Sunday Reflection: Top or bottom of the heap?

Today's reflection is brought to you by

Mark 10:35-45.

It was a gorgeous morning as I drove to ICPM this morning -- a stunning, fiery sunrise was reflected in the windows of the downtown skyscrapers, so I quickly pulled off and took a picture.

It was also a challenging morning for me at the Community of Emmanuel. It was my first time sitting in my friend Farley's chair and playing and singing Part of the Family, a song we always sang together, without him. Let's just say I was a mess, but people sang along and we got through it. I'm grateful that I don't have to lead the music for his memorial service in a week's time.

It was also my turn to give a reflection on the reading. I'll leave it here for my readers. I hope you all have a good week.

* * * * * * *

This is an interesting Sunday reading, don’t you think? Here we have James and John, two of Jesus’ friends and disciples, and basically, they’re asking Jesus to make them his “main men.” They’ve seen how popular and amazing Jesus is and want some of his amazingness to rub off on them – so they can be more important than Jesus' other followers. So they’re kinda sneaky with their request to Jesus, probably because they know the other guys won’t like it if they’re seen as more important. 

I suspect that if we look inside ourselves – if I look inside myself – I know that there’s a little bit of James and John in me too. There’s a bit of insecurity, maybe, that sometimes makes me want to be seen as important, or special, or maybe I want to feel like I’m better than others, especially people I don’t like. 

This little episode with Jesus and James and John makes me think of one of my friends, who isn't really a friend. All my life, my relationship with her has felt like a competition for some reason that I can’t quite understand. Maybe it’s all in my head, but many of my interactions with her have felt like a contest when I really didn’t want to compete. For example, when I was six, my parents bought me my first bike, and my friend started bragging about her bike being bigger than mine, and she could ride without training wheels! Her teachers were always better than my teachers, to hear her tell it. As we went through High School, she bragged about her grades, which were always better than mine. In our twenties, my friend boasted about being so busy, having the best job, and having so many friends, but I was more introverted and didn’t feel like my work or my friends were part of a competition. And when we got married and had our families, she made even the arrival of our babies feel like some sort of contest. It was weird. It's puzzled me all my life, and makes me a little sad too, because I just wanted us to be true friends, but I ended up avoiding her. 

Here’s the thing about competition – it divides people into two categories: winners and losers. What happens next is that the losers have an inferiority complex because they’ve lost, and the winners have a superiority complex because they’ve won, and the two groups don’t mix because of resentments that build up in a win-lose world. The losers are unhappy with losing and become more determined to get the winner’s prize, and the winners are watching their backs because they know the losers might beat them next time and they have to protect their status as winners. In this scripture reading today, the other disciples got mad when they heard about James and John’s request to be Jesus’ hot shot helpers. 

One of my favourite spiritual writers, Henri Nouwen, explains it well. This is what he says: “The society in which we live suggests in countless ways that the way to go is up. Making it to the top, entering the limelight, breaking the record - that's what draws attention, gets us on the front page of the newspaper, and offers us [big] rewards....” 

James and John are so excited about the “big reward” of sitting beside Jesus in his glory that they don’t think about how the others might feel, or even hear what Jesus says to them about the suffering he, and by association, they, will have to endure. “Oh, yes, yes, we can drink your cup and follow your path” they say, but we all know where that path ultimately led. To the cross. Jesus’ glory is not a King-dom, like the Roman Empire. It’s a Kin-dom, a place where we are all kin, all brothers and sisters, equal in every way. Jesus’ heaven isn’t a race up a ladder. It’s a wide open gate for everyone who lives in love, where nobody is top dog because we all have our own unique and special qualities. 

Henry Nouwen continues by saying, “The way of Jesus is radically different. It is the way not of upward mobility but of downward mobility. It is going to the bottom, staying behind the sets, and choosing the last place! Why is the way of Jesus worth choosing? Because it is … the way Jesus took… the way that brings everlasting life.” 

