tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-99913642024-03-07T03:57:10.207-05:00GeorgiaphotosThese are photographs which I took at the Monastery of the Holy Spirit in Conyers, Georgia, as well as a few other places I have been over the years. There are also essays down below and links, on the right, to some of my published books and essays. Hope you enjoy them.James Behrens, OCSOhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17443038062066757554noreply@blogger.comBlogger783125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9991364.post-2242298015320854922012-10-23T14:47:00.001-04:002012-10-23T14:47:13.754-04:00The kingdom of heaven is like a big car wash | National Catholic Reporter<a href="http://ncronline.org/blogs/soul-seeing/kingdom-heaven-big-car-wash">The kingdom of heaven is like a big car wash | National Catholic Reporter</a>James Behrens, OCSOhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17443038062066757554noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9991364.post-5813727017661804862012-10-20T15:36:00.002-04:002012-10-20T15:36:56.571-04:00Cistercian Associates Gathering<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span id="goog_370302511"></span><span id="goog_370302512"></span><br />James Behrens, OCSOhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17443038062066757554noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9991364.post-25856209340698146182012-10-20T12:02:00.000-04:002012-10-20T12:02:00.869-04:00Workmen and Tower Cleaning<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />James Behrens, OCSOhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17443038062066757554noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9991364.post-65333102866928951652012-10-20T11:48:00.000-04:002012-10-20T11:48:04.588-04:00Slab City<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
His name is Dave and he is ninety-years old.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I recently read an interview with him that
appeared in a magazine. He lives in a place called Slab
City, a squatter’s community located
on a desolate swath of South California
desert.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Cement slabs are all that remain
of a former military base.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They serve as
foundations for the tents, old buses, vans and other makeshift dwellings.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Nearby, there is a bombing range.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Military aircraft fly overhead every day to
practice military maneuvers, including dropping bombs.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In the interview, he said “I have not done a damn thing with
my life except staying alive.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After
living at the slabs for ten years, he felt he needed more solitude and moved
his camp a mile farther out into the desert. He has a commanding view of the
bombing range. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Attached to the walls of the near wreck of a motor home he
calls his house are prints of Van Gogh’s Bedroom in Arles and the Potato Eaters.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Stacks of books are everywhere: Thomas Wolfe,
Cormac McCarthy, Truman Capote.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He
recently started writing and is always striving for perfection in his
work.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Oh, it can never be achieved, he
said, “but it must be the goal.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
That is pretty much all I know about Dave.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But I like what little I know.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He may have been down and out for most of his
life, but he persists in something.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He
strives to write well.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I hope he
succeeds.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I hope he finds peace in the
crafting of words on paper, words about his life, his hopes, his failures, his
efforts to do well.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Writing necessarily
entices one to search for meaning.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Dave
is at work on the most important and rewarding search in life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He is doing more than merely staying
alive.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
None of us do much in this life, though most of us live with
the burden or the illusion of making a big dent in life, far more than the
small indent of a word or two on paper.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The woman in the gospel is persistent.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She has nothing but her need to press Jesus
again and again for help.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He gradually
listens to her, and responds with care.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
A miracle happens.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
We can do nothing more effective than prayer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It may seem at times futile, but something
strange and ultimately good comes from it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Maybe not today, or tomorrow, and the response may differ radically from
what we asked for.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But even the lowly
among us know how small are our efforts but how necessary our willingness to
have a goal, to try and give something of ourselves to the God who will someday
lift us from the slabs of life to something lasting, an eternal home.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
James Behrens, OCSOhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17443038062066757554noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9991364.post-11184602928874024682012-10-20T09:09:00.002-04:002012-10-20T09:11:09.690-04:00What Words Can Do<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<br />
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
What Words Can Do</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Many of us have difficulty when it
comes to expressing what we feel.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We
seem to do fine when it comes to talking about “everyday things” like the
weather, or sports – the kind of discourse that is just enough to get us
through a day or under an umbrella.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But
we falter when it comes to looking deeply within ourselves and saying what we
see, what is there.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But we do know it is
there.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even though we do not know how to
say it, we can immediately recognize its presence when a poet or any gifted
speaker or writer says something that “clicks.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>And we then say, “That is how I feel but I never knew how to say
it.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This recognition of the latent but
always familiar is one of the reasons many behind the endurance of many a poem
or song.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Music, words, that go deeply
enough into the heart to rouse and awareness of “yes, that’s IT!” enable us to
see ourselves.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They are real gifts – and
we keep them and mull them over and over because they offer us a entry into the
place that can only be worded with beauty, longing, memory, hope.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Admittedly there are not many among
us who can offer us such words.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But that
does not mean that we lack the places for which such words are meant.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Everyone has a heart.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And everyone longs to be awakened to its
promise, its power.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
I think that the magic of Christmas
has something to do with the above.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
mystery of the Incarnation resonates with the divine presence within us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Incarnation is not solely an “outer”
event.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We, too, are bearers of the Word
made Flesh.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The heart and, if you will,
“ears” of God are within each of us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In
a real sense, God sees and loves the world he made through us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We laugh, he laughs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We hope, he hopes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We suffer, he suffers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And when we are shallow, or forgetful, or
mean-spirited – he is there, too, in our hearts, waiting for better words or
times to come.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He never goes away.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We cannot “un-God” ourselves.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Most of us go through life as if
asleep.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We may be busy, productive and
all that, but we rarely take the time to rest a bit and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">see</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Perhaps that is the way
it is supposed to be.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I would guess that
if most people stopped to gaze at the roses below or the stars above, there
would be problems with the productive sequence of things.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So, maybe we need the lull of our lives to
get by.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And every now and then a string
of words comes our way that hits us like a train and we are awakened to who we
are, and how beautiful this all is, and how fleeting, tender and aching it is.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is then that we want it all – want to
taste it all, see it all, hold it all – but it dances out of our grasp and we
soon fall back to our sleepy lives.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
But God does not.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He is awake, within us, wide awake.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And when those wonderful words come, he
rattles the heart with a “See, I told you so!”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>And we are thrilled, ecstatic – and then have to put the kids to bed, or
make dinner, or fix the car.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But those
things are beautiful, too – and someone, somewhere, is at this moment writing
just the right words for the sacredness of those ordinary, sleepy-time activities.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
James Behrens, OCSOhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17443038062066757554noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9991364.post-73146485769602956952012-10-20T09:07:00.004-04:002012-10-20T09:07:37.725-04:00The God of Advent<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<br />
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
Looking For God</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Advent is a time set aside for us
to wait for the Lord.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Places of worship
all over the world make room on their calendars to aid people in this
search.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There are penance services,
wreath making ceremonies, trees that have on them pieces of paper on which on
