November ~ Merry Cemetery

Merry Cemetery ~ Romania

Someone sent some pictures taken around the world of amazingly beautiful places, and this Romanian cemetery was among them. The photo caption called it the Merry Cemetery. I don't know if that's its name in Romania or if someone just attached that title somewhere along the cyber-space-way. It doesn't matter ~ the cemetery is indeed merry. Happy. Gladsome. Joyful. But why?

Christ is Risen from the dead,

trampling down death by death,

and upon those in the tomb,

bestowing life.

Trampling down death by death. Isn't that a wonderful line? November is the Month of the Holy Souls. We might rehearse the little Easter verse again and again until we have memorized it. We can then bring it to mind often but especially when we remember loved ones departed or are confronted with news reports of television, radio, Internet death.

Jesus, Save Us!

Here is Ludolf Backhuysen's painting of Jesus Calming the Stormy Sea as told in the Gospels of Matthew (4:35-41), Mark (8:23-27) and Luke (8:22-25). In each of the three, the disciples call out to the sleeping Jesus, but it is only in Matthew's Gospel that they implore Jesus saying: "Save us."

Words like save and salvation have become a kind of specialized vocabulary (Church-talk) that forms a disconnect with people today, especially young people. Ask folks what save and salvation mean and at best we might hear a word or two about Jesus dying on the cross to save us from our sins so we can go to heaven. Without denying that, I'd suggest save  and salvation have to do with today and right now, long before having anything to do with going to heaven. Save and salvation are interior realities and very personal to each of us.

Save means "Get me out of here." In 1975 I was rushing back to the seminary in my bright yellow Volkswagon Beetle to make the midnight curfew, when I made a wrong turn and wound up in a neighborhood that was dark, de-populated, decrepit and utterly terrifying. I drove frantically up and down streets hoping to find my way back to a familiar road, the sense of danger and doom increasing, when I felt this deep inside prayer-urge that cried out: "Get me out of here."  That's asking for salvation in a most basic way.

But then we allow that desperate prayer to reflect inner realities:

Jesus, get me out of this need for 

prestige,

notoriety,

and acceptance.

Jesus, get me out of this
money-love,

my obsession with work,

my inability to be alone,
my disinterest in others.

Jesus get me out of this idolatry of

sports,

shopping,

food,
guns,

talking.

And for younger people: 
get me out of this worship of
media fun,
entertainment and peer acceptance

Jesus, get me out of the chattering

monkey-mind of judgments,

and assessing everyone and everything.

Jesus, get me out of the resentments

I harbor and the

victim-hood I nurture,

my inner whining,

and negative complaining.

Jesus, get me out of this dark cloud mode,

my inner tempest,

all my worrisome regrets,
and the masks I wear.

Jesus, get me out of this inner neighborhood

of fears, 
discontent,

addiction,

fantasy and bad-humor...

and put me on the right road,
the sure path, 
of joy,

peace,
healing,

restored dignity,

light and

balance.

Now look again at the painting. The little boat (of my life) is ready to go under - it is being swamped by violent waves (can you name it for yourself?), the sail is maxed-out and already there is an opening in the ominous sky (look to the left) and a lovely, hopeful light is breaking through. Salvation is already at hand. Everything will be alright! 

Garden and Gate

Here is a picture of the new gate Jim built for the fenced garden at the retreat house. The original gate fell apart this past winter, but this new gate is attractive, deer-proof and strong! Jesus said: 

I am the gate, whoever enters through me will be saved, they will come in and go out, and find pasture.   John 10:9

Stepping through a gate is an experience of encounter or an adventure. A new horizon or experience opens up when we go through a gate. As a young priest I used to take a prayer day at an old Franciscan novitiate nearby which had been a rich man's North Shore estate in its 1930's heyday.

I remember pulling back the vines and going through the door-like gate and being disappointed  that the garden, with its gravel paths and wide flower beds had fallen into ruin - invaded by weeds and gone to seed. But the experience filled me with imagination too, and I found bushes there covered with ripe raspberries. And for about 7 minutes I played with the idea of asking the brothers if I could take over the garden and bring it back. Like I didn't already have enough to do in my parish.

But when going through the gate is an interior experience I might be led to ask myself questions I might otherwise never approach:

• Why am I this way?
• Why might someone say this or that about me?
• Why do I keep repeating the same mistakes?
• Why am I so unhappy? So fearful?
• Why do I feel so shallow?
• Why do I feel I've done so little with my life?
• Why after so long am I still...?

We often never get around to asking the why questions about ourselves. It takes a lot of hard work to go through the inner gate to ask why.

And here at the retreat house, the new gate takes us over into a garden. A garden is an image of cultivation and growth. It symbolizes that inner place where I have things to take care of and places to grow:

• to grow up the inner capacities I have been given
• to find emotional balance and well-being
• to treat an addiction or some pathology
• to come to an understanding of what I can do to contribute to the future
• to tend to my soul-life: that I am God's much-loved child

The prophet Jeremiah writes:

They shall come and sing aloud on the heights of Zion, and they shall be radiant over the goodness of the Lord, over the grain, the wine, and the oil, and over the young of the flock and the herd; their life shall be like a watered garden, and they shall languish no more. Jeremiah 31: 12

The soul is likened to our inner feeling-place and our feelings can be all over the place: our wounded pride, nurtured resentments, the exhilaration that lasts perhaps only a moment, the perception of God's presence in love, the peaceful awareness of inner healing.

Psychologically, a garden is a symbol of consciousness. And a walled, fenced or hedged garden is an image of protecting what is interiorly my very own (mine and mine alone). This could be a sense of shame or regret for some mistake in the past or some personal delight that others might well not understand or value. It's not necessary for everyone to know everything about me. I'd say there's a time to enter the garden and close the gate - gently.