Per Ipsum

In his mind a man plans his course, but the LORD directs his steps. Proverbs 16: 9 The old joke: How do you make God laugh? Tell him your plans. If you do a full-text search of the Bible on "plans" you get dozens of references to the plans of men, must of them about frustration. Rarely do you see that word in reference to God. And in honor of the Feast of Christ the King, this from Pope Benedict XVI: God does not have a fixed plan that he must carry out; on the contrary, he has many different ways of finding man and even of turning his wrong ways into right ways...the Feast of Christ the King is therefore not a feast of those who are subjugated, but a feast of those who know that they are in the hands of the one who writes straight with crooked lines. So we plunge ahead confidently, remembering to listen, trying to do so, and trust Him to make sense out of the tangle of our lives.

'Who gave a person a mouth?' Yahweh said to him... Is it not I, Yahweh? Now go, I shall help you speak and instruct you what to say.' Exodus 4:11-12 God was very specific with Moses--where he was to go, what he was to say. Perhaps Moses just listened better. Perhaps it was the shepherding, and the time alone it gave him. Perhaps it was remembering to go up to the mountains, like Jesus did. How do we listen? Where is the word? Or perhaps, when you are the messenger, you just know.

Jesus, who destroyed death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel... 2 Timothy 1:10 I look at the skin on my hands and it is withering, like the leaves that are turning brown, curling up and falling to the ground. Death is heavy with me this Autumn. Is it delayed reaction to my father's death last winter? He took with him the last buffer between me and the next world. Is it the whisper of the Holy Spirit? He whispers, "Life is temporary, let go of attachment to it." My natural reaction is rage. We are called to be more than that. Only in Jesus is there strength in the face of bodily death.

I know well the plans I have in mind for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare, not for woe! plans to give you a future full of hope. Jeremiah 29:11 I've heard that the one way to make God laugh is to tell him you have plans. The rest of my life is stretching out in front of me. I need a job, and the only thing certain is that I don't want to be "Director" of anything . Perhaps God has other ideas. My suspicion is that, while He values human work, He isn't terrible concerned about specific jobs. Perhaps I'm wrong. I know he gave me marriage and family as my primary concern and that won't change. I know he wants me to write. The inclination is most certainly from him. But what shall I write? I won't tell him my plans. He might laugh. He sends me ideas when I remember to listen. You will surely have a future, and your hope will not be cut off. Proverbs 23:18

If you bring forth the precious without the vile, you shall be my mouthpiece. Jeremiah 15:19 How do we bring for the precious without the vile? By taking in only the precious but not the vile? How do we live in the world without being a part of it? How do we then speak to it? The word says "If you repent so that I restore you..." To tell real stories about real people, is to deal with the ugly along with the beautiful, the good along with the bad. We have to sift for the precious in the midst of the crass. Between the vast moral wasteland of popular culture and the contrived fictions of inspirational romance and family-friendly programming lie the lives of real people making their way to God. To tell those stories requires the hand of God. The Jerusalem Bible translation is this: If you come back,I will take you back into my service;and if you utter noble, not despicable, thoughts,you shall be as my own mouth. 1. Repent 2. God acts to t...

Oh that today you would listen to His word! Psalm 95 Listen carefully, my son to the Master's instructions and attend to them with the ear of your heart. Rule of Saint Benedict That is the constant conumdrum--how to listen, not talk. Spiritual advisors give us libraries full of advice on practice and piety--words to say. Occasionally we get a hint of how to listen. The Zen masters gave more listening advice that Western spiritual experts (says she, muttering). Here's one from Magnificat: "Deaf though we may be to the Word of God, God never ceases to send us messengers..." The skeptic wonders, where are they in my life? Jeremiah, are you there? The believer acknowledges that the scripture sits unopened on the desk, and on the table. The writer goes on, however. "...homilies, hymns, prayers, persons, events, experiences--to break through our deafness that we might hear and live." The skeptic again wonders how we know which of the many people and ev...

I went about mourning as though for my friend or brother. I bowed my head in grief as though weeping for my mother. Psalm 35:13-15 Here's to those fallen in battle, may we revere their memory always. Here's to the mangled and maim who come back to us, they deserve our care and thanks. Here, also, is tribute and respect to the living dead, the walking wounded, the ones who left their life on a battlefield somewhere, and filled out the rest of their days in a kind of grey half life, never quite the husbands or fathers they were before, never living the lives they would have led. Long before modern psychology named it PTSD they were among us. Here, above all, is a salute to those who got back husband, brother, friend, father but never really got him back. I weep for my mother.

A voice of one crying out in the desert: 'Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight his paths. Mark 1:3 From an interview with Bruce Feiler regarding Walking the Bible: I went looking for all these rational questions, and could I make it connection with my kind of secular, rational world, and then I realized that was just this kind of crutch that I was relying on. And that what I really learned was that going into the desert, in particular, you have to learn to let go of those crutches and the civilized world, and open yourself up to something higher. I think that one thing that Judaism, Christian and Islam have in common is that they are the story of a man - at their heart - the story of a man who leaves the civilized world and goes into the desert, has a transforming experience, and then comes back to the civilized world to share that experience with others. The key thought here is that when you go into the desert you can't use reason and intellect as a crutch. You have to c...

And when you are praying, speak not much, as the heathens. For they think that in their much speaking they may be heard. Be not you therefore like to them, for your Father knoweth what is needful for you, before you ask him. Matthew 6:7-8 It came to me suddenly, how I pray. Dear Lord, show me what you want from me; Thy will be done. Now, here's what I'm going to do for you. 1)... God says, if you'll stop talking, perhaps I can get a word in edgewise. Let me know when you are ready.

Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves Philippians 2:3 If anything at all in faith runs contrary to the values of this world it is this: we are called to put the other--each and every 'other' in our lives--ahead of ourselves. Modern psychology screams out that this cannot be so; healthy ego demands attention to the self first. Faith argues that a truly health ego has no need of focus on self. Humility demands that we cease thinking about the self and simply live with what is. Does this mean the person of faith should put up with abuse? Clearly not. To love the other is to prevent the other from being an abuser. To collaborate in the abuse by allowing your own victimization is not humility, it is self centered weakness. Does this mean the person of faith is at the beck and call of every demand and whim of everyone he/she meets? Clearly not. To love ...

For my days are vanishing like smoke my bones burn away like a fire. My heart is withered like the grass. Psalm 102 April 4 There are losses that can never be replaced. Sadness and loss can swamp you unexpectedly long after you thought you were healed. Are you letting God down? There are losses that make you acutely aware of your own failures. There is death, and there is the failure to give life. Can you refuse God's forgiveness and healing? April, always April. "Breeding flowers in a dead land." MLK died April 4, 1968. Many perished in Xenia April 4, 1974, and one died a distance away at the same time. All deaths are equal in God's eyes. All life is from him. Can you refuse life? No. Before you there is life and death. Choose life, with all its cyclic pain and rebirth, joy and sorrow, death and resurrection. It's the blight that man was born for. It is Margaret that you mourn for. (cummings)

You shall not have other gods besides me. You shall not carve idols for yourselves in the shape of anything in the sky above or on the earth below or in the waters beneath the earth; you shall not bow down before them or worship them. Exodus 20:3-5 The Third Sunday in Lent, 2006 I never noticed before but Exodus gives 5 long verses to the first commandment, telling us in excruciating detail that we should not worship anything of this earth. Murder, adultery, lying and theft each get one line. In English, at least, they are more like half a line. I would be the last one to argue that murder, adultery, lying or theft --or envy for that matter--are good. However, I'm thinking that a greater emphasis in conscience formation ought to go into rooting out the things I put in place of God. Who me? Worship idols? Could be, if I could see correctly. If I dare to ask Him, He will show me, I'm afraid. I wonder if the noise I've been considering is the noise of idols.

Dominus Deus ... inspiravit in faciem eius Genesis 2:7 Inspiro=to breathe upon and also to inspire Spiritus=breath and also life So the Lord God breathed into his face the Lord God inspired him, infused life into him, provided him with Spiritus Provided me with Spiritus.

And the Lord God...breathed into his face the breath of life and so man became a living being. Genesis 2:7 I was driven from the chapel Saturday by incense. Odd, that, but I simply couldn't breathe. I went up to my room and worked at breathing for a while. That was followed by a deep sleep. When I read about cultivating silence, the author, whether Catholic, Christian or non-religious inevitably brings the discussion to breathing. Control your breathing, concentrate on your breathing, become aware of your breathing. Silent prayer, truly silent prayer in which you quiet the chatter in your head, usually involves the sound of your own breathing. I've come to see that as focusing on the point at which God holds you, oh so quietly, into existence, the tipping point between being and not being. At some point in faith you ought to be able to give it over utterly to Him. I don't know that I've ever gotten that far. Asthma is a reminder of my frailty. Breath comes, and it could...

Thus says the Lord: I will lead her into the desert and speak to her heart. Hosea 2:16 (First reading for February 26, 2006) Is the desert a silent place? It must be. Cultivate silence, He says, and, if you won't, I will lead you to the desert so that you can hear me. Where did I find so much noise? The printed word, the Internet, the media, the phone--can I leave them all behind? Perhaps not for 40 days, but for two, yes, I can. I can at least begin Lent that way. I have no doubt that if He chooses He can impose a great and terrible wilderness on those He loves.

when I called, you did not answer,when I spoke, you did not listen Isaiah 65:12 Oh how I hate silence. Once there is emptiness in my life, I rush in with goals and plans. For years I believed that to be virtue. I've come to see it as refusal to listen. It is no different than rushing to fill every lull in the conversation with talk, leaving those I'm with no room to speak. It has been six weeks since my father's funeral, and there have been days well occupied with business associated with the aftermath. There are many more, however that are wide open, many more such days than at any time in my adult life. They are frightening. My first instinct was to begin to scan the want ads and to engage family in discussion about whether or not we ought to move near the grandbaby. Only belatedly did it occur to me how horrid for my daughter and son-in-law it would be if we did indeed make that child the center of our days (he is already the center of our heart). After thrashing aroun...

On my bed I remember you. On you I muse through the night. Psalm 63 When I cannot sleep and there appears to be no reason for it, I want to shout, "What do you want from me?" Rude to God--good going! In the "watches of the night" the words of Augustine, "Our hearts are restless til they rest in You," take on new meaning. Restless indeed, in every sense of the word--lacking in rest, restlessly moving, restless legs, restless mind. In him is our safety, our rest, our security, but my mind can't always convince my body. Strung out from lack of sleep, piety and contemplation escape me. All I can do is repeat rote prayers. When the rosary is finished, all I can seek oblivion in cable TV (truely awful in the wee hours of the night) or the Internet (brain numbing, particularly the games). Productive work is not an option at that point. So I throw myself on his mercy and pray for a cure--or for morni...