© 2008 Joe Grant
Seeing in the Dark
Spiritual Resources for Peace and Justice in Troubled Times
And after the great wind, the terrible earthquake and the spectacular fire, there came a sound like sheer silence.
When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his cloak and went out and stood at the entrance to the cave. Then there came a voice that said,
“What are you doing here, Elijah?”
Early in the morning on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, they came to the tomb and found it wide open. When they went in they found no-body. Deeply troubled they were suddenly they were dazzled by the brilliance of the messengers, so they buried their faces in fear. And the voice spoke to them saying: “Why do look for the living among the dead?”
Darken the room…
I would like to ask us to take just a few moments to sit together in the dark.
If you have not done so already, please turn off your cell phone.
If you are not in the habit of doing this, I invite you to tuck your cynicism away for the time being (preferably somewhere you won’t be able to find it).
If life has not already done this for you yet, I beg you to lay your certainties down and just for “the now” put to rest any well-crafted answers or sureties you are currently working on. (I’ll give you a few moments for that one.)
Now I implore you to enter the darkness with me … the darkness of not-knowing… the place where real wondering begins… If you want, just for the moment you can close your eyes.
Most of the grace in life comes from learning to receive… so put yourself in a receptive mode…
I realize I am taking a huge risk right now, inviting a bunch of hardworking, committed and conscientious folks to sit quietly in the dark, in comfortable chairs…if you’re like me a trip to movies anymore is an invitation for 90-minute nap. Nonetheless I ask you to close your eyes now that you might see more clearly.
Quiet Still Dark Presence Together
Now, become aware of your breathing… the in and out, the give and take transaction of life… Be attentive to the movement within you- blood rushing back and forth, images that flicker and die.
Become sensitive to the movement of the earth beneath your feet- spinning at 700 miles per hour while we travel at 20 miles per second through darkness we call space.
Let yourself become conscious of all the living that shares life with you – all the breathing and pulsing, chirping and buzzing, scratching and swimming, blossoming and bleeding life that saturates this blue pearl we call mother.
Finally extend a radar sweep, as wide you dare to go, around God’s neighborhood, and make room for the traveling companions with whom we share this singular moment of presence: factory and farm workers, prisoners and police, nurses and nightwalkers, aged and new born, sick and strong; alone and embracing; suffering and celebrating; the killers and the healers; the engaged and the indifferent … the great living sacrament, blessed and broken…
There are a few sore spots I want to draw your heart’s attention to:
Kosovo, Kenya, Congo, Somalia, Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan, Tibet, Burma, Sudan…
We pray because there is a vast disproportion between human misery and human compassion. (Heschel)
So, now, just for a moment… I ask you to hold it all… to keep it together, to bear witness. Keep vigil, the night watch, over all these God’s own children… spinning in the dark. And let prayer rise from the dark center, the depth within you …
God IS…
God IS with us…
God IS with US… in the dark!
It is good to be here… with YOU in the dark.
Do you see? You can open your eyes…
Do you see now? You’ve got to BE in the dark to see in the dark.
Light the candle.
By now you’re probably wondering whether you’re in the wrong room, or when the lecture is supposed to start. Certainly this is the strangest kind of lecture I’ve attended and I’m the one giving it!
I have a confession to make… I’m not at all sure about lectures and lecturing. A few weeks ago while I was at table, fully engaged in a “teachable moment” with my teenage children, and just reaching the crescendo of an impassioned dissertation on the importance of making alternative choices, my daughter deflated me with a few curtly delivered words accompanied by some sardonic eye-rolling: “Dad let me know when you’re done with the lecture, will you. I got a lot of homework to do…” Now I certainly learned something from that lecture!
The older I become the less sure I am about anything. In the true sense of lecture -reading that which has been gathered (as in gathering firewood) – tonight I hope to share with you some gleanings, picked up from being in the dark with people who are familiar with darkness. I fully expect that I am sharing insights that you will recognize, wisdom that life has given up to you. With I hope we can we can kindle a fire to gather around, and enough light to really recognize one another I main the gloom of these troubled times.
GLEANINGS:
Spirituality is eminently practical - a way of being present.
Some practical orientations for times of trouble
A word of warning:
In large part the tasks of spiritual re-sourcing (returning to the source) involves making space, letting go, putting down and stepping aside.
1. Turn Off The Lights and Listen!
Rabbi Abraham Heschel warns us that: The future of all people depends on their realizing that the sense of holiness is as vital as health.
I wonder: since most of the universe is dark, can darkness be holy?
Darkness has a way of putting things in perspective. All enlightenment happens in the dark- otherwise there’d be no need for it! Turning off the lights –especially our own lights, our inflated sense of ourselves (as Peter Pan would say, “the cleverness of us”)- is a necessary spiritual practice for troubled times. When we dampen down our need to be right, and blinking step from the limelight into the shadows, and while our pupils widen in their hunger light, we are given a new vantage point, a broader and deeper perspective.
One of the consequences of the electric illumination of the nighttime has been the loss of our window into the cosmos. We are literally blinded by our own light! Most people on earth now need to travel to remote locations in search of darkness and its enlightening perspective. As we gaze into the vastness of the Milky Way and beyond, we can get an inkling of our own smallness, we who cling to this cosmic dust-mote. We expose the illusion that we are really in control of anything, except our decision to care! The infinity of space ignites our appreciation for mystery. In a world lit by fire the nocturnal sky-scape and the limited reach of the campfire offered our ancestors a nightly contemplative touchstone to put the day’s troubles and triumphs into perspective.
Without this long view back through time we so easily forget where we came from, and we overlook just how long it took to get here. We forget that here is always moving. When the cosmos revolves our own ideas we are blind to the infinite encircling miracle. Instead we equate value with quantity; what counts is what WE can count. (As the Psalmist says, count the stars if you can.) We even tally our own lives and dedicate our days to categorizing and enumerating, defining and classifying. We may claim a great intelligence, yet it seems we fail to recognize the difference between knowing and understanding (standing under) our shared reality.
Living under the buzzing glare of neon and the incessant buzz of ideas and images, we fall prey to our own self-deceptions. Motivated by polarizing ideologies we crudely dissect One Planet, One God One People, One life into competing camps. Our conversation (dance) with LIFE becomes one endless run-on that lacks the punctuation of quiet, dark space in which to listen and know and relate, and come to understanding. Without the humbling, stumbling of candlelight, we lose an appreciation for discretion, the dancing shadows, the half-light, the shades and tones of truths were imagination comes out to play. We must be very careful, because when justice and hubris meet we can expect only the heavy hand of self-righteousness (the rightness of might). And when peace and pride embrace they masquerades as triumphalism.