which are written wishes and requests for gifts.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The churches press down on us, asking that we
do what we can to make room for God in our lives.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
At one point in history, God chose
to become one of us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Prior to his coming
as an infant, all previous history was ordered to this one Event.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The prophets spoke of it for centuries.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They told their followers that a Savior would
come and bring good news, news of salvation. Since his arrival among us,
churches have laid down various paths to find him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Millions of the faithful seek out religious
sites where, it is believed, there exists an optimum chance of communicating
with the divine.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Mystics have, for
centuries, pointed out that the journey begins within the human heart.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And they also stress the need for a quiet
place, a secluded place apart from the dizzying and distracting traffic of
human life.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
God waited to come to us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He chose a day and a young woman to make
known his desire.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>God was and is still
looking for us, after us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And I think he
made it very difficult for any one of us to miss him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sine he was born among us, no human life is
the same.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He lives within us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He is born to us and in us.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Advent can be a vexing time for
us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On the one hand, we feel the need to
get to our churches and do what we can to secure a sense of God in our
lives.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On the other hand, there are so
many things to do in the Season.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There
are gifts to buy and wrap.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There are
trees to get and decorate.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There are
cards to write, parties to go to, people to remember, gifts to give and
receive, old friends with whom we want to get in touch.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Not many of us succeed in pulling off the
“perfect Christmas.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is a time when,
for many, the lights and the merriment – the songs and the expectancy of the
highest joy possible – painfully awaken the ache of missing loved ones.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A broken heart has a difficult time rising to
the occasion of the joy that bespeaks Christmas.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
I would like to suggest that God
lives everywhere.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He is in our joys and
sorrows, our expectancies and our disappointments. He is the happy heart and is
also the heavy hearted.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
The malls are crowded these
days.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Millions of people looking for the
right gift for people who mean much to them.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Amidst all the hustle and bustle,
God moves quietly but really.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He is
there.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And maybe the most cherished
insight we can hold in our hearts is that when we think we may have missed
finding him during Advent, he has been where we least expected to find
him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In our homes, our offices, our
stores and our streets. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We can breathe a
sigh of relief that he indeed has come.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>He lives in all the beauty and hope of this world, from busy markets to
the most serene of churches.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
James Behrens, OCSOhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17443038062066757554noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9991364.post-62829523271379921622012-10-20T09:06:00.000-04:002012-10-20T09:06:05.862-04:00Listening to God<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<br />
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Listening
to God</span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
There are probably
as many methods of prayer as there are people who <br />
practice them. There are as well many languages people use to
communicate, <br />
to share this wealth of human experience. No language is better than <br />
another - and I would say that the same can be said for prayer. Language <br />
and prayers are gifts. Both open us to wider worlds. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
The need to
communicate, to say who we are, to transcend our limits, is intrinsic to being
human.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Oliver Saks has studied people
who seem to make no sense, whose sentences go on and on but who are doing their
best to render intelligible the world as they perceive it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><br />
Centering prayer has been around a long, long time. Its existence has
been <br />
long known and practiced, though it is only fairly recently that it has <br />
become the focus of renewed interest and this renewal has given rise to <br />
books, videos, retreats and the like. Several monks in our own order – Basil
Pennington, Thomas Keating and William Menninger have done a lot of work to put
Centering Prayer on the map.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A priest
from my own diocese, Carl Arico, has also been instrumental in spreading the
word about centering prayer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><br />
From the time we are very young, we learn that in order to better see or
<br />
understand something, we have to be still, be receptive. We learned to
stop <br />
and listen when something of interest caught our attention. We learned to
<br />
be as still as possible, so as not to burst those big bubbles we knew we <br />
could blow. <br />
The years passed and we all grew up. The pace of life quickened.
And, in a <br />
sense, the race was on. Marriage, jobs, raising children, moving from one
<br />
place to another, all these and more forced a refocusing in our lives that <br />
may have caused us to set our sights on some goals while losing sight of <br />
others. <br />
The practice of centering prayer is never really lost amidst all the <br />
shuffles of life. What seems to happen is that we narrow our field of <br />
concentration, so much so that we assume we are doing one thing and looking <br />
at one thing as we do it. For example, a gaze at the beauty of a night
sky <br />
filled with stars can and should still us, center us, humble us before this <br />
vast canopy of night. We do not normally think of looking at the stars as
<br />
looking at or for God. But to later recognize, in a quiet moment, God as <br />
the source of all that we are and see - including the night - is to recover <br />
our "original" seeing. We are in the mystery of God every
second of our <br />
lives, with every breath we take and through every encounter we may have. <br />
There is no getting away from God's involvement with us. Cantering prayer is <br />
a conscious breath, a time consciously set aside to get in touch with who we <br />
are and who God is, and to make a daily habit of it. <br />
We all know that physical exercise is necessary for our health. <br />
Centering prayer gets us back on just as important a track, the one that <br />
leaves room for God.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
Strange things
happen when you give yourself some quiet, focused time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You will find that some things you thought
were so important lose their claim.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Your
life becomes simpler, more focused on things that are more appropriate to your
faith instincts.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Meditation is a welcome
path for artists, for poets, for those who need a break from the routine to
see, to capture something that is always there but won’t settle down unless you
settle down and nurture it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
It is basically a
method that enhances or promotes an experience that we all have, but tend to
let slip by.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It can go by many
words.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Careful attentiveness, a focus, a
concentration.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A still observance.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is the art of learning from something that
is within us and that needs a stillness to awaken, to gift us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A way of remembering.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
When I was a kid,
the garage behind our house burned to the ground.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>By the time the firemen arrived, the best
they could do was to control the flames, to keep the fire confined to that one
structure.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I watched from my bedroom on
the third floor of our house as the flames writhed and shot into the air,
bringing with them ash and debris.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>By
the time the fire was over, not much was left of the garage.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Me and a few other kids went down there the
next day.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I remember seeing what was
once an aluminum ladder, or what was left of it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Small remnants were still visible as ladder
parts.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The rest was a melted blob on the
floor.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Nothing escaped the heat, the
destruction of the flames.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The fire
consumed it all.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I am amazed by the
details I can recall.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The ladder,m the
smell, the ashes, the owners of the garage standing as far away from the flames
as they could.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I think it was the
enormous difference in the routine of my life that sharpened the lens of my
memory.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
I suppose I
witnessed that fire when I was in grammar school.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was at the time<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I would have been learning about the various
religious verities as taught by the nuns in my grammar school.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One such warning was the eternal nature of
hell and the wrathful judgment of God.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Hell was described as a place of unquenchable fire.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Eternal fire, no exit, no water coolers, no
reprieve.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I guess the possibility of
such a lasting place of misery may have had something to do with keeping us in
line.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We were often threatened with the
probability of ending up there unless we behaved like “decent” children.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
