Christmas Day with Thomas Merton

Today on Christmas, I’ll share with you Thomas Merton’s words. In Seasons of Celebration, he writes about the birth of Christ. Merton is particularly moved by Christ as light, and our human need not only to receive the light within us, but more, to allow the light to shine through us. This is what Merton says:


Christ is born. He is born to us. And, he is born today. For Christmas is not merely a day like every other day. It is a day made holy and special by a sacred mystery. It is not merely another day in the weary round of time. Today, eternity enters into time and time, sanctified, is caught up into eternity. Today, Christ, the Eternal Word of the Father, who was in the beginning with the Father, in whom all things were made, by whom all things consist, enters into the world which he created in order to reclaim souls who have lost their identity. Therefore, the Church exults as the angels come down to announce not merely an old thing that happened long ago, but a new thing that happens today. For, today, God the Father makes all things new, in his Divine Son, our Redeemer, according to his words: Ecce nova facio omnia. . . .

At Christmas, more than ever, it is fitting to remember that we have no other light but Christ, who is born to us today. Let us reflect that he came down from heaven to be our light, and our life. He came, as he himself assures us, to be our way, by which we may return to the Father. Christ gives us light today to know him, in the Father and ourselves in him, so that thus knowing and possessing Christ, we may have life everlasting with him in the Father. . . .

Having realized, once again, who it is that comes to us, and having remembered that he alone is our light, let us open our eyes to the rising Sun, let us hasten to receive him and let us come together to celebrate the great mystery of charity which is the sacrament of our salvation and of our union in Christ. Let us receive Christ that we may in all truth be “light in the Lord” and that Christ may shine not only to us, but through us, and that we may all burn together in the sweet light of his presence in the world: I mean his presence in us, for we are his Body and his Holy Church. . . .

Christ, light of light, is born today, and since he is born to us, he is born in us as light and therefore we who believe are born today to new light. That is to say, our souls are born to new life and new grace by receiving him who is the Truth. For Christ, invisible in his own nature, has become visible in our nature. What else can this mean, except that first he has become visible as a man and second he has become visible in his Church? He wills to be visible in us, to live in us, and save us through his secret action in our own hearts and the hearts of our neighbors. So, we must receive the light of the newborn Savior by faith, in order to manifest it by our witness in common praise and by the works of our charity towards one another.

[Thomas Merton, Seasons of Celebration, pp. 102-105.]

Ballets, Spotlights, and God

Every day this month I'm listening to Advent texts, mostly drawn from Isaiah's vision of who God is and what God is doing in the world. Isaiah tends to be lyrical, using vivid images to illumine honestly the situation of the world and God's place at the center of history -- not only in ancient times, but today as well.

Isaiah' prophecy covers a wide swath of time, from a season when Israel was threatened by foreign powers, to the time when those foreign powers devastated the people and the land, to the days when God began to restore what had been demolished. There are a lot of moving pieces in Isaiah, and it's not easy to follow the action. Only God and God's desire for healing and justice holds together the far-reaching prophecy.

I recently attended The Nutcracker again, performed by a troupe whose artistic director had a different vision of the story than that to which I was accustomed. His approach was quite nontraditional. At times the action on stage seemed disjointed. I tried to follow the story line as part of the troupe danced on one part of the stage, while children huddled in mock-conversation in another part of the stage, while other characters were coming and going, stage right and stage left. My eyesight -- and attention -- wandered from corner to corner in the busy scene as I tried to figure out how this scene was carrying the plot forward.

Then I noticed help. A spotlight from above and behind me was following around the stage one pair of dancers. These were the leads, the principal dancers. The spotlight was telling me, "Follow this action. At this moment, these dancers are the most important thing happening on stage." I realized that the production crew was helping novices like me to understand the story, to catch the important movements that were key to the unfolding narrative, by use of a highlighter. For the rest of the ballet, I followed the spotlight.

In a sense, Isaiah provides us a spotlight by continually calling us back to God. In his day, there was plenty going on in the world that asked for the attention of Isaiah's community. Pieces were moving everywhere.

And in our day, there are all sorts of noisy voices calling out, "Look at me! Look at me!" Our attention is prone to wander . . . to chase an act of brutality here . . . a new political reality there . . . spending our days chasing Facebook posts, angry tweets, and news-feeds. The relentless pace can drive you nuts.

But like that ballet spotlight, Isaiah shines a light upon God. In our day, we would do well to take our cue from the prophet.

In effect, Isaiah says, "All the commotion in the world is trying to call your attention to it. Be alert. Don't divert your gaze. Don't do that. Pay attention to what God is doing in the world. Keep the eyes of your heart focused on God's work, God's promise, God's nature. Don't be distracted. Don't let your vision wander."

This isn't easy to do. I'm as distracted -- and distractable -- as the next person. But I want to ask different questions about life, the world, and the commotion around us.

What are God's hopes for the world? What is God's design for the world?

What is God doing in the world?

How is God at work today, even in the midst of much hatred, division, and alienation? How do I notice God's presence today in concrete ways?

How am I invited to join God in what God is doing in the world? When I follow the spotlight, how might God invite me to respond?

Learning a Different Wisdom

There must be a time of day when the man who makes plans forgets his plans, and acts as if he had no plans at all. There must be a time of day when the man who has to speak falls very silent. And his mind forms no more propositions, and he asks himself: Did they have any meaning? There must be a time when a man of prayer goes to pray as if it were the first time in his life he had ever prayed; when the man of resolutions puts his resolutions aside as if they had all been broken, and he learns a different wisdom: distinguishing the sun from the moon, the stars from the darkness, the sea from the dry land, and the night sky from the shoulder of a hill. [Thomas Merton, No Man Is an Island, p. 260.]

Black Friday . . . Small-Business Saturday . . . Cyber Monday . . . Giving Tuesday . . .

Who comes up with this stuff, anyway? Well, I think I know the answer,especially when I hear the many reports of how "successful" or "unsuccessful" these days are . . . when the impact of the days is measured in $$$ and %.

Advent arrives as a blanket warming the cold, market-driven days, urging me to "forget my plans" . . . "fall very silent" . . . "pray as if for the first time" . . . "learn a different wisdom."

Advent does not speak the language of market growth or GNP or China trade deals or even "what will I get the grandchildren for Christmas?"

The season offers a quieter, gentler invitation . . . to reevaluate and recalibrate . . . to stay rooted in that which is life- and light-giving, rather than getting carried away by the distractive pulls of the moment . . . to join a more universal design that transcends my little social gatherings and travel plans and musical specials.

