Tag Archives: Thoughts from the Quiet

Perspective for a New Day

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Beginning another day and trying to get some perspective.

My Imitation of Christ Book I, chapter2:

Many words do not satisfy the soul; but a good life eases the mind and a clean conscience inspires great trust in God.

The more you know and the better you understand, the more severely will you be judged, unless your life is also the more holy. Do not be proud, therefore, because of your learning or skill. Rather, fear because of the talent given you. If you think you know many things and understand them well enough, realize at the same time that there is much you do not know. Hence, do not affect wisdom, but admit your ignorance. Why prefer yourself to anyone else when many are more learned, more cultured than you?

If you wish to learn and appreciate something worth while, then love to be unknown and considered as nothing. Truly to know and despise self is the best and most perfect counsel. To think of oneself as nothing, and always to think well and highly of others is the best and most perfect wisdom. Wherefore, if you see another sin openly or commit a serious crime, do not consider yourself better, for you do not know how long you can remain in good estate. All men are frail, but you must admit that none is more frail than yourself.

The Glory and the Tragedy of the Church

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“In Lent, we grasp our humanity” says Fr. Jeffrey Whorton.  That we need a reminder at all amazes me. I am in awe of the fact that I, a soft bodied creature, am still alive, after more than half a century, in this universe of whirling planets, exploding stars and expanding space. Extrapolating from today’s Gospel, Fr. Whorton points to the hedges God places around us for our survival. In Jesus’ parable, He tells of  a landowner who planted a vineyard and put a hedge around it (Matthew 31: 23)

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In nature and the Cosmos, Earth is protected by natural laws which set the rhythms of the tides, confine the seas to their basins and keep the very air we breath from drifting off into space. While in the spiritual  life, God’s children also have a hedge.  Before we knew the Grace of God, we were given the Law of God.  God’s people were to live not unfettered by human respect but by a Golden Rule which revealed the freedom of morally.  When the Grace of God arrived incarnated in Jesus Christ, love went beyond this Law to lead us to lay down our lives for one another, the supernature wed to the natural.  Lent points to our failure in this respect. It is precisely here, that we find another hedge protecting us from the Accuser and self-condemnation by an Incarnated Mercy, Whose love and forgiveness knows no bounds.

In daily life, the teachings of the Church provide a hedge against a license and an immorality that would favor the animal side of our natures.  Without the hedge of revealed Truth and instruction, we are deprived, and left to our sinfulness, which is more an inhuman nature.   Our humanity was glorified by Christ once Jesus put it on as a mantle clothing His Divinity.  However, it still needs the individual response of our consent and cooperation. Now, we are hedged by the very flesh of our Savior, and called to be truly human as revealed by Christ.

According to Fr.Whorton, “The glory and the tragedy of the Church is that the Church is on display.”  In our world of brute forces and competing philosophies and errors, we are called to shine like stars (Phil.2: 15), like sparks among the stubble (Wisdom 3:7). Fr. Whorton asks, as does Lent, itself, “Am I displaying the glory or the tragedy?”

Who Holds Their History?

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In “Keepers of History,” Joanna Lotta  asks the question: Who holds your history?  Lotta describes the “griots” who have amazing memories and whose role it is within their West African society to recite long histories and genealogies as well as songs of praise.

We can ask this question of our own lives.  When we came into this world, we already possessed a history; one going back in time to all our fore-bearers.  We held recorded in our genes, if not our memories, our mother and our father, our grandparents and great grand-parents; add to that as many greats as it takes to take us back to the very beginning of human beginnings. Even for one so small as each of us was in our zygotic beginnings, that’s a weighty argument for the worth of our being.  From the beginning, you and I are not a nothing, nor a nobody, nor a blob of substance.  Each of us is one in the line of the order of Adam called into existence by the breathe of God and cooperation of our human nature.

So now, for the unborn, I ask, “Who holds their history?” Further, I ask, “Who holds their destiny?”  Will industries such as Planned Parenthood, abortion mills, research institutes, and unethical fertilization plants, manipulate the Present and the Future by abrogating our mortal and moral Past. Our souls, as well as our genes, tell a story; one that will be sung one day before our Creator as a song of praise or profanation. Eternity waits on an answer.



Reluctant Prophet

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I’m thinking about Jonah, the reluctant prophet.  He usually pops up in the readings of the Liturgy of the Word during Lent.  He made his appearance yesterday and has been wondering in the back of my mind giving his prophetic word, “Repent!”

Jonah needed to be hurled into the sea (a place of chaos) before he realized there was no escaping his responsibility before God.  Jonah needed a second chance to get it right. Fortunately, for the people of Nineveh (the worldly city of sinners), having gotten Jonah’s attention, God called the prophet a second time.  God was not going to fix things without his servant’s cooperation.

How like Jonah I am.  I need to be carried kicking and screaming to the Lord’s will.  How slow I am to remember that the only sign I’m going to get is the Now of my life.  I do want Resurrection without the Crucifixion.  So, here I sit in the belly of the whale,  my only sign, the sign of the Cross.  As Jonah spent three days in the belly of the great fish (a sign for Christ ) so Jesus spent three days in the tomb, and I must be there with Him waiting with faith.  Maybe, my Now says I have to do something.  Maybe it says I have to change.  Three days with Jesus in the tomb will prepare me for both mission and mercy.

“Who knows, God may relent and forgive, and withhold his blazing wrath,
so that we shall not perish.”
When God saw by their actions how they turned from their evil way,
he repented of the evil that he had threatened to do to them;
he did not carry it out. Jonah 3: 10

Light up the World!

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These are days that pull me in directions I don’t want to go.  My day starts with prayer and reflection.  That sets a tone I want to preserve. You probably know how things go from there. The world tries to be the boss of me.

The best I can come up with as an image to sustain my wholeness is that of an oil lamp, full and lit, sitting on a stand.  The world changes around it, winds blow, it’s light burns brightly at times;  at other times it’s flame flickers and it needs it’s wick lengthened or trimmed; depending.   What I see is that there’s no confusion about it’s being.  It is not the world and it is not the turmoil.  It is a light on a lamp stand.  If it could feel, it might feel threatened, inflamed, dampened.  The reality is,  it remains a lamp on a stand with one reason for being.

So here I sit on my stand (pc at hand),  resolute and responsive to the day, unconquered and unyielding.  Whether darkness prevails around me,  in some small way, does depend on me and others like me.

So everybody, how about it?  In chorus now!  “This little light of mine…..”

Shared by Flickr &  Ultraultraboomerang


A Prayer For Quiet

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While I busy myself, beating at the wind, You, My Lord, are content with a Cross; hands bleeding and unbusy, nailed to Your Father’s Will, unresisting and uncomplaining.

Silence my hurried breathlessness.  Be all stillness.  I surrender all.