It was much later
that the topic arose again.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What
triggered it was not a goad to better behavior but an inquiry during one of the
seminary courses.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As recently as a few
years ago, I met a guy here who insisted on the reality of eternal damnation
and flames galore.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He was quite
insistent.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I am not too sure about many
eternal verities.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He was very sure about
God’s wrath and hotness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I just don’t
know.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I hope there are alternate routes,
or bypasses, in the afterlife.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
The above,
including the garage fire, came to mind this past week.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We were given several talks on the psalms by
Father Charles Cummings, a Trappist from our monastery in Utah.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>One day he was speaking about the infinite love and goodness of God, and
how it is stronger than death.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I thought
to myself how sin might be an unwillingness to let God’s love into our
hearts.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We want to do things our
way.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And so we hurt ourselves and our
neighbor, when God’s way would have been kinder.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That made sense to me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And for some reason, the flames and the
garage came to mind.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The flames seemed
to me to be like God’s love, transforming and consuming everything.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Try as we might to always live according to
our narrow sights, the process by which we are transformed by God is as real as
it is inevitable.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One day, God will
break through our stubbornness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We will
lose everything we once thought was ours to keep forever, and be given
everything we always really hoped for.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
So maybe the nuns
meant well but they got it wrong.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And
the man who came up to me anxious about the reality of hell need not
worry.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>God is good and generous.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Maybe he will provide a temporary place of
misery, like a real fleabag motel, just off the road to paradise, for those who
need a reassurance of a place of woe.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
But those places
aren’t fire-proof.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The burning love of
God is on its way to melt hearts that have grown hard, hearts that need to hide
off the road.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">As I
am writing this, there is a major storm warning for much of the eastern half of
the United States.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is raining heavily here in Conyers and as
the rain moves northward it will change to snow.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Two feet of snow are expected to fall in many
places far north of here.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There is a
site on the internet that shows a map with all these colors and moving images,
swirls of reds and blues, greens and yellows, blending all together to give a
near accurate map of where the good weather is and where the bad weather is,
and how it is all moving. There are sites, too, where audio is possible, as
well as predictions that span the next week or so.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">I
remember a man whose name was Mr. Connolly and he was the grandfather of a good
friend of mine from my grammar school days.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>My friend’s name was John. Mr. Connolly lived in North Dakota and spent several months of
each year with his daughter, who was my friend’s mom.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He was a farmer and was a quiet man.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He wore big shoes, had big hands and wore
suspenders and red flannel shirts.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And
he liked telling stories about North
Dakota, knowing that we had never been there.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One day, we were at my friend’s house and
John and I went outside to play.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Soon,
tiny flakes of snow started coming down, being blown by a wind that seemed to
be picking up.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Mr. Connolly came outside
and eyed the flakes and smiled at us and said, “It is going to be a whopper.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And he was right.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The ensuing blizzard lasted for two days and
dumped several feet of snow in northern New
Jersey.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Mr.
Connolly had a trained eye for storms of all types, a kind of gift he had
developed because he had to.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He had
learned over the years to watch the North Dakota
skies and read the wind and the snow, the rain and the clouds for storm
warnings of many types – tornadoes, heavy rains, blizzards.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">We
learn to read and see, hear and translate different things when circumstances
force us to do so.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I once read that in
the time of Columbus,
men who traveled the seas on ships were capable of seeing navigational stars in
the light of day, simply because they had to and had trained their eyes to do
so.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Nowadays, radar and computer screens
get wayfarers where they need to go, most of the time. We live in a world brimming
with experts who have inherited many technological wonders that can get us
where we think we need to go with an increasing degree of speed, sophistication
and ease.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Mr. Connolly would be amazed
these days at what the press of a few buttons can do, seemingly magic things
from illuminating weather patterns on a screen to capturing images of stars
that died billions of years ago.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">When I
was a boy, it was known that there were a certain number of planets in our
solar system.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Earth, Mercury, Venus,
Uranus, Mars, Saturn, Pluto, Jupiter.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The farthest of these was the limit of the knowable.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Things have changed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>With the visible reach afforded by stunning
advances in scanning the universe and seeing ever more deeply into it in terms
of spatial and even temporal coordinates, it is now believed that there are
more planets than there are grains of sand on the earth.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>More planets are being added to the list each
month.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is also known that the history
of the earth predates the arrival of humans by billions of years, so that we
are a rather late arrival on the scene.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>And our lives are a fleeting nano-second in the overall stretch of
time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is so daunting that any human
life seems to shrink to insignificance with each new discovery that adds to the
immensity and mystery of this universe into which we were born, or, as some would
say, thrown will-nilly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">We
believe that God spoke and Creation came into being.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And whatever the Big Bang was, the first
“stuff” we call matter is believed to have been no larger than a tennis
ball.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A Word was spoken and it grew, and
is still growing, moving, expanding.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Part
of that expansion is one of understanding, of coming to know better who God is,
how God is and how God may be speaking – and how we are to listen.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>How we are, in the title of a memorable book
by Karl Rahner, “Hearers of the Word.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The
God Who is: Creation is ongoing, and we are latecomers to the originating
event.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But in our late arrival we have
been able to look back and figure some things out.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The lens through which we gaze as Christians
is the Incarnation, the presence of Jesus in human history as the presence of
the divine, the divine who walked with us, dined with us, shared his life with
us and in so doing shares divine life with us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Jesus was able to look about and see the presence of God in many things,
both small and great.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When asked about
God, Jesus replied in terms of tiny seeds that grew into enormous trees with
branches that would hold the birds of the air.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>He spoke of a treasure hidden in a field.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He spoke of harvests and pearls of great
price and the men and women of his day understood.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And they also understood when he presenced
himself in bread and wine, and the gathering of people in his name, and the
sharing of the word.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He became a presence
that manifested itself as being throughout all of creation and it has taken a
long time for the church to understand the fullness that is in its midst, a
fullness that knows no boundaries other than human blindness and hardness of
heart.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">It is
not as if Creation emerged from the mouth of God and tumbled into being,
leaving the Creator behind to watch what came forth.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In speaking, God became a living part of all
that is.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>God’s speech is active and life
giving in the very fabric of being.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Nothing exists apart from God.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As
the late Edward Schillebeeckx was fond of saying, there is no salvation apart
from the world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The world itself, and
the universe through which it spins, is the ongoing arena of salvific
activity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The role of the church is to
hear, to listen to the currents of the winds and the hymns of the universe for
the symphony of the Creator God.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">On my
first visit to the monastery, I was fortunate to be in the presence of the
Abbot General, Bernardo Olivera.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He
spoke to a small gathering in the retreat house and one morning looked about
and smiled and said that he delights in the presence of God as he finds that
presence in all things.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He said that he
