Laudato Si Sunday Reflection: Sharing in God's goodness

Today's reflection is brought to you by
Psalm 68.

In your goodness,
O God,
you have provided for your needy ones,
namely,
all your creatures.

You have given us everything we need
and more.

We should be singing and dancing
in joy and gratitude,
exulting in your goodness to us.

You have given us a home filled with abundance,
a prosperity we can scarcely take in.

Love in abundance is your name
since you're always
showering us
with blessings,
restoring us
when we languish,
and sheltering us
in your goodness.

In your goodness,
O God,
you have provided for your needy ones,
namely,
all your creatures.

Help us humans to forget our egos
and remember that all you give us
is meant to be shared
with all of your creatures.

+Amen.

* * * * * * * 

God's provision for us needy human beings is pretty incredible when you really think about it. It's just too bad that our wisdom hasn't kept up, that we've forgotten how interconnected we are with everything God has made. In this week's 5 paragraphs of Laudato Si: On Care for Our Common Home, Pope Francis names some of the amazing technological advances of the past two centuries, and notes our need to rediscover wisdom for our planet's sake. See for yourself by clicking here and reading paragraphs 101-105.

We've completed the second chapter of Laudato Si, The Gospel of Creation, and now we are moving into Chapter three, The Human Roots of the Ecological Crisis, which will look at how "human life and activity have gone awry, to the serious detriment of the world around us." Our encyclical writers "focus on the dominant technocratic paradigm and the place of human beings and of human action in the world" (paragraph 101).

"We are the beneficiaries of two centuries of enormous waves of change" begins paragraph 102, and here's a long list of some of the changes mentioned:

steam engines
railways
the telegraph
electricity
automobiles
airplanes
chemical industries
modern medicine
information technology
digital devices
robotics
biotechnologies
nanotechnologies
domestic appliances
transportation systems
bridges, buildings and public spaces
nuclear energy
information technology
knowledge of our DNA (all in paragraphs 102-104)

And I'm sure there are many more that our writers didn't name. God-given human creativity has brought about all these wonders, many of which have vastly improved the survival and fulfillment of many human beings on earth. The problem is that these things have also given human beings "tremendous power" and dominance over one another and all God's other creatures.

The problem is that our technological advances keep occurring faster than our understanding of what they mean for all of creation in terms of "human responsibility, values and conscience" (paragraph 105). Our awareness of our limitations is clouded by human ego -- "look what we did! Isn't it incredible?!" -- preventing us from remembering -- "every choice we make matters, and we must be careful because some of our choices can affect other creatures in ways we may not be aware of." If we really think about it, there hasn't been a bridge built or a medical procedure invented that hasn't altered the lives of countless creatures, human and non-human, in one way or another. As has already been mentioned four times already, everything is interconnected. But we have the freedom to create, and unfortunately we don't always use wisdom to remember those connections, or use our creativity the way God intended.

The last three sentences of paragraph 105 sum it up pretty bluntly:

Our freedom fades when it is handed over to the blind forces of the unconscious, of immediate needs, of self-interest, and of violence. In this sense, we stand naked and exposed in the face of our ever-increasing power, lacking the wherewithal to control it. We have certain superficial mechanisms, but we cannot claim to have a sound ethics, a culture and spirituality genuinely capable of setting limits and teaching clear-minded self-restraint.

I'd like to underline two key words in this last bit: spirituality and self-restraint. It strikes me that, had human beings created that long list of wonders above while in spiritual, meditative relationship with God, one another, and all of creation, self-restraint would have come naturally, and wisdom would have played a much larger role in our creation of a world with fewer problems. But we humans are often in too much of a hurry to wait for Wisdom, she who calls to us so beautifully in Chapter 8 of the book of Proverbs (click here to read it).

As this Sunday's Psalm reminds us, God has provided us with everything out of God's goodness, and we need to remember God's goodness, earth's limits and some wise self-restraint in the way that we use our knowledge and power in our world.

Sunday reflection: Empty

Today's reflection is brought to you by
Philippians 2: 6-11.

You
are
God.

But it wasn't about your ego.

You set your Godliness aside
to show us
how to become
empty.

Empty.

Like
servants are empty
of their own will,
doing only
what they are asked.

You were born
as we are born.

You lived
but rather differently
than most of us live.

Your humility
and obedience
took you
to unspeakable human places:
accusation,
betrayal,
abandonment,
loneliness,
humiliation,
imprisonment,
torture,
and death.

We know some of these.

Then,
you died
on a broken tree.

But it was your emptiness
that allowed
God to fill you up again
with God's life
and strength.

God raised you
and gave you the name
Christ,
anointed one,
alpha and omega,
first and last,
before all things
and beyond all things.

And yes,
every knee should bend
and every tongue should confess
that the empty one,
the humble one,
the obedient one
has showed us
how to
be
so that God
can fill us up
and shine through us.

O Christ,
show us how
to set our egos aside,
to become empty,
to become
like
you.

+Amen

Sunday Reflection: To go with the Divine flow

What follows is my homily this Sunday for the Emmaus Inclusive Catholic Community, which continues to meet monthly even though we lost our Roman Catholic Woman Priest, Ruthie, last Easter. Tune in for more about the Emmaus Community next Sunday.

The Sunday scriptures both last week and this week have spoken about what it takes to be a prophet – last week we heard about Jonah, the prophet who didn’t want to go to Nineveh (Jonah 3:1-5,10) but finally did (after taking a detour through a fish’s belly), and this week we hear about Moses (Deut. 18:15-20) begging God to appoint a new prophet to the Israelites. It seems that hearing God’s voice and seeing God’s fire got to be too much for Moses, and he was afraid he’d die if it kept on happening. Moses and Jonah found that hearing and responding to what God wants can pretty challenging. Does that resonate with you at all?

