What I've learned about waiting from the Nativity scene

This Advent, something I've been coming up against with God is the need for certainty.  The need to know, to be prepared, to understand.  To hold the map in my hands in confident awareness of the steps needed to get from point A to point B.  

But recently, I've felt a nudge to remember the empty space of the Nativity scene, the space that is left empty until the very last day.  During December, all the other things are set in motion; orbiting, it seems, aimlessly around this empty space.  The shepherds wander towards it.  The farm animals gaze down at nothing in an intent manner. 

Joseph and Mary gaze down with adoration and love at  - an emptiness in the middle of the manger. 
Why is Mary bending down over space, why are the Magi travelling toward it?

It is helpful to remember that we cannot receive a gift without first having empty hands.  Jesus, as the baby - I can't hold Him, can't receive Him, unless my arms are first empty. 

The practice of the nativity scene is a gentle reminder to all of us, I think - of God's long vision.  Of how God prepares us for himself, leaving the best for last.  In the meantime, think of all the people who received these strange promptings, to go - follow the star, go to Bethlehem.  Start moving in this general direction.  Start walking. 

God's timing is perfect - a symphony of movement, cues, invisible preparations, infinitesimal stokes of a pen to orchestrate a beautiful, mysterious plan - the unfolding of his most perfect Gift. 

My brother got engaged a few days ago (congratulations John and Becca!) And hearing the pride and joy in his voice as he described the way he planned it was really exciting.   First, he ordered a custom-crafted puzzle, a picture of them together.  When Becca opened this present, she was pleasantly surprised by his planning.  But then, as they put the puzzle together, she noticed that there were a few pieces missing.  At first this was a great disappointment - that they couldn't finish the picture.  But then, he brought out another package that he had "just received" in the mail that day.  They opened the package, and found the pieces that had been missing.  As they put the pieces into the puzzle, Becca saw that the complete puzzle read, "Will you marry me?"

As I think about the way my brother, the now groom-to-be, planned each move so carefully and with such excitement to reveal the gift to his now fiancée, I think about how clearly he mirrors to me God's careful and creative planning in revealing and bringing Jesus into the world. 

Undercover Gifts

Last week, I was driving on very icy roads, equipped with my usual brew of morning coffee.  On an incline, and nearing a van that was stopped at a stoplight, I put on the brakes, only to find that I had hit an ice patch and couldn't stop.

Frantically, I tried to pump the brakes, realizing I had no control and that my car was drifting dangerously close to the van.  I mumbled a quick prayer, and suddenly the driver of the van decided to make a right turn to avoid me hitting her.  And immediately, my car finally stopped and my coffee went everywhere and all over me.  I was soaked!

I was so thankful to have avoided the accident, to have escaped this situation with both cars and people intact, that the coffee spill was just a humorous afterthought.  But on another day, had this spill occurred, I probably would have been really annoyed, frustrated, and it might have cast a gloom over the whole rest of the day. 

It made me think - how many other small annoyances, difficulties or accidents are really gifts saving us from bigger problems or worries? 

Finding Freedom from Fear...of death

Just at that time some Pharisees approached, saying to Him, "Go away, leave here, for Herod wants to kill You." And He said to them, "Go and tell that fox, 'Behold, I cast out demons and perform cures today and tomorrow, and the third day I reach My goal.' "Nevertheless I must journey on today and tomorrow and the next day; for it cannot be that a prophet would perish outside of Jerusalem." (Luke 13:31-33)

So when he heard that Lazarus was sick, he stayed where he was two more days, and then he said to his disciples, “Let us go back to Judea.” “But Rabbi,” they said, “a short while ago the Jews there tried to stone you, and yet you are going back?” Jesus answered, “Are there not twelve hours of daylight? Anyone who walks in the daytime will not stumble, for they see by this world’s light.  It is when a person walks at night that they stumble, for they have no light.” (John 11: 6-10)

For the past two weeks, regardless of how I have opened my Bible, I have turned directly to these two passages several times.  Jesus' responses to both situations have been puzzling me and challenging me.

The disciples are looking at the bare facts - Jesus was in danger of his life when in Judea.  Keeping Jesus alive is important if his message is to be heard, if people are to be healed and cured.  Therefore - avoid the places where he will be stoned, right?  Their decision making is both practical and prudent.

And Jesus says these two things that completely baffle me.  In the first passage, he seems to understand that death is coming, and yet he says, "I must cast out demons today and tomorrow."  His composure and quietude of spirit are completely not normal.  He almost seems annoyed at Herod for disrupting him in his work of today and tomorrow.