awoke early and had gone for a walk down by the family guest house and heard
the barking of a dog and that bark called to his mind the presence of God in a
humble creature, a dog who may have been barking for food, for companionship,
for a need to be noticed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He then went
on to share some thoughts about God in a more formal or classical sense but
those first few words said as much as whatever followed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If one wants to listen to God, it is
necessary to take to heart and to the ear different people who have learned to
hear him in different ways, ways similar to the one shared with us by the Abbot
General.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His example was direct and
simple.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And I think the ways that God
speaks are no less so.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">We are
used to understanding listening in terms of language, of words that are spoken
and that form sentences and patterns of thought that make sense, that we can
hear and immediately translate.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And so
it is we naturally focus in on learning to listen as an activity of attuning
ourselves to a voice, to words that speak to the heart, to the ear.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And that is surely a part of the
process.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But God speaks in different
ways and through many different modalities.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>There are the worlds of beauty – the forms of art and music.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The is the Word that is silence, and it is
true that we can listen to silence and know that it is somehow saying
something, speaking in much the same way that the silence of freshly fallen
snow on a city conveys a message that is known by more than poets and
artists.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A man or woman walks along the
beach, listening to the ebb and flow of the surf and somehow hears the
mysteries of time, of loss, of eternity, of longing for what the mind cannot
grasp but what it knows exists.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Such is
the gift of the language of the sea, a vast paragraph used by God to beckon men
and women to the mysteries of depths that are as real in the heart as they are
unfathomable.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">There
is the story of Francis of Assisi, who when walking along a road was asked by a
disciple to speak of the mystery of God and when asked he looked at a tree and
asked that it speak, and the tree burst into blossoms. Much can be said of the
man or woman who asks to hear something of or from God and encounters a person
who can open the eyes of the heart by a bloom of kindness or compassion.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I believe that if you pray to hear, pray to
listen, pray to see, then the seemingly ordinary events in human life will show
themselves for what they really are and what they are capable of saying.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Can it be that we move through life looking
for a tidy and lasting sentence or two from God and in doing so dismiss the
unmistakable cadence of His voice as it speaks to each of us through the
ordinary events of any given day?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>God
may speak all languages known to humanity – but I feel that he knows some that
get through to us in as many ways as there are grains of sand on the
earth.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>God is a God of abundance – and
there are the mystics among us who listen and hear God speak in tones and
syllables that have colors, seasons, sonatas and even rock n’ roll.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Our
monastery is a place wherein lives are set apart to ponder and share the
mysteries of God.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The first sentence in
the Rule of Benedict is an invitation to come aside and listen with the ears of
one’s heart.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It takes time to do that,
and a special place, and a tradition of hearers who have gone before us and
left the written scores of the symphonies they believe they heard, and that
came from a place at once far from here but as near as the singing of the
nearest bird.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Cistercian history is rich
in finding God in the cultivating of the natural beauties of life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In that sense, we are preservationists of the
divine soil in this life, turning each shovel full of earth with each day that
passes, letting God grow as he will in this cloistered garden in Conyers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We listen as best we can with our lives and
every sense that we are gifted with.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And
there is no sense that is left out.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We
touch and hear, see and feel and even speak of and from God every day.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We try and refine each of these gifts so as
to use them and share them as to what they do best – sacramental means through
which grace can be approached made a bit more visible.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The monk in each of us should be a
crafts-person of the ordinary, taking what is seemingly common and making of it
a channel of grace.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I think one has to
listen with one’s entire being to become an expert craftsman.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Day
before yesterday, Salena Troy held in her hands a metal work of art that Leo
Francis had made.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It looked to be a
candle holder and was rather unique looking – Leo had a way of fashioning metal
in a style that bore his signature.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When
she showed it to me I thought how much of a light Leo was to her and she to
him, and now she has a way to allow his memory to burn once again, like the
light that he was.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There is a kind of
listening involved in something as beautiful as that, for many words can be
gleaned from human lives that are centered on the gospel and that because of
that centering share gifts, gifts born from the love of God that sustains us
all as light.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Light can be seen.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It can also be heard.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">In
closing, I hesitate to tell you how to better listen to God. I think you
already know. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It might be better to
encourage you to trust in all you have already heard from him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Remember that bark of the dog, and the way an
old man long ago saw a blizzard through a few flakes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Grace abounds in life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is everywhere, and if you trust in the
eternity that can be heard through the soft fall of a leaf to the earth, you
too can scan the skies and trust in the winds of grace that are coming.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They are first felt as longing, a desire that
buffets and pulls the human heart toward other hearts, towards God. The
longings come, gently at the outset, carried by a strange but warm wind. It is
the wind of God. His storm is on the way. And it is a whopper. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
James Behrens, OCSOhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17443038062066757554noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9991364.post-67786830878458099192012-10-20T09:04:00.003-04:002012-10-20T09:04:17.407-04:00Memories That Speak<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<br />
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
Memories That Speak</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
I have letters from my mom and
dad.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They are in my room, near my bed on
the little night stand where I keep my lamp and clock.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Mom and dad have passed on.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I picked up one letter not too long ago.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was from my mom.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was painful to read.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She wrote about the ordinary things that a
mom writes to a son – the travels of my sisters and brothers, worries about
sick relatives, things she was looking forward to.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I can see her in my mind’s eye.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I knew were she wrote the letters.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She would write at night, at a desk in front
of the window in the den of our house in Covington,
Louisiana.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As time passed, she had to use a machine
called a Telesensory device.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It had a
large screen that enlarged whatever she was working on, be it a book or a
letter, or coupons.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was a wonderful
machine.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I can see her now, leaning
close to the screen, moving her hand that held a pen across the flat surface of
the machine.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I could here her speaking
softly each word that she read, as if it was an added pleasure given by the
machine.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She was gradually losing her
sight and the letters I have were from times when she could still write well
and legibly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But the last few years of
her life were difficult.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She became
totally blind and I know how much she missed reading and writing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She used a tape player to play recorded
books, and that was a big help. She told me often how much she missed looking
at my photographs and when my photo books were published I felt the pain she
knew when she could not hold the books and look at the pictures.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Dad’s letters were newsy, too.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He often apologized to me, telling me that he
did not know what to write.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But he wrote
well, and I told him so to encourage him to keep sending the letters.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He, too, wrote about family things, with an
occasional foray into church concerns or politics.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
I also have many pictures of
them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I took them all through the
years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some are posed pictures,
especially the ones Dad took when we kids were little.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I have them, too.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He would gather us on the front lawn for
Easter pictures, birthday pictures, confirmation and graduation pictures.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I took more “everyday” kinds of pictures,
photos of us sitting around the house, doing all the many things that make up
ordinary life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I am glad I have
them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