Jesus offers a completely different kind of world than what James and John were expecting. And when the disciples got angry with James and John for trying to be the top dogs, Jesus told them all to sit down and listen, and he explained that his Kin-dom is about serving one another, not trying to be the greatest. In Jesus’ books, the great ones in this life aren’t the ones who climb over everyone else on their way to the top of the heap, but are the ones hustling around the bottom of it, trying to help everybody else up too. 

Of course, when we look around the world we are in right now, we can see that there are a lot of so-called “hot shots” or “top dogs” who think they are the winners in this life because they’ve clawed their way to positions of power over other people. But what would Jesus say to them? The same thing he says to his disciples and to us: “The great ones among you will humble themselves and serve all the others.” 

So the next question is, what does it mean to serve? Let’s look at Jesus and how he did it. He spent his ministry listening to people, reminding them by his actions that God loved them. He healed the sick. He cared for the broken hearted. He walked alongside people where they were at, and forgave what needed forgiveness to free them from their burdens. He encouraged people to choose the good path. He was generous to everyone, not interested in piling up possessions, but sharing all that he had. Above all, he loved everyone, no matter if they were powerful or small in the world’s eyes. As he said in the reading, he offered his life in the place of many, to set them free. 

Can we be that kind of servant to others? Can we listen? Can our actions be an extension of God’s care for the people we meet? Can we listen to other people’s broken hearts and share ours and find healing as a community? Can we walk alongside each other and forgive what needs forgiveness? Can we choose the good path and share what we have? Can we love everyone, even when the world seems stuck on making everyone either a winner or a loser? Can we set each other and ourselves free by letting go of grudges and anger and choosing the way of love above all? 

Let’s talk to Creator about it. I invite you to pray in your heart with me: 

Creator, 

Here I am, 

just the way you made me. 

You know me. 

You know everything about me – 

the good things, 

the things I am proud of, 

the things I like to brag about… 

and the things about myself that I’m not proud of,

that make me ashamed.

You know everything.

 

And still, you love me. 

You love me! 

And you love everybody else too. 

Help me, 

Creator, 

to remember that everyone is your beloved child. 

Help me to be like your son, Jesus, 

who made himself a servant to everyone. 

Help me to listen with love. 

Help me to accept people without judging them. 

Help me to go the extra mile for others who need help. 

Help me to love and forgive and serve others, 

 to see where I can help, 

 and to do what Jesus would do with kindness and compassion.

 

+AMEN.

Sunday Reflection: No fighting!

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/
1/1a/Donkey_in_Clovelly%
2C_North_Devon%2C_England.jpg

Today's reflection is brought to you by
Zechariah 9: 9-10 and Matthew 11:29-30.

You invite us to rejoice,
O God,
to shout our joy
because you
are the source
of all that is good,
triumphant and victorious!

You are also humble enough
to take our human form
and ride upon a donkey.

Even in such humility
you have the power
to cut off the chariots
and war horses,
commanding peace and justice.

Your reign extends over all the earth
when we listen to the beauty,
goodness and truth
that you have placed
in our hearts and souls.

All we need to do
is to come to you,
absorb your gentleness and humbleness,
and find rest
from our burdens.

Give our war-bent leaders wisdom
to follow your way of peace,
and heal the divisions
within us and our world.

Help us to reach for your gentleness
every day of our lives.

+Amen.

* * * * * * *

How often we hear the line about our king coming to us, humble and riding on a donkey, usually in the liturgies connected to Christ the King or Palm Sunday, other times as well. But it was the idea of a king on a donkey, cutting off chariots and warhorses that arrested my thoughts this morning. My mind was filled with a Monty-Python-esque image of a king tearing around on a little donkey (a small king with a large crown and a flying Superman cape), outracing the armies marching to battle, leaving them standing stock still, dumbfounded by the aura of peace and strength surrounding him. A comical image, perhaps, but what if it could be real?

