As we move into the first week in “ordinary time,” we find that we live our lives on the run.  There is no “breathing” space between the holidays and jumping headlong into the New Year!  Depending upon one’s economic status, a day in the life runs the spectrum from figuring out where the next meal is coming from in order to feed loved ones to knowing which stock is going to bring in optimal returns.  The relativity of busyness seems to have a common frenetic element.  “Will I survive another day?”  “Will my child pass the test?” “Will my son be killed?”  “Will the check come in the mail?”  “Will I find a job?”  “Will I land the deal of the century?”  “Will my car start?”  “Will I be healed from this sickness?” These are just some of the questions that we all face daily across this great globe of humanity.

These concerns can cause much anxiety and restlessness.  This is what we have come to know as “normal” in our lives perhaps.  But I wonder how much of that is “programmed” or learned from social structures that promote quick one-dimensional answers that seem to preclude self-recollection and even spirituality. Fast-paced lifestyles are not bad in themselves, but if unchecked they can blind us to deeper dimensions that we must cultivate and allow into our lives so that we can engage in ALL of life from a source of wholeness, rather than from a fragmented one.

Mark, in today’s Gospel (MK 1: 29-39), describes a quite overwhelming “day in the life” of Jesus:

“On leaving the synagogue  Jesus entered the house of Simon and Andrew with James and John.    Simon’s mother-in-law lay sick… He approached, grasped her hand, and helped her up…

   When it was evening, after sunset,    they brought to him all who were ill or possessed by demons.    The whole town was gathered at the door…

    Rising very early before dawn,    he left and went off to a deserted place, where he prayed…”

This actually sounds a little bit like our lives.  We are sick in need of healing, we are addicted to many things, or as the scripture refers to it, “possessed by demons,” we all are in need of other’s prayers and indeed are called to pray ourselves.  The overriding characteristic of Jesus’ day seems to be that He is in the service of other’s needs – REAL needs!  He leaves His Father’s House (the Synagogue) and proceeds to heal his disciple Peter’s mother in law, then at sunset continues to heal EVERYONE, as the Scripture tells us “the whole town was gathered at the door.”  But then we hear something that seems to interrupt this busy flow of healing.   After a full day of embracing and healing and loving, he rises from his night’s rest “early before dawn…went off to a deserted place, where he prayed.”

There is a sense that prayer can be seen as action itself.  I think it is true to say that prayer in action would look just like what Jesus’ day was like – listening and responding to the needs of others in a caring and loving way – the very definition of compassion!  But, even Jesus cannot do it alone.  There has to be a deeper source, a wellspring to draw from that “fuels” or perhaps more appropriately allows the FLOW to come at all.  Jesus retreated a bit, not so much to get away from people but to get indeed closer to the Source of Love and Healing that was flowing Through Him!  This going off to a deserted place to pray was not an interruption in the Healing, but an acknowledgement and indeed embrace of the Flow from its Source!

This closeness to the Source of Love Itself, named as prayer, happens in what is called a deserted place because in prayer – true prayer – more than asking for anything in particular, we are bathed in the Source of all Compassion.  We are stripped of the amalgam of traits that we think comprise our identity and rest in a place of “home” where we are Loved.  We abide in the Love that is Source of our Life and our ability to give our Life to others.

Wow, this certainly seems to get covered over in our world, doesn’t it?  It’s like a foreign language.  Who thinks of themselves as a “vessel” of divine Love that seeks to embrace everyone?  Yet, isn’t this Who Jesus was, who CHRIST is?  A divine human vessel that longs to heal and embrace all of the Beloved – everyone “gathered at the door.”

It is interesting to consider Jesus as being weary from his service.  The healing that flowed through and out from him was divine energy coming into contact with the human spirit of vulnerability.  I wonder though if this was not a circular flow.  In other words, could it be that Jesus was “fed” or even “healed” by his encounter with those he healed.  Dare we have a God who became one of us, because of a simple yet overwhelming desire to be in our company?  Could God be coming to us from both directions, or really all directions?

The deserted place is not necessarily a physical place; however, it is a necessary one.  Because it is in this deserted place, this space where we find ourselves to be the beautiful vessels that allow Love to experience us – to heal us, to comfort us, to feed us!  It’s not really a “recharging” rest that we find in this deserted place, but more like a space of openness where we can RECEIVE and GIVE both at the same time.  It’s a dialogue of Love performed by the Human and the Divine that creates an art-form of Life that must – because of its desire to – reach out to receive and give healing, just as Jesus did!

What is your deserted place?  Maybe we do actually need to rise early in the morning to try to sit in the Source of Love that gives us Life.  The practice of BEING in prayer, where we attempt to “let go” of the distractions as they present themselves to us, will spill forth in our lives of activity!  But it takes time and commitment to this practice.  With God’s assistance, we train our minds and hearts to really Listen to the Flow, which we are all a part!   This is not an easy task, but it can be the difference between Life and Death, as Jesus shows us.  Life’s abundance flows directly from surrender!  And the Breath of Healing (the Holy Spirit) happens somewhere in the space between giving and receiving.

Jesus encountered His Father, our Loving God, inside of his interactions with people as much as in the deserted places that he went to pray.  In a way, Jesus symbolizes for us how we can bridge the human and the divine always in our lives!  Yes, we need to let go of those things that are superficial and get in the way of authentic interaction with each other and life, but we must as much so strive to receive God coming to us in Everyone and Everything.  This is the ABUNDANT DESERT that grants us the ability to respond in compassion to each other without losing anything!

Peace

Thomas

The soul is the delicate yet durable cloth  woven and laced together in loving pattern  by the merciful strokes of God’s Passings…
    And the sheen of our soul is the ever-glowing  awareness we have of this sacred-stitched fabric.