Authentic: true to one’s own personality or character Authenticity: the quality of being authentic

I was raised in a time in the midwest where a person was known and trusted for his word. If you said you were going to do something, you were held to it. The idea of a written signature on a document was totally unnecessary and simply a detail to be handled in due time. I heard innumerable Great Depression stories of my grandfather making promises to pay his debts with chickens or harvest from his garden with only his word as collateral. The grocer and the doctors alike put their trust in that agreement and were never disappointed. My father and uncle ran a construction company and would follow in those footsteps. With the shake of a hand they would agree to a remodel or a kitchen update; the contract would come later. The children of those men would learn how to live into their legacy of authenticity. Do what you say and live according to your beliefs was indelibly etched into our hearts and minds.

Mary and Joseph must have taught the same lessons. According to Matthew, by the time Jesus gets to the oath section of the Sermon on the Mount he is getting quite succinct in his delivery. He simply states: “Let your ‘Yes’ mean ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No’ mean ‘No.’ Anything more is from the evil one.”

Jesus was constantly on the search for authenticity. It’s hard to read Bartholomew’s response to Phillips’s testimonial without smiling: “Can anything good come from Nazareth?” While other’s might have taken offense to such a remark, Jesus welcomes it as demonstrating Bartholomew’s honesty. “Here is a true child of Israel,” he says, “There is no duplicity in him." That honesty would earn Bartholomew a seat at the table for 12. This truth of who you were was encouraged among each of the disciples. Jesus would later confront Peter’s denial and simply give him the opportunity to make it right by affirming his love. This is the rock on which our Church would rest. Knowing the doubts of Thomas, Jesus accepted him as he was and offered him his hands and side.

Jesus repeatedly called out the scribes and pharisees for their inauthenticity, explicitly naming them as hypocrites. He talked of cups that were clean on the outside but dirty on the inside, beautiful white-washed tombs that were filled with decay and old bones, and refused to let slide the memorials they had built for the prophets whom their descendants had killed. Jesus had no fear of naming the many examples of leaders saying one thing and doing another. When prayer and sacrifice became a show, the offending party found himself in the glaring spotlight for all to judge. Jesus would dig back in his memory of Hosea to announce repeatedly, it is not sacrifice but mercy that was desired by God. He was urging them all to move beyond a religion of law and obedience to one of love and compassion. The rituals and ornate temples came in second to the sincere heart.

Jesus promoted authentic conversations with the disciples that would carry them beyond his death by asking hard questions. Who do people/you say that I am? He wanted their honest answers, not something they thought he wanted to hear. If he heard them arguing he would intercede asking them what they were discussing. Judgement was rare. Instead he steered the conversation deeper in order to guide their thinking, moving them toward more thoughtful responses. The apostolic councils were modeled after these challenging conversations. Arguments were presented in the open, discussing each side and hearing testimony until a shared agreement could be reached. Paul and Peter would quite famously confront each other until they could come to an agreement on just who was welcome at the table, answering, “Is this who we are?” This argument was based completely on realigning once and for all those lines of speech and action.

When we come to prayer, it is worth asking some of these same questions. How do you respond to Jesus’s query: “Who do you say that I am?” And to go deeper, “Am I living out the answer to that question; would others see it in my actions? Am I living my faith authentically” And for the clincher, “If Jesus were here, would he agree?”

Technically, these are known as intercessory prayers; we are praying for a special need on behalf of someone else. We stand in the gap between God and our loved ones putting into words our and their deepest desire - for healing, their medical team, for our parents, the sick and suffering, for peace. In Sunday mass, this practice is called the Prayers of the Faithful and written in advance by a liturgist while the community responds to each one with, “Lord, hear our prayer.” Often during daily mass those gathered may be asked to speak aloud their special intentions or simply call forth the silent prayers we hold in our hearts. We can also offer these prayers in our personal practice as we begin or end our daily meditations. It is a lovely habit but like all practices can become routine and lose their oomph. For the sick, blah, blah, blah, hear our prayer. Often if we are part of a prayer group, when a prayer is requested, it may take on more importance as we text back that we are offering up prayers now, in this exact moment. Attaching the physical tapping of the keys adds depth to the prayer and we take that extra moment to contemplate this person and their care. We put words to the action and send it up.

When the need comes close, when it is our mother, our friend, our medical procedure, the prayer takes on a deeper hue and complexity and we practically shout out our, “Lord, hear our prayer.” We put ourselves in the feet of our loved ones and imagine all that he is feeling, thinking, experiencing. We become the friend in the recliner hooked up to the IV in the midst of an infusion or on the operating table wide awake as the surgeon asks us how we are doing. We imagine all that is happening through this prayer of intercession. We think we have given it its due and so we begin the day, our day, but suddenly realize we are not really here, we are there - in the hospital bed, anxious and alert for what is to come, struggling to walk now with a cane, rolling over in bed and feeling anew the pain of the forgotten fracture. We are completely present to there not here, to whatever is happening to our loved ones. We go on with the daily agenda and yet are still lost in this prayer that is a hundred miles away encased in a body that is not ours. We are going through the motions but our mind is completely on our prayer.

So I ponder this prayer practice, how I might take this improved version of an intercessory prayer for my friend who has cancer or is enduring surgery and apply it to the wider world. Before I utter the words I have said over and over again, might I take the time to feel, really feel the message of the prayer, the pain of the community for whom I am praying before reciting, “Lord, hear our prayer?” As we pray for people in war-torn areas of the world, those rebuilding after floods, fires, and earthquakes, might I take that image seen on the news and send it up with the prayer to remind myself of the exact pain and the precise need, the actual request of my prayer?

St. Ignatius talked often about prefacing our prayers with our desire, to dig down into the feelings and get clear on what we are requesting. We can ask for a deeper love, more patience, clearer understanding. In these intercessory prayers we ask to share the pain as we walk the journey of trials with our loved ones, with those facing the destruction of their homes in the Middle East, and those who sit at the bedside of the sick and the dying. These prayers for connection are big and can be broken down into smaller pieces by zooming in on the parts, by seeing, really seeing the parties involved and pinpointing the desire to accompany the prayer. But then Ignatius said, “Love ought to show itself in deeds, more than in words.” So when we have gotten clear on the feelings, it might be time to move and live out his motto for Jesuits: Contemplatives in action. We go to the bedsides with a latte, ask what is needed, we write out those prayers for peace and send them to our leaders.

So next week when we stand for the Creed and prayers of the faithful, let us take a moment to prepare our hearts for what is coming. May we listen with deeper intensity, and in the second before we respond, create the image of the prayer in our minds and attach the grace and feeling of what we desire. And we pray, “Lord, hear our prayer.”

Conversion takes a lifetime. It is not a single decision but more of a direction or orientation which we follow. In the beginning, we are gauging it all as we move along, living this new faith and trying to understand if this novel version of us feels better, kinder, more loving. As we begin to live into the choice we become more of the new faith practice, leaving what was behind, so that this begins to feel more and more natural, ordinary, and mundane. We embrace the stories of those who also have made the jump to this faith and grow in acceptance of the decision. We no longer look back but only forward to see what may lie ahead.

Although, Ignatius of Loyola was raised Catholic, his story of conversion is one that we might model. Many people think of his conversion as being that moment in time, quite literally his “cannonball” moment. Raised as a noble and being struck by a cannonball on the battlefield, he was carried home to begin his conversion. Ignatius was a lover of stories of chivalry and courtly heroism yet in his recovery, his primary available reading selections were that of Jesus and the saints, later noting that they left him with feelings of peace and consolation. It would be a year before he would be strong enough to ritualize his conversion by leaving his sword at the foot of the Black Madonna at Montserrat, dedicating his life to religious service, and another year would pass in the writing of the Spiritual Exercises in the cave in Manresa. Still he continued on with the conversion process, struggling to create a religious order and being turned back time and time again in Barcelona, Paris and Rome. His cannonball moment in 1521 would eventually lead to the establishment of the Jesuit order in 1534 and its papal approval in 1540. Ignatius persisted to learn and pray and reflect throughout his life. He would continue encountering people who challenged his thinking and modify his perspective through spiritual direction, letters, and administrative documents, as well as his autobiography until his death in 1556.

