My Salvation

Those who have met me in recent years may be surprised to know that I was a somewhat melancholic teen.  For years I saw the world as very black and white; I saw good and bad.  I wanted everything to be good, and I was unhappy that some things were bad.  Despite my own happy childhood I looked around at the world and saw what I considered to be a negative place.  I couldn’t figure out how I fit into it or how it could ever feel “right.” 

I remember a conversation I had with the man who mentored me through those teen years and many years beyond – a parish priest who put up with my melancholy and who succeeded in the careful balancing act of loving me just as I was while simultaneously bringing about a substantial change in me.  One day I told him just how bad this life is, just how miserable.  I was armed with a quote from St. Teresa of Avila that I thought captured the whole awful mess of life.  “Life,” I said, “is like a bad night in a bad inn.”

I was sure that God and all his angels and saints agreed with me.  But Fr. Tim didn’t.  He didn’t agree with me at all.  And his response shifted the entire worldview going on in my teenage brain.  It changed the way I saw everything including myself, him, God, suffering, my future.  It changed the way I saw my world and how I fit into it.  Fr. Tim told me life isn’t a bad night in a bad inn.  “Life,” he said, “is the moment of your salvation.”

I have never stopped believing that.  I have never stopped seeing my world and my life from this fuller perspective – one that recognizes life as a gracious moment, a time of encounters and relationships that bring me closer and closer to the heart of God if only I will allow it.  Sure, sometimes the inn feels run down or drafty or even dangerous.  Sometimes the other people in the inn rob, cheat and steal – or gossip or disappoint or annoy me.  Sometimes it is dark and the night in the inn feels long.  But the moment of my salvation is long, long enough for me to settle into the beauty of this inn and its people, long enough to learn how to live here with them and with myself, long enough to grow into my own salvation.  God has not left me here to flounder until morning comes.  He lives with me here, in this time and place.  This is the moment of my salvation.

"God, why do you have to be so mysterious?"

While studying the account of Moses and the Burning Bush in her religious education textbook, my daughter got a little bit irritated with God.  She felt he was being intentionally difficult when it came to naming himself.  “Why not just give a name?  What’s with ‘I am who I am’?” (Ex. 3:14)

It’s a fair enough question.  I didn’t say much in response, but I did point out it would be a little disappointing if God said, “Hello, my name is Bob.”  Bob is a great name – but it isn’t the least bit mysterious.

Sometimes it may seem like God is being difficult on purpose.  But he’s probably just being himself.  He’s being mysterious.  He’s being “I am.”  I experience this Difficult Mystery when I teach Scripture.  Sometimes I feel like I’m entering a world where I don’t belong.  I start to understand it, and then I suddenly stop.  I come close to something and then it unravels into a hundred other things.  Why is it this way?  And how can I take other people to a place that is so far beyond me?

But that’s just the privilege of knowing God.  How boring would it be to have a God who can only take us places we’ve already been, or tell us things we already know?  No, I prefer a God whose name I don’t understand, whose Book changes every time I pick it up, whose ways are not my ways, who takes me places I’ve never been and who tells me things I never knew. 

Why does God have to be so mysterious?  Because he is!

Feisty Children

As I write this post, my 4-year-old son is sitting in “time out” because he disobeyed Mom.  From his perspective, I am not being nice.  But from my perspective, this restrictive act (temporarily curtailing his freedom), is slowly setting my son free.  He is learning by cause and effect what is acceptable behavior in relationships so that once he is “full-grown,” he will make good use of all that free will.

Would you agree that Julian’s perspective right now is immature and incomplete?  Would you agree that he can trust me, that I have his best interest at heart?  Would you agree that I want nothing more than his happiness, and that I yearn for a strong, healthy and loving relationship with him when he is an adult (which is a much longer-term situation than how he feels about me tonight)?  Would you agree that what he is experiencing now is less like punishment and more like . . . molding clay (cf. Jer. 19:1-11)? 

Think of yourself as a feisty 4-year-old whose loving parent wants nothing more than your happiness, your freedom, and ultimately, your love.  Think of God patiently waiting for you to grow in maturity and wisdom – loving you, teaching you and nourishing you along the way. These words from the prophet Hosea tell it perfectly – tell of the parent whose “bands of love” are not always recognized as kindness by the sometimes rebellious, always beloved, child:

When Israel was a child, I loved him,
    and out of Egypt I called my son.
The more I called them,
    the more they went from me;
they kept sacrificing to [false gods],
    and offering incense to idols.

