Losing Patience and Finding the Waiting Room

How is that for an utterly confounding title? Today has been rather confounding in a couple of ways. Over at my Reformed friends blog at Euangelion, I had an epiphany. I hate both liberals and conservatives. I have no patience for either side. Now the guys at Euangelion are A-Okay with me, it's Rhetoric of I'm right and you're wrong that sickens me and makes me wanna slap everyone from the Pope right down to the lowliest preacher in the most back water, mud hut, church.

That said, let me explain. Everyone thinks they have a right to discuss the bedroom of others and how that affects their ability to serve in the pulpit, at the altar, or dance naked for services, whatever...and that simply is not the case. First of all, sex should go back to the bedroom, and not be a matter of public discourse anymore! I'm sick of it. We have seen that from the highest of the height of the Roman Catholic hierarchy there was pedophiles, right down to Jimmy Swaggert making a damn fool of himself on TV weeping "I've sinned." Yeah, with a hooker you idiot. Then Jim Baker. Oh the list is endless and sickening.

The point is EVERYONE of them kicked around gays. The late, and for me not particularly lamented John Paul II, immediately said just don't let gay men be priests. The Evangelical/Pentecostals forgave old Swaggert, after all, it's natural to .... oh wait, is it natural to commit adultery? Ya know, now I'm thinking about the Ten Commandments. It says not one word about gay, queer, homosexual, or anything of the like. What does it mention? Oh yeah, Adultery.

And for those who think that imposing their view on everyone else, that the church can only function in this way and no other, I say read your bible. "Love triumphs over law." "Love covers a multitude of sins." "I reject your sacrifices because you do not show justice to the widow and the orphan."

Hmmm, what's that all about? What is wrong with people who think that this constant rending of the body of Christ over THEIR damn views is the way to go? Well woohoo, ain't we proud, we tore the Body of Christ again, just to get our way. And I point my finger at the liberal and conservative. I am sick of both of you. So keep your claptrap, and your cheap self serving religion.

A friend once said, "have faith, have love, the rest will follow." What would happen if we tried that?

So where does the waiting room fit in all this? I can't do a thing about any of it. I accept that it is the way things are. I accept the rending of the Body of Christ has been going on since their have been Christians and it will never, ever, ever stop. I reject all rigidity. I reject all new age-ity. If you have a true and deep relationship with Christ, then you will be on the right path no matter what. That is the waiting room I sit in now. That is the cross I will bear the rest of my life.

If you carry an opinion like one I've lambasted here, I should say I'm sorry, even though I want to say tough tots. But, I am sorry to have to hurt you to make you see that you are part of the rending.

Ha! Fooled Ya!

I bet you all though: "Whew, he's finally stopped." Wrong!

I am headache free and seemingly shingle free. I do not recommend the shingles to anyone. What really stinks is there is no way to prevent them. Oh well. Offer it up, as we Catholics love to say.

So getting back into my daily grind has been tough because I have only 5% more energy than the day before. What that means is that I'm able to go another half hour longer than yesterday before I have to just give up. Still, I say my prayers, and offer it up.

Offer it up seems to be the theme today, and a good theme it is. When I was in the full shingles meat grinder headache mode, my thinking was less than solid. However, somewhere in the middle of it I did manage to get the prayer out, "if this can help someone else, then please by all means, Lord, use it for them." It didn't help my headache, but it did help me to bear it a little easier.

And then there are days like today, where it seems I have the Midas touch in reverse: everything I touch does NOT turn into gold, but into sewage. Then the Lord helps me see that I am guilty of three of the seven deadly sins, and that's not happy-clappy realization of self. So, I offer that up too. Why? Because I was given the grace to see the sins within me, and to form a plan of dealing with them -- which I guarantee involves many hours of prayer -- so that I can live ever closer to God.

That's all I want. Why is it so hard to do?

How a Headache Became a Crown of Thorns

During my recent bout of shingles I experienced excruciating headaches. It began the week prior to Holy Week, then all of Holy Week, and two days into this past week. At some point during a recitation of the rosary--make fun of me if you will but I say it everyday, along with the Chaplet of Divine Mercy--the "placing of the crown of thorns on Jesus head," became very personal for me.

While my headache was severe enough to make me want to drill a hole in my head, I could only imagine too clearly what a crown of plaited thorns must have felt like when pushed down onto Jesus head. Have you ever seen a real crown of thorns? At a church I once worked at, one of the young men made a crown out thorn, and it was a horrible thing to see. His hands bore the marks of his work. Just picking up the crown pricked your fingers and before it was over with the crown had a good bit of blood on it.