Listening is the highest form of love- Paul Tillich
Perched on the precipice of global catastrophe, we need the wisdom borne of patient listening, that is a kind of unlearning (putting down our own ideas). Otherwise we default to relying on the same devices that have brought us to the brink of disaster. It’s hard enough to convince someone to turn off the overhead lights, let alone invite people to humbly turn to one another, and extinguish our own head lights in order to make space for holy darkness and listen to the wisdom of the ages.
The Story of the Star People! (Unwritten)Ancient wisdom for our time
This is an hour of change.
Within it we stand uncertain, on the border of light.
Shall we draw back, or cross over?
Where shall our hearts turn?
Shall we draw back my brother, my sister, or cross over?
This is the hour of change, and within it we stand quietly together on the border of light. What lies before us?
Shall we draw back my brother and sister, or cross over?
(Adapted form the Jewish Shabbat Prayers)
Can we turn off the lights and listen?
2. Recognize the Crisis of Spirit!
Thomas Merton writes: “We have more power at our disposal today than we have ever had, and yet we are more alienated and estranged from the inner ground of meaning and of love than we have ever been.”
I wonder: In a universe of infinite possibilities how on earth
did we end up with this one?
These are troubling times indeed (walk the streets of Mumbai, Managua, Port–au-Prince, Basra, New Orleans, Tijuana, Nairobi, downtown Louisville…).We ought to be deeply disturbed. If you know people who are untroubled, pinch them, because clearly they are not awake! These troubles should be interfering with more than our sleep. They need to get under our skin and disturb our life patterns, our habits and expectations. We who are fashioned in the image of God (who have been brought forth from the dark and deep imagination of the infinite heart of the cosmos) are facing such a crisis of spirit that the lives of God’s children’s children hang in the balance.
Spirituality could be described as that deep motivating force that defines the quality of our lives… come what may! Spirituality is never a private matter. It informs our social order and vice versa. In fact the human communities we create reveal the state of our soul. (Pilgrim walking on the edge of the road... a praying people would never leave s this behind…)
The quality of our relationships, our stance toward life in general, is a reflection of what lies within us. If we could only realize that we are enspirited people learning how to be human, perhaps we would “re-source” our spirits to address this crisis. And we do have tremendous spiritual resources precisely for such times… resources that re-directed us back to the source, the font of our dreams and the source of our hope.
What moves you deeply, guides your thoughts, shapes your actions?
Jesus admonished us to set our hearts on God’s Reign and God’s Justice, for where our hearts are our treasure will be. What lies at the heart and center of your life? Where is your passion… suffering-joy?
When possible, on Sunday mornings I walk to church. It is a spiritual practice I enjoy, especially because, at first glance, my neighborhood is neither beautiful nor inspiring.
In fact I live in a “drive-through” part of town. After 14 years I am still disturbed and upset by the neglect and abuse I witness every day in this maligned patch of Eden. I have even been rebuked by well-intentioned police officers for living in the “wrong part of town.” I am aware too, that how I respond to this, my neighborhood is simply a reflection of what lies in me. When I intentionally open my eyes, purposefully pay attention and take the time, I am always amazed. You know there’s is a mocking bird who assaults me with song and a chattering gaggle or sparrows that live alongside the stench of the recycling station. Moved by these encounters, I wonder out loud: if had the wings and opportunity I’d choose a prettier place where the songs would be appreciated. Then I think of how this neighborhood would be without them. And I remember too why I choose this place to be in. The point here is that the Gospel Spirit calls out of our cave, down from the mountain, and into places that may at first seem desolate (like a desert). The work of the Gospel happens here (the Gospel works here… on us and in us)… and in here too. Without practicing peace of mind and heart, I overlook the music in the bushes, or worse still fail to notice the hint of Christ in the stranger’s eyes.
The practice of Gospel Justice and Peace starts from here on out! Every day of our lives we need to practice exposing our hearts and opening our minds to the peaceful center of our lives eve as we walk the concrete desert littered with all the society has cast away.
To be created in the image of God is to come into this world with a spiritual center
that is an avenue for divine wisdom.
To find this center, listen to the silence.
Remember to imagine, to dream, to envision, to create.
Recognize this internal beauty as the holy within your being.
Act as if you are worthy of divine command.
To be created in the image of God is to be grated a great gift.
(Adapted form the Jewish Shabbat Prayers)
Do we recognize our spiritual crisis?
3. Raise Your Gaze and Be Amazed!
The popular historian Howard Zinn commented: What we choose to emphasize will determine our perspective.
I wonder: Could we be seriously vision impaired?
This question is illustrated well by an old Jewish Midrash (Lawrence Kushner- adapted):
Now in those days, among the chosen people who wandered into the desert with Moses were two characters, Reuven and Shimon. And like you and me, they were accomplished complainers. So as they walked across the Red Sea, the great miracle of the parting of the waters was lost on them, because the whole time they kept their eyes on the ground. Without ever lifting their gaze they noticed only that the ground beneath their feet was muddy –like a beach at low tide.
“Oi-veh! This mud, its terrible!” complains Reuven.
“Don’t talk to me about mud!” retorts Shimon. “Up to my ankles, I am in all this filth.” “Well, you know what this reminds me of.” cries Reuven.
“Do I know? How could I know?” Shimon responds, “Except this I know, when we were in Egypt we had to make bricks out of mud like this.”
“You know what I think?” Reuven adds, “There’s no difference between being a slave in Egypt and being free here!”
And so Reuven and Shimon went on complaining the whole way across the bottom of the sea. For them there are no miracles, only mud.
And the Talmud reminds us: We don’t really see things as they are. We see things as we are.
When we turn out the light, pay attention, and tune into silence, we become aware (amid all the analysis and speculation), that we are suffering from a catastrophic failure of imagination. More than ever before, we need a vision to penetrate the haze, insight to see through the dark!
I have attended a good many Peace and Justice events. Most of them have focused on the tangled world-wide web of violence and greed. Rather than feeling enlightened I usually leave with the weight of the world on my shoulders. While we have become experts at injustice, we have failed miserably to present (especially to our young people) an exciting imaginable alternative. Granted, we cannot afford to disregard the cruel cost of living paid by our impoverished sisters and brothers … nor can we allow these grim realities to consume us. But it is easier to be mesmerized by injustice than to allow our lives to be illuminated by the Gospel vision of good news and the creative imagination of God’s dream.
There is ancient wisdom that chastises us: You are where your thoughts are, so make certain your thoughts are where you want to be! We cannot afford to simply bemoan the darkness. Far too often the vital spark of God’s dream fails to ignite us because we are wallowing in the violence and oppression that surrounds us on all sides.