Merton was not writing about Advent per se, but he might as well have been describing the season.

I am tempted, this early morning in Advent, to state my goals for the season: “forget my plans” . . . “fall very silent” . . . “pray as if for the first time” . . . “learn a different wisdom.” But I think I would regret placing my own agenda on the days, forcing this grand, unfathomable season into my own little gift box, so that by the end I could measure it - maybe in % - to see how successful or unsuccessful I was.

No, I think instead I'll just be alert what shows up . . . I'll stay open to the grace and mercy hiding in whatever is . . . I'll allow the warm blanket of Advent to cover all the coldness within me and in the world.

A More Expansive Dance

Fr Thomas Keating told an apocryphal story about an elder monk on his hands and knees, combing through the grass in front of the hut that was his living quarters. A younger monk walking by asked, "Father, what are you doing?"

"Looking for my keys," replied the elder.

The young monk immediately got down on his hands and knees and began to comb through the grass.

Other monks passed by. Each stopped to ask what was going on and each received the same answer: "We're looking for Father's keys." Before long the expansive yard was full of monks crawling through the grass, looking for lost keys.

Finally, one of the monks who had joined the search gathered the courage to ask the obvious question which no one to that point had the nerve to ask: "Father, are you sure you lost your keys out here in the grass?"

"Oh no, my son," the older monk answered. "I lost my keys in the house. But since there is no light in the house, I thought I'd look out here in the sunshine."

When Fr Keating told the story, he would summarize the imaginary scene this way: "And that is the human condition. We are all looking for the keys to happiness where happiness cannot be found."

This is the perennial challenge of the spiritual life . . . to shift our center of orbit from all the ways, places, and things to which we look for fulfillment . . . to shift our orbit to the One who is the Center of all life. The shift is so difficult because we receive almost no cultural validation for making this shift. In fact, culturally we are encouraged to chase after all sorts of other things that promise happiness, but in the end cannot hold the weight of our being.

Contrary to conventional wisdom, the center of life is not measured by your bank account . . . by the number of friends you have . . . by what others think of your work . . . by how mannerly -- or petulant -- you are . . . by the success you achieve.

For many of us, at issue is the way life itself, by its very nature, tends to sweep us up and carry us along, so that we feel carried along by a train whose destination was determined by someone else, and from which we cannot seem to get off.

In the daily run of life, it is so easy to believe that the thing right here before us is the only thing.

I remember in 1998 when my dad died . . . his death was the big thing squarely in front of me, demanding all the attention I could muster. Trying to be present for my mom, for my own children, for the funeral preparations which needed to be made, and still attend to my own grief, my orbit became very small, very focused on that which was right in front of me.

But I also had a couple of experiences that week around his funeral which said to me, "While my world has stopped at this place . . . while all I can see is this loss and the shape of life now in the aftermath . . . there are many others in the world who are completely unaffected by his death. For them, life is moving on."

It was a moment of revelation for me. My world had stopped. But the world did not stop for others. Life continued. At first, I railed inwardly about it: "My FATHER has died!! Can't you have some respect?!?! Can't you stop for a moment as I have stopped?!" When I realized what I was thinking, the lesson for me became clear: My life and existence so easily becomes the center of the entire universe, and actually I'm not the center at all.

Usually it takes the created world to remind me that life is happening always and everywhere, sustained by God, whether I am present to it or not . . . regardless of what concerns fill my life . . . no matter the deadlines I'm facing that feel as if they are pinching or the "pressing work" that calls for all my attention.

The waves of the surf will continue to roll in and out, no matter what my life is like today.

The river which slices through these mountains will continue to sing whether I am sitting there to listen or not.

These deer grazing by the roadside will go on finding their own "daily bread" whether I meet my deadline or not.

The lush green woods will lose their leaves, but then produce them again, far apart from whatever I think is important in my life.

Thomas Merton described what he called the General Dance or the Cosmic Dance . . . the dance of the world which humans often miss, as we are consumed with the far smaller dances of our own creation . . . shuffling papers . . . tinkering with websites . . . posting for "likes" on social media . . . building the life we imagine we are supposed to have . . . crippled by anxiety over political and denominational realities.

The things that mostly consume us are too small . . . they are not substantial enough to hold the weight of your being. They are dances we have learned from culture, from those who tell us what we should dance around. Most of them are completely disconnected from the Cosmic Dance.

Read Merton's words as he describes this larger dance, then spend some time meditating on them over several days.


What is serious to men is often very trivial in the sight of God. What in God might appear to us as “play” is perhaps what He Himself takes most seriously. At any rate the Lord plays and diverts Himself in the garden of His creation, and if we could let go of our own obsession with what we think is the meaning of it all, we might be able to hear His call and follow Him in His mysterious, cosmic dance. We do not have to go very far to catch echoes of that game, and of that dancing. When we are alone on a starlit night; when by chance we see the migrating birds in autumn descending on a grove of junipers to rest and eat; when we see children in a moment when they are really children; when we know love in our own hearts; or when, like the Japanese poet Basho we hear an old frog land in a quiet pond with a solitary splash – at such times the awakening, the turning inside out of all values, the “newness,” the emptiness and the purity of vision that make themselves evident, provide a glimpse of the cosmic dance.

For the world and time are the dance of the Lord in emptiness. The silence of the spheres is the music of a wedding feast. The more we persist in misunderstanding the phenomena of life, the more we analyze them out into strange finalities and complex purposes of our own, the more we involve ourselves in sadness, absurdity and despair. But it does not matter much, because no despair of ours can alter the reality of things, or stain the joy of the cosmic dance which is always there. Indeed, we are in the midst of it, and it is in the midst of us, for it beats in our very blood, whether we want it to or not.

Yet the fact remains that we are invited to forget ourselves on purpose, cast our awful solemnity to the winds and join in the general dance.

[Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation (New York: New Directions, 1961), pp. 296-297]

Resurrection Sunday: Let Him Easter in Us

For a week or so I’ve been drawn to the Gerard Manley Hopkins line, “Let him easter in us, be a dayspring to the dimness in us.” I’m reconsidering its meaning this year.

I first saw the line in a Catholic bookstore at an Iowa retreat center 20 years ago. Hopkins’ words were incorporated into the mission statement of a female religious order in the Midwest, and one of the Sisters of the order had painted the line in watercolor, beautifully depicting the phrase in a way that caught my eye. I’ve kept the framed work in a place where I can see it almost daily since that time.

