I’m so glad that it all does not depend upon me. In saying this, I don’t mean that I am shirking my responsibility to contribute to the world and to the hopes and dreams that we all have for a better more compassionate world where all receive the great dignity that we have as beloved creatures of a Loving God. What I am saying is that I am reminded on a daily basis of just how fragile and weak I am. There are so many things that are out of my control, especially when I look at things “alone.” It can seem pretty overwhelming. So, I say that I am glad that I am not alone in all this, and I look to support others and receive support from them in this Life journey.
Sometimes my attitude is not the best. I feel compelled to do things that I consider to be inconvenient and sometimes even distasteful. I’m not talking about “bad” things either. Sometimes it seems difficult to do the “right” thing. It may seem to be too time-consuming or too interruptive of my schedule of life that I sometimes hold onto just a bit too tightly. Oh, the terrible burden of inconvenience!! Thank God I am not always held accountable for my disposition concerning things. At the same time, it is quite humbling to have this realization – No, I don’t always have the most gracious spirit and enter willingly into giving to Life what it is truly due.
What kind of a God allows for this? What Divine Love not only allows this but embraces it and Loves even more? This is the Advent God of patient exuberance. What may seem meager is always abundance, when it is viewed from the standpoint of the Lover! What will it take for us to really appreciate this kind of love and then go so far as to let it transform us so that we can really receive it, which always means to give it away again?
The Prophet Zephaniah (ZEP 3: 1-2, 9-13) is telling us a little about this situation in today’s first reading…
“On that day You need not be ashamed of all your deeds, your rebellious actions against me…
I will leave as a remnant in your midst a people humble and lowly, Who shall take refuge in the name of the Lord;”
It is the Love of This God, Who is Love that will provide the environment for everything. This is not about ridiculing us, but it is about the meager remnant that we may see when we look in the mirror that paradoxically, in the eyes of the Divine Lover, is the most precious treasure! The slightest recognition of this by us is like a tiny spark that can burst into an all-engulfing bonfire of Celebration! It takes only a small nod for the fire to ignite – the tiniest crumb of recognition. Because, we are already in the Love…we just don’t realize it.
The evangelist Matthew (MT 21: 28-32) talks about this in terms of honest attitudes about the reality of a situation.
“What is your opinion? A man had two sons. He came to the first and said, ‘Son, go out and work in the vineyard today.’ The son said in reply, ‘I will not,’ but afterwards he changed his mind and went. The man came to the other son and gave the same order. He said in reply, ‘Yes, sir,’ but did not go. Which of the two did his father’s will?”
Here is the attitude of inconvenience that I mentioned earlier. It can be debilitating, but it can also break down. This story of the two sons is not necessarily meant only to characterize a duality between a false spirit of willingness and a reluctant one. It is true that the son who at first said “no,” then changed his mind does appear to be the one who did the “will of the Father.” However, the bigger picture is that both are beloved children, invited to participate in the Divine Life. The great gift of “free will” shows its precarious nature here. On the one hand, we may pay lip service to a demand of Life and, on the other, we try to say “no,” but somehow the reality of the request, i.e., the demand wins out. Why? Could it be because the demands of Love will always break down the “false” barriers that we try to build? I believe the answer is “yes!”
We ALL are both of the sons in this story. And, like the prodigal son story in Luke, the story is perhaps not so much about the two sons as it is about the Loving Parent – the full context for everything! God is a Community or Communion of Love. We refer to this as the Trinity. And it is within this communion that we can realize that we belong. But the only way that we can find that we belong is by interacting with each other. Herein lies the challenge. And within this interaction we have the option to either judge each other as “worthy” or “unworthy” of belonging as well, or to ultimately realize that this whole “judgement” thing is a ridiculous game because we are already in it together!
It’s like being led blindfolded into a room without doors. When we take our blindfolds off, we see others around us and we begin interacting. Some people we may find pleasant and others we may prefer to not be around, for whatever reason. So, we try to create “doorways” out of this BIG room. These are our “judgments.” The odd thing about these false “doorways” is that we cannot exit through them, and neither can we cast others out through them. And the reason why the doorways are not real is because there are no walls to this “room” at all. The room is the space of Belonging! And our judgments are always failed attempts to exit the ROOM! But we unfortunately sometimes believe these false doorways to be real.
We need each other to help us see this Great Space, by finding just a small piece or remnant of Love, that is our refuge because it is OURS! This is the “infant in the crib,” the great wonder in smallness, the tiny spark or nod prompted by another, that can thwart our dishonest attempts to NOT respond and even transform reluctance into an embrace of the loving Vastness of Belonging to the Great Lover of the Universe!
Peace
Thomas
“Let the beauty we love be what we do. There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the earth.” – RUMI