The letters and the photographs
bring back so many memories.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
A friend of mine wrote me a letter
that arrived in the mail a few days ago.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>He writes the end, and if I may quote him, “It is impossible to know how
we contribute or influence the Kingdom.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Amidst the boredom of moving bonsai plants from A to B, or the tedium of
making changes to your tome on grace..it is in the innocence of human behavior
that God reveals his mystery.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Beautiful words. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Mom and dad wanted to let me know
that they loved me and one of those ways was by writing letters to me all
through the years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The letters offer a
glimpse into their concerns, concerns that were made of the stuff of day to day
life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Banal, simple, mundane things –
things from which are lives are made and through which small things contribute
to the tender majesty and true greatness of any human life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But we never see it when we are given them,
when we write about them, and when later in life, when the writers and picture
takers are long gone, we are moved to tears at the beautiful wonder of it
all.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
The letters and the photographs are
possessed of a power that lies precisely in their being able to offer a
portrait of lives that gave themselves away in love.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And a part of that was writing letters and
taking pictures.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Such gifts make me wonder how
little we know the effect that our words, our lives, have on each other.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Looking back, and looking at the pictures and
reading the letters, so much grace was pouring through a slowly moving pen, a
carefully turned lens.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The letters are
wonderful, and so are the pictures.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I am
grateful.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
It is Sunday, a few weeks before
Christmas.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>People are writing today and
taking pictures.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Freshly made tokens of
love that will arrive in cards all over the earth.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Someday, they will reveal infinitely more
than they do at this time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The cards and
letters and photos will age with time and will take on a beauty that only time
– and God – can give.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
James Behrens, OCSOhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17443038062066757554noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9991364.post-64006289970468425612012-10-20T09:03:00.000-04:002012-10-20T09:03:01.431-04:00Little Things That Talk and Get Along<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<br />
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
Little Things That
Talk and Get Along, Big Time</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Wayne
is a man who was with us here for a while at the monastery and then moved on,
back to Maryland.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I liked him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>We got along very well and had similar interests in music, photography,
favorite books.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And he is a letter
writer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He wrote to me a few weeks ago –
he is doing well, getting settled in his new job.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
He wrote about how much he loves
Advent.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If I may quote him – “I really
like this time of the year.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Reminds me
of childhood.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I guess, yet I think, that
it is more than that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There is a feeling
in the air at this time of the year.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As
if the molecules are different.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
And, I think, indeed they are.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Not long ago, a biologist by the
name of Lynn Margulis passed away.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In
the obituary which I read, her daughter Jennifer said that her mother called
herself a “spokesperson for the microcosm.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
I am not, by the farthest stretch
of the imagination, a biologist.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But I
have long had a sensitivity to the small things that make up life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>According to her research, Dr. Margulis
showed that not only do the smallest things in us and about us “make up”
life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They form<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>a self-regulating system, maintaining the
condition that allow its perpetuation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>In other words, the Earth is a living organism in and of itself.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She wrote in her book “Microcosmos” that “the
planetary patina, with its army of cells, has continued for more than three
billion years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And the basis of the
patina, past, present and future, is the microcosm – trillions of
communicating, evolving microbes.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(Bruce
Weber, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The New York Times</i>, November
24, 2011).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
There is an ongoing gap between the
realms of theology and science.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some
theologians and scientists have tried to bridge the gap but the dividing lines
remain deep and distinct.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But all the while,
little things are talking, finding mutual attraction, evolving, giving form,
design, life and direction to all that we know and all that we are.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
It is a blissfully grand, cosmic
design given us – making us – through the smallest talk and intimate conversations.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So small that we cannot hear it but powerful
enough to give rise to planets, stars, civilizations, and you and me and my
friend Wayne.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Wayne sniffs the air and feels a difference
this season.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He is right.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The molecules are indeed different, as they
always have been.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Maybe during this
season of Advent some sensitive souls among us, Wayne being among them, seem to
hear something more in the wind than a puff or a poof.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is a small and distant Voice – one that
says “I am and am in everything.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Still
at work, coming closer and closer and closer.” </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Have a Merry Christmas, Wayne.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Thanks for your friendship, your kindness,
and your Kinks compact discs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All that
music on such a little thing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Look
closer, and there is even better stuff.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
James Behrens, OCSOhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17443038062066757554noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9991364.post-37223570141437350872012-10-20T09:01:00.004-04:002012-10-20T09:01:27.349-04:00Advent Desire<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<br />
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
Advent Desire</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
The wish for something or someone
begins as soon as we enter this life and does not cease until the moment we
breathe or last.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is desire.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It burns within us all of our lives and, who
knows – it may well enflame the ethereal stuff of our spirits once we move on
from this life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Personally, I think it
will.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To cease desiring is to cease
being a person, being human.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Desire is
as beautiful as it is troublesome.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Our
eyes and hearts wander, fueled by desire, for things, relationships, places and
circumstances that are either good or not good for us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The discernment of the desires that move
human appetites is as ceaseless as the desires themselves.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
I do wonder why God made us with
such richly burning and yet sometimes wayward desires.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is said that we are made in the image and
likeness of God, and the struggles we go through because of our desires must
somehow reflect the divine life from whence we came.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
The season of Advent offers us an
array of scriptural stories that reveal the scope of human desire and its
ultimate intent and fulfillment.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>God
desires to become one with us – very much like what we do and feel when we fall
in love with someone – and the magic begins.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>He makes his desire known to a young girl through an angelic emissary,
and life begins in her womb.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is not
long before the desire of God for human life comes into play with others – with
family members, royalty, people of ages past, prophets and seers – these and
more drawn into the drama of the God who entered human history through the
flesh of a young woman.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Other desires will obscure the
message.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Those who entertain desires of
power, prestige and the comforts of wealth and privilege will stifle in their
hearts the deeper desire to see what is good and real and lasting.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All of this will be played out in the weeks
to come.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
And it will be more than vaguely
familiar.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It will be our lives, being
retold using the saints and sinners of the Advent stories – the way a God came
to us, and how we were told to repent and prepare for his arrival, and how some
of us respond and some of us do not.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
I recently read of a large
gathering of religious academics that was held on the west coast.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Thousands of scholars attended.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was held in a fancy hotel, a place that
served fine food and had all and more of the comforts of home.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The man who wrote the article noted the irony