All these years, I’ve been moved by the novelty of Hopkins’ use of “easter” as a verb, an action word. Again this Holy Week, I’ve played around with what “let him easter in us” might mean. At the moment, I only have hints and guesses. For now, I’m exploring.

A couple of days ago, I randomly connected Hopkins’ line with a familiar verse from Mary Oliver. Surely to “let him easter in us” has something to do with life and vibrancy.

The Mary Oliver question which came to mind in my pondering simply asks: “Listen, are you breathing just a little, and calling it a life?”

The line comes squarely in the center of her lengthy, “Have You Ever Tried to Enter the Long Black Branches,” a poem which invites us to a more vibrant, alive existence by getting out of our self-focus and into the lives of things around us: The long branches of young locust trees in early summer, or the sea, or the grass.

She writes:

And who will care, who will chide you if you wander away
from wherever you are, to look for your soul?
Quickly, then, get up, put on your coat, leave your desk!

And then:

For how long will you continue to listen to those dark shouters,
caution and prudence?
Fall in! Fall in!

It has occurred to me this week that “breathing just a little and calling it a life” is not the same as letting him easter in us.


Further, this week I am holding the tension of reconciliation as I ponder “let him easter in us.” Paul wrote in 2 Cor. 5 that this was Christ’s work in the world, reconciling the world. I assume this work continues in an even greater way post-Resurrection. Christ eastering in us and in the world surely has something to do with reconciliation, making right the divisions and factions that exist within us, among us, and in the world.

Reconciliation is making right, making peace. The dictionary definition says “to restore to friendship or harmony,” so it includes a work of restoration.

Many times I am like the political leaders who urge oneness and harmony among partisans, but who really mean, “There will only be oneness and harmony if you come to my position on this issue, if you see things my way, if you adopt my value system.” This is a sham of harmony and has nothing to do with reconciliation.

Authentic reconciliation stands in the center and holds all the sides, all the partisans, all the variances together. Again, Paul said that in Christ, there is no Jew or Greek, no male or female, no rich or poor, no slave or free, but all are one in Christ. So it sounds like, when I take one position or another – and believe me, I definitely have my firmly-held positions!! – I’m in no place to reconcile. If I am in one position or another, dug in, I’m no longer able to reconcile, to bring together. I may be entrenched, but not in a place of restoring friendship and harmony.

From that place, people in the “opposing camp” become “elites” or “snowflakes,” or they become “a basket of deplorables.” Reconciliation cannot happen there.

It seems to me that reconciliation somehow holds both (or all) the extremes together, in order to work toward healing and oneness. This is strenuous work, and requires that we get outside of ourselves, that we take on a new mind, that our lives are oriented as “the mind of Christ.”

It is a bogus oneness to say that we all need to come together as one nation or one denomination or one whatever, while advocating that everyone needs to agree with me . . . that only if others come to my position can there be oneness. This is a pseudo-oneness, a sham of reconciliation.

To reconcile is to make peace, to live into a wholeness which transcends one position or another position. To make peace – shalom – brings completeness . . . making peace and restoring friendship with God . . . making peace among the scattered parts of ourselves, befriending our own lives again . . . making peace with others, especially those with whom we disagree.

Are some causes unjust? Certainly!

Are other causes worth fighting for? Definitely!

But in every case, we are invited to follow Christ, whose work was reconciling the world to God . . . to be reconcilers, to make peace, to listen to the other, to treat the other with respect and friendship, to work toward shalom . . . the invitation stands for those who are post-Resurrection disciples.

Let him easter in us. At some level, at least in my thinking today, Christ eastering in us means we join him in his work of reconciling the world.

Holy Saturday: On Tombs, Prisoners, and Antelopes in the Grass

On Christmas Day 2018, I opened a gift from my son, the junior high principal, the poet. It was a hardback edition of a William Stafford book of poetry (the softcover edition having been on my bookshelf for many years).

But this one different, and not just that its cover was hard. On the title page was Stafford’s signature, a luminous find in the mammoth Powell’s Bookstore of Downtown Portland – likely landing there after Stafford’s teaching career at local Lewis and Clark College.

Tears filled my eyes, because I have a son who thinks about these things, who loves poetry and literature.

And tears filled my eyes as I randomly opened the pages and read whatever my eyes fell upon, moved again by Stafford’s utter simplicity and by his way of jumping into the stream and letting the current take him wherever it would. He had no sense of building to a great crescendo in his poems, just tracking along to see where the poem led, as if each line were some golden thread which the reader could hold onto and trace to something else that might arise in his or her imagination.

I sat among grandchildren -- busily devouring gifts amidst loud laughter and chatter -- quietly reading along in Stafford, choking back the Christmas tears.

This is one of the poems that had my address on it, and still does . . . maybe because it explores themes I’ve often pondered for myself . . . and maybe because it is sufficiently unresolved to remind me of my life.

On this Holy Saturday, I give William Stafford’s poem about tight spaces, prisoners, and antelopes in the grass to you.


A Message from the Wanderer
William Stafford

Today outside your prison I stand
and rattle my walking stick: Prisoners, listen;
you have relatives outside. And there are
thousands of ways to escape.

Years ago I bent my skill to keep my
cell locked, had chains smuggled to me in pies,
and shouted my plans to jailers;
but always new plans occurred to me,
or the new heavy locks bent hinges off,
or some stupid jailer would forget
and leave the keys.

Inside, I dreamed of constellations –
those feeding creatures outlined by stars,
their skeletons a darkness between jewels,
heroes that exist only where they are not.

Thus freedom always came nibbling my thought,
just as – often, in light, on the open hills –
you can pass an antelope and not know
and look back, and then – even before you see –
there is something wrong about the grass.
And then you see.

That’s the way everything in the world is waiting.

Now – these few more words, and then I’m
gone: Tell everyone just to remember
their names, and remind others, later, when we
find each other. Tell the little ones
to cry and then go to sleep, curled up
where they can. And if any of us get lost,
if any of us cannot come all the way –
remember: there will come a time when
all we have said and all we have hoped
will be all right.

There will be that form in the grass.

[William Stafford, Stories That Could Be True (New York: Harper & Row, 1977), p. 9.]

Good Friday: Praying with Psalm 14

Here is a psalm for prayer as you move into Good Friday.

