as Rainer Marie Rilke once reminded a young poet. We must allow ourselves to stop and explore the question, [[what did you come to see?]] Was it merely the expected or was it the unexpected? And how will we respond if and when the God of surprises comes? Imagine this!!! Prepare yourself!! Allowing the serious yet joyful living of such questions seems to me to be part of the very essence of play --- and also of Advent!

May we each open ourselves this Advent to become people who exalt in the possible, people who play and dream, and in this way are readied to partner with God in God's unimaginable enterprise of love!

Living and Responding to Jesus' Questions: the Key to Becoming the Persons we are Called to Be

 In reflecting on today's  Gospel what struck me was the relation between the two questions Jesus asked his followers. Remember he first asks, "Who do others say that I am?" and then, "And you, who do you say that I am?" Why does Jesus begin with what others are saying about him? A couple of thoughts come to mind. Maybe Jesus knows it is easier to speak of what others are saying than to speak of what is on our own minds and in our own hearts. Or maybe Jesus is leading his disciples slowly to the answer he wants them to give; maybe he wants them to think about what others are saying since the others are those with and to whom the disciples will be called to minister.  Given the disciples' uneven track record in getting things right, maybe Jesus is trying to give them a head start on the real answer! There are any number of possible answers. But today, I thought I saw Jesus moving his students away from the basis for much of who we think we are (not to mention who we think Jesus is!) and what we do in our lives, namely, what others think and value, and then giving these disciples a chance to discover and claim what they really think and feel themselves.

And why isn't it enough to answer with these others? After all, they are answering in terms of their Tradition, and the Tradition of Jesus and his disciples as well!   But what Jesus knows is that in him God is doing something new, something unprecedented, something that will tear that Tradition apart. In some ways, Jesus', "And you, who do you say that I am?" is a warning to his disciples. Jesus asks them to get in touch with all of the ways his life moves them, all the ways he resonates with their Tradition, all the ways he is what they expected and hoped for. At the same time, Jesus asks his disciples to bring to the front of their minds and hearts all the ways he surprises or disappoints them, all the ways he doesn't fit the Traditional categories and orthodoxy, all the times the others (and perhaps the disciples themselves) have called him a drunkard, or crazy, or a blasphemer. Only from this point can they really speak about the One God has sent to do something so insanely, inconceivably new. Only from this point can Jesus begin to teach them about what God's plan really has in store for him and for them.

And so, Jesus takes Peter's confession of Jesus as the Messiah and begins to reshape it out of all recognizability, all Jewish acceptability, and frankly out of any known religious shape at all! And for Peter, it is simply a bridge too far! Nothing in his Religious Tradition or in any other in the Roman world he inhabits has prepared him for a suffering Messiah or (and Peter has not even glimpsed this yet) an executed criminal who allows an utterly transcendent God to take death into himself and not be destroyed by it. Nothing in Peter's experience prepares him for a God who wills so strongly to be Emmanuel (God-with-us), that he will take sin and death into himself and eventually create a new heaven and new earth where sin and death have been destroyed through the faithfulness and work of a condemned and crucified Messiah.

But for all this to happen, Jesus must move us from the place of canned answers (no matter how correct they are) and "fitting in", to the place of an open mind and heart rooted in personal truth, and then to a faithful mind and heart that are courageous enough to travel with God to the unexpected and even the unacceptable place so that that God may do something insanely new in and with our world.  And in today's Gospel pericope, that is what Jesus is doing with his disciples, not because he does not value orthodoxy, and not because he promotes individualism and heresy, but because the God he serves so well wills to do something absolutely explosively, counterculturally new. 

For us, the first step in this journey of faith means breaking away from what others tell us to think and feel. This is part of reclaiming our own minds and hearts for God, the first step in dying to self so that we might live for and from God. It is a step we must make over and over again in a world that so glibly tells us what to think and eat and wear, and what medicines to ask our doctors about or cars to drive. Or what people we should regard --- and those we should not! The hardest part of this journey is coming to know who we really are while letting go of what is false, what is the result of our enmeshment in what monastic and eremitic life calls "the world" --- and this, of course, is what Jesus' second question to his disciples is all about, not ripping them away from the truth of their Tradition, but freeing them from inauthentic enmeshment so that God may do something new with that truth as it truly lives in them.

Jesus captures all of this with his reminder to Peter, [[You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do.]] and then to everyone, [[Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and that of the gospel will save it.]] When I hear Jesus' questions in today's Gospel, I recognize they do what all Jesus's questions do; they call us beyond being the people the world says we are and must be, and open the way to be who we are truly called to be. For a hermit committed to living a stricter separation from the world, I also recognize that today's Gospel can call the hermit from unhealthy enmeshment in "the world", and empower the kind of freedom that allows God to do something unimaginably new!! The key to stricter separation from the world for hermits or for anyone else, the key to what today's readings call, "walking before the Lord in the land of the living", is in honestly living and answering Jesus' two questions every day of our lives: "Who do others say that I am?" and you, "Who do YOU say that I am?"