of the homeless just outside the hotel, begging or just huddled in blankets on
the sidewalk.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All the scholars walked
through the door to better secure their knowledge of God and the human.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And they somehow missed him as he lay in the
street.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>God is not to be found in an
elaborate insight, or a fancy footnote.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>God is in life, in the human.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
God is often just outside the hotel
of our comforts.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He is there, reminding
us that desire is indeed everywhere in so many forms and persuasions – but the
desire that finds God begins when we take time to look about us and wonder
where he is.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When that desire takes hold
of our hearts, we will find that the divine is close, intimately close, asking
something of us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Asking for food, for
warmth, for a place to stay for the night.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
James Behrens, OCSOhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17443038062066757554noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9991364.post-5642796005966757682012-10-20T08:59:00.004-04:002012-10-20T08:59:27.663-04:00Foundations<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<br />
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
Foundations</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
We strive to build things that
last, that endure through all the times and seasons that can sustain, or
ravage, life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No small part of factoring
in a stable structure – be that structure one of stone, or of flesh and spirit
– like a marriage – is its foundation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>If the foundations of our lives and buildings are as strong and as hard
as rock, we then can have confidence that what we do or make will last a long
time.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
History reveals our fear of having
things and relationships collapse.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We do
what we can to make all that we are and build strong and lasting – giving us
the secure sense of a sturdy placement in this world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As a species, we have built millions of
walls, dams, magnificent cities, great ships, powerful weaponry, golden rings –
these and more testify to our hope of making things last and keeping out
anything that poses a threat to life and keeping in what is perceived of
benefit to our survival.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
I wonder if beneath it all, what we
are dealing with is our inability overcome, to conquer, human weakness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And not just human weakness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is the inherent weakness that is built
into the very fabric of being that confronts us and challenges us to create
something that is stronger.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Something
that can overcome and banish forever this death that eventually brings low our
bodies, our buildings, our relationships.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>All that we know and have is destined to succumb to its inborn
weakness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
I was thinking about this recently,
as I pondered the season of Advent.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Generations have turned to a belief in a strong and powerful God, one
who manifests himself in power, might and glory and who is stronger than
whatever we can imagine.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is this God
who will promise and provide a sure and lasting foundation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We can lean on Him, base our lives and losses
on him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is He who will make all
things new, make things last forever. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Whereas I believe and hope that the
God who promises an abundance of foundational material is true, and true to his
promises, I am given reason to hope for something different at this time of the
year.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
It is through the opening in human
nature – the yes of a woman to make vulnerable her body to the desires of God –
that we can learn to trust in weak and mortal foundations.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>God came to Mary and was born from her.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Whereas we struggle to rid ourselves of
weakness (and in the process have little patience with the weakness of those
around us), it seems that God made weakness the point of entry into life, into
history.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Mary said yes, and from that
moment everything and everyone is different, everlasting, imbued with the very
life of God.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
We do not always see it this
way.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Maybe the saints do, and some of
our best poets.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We are too busy trying
to perfect things, to realize with our crafts and talents the eternal upgrade
to all that we are and have.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It will
never happen.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Things are not made to
last.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Only God lasts.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And this season is the time of year when we
can take the time to look at ourselves and our neighbors and learn from what is
weak in us, and worthy of love.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>God loves
weakness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He himself was born from
it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was and is the condition of his
arrival among us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
James Behrens, OCSOhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17443038062066757554noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9991364.post-73951215817434196912012-10-19T11:33:00.003-04:002012-10-19T17:00:48.026-04:00<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />James Behrens, OCSOhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17443038062066757554noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9991364.post-59420954369173127242012-10-19T11:22:00.000-04:002012-10-19T11:22:00.649-04:00<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />James Behrens, OCSOhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17443038062066757554noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9991364.post-29500428186637144822012-10-19T11:17:00.001-04:002012-10-19T11:17:02.585-04:00<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />James Behrens, OCSOhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17443038062066757554noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9991364.post-48882132468785699582012-10-19T11:15:00.002-04:002012-10-19T16:58:43.740-04:00Knights of Colombus<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />James Behrens, OCSOhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17443038062066757554noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9991364.post-9844886187067109532012-10-18T10:31:00.001-04:002012-10-18T10:31:34.419-04:00<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />James Behrens, OCSOhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17443038062066757554noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9991364.post-2422375376018928972012-10-18T10:19:00.004-04:002012-10-18T10:19:28.753-04:00<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />James Behrens, OCSOhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17443038062066757554noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9991364.post-88301872236257330312012-10-18T10:12:00.000-04:002012-10-18T10:12:12.244-04:00<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />James Behrens, OCSOhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17443038062066757554noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9991364.post-66130723563933001292012-10-18T09:49:00.004-04:002012-10-20T08:53:55.790-04:00A Place Fit for a King<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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A Place Fit for a King</div>
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Last week I had dinner in a small
Chinese restaurant.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was alone and
apparently early, since the food had yet to be set out and arranged.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The waitress was very apologetic and made a
fuss over me, telling me that she would rush and asked that I just be
patient.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Which I was.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I had no place to go.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I had my camera with me and asked if I could
take pictures of the dining area, for the light was subdued and I thought the
pictures would be nice.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She smiled and
said she would arrange the tables in whatever way I liked.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I said no, everything was fine.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And so I took pictures.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And soon she brought the food I ordered, and
it was good.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
I never got the name of the
waitress and, besides, I am not too good anymore with remembering names.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But I remember her face. She had a large
growth on the right side of her face and it was discolored, the color of a
plum.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Her smile and friendly demeanor
diminished the outward disfigurement on her face.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But I wonder what it had cost her in life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When I left, she called after to me to come
back, come back soon.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
I knew a woman in my past parish
who was hesitant to meet me at first.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>She said she wanted to meet me but asked that we put that off a
while.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She had read something I had
written and wanted to talk about it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So,
we chatted several times on the phone and one day she said she would come to
the rectory.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The day came and the
doorbell rang and when I opened the door I understood her hesitation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She had tumors all over her face and they
were so large that they almost grew over her eyes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was to find out later that she had
undergone many surgeries to avoid that happening.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She asked me if I was shocked and I said no.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>From then on, we went out to lunch every now
and then.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At the time, she was much older
than me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She was very well read and
interesting.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She had worked for years
for an insurance company in Newark
but was then retired.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She lived
