Newer Essays

Rather than thinking about material things, such as window screens or movie screens, we can look at the kind of screen that involves the selection of people according to whatever criteria the screener has in mind. Just as screening sand through a mesh of the correct size keeps back all other materials that had been mixed with the sand, screening for people by some of their qualities separates out everyone else. The purpose of the process is exclusionary.

Does God screen us? For example, are we screened so that those who love others receive blessings and those who are selfish do not? Or does God sift us so that those who do good for others and maintain their own dignity pass through, and those who cause harm to others and to themselves remain behind? How we might answer the question depends upon our image of God. Those who are certain that they know how God behaves toward us can often find support in both Scriptures and in the traditions of the religious faith that is theirs. Others may not be as sure, and from the same Scriptures and religious traditions continue to ponder the mystery of God’s mercy and judgment without coming to an either/or conclusion.  

Thinking about how God behaves concerning us can lead to the amusing idea that we, who hardly know ourselves, and who certainly do not know everything about even the person who is closest to us, can make pronouncements about God’s intentions. However, no matter what we presently think God might or might not do about screening us, we can start any search into the mystery of God with the most secure certainty of God as Love. How sick a religious faith would be if it imagined God wavering between love and meanness the way we do.

When we make the move from our minds into our hearts when pondering God’s relationship with us, peacefulness becomes the criteria for judging whether a thought about God’s behavior enhances or disturbs the graceful, sensitive awareness of God’s guiding action in our spirit that gives us certainty. We might not receive answers to questions that are more from curiosity than a heartfelt need to know. We might find, for example, that our concern is not so much about whether God screens us, as to know with a soul-satisfying knowledge that God loves us.

While we can readily accept God as having the final say as to everyone’s destiny, we will likely become uncomfortable at the thought of God being exclusionary. If peace of heart is restored by dropping the whole idea of God as “screener,” that will settle our question without a direct answer being truly required or given to us.

In the United States, many universities and colleges offer a “Spring Break” to students, intended as a time of rest and recuperation from the rigors of intensive academic studies. The reality is often quite different, as when students engage in so many activities that they return to their studies more tired than when they left. However, there is wisdom in the ideal of taking an intentional pause amid even non-physical work, where the mind and emotions are especially involved.

If we have multiple responsibilities with work, family, and other commitments, we might find it difficult or nearly impossible to take a break of even a day or two, much less an entire week. Some are so occupied with events, activities, employment and memberships in various organizations that even the thought of taking a break does not occur. Yet, our human capacity for activity usually diminishes in efficiency as well as in any awareness of fulfilling our purpose in life if we do not require of ourselves whatever pauses, breaks, or changes each of us needs.

If we were to expect that life itself or other persons should provide the equivalent of a spring break for us, it is highly unlikely that the anticipated alterations in our ongoing activities would take place. Rather, we need to do for ourselves what no one else can do. That is, we are the only ones who can decide that we will take a needed break, even if the first is to ask God to show us the way forward. We can deliberately choose to begin doing whatever is possible in our present circumstances.

We and God are the only ones who know the real burdens we carry, and only God knows for certain the obligations that we have perhaps mistakenly taken upon ourselves with great good will but with an unrealistic estimate of our unique personal set of resources. We can always ask for discernment to better understand which belong and which do not.

Some of us are called by God, but also empowered, to carry on with a manner of life that no one else could possibly manage. The most important word is “we,” which means God and us. It is indeed a mysterious but real and loving way of life to lean on God to provide us with the inspirations and insights that will enable us to discover and utilize the kind of breaks, changes in thoughts, different ways of doing things that lighten our burdens and enable us to desist from irrelevant labors. God not only completely understands our present situation, but loves us as we are, including our unrecognized needs for God’s assistance.

 The word “Lent” originally meant the season of Spring, a time for new life and growth, especially in our spirits. The best spring break for us might be to reflect on our need for a specific kind of pause that will benefit everything we do. It only takes a moment to turn consciously to God, whose loving presence is always reliably available and uniquely supportive. No appointments are necessary, and such moments will often alter for the good whatever we are doing or thinking of doing at that moment.