Norman Fischer's book of psalms, Opening to You, combines beautiful poetry with a gentle spirit which renders the prayers in striking images. His work is my go-to when I want to see the psalms differently and pray them honestly. I highly recommend Opening to You.


Psalm 14
Norman Fischer


The useless fool says in his heart
“God is nothing”
People are corrupt, do only harm
Not one does good unselfishly, not one

You gaze down from the highest
Upon humankind in the middle
To see if there is one person with eyes
One with understanding
One capable of seeing your seeing

But they are all gone bad
All turned sour and blind
There is none who knows good
Not one

Is there not even a speck of understanding
In all the world of blind heedlessness
Among those who eat up others as if they were bread
And do not even know their own hearts
Or a single true word?

But they become terrified even within their terror
When they see you burning in the circle of goodness
Shining out of the eyes of the lowly and the poor
Showing your holiness in their defeat
Your invincible power at the center of their weakness

O that someone might come out of Zion
To bring freedom to the strugglers!

When you capture the people again
The sojourners will be glad
And the strugglers will rejoice with strong singing


[Norman Fischer, “Psalm 14,” Opening to You (New York: Penguin Compass, 2002), p. 17.]

In the Living Years

The Rich Man and Lazarus
Luke 16:19-31


19 Jesus said, “There was a certain rich man who was splendidly clothed in purple and fine linen and who lived each day in luxury. 20 At his gate lay a poor man named Lazarus who was covered with sores. 21 As Lazarus lay there longing for scraps from the rich man’s table, the dogs would come and lick his open sores.

22 “Finally, the poor man died and was carried by the angels to Abraham’s bosom. The rich man also died and was buried, 23 and he went to Hades, the place of the dead. There, in torment, he saw Abraham in the far distance with Lazarus at his side.

24 “The rich man shouted, ‘Father Abraham, have some pity! Send Lazarus over here to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue. I am in anguish in these flames.’

25 “But Abraham said to him, ‘Son, remember that during your lifetime you had everything you wanted, and Lazarus had nothing. So now he is here being comforted, and you are in anguish. 26 And besides, there is a great chasm separating us. No one can cross over to you from here, and no one can cross over to us from there.’

27 “Then the rich man said, ‘Please, Father Abraham, at least send him to my father’s home. 28 For I have five brothers, and I want him to warn them so they don’t end up in this place of torment.’

29 “But Abraham said, ‘Moses and the prophets have warned them. Your brothers can read what they wrote.’

30 “The rich man replied, ‘No, Father Abraham! But if someone is sent to them from the dead, then they will repent of their sins and turn to God.’

31 “But Abraham said, ‘If they won’t listen to Moses and the prophets, they won’t be persuaded even if someone rises from the dead.’”


Jesus often teaches in parables. He tells stories which serve to illumine something about the way life is ordered when we are connected to God in life-giving ways. Sometimes the images are all positive, speaking in affirming ways about our God-connection. Other parables include examples of persons who sleep through invitations to a life of meaning and fullness. The story of the Rich Man and Lazarus falls into the latter category.

As stories which impart spiritual wisdom, parables are not to be taken at face value. Most often, these spiritual stories are layered, nuanced, and invite a different kind of seeing. To read and understand them at a surface level may allow the hearer to have some understanding of what the parable is trying to say; however, a surface reading will also miss many of the undercurrents flowing beneath the story’s surface.

These undercurrents are suggested by symbols and images which show up in parabolic language. Much as you would do in dream-work, it is helpful to notice the symbols, to trace their meanings, to track where they lead, and to explore the multiple meanings held within a single symbol or image. This kind of investigative work will allow you to find the place where your own soul resonates with some idea or some invitation in the parable.

(Your soul’s language is most often not a verbal language, but a language of images and symbols. You will recognize in your own dreams that what you most remember are not the words spoken in your dream, but the wild symbols and images which point beyond themselves to deeper realities within yourself and in the world.)

So given all this background, I’ll say that the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus is not first of all a commentary on the afterlife. The story is not trying to give a description of heaven, or the place of the dead, or any aspect of life after death. Thus, the story does not make a statement about whether there are different levels to which people go after death, nor is it about whether people can communicate across “chasms” after death. The story is basically about our living years. In the landscape of this parable, the “after death” aspect simply sets up a teaching about the way to live life with God in a way which gives life to the world.

Second, when looking at the parable, you do well to notice the many symbols in the story as Jesus tells it. Rich images appear everywhere. In working with the story, I made nearly a page-long list of the images contained in it. I spent some time following the trail of some images that seemed most crucial to the wisdom of this teaching story.
• rich
• poor
• Abraham
• Abraham’s bosom
• far distance
• great chasm
• death
• Hades (place of the dead)
• clothed in purple and fine linen
• lived luxury
• dogs
• sores
• gate
• scraps
• rich man’s table
• dip finger in water
• cool my tongue
• agony
• fire
• good things
• bad things
• send Lazarus
• five brothers
• Moses and the prophets
• rises from the dead

These images enliven the story and allow the reader to explore it for himself or herself.

The point of the parable seems to be about how we live now, in our living years, in light of death and the afterlife. How do we use our goods and our riches? How do we see our “resources”? Are we generous, miserly, hospitable, protective?

The Bible does not throw blanket condemnations on wealth and riches. Neither does it subscribe to the prosperity theory that God wants everyone to have an abundance of worldly riches . . and it certainly doesn’t teach that faithfulness to God = material blessings, which is a distortion of the Gospel.

In fact, while the Church has been obsessed with matters of sexuality – it seems like forever – the scriptures are much more concerned with the dangers of money and possessions. I sense that many of us are more comfortable demonizing certain elements of sexuality because we can objectify them or pretend we are not interested. But acquiring a lot of money not only is socially acceptable, it is encouraged, seen as a sign of ambition, drive, and creativity. But I digress . . .

In the parable, the Rich Man hides behind gates and doors, without interacting with the world’s need, which is personified by Lazarus. If not a picture of miserliness, at least the Rich Man is a symbol of self-protection, of luxury, of an “eat, drink, and be merry” lifestyle that lives oblivious to others or their needs. In the Rich Man’s world, the other does not even exist.

As I pointed out above, this story has a treasure trove of rich images . . . doors and gates . . . purple, fine linens versus body-sores and dog’s saliva . . . finest foods versus hunger . . . Father Abraham . . . life and death . . . chasms, separation, and alienation . . . the place of the dead . . . fire and water . . . luxurious excess or scraps from the table . . . on and on it goes. Any and all of the symbols are worth exploring.