I was trying to relate this to my own life, imagining if I heard on a Monday, "On Wednesday you are going to die in a terrible car accident."  And, rather than freaking out about this and dreading it, I simply said, "Today and tomorrow, my work is to teach piano lessons, tidy the house and visit a friend."  That would be crazy in many ways, just to go about today's work without letting the finalizing work of Wednesday affect and change the work of today....wouldn't it??

In the second passage, the disciples are telling him that he should cancel his plans to visit Martha and Mary after Lazarus's death, because he himself will die at the hands of the Jews. 

And he responds that those who walk in the light will not stumble.  I don't know what he means, really.  Maybe he means that the Father has made it clear that he is to go to Judea, and because he trusts the Father, he entrusts the outcome of the journey to Him.  Or he may mean that he is not afraid to make the journey to Judea because he knows this is not the hour of his death. 

Why is Jesus' response to these two situations so strange to me?
        1. Even in the face of death, he lacks fear
        2. He appears to be acting recklessly and foolishly in light of the facts.

How many things we do in everyday life as a response to our fears of the future! Weather forecasts, newspapers, insurance of all kinds, extended warranties, backup plans, political projections.  We learn to read facial expressions, to read actions, to feel the weather coming on in our bones, to notice trends.  We learn to withhold ourselves, to make only safe bets, to avoid risk. 

Really, the disciples are only doing just that, to Jesus.  They are looking at the signs. They are gathering information from the streets.  Their motives are good - protection of the world's greatest treasure. And what is wrong with this way of acting?

But they are letting their actions be determined by fear - fear of death, fear that Jesus will not be able to complete his mission.

And this fear would lead only to hiding.  Hiding from death.  Hiding from enemies.  Hiding from the mission.  This fear would lead only to being controlled by death, being controlled by fear, controlled by enemies. 

"Each day has enough trouble of its own".  "Give us this day our daily bread." Jesus's words at other times tell me that fear distracts us from our present, daily work.  Fear turns our minds and hearts away from God's providence, causing us to stockpile our own safety nets and backup plans.  A pure trust in God, a detachment from the world, allow us to let go of these fears and walk freely in today, whatever the next day will bring. 

(Sidenote: I looked up google images of 'Worry" - almost all of the pictures were of people hovered over, covering their heads in their hands, clenching their jaws.  It struck me that worry closes us up - we close our eyes, tighten our bodies in fear.  The opposite stance to worry would be openness - open eyes, open expressions.  Walking freely forward.  And this is what Jesus was doing all along.)

Finding Freedom From Fear

My dad died very suddenly one ordinary day of my fifteenth year.  I remember reading Anne of Ingleside up in my parents’ bedroom when I suddenly heard my mom calling my brother from downstairs, “John! Dial 911.  Your dad can’t breathe.” At that moment, something cold and terrible hit me in the gut, and I knew that life wouldn’t be the same again.  My dad was taken to the hospital in an ambulance, and died an hour later from respiratory arrest brought on by emphysema.

 

Soon after this, genuine faith came into my life like a new gift, giving meaning and joy in the midst of pain and upheaval.  What a tremendous gift and what perfect timing – and with this newfound faith came new friendships which have lasted through the years.  

God showed me how to struggle with Him – through questions like, “How do I know Christianity is THE religion?” and then, “How do I know Catholicism is the way to be Christian?” and others, “Who is Mary and what role does she play in salvation history?” and “What does the Eucharist mean, and why is it called the ‘source and summit’ of our Catholic faith?” And as these questions surfaced in my heart, and as they worked themselves out through prayer and research and friendships, I found that God could be trusted with my doubts.

Except one doubt.  One doubt has laid hidden in my heart for years like a sealed box, covered in dust and chains.  This is the doubt I would like to ignore.  I would like to pretend it isn’t there and to have a safer faith.

That doubt is, in a phrase, “When is the other shoe going to drop?”

 

In the midst of any joy, any happiness, this doubt is always hovering in a corner, asserting itself, saying things like, “Something painful is bound to happen.  Something will disturb the peace.  And God won’t stop it. Even if He is good, loving, faithful, the other shoe will drop and there is nothing that can keep it from dropping.”

 

I am not sure how to answer to this doubt – and I am absolutely sure it is related to my dad’s sudden death.  It makes trusting a difficulty.  It makes uncertainty difficult.  

 

But today it struck me that Mary, in the middle of her great joy in Jesus’ birth, and in presenting Him in the temple, heard, “And a sword will also pierce your heart.”  