As we travel through our own conversion stories, we will begin to notice similar starts and stops along the way. We discern job changes, relationships, moves, or service opportunities, and road blocks occur where there is no alternative but to make a u-turn or change direction. But we are not deterred. We, like Ignatius, put our trust in the divine, knowing that we have been called to this faith journey and travel on. We tweak our prayer life, our church of choice, the spiritual texts we ponder and search for the growth. We pay attention to movements in our spirituality and note where and when we feel closer to God, making the minute adjustments in that direction. The dead ends and u-turns are not the end of the path but simply a recalculation. In time we learn or relearn ways that we can hold on to this orientation toward God and like a captain of our own ship steer toward the horizon holding the ship on a steady course as best we can. We are patient with ourselves and our travel companions knowing the journey is long and always moving toward love, kindness, and goodness.

Alli Bobzien, a Jesuit essayist recently shared a similar story. “Mommy, it’s amazing that I can still hear with this rock in my ear!” These were the words that started a long day of navigating how to remove the pebble lodged snugly in my 6-year-old daughter’s ear. In the flurry of anxious meetings with doctors and long minutes of flashlights being shone into ears, I asked my daughter when the rock had made its way into this inappropriate location. She looked me straight in the eyes as she calmly replied, “When we went to the park with Megan.” My mind spun, I counted back, and nearly screeched, “That was 10 days ago!”

Realizing my angry reaction may have been the cause of her reticence to share, I took a deep breath and asked, “Why didn’t you come to me with this problem earlier?” Her reply floored me. “The rock wasn’t hurting me, and I was worried that it would hurt to take out, so I thought maybe it was fine just staying there.”

This is a place we often find ourselves in life. We are aware of a discomfort or pain but choose to remain there for fear that changing it might actually be more uncomfortable. I am an avid walker and I often discover small matter finding its way into and lodging itself between my shoe and sock. Until recently I would tend to leave it there and simply maneuver my foot around it into new locations rather than stopping and removing the shoe. That is until a hole appeared in my sock as a result of this tiny tree dropping. So even at this late time in life I continue to learn about pain and change.

We all have been or know people who stayed in living situations or jobs with this same discomfort of a pebble in our ear, knowing that it hurts, or just shouldn’t be there, but choose to stay in case leaving would actually cause more pain. It is fear that enters in and holds to what we know. We cling to what’s common, expected, comfortable or simply a habit.

This holding, clinging to what we know is also common in our spiritual lives. We get stuck in a church or mass or prayer practice because that is what we have always done. We may be bored out of our minds and knowing full well we are not growing in our faith but we continue on, stuck in the rut of complacency we have made for ourselves. If we are to grow spiritually, we are called to lean in to all that leads us closer to God. We get no points for perfect attendance at the church of our parents or grandparents, no gold star for being present to the homilist who more than anything else, bores us into people-watching or quizzing ourselves on the religious art in view.

It is between us and God to discover what fits, what challenges us to a clearer understanding of who we are to be as a Christian. We know when we have become stagnant and we are called to fight against it. Ignatius of Loyola named this agre contra, a latin phrase meaning, to act against or do the opposite. He called us to actually look for these moments when what we are doing or thinking is not life giving or freeing us to love more fully and deeply. We can think about this as being similar to the reflective process we use going into the season of Lent. What is pulling me away from God or keeping me from being more present to my spirituality? Does it need to be removed or should something put in its place?

To be human is to be a creature of habit. It is simply the way we operate best. Some of our habits are not only necessary but simplify our daily lives. Rising, getting breakfast, and walking the dog are all things that must be done early in the day. It is in the how that we can open ourselves up to a fuller experience of life. Scheduling a moment of gratitude as we view sunlight breaking through the window, varying the breakfast menu, or reversing the route of the dog’s walk can freshen up each of these actions and result in a deeper presence to God’s role in our lives. We thank God for light, these strawberries in place of blueberries, or the tree in full bloom that we never even noticed only a few blocks from our house simply because we got in the habit of each one. The more we do something, the less attention we pay to the process of doing it. We quickly become robotic and are just going through the motions.

So Ignatius asks us to be present to these habits and just contemplate what lies beneath. Is my prayer time becoming routine, am I rushing through the steps because it’s become a habit? Is it now simply a box I check off, a 30-minutes and done, or am I waiting for the movement of God and willing to allow the Spirit to determine how I pray? This is one avenue where safety or doing what we have always done may not be the best plan. Perhaps there is a pebble in my ear that is keeping me from change or from thinking bigger. Let’s take back the autopilot controls and turn the wheel toward something new or different. Order tea in place of coffee, take the long way home, allow God to enter in, in new ways, and inadvertently discover that you are learning something new in the process.

The daily practice of an examen, thinking back through the events of a day, leads us to seeing how God is moving in our lives. In the silence, we consider the who and what we have encountered through the day and how we responded to each one. It is here that our thoughts and actions, the interior and exterior, become one. How did it feel then and what am I sensing now? Do I want to repeat it or change it the next time?What lesson does it have for me to carry forward? As I continue this practice and get better at it, I begin to understand and recognize characteristics of the people I engage in conversation that lead me toward a better version of myself. And who does not. This practice done day after day leads us to the seeing, then seeking and finding God in all things. Gradually and ever so slowly, knowing we will be doing the review in the evening leads us to become more aware in the here and now. Rather than waiting until the day is done and thinking back on it, we begin to develop the awareness of these comforting or awkward moments in the present as they are happening. We are paying attention to the interiority of our existence.

Phase 2 of this attending more closely to life comes quite naturally. Suddenly we are seeing connections everywhere and picking up on coincidences we might have otherwise missed because we simply weren’t looking for them. We start to see how things go together, how the universe works toward its own good. But because we are noticing these relationships in the world, we also see them occurring at odd or unusual times. You take your family on vacation to Disneyland, hundreds of miles away and run into your child’s classmate. What are the chances in this mob of people that we would look up and see Ashley here? Everyone laughs and we realize this is that SAT vocabulary word we learned in junior high, serendipity - the occurrence of fortunate, valuable, or pleasant events that happen only by chance. That is one type of coincidence but there is a second. Synchronicity was named by the psychologist, Carl Jung in 1929. This coincidence is the interconnectedness of the interior and exterior. You are thinking of a friend and suddenly he walks right by you. You can’t help but wonder if there is some unseen force at work, that your thoughts might now have the power to bring people to life or at least move them into your line of sight. We’re so struck by this that we tell everyone and use words like strange, weird, unusual.

Jung was working with highly analytical patients who experienced this thought/reality, interior/exterior, connection and it was this point that allowed them to break through in their treatments to think outside of their logical or rational processing. In Jung’s thinking the meaning or importance of these events came from the patients’ noticing and they noticed because it didn’t fit or make sense with how they believed the world worked. In the logical world, thinking something and its concurrent appearance is impossible. Jung believed these moments pointed to a hidden, structured order of reality where the mind and the exterior world touch.

It is here where the theists and the atheists diverge and part company. Believers are known to credit God for these synchronous moments. I could be thinking of my mom who loved butterflies and one darts into my line of vision. I immediately think God has sent it to confirm her love. I hear the last song my husband and I danced to and I imagine he is somehow pulling puppet strings from another dimension just so I remember. There is no cause and effect in these synchronous coincidences, we don’t think them into being. It is simply these two things occurring simultaneously: a thought from my interior life attaching itself to something I see in the physical exterior world. It is in the noticing that we too attach the meaning. In this moment as we stop to marvel, we can let God in and simply choose to be grateful for the thought, the butterfly, the music. Or we can choose to go deeper. In the daily examen that night or better yet in spiritual direction we ask ourselves, “What does it mean?” How is God moving in me, what is this thought stirring?

Most Christians do not believe that God intervenes in the ordinary daily lives of humans. God isn’t releasing butterflies or DJ-ing a favorite song from above just to get our attention. Ignatian practices of quiet contemplation ask us to look for these movements and ponder the feeling that follows; what are the things that today brought us consolation or unsettled us and then bring them to conversation with God. It is these mundane noticings day after day that grow into the skill of discernment. We ask where God is leading and our attachment of meaning is the gentle escort of God’s accompaniment.

Some of us will take this synchronicity even one step further and name it divine. What is it that pulls you back from stepping off the curb as a moment later you sense a careening bus with you in its sights? How else do we explain a loved one suffering a stroke and despite all odds fully recovering within days? When medical marvels meet prayer and love it coalesces and we name it divine. I can’t prove it one way or another but I’ve seen enough synchronicities to know that something else is as work here.

So let’s look for the butterflies, listen for the music, find all the synchronicities that are waiting to be discovered; not only to give God credit but to find what is stirring in us. It is there that God will be found.