I've never been fond of the idea of God as king. Kings are impersonal in their inaccessibility. But this image of a little guy on a donkey rather than a magnificent steed works for me. If only we had a leader down at our level, who could stop us all in our tracks, preventing us from engaging in the words and deeds of violence that arise from our own woundedness. One who, like a loving parent, could say, "no fighting!" soothe our internal insurrections, and bring us to peaceful harmony with all those around us, whether they be powerful CEOs or the people who pick bottles in the back alley.

The fact of the matter is that the God of peace is always there for each and every one of us, encouraging us to find the compassion within us, and working to heal our hurts. But we need to be aware and to cooperate, to see God's presence in all those around us, and to remember that God loves us and is present to us all equally. 

We only need to ask for help to do it, and it begins.

Today, I pray for our world leaders as we struggle through this pandemic, that they may act with humility and justice, and ride donkeys rather than war horses. 

I also ask God's help for the Brisson family, who are mourning the loss of their 23-year-old daughter and sister, Izzy. May all who reach out in compassion and support help them to find peace and rest from their twin burdens of sorrow and grief...

+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?

Let all families be holy

I hate it when I end up crying through Sunday morning mass, and lately, it happens more often than I like. You see, God and I have what I would call a wonderful relationship. In fact, I can't get along without God. It's just that some of the people who speak for God make me cry, and that's painful, period.

Today, the last Sunday of the year, is the Feast of the Holy Family. Really, it's a liturgy that is all about love. We heard about love, respect, and honour among family members in scripture from the Book of Sirach. Paul's beautiful letter to the Colossians (3:12-21) reminded us to clothe ourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness and patience, to bear with one another, to forgive each other and to love. And then we heard about loving parents Mary and Joseph taking their infant son to the temple at the beginning of his faith journey. All beautiful and inspirational words!

It was the first few lines of the homily that set me off. Family values are under attack, we were told, by gay marriage and transgender activism. And the tears began to roll down my cheeks. I grew up in a Catholicism that brainwashed me against homosexuality, even as several of my Catholic friends who were gay or lesbian struggled with depression and self-loathing because our Christian culture labelled them as "disordered." It seemed to be a direct contradiction to the adage, "God does not make junk." As a young performer in a travelling show, I became friends with peers of many different backgrounds, cultures, and sexual orientations, and my friendships forced me to question the anti-queer mindset I grew up with because of my faith.

In the years since, I have realized that God loves queer people every bit as much as God loves me. Otherwise, why would God have blessed them with their different orientations? They are oriented differently not to spite the world, but because they have to be true to who they are, just as I do. And judging them helps no one.

In the last few years, I have witnessed the love and marriages of many queer friends who are being true to who God made them to be. And for the life of me, I can't see how Greg and Roy's marriage undermines anything. Karly and Inge and their two sons are as loving a family as mine. Their marriage is more loving, balanced and blessed than any of my heterosexual divorced friends' marriages ever were. And my neighbours, Leo and Markus*, are excitedly planning their wedding for September with every bit as much joy and anticipation as Lee and I did. They are a loving couple who deserve to be together for life, heart and soul. We need to remember that many marriages are about a loving unity that doesn't include procreation.

Love is love. And God is love. And since nobody I know can actually tell us the exact thoughts of this God who is love, and who clearly creates so many different forms of love, how can we speak against these other kinds of love, sexuality or gender simply because our experience is different? God is in Leo and Markus' relationship too, I'm convinced! It's full of goodness, truth and beauty,

I wish our homilist this morning had simply focused on the holy family as a model of love, and talked more about the beautiful qualities mentioned in the readings and how they feed our souls. I suspect I'm not the only person who needs to hear how every family that does its best to love one another is a holy family, even through our struggles. Perfection isn't possible, but love is, and families with trans-gendered or otherwise queer members don't need to be judged as somehow undermining family values, especially when we are all doing our best to love and support one another just as Jesus, Mary and Joseph did. God made us all holy!

God of love,
Thank you for the billions of love stories
that brought us into being,
that surround us,
sometimes challenge us,
and always sustain us.

Open our hearts to your love in its many forms.