 

How, I wonder, did she handle years of this prophecy hanging over her head?  How did she live under the umbrella of this ominous promise with joy, with peace, accepting Jesus in each day, knowing that at any moment, at any time, the sword was coming?  Did she know she would have Jesus for 33 years?  Maybe she wondered, those three days he was lost in Jerusalem as a boy, if this time she was going to lose Him for good.  

 

And yet, I believe wholeheartedly that Mary lived her life in peace and in joy, not because she ignored the sword, but because she embraced it – she made the sword her friend.  And I believe that she embraced the sword because she loved Jesus.  She loved him on the good, joyful days, when he was popular and celebrated, and she loved him when he was being mocked and reviled.  She knew that no matter what, her path lay with Him, and that meant both the greatest joy and the greatest sorrow.  And, full of Jesus, consumed by grace, she forgot herself. 

 

Her love lay her open to the greatest pain and suffering, and yet her love freed her from her fear of it.  

 

If God is our first love and our first treasure, there is nothing to fear.

 

(Easier said than done!)

Hidden Gems

Life is full of hidden gems, if we remember to look for them.

I was little when Nintendo came out. I remember being captivated by the little blocks that, when Mario busted through them, unlocked super powers or helpful gifts.

And it amazes me to find this philosophy is a very spiritual one. If your treasure is in Heaven, everything on earth is a hidden gem.

Car accident that totals your car? An opportunity to become more detached from material things.

Someone speaks poorly of you? An invitation to become detached from yourself.

You picked the very slowest line at the grocery store? A chance to become more patient.

You are sick and unable to be as productive as usual? Opportunity to see yourself weak, as you are.

You parked a million miles away? An opportunity for exercise.

Your student has a special need? An opportunity to seek another way to reach him.

That person you find so irritating? An opportunity to learn about yourself, an opportunity to love without feeling love.

There are infinite examples of hidden gems, which is something so amazing. God can use every circumstance to love us and to bring us gain. And we can be joyful in everything if we know how to see what is hidden.

Small things

"We can do no great things - only small things with great love."

"We must not drift away from the humble works, because these are the works nobody will do.  It is never too small.  We are so small we look at things in a small way.  But God, being Almighty, sees everything great.  Therefore, even if you write a letter for a blind man or you just go and sit and listen, or you take the mail for him, or you visit somebody or bring a flower for somebody - small things - or wash clothes for somebody or clean the house.  Very humble work is where you and I must be.  For there are many people who can do big things.  But there are very few people who will do the small things." - Mother Teresa.

Writing more than this quote seems a little like a waste to me because it is packed with so much meaning and beauty. 

But the irony here is, these words about doing small things is coming from a great woman - a saint.  One of the greatest leaders of our time spoke unfailingly of doing the small things in life with love. 

It is hard to do small things - why?

Sometimes the reason is that we don't seem to be getting much done.  Or the small thing has to be done everyday.

Maybe small things are hard to do because nobody notices, or only notices when they are not done.

Or it could be that small things are hard to do because we want to achieve great things. 

Sometimes spiritual principles don't really add up logically.

Mother Teresa saw herself as a small person doing small things - yet she is seen by the world as a great person doing great things.  Sometimes we look at her and want to drop our own mundane lives and exchange them for a great, purposeful life like hers.  For Mother Teresa, her life was a small life.

Mother Teresa saw these small works as all relating to "the Good God."  Each person she met, each small thing she did, was for Christ.  So everything, even the small things, had a great worth and meaning.

Mother Teresa knew that God noticed everything.  She had a habit of counting off on her fingers, "You did it to Me."

 

Discernment

Good discernment.... is it possible?

I am an amateur at this wonderful art.  My life has been permeated by second-guesses and perfectionistic standards, which often handicap forward motion. 

We all discern differently - and because we are all unique, God speaks and relates with each one of us differently.  Imagine God speaking to a bear the same way He speaks to a flower!  But I want to share some things I've gleaned from the experience of trying to discern.

I can see patterns in how God has spoken to me between one situation and another.

 For me, discerning a new move or a new decision has followed the same arc, regardless of the decision at hand.  It looks like this:

1. "Hunger Pang" Stage: Gut senses that something is not right.

2. "Indigestion" Stage: Months or even years of indecision, usually painful.  Seeing many paths but no awareness of the "right" path.  The only certainty is the pain of the current situation and the desire to work towards resolution.