Everyone can opt for a spring break like this and do so many times a day rather than only once a year.

A simple proposal or a simple answer to a question does not always turn out to be such in our experience. Some simple expressions are so profound that we can never fully comprehend all that is contained in them. If someone says, “Oh, it is a simple thing,” we might think that the subject is of little consequence. However, reflecting on our past experiences regarding “simple” will often reveal depths of meaning that we would not otherwise appreciate.

A simple act of kindness, such as giving an appropriate compliment or word of praise to someone, is a quite small deed, but we do not know or control its effects. Whatever we communicate might be received as the small gesture that we considered it to be, but, as we may recall from some occurrences in our own past, sometimes a simple act of kindness touched our minds and hearts so deeply and positively that is resonates with us now as we bring it to mind. Likewise, merely pointing out to another some quality or capability of theirs that seems obvious to us may occasion a moment of significant realization which that person had not acknowledged before. Such simple interchanges can have powerful consequences.

The most significant qualities of our lives are essentially simple: faith/trust, hope, and love. How we go about trusting God and others, and how we follow our beliefs is not simple, but there is nothing inherently complicated about them, for our minds and hearts are created such that from childhood through the present moment, these gifts have been available for instant use. We become more adept with applying them the more we exercise them, but they are not subject to entropy, and do not lose their power to affect us even if we do not employ them frequently.

There is no higher value in life than love. That is a simple truth, but the way we fashion our lives in consideration of love involves complex and deeply personal ongoing adjustments. None of us would say that it is a simple matter to live a life where love would always be our highest priority. Life itself seems to grow in complexity, presenting continuing challenges to us as we seek to find and enact love in all circumstances. In addition, the very word, love, takes on different meanings in various contexts. Yet, for all this, the movement in our minds and hearts towards love is simple. No other combination of thoughts and feelings resonate as fully with our spirits as does love.

Gratitude for these simple gifts is another example of that which is simple in essence. Everyone, at any time, can give thanks to God, and we can do likewise in many daily situations with others. How simple is that?

We probably do not think of ourselves in terms of greatness, yet we might have great desires and many interior movements in which we aspire to greatness without that word or concept ever entering our minds. We often hear and may even use the word “great” as merely an expression of approval, as in “That is great news.” Similarly, we may apply the word in that sense to persons, saying that someone is simply great, or that what someone does is great. But we likely reserve our idea of true greatness for very few persons with whom we have personal experience.

The value in taking as real that there are some aspects of greatness available to all of us, and may at times be consciously our own intent, is that we will continue to grow and develop those characteristics or qualities, for they are ultimately gifts of God, who alone is great in the fullest sense of the word. So, if we have, and treat as real, some great desires to be good and loving persons, we will likely receive from God consoling graces that are the equivalent of one of us saying to another, “That’s good! Keep it up.” The sign, then, that some interior movement within us tends to greatness is an additional interior movement of peace, joy, or true contentment that will usually accompany thoughts or actions associated with our leanings toward greatness.

One kind of greatness is ascribed to famous public figures, some of them saintly, some of them not. They are accorded this term because of their deeds, whether wholly selfless like a Mother Theresa, or of benefit to some people but not to others like victorious military leaders. Another kind of greatness is closer to our experience, but much less visible to large numbers of people. Unlike famous athletes or media stars, those who are great in generally hidden circumstances includes all who generously and freely give of themselves for the benefit of others. Whether in music or art, engineering or managing, or in any other way, they do so according to a formula for greatness accessible to all: reliance on God for direction.

With so many options, pushes and pulls vying for our attention, it is of excellent practical consequences that we “check with God” about the exercise of our limited supply of time and energy. We are each given a unique and significant place in the world, which we can best live out one day at a time by continually keeping the implicit question open as to what we will do. God has no pre-programmed instructions for us, but Love has a usually gentle but sometimes insistent way of guiding us when we open our minds and hearts to inspiration and to the confirming signs of peace and joy.

It is great life, even if we say it is hard, when we give of ourselves as Love calls us to love.

