Dust

Dust

During my summer months when I was in college I worked at a large brewery in Newark, New Jersey. It took me a while to get used to the various jobs I was assigned but I soon got used to the routines. In my younger days, variations were easier to deal with. I guess we all stretch more easily in our younger years. I never knew what job I would be given on any given day. Sometimes I drove and delivered beer, other times I worked on the assembly lines and other times I mopped the large floors in the enormous warehouse.

There was a large silo near the shack where we would wait to get our job assignments. It was used to store the hops that went into the brewing of the beer. It was a very tall structure and made out of concrete. When I arrived at work one morning there was a crowd gathered at the silo and everyone was looking up. I parked my car and joined the group and when I looked up I saw a huge hole in the silo. It was about ten feet in diameter. Twisted pieces of iron stuck out from the edges of the hole and at our feet were small pieces of concrete and a lot of dust. During the night, a spark had ignited the very fine dust in the silo and an explosion ensued as the result of spontaneous combustion. I recalled doing such experiments in high school with some flour in a cardboard box but had no idea of the power that was latent in a swirl of powder and an untimely spark. No one was hurt in the blast and it was not too long before the hole was repaired and that things turned to normal.

I do not know of anything more common and perhaps mundane than dust. We move it or brush it from one place to another and dispose of it as best we can. As tiny as it is and as innocuous as it may look, dust can wreak havoc on any fine instrument – be it a camera, a computer or the human lung. And, in the scenario of the damaged silo, a tiny spark can wreak havoc when it hits a cloud of dust.

Small things can have enormous ramifications. Negatively, a word of gossip or slander can cause a gaping hole in any human life. Rumors can, like do much dust, fill the air and an insensitive comment is all that is needed to blast away one’s good name. On a more positive note, human kindness swirls around us like so many flecks of gold. Without the meaning that faith provides for human life, the deeds are yet good, as good as gold. But with the spark of faith, life bursts with a sense of purpose that is as healing as it is spontaneous. Faith can blow wide open a window to our world. We see things and people differently. And we surely see the seemingly small in the light afforded through the window of faith.

Life admittedly can wear us down. Our lives can border on the tedious, the mundane, and the achingly routine.

I must have passed that long ago silo hundreds of times. I never saw the dust and had no idea what power it possessed. I have lived hundreds and hundreds of days since my youth, and have seen ordinary lives transformed though the gift of faith. It was as if some people sensed the gold in their lives and asked God for a match. The gold was always there, swirling away in all those ordinary days, and then it caught fire. It was beautiful.

Now that I think about it, people did take notice, and maybe some of them looked heavenward, asking for a light. .

The Man in the Car

The Man in the Car

I drove my brother Peter to the grocery store in a town very far from here. He wanted to buy something but I cannot remember what it was that he wanted to buy. I remember that it was a very hot summer day. I waited in the car while Peter went inside the store. There was a man sitting in a car parked next to mine and he had the door open and was reading a Bible. I could see colored ribbons in the binding of the book and tabs that marked different books and chapters of his Bible. It was a worn, well read looking book. The man was old and did not seem to mind the heat as he read. He did seem to notice me as he was very absorbed in whatever it was he was reading. And I wondered what chapter, what verse he was reading. I must have been there about fifteen or so minutes and then Peter came back to the car with the bag of goods that he bought and we headed off back home. The man was still reading as I pulled out of the parking space.

Religious words, the kind that the man was reading that day, have a primacy in all religious traditions. As varied as they are, as contradictory as they are, as resistant to a commonly share interpretation as they are and will always be, we bow our heads and read them, ponder them, trying to discern and remember what it is that God is telling us about this world. That old man left one world and entered another as he was sitting there reading his Bible. He did not notice me, or the heat of the day, or the other cars and people who passed that day, entering and leaving the store. His eyes moved from word to word. But eventually, there came a time when he would close the book, close his car door, start his engine and drive out of the parking lot and head back home, hopefully driving with care all the way.

Recently, a guest here at our retreat house asked me what I write about and I told her “simple things.” I am not a theologian or a spiritual writer of any depth, or at least I do not feel that way. I look about me at things that I see, things that move me and make me think, and I like to write about them. But now, thinking about what was asked me, I can share something with you that occurred to me since she asked.

I guess I have thought about what she asked me, about what it is that I write about.

