As the Light is Increasing

This picture was borrowed from a web page offering tips on how to take photographs of the night sky. Wonderful, heh? And as we move towards the springtime and the light is increasing, we might think about Genesis 1:14, the account of the fourth day of creation.

God said, 'Let there be lights in the vault of heaven to divide day from night, and let them indicate seasons, days and years. Let them be lights in the vault of heaven to shine on the earth.' And so it was. God made the two great lights: the greater light to govern the day, the smaller light to govern the night, and the stars. God set them in the vault of heaven to shine on the earth, to govern the day and the night and to divide light from darkness. God saw that it was good. Evening came and morning followed; the fourth day.

Hmm. Some folks wonder - how is it that in Genesis 1:3 God begins the first day by saying, "Let there be light, and there was light," and yet it isn't until the fourth day that the sun, moon and stars are created and put in place? 

The light of the first day is God's own light. It is called God's shechinah - God's glorious, dwelling-presence. I remember being at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City a very long time ago, and the moment when the great crystal chandeliers started to    dim while being raised up to the ceiling, and the spotlights were turned towards the golden stage curtain, and four thousand people stopped talking and everything was hushed. There is that same sense here: God's presence is revealed as light and we are hushed as the story of creation unfolds. It's not a newspaper account, but so much more wonderful than that. 

But how does God create the sun, moon and stars, or anything for that matter, because before this, there is nothing? God creates instantly by his spoken Word. God speaks and creation happens out of nothing. 

By the word of the Lord the heavens were made,
by the breath of his mouth all their array.
He collects the waters of the sea like a dam,
he stores away the abyss in his treasure-house. 
Let the whole earth fear the Lord,
let all who dwell in the world revere him;
for, the moment he spoke, it was so,
no sooner had he commanded, than there it stood. Psalm 33:6-9

God speaks creation into existence, and we seem to be in the center of all the spoken-gift. It's as if it's all there for us, to help us, to energize us, to make life happen for us. The psalmist is in awe of it all: 

I look up at your heavens, shaped by your fingers,
at the moon and the stars you set in place -
what are human beings that you spare a thought for them,
or the child of Adam that you care for him? Psalm 8:3,4

And of this divine self-gift, this speaking, this shared exhaled word...

The Word became flesh,
he lived among us,
and we saw his glory,
the glory that he has from the Father
as only Son of the Father,
full of grace and truth.  John 1:14

When I was a first year seminarian, I remember one night feeling utterly overwhelmed by the reading I had to do. So in frustration I piled up all the assigned books to prove it. That pile turned out to be taller than my head. I've saved one of those books from decades ago - a 303 page book on the psalms. I didn't "get it" then; I don't "get it" now. For all the heady scholarship, not a word of awe, nothing to invite a hushed wonder before God, nothing to excite love for God. While I'm not anti-intellectual (though I do believe too much intellect can block the heart) I'd say to a seminarian today (or any of us really) - get your nose out of the book, go outside where the earth's electric lights haven't blocked out the night lights in the sky, and look up.

O Lord, our Master,
how the majesty of your name fills all the earth!
Your greatness is high above heaven itself.  Psalm 8:1

The Humility of Moss ~ "Please accept me"

While everything is encased in ice, along the forest edge where the winter's strengthening sun strikes, the ice has begun to recede and a low growing moss is appearing. The ground hugging plants have a language all their own, and I am reminded of the first lines of last Sunday's Gospel.

A leper came to Jesus beseeching him, and kneeling said to him, "If you will, you can make me clean." Moved with pity, Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him, and said, to him, "I will; be clean."  Mark 1:40.

The first reading from the same Sunday, (Leviticus 13:1-2; 45-46)  told us that the leper was a marginal person who had to live outside the community. He or she even had to shout out a warning to others if anywhere near others.

We might imagine this loneliness was the greater suffering - even greater than any physical pain. But this fellow seems to be particularly brave or maybe just fed-up with the alienating rules which he breaks, coming up to Jesus, full of hope. He doesn't doubt that Jesus can cure him; he's throwing himself upon the willingness of Jesus. 

Notice though that even before he speaks a word, the leper kneels down in front of Jesus. That wordless gesture of close proximity says: "Please accept me." We understand.  The little moss on the woodland margins, struggling to spring up from under the heavy ice, as down to earth as possible - is an imagine of "Please accept me." 

Lent is the Church's Springtime. It is the season of heart-stretch. Who is saying, even wordlessly, please accept me? 

• The young people in school  who are terrified when sides are being chosen for a game: Please accept me.
• Does the baby in the womb have a wordless impetus of Please accept me?
• The orphan infants who can't let go of the volunteer: Please accept me.
• Of various sexual orientations: Please accept me.
• The Christians from the ten countries where persecution is extreme: Please accept me.
• The special needs folks and their parents: Please accept me.
• The people who think they are losers, who think they ARE the things people call them: Please accept me.
• The families desperate to find a home away from the famine, the bombs, the terrorists: Please accept me.
• Maybe we're not even acceptable to ourselves - holding something old, mistaken or sad against ourselves.

Jesus touched the fellow with his hand, but all the more he touched him with his tenderness. We can do that too!