One of his more challenging days had to be the day of his sandwich miracles, a healing inside of a healing. He has just crossed over the lake and immediately a crowd gathers around him. Out of nowhere, Jairus, a leader of the local synagogue approaches, imploring him for help. Jesus is immediately moved. His daughter is dying and he knows Jesus can heal her. Jairus is clearly taking a risk here, putting his trust in this would-be messiah. Jesus simply follows him, no attention or fanfare, perhaps a slight nod of the head was all that was called for. But not so fast! The crowd continues to grow and Jesus is approached again but this time, surreptitiously by a hemorrhaging woman. Now either of those descriptors could explain her sneakiness. A bleeding woman in first century Jerusalem was not to be taken lightly. She, too is taking a risk. But Jesus was her last option. She has been bleeding for twelve years and no doctors or remedies have helped. She reaches out only for the hem of his cloak; this is the depth of her faith. She didn’t need to be touched or identified in any way, just a finger’s width of fabric would be all that she required. And she was right! But before she could escape unnoticed, Jesus wants to know who has touched him. She had the determination to seek this cure so now she is obliged to bring it to its natural end and identify herself. The writers of the gospels do not give us her words or even her name, only that she was afraid and that Jesus calmed her. He affirms that her faith has indeed cured her. But the faith he’s talking about is not just something she believed would happen, it is the connection that links the two of them together, first in her mind and now here in the flesh. She is the center of the miracle sandwich, now let’s get back to the bread. We leave behind the woman, fade to black and return to the promise made to Jairus and his daughter. The small group arrive at Jairus’s house, seemingly too late, and are greeted by crying mourners. Jesus quietly tells them they are mistaken and he endures their heckling, while escorting Jairus into the house and closing the door on any other possible distractions. In this miracle, he simply takes this second unnamed female by the hand and invites her to get up. The sandwich is complete, two healings with plenty of daylight left.

Let’s review. Jairus asks for a healing - Jesus nods and follows. The hemorrhaging woman touches Jesus’s cloak - he meets her and sends her on her way. Jesus removes the mourners from Jairus’s house and simply takes the hand of the daughter, healing her. They are all incredibly small movements: a nod, a touch, taking a hand. This is what Jesus calls us to. This, only this, is what it is to be the hands and feet of Jesus. They are each simple things that we do every day without even thinking; we are completely capable of nodding, touching, holding a hand. They only require proximity and to respond to the human need that we see in front of us.

To be Jesus on earth is to come near, approach the margins, to see people, meet them, touch them, hold their hand. It is making eye contact and smiling at the unhoused, it is holding a door for the woman struggling to balance her baby and stroller. Then we ripple out; continuing these movements, though they remain small in expenditure, there is great increase in their end result. We come near to scoop beans and rice at the food pantry, stand in solidarity for the stranger, write letters to our leaders. This is what it is to be Jesus. And always it is praying, praying for them, for us, that we might remember Jesus’s call to follow, to come and see, and then to go out.

Being and staying Catholic is not and has not ever been easy. I have left any number of times and all for valid reasons. The first was due to my marital status. I believed I was no longer wanted or welcomed as a divorcée. Wrong. But it took me some time to allow God and others to look upon me again with love. Then there was the sexual abuse scandals that seemed to go on and on. I understand completely all the people for whom that was a bridge too far. But I was hot and cold on what would be accomplished by my leaving, so I watched and listened and seriously considered where any of my financial offerings might be going. Then there was the move out of the Bay Area and discovering that although catholic means universal, the Catholic church in Santa Clara is not the Catholic church in Vancouver, Washington and that’s not the Catholic church in central Florida. So I left and returned and left and returned. At some point, I had to extract myself from the revolving door and decide once and for all, are you staying or going? By that time I had quite a number of resources to sustain my continued formation inside the church but none on the outside. And so I stay.

We stay because we are being fed. There were many people along my journey that provided those meals to bolster my trust and faith in my religion of choice. They all crossed my path because of the decision I made to work in a Jesuit school. It was there that I met the three most important Catholic leaders from whom I continue to read and learn. My personal trinity is made up of James Martin, SJ, Richard Rohr, OFM, and Greg Boyle, SJ. They, along with weekly worship at a Jesuit church, sustain me. If these names are new, they are each worthy of deeper investigation.

Our Jesuit Scholastic first introduced me to James Martin, SJ and his books, The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything: A Spirituality for Real Life and My Life with the Saints. Martin wrote so I could understand this Jesuit thing beyond the painted quotes in the halls and posters in the classrooms. He is an author I continue to dip into. Richard Rohr is another author who has served as a guide to my thinking on a daily basis through his reflections from the Center for Action and Contemplation. And then came Greg Boyle, SJ. Again, I met him first through his books. I have read them all but his most recent one, Cherished Belonging: The Healing Power of Love in Divided Times, is one that I continue to revisit and recommend widely.

I believe Greg Boyle, SJ is the closest thing to a mystic that I will ever encounter. I have met him personally twice, been on one of his retreats, seen him speak several times, and listened to countless interviews with him. Each time I am left with a new one-liner that could easily become a life mantra and they just seem to ooze out of him.

No us and them, just us. Love never fails. Sooner or later, we all discover that kindness is the only strength there is. God is just too busy loving us to have any time left for disappointment. You are exactly what God had in mind when He made you. Everyone is unshakably good. (No exceptions). We belong to each other. Violence is the lethal absence of hope.

It is the constant influx of writers like Martin, Rohr, and Boyle that remind me to stay, that there is work to be done here, and that we can best do it together. Their writing and conversations remind me how to live as Jesus did, how to love even when it’s hard. They carry me through the more challenging times of being Christian in a world that thrives on power and money, judgement and name calling. There is a story in three of the gospels of a paralytic man being carried into the home of what we suppose to be Simon Peter’s. I focus not on the man or the words that are spoken or even the discussion that follows on which command is appropriate, but on the four friends who carry him. They lift him, bearing his weight through Capernaum and according to Mark and Luke, cut through the roof to get to Jesus. This is the image that I hold of all those who sustain me in my faith journey, being lifted and carried and placed before Jesus as he tells me to get up and walk. These writers and more are my moral heroes reminding me that love is always the answer.

Here is more:

A reflection essay by Andy Otto: Cherished Belonging, Reimagining Sin as Woundedess

The Spiritual Life podcast: James Martin and Greg Boyle Compassion and Kinship And Father Martin’s response to their conversation: Meeting Our Moral Heroes

The Spiritual Life podcast: James Martin and Richard Rohr God, Brokenness, and Healing

I am one that has a constant stream of thoughts running through my mind. I think about a current writing topic, a memory that a sibling has recently shared with me, yogurt that needs to be added to the weekly grocery list, the beginning of a plan for something that’s happening tomorrow, next week, next month. There was a time in my life when this conversation for one served me quite well. The teaching profession is one where multiple decisions must be made quickly and hence several thoughts bombarding one another is quite helpful: get the attendance turned in, check in on why Samantha was late this morning, you have yard duty today at recess, make sure to run through those vocabulary words with Josh, and on and on.

And in my aging years, it is still non-stop. I walk the neighborhood just so I can pay attention to something outside of my being: other walkers, bike riders, flowers in or out of bloom, the perfect patch of earth my dog has chosen to smell. I read to stop the chatter in my brain and write to get it down so the important thoughts are not lost into thin air. I am quite naturally distracted with no help needed from modern technology. Lately the noise has even taken over my prayer life. Once I gave myself permission to change the daily schedule, the slow erosion set in. I no longer held myself to the rituals I had observed daily for the past couple years. Some days, it felt like just a bit of chaos. “But,” I defended myself to God, “I”m still praying,” hoping against hope that it was was still recognizable as that.

I am distracted. Distract, attract, contract all come from the same etymology, meaning to draw or pull. The affixes help with our understanding of each of these words: - /dis/ meaning away, /at/ meaning toward, and /con/, with.

As I allow myself to be distracted I am the one doing the pulling. If Jesus is the vine and I am the branch, I am definitely prone to some breakage. When, in prayer, I consider the book I wanted to order on Amazon that I was going to do yesterday and forgot, I am allowing that thing to interrupt the flow. Sometimes, the voice becomes so loud that I convince myself that my prayer conversation will actually be better served if I just take care of it now so I can cross it off my to-do list and come back to prayer fully focused. For who knows, I may forget again today and be faced with the same dilemma at prayer tomorrow? And just like that, I am up, out of my chair and sitting in front of the computer. Later, I will come to understand that was most likely the false spirit taking over and orchestrating anything that could come between me and the Divine. But I momentarily feel the sense of accomplishment, not distraction as I struggle back to the prayer chair and attempt to begin again.