We all move in and out of different worlds every day of our lives. We drive through them, may park for a while and look about us, and then move on. Occasionally, we may rest for a while and read some sacred words so as to better place us and give some sense to where we are parked. But then we must close the book and move back into the world – the very world we were just reading about. It is a world that requires driving with care, choosing carefully the ways we move, lest we get lost or have a collision. In my writing, or at least a lot of it, I play off that sense of moving through the world with not thinking too much about it and how that is where life unfolds, the kind of life that we try to hold close with sacred words and our eyes that scan a page and hearts that ponder religious meaning.. So much happens to each of us in life on our respective roads. We do not often have time to rest, to read, and to try and figure out where we have come from and where we are going.

We have to move on, heading home. To my way of thinking, the best religious writing helps us see that Providence, the loving care of God, has much to do with moving the world along as we travel its roads and mysteries. The love of God is a real, loving, tangible thing. It is a living thing. That old man may have thought, as he closed his Bible, that he was driving onto a yet to be redeemed highway, a road that his reading might better map. I hope he made the connection between the good that he read and the good of the miles, the heat of the day, and a man he may have noticed watching him, and now writing about him, admiring his need to find something of God in his Bible and on his odometer. Simple things, things that move and live in and through mystery, with colored ribbons, traffic lights and turn signals. Things of God and an old man and a summer’s day.

Judith

Her name is Judith and she was a student of mine. She was in her seventies and sat in the front seat every class. She was a Romanian Jewess. I became very fond of her. She would take notes each class. She was almost childlike in the joy she took in being able to relate philosophical themes to her own previous reading and experience.

As I grew to know her, she made my heart dwell on all that is good and beautiful in life.

I noticed the numbers on her arm one evening and immediately knew what the faded blue ink meant, though I did not say anything.

She asked me to dinner to her home one night. The evening started with the usual introductory light conversation.

She saw me looking at her arm.

She said, "I know you know."

And I said, "Yes."

And she spoke. She was sent to a Nazi concentration camp as a teenager. Already married, she lost her husband and her entire family. They were all gassed. All that she loved, all that she knew, all that was hers, were taken from her.

She cared not about the existence of a God, she said, and did not say this with a trace of anger or bitterness. It was more like, "Well, if he somehow is, all well and good, but history has made me dwell on other things." I felt a strange but disconcerting peace with her as she said that. Something deep, very deep, in me shifted.

We shared wine. She filled my glass as she spoke. And I listened deeply.

She was a living reminder of unspeakable cruelty and horror. She had lived through hell. And yet, remarkably, she impressed me as living a very kind and loving life, a day to day existence, not worrying about what might happen the next day or the next hour. Something about her was so keenly attuned to the present that she drew you into the singular and passing moment that was to be shared and savored. I think she learned through her suffering that whatever is of goodness in life is rare, is to be shared, and is not to be questioned. Indeed, the sense I had from her was that goodness must be shared. There was an imperative quality to her goodness. It just "is" and is good - but you must have some!

I felt a holiness to her.

I think of her every Easter season.

Consider, Jesus said, the lilies of the field, and how they neither toil, nor spin, and yet have more beauty than all the treasures of Solomon. Consider, he said, the birds of the air, who are cared for by God, and who do not want.

Who cared for her, and for all that she cherished and lost? Where were You, God?

May I consider Judith this day, and say that she knows something of eternal life? She lives from a deep reverence for so many things. I have a sense of violating her very being should I try and find something of You in her. I think she deserves to accuse You of abandoning her. Your God no longer informs her horizon. Yet, I must be honest with myself, in that she imparted to me something of God's mystery. I hope that she would grant me that, and not be offended.

She gave me a bowl of soup that night, to take with me and have before going to bed, because, she said, the night was cold. But I left her home with such a feeling of warmth, I cannot remember the cold at all.

I just remember a woman who endured suffering and gave up on You. Yet if You decide to show something of Yourself to her, that will be fine with her. You will be welcome at her table. Meanwhile, she is busy about her life, imparting to others no message other than her goodness and warmth. I like to think that You entered her life long ago, though I could never have told her that. She was too busy with the present moment, sharing her wine, her wisdom, her soup, her very life.

Perhaps many things we call religious are in truth a sacrilege, and many things that we discard as profane are in fact on fire with grace. Or, hopefully, grace is, as Bernanos said, everywhere and we have no language for that. Soup can grow cold as words try and fathom such things. A night can lose its enchantment if the source of it all is probed too deeply.

I hope that the language of God has something to do with dinners, with compassion, with warm soups and people who in their anger reject You and yet become You.