The story portrays two rich persons . . . or even three, if you consider some of the alternative ways Lazarus was rich other than in possessions. (Each of us is rich in some way . . . just not always financially. In fact, sometimes financial wealth is the most impoverished state of all. Many persons are impoverished in compassion, or peace, or contentment, or generosity, or hospitality . . . you see how it goes.)

One man in the story is labeled “Rich Man” and he is portrayed in a negative light. But Abraham is also a wealthy man – the Hebrew scriptures describe his vast holdings of livestock . . . he was a wealthy man in his time – and it is Abraham who makes a place for Lazarus in his heart. He is a wealthy person who is generous, who opens himself to the other. He stands in contrast to the Rich Man who feasts solo behind closed doors and locked gates.

The parable turns on the Rich Man’s insistence that had he known better, his life would have been different . . . and at the very least, that his family should be warned so their fate will not be the same as his. There is no repentance, no real change of heart, just the thought – occurring too often among the privileged – that someone else should do something in order to alleviate their suffering.

But the moral of the parable is that everything you need to live a life of compassion and generosity has already been given. In the frame of the story, Moses and the prophets – especially the 8th century prophets – advocated compassion and kindness for the poor, the widows, and the orphans. If you don’t heed their call, you will not heed even someone who rises from the dead (see what Jesus did in that twist?).

There are many ways to slice the parable. I’ll leave most of them for you to explore. But I’ll suggest this basic question, which the story seems to ask in a most pronounced way: “Are you are child of Abraham (gracious, welcoming, generous) or are you a child of the world (gate-making, door-locking, door-not-opening, shielding, guarding, protecting, indulging)?”

Fasting, Pacifiers, and the Voices in Your Head

While I came late to the seasons of the Church calendar, still I’ve followed their rhythm for over 35 years. Especially as a minister, preacher, and worship leader, I’m challenged year after year to find new ways to think about Advent . . . or to envision Lent . . . or to celebrate Resurrection. There are only so many ways to twist the prism, only so many times I can lean into my reliable, stand-by descriptions of the seasons.

So I’ve been enlivened in recent days by Barbara Brown Taylor’s short essay on Lenten disciplines. I’ve followed her writing and preaching for several years. She is compelling and stretching, writing with honesty about the spiritual journey by offering fresh images for envisioning life connected deeply to God. I’ve read a number of her books . . . both Leaving Church and An Altar in the World have impacted me in huge ways. But for some reason, I had missed her essay on Lent until recently. Today, she is my teacher.

She writes with Luke 4:1-13 in the background, the account of Jesus fasting in the wilderness for 40 days before being tempted. Then she likens Lenten practices to being left in the wilderness by yourself for 24 hours, a common practice among men’s rite-of-passage groups and some wilderness adventure expeditions. The aim in that kind of boundary experience is to place you at the edges of what you know, to push you to see your own life differently, and to come to some deeper sense of what is beneath all the machinations and projections that are part of our daily life.

The Lenten name we would give to this kind of stripped-down experience is fasting. As Brown Taylor says,

That is when you find out who you are. That is when you find out what you really miss and what you really fear. Some people dream about their favorite food. Some long for a safe room with a door to lock and others just wish they had a pillow; but they all find out what their pacifiers are – the habits, substances, or surroundings they use to comfort themselves, to block out the pain and fear that are normal parts of being human.


I’ve long recognized that each of us have personalized patterns for dealing with life when we feel things are out of control. We are aware that when Hungry, Angry, Lonely, or Tired, we are especially vulnerable. Usually in those states, we’ll reach for something that brings comfort – that’s why we call some foods “comfort foods” – in order to escape the more difficult realities that rise up from within us. We’ll do most anything to not face our own selves.

I have my default habits, behaviors, and addictions, just as you do. Brown Taylor says she is convinced that 99% of us are addicted to something. I think the percentage is even higher . . . taking the form of eating, drinking, shopping, blaming, substances, entertainment, busyness.

Brown Taylor calls these things pacifiers. I think it’s a marvelous image.

That hollowness we sometimes feel is not a sign of something gone wrong. It is the holy of holies inside of us, the uncluttered throne room of the Lord our God. Nothing on earth can fill it, but that does not stop us from trying. Whenever we start feeling too empty inside, we stick pacifiers into our mouths and suck for all we are worth. They do not nourish us, but at least they plug the hole.


When you are dropped by the adventure group into the middle of the wilderness, you have left all these pacifiers behind. No more mac and cheese to soothe your anxiety . . . no glass of wine after work to take off the edge . . . no comfortable bed for an escaping nap . . . no strip-center down the street to look for the blouse that would take away your blues . . . no movie theater in which to lose your life in someone else’s story. It’s just you in that place, stripped down and vulnerable, the real self hungry-angry-lonely-tired.

This is Lent, forty days of this stripping down, forty days of saying “No!” to that one thing which pretends to make everything better . . . but which actually just pushes all the ugly inner stuff beneath the surface yet again.

Nothing is too small to give up. Even a chocolate bar will do. For forty days, simply pay attention to how often your mind travels in that direction. Ask yourself why it happens when it happens. What is going on when you start craving a Mars bar? Are you hungry? Well, what is wrong with being hungry? Are you lonely? What is so bad about being alone? Try sitting with the feeling instead of fixing it and see what you find out.


There is nothing magical about Lenten practices. Giving up chocolate for Lent is a worthwhile gesture for several reasons, but a.) if chocolate is not a pacifier for you, and b.) if you are not reflective about what it feels like to resist reaching for the candy bar when you feel stressed, then you might as well spend your time in some other productive pursuits for Lent.

On the other hand, if chocolate (or whatever happens to be your addiction of choice) IS your pacifier, and if you ARE reflective about what it feels like to go without that thing, then asking yourself the questions Barbara Brown Taylor suggests above is a good place to begin.

Of course, our inner voices chatter away, counseling moderation, urging us to back off such asceticism, reminding us of our commitment to never look as if we’re holier-than-thou. This is how she ends her Lenten essay.

Chances are you will hear a voice in your head that keeps warning you what will happen if you give up your pacifier. “You’ll starve. You’ll go nuts. You won’t be you anymore.” If that does not work, the voice will move to level two: “That’s not a pacifier. That’s a power tool. Can’t you tell the difference?” If you do not fall for that one, there is always level three: “If God really loves you, you can do whatever you want. Why waste your time on this dumb exercise?”