Sometimes it seems like the world as we know it is falling apart… thanks be to God!
So I wonder, what does peace and justice look like, feel like to you?
Can I imagine a better world than this? Am I hungry for good news, hoping for change?
How much of my life’s energy do I dedicate to dreaming and scheming, wishing and hoping and praying and waiting for a vision of a world re-born?
When will justice come?
Justice will come when those of us who are not injured are as indignant as those of us who are. (Greek Proverb)
Sometimes it feels like I’m being consumed just trying to keep up with this consumptive life. Or could it be that I’m so invested in the way things are that I’m unable to conceive of any other way of being human? At these times it all looks like mud to me… And usually that happens when I’ve forgotten to look up at be amazed when I’ve forgotten that God is the agent of creation and transformation... the One whom Rabbi Heschel called the most moved mover!
There is a saying in the Jewish Kabbalah which teaches:
All things are in heaven save one: whether (or not) we choose to be reverent.
If this is so, then let’s commit to NOT being transfixed by the powers of darkness; by not taking ourselves too seriously; by believing in the greatness of the small; by letting go our need to win; and getting free enough to respond to life with reverence and to love with abandon.
Steady yourself. Living takes time.
Every moment is a moment to be lived.
Patience, steady.
Rush and race banish joy and peace
There is wonder to experience if you take the time.
Step softly and deliberately.
To force the natural rhythms of life is to deny the divine wisdom in each experience.
(Adapted form the Jewish Shabbat Prayers)
Will you raise your gaze to be amazed?
4. Be Still In the Storm!
There is an indigenous proverb which teaches: When the river runs fast, sit still in your canoe.
I wonder: What’s the first thing you do when you can’t see where you’re going?
Gandhi once remarked that there is more to life than speeding it up! When was the last time you confirmed a date with a friend without having to check your calendar or plan a month in advance? Doesn’t it seem that our plates are too full while at the same time one-in-six children of God on our planet have empty plates? I believe the two realities are intimately interconnected. In our frenzy we forget that starvation is a form of genocide. Do you remember those days when we argued about whether we should acquiesce to cultural pressures and buy an answering machine? Nowadays people are physically attached to communications devices so that they respond to signals from somewhere else, while ignoring the reality and relationships right under their feet. What would our ancestors think of us? How will our children’s children judge us?
The terrible storm brewing in the atmosphere has been whipping up for several generations. We are all part of the environmental catastrophe that has already laid a heavy burden on the improvised people of the underbelly of our world. As the pace of the storm quickens so we rise, panic and try by all means to save ourselves. When fear is our motivator we quickly collapse into ruthlessness.
“Jesus, don’t you care that we are going to drown?” He awoke and cried out:
BE STILL!
Pope John Paul II reminded us that war is a complete failure of our faith and our humanity. As the resources of God’s planet (the God of all) are wantonly depleted (oil, water, food, energy) is it inevitable that we should collapse into factional fighting? Such are the dystopian images of a violent society caught up deadly global competition.
But wait…take a breath… re-source and recollect…
Rabbi Heschel says: God is not always silent and people are not always blind!
Let us not forget that we are God’s people and this is God’s universe. Justice takes time. We need to take the longer view, to resource ourselves for the long haul. As Dr. King taught: “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends… toward Justice.” We cannot be sure, we can only believe! But, if we take the time to still ourselves, we come to experience God as the center of the universe. Then in the eye of the storm we stumble upon the love force that holds all things together. Because justice is God’s desire, and mercy is God’s nature, this is precisely what God teases out of us in stillness, in silence, in solitude.
Sabbath is where we meet God not in space but in time. At the eye of life’s storms there is sacred time, that God has opened up… time to rest, to trust, to celebrate and experience life together; time to laugh and cry play and work and wonder, to love and let go. This is what life is for. And for all our busyness, we may be running away from living and opting for surviving. As they used to call it: dying of consumption. The human task, because we are children of God, is to live from this center, God-With us (in Latin cumtemplum- with temple). When we live form our center, we activate contemplation in all the aspects of our lives. This is what it means to be gracious in a state of grace, a little bit of heaven.
Lead us from the unreal into the real… faith, spirituality are not an escape from the demands and rigors and losses and tragedies of life… they are a gateway into them.
Consider the recent witness of the saffron-robed column of Buddhist monks in Burma who walked calmly into the fury of the military regime chanting: “Let everyone be free from harm. Let everyone be free from anger. Let everyone be free from hardship.”
Storms too are holy ground- the place where faith and spirits are tested, where are forced to seek out the shelter of Sabbath that makes things holy. Do we presume abundance or arm ourselves for scarcity? Do we share resources (especially time and presence) or do we hoard and consume with avarice? The choice is ours ad as are the consequences. Let us pray for the patient urgency of the prophets and make the commitment to slow down, stop running around and be still.
Weave a silence into our minds
Weave a silence onto our lips
Weave a silence over our hearts.
Calm us O Lord as you stilled the storm.
Still us O Lord and keep all from harm.
Let all tumult within us cease.
Enfold us Lord in your peace.
(Celtic Prayer –unknown authorship)
Do we dare to be still in the storm?
5. Dance In the Dark!
As Dorothy Day challenges us When we really come to know the seriousness of our situation, the racism, the war, the injustice, we recognize that it not going to remedied just by demonstrations, but by living our lives in dramatically different ways…
I wonder: when was the last time your heart was broken?
It was early in the morning, before the sun had come up over the hills of Nyange parish in Rwanda. I awoke to the distant singing. At the edge of the road I peered down the valley into the gloom and I was told: “The widows and orphans are coming to speak with you.” As the shadows shortened, I glimpsed in the columns of colorful people chanting as they twirled umbrellas and sang. They we walking in single file along narrow paths that skirted both sides of the green valley. “Why are they singing?” I asked the resident priest. “They sing,” he said (quoting an old African proverb) “to know that they are not alone.”
Pass the rock: Touching genocide -Dancing with the widows and the orphans.
Suffering is a necessary party of being alive. (My dad says: “I’ll know I’m the day that nothing hurts). In addition to this there is so much more unnecessary suffering that ought to break our heats and brings us to our knees.
When we spend time with people who are familiar with the dark surely we will have our heart’s broken. Here we come eyelash to eyelash with the scandal of a broken God. A God defamed and abused who suffers-with us. At this point we recognize that love hurts, that’s why we call it passion. It hurts because we only truly love the very act of letting it go (our health, our youth, our parents, our children, our very lives). It is in our suffering-loving that we express our God-likeness. You will know this well, if you’ve been invited into this intimacy with human suffering. It changes you forever. It breaks open your heart. And with the outpouring of lament and sorrow there is finally an opening for joy. We must learn the dark dance of lament- how to hold onto those whom life has mutilated, and grieve for all that has been unrealized, defamed and destroyed. Finally we are free of callous cold heartedness. The Spirit of Jesus is raucous, fiery, liberating forces that disturbs our peace to set free those in bonds of boredom and cynicism by linking them with their brothers and sisters chained to addictions, sexual slavery and starvation…And then we will all be free and then we will sing and then we will dance and laugh. And we will know that joy is the single infallible sign of the presence of God-with-us.