I do not think that it really matters what she may or may not know about You. You have already come to her, and given her your best. I think that I ate my soup in silence that night, after I got home, knowing that Judith touched my heart so deeply. Did You speak through her? And You never used words? Just soup, given to me by a woman who survived fire and hatred. A woman who so long ago abandoned any hope for You, and yet who fed me, wanted me to be warm. And who is still kind. She had and has every right to hate. She had and has every right to curse You. She had every right to curse me and to curse all who profess to know You. Yet - what else can I say - she was and is a grace and a power, a woman brimming with life and goodness. She was crucified and yet loves.

I can only pray to be like her and to learn from her, and to hope that if You are still a Stranger to us who profess your name, I took some soup from You on a cold winter's night.

The Holy Land

A letter arrived a week ago from the Holy Land. A friend of mine was there for two weeks, her first visit there, and she wrote to me from Jerusalem. She wrote with such joy and gratitude, being in the same place where Jesus was. She wrote in ecstasy and I had the impression that she could not find words adequate enough to convey the sense of awe and reverence that overwhelmed her during her stay.

I have known Jean for more than thirty years. We have shared many good times over the years and I have especially fond memories of dinners at her home, with her husband Carl and their daughter and four sons. I was assigned to their parish in 1976 and they welcomed me into their lives. Jean loves candles. Whenever I came to their house for dinner, she would arrange candles on the table and I remember watching them burn their beauty as we chatted about so many things, over shared food and wine. The lights from those candles have long moved somewhere else, for I know that light travels and, somehow, it never really goes out, even though the wicks die and the wax burns away. But the light is born, and moves on and on, carrying with it words and memories, as far as the most distant star.

I believe in such things, even though I do not think about them all the time. But every now and then I read something that inspires me to wonder about this mystery of life, with all its wonders, and how close something is to each of us that is extraordinary and within our grasp to hold. Life – all of life – is a gift from God, kind of like an eternal candle that he sent from far away, and when we share love and memories, food and wine with each other, there are eternal dimensions to it. A day may seem done, as we turn out the lights above us or on our tables, but something has happened with each sunset. Something new has been born and has begun its travel, its growth, into and through the cosmos that is all about us and within us.

Easter is still a fresh memory. As I write this, I think about the readings that have taken place in our church the last few weeks. Many of the Biblical readings have to do with the post-resurrection appearances of Jesus. They are astonishing in their import. He appears many times, and at first is unrecognized by those who knew him. He eats with his disciples, speaks with them, walks with them, stays with them. He then allows them to see what he is and who he is – and they realize that he is everywhere – in the breaking of bread, in the gathering of those who love and those who are looking for love.

Religious memory is an odd thing, when you think about it. We use words and images to remember Jesus and mark off days on our calendars to appropriately celebrate how he is with us. We look to the past to illumine the present. Yet the past speaks only of his presence in the “now.” Religious festivals serve to heighten an awareness of the divine in our lives. And that is all well and good.

The Holy Land has definite parameters. There are borders and streets, Faith is a light given to many, in various manifestations. It is refracted through the patterns of different beliefs and is evidenced as such in the many diverse places of worship that make the Holy Land a site of pilgrimage for millions of seekers of the light that is God. It is sad that we have enshrined the light we believe to be God, in a holy city, but are at a loss as to how to enflame that same light as it exists in each of us. Some day, I believe that the most cherished hope of all believers will come true – that we will learn to worship, in love, side by side and not be threatened by different articulations of belief.

Jean flew home, filled with memories of all that she had seen and heard in the Holy Land. She experienced the wonders of that place we call holy because Jesus walked there, dined there, loved there, suffered, died and rose there. And these things we rightfully enshrine and hold sacred.

I am sure that she had friends over for dinner since returning home. I would bet that she lit candles and placed them on her dining room table, and shared with her friends and family her time and joys in the Holy Land. And she, like men and women of long ago, will once again talk of the wondrous presence of God that she experienced in a far off place. Perhaps she will hope someday to go back. Until that hope comes to pass, she will abide in the love of her family and friends, lighting candles along the way, talking of life, sharing her food and wine, and, all the while, the One she seeks will be with her. The One who came from afar and who truly is every meal, every word and gesture of love, every Light that makes of this entire earth a Holy Land.

Friends at the Monastery

Anthony and His Tomato Seeds

Night before last I was in the retreat house and sitting with Father Anthony, at the kitchen table. He held in his hand a small plastic bag, with a picture on it of a bright red tomato. I asked him what was in the bag and he smiled and said “Seeds, tomato seeds. They have been in the freezer.” He went on to say that given the right conditions of sun, soil, and water, they will grow. He did not mention himself in the process. Soon, he will carry the seeds to his garden and they will indeed respond from their frozen sleep when the conditions are right.

Brother Michael read another passage about seeds in this morning’s second reading at Vigils.