If you do not know who that voice belongs to, read Luke’s story again. Then tell the devil to get lost and decide what you will do for Lent. Better yet, decide whose you will be. Worship the Lord your God and serve no one else. Expect great things, from God and from yourself. Believe that everything is possible. Why should any of us settle for less?

[All quotes from Barbara Brown Taylor, “Lenten Discipline,” Home by Another Way (Lanham, Maryland: Cowley Publications, 1999), pp. 65-68.]

Beginning Lent in Humanity

Shrove Tuesday


Tomorrow, Ash Wednesday, marks the beginning of Lent. Many of us will attend a church service in which ashes are marked upon our foreheads. We will hear the traditional Ash Wednesday litany that reminds us, “Remember, from dust you have come, and to dust you shall return.”

I will be with the Senior Pastor of First United Methodist Church of Rogers, wearing a ministerial robe and clerical stole, standing in 36 degree temperatures, waiting in a parking lot in Downtown Rogers, Arkansas, to impose ashes on the foreheads of those who drive by.

The car pulls up. “What is your name?”

“Maria.”

“Maria, remember your creation in God . . . from dust God created you . . . and remember your humanity . . . to dust you shall return.” The car drives away.

It seems a bit mundane, imposing ashes as people pull up in their cars, rather than in the formality of an Ash Wednesday service in a beautiful Chapel somewhere.

Yet, what better way to remember our humanity, to be reminded of our clay feet, than in the run of everyday life?

“Honey, I’m running to the grocery store and the post office. And oh, between, I’m stopping to get marked with ashes.”

It’s a powerful symbol of one central aspect of our humanity, the “dust” that will always be part of who we are.

“Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return,” is simply a formal way to say, “You’re human and always will be, so don’t forget it!”

Too much perverted spirituality claims you can rise above your humanity . . . that spiritual practices can root out your human nature permanently . . . that you can overcome your humanity and rise to some exalted spiritual sphere where you don’t have to deal with everyday life any more.

In fact, that very illusion is carried by many who embark on an intentional spiritual path. They want to eradicate their impulses to control and envy and greed. They want a check on their egocentric longings and manipulations. They want to be better. They want to move beyond “sin.” The motive may be sound, but no matter how hard we try, we will never escape our humanness.

Lent begins with this reminder of our humanity. We are human. Dust. Clay. Too often weak and conflicted.

But we are also created in God’s image, created with God’s own DNA woven into our being, created for union with God, created to live in the fullness of our God-connection.

It is important that Lent begins this way . . . with this reminder of our humanity. Many of us take up some special practice for Lent, or we step into Lent intending to fast something . . . food or drink or a compulsive habit.

Some of us, for example, will vow to give up sweets, or more specifically chocolates, for Lent. Or we give up some kind of drink, perhaps alcohol. Or, if our own anger or envy is a particular issue for us, we will give up an afflictive emotion for Lent.

I realize that often I give up something for Lent that seems rather inconsequential. I can easily give up sweets, including chocolate, for Lent and will it come as no great sacrifice for me. Even something which comes nearer to addiction – my morning cup of coffee or evening glass of wine – still seems to be skimming the surface of Lent’s intention.

While there is something to be said for any form of fasting in which we say, “No!” to ourselves, there are some practices that seem to touch us more deeply than others.

Honestly, sometimes I wonder if we undertake practices for Lent that are more inconvenience than actual fasts because we want to do something for Lent at which we can succeed. Afraid that we might bale out three days into fasting some weightier afflictive emotion or addictive obsession, we opt for the thing we can accomplish, the fast at which we can succeed.

“How could I possibly tame my ego or lay aside my pride for seven weeks?”
“What would life be like if I didn’t have to worry all the time?”
“It is not possible for me to go a day without judging someone else.”
“I could not possibly spend 40 days without being critical, so why begin . . . why even try?”

We miss the point. Lent begins with this simple, earthy affirmation of our humanity: “You are dust” . . . loved dust, cherished dust, beyond-all-worth dust . . . but still, dust.

The point is not that you will mess up, that you will fall short. That is assumed already. The point is that you acknowledge when you do stumble . . . that you learn something about yourself, and about yourself in God, and about yourself in relation to others . . . that you get back “on the bicycle” after you fall and then keep going . . . that you find yourself loved and beheld, even as you fall . . . and that through it all, you come to experience that no amount of human failure can disqualify you from love.

If you begin Lent truly hearing and believing that you are dust, beloved dust, then you can go ahead and take on the improbable or the impossible in your life . . . you can endeavor to address the thing that most holds you in its grasp, knowing that no matter each Lenten day’s outcome, you are never disqualified from the journey and never outside the reach of love.

The visitor asked the monk, “What do you do here at the monastery all day long?”

The elder monk replied, “We fall down and get up . . . fall down and get up . . . fall down and get up.”

Traditions and Transcendence

Mark 7:1-13

The Pharisees and some of the teachers of the law who had come from Jerusalem gathered around Jesus 2 and saw some of his disciples eating food with hands that were defiled, that is, unwashed. 3 (The Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they give their hands a ceremonial washing, holding to the tradition of the elders. 4 When they come from the marketplace they do not eat unless they wash. And they observe many other traditions, such as the washing of cups, pitchers and kettles.)

5 So the Pharisees and teachers of the law asked Jesus, “Why don’t your disciples live according to the tradition of the elders instead of eating their food with defiled hands?”

6 He replied, “Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you hypocrites; as it is written:

“‘These people honor me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me.
7
They worship me in vain;
their teachings are merely human rules.’

8 You have let go of the commands of God and are holding on to human traditions.”

9 And he continued, “You have a fine way of setting aside the commands of God in order to observe your own traditions! 10 For Moses said, ‘Honor your father and mother,’ and, ‘Anyone who curses their father or mother is to be put to death.’[e] 11 But you say that if anyone declares that what might have been used to help their father or mother is Corban (that is, devoted to God)— 12 then you no longer let them do anything for their father or mother. 13 Thus you nullify the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And you do many things like that.”


The word "tradition" appears frequently in the Mark 7 passage.

If you are of a certain generation, think Tevye belting out "Tradition!!" in Fiddler on the Roof.

If you are of another generation, think Emmett and the construction workers singing, "Everything is awesome!!" as they blithely go about the same, endless routine, day after day assembling the pieces of the city in the Lego Movie. [Those of you who right now are rolling your eyes and dismissing this blog-post over a Lego Movie reference have missed a jewel if you've not seen it . . . smart, funny, symbolic, and with several brilliant messages, one of which plays on the song, "Everything Is Awesome!"]