No one had the nerve to put it on their own head. I certainly didn't.

Yet, this disease put it on my head and pressed it down, hard. And it all happened right at the height of the liturgical remembrance of Jesus Passion and death. People have accused me of being too cross oriented. Or too identified with the sufferings of Christ, but I say, without those sufferings and that cross there is no Resurrection. The Protestants took the corpus off the crucifix to emphasize the resurrection. Or was it to never have to face the fact that God in our flesh died on the cross. For all intents and purposes, God was dead!

That is a great mystery. Resurrection only came after the flogging and the crown of thorns and the cross. Any effort to divorce our salvation from those painful realities is to water down the faith to a puddle of pap! We were not always happy-clappy people! Paul drove it home that the cross is the vehicle of our salvation.

I loathe Easter Pageants that occur before Easter. What are they forgetting? Oh, right, that he suffered, and died, and there were specific days upon which those things happened, and until those days pass, we do NOT celebrate the Resurrection in its fullness.

A crown of thorns was pushed down on my head and I had to suffer it. All the while Jesus was telling me, suffer for this little while and give it to me so I can redeem others.

If I've gotten too Catholic for you. I'm sorry. The truth is, I've always felt this way, long before I was a Catholic.

Gifts

In case any human on earth has not seen the Susan Boyle video, here it is. I urge you to watch it from start to finish.

When you look at Susan you do not think the woman could have a single gift, other than perhaps as a cook, or a mother. You might be tempted to think of her as some lower class clown looking for her ten minutes of glory by making a fool of herself on Britain's Got Talent. As the video shows, that was not the case. Susan Boyle not only has talent, she has it in abundance.

Watching her silence a crowd that was prepared to laugh at her, then turn them into adoring fans the moment she opened her mouth, taught me something about gifts and how they show up in people. We all have a gift of some kind. Granted, not everyone is going to sing like Susan, or paint like Caravaggio, yet we all have something. Unfortunately, we dismiss people as worthless by appearance only, much too often. Not only that, we judge them, to boot.

If Susan can be a lesson, she must be a lesson to us against spiritual snobbery. St. Benedict warns us against it, as do all the Church Fathers and Mothers. The Church itself is the single most guilty party of all! Yet, some plain Jane like Susan Boyle shows up and blows all our preconceived notions out of the water. Just because we are Catholic does not mean we are always right. The church itself isn't even always right. If it were, then we would not be in the mess we are currently in right now.

I pray that a spiritual equivalent of Susan Boyle will soon emerge in our world.

Let This Mind Be In You

As many of my readers know, The Office of Readings provides me with more fodder for Lectio divina than anything else. Today it comes from I Peter.

So strip away everything vicious, everything deceitful; pretenses, jealousies, and disparaging remarks of any kind.

I have no doubt read this passage many times, but today was the first time it stuck in my head. It is somewhat surprising that jealousy was not listed first, because it usually leads to the rest of the list. When we consider the modern world, and the modern Church, are we not confronted with viciousness, deceit, pretense, jealousy and nasty remarks?

Does that mean the Church is sinful? Of course, because it is full of humans. Does it mean evil has won? Absolutely not, because it is full of redeemed humans! The gates of hell will never prevail against it. I do believe that. However, I beseech everyone on all sides of every debate to remember that viciousness, deceitfulness, jealousy, pretentiousness and nasty remarks destroy community.

What I Peter lists for us are those very things which destroy community. St. Benedict in his Rule goes to great lengths to put those very things out of the communal life. Will we ever be free of them? No, we're human, and as such, fallen. Can we strive with the Holy Spirit to rise from them sometimes? Yes, because we are redeemed.

Christ is Risen. Alleluia.

Christos Anesti

Christ is risen, with his death he won death, and he gave Life to those who were in graves.

Holy Saturday 2009

Please read Sepulchre by George Herbert.

SEPULCHRE.

O BLESSED bodie ! Whither art thou thrown ?
No lodging for thee, but a cold hard stone ?
So many hearts on earth, and yet not one
Receive thee ?

Sure there is room within our hearts good store ;
For they can lodge transgressions by the score :
Thousands of toyes dwell there, yet out of doore
They leave thee.

But that which shews them large, shews them unfit.
What ever sinne did this pure rock commit,
Which holds thee now ? Who hath indited it
Of murder ?

Where our hard hearts have took up stones to braine thee,
And missing this, most falsely did arraigne thee ;
Onely these stones in quiet entertain thee,
And order.

And as of old, the law by heav’nly art,
Was writ in stone ; so thou, which also art
The letter of the word, find’st no fit heart
To hold thee.