The tomb is opened so we all can enter. And all of us must enter tomb or cave; to face the suffering that will catch up with us; to come to terms with evil in us and around us;; and in real ways come face to face with the harsh tragedy that living and loving requires of us; to find our backs against the wall. And there, once we accustom ourselves to the dark and the quiet we will encounter a presence (the wall is God)… that draws us out and into the light.
There is dignity here we will exalt it.
There is courage here we will support it.
There is humanity here we will enjoy it.
There is a universe in every child we will share in it.
There is a voice calling through the chaos of our times.
There is a Spirit moving across the waters of the world.
There is a movement, a light a promise of hope.
(P.Andrews)
Are you ready to dance into the darkness?
6. Mend the Gap
There is a cult, an idolatry of action. There is an idolatry, a cult of prayer.
The first is mad escape, the second a consumer item, a narcotic.
Each taken alone, activism, passivism, without the other, is hardly recognizable as a human activity; the activists grow sour, violence prone; the meditators dwell on the moon, lunar. The question is not merely one of integrating these two. The question is how to recover each of these two, shapeless, defamed and lost: meaningless action and pointless prayer. Daniel Berrigan
I wonder: what would happen if the doers prayed and the prayers did?
You can tell the people who pray and the ones who don’t! You can what people care about by where they locate their lives. The friendships we nurture will determine the depth our discipleship. As Jesus reminded his followers… whatever you did for the least.
True prayer changes everything because we allow it to change us from the inside out. Everything changes when our perspective, our vision changes. What we see depends on what we we’re looking for. (Trees in the sunshine)
It is our life’s task to locate our lives in the gap between love for God and love for our neighbor. How else are we healed of schizophrenic living that splits one love in two? Essentially they are the same love and neither can be without the other.
Hear O People… God is one, and you shall love one God with one complete love.
God hungers for full communion- all of us, all together, all the time. This is the meaning of integrity. This is holiness, the fruit of mystical awareness- to uncover the oneness that permeates our ordinary divided awareness.
But how do we do this? By weaving networks of relationships and care, reverence and solidarity justice and mercy, we transform our prayer into action and our actions into prayer. “Follow me and you will be catchers of people!” Forever like the Catcher in the Rye, we weave safety nets to catch each other, and bring things back form the precipice the margins and into the center. This is how we touch God and enter into Holy Communion. In Christ there is no spirit of holy isolation! The spirit force that draws us together is a spirit of integration not segregation. God’s love is not divided but is poured out to all shaken, pressed down, in overflowing measure as seeps into the cracks and broken live where is most needed. And our task… not to get in the way, or try to impede the free flow but let it sweep us off our feet and get caught up in this divine extravagance.
We cannot deal with the wounds of this blest and broken world, unless we are inspired by its wonders. The wonders are illuminated when awe dare to reach into this world’s wounds. Like Thomas, when we encounter a wounded stranger we respond: “My Lord and my God!”
If the word were merely seductive, that would be easy.
If it were merely challenging, that would be a problem.
But I arise in the morning torn
between a desire to save the world and to savor it.
That makes it hard to plan the day.
(E.B. White)
Summary
“Certainly, it is easier to believe now that the sun warms us, and we know that buds will appear on the trees in the wasteland across the street, that life will spring out of the dull clods of that littered park across the way. There are wars and rumors of war, poverty and plague, hunger and pain. Still, the sap is rising, again there is the resurrection of spring, and God's continuing promise to us that He is with us always, with His comfort and joy, if we will only ask." Dorothy Day
By his dying and rising Jesus released that powerful liberating spirit, who makes of us good news, who opens blinded eyes, who takes away all that divides us and sets prisoners free, who declares that this is God’s universe, redeemed not abandoned. In our living, in our dying and in our rising we belong to God. We all belong to God, we all belong together. We long to belong to God together.
Let us rinse out our eyes!
Darkness is a necessary dimension of reality, a crucible of change where new things take shape. We spend half our lives in the dark- the darkness of the womb and of sleep, the darkness of our losses and longings, of alienation, absence and death. Darkness compels us to reach out to others, to gather around the fire, to come to terms with mystery and all that remains unresolved. We do not need to be wise to see in the dark, but we do need to have suffered, to have lost to have listened. Like Merton we need to practice seeing this world with rinsed eyes, because darkness is only the half of it. Jesus came into this world to throw the darkness into relief, in the love-light of a longsuffering God. And each morning we awaken to a nuclear blast of light, piercing the darkness at 180 thousand miles per second broadcasting the mystery, the gift and the awe of it all. Blindly we overlook the miracle and fail to be astonished.
This Dark Age is our time of awakening.
On the first day God created a different kind of darkness by mixing light into the primordial darkness. Therefore there is light even when darkness seems deepest. The smallest amount of light banishes the absolute of darkness, yet no amount of darkness can eliminate the tiniest spark of light. In every dimension of life, even in cruelty and tragedy cruel God is somehow manifest, especially when we feel most alone.
This is our time to wake up, to risk ridicule and persecution by choosing astonishment and gratitude over self righteousness or cynicism. Every Dark Age gives birth to new awakenings. God knows we could use the light! Surely this is OUR time. If we choose together to walk away from small-minded thinking and closed-hearted living, and spend time in the dark together, we might just begin to see our way clear to that love-light our world so desperately needs.
Pray as if everything depended on God.
Act as if everything depends on you.
Spiritual Re-sourcing for the vision-impaired:
• turn of the lights and listen
• resist the urge to blame
• ask questions and question answers
• share struggles
• be grateful for all of it, sunrises and sufferings
• kindle a flame and gather around it
• recover a sense of wonder and respect for mystery
God wants our heart, all of it. In the end there is no God-without-us! God wants us all of us...together… God-together-with-us. Do not be afraid! Peace with you! Be Bold- these times will require nothing less of us.
When it was evening on the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked, for fear of the authorities. Jesus appeared, stood among them and said: “Peace be with you”. He showed them his and his side and said to them again: “Peace be with you!” As God has sent me so I am sending you. He breathed on them and said “Receive the Holy Spirit.”