Routines and practices easily become overly familiar, so deeply woven into the pattern of daily life that we no longer ask, "Why do I do this?" or "What fruit does this regimen bear in my life?" No need to ask the questions when you're convinced, "Everything is awesome!!"

Rarely do we think of a daily ritual, a religious practice, or an habitual routine as inauthentic. Mostly, they simply lose their energy over time. Sometimes we persist in the practice simply as a lucky charm, never mind that the ritual itself has become empty for us, devoid of any deeper meaning or significance.

I like the word transcendence. It suggests "beyond" . . . beyond comprehension, beyond explanation, beyond the usual, beyond ordinary experience. For several months now, I've sought to bounce things (including practices, rituals, routines, vocations) off this notion of transcendence. Assuming that God is somehow connected to all beyond us, I ask, "Does this thing . . . or practice . . . or belief . . . or connection . . . or vocation . . . have some sense of transcendence about it?" (Of course, all things are full of transcendence if we see them as so. But rarely do we have those eyes to see. As Elizabeth Barrett Browning pointedly wrote, most of us sit round the flaming bush and pluck blackberries.)

So it was, in Jesus' time, with these "traditions of the elders" and the "human traditions" to which the religious crowd was attached. It wasn't that the traditions were bad . . . and it wasn't that those who engaged in them were purposely deceitful or evil people; rather, the rituals and traditions themselves no longer held transcendent weight. They no longer pointed the persons who practiced them to The One Who is Beyond. Deeper realities were lost. The practices were no longer shaping lives, deepening connections with God, or helping the practitioners open themselves more deeply and receptively to the Spirit.

No longer did anyone ask, "Why do we do these things?" or "What is this practice trying to accomplish in my life?"

New wine was bursting the old wineskins of the traditional religious system.

Who among us has not been here, perhaps accumulating religious practices in hopes that the mere practice, rotely performed, would commend us to God?

Who among us has not clung to some method of prayer or formula for experiencing God which was effective in the past, trying to recapture some elusive emotional impulse which reminds us of God's presence?

Who among us has not piled up a storehouse of lucky charms in hopes that they will shield us from difficulty and lead us to a gilded life?

We have all been there, done that. So how do we engage in life, in practices, in rituals that deepen our connection with God? . . . that allow us to participate with God in what God is doing in the world?

What practices connect me with that which is transcendent? What routines have the gravitas to hold the weight of who I am? . . . to shape me? . . . to open me? . . . to help me see more clearly what is real (in myself and in the world)?

These are not the religious rituals that make me feel better, that confirm who I am, or that are done for the sake of a season. Rather, transformative spiritual practices connect me with something more substantial, something solid, something that can ground me or anchor me. (Hence, Meister Eckhart's phrase for God was "The Ground of Being.") Thus, they are transcendent.

How will I know if some "tradition" to which I hold is transcendent or leads me to transcendence? There are probably several ways to answer. Most simply and straightforwardly, hold your spiritual practice up to the transcendent values of love, compassion, and mercy. Do my daily routines or spiritual practices make me more compassionate? Do they open up space inside me to respond to the world with mercy rather than judgment? Do they allow love to flow through me into the world? Am I better able to forgive, include, accept, and be open to the other?

At the very least, God's project for the world starts with love, compassion, and mercy. Thus, that seems to be the place you and I can start, as well.

You're Not in Control

Luke 5:1-11

One day as Jesus was standing by the Lake of Gennesaret, the people were crowding around him and listening to the word of God. 2 He saw at the water’s edge two boats, left there by the fishermen, who were washing their nets. 3 He got into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon, and asked him to put out a little from shore. Then he sat down and taught the people from the boat.

4 When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, “Put out into deep water, and let down the nets for a catch.”

5 Simon answered, “Master, we’ve worked hard all night and haven’t caught anything. But because you say so, I will let down the nets.”

6 When they had done so, they caught such a large number of fish that their nets began to break. 7 So they signaled their partners in the other boat to come and help them, and they came and filled both boats so full that they began to sink.

8 When Simon Peter saw this, he fell at Jesus’ knees and said, “Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man!” 9 For he and all his companions were astonished at the catch of fish they had taken, 10 and so were James and John, the sons of Zebedee, Simon’s partners.

Then Jesus said to Simon, “Don’t be afraid; from now on you will fish for people.” 11 So they pulled their boats up on shore, left everything and followed him.


"Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man." Peter was right, of course. He was a "sinful man," in whatever way you choose to measure human sinfulness. In that sense, he was no different from me or you.

But coming as it does in this part of the narrative, I don't sense that Peter was sharing new information with Jesus about the level of his morality. Nor was Peter reminding Jesus of something he felt Jesus already knew.

Peter's objection is rooted in a much deeper sense of self and in his own theological assumptions about himself and God. His statement gives us a hint about how he sees himself, and how he perceives God working in the world.

[Foreshadowing: The way Peter believes God works in a human life is also the default system many of us carry within ourselves.]

While there are several significant angles within this story of the great catch of fish, I'm drawn to one in particular today. In the narrative, God is depicted as generous, even extravagant. After a full night of fishing in which these professional fishers caught nothing, Jesus instructed them to try again. What changed? Was there a shift in the wind? A change in the barometric pressure? What happened?

[My grandfather had a sixth-grade education, but was the best fisher I ever knew. He could barely read a book, but from a boat on the lake or with a rod and reel in hand on the shore, he could read the weather -- and thus the fish -- with uncanny accuracy. If we were sitting in his living room and said, "Let's go fishing, Granddad!" he would walk out to the porch, stand there for a couple of minutes watching the skies, feeling the air on his skin, and either say, "Okay, it's a good day for fishing," or "They're not biting today . . . we'll go another day."]

What changed that day on Gennesaret Lake? What did Jesus know that these professional fishers did not know?

"Put down your nets again," Jesus instructed, and what came up in the nets were so many fish the nets began to tear. Abundance . . . extravagance . . . taking the little and making it more than enough . . . these are familiar themes echoed throughout God's story in scripture, especially as embodied in Jesus.

But Peter is accustomed to a finite world . . . a world in which we have been taught that we get what we deserve. Thus, as "sinners," we deserve very little. To Peter, the scene doesn't add up. He had done nothing to earn or deserve this massive catch of fish. And he has not been sufficiently versed in God's generosity. So he objects. He has lived inside a pattern that has created dichotomies all his life: deserving/undeserving . . . worthy/unworthy . . . one or the other. By the tone of the narrative, Peter is not ready for Jesus to break open the worthiness pattern under which he has ordered his life.