I’ve lost track of how many monthly meetings in succession that I have begun my spiritual direction meeting with, “I’m distracted in prayer.” So I have tried a few things out. Some have been successful for a few days and other remedies have lasted longer.

• Show up every day in the same place. Sometimes, the same time is also helpful.

• Create a routine that has an intentional beginning. Ground yourself with your feet on the floor. Light a candle and play music to settle those extraneous thoughts.

• Use visual images to focus your attention - figurines, pictures or prayer cards, natural objects (flowers, rocks, shells), or prayer beads. Settle in.

• Refrain from self punishment of the wayward thoughts. Simply greet them and send them on their way so you can go back to the conversation you came for.

• Expect distractions. They are part of life and definitely part of prayer. I often wonder if God isn’t quite entertained by it all. What is she thinking about now; what’s for lunch?

• Choose a different sensory input. I do best listening to the scriptures as opposed to reading; it keeps me from skimming or jumping ahead because I’ve “heard it before.” I recommend the Pray as You Go app will not only read the scripture, but give you the reflection questions.

• Talk about it to others and find out what else they do. How do you pray is a topic we all need more of.

My final tip is, be good to yourself. Changes in prayer mean you are growing, changing, maturing. The words of Fr. Francis de Sales may bring comfort: “If the heart wanders, or is distracted, bring it back to the point quite gently and replace it tenderly in its master’s presence. And even if you did nothing during the whole of your hour but bring your heart back and place it again in Our Lord’s presence, though it went away every time you brought it back, your hour would be very well employed.” According to the writings of Fr. Thomas Keating, the Trappist monk who helped popularize Centering Prayer, a practitioner told him she was distracted a thousand times in 20 minutes, he replied: “Wonderful. You have a thousand opportunities to turn back to God.” So we continue praying, being distracted, and coming back. Along the way, we are building muscle memory by showing up. We are growing the relationship with God through our continued prayer and personal presence. So come, sit down (or stand or bow or walk), bring your mind and body however you are to the space, allow yourself to know and be known, then simply accept what comes your way.

In Matthew, chapter 5, Jesus goes through all the beatitudes, how we are to be salt and light, then takes a stand on anger, adultery, and divorce, finishing up with loving our enemies. That’s a lot. But he’s not done yet and his last line does nothing to ease our discomfort. “Be perfect therefore,” he says, “as your heavenly Father is perfect.” There it is! My attempt at perfection has the Jesus seal of approval. But I wonder… I can work pretty hard at getting things just right but God Perfection feels a bit out of my realm. Even for lifelong perfectionists, this seems too steep a hill to climb.

What is actually being asked of us in this “Be perfect” demand? Jesus knows what it is to be human and he’s been very clear about our frailty. So maybe it is just a call to give it our best shot, to love like Jesus loves, to grow in grace and depth of thought. Looking closer at the phrasing, we can assume it correlates to everything that preceded this line - the blessing of the meek, merciful, and peacemakers, the goal to become salt and light, and to somehow take responsibility for our thoughts as well as our actions. Matthew’s use of the word, therefore, used as a contraction, tells us this line is based on what came just before it - loving our enemies. Now we have a place to start.

If we turn to the Greek translation, we see something we can more closely approximate. The word teleios for perfect does not mean sinless or flawless as we think of it today. The translation is closer to complete, full, mature or meeting the goal. Despite the towering challenge of loving our enemies, this translation brings perfection down to a bite size. Jesus affirms the love we show to our family and neighbors and dares us to this same radical love for our enemies.

We live in a time when more and more of us can confess to having enemies, people we would rather were not walking the planet. They may not have done or said anything to us personally, but we resent their language, perspective, or the hatred that they ignite. The best we can do is pray for them. This perfection, Jesus is calling us to, now becomes a bit more challenging. How do I retain my status of a loving Christian in this world where the other side engenders discomfort, annoyance, or distain in us? Sister Laurie Brink, OP, a professor of New Testament studies at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago gives us a thought to consider.

Perhaps we start by holding ourselves accountable to what we profess and truly owning that we are children of God. We have a shared humanity with those whom we deem our enemies. I may not be able to see them as brothers and sisters, but I can start by recognizing that they are neighbors in the human family. I don’t have to like everyone in my family. I don’t have to condone their actions, support their thinking, or refrain from criticizing their behavior. But I do have to be civil. I do have to stop name-calling. I have to stop stereotyping. I have to risk the attitudes and actions of a disciple. Anything less is not fit for the reign of God.

I am a child of God, as is everyone else. I believe whole heartedly in imago dei, that each person I encounter is created in the image of God and that each bears inviolable dignity given, not earned, by God. I do not have the right to see them or treat them as anything less. And so we begin the work of loving our enemies as our neighbors and to be perfect, therefore as your Father in heaven is perfect. Be complete, be whole, be mature. This is how we go about achieving perfection in a world that is eager to judge and sort into groups of good and evil. So we open our hearts and minds and allow God to discomfort us, to break into our self-talk and remind us that we all belong, we all need each other. we are one.

The Genesis creation story has God at the very least, taking a moment at the end of every day to say, “It is good,” and then the full seventh day to rest. Moving into Exodus, if we take a moment to analyze the Ten Commandments, once God finishes up with the importance of I am your God and God’s holiness, God moves us into that seventh day lesson, and sets down the importance of keeping the Sabbath. It was not a suggestion or just a good idea but an imperative for how to grow our relationship with God and our community. According to Jewish tradition, Sabbath meant a period of rest for 24 hours, no work, and in its place, worship, rituals of candles and meals together as family. Through the centuries, we have watered it down enough now that its head can barely be seen above water. Growing up in the midwest in the 60s, I remember closed stores and Sundays set aside for “family time,” going for a drive or visiting old friends and shirttail relatives. Keeping Sabbath now is condensed down to an hour’s time of our attendance at Mass or service and if you’re Catholic in a parish with multiple masses, you can usually make it fit around your schedule rather than the other way around. It seems that, as usual, we have lost sight of the goal; it is less about the schedule and more about the rest.

The world we live in, especially our own country puts excessive value on productivity, accomplishments, and promotions. Our worth is determined by what we do and expectations are fulfilled by marking our growth, step by step up the ladder. Employees in private industry move unabatedly from one project to the next and the service sectors continue to add to the already overflowing plates of their employees. Adult work often becomes a battle between how far we can push ourselves and the next scheduled day off. Rest now comes during breaks from work’s peak times - the week after Christmas, the summer down-time schedule. Rest has become the afterthought.

Our employers got it wrong. Rest is not the opposite of work or something that we earn after the work is complete. Rest and work are partners and must coexist in order for the work to attain it greatest potential. Alex Pang wrote a whole book about it! REST: Why You Get More Done When You Work Less He suggests four main principles that may guide our thinking on how to rest better, improving our work and perhaps, in the process, creating our own version of keeping the Sabbath.

1. Work and rest are partners.

   Consider creatives and world class athletes. Each knows that rest will feed the work.

2. Rest is active.

   It is something you do. Get outside and walk, hike, or rock climb. Your brain is resting. Read a book, watch a movie and let your body rest.

3. Rest is a skill.

   Rest, like everything else is something we get better at with practice. Try new versions of rest and practice them to see how they might fit into your routine.

4. Deliberate rest stimulates and sustains creativity.

   We schedule our days and nights for our own personal productivity. It helps to determine your individual daily clock - some of us are morning people and are ready to work upon rising and others have their own golden hour when they are at their best. Alternate your work and rest commitments to see how they complement each other.

As we search for some specific ways to rest and reclaim the idea of Sabbath, we hold the notion that rest is not necessarily an emptiness or a void. The prayer chair or the church is not an exclusive home for the Holy. Time that is dedicated to God can be spent in the garden, on a walk with the dog, or a hike in the woods. It can be shared listening to music or chatting with a friend over coffee.

Now, as we find ourselves falling deeper into summer, is the perfect time to try out a new schedule or strategies to rest more deliberately and lay claim to living out our Sabbath. I plan to take some of my own advice here and play around with a new weekly agenda that might allow for more writing experimentation, balancing out my reading menu, and perhaps add some bubbles to those creative juices.