Help us to act always
with love,
respect,
and honour
toward all members of our human family.

Clothe us
with compassion,
kindness,
humility,
meekness
and patience,
to bear with one another,
to forgive each other
and to love everyone who crosses our path.

Bless those families who struggle,
and help us to reach out to those in need
just as you reach out for us.

Bless us in this new year of 2018,
and let all families be holy
by our sharing in your love.

+Amen.

*I have used pseudonyms in place of my queer friends' names. 

Come to the quiet

This Sunday's readings remind us of the importance of humility and how the beauty, goodness and truth in our lives are not something we claim in order to hold ourselves above others, but are simply gifts that come from God. Self-importance gets us nowhere -- it's genuine humility that is truly appealing. Just think of the humblest person you know, and the feelings he or she elicits when you think of that person.

I think this is why today's Psalm (131) appeals so much to me. It reminds me to be humble, not to occupy myself with things that are beyond what God wants for me. That, and it brings to mind the music of John Michael Talbot, in particular his Come to the Quiet album, which I wore out during my first year of teaching. It's all about the greatness of God, and God's gifts of mercy, peace and justice. So this morning I was delighted to find that someone managed to put it up on YouTube for our listening enjoyment. My very favourite of JMT's sung prayers (Psalm 62) is at the 39 minute mark on the video (sound file, really) below, but the whole album is better than ever, probably because I've lived a lot in the years since I last heard it. Listening to its gentle melodies is like coming home.

Here are John Michael Talbot's lyrics to his sung version of Psalm 131, the last one in the video below. Have a lovely Sunday, and enjoy.

Lord, 
my heart is not proud
nor are my eyes fixed on things beyond me.
In the quiet
I have stilled my soul
like a child at rest on its mother's knee.
I have stilled my soul
within me.

O Israel, 
come and hope in your Lord
do not set your eyes on things far beyond you.
Just come to the quiet.
Come and still your soul
like a child at rest
on his daddy's knee.
Come and still your soul
completely.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jpDHLB0b8eI

All we need is radical love

After listening to the reading of the Gospel (Matthew 5:38-48) this morning, my mind went off on its own homily. I couldn't help but reflect on how Christianity is failing. And I think the reason for its failure is that too many of its churches have turned into tribal councils or morality police more concerned with ensuring that their "own flocks" follow the rules than with how we need to work together for the common good of all.

Of course, it's not Christ's fault, he who said that we need to live non-violently, go the extra mile for our sisters and brothers on the margins, love our enemies, be perfect as God is perfect and a few dozen other basic things that we seem to have forgotten in our relatively comfy, privileged pews. It's a rough, raw, radical love that Jesus expects of us, one that takes a hit without hitting back and still moves forward in humility, generosity, patience and compassion. It's how he lived -- his kind of radical love reaches through the centuries -- otherwise we never even would have heard of a small town preacher and healer from a backwater town in the middle East.

The word radical comes from the Latin word for root. Radical love roots our lives in the important things in life so that we can ignore the inconsequential ones and live simply, out of love. The only way our world will survive is if we return to radical love for our planet, for others, for creation, and for ourselves. We need to work for the common good, to turn the other cheek, to give our life energies to goodness, to love our enemies, to pray for those who persecute us and do all the other radical things that Jesus himself chose to do right to the end.

A tall order. But we're seeing far too much radical hatred these days, and it's clearly not the way our world needs to go.

What acts of radical love will you engage in this week? They don't have to be anything heroic, just rooted in love.

Adventures in humility

A few weeks ago, I realized that I really could use a new swimsuit because my old tankini had gotten pretty stretched out over the last three years. One afternoon, eldest daughter and I braved a swimsuit shop together. Being a member of the very-small-bust department, I find bathing suit shopping rather humiliating, but I managed to find two pretty nice one-pieces that didn't have spaces that I couldn't fill. When I tried them on, I really liked the second, a pinky-purple one with black designs, a refreshing change after years of blue bathing suits. I happily took it to the cashier.