And we know how fond Jesus was in comparing the Kingdom and the power of God to a seed, a mustard seed. From the smallest of things come wonders.

This morning’s gospel is a brief recapitulation of this week’s readings. We hear again about the appearances of Jesus to Mary Magdalene, to the disciples on the road to Emmaus, to the eleven gathered at a table. The appearances are rich in meaning – Jesus is revealed through the calling of a name, in the breaking of bread. In other accounts, Jesus promises that where two or three are gathered, he is there with them. He presences himself in the weak, the poor and the hungry, the strong and the satisfied. Indeed, there is no where and no one from which he is absent. His presence is the sacrament permeating all creation.

He admonishes the disciples for their unbelief – they are stubborn in their lack of belief in those who conveyed the good news of his resurrected presence.

All the things said by Jesus about where he is still speak to us. His words of stubbornness may apply to us as well, in varying degrees. We can easily want to reduce the presence of the Lord to this or that way of thinking, seeing, believing, loving, remembering. It seems to be a long-standing human problem to situate the divine in one place or another. We are reminded again this morning that there is no meal, no gathering, and no naming in love from which he is absent. His call to each of us is to broaden our vision and expand our hearts to trust his living presence in everything and everyone.

Anthony will soon take a packet of seeds and sow them in his garden. In doing so, he will allow to come into play the wonders of growth, of a power that comes from the distant sun, from the intimate nearness of soil and rain. With the right temperature and care, there will be growth. He held the seeds in his hand – as God holds us in his hands, with the same kind of loving power.

God has sowed his spirit, his very life, through all of creation. Perhaps we are asked to see that we grow at different rates, given the variation of our lives and capacities for growth and possibility. We see things differently. We respond to things differently. But as we gather this morning, we should, I think, ponder our own capacities for stubbornness. Jesus asks us again to respond to his presence in the unfolding mystery of this Saturday, in our sharing of food, our planting of seeds, our calling each other by name, our walks with each other along the roads of this monastery.

Amelia and a Second Look

A friend of mine was here at Mass on Easter Sunday morning. Her name is Amelia. She is a photographer and her photos, many of which are of the monastery, are beautiful. We chatted for a while and she told me that for most of her life, she looked at things but never really saw them. It was not until she got her first camera that she began to see everything and everyone about her in a different way. “Not that they had changed – the beauty was always there,” she said. “I had just never seen it before. Now everything is different – the human face, a chair, a door, a road.”

Life does not arrive with a commonly shared meaning. Interpretations range from the bland to the mystical. Human responses provoke misery or usher in joy. We do share a common road that is life, but how differently many of us walk it.

As Christians, we profess a common faith and so walk a common road. But at a close inspection at what is at our feet, we stumble as well in trying to walk through life with each other in peace. Christianity is no stranger to inner divisions that have pitted believers against each other to this very day.

Everything we know invites a second look.

In the recent issue of Time Magazine there is a photograph of the Dalai Lama, prostrate on the floor of his study. The caption to the photograph states that it was taken during his morning prayer to the Buddha – a prayer he makes every morning. So it is that someone from the East lays down, seeking God. Perhaps Buddhism, with a second look, is not as godless as some would make it to be.

Recently a Saudi Arabian sheik declared that he would do his best to establish ecumenical dialogue among Christians, Muslims and Jews in his country, for, as he stated, the times are in desperate need for people of different faiths to live peaceably. Tensions, bloodshed and violence, all carried out in the name of religion, are causing him and others to take a second look at the meaning of God and the human person.

We live in times when the road beneath us is widening – there is more room for those of different approaches to God, to history, to what it means to be human. We must learn to walk with them.

Amelia told me that life has more beauty than she ever imagined and she uses a lens to capture it. And she captures it well. Her life is one taken aback by a second look.

Jesus tells two men about the meaning of Scripture while walking on a road. They do not recognize him until the breaking of bread, and then he vanishes from their midst and, as we believe, their hearts are filled with joy because they will always have the bread, bread to share, bread to keep his presence.

Our times prompt among many of good will a second look at long held religious traditions. With the lens of faith, we are asked to look anew at the road of life and to trust the Lord who lives in bread, in human friendship, in human hope. We look to our right and are learning to welcome and learn from the Buddhists. We look to our left, and a Moslem approaches us in peace. Each prompts more than a second look at the sources we have to understand and welcome them. But they are looking too, their hearts burning, knowing that the possibility of divinely given peace is just ahead, perhaps out of visible sight, but as real as the Lord who is encouraging them to walk nearer to us that we all may find him, with a second look.