alone.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She once told me that no one had
ever kissed her.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She insisted on paying
for the lunches and sometimes did.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She
was a beautiful woman. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Faces reveal but also hide.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They may reveal what we think to be
beauty.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A pretty face can be attractive
or it can be fatal.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A person lives
within, a person who always struggles to live with what is seen on the outside.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We all know, if for no other reason that we
have heard it so often, that beauty is only skin deep.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But we need to be reminded of that over and
over again, to better learn to see beyond appearances, beyond color or race or
nationality or disfigurements.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
It is Christ the King Sunday.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We all want to be people who resemble the
King, the image that we have of Jesus.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>But Jesus is not Hollywood.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We
believe that the presence of God is in everyone.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is the presence who is disfigured, who
wants to help us get the perfect picture in a Chinese restaurant and who
insists on paying the bill.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>God chose to
be like us in all things.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He takes on
our lives, including our wounds, our many inabilities, our disfigurements.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Where is this King, asked
Herod.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
He is here, in our midst, making
sure things are right, just right,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>hoping that we come back again and again to share his table, to take a
picture, to buy him lunch.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
James Behrens, OCSOhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17443038062066757554noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9991364.post-41062142657131083472012-10-18T09:46:00.002-04:002012-10-18T09:46:56.063-04:00<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />James Behrens, OCSOhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17443038062066757554noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9991364.post-21722455441670785102012-10-18T09:43:00.004-04:002012-10-18T09:43:44.208-04:00<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />James Behrens, OCSOhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17443038062066757554noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9991364.post-74467509438203082832012-10-18T09:04:00.003-04:002012-10-18T09:04:32.568-04:00The Just Us Problem<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<br />
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
The Just Us Problem</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
There must be something in the
grand design of things that limits our horizons.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I do not know why that is.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But I know that I have fallen victim to its
effects many times in my life.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Briefly put, something about us
drives us to limit our range of seeing and loving to those with whom we feel at
home.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We go through life making constant
circles and invite into them only those who think like us, share our supposed
values, like what we do and reinforce our strong and weak points.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I suppose it is comfortable there.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No one in the4 circles challenges us to see
or move beyond them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Our points of view
solidify.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In short, we see life
myopically.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
The monastery is an interesting
place in light of the above.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
The hardest thing I found when I moved
here seventeen years ago was learning to live with and learn from people I
normally would have avoided prior to coming here.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I simply would have chosen not to cross paths
with them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They would have had no claim
on my time, my interest, my agenda.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I suppose
it was a clique mentality that I bought into many years ago, as far back as
grammar school.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Like attracts like, and
all that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And when I was ordained a
priest, I began to see things differently through the many couples I married,
most of whom started out their marriages on the “just us” float.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They clung to each other out of a need to
keep secure and forever the heady throes of early love.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I began to see that if a marriage was to stay
well and reasonably healthy, the little circle of two would have to break.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Marriages can deepen in love and maturity
only to the extent that a couple learns that their love is for others.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
There are similar lessons for me
here.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We all need special friends, and I
have them here, but the call of friendship leads one outside the confines of
the friendship to a larger world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A
healthy community life is a living blend of men or women who strive to embrace
the whole.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All belong.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All can learn from each other.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All struggle to live their humanity in and
through the others.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is an ongoing
challenge.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is always possible to drop
out, or to show up to community life and just pay lip service.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But the invitation is always there to give of
oneself in the here and now.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
community takes an exacting toll on the heart of any one member.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But it is the only way that the heart can be
given back, renewed and deepened with the wisdom and life that the community
alone can give.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>There can
never be a time or a place where the “just us” life thrives.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It may survive for a while, but the call for
growth, for expansion and a life into the new, is always just beyond the
confines of the secure.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Growth is
inevitable.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It may take a long time to
move out of one’s carefully guarded “me” confines.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But we will all come to know the joy and
promise that beyond whatever home we plan for ourselves, God has another one,
one that includes those we left out along the way.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is through them that we will always learn
the ways of love and of betterment.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
James Behrens, OCSOhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17443038062066757554noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9991364.post-73160637946446336992012-10-18T09:03:00.000-04:002012-10-18T09:03:07.545-04:00Our Busy Season<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<br />
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
Our Busy Season</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
We are in the midst of our busiest
season.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We here at the monastery are
much like the rest of the world in this season when we await the feasts of
Christmas and the New Year.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But we are
busily waiting.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There are concerts,
cards to write and send, greetings galore and, above all, the packing and
shipping of our Abbey Store items.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All
the baking is done, all the other preparations are made, and so the daily
routine consists of taking the many orders that come in and shipping them
out.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I help with that – and I like
it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A number of monks head down to the
shipping area every day and put in a full day’s work.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We have a lot of fun and the job has its
interesting and, at times, funny aspects.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Some years back part of my job was
taking orders over the phone.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A lot of
calls came in every day and there were times I needed patience.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some people had to go look for their credit
cards – I could hear the footsteps fade into the distance and had to wait until
the callers came back on the line.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
receding footsteps reminded me of the end of an old movie.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There were times I wondered if they kept
their card in a neighboring state. On other occasions they got the wrong card
and had to go looking again.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>More than a
few callers wanted to know if there was alcohol in the fruit cakes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I told them that there was but that we were
told that the damaging effects of the alcohol would have been burned off during
the baking process.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Right or wrong, that
little bit of wisdom did not do much good.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I guess I did not sound convincing enough and a lot of the people
decided to go for the fudge – until I told them that some of the fudge
contained brandy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Well, that did not go
over too well.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Other people wanted to
know the exact ingredients and especially if there were nuts in the cakes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I learned that a lot of people are very
allergy conscious. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We tried to make
everybody happy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But we had no nut-free
cakes. There were times I would have liked to have said the same thing about
some of the callers. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
But the best was when a lady called
from Brooklyn and wanted to know how much it
cost to ship a fruit cake to India UPS Ground.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I asked her to repeat that and when I was sure as to what she said I
told her, very politely and kindly, like, really,that there is no ground between
here and India.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There is a lot of water.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And the cake would have to go by air, which
