SpiritMatters Monthly February 2009

Lord lettest thou thy servant depart in peace...

When I was a young seminary student I had a dog named Denali who shared a great love of mine: books. While I enjoyed reading them, she enjoyed eating them, particularly, for some reason, religious books. I may have been reading the great theological ideas of the past two thousand years, but she was the one who was digesting them. Try as I might to hide my new prayer books, or bibles, or liturgical manuals, she always managed to find them and reduce them to pulp. Living with Denali was frustrating, even infuriating at times, but she taught me an important lesson: to find peace in this life and to hold on to it, you have to be prepared to let go of the things you love; even the things you love very much. While I eventually made peace with the fact that life with Denali would mean that I would have to be willing to sacrifice many of my material possessions, not to mention time, money and sleep, I was still not prepared for the greatest sacrifice which I was going to have to make.

At some point a few years ago Denali suddenly became very ill, and despite numerous veterinary treatments, eventually I had to let her return to the God who brought her into my life. As I sit here writing this I can look across the room and see a bookshelf full of half-eaten, or at least badly chewed books left over from my years with her. I would gladly get rid of all of them to have my dog back, but sadly, life doesn’t work that way. No, perhaps the harshest reality of life is that it calls us at times to let go of the things we love the most: our possessions, our freedom, our loved ones and yes, eventually even our own lives. There is a familiar story in the Christian scriptures where a young man asks Jesus what he must do to inherit eternal life. Jesus replies by telling him some of the basic commandments (not stealing, loving your neighbor as yourself, etc.). The young man, still unsatisfied, petitioned Jesus again saying that he has kept the commandments, yet still feels unprepared to enter the kingdom of heaven. Jesus then replied (I’m paraphrasing here) that if you want to be more prepared to enter the kingdom of heaven give away all your stuff and follow me. The young man went away grieving because he was quite wealthy. This is where Jesus makes the famous statement “it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.” Jesus isn’t condemning rich people, nor is he condemning possessions. What I think that Jesus is trying to teach this young man is that if you want to have some level of peace in this life, and if you want to prepare yourself for entering into the next life, then you must learn to let go of things, not because they are evil or bad, but because the reality of life is that sometimes we have to sacrifice the things we love, and sometimes the things we love are taken from us.

The Christian season of Lent begins this month, and like the Muslim season of Ramadan or the Jewish Passover, followers of the faith are often asked to give something up or abstain from something that they normally enjoy. I used to be quite skeptical of the practice of giving things up during Lent, because it always seemed like an artificial way of punishing ourselves for all the bad things we did the rest of the year. Why give something up for Lent if you are only going to take it back come Easter morning? At least, that’s what I used to think. Now I’m beginning to believe that giving things up during Lent isn’t so much about self-denial or self-punishment as it is about the practice of letting go. We give up things not because they are bad, or because we are bad; we give up things because we need to learn how to let go of the things we love.

February begins with the Feast of the Presentation, an ancient celebration of the Church which tells the story of Mary and Joseph going to the temple to give thanks to God for the safe delivery of their newborn child. The priest, named Simeon, blesses God for such a wonderful gift, but then he offers a strange warning for Mary: “A sword will pierce your own soul too.” Why did Simeon make this statement? Perhaps because he predicted that someday Mary would be forced to give back to God this precious child which she loved so much. Giving up something we love can sometimes feel like a knife through the heart, especially when what we love is another person (or in my case, a beloved pet). Giving up material things isn’t always easy either. The recent economic slump has caused many of us to sacrifice things in our life which we were fond of. Sometimes we choose to give things up; sometimes the choice is made for us. If we want any peace in this life at all, we have to learn how to let go of things. Many Christians give things up during Lent with the full intention of running right back to them come Easter Sunday. I used to think that this was somewhat hypocritical, but now I realize that it is perfectly symbolic of the Christian hope: come the Resurrection, those things which we have had to give up in life will be joyfully returned to us.
May all of us, regardless of our faith, live in the hope that the sacrifices we make now are only for a season.

Blessings,

Fr. Kevin

SpiritMatters Monthly January 2009

Look both ways before crossing...