THY Kingdom come, THY will be done unto us and through us … Amen
Seeing in the Dark
Spiritual Resources for Peace and Justice in Troubled Times
And after the great wind, the terrible earthquake and the spectacular fire, there came a sound like sheer silence.
When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his cloak and went out and stood at the entrance to the cave. Then there came a voice that said,
“What are you doing here, Elijah?”
Early in the morning on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, they came to the tomb and found it wide open. When they went in they found no-body. Deeply troubled they were suddenly they were dazzled by the brilliance of the messengers, so they buried their faces in fear. And the voice spoke to them saying: “Why do look for the living among the dead?”
Darken the room…
I would like to ask us to take just a few moments to sit together in the dark.
If you have not done so already, please turn off your cell phone.
If you are not in the habit of doing this, I invite you to tuck your cynicism away for the time being (preferably somewhere you won’t be able to find it).
If life has not already done this for you yet, I beg you to lay your certainties down and just for “the now” put to rest any well-crafted answers or sureties you are currently working on. (I’ll give you a few moments for that one.)
Now I implore you to enter the darkness with me … the darkness of not-knowing… the place where real wondering begins… If you want, just for the moment you can close your eyes.
Most of the grace in life comes from learning to receive… so put yourself in a receptive mode…
I realize I am taking a huge risk right now, inviting a bunch of hardworking, committed and conscientious folks to sit quietly in the dark, in comfortable chairs…if you’re like me a trip to movies anymore is an invitation for 90-minute nap. Nonetheless I ask you to close your eyes now that you might see more clearly.
Quiet Still Dark Presence Together
Now, become aware of your breathing… the in and out, the give and take transaction of life… Be attentive to the movement within you- blood rushing back and forth, images that flicker and die.
Become sensitive to the movement of the earth beneath your feet- spinning at 700 miles per hour while we travel at 20 miles per second through darkness we call space.
Let yourself become conscious of all the living that shares life with you – all the breathing and pulsing, chirping and buzzing, scratching and swimming, blossoming and bleeding life that saturates this blue pearl we call mother.
Finally extend a radar sweep, as wide you dare to go, around God’s neighborhood, and make room for the traveling companions with whom we share this singular moment of presence: factory and farm workers, prisoners and police, nurses and nightwalkers, aged and new born, sick and strong; alone and embracing; suffering and celebrating; the killers and the healers; the engaged and the indifferent … the great living sacrament, blessed and broken…
There are a few sore spots I want to draw your heart’s attention to:
Kosovo, Kenya, Congo, Somalia, Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan, Tibet, Burma, Sudan…
We pray because there is a vast disproportion between human misery and human compassion. (Heschel)
So, now, just for a moment… I ask you to hold it all… to keep it together, to bear witness. Keep vigil, the night watch, over all these God’s own children… spinning in the dark. And let prayer rise from the dark center, the depth within you …
God IS…
God IS with us…
God IS with US… in the dark!
It is good to be here… with YOU in the dark.
Do you see? You can open your eyes…
Do you see now? You’ve got to BE in the dark to see in the dark.
Light the candle.
By now you’re probably wondering whether you’re in the wrong room, or when the lecture is supposed to start. Certainly this is the strangest kind of lecture I’ve attended and I’m the one giving it!
I have a confession to make… I’m not at all sure about lectures and lecturing. A few weeks ago while I was at table, fully engaged in a “teachable moment” with my teenage children, and just reaching the crescendo of an impassioned dissertation on the importance of making alternative choices, my daughter deflated me with a few curtly delivered words accompanied by some sardonic eye-rolling: “Dad let me know when you’re done with the lecture, will you. I got a lot of homework to do…” Now I certainly learned something from that lecture!
The older I become the less sure I am about anything. In the true sense of lecture -reading that which has been gathered (as in gathering firewood) – tonight I hope to share with you some gleanings, picked up from being in the dark with people who are familiar with darkness. I fully expect that I am sharing insights that you will recognize, wisdom that life has given up to you. With I hope we can we can kindle a fire to gather around, and enough light to really recognize one another I main the gloom of these troubled times.
GLEANINGS:
Spirituality is eminently practical - a way of being present.
Some practical orientations for times of trouble
A word of warning:
In large part the tasks of spiritual re-sourcing (returning to the source) involves making space, letting go, putting down and stepping aside.
1. Turn Off The Lights and Listen!
Rabbi Abraham Heschel warns us that: The future of all people depends on their realizing that the sense of holiness is as vital as health.
I wonder: since most of the universe is dark, can darkness be holy?
Darkness has a way of putting things in perspective. All enlightenment happens in the dark- otherwise there’d be no need for it! Turning off the lights –especially our own lights, our inflated sense of ourselves (as Peter Pan would say, “the cleverness of us”)- is a necessary spiritual practice for troubled times. When we dampen down our need to be right, and blinking step from the limelight into the shadows, and while our pupils widen in their hunger light, we are given a new vantage point, a broader and deeper perspective.
One of the consequences of the electric illumination of the nighttime has been the loss of our window into the cosmos. We are literally blinded by our own light! Most people on earth now need to travel to remote locations in search of darkness and its enlightening perspective. As we gaze into the vastness of the Milky Way and beyond, we can get an inkling of our own smallness, we who cling to this cosmic dust-mote. We expose the illusion that we are really in control of anything, except our decision to care! The infinity of space ignites our appreciation for mystery. In a world lit by fire the nocturnal sky-scape and the limited reach of the campfire offered our ancestors a nightly contemplative touchstone to put the day’s troubles and triumphs into perspective.
Without this long view back through time we so easily forget where we came from, and we overlook just how long it took to get here. We forget that here is always moving. When the cosmos revolves our own ideas we are blind to the infinite encircling miracle. Instead we equate value with quantity; what counts is what WE can count. (As the Psalmist says, count the stars if you can.) We even tally our own lives and dedicate our days to categorizing and enumerating, defining and classifying. We may claim a great intelligence, yet it seems we fail to recognize the difference between knowing and understanding (standing under) our shared reality.
Living under the buzzing glare of neon and the incessant buzz of ideas and images, we fall prey to our own self-deceptions. Motivated by polarizing ideologies we crudely dissect One Planet, One God One People, One life into competing camps. Our conversation (dance) with LIFE becomes one endless run-on that lacks the punctuation of quiet, dark space in which to listen and know and relate, and come to understanding. Without the humbling, stumbling of candlelight, we lose an appreciation for discretion, the dancing shadows, the half-light, the shades and tones of truths were imagination comes out to play. We must be very careful, because when justice and hubris meet we can expect only the heavy hand of self-righteousness (the rightness of might). And when peace and pride embrace they masquerades as triumphalism.