3. "Labor" Stage: Usually in a very short period of time, multiple people or sources reveal the truth in a way that, to me, feels like several "Aha!" moments.  It might be a choice word of advice that I hear from several friends that week.  It has often been seeing things in my life begin to move (the thing I have been afraid to let go of falls apart, people announce their own decisions that will affect my own). Once, the very week that I was ready to announce to my boss that I had decided to quit and go to grad school, was the same week that he had been preparing to tell me he would need to cut my hours. Another time, I kept hearing "what are you waiting for?" in various ways in a 3-day period. Looking back, the Labor Stage is often a very joyful time because it reveals things coming together in a way that feels serendipitous.

4. "Action" Stage: This is the time (usually a strong gut impulse, literally), where it suddenly becomes clear to me what to do, how to act, in a way that may not have been clear even yesterday.  I often call this the "burden of action." No longer are the painful thoughts that something isn't right just fluttering around - now it is certain that action must happen. 

It really helps to know which stage you are in.

Once, when I was in the "Indigestion" stage, a friend pointed out to me that when you make a pot of chili, there is a really active time of putting ingredients together, and then there is a time when the chili is done.  But the greatest, longest period of time is when the chili simply sits on the stove, simmering.  No action appears to be happening, and yet this is a very necessary time.   Often, during "Indigestion," we want to rush the answer, bring it to fruition, create a burden of action.  But we can't get to the burden of action without time to simmer. 

On the other hand, there are definitely times to take action, when we have gone through the "Labor Stage" but are finding it impossible to move to Action.  Why?  Maybe it's the fear of letting go of the unknown and exchanging it for the known.  Maybe the writing is on the wall but it is not exactly the writing we want to see.  Maybe some of our values are competing with other values and we can't choose one in favor of the other. 

Think - what does a good decision feel like?

I have been imprisoned by so many mind games in the past, sometimes even in bondage to what I think God would want for me (aka - "God would want you to be a martyr", "God wants you to do the hardest, most dislikeable thing you could imagine"). 


Once, a priest challenged me on this way of thinking.  "Have you ever experienced God's presence?" He asked.  "Yes," I said.  "What did it feel like?"

"Light," I said.  "The greatest love I could ever imagine - beyond what I could imagine.  A sense of my own beauty and dignity.  A sense of him laughing with Joy at my very being alive.  A sense that he was with me no matter what."

And the times when I have experienced God's movement in my heart toward a new path - this is how it has always felt:

A world of new possibilities.  Freedom to explore endlessly with delight.  Joy - a deepened sense of joy and hope and an increased sense of how well God knows me and plans for me.  A sense of having been taken care of.  The excitement of all the things that bring joy being together in one place. 

What have been the stages and lessons you have learned about your own discernment?

Spacers

On my first trip to the orthodontist, they put spacers between my teeth.

These are little rubber bands between your teeth to get them ready for braces, or to help set your teeth straight (pun intended).

If you have never had spacers, I will tell you something: they hurt SO MUCH.

Here are your poor teeth - they have been best friends for years, side by side.  Maybe one is a little lopsided. Maybe one is growing diagonally instead of straight.  But through thick and thin, these teeth have stuck together.

And then comes the spacer. 

The spacer is a disturber of the peace of your mouth.  The spacer shakes things up.  The spacer creates division. The spacer breaks up the close friendships of teeth.

The spacer creates room for growth.

Without spacers, we might become convinced that the below image is normal, healthy, good:

 This has been a time in my life for painful uprootings, for painful spacers.  For me, the past few months have been a time where I have had to reevaluate many relationships, where the only clear answer is the need for space.  The space hurts greatly.  I find myself fighting all my natural urges to rush in, repair, heal, create closeness again.  And yet, everything inside of me says, "Give it space.  Give it time."

Just like my 13-year old self, I am once again rebelling against spacers. 

Spacers provide silence.  Spacers provide aloneness.  Spacers show us who we are apart from the whole. 

Spacers show us where we might have been drifting off course.  Spacers can reveal dysfunctions or unhealthy dynamics which might have become so ingrained as to seem normal.  Spacers provide room to breathe, room to view the entire, room to heal. 

Space away from our crowded worlds, chaotic social calendars, enmeshed social patterns and habits,  shows us the inner threads of our deepest longings.  Space reveals the natural trajectory of our lives, values, beliefs. 

Spacers come before braces. 

Sometimes we need the space to see where we are, where we want to go, before we are ready to embark on a new journey.  Sometimes relationships need a space of quiet in order to reach a real place of healing and true cooperation. 

Space reveals us in the eye of our fondest Beholder - God.  Only in God is my soul at rest.  Only at rest can my soul speak.  Only when my soul speaks can I move in the direction of His love, light, joy and peace.