The ancient Romans used to carve a two headed figure of a god named Janus over their doors. Janus was not just the god of doors though; he was also the god of what they represented: beginnings and endings. You pass through a door to begin a journey; you pass through a door when your journey comes to an end. Doorways are the point of transition between the known and the unknown, between the past and the future. When the Romans were naming the months of their calendar, they decided to name the first month in honor of the god Janus, hence our January. The Romans recognized that January is a time of transition that frequently calls upon us to look in both directions at the same time, like the god Janus. We cannot just dwell on the past, nor can we just dispense with it and think only of the future. Wisdom is being able to see the past and the future simultaneously, without clinging too much to one or the other. For thousands of years doorways have represented the division between past and future or safety and chance in a very physical way. Different religious traditions have found ways of marking the significance of the doors in our lives, both the real ones and the figurative ones. The ancient Jews were instructed that in the first month (according to the Jewish calendar), they were to mark their doorposts with the blood of a lamb so that the Lord would pass over their homes and spare them when he went to punish Egypt. The Jews were instructed to eat the lamb with their loins girded, their shoes on their feet, and their staff in their hands: in other words, they were told to be prepared to move on and venture forth as soon as the Lord said so. Ritual is not just about remembering the past; it is about remembering the past so that we may be prepared to move forward. The modern Passover ritual involves the retelling of how God led the Israelites out of those blood-marked doors and on a new journey that would eventually take them to the Promised Land. The Christian ritual of the Holy Eucharist is a similar doorway where we can look back on where we have been while we prepare for where we are going. Doors are special places: sometimes they bring people into our lives, sometimes they take people out. Sometimes doors lead to the outside world of chance and possibility, sometimes they lead to the inside world of safety and familiarity. We are now standing in the doorway month of January, looking back on the old 2008, looking forward to the new 2009. May we realize that our God can be like that God Janus, standing over us in this in-between space, and blessing both the
remembering and the hoping.


Blessings,

Fr. Kevin

SpiritMatters Monthly December 2008

...and warring humankind hears not the tidings which they bring;

O hush the noise and cease your strife and hear the angels sing…

It seems ironic that carols like the one above are now blasted to us over department store loudspeakers so often and so early that they have now become part of the noise from which we must escape if we are to preserve our sanity through the month of December. With so many voices clamoring for our attention, it is no wonder that this time of the year can be so exhausting. Wouldn’t it be great if true religion and faith were as easy to come by as all the Christmas albums in the stores? I was thinking about how tough Christmas may be this year for so many suffering from the economic slump, when I remembered a song from Merle Haggard’s Christmas album called “If we make it through December.” In one verse of the song Merle sings: “I don’t mean to hate December, it’s meant to be the happy time of year. And my little girl don’t understand, why daddy can’t afford no Christmas here.” The sad part of this song, for me at least, is not that the father can’t afford Christmas, it’s that he thinks Christmas is something that needs to be purchased. What was once a celebration of God’s love for us and his presence in our lives, has now become a commodity which can be bought and sold like any other. We often forget that the announcing angel who called the shepherds to the stable wasn’t selling tickets. The only gift Mary and Joseph received was the gift of a child to love, who loved them in return, infinitely more than they could imagine. The shepherds brought nothing to the manger but their own sense of curiosity and wonder. The three wise men brought gifts, but nothing appropriate for a child. Frankincense, Gold and Myrrh were token gifts, meant to symbolize the wise men’s adoration of Jesus as a baby king, they weren’t toys. The only gift given on that first Christmas was the gift of God’s love to us, which he in turn invites us to extend to each other. Sometimes love is an easier gift to give than to receive. Sometimes all the busyness of the holidays prevents us from hearing the angel message. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy holiday traditions just like anyone else and I certainly take pleasure in giving and receiving gifts, but these things are meant to enhance the Christmas season, not define them. One of my favorite holiday traditions is the Yule Log, which is a fake fireplace that is broadcast over some TV stations on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day. I love this tradition because it keeps the TV busy for a few hours and allows us to focus our attention on each other. For a while the noise of commercials telling us what we need to buy in order to be happy are silenced and we are given the chance of actually listening to the angels in our life. Our Christmas Tree at Christ Hospital is going to be very different this year. Staff members have been invited to donate angel ornaments to decorate the tree in honor or in memory of the loved ones in their lives. The real gifts of Christmas are the angels that God sends into our lives, often in the form of our loved ones, who serve as a visible sign of God’s invisible love. Christmas is a gift that none of us can afford, but luckily it is a gift that none of us will ever have to purchase.

Blessings,

Fr. Kevin