"What did you come to see?" Letting the deep Questions Surface Within Us

As I look forward to the service for Friday (we will have a  Liturgy of the Word with Communion service) I am reflecting on the readings of the day and the last blog piece I reposted here on "play" regarding one of the things I think we need to consider during Advent and preparing our minds and hearts for the new thing God will do among us. Last week the Gospel reading on Friday asked two blind men if they believed that Jesus could heal their blindness. This week the question being asked is implicit but it begins Matthew 11 and continues into the pericope we read on Friday, namely, [[What did you come to see?]]

Both JBap and Jesus have been rejected by the Jewish leadership; they clearly believe these two are unsuitable to be considered the chosen Ones of God, either as a prophet or as God's Messiah. The question posed to them at the beginning of the chapter, [[What did you come to see?]] was also answered in two ways, focusing on two possibilities, "A reed shaking in the wind?]] --- were you looking for the expected thing when traveling out in the desert wadis, or [[A man dressed in fine clothes?]] (were you looking for the unexpected thing when you went traveling in or to desert wadi's --- and even then, were you truly open to the unexpected)? The chapter begins with the implicit observation that neither the expected nor the unexpected the pilgrims imagined resolved their deepest hungers or needs. They were not really open to the Prophet of Prophets whom we know as John the Baptizer. And Jesus? He definitely didn't fit their expectations. Apparently, they were not ready to repent or seriously come to see anyone the God of surprises might send.

When Jesus speaks to them in Friday's readings then, he compares them to children playing in the market square with their playmates; they refuse to enter into the games. Some children play the flute for their playmates, but they refuse to dance and, when the first set of children wail (taking on the adult role of professional mourner), they refuse to grieve.  Ostensibly, nothing will satisfy them. Nothing, from joy to grief seems to touch them deeply. They are closed, disobedient, or hardened of heart, and refuse to give God the attentive response God calls for.  Further down the chapter this refusal is underscored as Jesus compares the Jewish leadership of Corazon and Bethsaida to Sodom and finds them in even worse shape. So what can we take from these readings?

Advent is a time of preparation, a time when we ready ourselves to see God acting in our world in a new, special, and surprising way --- a way that comes to us from beyond anything we have ever imagined. Friday's Gospel reading encourages us to pay attention and do so in a way that allows a response that is truly worthy of us and the God who comes to dwell with us in smallness, powerlessness, and homelessness. What I have said about this before is: . . . it occurs to me that the people of  "this" generation to whom Jesus spoke were seen as incapable of or entirely resistant to being themselves in response to whatever "tune" God plays or sings. It is an almost inconceivably tragic portrait of who we have become when the best analogy to that is of children who themselves resist or have actually become incapable of play! In light of this, I want to make two suggestions folks might practice in this preparation time for the celebration of Jesus' nativity. 

Approaching the Rest of Advent:

First, take time to play --- take time for serious play in something both easy and absorbing. Jesus' example of children who are incapable of playing in ways that prepare them for adult roles in the Kingdom is a devastating one. Again, there is nothing more tragic than children who cannot play, who cannot enter into the games their playmates begin and encourage them in. The Jewish theologian Martin Buber once called play "the exaltation of the possible." Adults often have had the capacity for play bred right out of themselves and this has serious consequences for their capacity to be surprised by a God who is the ground and source of the (unimaginably) possible. We have been so conditioned to work incessantly (even at recreation) and to have the answer to everything (or to Google it immediately!), that we are often incapable of the play which allows the deep questions of our lives to surface. Therefore, the first thing we need to allow ourselves the freedom to do is play in a way, perhaps, we have not done in a while. Perhaps you paint or color, or love jigsaw puzzles; maybe you used to do photography. If so, time to take these up again --- gently, not obsessively, but with a quiet focus that increases attentiveness and openness to the new and unexpected. Play!! It's important and serious work, especially in preparing for the surprising coming of God!

Secondly, while at play ask yourself the question associated with this Friday's Gospel and one of those associated with Advent in general, namely, [[What am I looking for?]] (This, along with the corollary, [[What am I being asked (or allowed) to see?]] would be wonderful questions to allow to rise within us before peering at the world through the lens of a camera, for instance. We are so apt to become aware of the unexpected and hitherto unseen at such times.) God is coming to dwell amongst us, even within us, so what are we looking for? What are we yearning for, dreaming of? What do we need this Christmas to be in light of Christ's birth amongst us?? We have taken the time to travel into the "desert" of play (and yes, it is a desert where we ourselves, God, and demons may be met!), we have relinquished control and allowed the eyes of our hearts to open gently and wide in this way. It is a perfect time to consciously "live the question" as Rainer Marie Rilke once reminded a young poet. We must allow ourselves to stop and explore the question, [[what did you come to see?]] Was it merely the expected or was it the unexpected? And how will we respond if and when the God of surprises comes? Imagine this!!! Prepare yourself!! Allowing the serious yet joyful living of such questions seems to me to be part of the very essence of play --- and also of Advent!

May we each open ourselves this Advent to become people who exalt in the possible, people who play and dream, and in this way are readied to partner with God in God's unimaginable enterprise of love!