Yet it was I who taught Ephraim to walk,
    I took them up in my arms;
    but they did not know that I healed them.
I led them with cords of human kindness,
    with bands of love.
I was to them like those
    who lift infants to their cheeks.
    I bent down to them and fed them (Hosea 11:1-4).

Advice from a Boxer

I don’t typically take my spiritual advice from professional boxers.  But one day while driving, I happened to hear part of an interview with pro boxer George Foreman (yes, the one who named all five of his sons “George”).  With a stereotypical idea of what boxers are like, I was caught off guard by something he said.  Actually “caught off guard” doesn’t really do it justice.  I was quite touched!

Foreman was talking about his estranged relationship with his father, who was an alcoholic.  Foreman said that one day he looked at his father and asked himself, “Do I want to have a father or not?”  He realized his choice was to either forgive his father or just be without.  He decided to forgive him even though it was very, very hard.  Foreman went on to say that forgiveness is the greatest of life’s lessons, an indispensable life skill.  Without forgiveness, he said, there are no relationships.

If I had heard this sentiment during a homily, I probably would have mildly appreciated it and gone on with my life.  But coming from George Foreman, I admit it, I was deeply impacted.  There are no relationships without forgiveness.  At least no meaningful ones.

Forgiveness is one of those spiritual arts that is best learned at home, in the family.  Goodness knows we have many occasions there to practice!  If we don’t learn forgiveness at home, it can be very difficult to learn in the world; and if we don’t learn it young, it can be much harder to learn later in life.  That being said, it is never too late to learn or practice this life skill.  So break out that George Foreman Grill (you know you have one) and gather the family around.  Have a burger or a panini and celebrate the art of forgiveness!

Note:  I just read up on George Foreman and discovered two very important pieces of information.  First, he is a native Texan.  Second, he is an ordained minister!  I also found an interview in which he was asked if there could be any circumstance where he would not be able to forgive someone (beliefnet.com, “George Foreman’s Second Chance”).   His response:  “Oh, not in this life now.  I've found my peace of mind.  If you wake up one morning without forgiveness in your heart, you'll wake up without children, without a husband, without a wife.  Forgiveness is the only way that you can bind love and friendship.  Without it, you are empty."  Preach it, George!

The Prolongation of the Incarnation

Pope Francis’ document “The Joy of the Gospel” (Evangelii Gaudium) is not a dense theological read.  It is typically Francis – straightforward, often informal, calling us to something higher.  The document is peppered with what you might call “Francis phrases” – striking phrases that tell a truth and leave an impression.  One of my favorites is Francis’ reference to the “unruly freedom of the Word” (EG 22).  That simple phrase captures the living nature of God’s Word:  the inspiration that breathes life into it, the way it has its own movement and mission, and how it should not be – cannot be – controlled by human beings – not even in their own well-meaning interpretations and applications.  We must accept that God’s Word “accomplishes what it wills in ways that surpass our calculations and ways of thinking” (EG 22).

Another of my favorite phrases from the document is:  “the prolongation of the incarnation” (EG 179).  First of all, it has a nice ring to it!  And it rhymes just as nicely in Spanish (which I would imagine is the language Pope Francis was “thinking in”) as it does in English:  la prolongación de la encarnación.

So what is the “prolongation of the Incarnation”?  What does this poetic phrase mean?  Francis writes:  “God’s word teaches that our brothers and sisters are the prolongation of the incarnation for each of us:  ‘As you did it to one of these, the least of my brethren, you did it to me’ (Mt. 25:40)” (EG 179).  Pope Francis makes the point – and makes it crystal clear – that the Gospel message has implications for how we treat each other.  The “prolongation of the Incarnation” simply means that Christ lives in every human being.  That is one way he continues to be incarnate, continues to be with us.  Therefore if we claim to love him, we must love them.

This is not a new idea, of course.  It is an ancient idea.  In addition to the words of Christ himself, I think of St. John, who the stories say told his own little flock “Love one another” so many times that his disciples got annoyed and asked him why he kept saying it.  He answered, “If you do this, it is enough.”  He did not say this because it didn’t matter if they loved God or not, but because in loving one another, they were loving God very well.  John also wrote, “Those who say, ‘I love God,’ and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen” (1 Jn. 4:20).  That’s another crystal clear way of saying:  when you love your brothers and sisters, you prolong the Incarnation!