Friday, February 25, 2011
Friday, February 18, 2011
7th Sunday in Ordinary Time: Love Your Enemies
Leviticus 19:1-2, 17-18
1 Corinthians 3:16-23
Matthew 5:38-48
Today we hear one of Jesus' most challenging teachings: Love Your Enemies.
(I didn't have time to type this week's up. Let me know if you prefer the written version.)
1 Corinthians 3:16-23
Matthew 5:38-48
<AUDIO FILE>
Today we hear one of Jesus' most challenging teachings: Love Your Enemies.
(I didn't have time to type this week's up. Let me know if you prefer the written version.)
Friday, February 11, 2011
6th Sunday in Ordinary time: Learning to Trust God
Sirach 15:15-20
1 Corinthians 2:6-10
Matthew 5:17-37
In the gospel today, Jesus drills underneath the commandments to their roots, our relationship with God.
My husband and I are discerning adopting a young sibling group out of the foster care system. Right now we are learning all we can about how toddlers experience adoption, especially when they’ve lived through abuse and neglect. Most adopted toddlers have problems with attachment. Experts say that attachment between children and their primary care givers is one of the most important elements in human development. Without it children don’t develop the basic social skills necessary for future relationships. They fail to develop a conscience. It actually causes significant delays in intellect and physical growth.
So we’re learning about attachment, and about the characteristics of children with attachment problems. I’ve been struck at how parallel these characteristics of children are to the characteristics of a life without faith, or without complete faith. Many of our spiritual struggles are strikingly similar to the struggles of children with attachment problems. If we think of God is our heavenly parent then we need a secure attachment with God for our growth and development. It seems as if all of us have some problem with attachment to God. I’m reminded of the prayer, “Lord, I believe, help my unbelief.”
Here are a few of those characteristics.
resistance to being comforted — When children get hurt or are tired or don’t feel good, they usually go find their parent to be comforted, but children with attachment problems don’t. In fact, they actively resist when their parents try to comfort them. These are children who have been hurt, who have been tired or didn’t feel good, but when they reached out in the past were met with violence or silence. They weren’t comforted when they needed it. So they have learned that when you need comfort, you rely on yourself. They often develop self-comforting techniques like rocking or humming, or things that look autistic to us. When they’re adopted and their new parents try to comfort them, they reject the comfort because accepting it would bring a whole new waive of grief for all the times they weren’t comforted.
I’m thinking of people who need comfort but don’t go to God, they turn to other things. They are afraid about their security, so they build big bank accounts and big armies instead of leaning on God. They are afraid of being rejected, so they work on looking beautiful rather than leaning on God. They are suffering with pain or loss, but they don’t seek out God, they turn to self-comforting techniques like drinking, shopping, over-eating, smoking, sex, or some other compulsion.
Many times in my own life when I needed comfort, God has not been my first refuge. I want the external things in place, like the big bank account, the network of friends, the important job, and then I’ll turn to God. I’ve spent a lot of time not being comforted.
In our gospel, Jesus addresses a compulsion: sex. He delves into the commandment not to commit adultery, and he names lust as the root cause, the compulsion of sex. Jesus says that sex won’t make us feel better. We need something else. We need a different kind of comfort.
resistance to being cuddled — Normally children will regularly seek out their parents for cuddles and will “conform” to their parents’ bodies, relaxing into maximum physical contact. My little Xavier does that, I love it. But children with attachment problems don’t want to be held. They fight to get away, or they just go limp like a rag doll and slide out of their parents arms. In the past these children have felt that natural and normal need for gentle physical cuddling but were denied it by neglect or abuse. That need went unmet and somewhere along the way they decided they were going to live without cuddling, and maybe that decision actually helped them survive those early experiences. Now they reject all touching.
That resistance to being cuddled sounds a lot like the way many people think about God. Many believe in God, but don’t expect or want God in their daily lives. They accept that God created the universe, but then God politely left and we are now able to live our lives on our own. That’s the thinking that leads people to pay attention to God on Sunday but not on Monday. That’s basically the notion that God lives at church but not at work.
