A Finger Pointing at the Moon

A friend recently told of an extended journey to India where he met a Hindu holy man along the way. In conversation the holy man spoke of a finger pointing at the moon to reference all the things of religion that are supposed to indicate or direct us to an experience of God. I've subsequently discovered the saying in Buddhist thought, but it doesn't matter where the saying comes from. More importantly I'd suggest the finger pointing to the moon is:

• the dogmas and doctrines of religion
• the organization of the religions
• the clerical castes of religion and
• the things of hierarchy
• all the permissions/dispensations/rubrics and canons of religion
• the things we call traditions - especially those we claim can never to be changed
• calendars, liturgies: My religion is true - hence yours is not
• all the ways I claim my religion is the most ancient and  observant and from God
• all the ways I make the claim - my way is the sure way to salvation. I might suggest that more than a few people who claim to know  the way to salvation don't even know what salvation means.

This is the pointing finger - it's not the moon. The moon is the often subtle, personal, contemplative experience of God. The trouble starts when we lock-down on the pointed finger and miss the moon. 

A graffiti-ed wall announces: I'm pointing at the moon and you're looking at my finger. Truth be told, many people are content with the pointing-finger-religious-life. Perhaps lacking an experience of God's nearness themselves, priests often (I'll boldly say usually) don't even mention the experience of God as a possibility - it's easier to view religion as pointing finger. An experience of God will require of us that we bend over to remove our inner shoes. God can be messy, unruly, un-settling and troublesome. "Christ, you have come to disturb us," Dostoevsky wrote. 

I lived in Assisi (Italy) for three months on a short sabbatical some years ago. On an autumn day  I walked up Mount Subasio (1300 metres above sea level) where Saint Francis and some of his fellows would go to retire from Assisi's agitation and  noise. There are caves there - really slivers in the boulders - where the saint and his friends would pray.

I set out before sunrise, just as the shops were opening. In a green-grocer I bought a bottle of water, some strawberries, a little loaf of bread and an red apple streaked with pink and soft yellow. I ate everything except the apple along the ascending, hair-pinned road. Upon my summit arrival I arranged to offer Mass, checked out the view of the valley below, sat quietly in the chapels (some of which were underground) and walked the wooded paths that connected the caves. 

Happy for the day I began the descent, intending to be back in Assisi before dark. Along the way I took out the apple which with the first bite created a kind fragrant cloud or atmosphere around my head. And then there was the realization that I was tasting something that was not only new or simply different, but a not-to-be-repeated taste that was from somewhere else. I savored every bit, even eating the core. The next day I went back to the grocer and bought two more of these apples which now tasted like all the other apples I'd eaten in my life. 

"You'd really opened yourself up" some monastic sisters told me when I related the story. "That's contemplative living" my priest-spiritual director said.

I'll offer a few thoughts about this kind of experience:

• We don't summon-up God. An experience of God isn't about finding the right prayer-technique or posture. God isn't tied to a string of beads.
• Our culture is in a deep coma - find ways of waking up and getting free of the cultural addictions to food and entertainment.
• Instead of cursing them - go with distractions and requests that take us away from what we're doing. God might be waiting there.
• God has become one of us in the face of Christ: a personal experience of God may well occur in our human encounters, especially those where we are making some gift of ourselves - or receiving others into our lives. 
• Silence matters more than our culture can presently imagine or tolerate. Most of us waste precious time each day listening to someone else trying to sell us something. 
• Observe yourself and tell it like it is about yourself: I'm pointing to the moon and you're looking at my finger.

Intercessions ~ Twelfth Sunday in Ordinary Time

We pray for those who live in storms of sadness,/inner conflict and emotional imbalance;/ storms of divorce and bankruptcy,/ war,/ illness and loss./ We ask for the restoration of balance,/ clarity and calm./ We pray to the Lord.

We pray for fathers around the world today:/ asking strength,/ renewal/ and blessings for fathers who are up against fearsome challenges,/ inner damage and disadvantage./  We pray to the Lord.

Parts of the world are flooded with huge numbers of refugees fleeing in fear for their lives./ We pray for them/ and blessings for the countries and peoples who are welcoming and caring for them./ We pray to the Lord.

There are already many who are declared candidates for the 2016 Presidential Election./ We ask for them to be honest men and women who will help the world to develop peacefully/ and not to become lost in contention and rancor./ We pray to the Lord.

We pray for our country and those others which are resource elites/ and for the turning of the national heart to the reverent protection and care of our vulnerable planet./ We pray to the Lord.

For the safety of summer travelers/ for those who are marrying,/ giving birth or having surgeries this week./ For the strengthening of the sick and those who tend to them./ We pray to the Lord.

We pray finally for those who are dying without loved one or friend./ And we prayerfully call to mind those who have gone ahead of us in death/ aware that many die suddenly,/ by violence or neglect./ We pray to the Lord.

Green Means Grow

new growth ~ soft green on spruce tips

HAVING COMPLETED the Easter cycle and the subsequent feasts of Trinity and Corpus Christi, we've returned to the long summer weeks of liturgical green. We're being told through color: Now go and grow in these things ~ grow in your own resurrection, up and out of yourself into a new creation. 

I'm listening to the many speeches of the many people who are declaring themselves as presidential candidates these days: They are saying the exact same things, making the same promises, using the same cliches and jargon they have been using since I can remember having a vote. New logos but otherwise, same old, same old. 

Why is a green question. We seldom ask why because the answer might very well be terribly threatening. That's why there are lots of folks already arrayed against the pope's pending encyclical about environment and climate and global poverty - they fear the pope's thoughts will threaten their (our?) security, power, money, elitism.

Many people won't even consider therapy or counseling because there the essential question is why. We want to answer, "I don't know" hoping it will get us off the hook or end our discomfort.

Personal growth really only happens when we ask why. May your green weeks of ordinary time be a time of why?!

~ ~ ~ 

But in symbology green is also the color of hope, the second of the three theological virtues: Faith, Hope and Charity. Faith acknowledges and bows before an invisible world: "and so with angels and archangels and all the hosts of heaven we say, holy, holy, holy." 

Hope is not to be confused with wishing: "I sure hope there's no traffic...I hope rain doesn't ruin my vacation...I hope this recipe turns out..." Rather, hope means, I entrust myself, my little world and all of creation to God who I trust will act. 

And I allow for God to be God ~ and to act as and where and when God will act. It is a very beautiful virtue keeping us from becoming cynics. You can't please a cynic, for whom everything pushes down.