Listening is the highest form of love- Paul Tillich
Perched on the precipice of global catastrophe, we need the wisdom borne of patient listening, that is a kind of unlearning (putting down our own ideas). Otherwise we default to relying on the same devices that have brought us to the brink of disaster. It’s hard enough to convince someone to turn off the overhead lights, let alone invite people to humbly turn to one another, and extinguish our own head lights in order to make space for holy darkness and listen to the wisdom of the ages.
The Story of the Star People! (Unwritten)Ancient wisdom for our time
This is an hour of change.
Within it we stand uncertain, on the border of light.
Shall we draw back, or cross over?
Where shall our hearts turn?
Shall we draw back my brother, my sister, or cross over?
This is the hour of change, and within it we stand quietly together on the border of light. What lies before us?
Shall we draw back my brother and sister, or cross over?
(Adapted form the Jewish Shabbat Prayers)
Can we turn off the lights and listen?
2. Recognize the Crisis of Spirit!
Thomas Merton writes: “We have more power at our disposal today than we have ever had, and yet we are more alienated and estranged from the inner ground of meaning and of love than we have ever been.”
I wonder: In a universe of infinite possibilities how on earth
did we end up with this one?
These are troubling times indeed (walk the streets of Mumbai, Managua, Port–au-Prince, Basra, New Orleans, Tijuana, Nairobi, downtown Louisville…).We ought to be deeply disturbed. If you know people who are untroubled, pinch them, because clearly they are not awake! These troubles should be interfering with more than our sleep. They need to get under our skin and disturb our life patterns, our habits and expectations. We who are fashioned in the image of God (who have been brought forth from the dark and deep imagination of the infinite heart of the cosmos) are facing such a crisis of spirit that the lives of God’s children’s children hang in the balance.
Spirituality could be described as that deep motivating force that defines the quality of our lives… come what may! Spirituality is never a private matter. It informs our social order and vice versa. In fact the human communities we create reveal the state of our soul. (Pilgrim walking on the edge of the road... a praying people would never leave s this behind…)
The quality of our relationships, our stance toward life in general, is a reflection of what lies within us. If we could only realize that we are enspirited people learning how to be human, perhaps we would “re-source” our spirits to address this crisis. And we do have tremendous spiritual resources precisely for such times… resources that re-directed us back to the source, the font of our dreams and the source of our hope.
What moves you deeply, guides your thoughts, shapes your actions?
Jesus admonished us to set our hearts on God’s Reign and God’s Justice, for where our hearts are our treasure will be. What lies at the heart and center of your life? Where is your passion… suffering-joy?
When possible, on Sunday mornings I walk to church. It is a spiritual practice I enjoy, especially because, at first glance, my neighborhood is neither beautiful nor inspiring.
In fact I live in a “drive-through” part of town. After 14 years I am still disturbed and upset by the neglect and abuse I witness every day in this maligned patch of Eden. I have even been rebuked by well-intentioned police officers for living in the “wrong part of town.” I am aware too, that how I respond to this, my neighborhood is simply a reflection of what lies in me. When I intentionally open my eyes, purposefully pay attention and take the time, I am always amazed. You know there’s is a mocking bird who assaults me with song and a chattering gaggle or sparrows that live alongside the stench of the recycling station. Moved by these encounters, I wonder out loud: if had the wings and opportunity I’d choose a prettier place where the songs would be appreciated. Then I think of how this neighborhood would be without them. And I remember too why I choose this place to be in. The point here is that the Gospel Spirit calls out of our cave, down from the mountain, and into places that may at first seem desolate (like a desert). The work of the Gospel happens here (the Gospel works here… on us and in us)… and in here too. Without practicing peace of mind and heart, I overlook the music in the bushes, or worse still fail to notice the hint of Christ in the stranger’s eyes.
The practice of Gospel Justice and Peace starts from here on out! Every day of our lives we need to practice exposing our hearts and opening our minds to the peaceful center of our lives eve as we walk the concrete desert littered with all the society has cast away.
To be created in the image of God is to come into this world with a spiritual center
that is an avenue for divine wisdom.
To find this center, listen to the silence.
Remember to imagine, to dream, to envision, to create.
Recognize this internal beauty as the holy within your being.
Act as if you are worthy of divine command.
To be created in the image of God is to be grated a great gift.
(Adapted form the Jewish Shabbat Prayers)
Do we recognize our spiritual crisis?
3. Raise Your Gaze and Be Amazed!
The popular historian Howard Zinn commented: What we choose to emphasize will determine our perspective.
I wonder: Could we be seriously vision impaired?
This question is illustrated well by an old Jewish Midrash (Lawrence Kushner- adapted):
Now in those days, among the chosen people who wandered into the desert with Moses were two characters, Reuven and Shimon. And like you and me, they were accomplished complainers. So as they walked across the Red Sea, the great miracle of the parting of the waters was lost on them, because the whole time they kept their eyes on the ground. Without ever lifting their gaze they noticed only that the ground beneath their feet was muddy –like a beach at low tide.
“Oi-veh! This mud, its terrible!” complains Reuven.
“Don’t talk to me about mud!” retorts Shimon. “Up to my ankles, I am in all this filth.” “Well, you know what this reminds me of.” cries Reuven.
“Do I know? How could I know?” Shimon responds, “Except this I know, when we were in Egypt we had to make bricks out of mud like this.”
“You know what I think?” Reuven adds, “There’s no difference between being a slave in Egypt and being free here!”
And so Reuven and Shimon went on complaining the whole way across the bottom of the sea. For them there are no miracles, only mud.
And the Talmud reminds us: We don’t really see things as they are. We see things as we are.
When we turn out the light, pay attention, and tune into silence, we become aware (amid all the analysis and speculation), that we are suffering from a catastrophic failure of imagination. More than ever before, we need a vision to penetrate the haze, insight to see through the dark!
I have attended a good many Peace and Justice events. Most of them have focused on the tangled world-wide web of violence and greed. Rather than feeling enlightened I usually leave with the weight of the world on my shoulders. While we have become experts at injustice, we have failed miserably to present (especially to our young people) an exciting imaginable alternative. Granted, we cannot afford to disregard the cruel cost of living paid by our impoverished sisters and brothers … nor can we allow these grim realities to consume us. But it is easier to be mesmerized by injustice than to allow our lives to be illuminated by the Gospel vision of good news and the creative imagination of God’s dream.
There is ancient wisdom that chastises us: You are where your thoughts are, so make certain your thoughts are where you want to be! We cannot afford to simply bemoan the darkness. Far too often the vital spark of God’s dream fails to ignite us because we are wallowing in the violence and oppression that surrounds us on all sides.
Sometimes it seems like the world as we know it is falling apart… thanks be to God!