I remember when I left active ministry, I thought, well, God won’t be around as much. I carried an assumption that God maybe took special notice of me because I was in ministry, because I served others, but now that I was a normal person, God just wouldn’t be around as much. So I stepped back. What was I thinking? I was rejecting the calming presence of God, cuddles from my heavenly parent.
ambivalent behavior — Children with attachment problems will at once seek and reject their parents. When they get hurt, at first they’ll reach out to their parent, but when the parent gets close they scream, “no.” This ambivalent behavior may originate with a need being so strong that it overwhelms that decision that they don’t need anybody. But as the parent gets close, the walls come flying up.
Isn’t that much like praying in a crisis? We all want God when everything else has failed, and God always comes running, but after solving the crisis, we want God to get out of the way. When God stays close, it’s terrifying that God might want something from us, might ask us to live differently, and we push God away. We want God in the crisis, but not in ordinary life.
I can’t count how many times I’ve turned to God, wanting conversion, until conversion was actually upon me. Then I was afraid and pulled back. What if God asked something too big? What if I was called to martyrdom?
rage and aggression — Toddlers with attachment problems have temper tantrums that are on a whole different level than normal toddlers. Their aggresion can erupt out of the blue. These poor children with so much hurt in their live – hurt from abuse and hurt from nobody being there when they needed somebody — have done what most of us do with hurt, we turn it into anger and when there’s a lot of it, it comes out as rage.
The world is full of rage and aggression. It’s what drives war. We see it in road rage, in fact, I think remember reading that the number one cause of death on the roadways isn’t drunk drinking, it’s aggressive driving. And rage and aggression are the root of domestic violence.
In today’s gospel, Jesus drills deep into the commandment not to kill by saying that whoever is angry will be liable to the judgement. Jesus is going after rage and aggression as the root causes of murder. He’s saying that it’s not enough to not murder, but we must address the unhealed rage and aggression we carry. Otherwise, we are only about will power, not closeness to God.
These commonalities between the characteristics of unattached children and our distance from God is striking. Why don’t we reach out to God first when we need comfort? Why do we resist God’s presence? Why do we treat other things like God? Why are we filled with rage and aggression? If we are like unattached children, then what was the abuse or neglect that lead to these behaviors? Maybe that is what original sin is.
So after knowing all these things about attachment problems, what’s an adoptive parent to do? The experts look to normal babies, who experience a need, get agitated, the parent responds, and the baby calms down. This cycle happens over and over and over until the child trusts that the parent will always show up when they have a need. So adoptive parents have to repeat this cycle, new to the unattached child, over and over and over. Parents have to listen for needs in their children and respond immediately, building a new experience for children and eventually a new expectation. It can take a very long time for a toddler to let down their defenses, and the parent must keep up with the loving behavior even when it’s not reciprocated.
Does God do that with us? Does God keep up with the loving behavior even when it’s not reciprocated? Does God stay with us, always there to answer every need, holding on for years and years. Does God feed us? Does God leap to us when we fall? Does God show us over and over and over that God can be trusted, waiting for us to let down our defenses?
Just like the adoptive parent, God waits. Because in the end, the child must let down their resistance on their own. The child has to take a leap of faith, has to believe that this parent will be different, they have to choose to trust. Our first reading says, “if you trust in God, you too shall live.” God is there, reaching out to comfort us, feeding us, holding us, waiting for us. But in the end, we must choose to trust God.
Just as there is a list of characteristics of problems with attachment, there is a list of characteristics that let parents know when healing has begun. We can use them too. We’ll know when we’re growing in attachment to God:
1 Corinthians 2:6-10
Matthew 5:17-37
<AUDIO FILE>
In the gospel today, Jesus drills underneath the commandments to their roots, our relationship with God.
My husband and I are discerning adopting a young sibling group out of the foster care system. Right now we are learning all we can about how toddlers experience adoption, especially when they’ve lived through abuse and neglect. Most adopted toddlers have problems with attachment. Experts say that attachment between children and their primary care givers is one of the most important elements in human development. Without it children don’t develop the basic social skills necessary for future relationships. They fail to develop a conscience. It actually causes significant delays in intellect and physical growth.