"Ah, this is pretty," she said, and I agreed. Looking at me a little more closely, she said, "and how did it fit for you?"

"Really well," I said. "It looked quite nice."

"You do realize that it's a mastectomy suit."

Ouch... "No, I didn't," I said, reconsidering for a moment as my ego deflated, then kicking myself for allowing it. I bought the suit. It gives me pause to think about how silly it is to complain about having a flat chest when I lost my friend Therese to a breast cancer recurrence and another friend is presently going through chemo. And honestly, it's the nicest suit I've had in years.

A few days later, middle daughter and I went shopping together, and another cashier offered me another piece of humble pie. "If you show me some I.D., I can probably give you your senior's discount."

Oof! "Thanks," I said, "but it's too early for that... I just have the hair of a senior citizen," I said, pointing to my natural grey and noting that her hair looked like it had been recently coloured.

"I'm sorry," she said, turning red. "Your face really is quite young."

"Thank you," I said, smiling and shaking my head. I guess I'm getting used to having people who don't know me either thinking I'm older than I am, or trying to convince me I should colour my hair. It happened again yesterday, when we went looking for some curl enhancer for my girl. I asked the sales lady if there was something more organic and less chemically derived, and she assumed I was looking for colour in a box.

After those three episodes (for me, things come in threes), you can see another reason why I dislike shopping! But I am actually a serious seeker of humility, just not from sales clerks! I prefer learning about humility with my spiritual director, whom I saw last week. After we'd chatted a while about my worries and struggles, he said, "Well, Maria, when I remember that I'll probably never have everything figured out and that I certainly don't know what's best all the time, that gives me permission to put away my pride and pay attention to what God might be telling me."

I like that last lesson the best.

Courage, sacrifice, humility, and hard work

Do you watch TV? I've pretty much given it up, as I don't find present-day TV shows to be terribly inspiring. My one hour of television per week lately is a show I don't really like, but watch in order to know what my daughters are into. Having embraced Voluntary Simplicity makes it really hard for me to watch television because so much of it is about excess, and it makes me sad to see people so focused on stuff. If I really did watch TV, it would probably be mostly nature shows and concerts.

Of course, if somebody came up with a channel that shows programs about courage, sacrifice, humility and hard work, that might be worth watching. I want to be inspired and encouraged in my efforts to make the world a better place. That's why I subscribe to KarmaTube.org. Its subtitle is "Be the Change." I'll add it to my links today, in case you want to check it out. It sends out a video link each week that encourages us to immerse ourselves in being the change we want to see in the world, as Ghandi said so many years ago.

If you have the time, here's today's KarmaTube video. Jacquelin Novogratz has met a lot of people who inspire courage, sacrifice, humility and hard work, all things the world needs more of. And if anyone knows of a TV channel that plays more of her kind of stuff, I'd be interested... except that watching TV takes time away from being the change I want to see in the world...

Of Christmas pageants and good, good news

On Monday evening, most of my family and a few friends enjoyed the L'Arche Edmonton Annual Christmas Pageant. For those who were unable to join us, here's the run-down: it was a wonderful celebration featuring many amazing musicians; a fantastic choir who had everyone in the church singing too; a gentle Mary and a cowboy-hatted Joseph who were extremely attentive to a serene six-month-old baby Jesus as he watched everything with shining eyes; radiant angels in bright white Christmas lights; a rag-tag band of shepherds who danced with excitement; and majestic magi -- one on wheels. I think it's safe to say that the Spirit of Christmas took hold of everyone in the building.

As I watched the holy family cuddle together under the star, I couldn't help but feel that everyone present was seeing a more realistic portrayal of Christmas than any you see on Christmas cards or in movies. Jesus came in a simple, humble way to spend his life with simple, humble people, and to call us all to simplicity and humility in our relationships with each other and with God.

In L’Arche, God’s love and acceptance of everyone -- with and without disabilities -- makes Jesus’ presence real, and not just at Christmas.