This porous self means that we are open to it all: all the joy, all the sorrow, all the beauty, all the goodness that life has to offer. We open ourselves up to it, take it in and let it flow through us. Despite our desire to grasp and hold onto joy and beauty it never works because all of life is ephemeral and fleeting so instead we now allow it all to become part of us. To clarify this, Bowler cites Charles Taylor’s book, A Secular Age.

Charles Taylor describes two very different ways of being a person. The first he calls the porous self. The porous self has a permeable boundary—no firm wall between the inner life and the world outside. Meaning, grace, beauty, the divine, even sorrow can cross into you from elsewhere. Taylor calls this self vulnerable, and he means it as a description, not an insult. You are open to forces you did not generate. When joy arrives, it visits you. When suffering comes, it may be coming from somewhere larger than your own circumstances. The porous self is not the master of its own experiences with the world. And (mostly) this is experienced as a relief. You do not have to manufacture meaning to be living a deeply important life. Meaning comes to you.

The porous self is my spirit open to receiving the divine. I place myself in the stillness however I find it and allow whatever is here to become part of me. I become aware of the presence of the moment and feel all that surrounds me. There are no thoughts of what will follow or come next. What we discover may be the music of birds off in the distance, the simpleness of a breath in and out that reminds us we are vibrantly alive, the beauty of the immense Italian Cypress tress set against the cerulean summer sky. Because we are open to it all, we allow ourselves to be surprised. We let joy happen.

Every day, every now is a moment of encounter, an invitation to the possible. As we dig deeper into the slower cadence of summer, allow yourself this porousness, this open flow. Give yourself the gift of just a few minutes to be, not to do or think or plan, but just be the conduit of the divine flowing through you. Be surprised. Let joy happen.

While I have no memory of my first encounter with the word awe, I definitely remember when ponder entered my lexicon. Sitting in the pew of Hardin Presbyterian Church I heard it for the first time in the readings from Luke on Epiphany following the visit from the shepherds: “But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart.” Then it shows up again when Mary and Joseph returned to the temple to collect wayward twelve-year old Jesus after he chose to stay behind: “His mother pondered all these things in her heart.” There is no way that even a young child like I was could miss the context clues and not know immediately the meaning of this word. Even now, any time I encounter the word ponder, it’s hard for me not to first bring Mary to mind. I imagine she did a lot of pondering.

The Greek version of the word, however means to throw together or weigh. As Mary pondered she was taking the wild and crazy, curious and surprising events of her life as the mother of Jesus and placing them alongside what she already knew and understood about God. It was the pondering that allowed her to come to discern God’s plan for Jesus. And so it is for us, to ponder is to view our own circumstances through the lens of our own faith and wisdom.

The word awe on the other hand draws us more toward a physical reaction. Our eyes may widen, the jaw may drop, and an unbidden sound may even come forth from our throat. We stop and take in the sight before us. It is quick and spontaneous, completely outside the confines of our control. In spiritual terms, we think of synonyms like wonder, admiration, and reverence. The first image that comes to mind is that of creation and the natural world: a rose garden, the Grand Canyon, the Pacific Ocean. We stop and look up at the beauty of a rainbow, study satellite images of the cosmos, or take in the architecture of cathedrals such as Notre Dame in Paris, the Duomo in Milan, or Grace Cathedral in San Francisco. Once we start thinking about awe, our mind is flooded with images of beauty and things we simply can’t imagine how they came to be.

Ponder and awe are certainly not opposites. What may be opposite is their duration. Awe is quick and involuntary where as ponder is a slow, deliberate action. It may actually begin as awe and because it has surprised or amazed us, we choose to pause, slow our thinking, and begin to analyze exactly what we have encountered, what it might mean, and how it might fit into what we already believe. I would suggest that awe and ponder are more like two heads of the same coin. Awe is the emotional, look at that response and ponder is where the academic and more intellectual processes can take over and curiosity and reflection can begin.

Perhaps the best think about awe and ponder is that while they can be done alone, neither requires solitude One of my fondest childhood memories of my mom was watching her instead of the 4th of July fireworks. Her face reflected the bright lights, her smile broadening with each boom, followed by her AHH! and OOH! This was awe at its finest. Pondering partners only require a bit of vulnerability. This is much of what my monthly spiritual guidance is. I say to Lynne, I’ve been thinking about this thing or this part of my prayer practice. She says, “Hmm,” waiting for me to continue, and together we ponder, allowing me to decide what it might mean going forward. The same thing happens in my coffee dates with friends. We share stories and we ponder what it might mean. This age of retirement is the perfect space for pondering.

Both awe and ponder deserve a place in our prayer practices. We want to keep being amazed by the wonder of our world, the people who are placed on our paths, the generosity of God. We want to remain open, receptive to how all this beauty and amazement is forming us into more loving beings. We don’t always have to have the answer, sometimes we can just be overcome by beauty and rest there for a bit. But just as important, we want to make time to ponder, to consider how all of this fits together in who we are becoming. Like Mary, we want to align the surprising events of our lives with what we know about God and discern the plan or at least figure out the next right thing.

I can remember seeing the movie, Fiddler on the Roof as a teenager and thinking that people of the Jewish faith were on to something in terms of living it out in their day to day experiences. It seemed to be ever present, like a flashing light announcing their beliefs and practices, at least in the early 1900s near Kyiv. Their faith determined what they wore, what they ate, and how they spoke to each other. Tevye woke each day in conversation with God and ended it the same way. In the in between hours, thoughts of God and God’s opinions were never far from his conscious mind. They argued together, wrestled, and came to consensus on love, politics, and the changing role of courtship. Judaism was much more than a set of rules for him and his family. It was a way of being.

Richard Rohr shared some thoughts on how we too might more consciously live out our faith many years ago in his book of daily meditations, Yes, And.

“Christianity is a lifestyle—a way of being in the world that is simple, nonviolent, shared, and loving. However, we made it into an established religion (and all that goes with that) and avoided the lifestyle change itself. We could be warlike, greedy, racist, selfish, and vain throughout most of Christian history and still believe that Jesus is our personal Lord and Savior or continue, in good standing, to receive the sacraments. The world has no time for such silliness anymore. The suffering on earth is too great.”

It seems that somewhere along the line, the Church leaders chose to lean heavily on the rules of Christianity rather than the habits of living it out. Go to church once a week, go to confession monthly or when you think you need it but especially on your deathbed, and after confirmation, be as much like Jesus as you can. As long as you mostly showed up on Sunday and kept the church financed, the leaders seemed to be happy. That left a very wide gap for our daily living.

It bears to consider what might it look like if we were to take on Christianity as a lifestyle instead of just something we did on Sundays? What if, like Tevye, people could actually see from our presentation, from our language, and from our behavior that we were Christian? Like many virtues we profess, it begins on the inside and must work its way out. If I am going to begin my day in conversation with the Divine, it is a habit that must be built from the ground up. We wake up and guide our first thought to just this knowledge, I am awake. That is followed with gratitude. Thank you, God for bringing me through the night and granting me this new day to use for good. This must be where the children’s Morning Offering I used in my first grade classroom had its birth: Heavenly Father, I offer you this day all that I shall think or do or say, uniting it with what was done by Jesus Christ, your only Son. Amen. Consider how your day might begin if your mind was on Jesus and not that twinge in your hip or the cramp in your leg. Now as you enter the day you are one with God and hence, in search of beauty and the gifts we tend to overlook - the setting moon, the clouds set up against the bright blue sky, the faithful cat or dog on your heel looking to you with love. We slow down, take a moment, absorbing it all. As we build this habit, it all becomes prayer and we begin the day’s conversation

Christians do not wear prayer shawls to announce their morning prayers but there are rituals we can build into our day that will serve the same purpose and announce to those around us that we are in relationship with God. Once again, it has an internal beginning. We may have a special chair, or candle we light, or blanket we put over our legs as we begin. As we dress for the day we do it with this same intentionality. We may want to consider ways to remember our faith: a cross pendant or bracelet, or a piece of jewelry given to us by a friend or family member to call out to that love. This act alone puts deeper meaning into the gift and each time you put it on becomes a prayer in its own right. I once did an at-home retreat where we were asked to choose a somewhat new item to use as a baptismal garment for a re-enacting of our blessing. I chose a rust colored cape (not very baptism-like) and to this day every time I put it on, it is with the action of drenching myself in the baptismal waters. And I remember. The simple act of reaching my arm toward it, is prayer.