So we’re learning about attachment, and about the characteristics of children with attachment problems. I’ve been struck at how parallel these characteristics of children are to the characteristics of a life without faith, or without complete faith. Many of our spiritual struggles are strikingly similar to the struggles of children with attachment problems. If we think of God is our heavenly parent then we need a secure attachment with God for our growth and development. It seems as if all of us have some problem with attachment to God. I’m reminded of the prayer, “Lord, I believe, help my unbelief.”
Here are a few of those characteristics.
resistance to being comforted — When children get hurt or are tired or don’t feel good, they usually go find their parent to be comforted, but children with attachment problems don’t. In fact, they actively resist when their parents try to comfort them. These are children who have been hurt, who have been tired or didn’t feel good, but when they reached out in the past were met with violence or silence. They weren’t comforted when they needed it. So they have learned that when you need comfort, you rely on yourself. They often develop self-comforting techniques like rocking or humming, or things that look autistic to us. When they’re adopted and their new parents try to comfort them, they reject the comfort because accepting it would bring a whole new waive of grief for all the times they weren’t comforted.
I’m thinking of people who need comfort but don’t go to God, they turn to other things. They are afraid about their security, so they build big bank accounts and big armies instead of leaning on God. They are afraid of being rejected, so they work on looking beautiful rather than leaning on God. They are suffering with pain or loss, but they don’t seek out God, they turn to self-comforting techniques like drinking, shopping, over-eating, smoking, sex, or some other compulsion.
Many times in my own life when I needed comfort, God has not been my first refuge. I want the external things in place, like the big bank account, the network of friends, the important job, and then I’ll turn to God. I’ve spent a lot of time not being comforted.
In our gospel, Jesus addresses a compulsion: sex. He delves into the commandment not to commit adultery, and he names lust as the root cause, the compulsion of sex. Jesus says that sex won’t make us feel better. We need something else. We need a different kind of comfort.
resistance to being cuddled — Normally children will regularly seek out their parents for cuddles and will “conform” to their parents’ bodies, relaxing into maximum physical contact. My little Xavier does that, I love it. But children with attachment problems don’t want to be held. They fight to get away, or they just go limp like a rag doll and slide out of their parents arms. In the past these children have felt that natural and normal need for gentle physical cuddling but were denied it by neglect or abuse. That need went unmet and somewhere along the way they decided they were going to live without cuddling, and maybe that decision actually helped them survive those early experiences. Now they reject all touching.
That resistance to being cuddled sounds a lot like the way many people think about God. Many believe in God, but don’t expect or want God in their daily lives. They accept that God created the universe, but then God politely left and we are now able to live our lives on our own. That’s the thinking that leads people to pay attention to God on Sunday but not on Monday. That’s basically the notion that God lives at church but not at work.
I remember when I left active ministry, I thought, well, God won’t be around as much. I carried an assumption that God maybe took special notice of me because I was in ministry, because I served others, but now that I was a normal person, God just wouldn’t be around as much. So I stepped back. What was I thinking? I was rejecting the calming presence of God, cuddles from my heavenly parent.
ambivalent behavior — Children with attachment problems will at once seek and reject their parents. When they get hurt, at first they’ll reach out to their parent, but when the parent gets close they scream, “no.” This ambivalent behavior may originate with a need being so strong that it overwhelms that decision that they don’t need anybody. But as the parent gets close, the walls come flying up.
Isn’t that much like praying in a crisis? We all want God when everything else has failed, and God always comes running, but after solving the crisis, we want God to get out of the way. When God stays close, it’s terrifying that God might want something from us, might ask us to live differently, and we push God away. We want God in the crisis, but not in ordinary life.