would cost something like seventy-dollars, the cost of the cake excluded.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She huffed and said that she could buy three
cakes with that same amount of money.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I corrected
her, again very kindly, and told her that the amount would pay for five with
some change left over.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She never did get
the cake.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Maybe they sell fruit cakes in
India.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I hope so.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>That was an example as to how a little bit does not necessarily go a
long way.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
We have long since handed over the
receiving of the calls to an outside group.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>They handle the callers with grace, with finesse, with holiday cheer –
the kind you do not drink.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
So.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The Season is here.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>May it be
bright for you, and busy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>May your cakes
take to the skies.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>May your seasonings
and condiments bring only health. It is, after all, a season of miracles.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
James Behrens, OCSOhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17443038062066757554noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9991364.post-18300446142666841032012-10-18T09:01:00.000-04:002012-10-18T09:01:19.386-04:00Theology and Life<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<br />
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
Theology and Life</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
It seems to be a no-brainer to
assert that there is a relationship between theology and life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But is such a relationship a given?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There are ample indications that, on several
levels, theology and life are struggling at a great distance from each
other.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Many people struggle to get
through life without the slightest help of illumination from theology.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And many theologians ply their trade
completely removed from the concerns of people.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>To my way of thinking, the two worlds meet at one juncture and one
juncture only.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When a man or a woman
takes the time to reflect on the messiness of life and the possibility, the
hope, that God is a living part of the mess; when words from that awareness
come, and maybe even flow, human experience is given windows into itself.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We are helped to see, to feel, who we are,
what we suffer, what we hope for, and can then live in the light of those words
and in the light of each other.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Sacramental theology is a good
point of departure to suggest what I mean.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The sacraments are earthy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They
are not understandable apart from flesh and blood, water and fire, birth and
death, sexuality and desire.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
sacraments live in and are revealed through life experiences.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They encompass everything – food, comfort,
hope, home.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They are not removed from
life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They immerse us into life, into
what we are really doing when we eat, love, heal, forgive.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They serve as markers for the holiness that
is life, for the sacredness that we are and move through every moment of our
lives.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Life experience invites one to
theologize.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“God language” need not be
rarified formulations or graduate degree tomes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>A sensitive ear or eye or heart will be able to pick up living signs of
the ways of the divine in this life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
cry of a baby, the tears of an old man, the longing for a deceased loved one;
poems and songs that hope for more, want more, that transcend the boundaries of
culture and time in that they lift the hearts of millions to hope for what is
yet to come.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Church leaders look about them and
wonder why people are leaving their congregations, or why they are disenchanted
with them, or cannot connect with its teachings.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Perhaps they would do wise to look at
themselves and ask if it is they who have lost touch with people.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The various departures are telling.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>People are trying to find God in this life
and the quest is on – and they will find it, in art, music, photography, poetry
– places that are struggling to making the right and lasting connections
between heaven and earth.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These are
realms in which people labor to create, to connect, to share.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They take risks and are not afraid of
failure.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If their efforts somehow fail
or miss the mark, they are not afraid to try again. And again.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Something about the organized churches is too
satisfied, too secure within their framework of preconceived questions and
answers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But these only seem to work for
those who benefit the most from the system – the institutional leaders.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Dismay and setbacks do not seem to be a part
of their experience, or even their vocabulary.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>And that is not human, either.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
I do not have any answers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Perhaps there aren’t any on this side of the
road.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For those on the other side, those
who seem to have “arrived,” they may notice too late that fewer and fewer
people are following their example.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They
are looking elsewhere, and they like what they are finding.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Churches will close.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some will turn into restaurants or galleries
– places where food and beauty are shared and discussed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A change, perhaps, for the better. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /></span></div>
James Behrens, OCSOhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17443038062066757554noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9991364.post-22361410278682899662011-10-14T11:16:00.001-04:002011-10-14T11:16:25.519-04:00<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
A Memory</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">
It was a typical morning.<span> </span>Maybe too typical.<span> </span>I was determined to get some things done that
seemed at the time important to me.<span> </span>I
sat here at the computer and reached for a few letters on my desk.<span> </span>One letter was from Gaetan, a monk and friend
of mine.<span> </span>He lives in Gethsemani, our
monastery in Kentucky.<span> </span>I met him many years ago and we exchange
letters.<span> </span>He is a wonderful writer.<span> </span>He writes beautifully of simple things,
things available to any one of us who takes the time or, better, the effort to
look at the events of daily life. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">
I read his letter and want to share
some of it with you.<span> </span>Gaetan once lived
in our monastery in Lantau,
China.<span> </span>The monastery is on an island and not far
from Hong Kong.<span> </span>He was on a boat between Hong
Kong and another island, Peng Chau.<span> </span>The boat was making its way to the
monastery.<span> </span>Gaetan writes that it was a
very old boat and that he was delighted, for it was, as he puts it, “like being
out of time.”<span> </span>The middle of the boat was
open, and there was seating along the side.<span>
</span>A young woman was sitting with her little boy, who was about three years
old.<span> </span>“A beautiful, typical Chinese kid
with his hair all sticking up.”<span> </span>Gaetan
was gazing at the river and when he looked again at the little boy, things had
changed.<span> </span>The boy was standing in the
open space.<span> </span>Suddenly, he wet his pants
and started to cry out loud.<span> </span>His arms
hung to his sides as the urine stained his pants and formed a small puddle at
his feet.<span> </span>Gaetan writes that he felt do
badly for him, he felt like crying himself.<span>
</span>He writes:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.5in;">
“I felt so bad
for him that I could have cried with him.<span>
</span>I understood him completely.<span> </span>I do
not know why he did not ask his mother but there is a world of mystery going on
inside a little child. It was like he knew he was wrong but at the same time he
could not control it and so there was no alternative for him.<span> </span>Se he peed and cried.<span> </span>His mother was a nice woman.<span> </span>She immediately got up and kissed him while
he finished what he could not hold anymore. The she took him aside and held him,
speaking lovingly to him – it was all in Chinese – but the love and gesture
said it all.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.5in;">
The story
stunned me.<span> </span>I put the letter down and
thought about all the supposed big and important things I had to do.<span> </span>I thought of the littleness of that boy, not
just in terms of his size, but his helplessness and his utter dependence on his
mother.<span> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">
We like to think we grow.<span> </span>We like to think that there is a way to
realize, once and for all, independence.<span>
</span>We make our plans, arrange our schedules, make all the lists of what we
do or think we should do.<span> </span>And then, the
day comes when we can no longer control our lives and have to let go.<span> </span>We feel a pressure and then the warmth
running down our legs.<span> </span>Things fall
apart.<span> </span>We need help.<span> </span>And we realize that we were always like that
– our independence was illusory.<span> </span>The
first and last word of human existence is more like a cry, a plea for some good
and loving other.<span> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">
Gaetan writes that the memory is of
a ride on a boat that sailed a river twenty years ago.<span> </span>And it has stayed with him all these
years.<span> </span>He learned wisdom, the ways of
God, from a mother and her son.<span> </span>He did
not understand a word that was shared between them.<span> </span>He could only see and understand a cry, and a
loving response.<span> </span>The truth of salvation,
on a small boat in between islands.<span> </span></div>James Behrens, OCSOhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17443038062066757554noreply@blogger.com0