And then there’s Jesus, the Son of God, the most connected prophet of them all. In today’s reading (Mark 1:21-28) the people are enthralled by him, saying, “He speaks with authority! Even the unclean spirits obey him!” And the excitement around him builds, and his fame spreads, at least until he starts challenging them to look at their own lives.

Being a prophet IS hard work, because you can’t be a really good prophet unless you’ve done the work that gets your own ego out of the way and unless you know who you’re talking about, like Jesus clearly did. Both Moses and Jonah weren’t quite up to the challenges God set for them, but Jesus managed to hear God’s voice and see God’s fire and speak God’s truth because he knew himself to be God’s child, God’s beloved, and he trusted God to take care of the rest. Moses and Jonah seem to have developed small “God complexes” thanks to their egos – saying to themselves, God wants this, but maybe it would be better if I did it my way – and they got steered off course a few times.

I’m guessing that’s because it’s just too easy to second-guess God. When things are moving along smoothly and life is going according to our plans, prayers of thanksgiving and praise flow naturally. But when God asks for things that seem chaotic and beyond our control, our egos spring into action to try to fix things. Maybe we harden our hearts a little. We make excuses, we come up with alternate plans, and we forget how to listen to what God really wants and do it God's way. For me, prayer usually goes out the window when I jump into fix-it-myself mode.

But Jesus spent a lot of time listening to God. He prayed so that he could go with the Divine Flow instead of what his ego told him. The only thing he ever said that sounded like second-guessing God was when he said, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”  But I think what he was really doing was showing us that it’s okay to be human, to have doubts and fears, as long as you leave everything in God’s loving hands. That’s the ultimate challenge. Which he accepted and fulfilled, on that cross.

I’ll admit to having second-guessed God many times in my life, never with good results. The most recent is in dealing with my youngest child, who came out recently as a non-binary, asexual teenager. Jay has gone through a legal name change now so that their legal identity fits who they feel that they are, neither a boy nor a girl, but somewhere in between. Jay is Jay.

Unfortunately, through it all, my "God complex", my ego, kept insisting that Jay was just passing through a phase, or attention-seeking, or going through teenage self-esteem issues and insecurities, and that they’d get over it, given enough time. In the meantime, I took on a lot of guilt and self-blame for Jay’s “being this way.” I was second-guessing God, not believing that God could make my child different gender-wise, and feeling that it was my fault somehow. How is a person who was raised with a bible that announces in its first few pages, “male and female God created them,” supposed to get their mind around gender identities outside of those two boxes?

Short answer: by putting aside my own ego, and a bible written by humans who don’t really understand the huge heart of God, and by not second-guessing God. By understanding that God has a much wider view of humanity than most humans ever will. God made Jay, and Jay’s experience of being non-binary isn’t my experience or the experience of most people I know, but does that make it impossible?  With God, all things are possible.

Jay is a young adult who is coming to know themself and their way of being in the world, a really wonderful kid with a huge heart, a creative spirit, and a marvelous sense of humour. So getting my ego, my education, my background and my religious upbringing out of the way and accepting Jay as God made them is what I believe God has been asking of me for quite a while already. It just took me some time to get the message because I was scared, like Jonah and Moses. I wasn’t entrusting the situation into God’s loving hands because I was afraid that God was asking too much of Jay, and of me.

And don’t get me wrong – God is asking a lot. I worry for Jay. I know that our world operates out of those female and male boxes, and that there are many people who are afraid of the kind of diversity that God is giving us through people like Jay. I’m afraid of the backlash from those fearful people. But Jay is brave, and is teaching me to be brave, to set my ego aside and trust our Creator who made Jay as they are. Just as Jesus trusted God with his life.

I started by talking about prophets and their struggles. And I guess my point here is that we are all prophets in one way or another. God calls all of us to set aside our biases and egos and let God work through us rather than in spite of us. That’s what Jesus did. We may not think of ourselves as prophets if we aren’t out there challenging the world. But if prophets are those who bring messages from God to people, isn’t that what we are all doing by living the gospel? We are called to trust, to set our egos aside and to let God work through us, even in ways like the one I've just shared with you.

So where is God asking you to set your ego aside and trust -- so that God’s will, that Divine flow, can be revealed to others through you?

He emptied himself

You show us, Lord,
again and again,
that life is about emptying ourselves
to make room for God.

Your equality with God was not what you came to prove.
Your obedience to God
and your unity with all who suffer
show us many ways to empty ourselves
of our self-righteousness and egotism.

You shared an earthly
and heavenly banquet with your friends,
offering yourself (though they didn't understand right away)
and we learn
to give without counting the cost.

You forgave your betrayer
even as he dipped bread in the bowl with you
and we learn
that it's better not to take things too personally.

You loved Peter
in spite of his false bravado and grand promises
and we learn
to accept people as they are and help them find their way.

You prayed and grieved
and received God's will,
and we learn
to let go and trust.

You accepted an unfaithful kiss
and we learn
that those we love sometimes make mistakes they -- and we -- regret.

You rejected armed conflict in your defense
and we learn
that violence is never the answer.

You healed someone you didn't know
and we learn
that in the midst of our own anguish
we can help others.

You kept silent in the face of many accusations
and we learn
that it's not always necessary to defend ourselves.

You endured abuse and torture
and we learn
that you are in all those who suffer.

You died between two criminals
and we learn
that you are closest to those on the margins.

You felt abandoned
and we learn
that ultimately, we are never abandoned.

You gave your spirit to God
and we learn that
that's where our spirits belong.

You were buried in a borrowed tomb,
and we learn
to accept generosity wherever we find it.

Help us, O Christ, to understand,
as you did,
that our lives are not about us.
Help us to empty ourselves, too,
so that God's plan can unfold.

+AMEN.