I can’t count how many times I’ve turned to God, wanting conversion, until conversion was actually upon me. Then I was afraid and pulled back. What if God asked something too big? What if I was called to martyrdom?
rage and aggression — Toddlers with attachment problems have temper tantrums that are on a whole different level than normal toddlers. Their aggresion can erupt out of the blue. These poor children with so much hurt in their live – hurt from abuse and hurt from nobody being there when they needed somebody — have done what most of us do with hurt, we turn it into anger and when there’s a lot of it, it comes out as rage.
The world is full of rage and aggression. It’s what drives war. We see it in road rage, in fact, I think remember reading that the number one cause of death on the roadways isn’t drunk drinking, it’s aggressive driving. And rage and aggression are the root of domestic violence.
In today’s gospel, Jesus drills deep into the commandment not to kill by saying that whoever is angry will be liable to the judgement. Jesus is going after rage and aggression as the root causes of murder. He’s saying that it’s not enough to not murder, but we must address the unhealed rage and aggression we carry. Otherwise, we are only about will power, not closeness to God.
These commonalities between the characteristics of unattached children and our distance from God is striking. Why don’t we reach out to God first when we need comfort? Why do we resist God’s presence? Why do we treat other things like God? Why are we filled with rage and aggression? If we are like unattached children, then what was the abuse or neglect that lead to these behaviors? Maybe that is what original sin is.
So after knowing all these things about attachment problems, what’s an adoptive parent to do? The experts look to normal babies, who experience a need, get agitated, the parent responds, and the baby calms down. This cycle happens over and over and over until the child trusts that the parent will always show up when they have a need. So adoptive parents have to repeat this cycle, new to the unattached child, over and over and over. Parents have to listen for needs in their children and respond immediately, building a new experience for children and eventually a new expectation. It can take a very long time for a toddler to let down their defenses, and the parent must keep up with the loving behavior even when it’s not reciprocated.
Does God do that with us? Does God keep up with the loving behavior even when it’s not reciprocated? Does God stay with us, always there to answer every need, holding on for years and years. Does God feed us? Does God leap to us when we fall? Does God show us over and over and over that God can be trusted, waiting for us to let down our defenses?
Just like the adoptive parent, God waits. Because in the end, the child must let down their resistance on their own. The child has to take a leap of faith, has to believe that this parent will be different, they have to choose to trust. Our first reading says, “if you trust in God, you too shall live.” God is there, reaching out to comfort us, feeding us, holding us, waiting for us. But in the end, we must choose to trust God.
Just as there is a list of characteristics of problems with attachment, there is a list of characteristics that let parents know when healing has begun. We can use them too. We’ll know when we’re growing in attachment to God:
- when we seek God when we need comfort, rather than other compulsions
- when we accept God’s universal and persistent presence
- when we treat only God as God, not looking to other sources for our security, our sense of value, our worth
- when we loose our ambivalence by reaching out when God feels far away and when God feels close
- and, when we sense a gentle collapse of our rage and aggression.
Friday, February 4, 2011
5th Sunday in Ordinary Time: Glowing Light
Isaiah 58:7-10
1 Corinthians 2:1-5
Matthew 5:13-16
Remember a few weeks ago when Isaiah was to call Israel back to God, but it was too little, Israel was to be a light to the nations? Today we have Jesus echoing that call. Jesus is calling us to be a light to the world.
Our kitchen and dining room face south, so on clear days a lot of sunshine comes in the windows. The kids will play right there in the light and they get that sunshine glow. You know that beautiful glow of the sun on hair. They look just like angels. I think that’s the kind of light that Jesus is talking about. It’s a light that doesn’t originate with us, but when we are in it, we glow. We become breathtaking. It’s not us that has changed, it’s only where we stand. When we stand with Jesus, when we stand in Jesus’ light, we glow. We glow so strongly that it lights the whole world. I can think of some people who glow with the power of the Spirit, people who touch a holy part of me and fill me with energy.
Archbishop Oscar Romero is one. He was assassinated at the moment of consecration for his work for justice. At first I heard about the way he stood up for the poor of El Salvador, but it was only later when I learned his story that I realized he didn’t start with loving justice, he started with loving his friends. His justice work didn’t begin until a close friend was murdered. Then he changed. It shows me that it’s easier to do great deeds for justice when it is people who you love who are being stepped on. Social justice isn’t about ideas, it’s about people.