There are, of course other simple things we can do to carry Jesus with us. Some people keep a cross or small rock in their pocket. During retreat, I often carry a rosary ring. It rarely encourages me to say the rosary but the shape and size of it gives me something to fidget with and remember why I am there. Others wear a red string bracelet to connect to their heart and remind themselves to act with love.

Now we’re moving closer to Richard Rohr’s point, living out our faith in words and actions. As Christians we are called to respect the human dignity of each person. The descriptors Rohr chose are simple, non-violent, shared, loving. Some of us begin with only two, love and mercy. They might be enough to get us started on Rohr’s more global dream. If Jesus was anything it was loving and merciful. Maybe that thing we have in our pocket might be just the reminder we need to treat everyone we meet with love and mercy. What if all we did was look into the eyes of a peer or stranger and call to mind that this person right here in front of me is a child of God? Imago Dei. No matter what they are saying, whose team they are on, God loves them just like God loves me. What if, like Ignatius suggested, we presupposed goodness, that we assumed that even if their words could be interpreted as racist or hateful, that that was not their intention? Here is a starting place to lean into mercy.

It won’t come easily and there will definitely be some epic fails but the time couldn’t be better for some of us to put a little love in our hearts and then pour it out into the world, to begin to live our faith as a lifestyle. Let us become more like Tevye, unable to distinguish faith from action where religion is so tightly woven into our fabric that it can no longer be pulled apart without our very being unraveling.

There are numerous times in scripture when Jesus calls out to us a familiar invitation, anyone who has eyes, let them see. There is clearly a reason that Jesus’s encounters with the blind are so numerous. All of these examples of blindness are a reminder to each of us to question, what do I see, really see? How do I look at the world and the people in it?

• Two blind men in Galilee (Matthew 9:27-31)

• The blind man of Bethsaida (Mark 8:22-26)

• The demon-possessed man who was blind and mute (Matthew 12:22-23)

• Two blind men leaving Jericho (Matthew 20:29-34). Note: The Gospels of Mark and Luke focus specifically on one of these men, named Bartimaeus (Mark 10:46-52).

• The man born blind at the pool of Siloam (John 9:1-41)

Jesus is constantly calling us to see and gives us the model in his own relationships. There is no one that he encounters and looks away: not from the lepers, not the blind, or even the physically and mentally disabled. Can we say the same? He draws near and walks with them. It is clear that Jesus has a direct connection from his eyes to his heart. He sees and immediately feels for them with no concern of how things might look to the outside world. He is simply and completely present to the person before him. Think of the examples he gives us. Jesus wept for his friend, Lazarus. Jesus looked at the young man who yearned for eternal life, loving him. Jesus was moved to compassion for the widow of Nain. It is this loving and caring vision that Jesus asks of us. We are called to see through the eyes of Jesus as he looked upon Judas dipping his bread in the sauce dish at the Last Supper. Yes, one last time, Jesus saw him with love and the offer of forgiveness.

Learning to look with these eyes of Jesus is a huge undertaking, so we start small. We walk out into the world taking in the beauty of flowers, of overarching trees, of tweeting birds, and darting butterflies. We see all of this as God does and say, “It is good.” We marvel at creation as we watch rainbows forming before our very eyes. We stop and we see. We observe mountains, oceans, valleys and canyons and are in awe. God is in all of this and the knowledge of that stuns us into silence. We stand on holy ground. Day after day, we teach ourselves to stop and see.

Then we stand before the mirror and repeat, “I am a beloved child of God.” God loves me just as I am. If Jesus were here, the compassionate look on his face would be for me, looking at me and loving me. The love he had for Lazarus and the compassion for the widow of Nain would be mine. The friendship he showed to every blind person or leper or man waiting by the pool to be healed would be for me. We step away from the mirror and focus our eyes on the loving face of Jesus. We look deep into his eyes and slowly, ever so slowly come to accept and believe that that love is mine, always.

The next and final phase is to take on that compassionate face of Jesus for ourselves, looking through his eyes at others. We see our parents, our friends, our children, our grandchildren and feel the welcoming love of Jesus move through us and we can’t help but draw near, walk with them. We hear the voice of Jesus ask, “What do you want me to do for you?” We, like Bartimaeus, have asked to see and slowly our vision comes into focus. Each person we see is a child of God, God’s beloved. Now we have begun. We feel ourselves move out through the ripples of this divine love into the world. We look upon each person we encounter on a walk, at work, in the coffee shop, and practice, practice, practice.

In both writing and prayer, we begin with the nugget of an idea, either of our own making or one that is passed along to us. For me, the thought rolls around in my head for several days gathering steam before I can attach words to it or perhaps even decipher the message being sent. Most of my prayer practices have come from others or reflections that I have read and then jotted down in my prayer journal. Friends send me songs that I may want to include in my prayer for a time or phone apps that I add into my regimen. This is a constant building and shedding process. I keep whatever feeds me until it takes on the feel of extra weight. The reflections I read often include an idea or metaphor for the scripture and the deep ones plant themselves in my mind until I can link a piece of it to what I already think and believe. It is here that my prayer and writing processes mix to become one and the morphing begins; it is in this moment that I begin the work of writing a rough draft. As I write, the idea becomes more concrete and I slowly begin to understand how it connects to the foundation already in place. Through both prayer and writing I am adding on, bulking up the piece until it has some meat on its bones and can begin to reveal my version of truth. As I write, the understanding deepens by phrases that come to me. I am not the creator of these essays. Very little of what ends up on this page is actually a previous thought of mine. As I compose, the language surprises even me as the words move from my head through my fingertips. Because of its newness, I am forced to reread and check myself for its authenticity. Is this what I believe? And then go on.

It is through honest self-reflection that we come to see what just isn’t working anymore in both our prayer practice and the written word. I am by nature thinking and rethinking my prayer life, evaluating each day’s prayer for how it felt. After a few days of a less than productive sit, I may look for what might improve the experience. We change the time or posture, light a candle, play a new song. We listen to rather than read the daily scripture and immediately note the difference of encoding over decoding, being read to, receiving, having the opportunity to absorb the words in someone else’s voice, and letting them flow over us. Similarly, it is in hearing our writing read aloud that we notice the cohesion and the sound of it as a completed piece. Individual words or phrases pop out of the scripture or our draft and we smile and think, oh that’s good, I want to remember that. We tweak our writing for the improved experience as we do in prayer; we invert the phrases in a sentence and feel the smoother flow as the words cross our lips. We move a paragraph from the end of a piece to the beginning or vice versa and feel the difference. Often times, we can’t say why, it just feels better, smoother, stronger.

And then we start cutting away, trimming the excess. We can tell what no longer serves us in prayer. We are not who we were when we first started this practice as it exists today, so it is right that the practice should change with us. We are a work in progress. Suddenly we see that we are deeper in thought and contemplation on our morning walk than we are in the prayer chair and we pay attention to that. We wake thinking of a song that is calling us closer to God so we load up Spotify, close our eyes and take this moment to be one with our Creator. We listen and respond and do the same with our writing. Does the reader need to know the trivialities of the piece to get to the meat? We listen for the heart of the topic and cut the rest away.

None of this comes easily and we can’t know in advance what will work or please us. It takes boundless patience to be present to the work both in prayer and writing. We are constantly discerning the answer to what I am trying to say, what really matters? And in prayer the questioning is what brings me closer to God, where and how do we come to be deeper in relationship with one another? We listen and try out new things and then listen again. It is much like being fitted for new prescription lenses and trying them on one at a time; is A better or B, B or A?

Now we are coming closer to an end product. I use that term loosely; the current prayer practice or draft has no permanence whatsoever. I will not always believe what I hold today as being true and authentic. But it is a moment in time, a snapshot of who I am at this place in prayer and in written form. I am telling a story with both my prayer and my writing. It may take many drafts and revisions but there is time. I am being transformed day by day and I put my faith and trust in the process. We pray and ponder where it takes us and do the same with our writing. And through it all we give thanks to God for these gifts. Thank you for working in and through me, allowing my words to move out into the world. Please bless them on their way.