So I wonder, what does peace and justice look like, feel like to you?
Can I imagine a better world than this? Am I hungry for good news, hoping for change?
How much of my life’s energy do I dedicate to dreaming and scheming, wishing and hoping and praying and waiting for a vision of a world re-born?
When will justice come?
Justice will come when those of us who are not injured are as indignant as those of us who are. (Greek Proverb)
Sometimes it feels like I’m being consumed just trying to keep up with this consumptive life. Or could it be that I’m so invested in the way things are that I’m unable to conceive of any other way of being human? At these times it all looks like mud to me… And usually that happens when I’ve forgotten to look up at be amazed when I’ve forgotten that God is the agent of creation and transformation... the One whom Rabbi Heschel called the most moved mover!
There is a saying in the Jewish Kabbalah which teaches:
All things are in heaven save one: whether (or not) we choose to be reverent.
If this is so, then let’s commit to NOT being transfixed by the powers of darkness; by not taking ourselves too seriously; by believing in the greatness of the small; by letting go our need to win; and getting free enough to respond to life with reverence and to love with abandon.
Steady yourself. Living takes time.
Every moment is a moment to be lived.
Patience, steady.
Rush and race banish joy and peace
There is wonder to experience if you take the time.
Step softly and deliberately.
To force the natural rhythms of life is to deny the divine wisdom in each experience.
(Adapted form the Jewish Shabbat Prayers)
Will you raise your gaze to be amazed?
4. Be Still In the Storm!
There is an indigenous proverb which teaches: When the river runs fast, sit still in your canoe.
I wonder: What’s the first thing you do when you can’t see where you’re going?
Gandhi once remarked that there is more to life than speeding it up! When was the last time you confirmed a date with a friend without having to check your calendar or plan a month in advance? Doesn’t it seem that our plates are too full while at the same time one-in-six children of God on our planet have empty plates? I believe the two realities are intimately interconnected. In our frenzy we forget that starvation is a form of genocide. Do you remember those days when we argued about whether we should acquiesce to cultural pressures and buy an answering machine? Nowadays people are physically attached to communications devices so that they respond to signals from somewhere else, while ignoring the reality and relationships right under their feet. What would our ancestors think of us? How will our children’s children judge us?
The terrible storm brewing in the atmosphere has been whipping up for several generations. We are all part of the environmental catastrophe that has already laid a heavy burden on the improvised people of the underbelly of our world. As the pace of the storm quickens so we rise, panic and try by all means to save ourselves. When fear is our motivator we quickly collapse into ruthlessness.
“Jesus, don’t you care that we are going to drown?” He awoke and cried out:
BE STILL!
Pope John Paul II reminded us that war is a complete failure of our faith and our humanity. As the resources of God’s planet (the God of all) are wantonly depleted (oil, water, food, energy) is it inevitable that we should collapse into factional fighting? Such are the dystopian images of a violent society caught up deadly global competition.
But wait…take a breath… re-source and recollect…
Rabbi Heschel says: God is not always silent and people are not always blind!
Let us not forget that we are God’s people and this is God’s universe. Justice takes time. We need to take the longer view, to resource ourselves for the long haul. As Dr. King taught: “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends… toward Justice.” We cannot be sure, we can only believe! But, if we take the time to still ourselves, we come to experience God as the center of the universe. Then in the eye of the storm we stumble upon the love force that holds all things together. Because justice is God’s desire, and mercy is God’s nature, this is precisely what God teases out of us in stillness, in silence, in solitude.
Sabbath is where we meet God not in space but in time. At the eye of life’s storms there is sacred time, that God has opened up… time to rest, to trust, to celebrate and experience life together; time to laugh and cry play and work and wonder, to love and let go. This is what life is for. And for all our busyness, we may be running away from living and opting for surviving. As they used to call it: dying of consumption. The human task, because we are children of God, is to live from this center, God-With us (in Latin cumtemplum- with temple). When we live form our center, we activate contemplation in all the aspects of our lives. This is what it means to be gracious in a state of grace, a little bit of heaven.
Lead us from the unreal into the real… faith, spirituality are not an escape from the demands and rigors and losses and tragedies of life… they are a gateway into them.
Consider the recent witness of the saffron-robed column of Buddhist monks in Burma who walked calmly into the fury of the military regime chanting: “Let everyone be free from harm. Let everyone be free from anger. Let everyone be free from hardship.”
Storms too are holy ground- the place where faith and spirits are tested, where are forced to seek out the shelter of Sabbath that makes things holy. Do we presume abundance or arm ourselves for scarcity? Do we share resources (especially time and presence) or do we hoard and consume with avarice? The choice is ours ad as are the consequences. Let us pray for the patient urgency of the prophets and make the commitment to slow down, stop running around and be still.
Weave a silence into our minds
Weave a silence onto our lips
Weave a silence over our hearts.
Calm us O Lord as you stilled the storm.
Still us O Lord and keep all from harm.
Let all tumult within us cease.
Enfold us Lord in your peace.
(Celtic Prayer –unknown authorship)
Do we dare to be still in the storm?
5. Dance In the Dark!
As Dorothy Day challenges us When we really come to know the seriousness of our situation, the racism, the war, the injustice, we recognize that it not going to remedied just by demonstrations, but by living our lives in dramatically different ways…
I wonder: when was the last time your heart was broken?
It was early in the morning, before the sun had come up over the hills of Nyange parish in Rwanda. I awoke to the distant singing. At the edge of the road I peered down the valley into the gloom and I was told: “The widows and orphans are coming to speak with you.” As the shadows shortened, I glimpsed in the columns of colorful people chanting as they twirled umbrellas and sang. They we walking in single file along narrow paths that skirted both sides of the green valley. “Why are they singing?” I asked the resident priest. “They sing,” he said (quoting an old African proverb) “to know that they are not alone.”
Pass the rock: Touching genocide -Dancing with the widows and the orphans.
Suffering is a necessary party of being alive. (My dad says: “I’ll know I’m the day that nothing hurts). In addition to this there is so much more unnecessary suffering that ought to break our heats and brings us to our knees.
When we spend time with people who are familiar with the dark surely we will have our heart’s broken. Here we come eyelash to eyelash with the scandal of a broken God. A God defamed and abused who suffers-with us. At this point we recognize that love hurts, that’s why we call it passion. It hurts because we only truly love the very act of letting it go (our health, our youth, our parents, our children, our very lives). It is in our suffering-loving that we express our God-likeness. You will know this well, if you’ve been invited into this intimacy with human suffering. It changes you forever. It breaks open your heart. And with the outpouring of lament and sorrow there is finally an opening for joy. We must learn the dark dance of lament- how to hold onto those whom life has mutilated, and grieve for all that has been unrealized, defamed and destroyed. Finally we are free of callous cold heartedness. The Spirit of Jesus is raucous, fiery, liberating forces that disturbs our peace to set free those in bonds of boredom and cynicism by linking them with their brothers and sisters chained to addictions, sexual slavery and starvation…And then we will all be free and then we will sing and then we will dance and laugh. And we will know that joy is the single infallible sign of the presence of God-with-us.