Dorothy Day is another. She was filled with convictions, but lost in the world. It wasn’t until she took her God-given gift for writing and called the Catholic Church to walk the talk that everything changed for her. When she published the first Catholic Worker newspaper in 1933, at the height of the Great Depression, she called on every parish to open up a House of Hospitality. And then people showed up on her doorstep asking for hospitality. It was real people looking her in the eye that changed her, and the Catholic Worker movement was born. But she struggled with maintaining balance between her work with the homeless, her writing, and her own family life. I struggle with a similar balance. Her struggle inspires me in dealing with mine.
Henry Krewer here in Boise is another person who inspires me. I met Henry about 15 years ago at a meeting of people thinking about starting a Catholic Worker community. We were reading a book about the Catholic Worker movement and discussing it. I remember Henry with reading glasses all crooked and his hair all tousled, but he spoke a wisdom that was deeper than anything I had ever heard. His ease with loving the homeless and his persistent sense of calling were awe-inspiring to me. He made me look at the homeless in a new way. He made me look at my own calling with greater respect.
All of these people are lights in a world of darkness. But you know, all of them have a shadow side. Last Sunday Fr. Hugh described humility as fully knowing two things — that we are good because God made us a good, and that we are sinners and broken. Archbishop Oscar Romero only got on the justice band-wagon when his friend was killed, but not before when people he didn’t know were killed. Dorothy Day spoke out against a lot of injustice, but not sexism, one that I care a lot about. Even Henry has his shadow. Once we were demonstrating against the death penalty and a guy came up to argue with us. He clearly just wanted to pick a fight. Well, not only did Henry not refuse to fight, I swear he actually goaded the guy on. They almost came to blows. Now, I hesitate to tell a story on Henry because after 15 years he could easily stand here for hours telling stories on me. Probably so could most of you.
We all have a shadow side. Just because people do great things, shine great light, doesn’t mean they are perfect. All of us have a shadow side. All of us, except one.
Jesus! Jesus has no shadow. Jesus worked for justice and didn’t leave anybody out. Jesus reached out in charity and always pushed back to the broader questions of justice. Jesus’ pride never stopped him from living out his mission. Jesus felt fear but never let it drive him. Jesus’ love for people was genuine, and it was for all people — those on the very bottom of society all the way up to the powerful, women, men & children, his own people and foreigners. To me that is one of the most compelling things about Jesus. It what makes him more than a great teacher. He had no shadow; he was all light.
The rest of us have shadows because the light shines on us, not from us. And that’s normal, that’s the way we were created. God obviously approves of it because God made us that way. But Jesus has no shadow because Jesus is the source of the light. In today’s gospel as Jesus is telling us to be a light, he’s saying to get into that warm sunlight like my children do. Stand there, because when you do, you glow.
Being a light to the world isn’t about will power or changing ourselves, it’s about standing with Jesus, about witnessing for Jesus. We witness by expressing what Jesus means in our life. We witness by following those urgings in our hearts that pull us toward holiness and bring about good works. We witness by the honest sharing of our faith struggles. We witness by discerning our own callings and respecting those callings because they come from God.
Every day that you stand with Jesus, you are a glowing light to the world. You inspire people by merely standing in Christ’s light. Your faith inspires people the same way that others have inspired me.
1 Corinthians 2:1-5
Matthew 5:13-16
<AUDIO FILE>
Remember a few weeks ago when Isaiah was to call Israel back to God, but it was too little, Israel was to be a light to the nations? Today we have Jesus echoing that call. Jesus is calling us to be a light to the world.