In John’s version of the Feeding of the 5,000, Jesus looked to the disciples and perhaps was evaluating where their heads were as he asked, “Where shall we buy bread for these people to eat?” Clearly, Phillip was a numbers’ guy as he gave his response in wages needed per person to be satiated. But Andrew was more a realist and with a shrug of his shoulders offers up a young boy’s lunch of five barley loaves and two fish. He had checked the pantry and found a place to start. By this point, the worried disciples may all have been mentally dividing 5,000 by five loaves and coming up short. This is a familiar stance of mine: how many are coming, how big should each serving be, what about choices of sides, oh, and beverages - water, wine, soda or maybe just flavored and bubbled water. I can go on for days with questions like this and nothing being decided. Then even after everything is purchased, cooked, and on the serving table, my first thought is “Not enough.” Many of us walk through life with this deficit view of all that is wrong or surely won’t work. Our viewfinder is permanently set on scarcity, on what’s missing.

Yet, Jesus does none of this. He puts his trust in what they already have or could be shared among the crowd. Who has some food or money? Is there a bakery nearby that might be able to help us? His focus in not on the amount, what might be needed, or what is missing. He has no notion of leftovers to be taken home or to be remembered as the perfect host. He chooses not to focus on the quantity or portion size but simply on the offering. Jesus is doing something much bigger here than feeding a horde of hungry followers. He teaches us to behave as if there is already enough. The key word is trust. He is asking us to trust in each other, trust in these morsels of bread and fish, trust that there is an abundance. We have everything we need. But he keeps going. This is not only a trust in having enough food. He tells everyone on the hillside to relax, inviting them to recline and get comfortable Nobody is going anywhere very soon. There is no anxiety coming from this host. He’s welcoming them into a community, to get comfortable and get to know each other. They are all immediately put at ease and each group finds a spot in the grass to spread out. They chat, they share their stories, no one is concerned about food. This shared meal simply becomes an added bonus to the day, not a thing to worry over.

Jesus teaches this theory of abundance in other more direct ways as well. Don’t worry about what to wear or eat. Look at the beautiful lilies of the field and birds of the air. They too already have more than enough. He constantly shows us his own trust in God and invites us to the same worry-free life. The call for us is to take this notion of trust and belief that we already have enough and apply it to daily living. What if I were to approach my tiny pantry and think of it as an offering rather than a place of collection and storage, turning my deficit model into one of abundance? There is already enough. We have everything we need because we have each other.

The Bible is filled with images of breath, notably the breath of God, beginning of course with Genesis and the creation story, then continues on in Hebrews, Job, and the Psalms. But as we move into the Gospels following the resurrection, the breath of God leads us into the embodiment of the Holy Spirit, compliments of Jesus. Jesus comes to the disciples offering Peace. He breathes on them and explains exactly what is happening, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” We can create all sorts of images in our mind of how this breath might of looked and felt to the ten or eleven men and a few scattered women. I often see it as a mother holding her baby and gently blowing on her face, then watching for the flutter of eyelids, a smile creep in, and the tiny giggle that follows. It is an act of love, of knowing each other, saying this is me. Breathe me in, recognize this feel and smell as Mother. That is what Jesus was doing, offering up this new and deeper relationship with God in the form of the Spirit. Know me, feel me. Take me with you, allow me to guide you in your next steps. You can rely on me as your constant companion, your helper.

A stanza of Steve Garnaas-Holmes’s poem says it well. He breathes himself into you,
his deep peace even in the face of evil,
the power of love, the courage and energy
that sends you out into a hurting world
like wind nothing can stop,
to fearlessly embody the resurrection
that so frightens those in power.
You are embraced. You are transformed.
You are inhabited. You are sent.
Now every breath you take
is his.

This act of breathing on the disciples goes deeper than we imagine. In Greek, they are receiving their Paraclete, one called alongside to help, who will always remain with them. I wish I had known this word, paraclete, as a first grade teacher; I would have had it emblazoned in gold letters on a baseball cap and worn it every day during reading group instruction. That is what we did. We came alongside a student or group, listening to them work through the text and supported them with what they needed next. Sometimes it was saying aloud the first sound to get them started, or asking what would make sense or when have you seen that word before? I think that is what the Spirit, our paraclete, does for us. We do at times get a thought or idea that we know is not ours, that must be coming from God saying aloud the first sound to get us started. And we think about what makes sense or when we have had this idea before. Just like the first grade teacher of my past, the Spirit comes alongside of us encouraging us, telling us how smart we are, and to keep trying.

In these days of the common era, we believe we are born with the breath of the Spirit in us. In the rite of baptism our families bring us before the community and together we acknowledge with the holy oils that we are one in the Spirit. We have a paraclete, a constant companion, a guide and friend. When we are older we will call her to mind in prayer, giving thanks for our companion. And then when we become older still we will practice this breathing in and out, breathing in love and breathing out peace. We repeat the words of Jesus, “Peace be with you,” and acknowledge the gift of the Holy Spirit.

There are many examples of resurrection in our natural world that can bring us to a more concrete understanding of rising, some of them quite literal at least linguistically. Each morning we not only rise from the near death of our nightly sleep but are greeted with the return of the sun. Plants bud and bloom, die back, leaving seeds behind, and from those seeds return again year after year. The medical field brings us out of morbid disease and cures us to live again. We, like Jesus may carry the scars of that trial but we return bearing peace to all we meet. Spiritually, we each come to prayer and center our thoughts on the resurrection. We are quite naturally led to a sense of wonder and gratitude becomes the end product.

The rock musical group U2 recently released a song actually called Resurrection Song that we can also pray with. They sing of love, of death, and yes, of resurrection. The video is beautiful and you can’t help but be stunned by the lines:

If love is in the air, let's take a breath
If I sound ridiculous, I'm not done yet…

We smile and nod; yes the idea of resurrection can seem a bit ridiculous and neither Jesus nor us will ever be done.

If you are still yearning for more ways to honor these 50 days of resurrection, Laura Kelly Fanucci has published her latest book on ways to celebrate this season: Living Easter: 50 Days to Practice Resurrection. I have a few favorites:

• Jesus folded his burial cloths, so let’s take a moment and become present to folding our linens and laundry. Brother Lawrence, a Carmelite monk of the 17th century is famous for showing us how to do menial tasks such as this in the presence of God. More can be found in versions of the book, The Practice of the Presence of God (Brother Lawrence). It’s a form of prayer that we can return to over and over again in our ordinary days.

• Challenge yourself or friend to a foot race. Mary Magdalene reported back to the disciples and John and Peter’s first response was to race each other to the tomb. These details are important enough that they are all delineated in the Bible.

• Take a walk and be with the resurrected Jesus on the road to Emmaus or anywhere that you normally walk. Tell him everything.

• Focus on the polar opposite practices of Lent. Stand in place of kneeling; we are an Easter people. Throw your head back and feel the holy water touch your face during the sprinkling rite of this season remembering that we have substituted this for the penitential rite. We focus on the love and forgiveness of God, reliving our own baptism. Proclaim loudly the “I do” of those baptismal promises.

• Enjoy all the sugar and eggs you want. No fasting allowed! Eat meat on Fridays and remember this is a time of celebration.

• Break through your fear of wearing more white.

• Acknowledge all the signs of resurrection in the world - flowers, trees, new life of all sorts, sunrises, and new moons.

• Live out Jesus’s spirit of generosity that he offered to Thomas. Be present, slow down, allow others to take your place in line or on the road.

As we continue on through these remaining weeks of Easter, our eyes are cast forward, to the future, to what will be. Knowing that what followed the resurrection were the first steps of our church, we marinate in this time of hope, confidence, and expectation. We walk with Jesus in these, his final earthly days and know that his resurrection was not a one off. We too look for our own.

Just the word, repent, may bring images of John the Baptist, a wild-eyed evangelist stumbling out of the desert, wearing camel hair, and munching on locusts, telling us all to get right before it is too late. It is here that the notion of fear enters in, of punishment or at the very least consequences for our actions. The Church may have taken this image and run with it, focusing in on the sin and less on the forgiveness. This was not the way of early Christians. Followers of the Way would have had those deep spiritual conversations with a friend and fellow believer. We imagine it to be much like a typical meeting between spiritual director and directee that we have today. How is your prayer life or the well-known phrase of Ignatius - “How are you cooperating with God?” What are you working on? What’s keeping you from or moving you closer to your relationship with God? It is an opportunity to repent if desired.