"Go away from me," he says. I"m not ready for a shift like this. I'm accustomed to being the center of my world. When things, good things, come my way, it's because I've worked for them, earned them, shown myself worthy of them. I'm a sinful man. I will not accept unearned gifts!

[Have you ever received some good gift, something you did not deserve, or some accolade for which you felt unworthy, and then countered that good gift by engaging in some kind of self-destructive behavior? I have, and you probably have, too. It is one subconscious way we say with our lives, "I'm a sinful person! I'm not deserving!" Perhaps we pick a fight with a spouse . . . or engage in some addictive behavior . . . or intentionally create a stir at work . . . all the dynamic equivalent of Peter's pushback, "Get away from me! I am unworthy!"]

How impoverished Peter is! How impoverished we are! Ordering life as if everything depends on me -- my skill, my intellect, my ingenuity, my creativity, my work ethic -- I shut out the possibility of gift, generosity, grace. In that sense, I am not only impoverished, but stunted in my capacity to receive from God and others anything that comes apart from my own making.

We live in God's world, thankfully, in which we do NOT always get what we deserve -- either for good or for bad -- and in which we are not in charge -- despite our feverish efforts at controlling the world.

The worthiness game is a true dead-end, despite how deeply ingrained it is within us and within culture. Ultimately, it shuts you off from God and others, making life all about yourself, your efforts, your own will. There is little future in that, either for me, for you, or for the human community.

So here you go . . . here's your huge catch of fish!!

Loving the Other

Through Advent I took a break from Only a Sojourner in order to post reflections on the daily Advent readings at https://adailyadvent.blogspot.com/

Now, well into the season of Epiphany, I'll offer a few words related to my two previous posts before moving on.

What does it mean to love another? It may be easy enough to "love" someone we are drawn to, someone with whom we share a close connection . . . family members, friends, those with whom we share common interests and concerns. But what does it mean to love the narcissist, the bully, the abuser, the cruel one?

The previous post of Thomas Merton's thoughts in No Man Is an Island provided some clues.

Love seeks one thing only: the good of the one loved. . . . [No Man Is an Island, p. 5]

To love another person, we seek not our own good, not even the pleasant feeling of having done something good. Rather, we will what is truly good for the other.

I realize that sounds like a subjective standard. I can look at another person and think I know what is good for them, what is best for them, but I have to confess that like you, I never see all the way through another person. I never know what is hidden within the deepest caverns of their being. I never truly know what they need simply by observing them on the outside.

What I do know -- or at least what I believe I know -- is that God's design for every human being is wholeness, that we live fully human lives. (In the 2nd century, St. Irenaeus famously said, "The glory of God is the human person fully alive"). God desires that we each live as fully as possible into the unique personhood for which God created us.

Thus, to truly love another person means that we seek the other's wholeness . . . we act on their behalf that they might become more and more the person God created them to be . . . we act in their lives in ways that are healing, in ways that call forth from them the image of God that is written into their soul's DNA. For as Merton suggests, not only is this person's destiny to be considered, but also the destiny of God's entire kingdom (p. 8). God's work of moving persons toward wholeness is part of God's wider project, what Jesus called the "kingdom of God," to bring all people to this healing wholeness; therefore, to love another person truly is also to love what God is doing in the world.

So given this notion of love, which acts for the benefit of the other in his or her becoming . . . and given that there is a sense of the common good, the kingdom which is coming . . . here are some examples of what love is not:

* Love does not stroke a narcissist and feed his or her narcissism.

* Love does not bow before a bully and enable his or her bullying.

* Love does not have a blind eye toward abusive behavior, excusing it as "he/she cannot help themselves."

* Love does not reward attention-seekers just because their ego wants to be continually in the spotlight.

Perhaps one obvious example will help. No one who truly loves an alcoholic would think of handing him/her a drink when they are trying to get sober. What family members and friends must learn on the road to sobriety is what some call "tough love," the strength to say "no" in order to keep the addict's health, wholeness, and best interest first and foremost.

In loving another, we don't act in ways that keep them imprisoned in the small egocentric self. We want to love them in ways that somehow release them or encourage them to their more expansive, truer, authentic self.

Then how shall we know how best to love another person? Good question. You see by now, don't you, that love is hard work. And because we don't see the inside of the other fully, our love for them is not always clear-cut. Here again, Merton helps.

One who really loves another is not merely moved by the desire to see him contented and healthy and prosperous in this world. Love cannot be satisfied with anything so incomplete. If I am to love my brother, I must somehow enter deep into the mystery of God's love for him. . . . The truth I must love in my brother is God Himself, living in him. . . .

In order to love others with perfect charity I must be true to them, to myself, and to God. . . .

If we love one another truly, our love will be graced with a clear-sighted prudence which sees and respects the designs of God upon each separate soul. Our love for one another must be rooted in a deep devotion to Divine Providence, a devotion that abandons our own limited plans into the hands of God and seeks only to enter into the invisible work that builds His Kingdom. (pp. 7-9)

In Merton's vision of love, the one who desires to love another must engage in his/her own strenuous inner work, deepening in God, knowing ourselves more fully, seeing our own light and darkness with more clarity. We engage in this work of spiritual becoming ourselves so that we see more clearly, slowly and over time, praying that we increasingly take on the heart and eyes of God within ourselves.

This attention to our own inner landscape is what Merton calls being "rooted in a deep devotion to Divine Providence, a devotion that abandons our own limited plans into the hands of God and seeks only to enter into the invisible work that builds His Kingdom."

Merton says I must somehow enter deep into the mystery of God's love for the other.

This is difficult work and no one gets it perfectly. The temptation for me -- your temptation may be different -- is to withhold love until I'm "doing it right." When that is the case, I will never love.

So the invitation for me is to begin where I am . . . to give attention to my own interior . . . to see more and more of my own truth . . . and to look on others with compassion, asking, "What does he/she truly need to be whole? How does God see them? Is there some way I can help love them to wholeness?"

Sometimes the answer is tangible food or clothing or cash for a utility payment.

Sometimes the answer is an affirming word, a listening ear, or quiet presence.

Sometimes the answer is a well-timed, well-placed question which allows the other to explore more deeply the implications of what they are considering.

And sometimes the answer is a firm, solid, "No, not now!"