Our kitchen and dining room face south, so on clear days a lot of sunshine comes in the windows. The kids will play right there in the light and they get that sunshine glow. You know that beautiful glow of the sun on hair. They look just like angels. I think that’s the kind of light that Jesus is talking about. It’s a light that doesn’t originate with us, but when we are in it, we glow. We become breathtaking. It’s not us that has changed, it’s only where we stand. When we stand with Jesus, when we stand in Jesus’ light, we glow. We glow so strongly that it lights the whole world. I can think of some people who glow with the power of the Spirit, people who touch a holy part of me and fill me with energy.
Archbishop Oscar Romero is one. He was assassinated at the moment of consecration for his work for justice. At first I heard about the way he stood up for the poor of El Salvador, but it was only later when I learned his story that I realized he didn’t start with loving justice, he started with loving his friends. His justice work didn’t begin until a close friend was murdered. Then he changed. It shows me that it’s easier to do great deeds for justice when it is people who you love who are being stepped on. Social justice isn’t about ideas, it’s about people.
Dorothy Day is another. She was filled with convictions, but lost in the world. It wasn’t until she took her God-given gift for writing and called the Catholic Church to walk the talk that everything changed for her. When she published the first Catholic Worker newspaper in 1933, at the height of the Great Depression, she called on every parish to open up a House of Hospitality. And then people showed up on her doorstep asking for hospitality. It was real people looking her in the eye that changed her, and the Catholic Worker movement was born. But she struggled with maintaining balance between her work with the homeless, her writing, and her own family life. I struggle with a similar balance. Her struggle inspires me in dealing with mine.
Henry Krewer here in Boise is another person who inspires me. I met Henry about 15 years ago at a meeting of people thinking about starting a Catholic Worker community. We were reading a book about the Catholic Worker movement and discussing it. I remember Henry with reading glasses all crooked and his hair all tousled, but he spoke a wisdom that was deeper than anything I had ever heard. His ease with loving the homeless and his persistent sense of calling were awe-inspiring to me. He made me look at the homeless in a new way. He made me look at my own calling with greater respect.
All of these people are lights in a world of darkness. But you know, all of them have a shadow side. Last Sunday Fr. Hugh described humility as fully knowing two things — that we are good because God made us a good, and that we are sinners and broken. Archbishop Oscar Romero only got on the justice band-wagon when his friend was killed, but not before when people he didn’t know were killed. Dorothy Day spoke out against a lot of injustice, but not sexism, one that I care a lot about. Even Henry has his shadow. Once we were demonstrating against the death penalty and a guy came up to argue with us. He clearly just wanted to pick a fight. Well, not only did Henry not refuse to fight, I swear he actually goaded the guy on. They almost came to blows. Now, I hesitate to tell a story on Henry because after 15 years he could easily stand here for hours telling stories on me. Probably so could most of you.
We all have a shadow side. Just because people do great things, shine great light, doesn’t mean they are perfect. All of us have a shadow side. All of us, except one.
Jesus! Jesus has no shadow. Jesus worked for justice and didn’t leave anybody out. Jesus reached out in charity and always pushed back to the broader questions of justice. Jesus’ pride never stopped him from living out his mission. Jesus felt fear but never let it drive him. Jesus’ love for people was genuine, and it was for all people — those on the very bottom of society all the way up to the powerful, women, men & children, his own people and foreigners. To me that is one of the most compelling things about Jesus. It what makes him more than a great teacher. He had no shadow; he was all light.
The rest of us have shadows because the light shines on us, not from us. And that’s normal, that’s the way we were created. God obviously approves of it because God made us that way. But Jesus has no shadow because Jesus is the source of the light. In today’s gospel as Jesus is telling us to be a light, he’s saying to get into that warm sunlight like my children do. Stand there, because when you do, you glow.
Being a light to the world isn’t about will power or changing ourselves, it’s about standing with Jesus, about witnessing for Jesus. We witness by expressing what Jesus means in our life. We witness by following those urgings in our hearts that pull us toward holiness and bring about good works. We witness by the honest sharing of our faith struggles. We witness by discerning our own callings and respecting those callings because they come from God.
Every day that you stand with Jesus, you are a glowing light to the world. You inspire people by merely standing in Christ’s light. Your faith inspires people the same way that others have inspired me.
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