Spring Opening

These wonderful photos come from the Department of Horticulture at Oregon State University. They show a Star Magnolia bud opening in late April. Key word: opening. This time of year is full of spiritual reminders and messages. The Magnolia flower opens to the warmth of the day-lengthening sun. And this opening is the first movement of the Christian spiritual life which is relational. The psalmist instructs us:

You do not ask for sacrifices and offerings
but an open ear.
You do not ask for holocaust and victim
Instead, here am I.
Psalm 40:11

An open ear. Here am I. Listening is relational: student to teacher, soldier to officer, child to parent. But for the Christian, the ear is interior. It is the ear of the heart. St. Benedict's rule for monks begins.

"Listen, O my child, to the teachings of the Master, and incline the ear of your heart."  And in another place: "What dear brothers, is more delightful than the voice of the Lord calling to us." 

This is often difficult as we have somehow gotten the idea that Christianity is doing, doing, doing. When we were in the seminary, a monk came to speak to us about praying the psalms. The "rule" expects that when praying the psalms we are somehow to get through it to completion. Years ago a priest might pull his car off to the side of the road at night and read his breviary by the headlight in order to fulfill the rule that the prescribed psalms be read completely before midnight. 

But this monk disavowed that. He said instead, "Read the psalms so slowly that one line, even on word can jump out at you! Then close the book and let the phrase or word speak to you. Perhaps close your eyes and repeat the phrase gently over and over. The goal is never simply to get it done, but to allow Holy Spirit to speak, and for me to listen."  Of course, there are religious rigourists who will reject this approach - so be it.

We might apply this same method to the reading of the Gospels. One phrase; one word. Shhh. Then the gospel opens for us, and we notice what we had never noticed before, though we've "heard this story a million times," and the gospel becomes even dazzlingly alive because we are allowing God to instruct us.

Try it! You'll have a new sense of Christianity as an inner, spiritual way.

Spring Surprise

The other day I came across this lovely native plant growing along the edge of the woods. Turns out it has many names: Dutchman's Breeches, Collicweed, Eardrops, Staggerweed, White Hearts, Butterfly Bane, Fly Flower, Soldier Cap and Monk's Head. 

Fly Flower is about eight inches tall, with many waxy-white flowers held up in clusters above thin stems. The underneath leaves are soft and fringed. It was often children investigating field and forest who bestowed names on these native plants. Free association! "I see a soldier's hat," "I see a monk's hood," "I see a lady's earrings," "I see a pair of pants."  Or farmers named them after seeing how the plants (often negatively) effected their cows and sheep. At any rate, the giving of names suggests a time when people lived, worked and played outdoors more often and were thus observers of natural things: plants, animals, rock and land formations, rivers, streams and clouds...

We're losing (or have already lost) this connection and the delight it can bring. There's a moment of wonder when we discover a nature-surprise. We come into the world filled with wonder - crawling around and exploring objects and spaces, learning to identify colors, sounds, textures and tastes. And as we grow, there's a lot going on that can rob us of this sense of wonder. "They paved paradise and put up a parking lot, with a pink hotel, a boutique and a swinging hot spot." 

I knew a surgeon who was rushing against time to identify and catalogue the remaining native plants on Long Island. An elderly man, he never mentioned going to church, but his keen sense of wonder was evident. Remember the creation account in Genesis - day three:

And God said, "Let the earth put forth vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind, upon the earth." And it was so. The earth brought forth vegetation, plants yielding seed according to their own kinds, and trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind And God saw that it was good. and there was evening and there was morning, a third day. Genesis 1:9-13

It's spring. We might take a walk around the property or down the block or maybe there is some untouched wild space not too far away where we might look down and be surprised. Look long and close - as long as it would take to discern the tiny yellow tips on the bottom of each flower in the photograph above. 

God is all-imagination.

It's Already Spring!

Magnolias Autumn Buds

Putting the garden to bed this time of year: washing tools and reorganizing the shed, bringing in clay pots to keep them from cracking with the ice, heaping up spent vines on the compost heap. But also planting bulbs and green manure. Digging in the new grasses I found at the nursery end-of-season 40% off sale! And watching and observing ~ the leaves of trees, the birds, the sky, the animals, the temperatures, the sun's light, the berries...

Then my sister sent four 12th century Japanese poems about the four seasons and suddenly I discovered one of them present of actualized in my garden here. So I wrote my own 21st century, Starlight, Pennsylvania version. Just a few lines.

Bay Magnolia's buds are set,
Winter Rye is scattered,
Blue Grass roots are settling in,
Spring is here already.

The spring or new life is already present in the buds, the seeds, the roots ~ and in my imagination, energy, personal history, creative possibilities and potentiality. The discoveries may well take time; we might need some help, but there's no shame in that.

Even in the old wounds, the personal misfortune or upset, the resolution, insight, growth, learning, are already present. Often it is so close we don't see; we miss it. 

We might try to catch an idea or inspiration that passes through our minds. Seize it! Write it down! We're getting older, we can lose it in a moment. And then hold the idea and let it ferment a bit: to write, to compose, to work in a new way with any kind of material: flour, dreams, watercolor, paper and pen, soil and seeds, fabric, clay, journaling. Maybe it's a book that's been sitting for too long, waiting to be read.