Lifting involves motion which is almost always upward and carries a positive connotation. It includes the common expression of giving “a lift” to someone, usually an invitation offered by the driver of a car. We have many practical uses for the word, as when we talk about lifting something off the floor or putting something on a lift to move it from one place to another. Often too, without the word forming in our minds, we decide to lift a burden that someone bears, whether of grief, worry, or a specific difficulty. We lift from, giving release. We do not lift anything onto someone.

How good it is when someone offers to lift even a small part of whatever might weigh on us, for even if we decline, we have already been lifted in spirit simply by receiving the offer, especially when we acknowledge the considerate intention of whoever proposed to act on our behalf. We thrive on such person-to-person movements because they enliven us. They also provide the basis of true human community.

We might have good reasons for turning down a specific offer, but when we respond with gratitude, we will also receive the lift to our spirits that was directed toward us. The gift of presence, one person attending to another, may at times seem trivial and not worth acknowledging. But we are not made to carry our problems and responsibilities by ourselves alone. Every kind intention of one person toward another enhances our lives when we accept them.

We are familiar with offering to others a lift of one kind or another, which we do because we see an opportunity to be helpful to someone, not for the sake of a grateful response. When the other person either accepts our offer, or thanks us for our good intentions, a mutual bond of human caring takes place. Imagine, then, what happens when we accept a lift from God. Not only do we receive needed assistance, but we are also affected by an experience of mutual presence: God with us. Gratitude is a natural response.

Sometimes we wisely ask for a lift of some kind from God and at other times we receive spontaneous offers from God. There is a significant difference between offers from our fellow humans and those that God inspires in our minds and hearts. No matter how good their intentions, no one knows for certain whether the lift that they propose truly matches a need of ours or accords with our mental and emotional dispositions at that moment. God’s love perceives unerringly not only whatever will be helpful to us but also the moment when we have the capacity to accept it. We always retain the freedom to turn the thought and feeling away, for nothing is demanded of us, but God will never stop offering them to us.

When God offers a lift, only good takes place when we accept.

Some words do well on their own. “Why?” implies that there is a context in which it makes sense even as a one-word question. However, we can only work rationally with “until” when it is placed with a condition, like “Until sunrise, the sky is dark.” We make good conscious use of “until” when we convey specific conditions that must be met before stated consequences will follow. But if we do not take care, we might put conditions on actions that do not require them, or assume that some significant relational interactions with others, including God, are conditional when they are not.

We would not want to be the sort of person who, until others first greet us, only then will we greet them. But without proper reflection, it is possible to hold others to unacknowledged conditions before we will act positively towards them. Much worse than that is when someone implicitly accepts the belief that we cannot be loved until we earn it by what we do or say.

God’s love for us does not entail “until” which is very good news for us. We are loved unconditionally, though many of us may secretly harbor a belief that we cannot be loved until after we have corrected all our faults or some wrongful behavior. Because so much of our lives are impacted by conditional transactions, we can unconsciously use the same mental attitude in our relations with others and with God as we do when acquiring merchandise: not receiving what we desire until we have paid for it. We all want and need to be respected and loved for who we are, but none of the small or significant loving interactions that are essential in life are the direct consequences of our earning, deserving, or otherwise meeting the kind of conditions that are related to “until.”

We do not like it when someone asks us for assistance of some kind and then acts as though they must give us something in return. For us, any expression of sincere gratitude would be welcome, but not required. In a similar way, it wholly inappropriate to make a request of God with a notion that until we do something to merit whatever we seek, we will not receive anything. Not that God could be disappointed or offended by our mistaken belief, but if we are fully sensitive to our manner of asking, we might become aware of thinking of God like a good friend who would say, “I am glad to do this for you, you owe me nothing.”

We are encouraged to ask for what we need, but it is wholly respectful of God to include some quiet listening before we conclude our request. In such a moment of peacefulness, we will likely receive the equivalent of “Thank you for trusting me. That is all that is required.”      