When we focus on the word for deeper evaluation, we see something different. "Repent" in the New Testament is translated from the Greek. When used as a verb metanoeo, it means to change one’s mind, think differently, or reconsider. That definitely has a softer feel to it. It is a combination of meta, meaning after or change and noieo, to think or perceive; together suggesting a movement in heart and intention that might lead to a change in behavior. This is something different from feelings of guilt or remorse that we might traditionally feel in response to someone calling us to repent. Now as we move on and see its usage as a noun in “repentance,” metanoia, suggests a change of mind or simply turning away from sin toward God. Jesus used the word often encouraging all to repent, to do the internal work necessary to build a relationship with God. This in a word, is the reason Jesus had come. According to Matthew, repentance was his first message: “Repent for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” Notice, there was nothing else required, no public shaming, no verbal recounting of your sins, and no payment due for your missteps. It was all between you and God. It is in the repentance that we are made whole again.

The gospels are full of examples of repentance, especially present in Jesus’s favorite teaching strategy, the parable: the Prodigal Son, the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the tax collector and the pharisee. In the telling of the prodigal son, the wayward man practically shouts out his repentance from the road, but the father, (a symbol for God) will hear nothing of it. His only response is his open arms and a dinner party with his son as the guest of honor. In none of these stories is anything required beyond the character turning back to God. Even more clearly, while on the cross next to Jesus, one of the thieves repents and on the spot, is promised a place in paradise.

You would imagine that if anyone would be in fear of consequences for their actions, it would have been the disciples. Only one of them remained at the foot of the cross, yet Jesus’s first words to them post resurrection were those of consolation and the joy of reunion: why are you crying, do not be afraid, peace be with you, come and have breakfast. The word repent is no where to be found in the resurrection stories. No payment is asked for their actions, only an invitation to come back together again, to be in community and communion with one another. Jesus knows that in the blink of an eye they have already repented, they have done the internal work. He sees the look of surprise that immediately turned to fear and then relief. They know they are forgiven. Peter is given the opportunity to trade his betrayal for love when asked three times, “Do you love me?” The men on the road to Emmaus have fled in fear but once they recognize Jesus in the breaking of the bread cannot wait to get back to Jerusalem. They too have repented and found their way back to God.

Repentance and reunion can be a frequent occurrence in our daily lives. It may take some practice in reframing the word: Repent = Change your mind. All it will take is a turning of our thoughts and hearts back to God and the open arms of the father of the Prodigal Son awaits us as well. Are you late to prayer? Repent. Did you fall asleep in the examen? Repent. Do you want a deeper relationship with God? Repent.

I leave you with a final thought from Aldous Huxley:

Chronic remorse, as all the moralists are agreed, is a most undesirable sentiment. If you have behaved badly, repent, make what amends you can and address yourself to the task of behaving better next time. On no account brood over your wrongdoing. Rolling in the muck is not the best way of getting clean.”
― Aldous Huxley, Brave New World

• she didn’t realize it was Jesus

• they were kept from recognizing him

• Jesus came and stood in their midst

Not able to understand this any clearer than Mary Magdalene in the garden, Cleopus on the road to Emmaus, or Thomas did, we simply pray with these words, asking God to illuminate them for us.

To begin with, it seems that each of the people that met Jesus in the early days of his resurrection found themselves in places of fear or anxiety: an empty tomb, a locked room, on an unknown road, in front of a charcoal fire. Being in a state of nervousness doesn’t make recognition any easier. And then there’s always the mystery of it all. You can’t follow the movements of God for very long before just accepting that God is unknowable. God has come in the form of travelers, fire, and angels, making Godself known only to the receiver. It seems that the resurrected Jesus is no different.

Mary Magdalene: Mary Magdalene is the first to arrive at the empty tomb. In her fear and confusion, she begins the search and finds herself in a garden. Don’t speed past this moment, allow yourself to recall Jesus as the “second Adam,” and envision Eden. Magdalene goes in search of answers expecting to find a gardener. Her brain fills in the gaps and approaches the man she sees, naming him a gardener. There is an interchange, time enough for her to look closely at this man but she remains single minded in her purpose and continues to see only a gardener that surely can help her find Jesus. There is no recognition until he speaks her name, something he must have done innumerable times. In an instant she sees Jesus as he is in his resurrected form.

The Disciples: Jesus comes to the disciples in the closed room where they have hidden away for their own safety. He appears; he wasn’t there and then he was. So with only fear on their faces, his first words are required to calm their nerves: Peace be with you. The obligatory showing of his hands and feet follow to substantiate beyond any doubt who he was and now is. They take a breath and fall into the arms of their teacher feeling both love and forgiveness for their failure to recognize him.

The Road to Emmaus: Two men, disciples of Jesus are not only on their way to Emmaus but perhaps more importantly, leaving Jerusalem. Because they are a pair, we might assume they were part of the apostles sent out two by two, just a short time earlier to spread the good news of Jesus. They endure a protracted conversation as they walk along the seven miles. But not until Jesus breaks bread with and for them do they recognize him and head back to Jerusalem with the words, “Were not our hearts burning within us…”

Thomas: Thomas was gone during the previous visit from Jesus but the other disciples clearly did not hold back on rushing to tell him what he had missed. We can’t blame Thomas for being skeptical and quickly getting the nickname of “Doubting.” What is also true is that we do not know where he was during the initial visit; perhaps he was out on a listening tour trying to determine the level of danger in and around Jerusalem or out picking up additional supplies, or maybe he was one who knew it was better to be alone in his grieving. But there is more to Thomas than simply this moment of his absence when we wrongly judge him for his doubt. Weeks earlier, when Jesus decided to return to Judea, knowing the risks, Thomas said to the other disciples, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.” And just a few chapters later in John, Thomas asked a direct question about where Jesus was going, pointing out his desire for understanding over blind faith: “Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?” Jesus knew Thomas intimately and knew his need to understand by touching his wounds and readily obliged giving him what he has already offered to the other ten. Jesus came specifically for him; he takes time with Thomas. Touching the scars becomes the moment of recognition for each of them. Jesus offers them his whole self, both his trauma and redemption.

Breakfast on the beach: Jesus awaits the men on the beach calling out to them to cast their net on the right side of the boaat. Nothing connects yet. It is only once the net is overflowing that John tips off Peter that it is the Lord. They have seen this deed before and only then recognize Jesus.

Despite this walk through scripture, we may be no closer to knowing why the face of Jesus wasn’t recognized but we do know something deeper. Jesus is known by what he does. He and we are remembered not by our faces or the way we walk through a garden, not the way we wear our hair or the frame of our body, but how we speak our loved ones names into the ether, or phrases that we repeatedly use. Jesus was known by his offering of peace, by the breaking of bread, a thing he did over and over again at times with his twelve best friends and at other times with a hillside filled with thousands of strangers. He cemented this action into ritual at the Last Supper. There could never be another splitting of loaves when the disciples wouldn’t think of Jesus. His friends held all the special memories they had of him, the meals they shared, the walks in and around and back through Judea, the times there wasn’t a fish in sight and Jesus would shout from the shore where to toss their net which would immediately be overflowing beyond carrying capacity. Resurrected Jesus uses all of these memories to be known, recognized, believed. But the strongest hint used is that of his scars. He returns new but retains evidence of his pain and suffering. He permits the disciples to touch him, allowing their fingers to enter into the holes in his hands, the gash in his side, feeling the depth of that pain. In that moment they become one with him and are allowed to enter into a scene many of them saw only from a distance if at all. In that touch they too are forgiven, reconciled, and made whole once again.

Jesus is recalled through the personal relationship he has with each of these people. He is still teaching with care for what each of his students needs as they develop into faith leaders, preparing them for the day they will take ownership of the preaching. This is also true for us. Jesus takes time allowing each person’s faith to grow bit by bit so that we, like Thomas can grow in our faith and call him my Lord. It’s personal. Jesus dwells on the ordinariness of life - speaking their name, telling the story, breaking bread together, and fishing. There is a familiarity to it all. Isn’t that what happens as we remember our friends and family who have died? The father who loved musicals is called to mind as we listen again to a favorite. The mother who knew the value of a chocolate chip cookie after school can almost be seen bending over the oven door as we linger over the first bite of her favorite recipe.

We continue to ponder these moments of the Easter season, moving ever closer to Pentecost, as we enter into the scenes of scripture and take the place of Mary Magdalene, Cleopus, or Thomas. Spend time here, linger as you pray experiencing the closeness you feel to Jesus in that moment of recognition. Touch the folds of his robe, smell the bread broken for you, feel your blood pressure rise as Jesus enters the upper room, touch his wounds and say, my Lord and my God.