Yet do we still persist as we began,
And so should perish, but that nothing can,
Though it be cold, hard, foul, from loving man
Withhold thee.

Good Friday

Ode 1
Tracing an up right line with his staff,Moses divided the Red Sea for Israel, which was travelling on foot,
and striking it a transverse blow, he brought the waters together over the chariots of Pharaoh, there by inscribing the invincible weapon of the Cross.
Wherefore, let us hymn Christ our God, for He hath been glorified.

Ode 9-Irmos of the 1st Canon
0 Theotokos, thou art a mystical paradise,which untilled, did put forth Christ, by Whom the life bearing tree of the Cross was planted.
Wherefore, venerating it as it is now raised a loft, we magnify thee.

Wednesday Holy Week 2009

Today I am posting a link on dotCommonweal because of the excellent entry, and old English poetry. Enjoy it, think about it, pray it.

May God remember us all, and forgive us our sins. Amen.

Tuesday Holy Week 2009

Although I do not plan to attend Mass until tomorrow to be on the safe side, I have been keeping up with the daily readings. Let me give the passage that started my mind, then I'll explain.

Simon Peter said to him, "Master, where are you going?"
Jesus answered him,
"Where I am going, you cannot follow me now,
though you will follow later."
Peter said to him,
"Master, why can I not follow you now?
I will lay down my life for you."
Jesus answered, "Will you lay down your life for me?
Amen, amen, I say to you, the cock will not crow
before you deny me three times."

That first morning waking up feeling as if someone had punched me in the temple, I thought very little other than maybe I'd hit the headboard in the night. The next day it hurt more. The third day I went to the doctor. The rest is history.

The shingles did not erupt, so that brought up some very old issues for me from the days when I suffered from anxiety so intense most people would have killed themselves, and had to put up with people saying "there's nothing wrong with you, it's all in your head." I was always wishing that there was some outward sign of what was happening to me on the inside. It created an abyss of self doubt that I thought was long gone.

Until the shingles came, and not one shingle erupted on my body. Yet, I suffer the shingles even now as I write, but there is no outward sign that anything is wrong with me. That simple fact has reached back into my distant past and pulled forward an abyss of self doubt. My doctor says, "You do have shingles." My body shows no sign of it. So again, I feel it's my word against those who might look and say "it's all in your head."

Holy Week. This all happens in Holy Week. I had reservations at Gethsemani for this weekend, and had to cancel them because I did not know what kind of outbreak I might have by this weekend. Apparently, no outbreak at all. So I canceled reservations for the holiest time of the year, at my favorite place, and began to grapple with Holy Week spent alone.

Yesterday the doctor told me without an eruption on my face -- Thank God -- I am not contagious to anyone. Shingles cannot be passed person to person, but if you haven't had Chicken Pox you could get them, only from the eruptions! But, alas, too late. My reservation is canceled. And by now you must be wondering what does this have to do with the snippet of the gospel at the top.

"Where I am going you cannot follow me now." You see, I am Peter in this reading. I was so sure that I had Holy Week down pat, things were going to be just as I planned, and then the heavenly WHAM came and said, "Where I am going you cannot follow me now." Immediately I am then presented with all my old self doubt and fears etc, ad naseum.

Until this morning, I'd forgotten that the rest of "Where I am going you cannot follow me now..." is finished with "though you will follow later." I have been forced to face that abyss long assumed filled in. It wasn't, God showed me that , and now it has been filled in. I have been forced to not be where I want to be, and God has showed me that it is okay. The truth is where I am with God, is the only place I need to be. No monastery, or convent, or church, or tradition; nothing can separate me from the love of God in Christ Jesus. How easy it is to forget such a simple fact.

Kyrie eleison.

Shingles and Arteries

My blog has been on the low end of my priorities lately. This week I was diagnosed with shingles, and given medication. Nearly four days later no eruption of shingles has appeared, but my left eye is growing increasingly light sensitive, and sore. This has me worried.

It is important to state right now that I have absolute trust in God to take care of me, no matter what happens to me. And yet...I am afraid. They tested today for possible temporal artery blockage. So far, no news is good news. No matter what it is, something is going wrong with my nervous system and my eye, and I am scared. It is human to be scared, and I freely admit it.

This fear comes from the unknown, and the unknown is a very apt metaphor for faith and the spiritual life. A priest once said that when he asked people what they think would happen if they gave their entire life to God, that they almost all said they would get cancer. Why? Fear of the unknown. So we link up what we fear most with letting our lives be in God's hands. This is the leap of faith each human must make: do I or do I not, believe?

I have made my leap. I believe. Have you?