Although gathering specific pieces of music in a sequence is what we think of as a play list, “play” and “list” do not seem to belong together. If we were to organize play according to a list, we would be making a task out of something that is supposed to be more spontaneous and recreational. Even though humans can turn almost any form of play into a form of work, we know that child’s play is not that way. And all of us, especially those who are busiest and most occupied with responsibilities, need to play in a manner that is without obligations like following a list.

To be fair, some of us listen to favorite music on a play list and are thereby refreshed. So, not every use of a list is contrary to our ways of restoring mind, body, and spirit. However, the essence of play is to let go of “must,” “should,” and “ought,” because play is not some kind of listable undertaking. Rather, play is about the freedom for allowing gentle inspirations to guide us in whatever we might choose to do.

Sometimes we might pray as though we had a play list in our minds. The use of familiar words and written prayers can help us obtain a sense of co-presence with God. At other times, praying that same way might arise from an assumed sense of obligation, akin to “should,” or we might be limited to praying that way because we are not aware of any other option. Sometimes we need to bring play into the way we communicate with God, lest we lose our appreciation for the gracious loving presence that is so close to us.

We have no intention of turning the way we pray into a game, but we are free to be ourselves when we consciously engage with the One who loves us as we are. We might find joy, with an accompanying smile on our faces, when we admit some of the thoughts and behavior to God that we would be embarrassed to share with anyone else. In some ways, it might be a form of play when we call to mind many of the specific graces and blessings we have received, whether recently or in the past. Just as we can be playful with words when we converse with a good friend, we are free in God’s presence to put words and thoughts together without being concerned about proper grammar or logical sequence. Rather, we let our creative imaginations guide the way we express ourselves.

Playing is not the same as relaxing or resting, though these too belong as practices of being ourselves with God. When we play in prayer, as when we actively participate with anyone else, we focus on conversing, glad to be doing it. So, in prayer, we might, for example, engage in imaginative engagement with a Gospel story, and recognize it as joy-producing play.

Play and pray belong together.

Perhaps holy persons are those who are wholly committed to doing whatever they believe to be good for others according to their values. And a holy thing would be whatever is wholly dedicated for good purposes. We know of people, places, and things that are called “holy” by those who believe them to be wholly oriented towards goodness, God, or the benefit of people. Many believers all over the world call the entire week “Holy” that begins with Palm Sunday. We will likely increase and deepen our sense of whatever we find to be so wholly good as to be holy if we explore our own experiences regarding goodness. 

As individuals, few of us would think that we can determine who or what is holy. However, we are obliged by our own integrity of belief to acknowledge whether we are wholly convinced of what is named as holy even if very many people and even religious institutions call someone or something holy. No one can force us to love, because love is only possible when we are free to choose. The same is true for holiness. We can wholly consent to identifying persons or things as holy only when we have interior freedom to do so. Not surprisingly, love and holiness are mutually supporting spiritual realities.

So, before agreeing or reserving judgement about a church or other place of prayer, a book or altar table, an action or bodily posture, or a time or leader acknowledged by many as holy, we necessarily consult our inner “holiness detector.” Experiences of reverence, peaceful acceptance, or openness of our hearts to mystery beyond intellectual knowledge, all resonate with our sense for holiness. Any sense of imposition, power-seeking, or manipulation steers us away. If we find ourselves honestly uncertain, we avoid rushing to conclusions and may seek more information, for “faith seeks understanding.” At the same time, we know that reason is not the same as the gift of faith that God puts into our hearts.

None of us would say to others that we are holy, for good as we may be, we are never, even on our best days, wholly loving of God and others. However, the ultimate judge of holiness is God, who not only gives us free will, but guides, inspires and encourages us to aspire to goodness and love. God, in Scripture, calls those “holy” who seek to grow according to the gifts of grace that we receive, specifically adapted to each of us as unique persons.” There is no contradiction in God’s view of us as being holy even though we are only striving rather than wholly committed in every way to becoming someone for whom goodness and love are the definitions of our identity. We can do no more than we are enabled to do by the graces we receive.

This day, God lovingly gives us life, and loves us, knowing full well that we are not wholly holy. And that is good enough.