The tomb is opened so we all can enter. And all of us must enter tomb or cave; to face the suffering that will catch up with us; to come to terms with evil in us and around us;; and in real ways come face to face with the harsh tragedy that living and loving requires of us; to find our backs against the wall. And there, once we accustom ourselves to the dark and the quiet we will encounter a presence (the wall is God)… that draws us out and into the light.
There is dignity here we will exalt it.
There is courage here we will support it.
There is humanity here we will enjoy it.
There is a universe in every child we will share in it.
There is a voice calling through the chaos of our times.
There is a Spirit moving across the waters of the world.
There is a movement, a light a promise of hope.
(P.Andrews)
Are you ready to dance into the darkness?
6. Mend the Gap
There is a cult, an idolatry of action. There is an idolatry, a cult of prayer.
The first is mad escape, the second a consumer item, a narcotic.
Each taken alone, activism, passivism, without the other, is hardly recognizable as a human activity; the activists grow sour, violence prone; the meditators dwell on the moon, lunar. The question is not merely one of integrating these two. The question is how to recover each of these two, shapeless, defamed and lost: meaningless action and pointless prayer. Daniel Berrigan
I wonder: what would happen if the doers prayed and the prayers did?
You can tell the people who pray and the ones who don’t! You can what people care about by where they locate their lives. The friendships we nurture will determine the depth our discipleship. As Jesus reminded his followers… whatever you did for the least.
True prayer changes everything because we allow it to change us from the inside out. Everything changes when our perspective, our vision changes. What we see depends on what we we’re looking for. (Trees in the sunshine)
It is our life’s task to locate our lives in the gap between love for God and love for our neighbor. How else are we healed of schizophrenic living that splits one love in two? Essentially they are the same love and neither can be without the other.
Hear O People… God is one, and you shall love one God with one complete love.
God hungers for full communion- all of us, all together, all the time. This is the meaning of integrity. This is holiness, the fruit of mystical awareness- to uncover the oneness that permeates our ordinary divided awareness.
But how do we do this? By weaving networks of relationships and care, reverence and solidarity justice and mercy, we transform our prayer into action and our actions into prayer. “Follow me and you will be catchers of people!” Forever like the Catcher in the Rye, we weave safety nets to catch each other, and bring things back form the precipice the margins and into the center. This is how we touch God and enter into Holy Communion. In Christ there is no spirit of holy isolation! The spirit force that draws us together is a spirit of integration not segregation. God’s love is not divided but is poured out to all shaken, pressed down, in overflowing measure as seeps into the cracks and broken live where is most needed. And our task… not to get in the way, or try to impede the free flow but let it sweep us off our feet and get caught up in this divine extravagance.
We cannot deal with the wounds of this blest and broken world, unless we are inspired by its wonders. The wonders are illuminated when awe dare to reach into this world’s wounds. Like Thomas, when we encounter a wounded stranger we respond: “My Lord and my God!”
If the word were merely seductive, that would be easy.
If it were merely challenging, that would be a problem.
But I arise in the morning torn
between a desire to save the world and to savor it.
That makes it hard to plan the day.
(E.B. White)
Summary
“Certainly, it is easier to believe now that the sun warms us, and we know that buds will appear on the trees in the wasteland across the street, that life will spring out of the dull clods of that littered park across the way. There are wars and rumors of war, poverty and plague, hunger and pain. Still, the sap is rising, again there is the resurrection of spring, and God's continuing promise to us that He is with us always, with His comfort and joy, if we will only ask." Dorothy Day
By his dying and rising Jesus released that powerful liberating spirit, who makes of us good news, who opens blinded eyes, who takes away all that divides us and sets prisoners free, who declares that this is God’s universe, redeemed not abandoned. In our living, in our dying and in our rising we belong to God. We all belong to God, we all belong together. We long to belong to God together.
Let us rinse out our eyes!
Darkness is a necessary dimension of reality, a crucible of change where new things take shape. We spend half our lives in the dark- the darkness of the womb and of sleep, the darkness of our losses and longings, of alienation, absence and death. Darkness compels us to reach out to others, to gather around the fire, to come to terms with mystery and all that remains unresolved. We do not need to be wise to see in the dark, but we do need to have suffered, to have lost to have listened. Like Merton we need to practice seeing this world with rinsed eyes, because darkness is only the half of it. Jesus came into this world to throw the darkness into relief, in the love-light of a longsuffering God. And each morning we awaken to a nuclear blast of light, piercing the darkness at 180 thousand miles per second broadcasting the mystery, the gift and the awe of it all. Blindly we overlook the miracle and fail to be astonished.
This Dark Age is our time of awakening.
On the first day God created a different kind of darkness by mixing light into the primordial darkness. Therefore there is light even when darkness seems deepest. The smallest amount of light banishes the absolute of darkness, yet no amount of darkness can eliminate the tiniest spark of light. In every dimension of life, even in cruelty and tragedy cruel God is somehow manifest, especially when we feel most alone.
This is our time to wake up, to risk ridicule and persecution by choosing astonishment and gratitude over self righteousness or cynicism. Every Dark Age gives birth to new awakenings. God knows we could use the light! Surely this is OUR time. If we choose together to walk away from small-minded thinking and closed-hearted living, and spend time in the dark together, we might just begin to see our way clear to that love-light our world so desperately needs.
Pray as if everything depended on God.
Act as if everything depends on you.
Spiritual Re-sourcing for the vision-impaired:
• turn of the lights and listen
• resist the urge to blame
• ask questions and question answers
• share struggles
• be grateful for all of it, sunrises and sufferings
• kindle a flame and gather around it
• recover a sense of wonder and respect for mystery
God wants our heart, all of it. In the end there is no God-without-us! God wants us all of us...together… God-together-with-us. Do not be afraid! Peace with you! Be Bold- these times will require nothing less of us.
When it was evening on the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked, for fear of the authorities. Jesus appeared, stood among them and said: “Peace be with you”. He showed them his and his side and said to them again: “Peace be with you!” As God has sent me so I am sending you. He breathed on them and said “Receive the Holy Spirit.”
THY Kingdom come, THY will be done unto us and through us … Amen
posted by Interfaith Paths to Peace at 12:31 PM
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