“Putting the Power of Film at the Service of the Poor”
There is nothing
so steady and relentless,
so committed and enduring,
so firm and unwavering
as God’s love
for us.
Over and over again,
in story after story,
Jesus tells us that
the defining characteristic of God
is not anger
but love.
Yet we stumble around
in a fog of
misplaced guilt
and wrong attachments.
As children of God,
we are called to be
people of love,
people who accept
God’s love
and people who transmit
God’s love.
We live in
a constant state
of genesis,
always changing,
always evolving,
always being born anew.
Today we begin again.
This very moment
is pregnant
with new possibilities
for growing
in God,
with God,
through God.
Today is
a new creation.
“What is the use of praying if at the very moment of prayer, we have so little confidence in God that we are busy planning our own kind of answer to our prayer.”
-Thomas Merton
Thoughts in Solitude
[page 24]
“To be without compassion is to fail to know the self. When we recognize and accept our own frailties, we have no trouble dealing tenderly with the needs and the lapses of others.”
-Joan Chittister, OSB
Seeing with Our Souls
Mystical Eyes
Each day brings
its share
of sweetness
and bitterness,
of joy
and misery,
of comfort
and pain,
of laughter
and tears,
of hopes
and disappointments.
Each day brings
rejection and acceptance,
loneliness and communion.
Each day brings moments
of fear and despair
and courage and delight.
Each day brings
a flood of words
and a desert of silence.
Each day we have moments of
transparency and deception,
moments of
faithfulness and infidelity,
moments of
strength and weakness,
moments of
purity and lust,
moments of
beauty and cruelty.
And each day
God is present
in all these things,
in all the ups and downs,
in the heartache and elation,
in the victories and the defeats.
But God’s presence is
hidden and silent.
It is only through faith
we can see and hear God,
even though our seeing and hearing
are gravely impaired
and far from perfect.
We really don’t know God,
yet we do know God.
In our not knowing
is the beginning of our knowing.
To see God
in all things
each day,
is the mysticism
of everyday life,
the ordinary mysticism
that sees the extraordinary
work of God
even in the mundane events
of everyday life.
And with everyday mystical eyes
we are able to see God
in both the cries of the poor
and the laughter of a child,
in both a tender kiss
and in a deadly disease.
Disconnected
Television and the internet
have turned our interior dwellings
into shanty towns.
Instead of looking in,
they prompt us to look outward,
and we become
what we gaze upon.
Long ago, in a remote village
in the south of France,
St. John Marie Vianney,
known as the Cure of Ars,
noticed an old farmer
who used to sit for hours
in the humble, empty church.
When the saint asked him
what he was doing,
the farmer replied:
“He looks at me
and I look at him.”
It really is that simple,
but modern life
is so connected
to so much
we are easily disconnected
from the All.
Harmony in Diversity
We are all created by the Creator,
and so we are all in relationship with one another.
We are all brothers and sisters,
and to set yourself up as higher or better
than others is a subtle form of blasphemy.
We are all connected.
If one amongst us is diminished,
we are all diminished.
We are one with all of creation
and the Creator.
We must seek harmony in diversity
as we rejoice in our humanness.
The Incarnation compels us to step
to the back of the bus
and choose to sit with the poor
and learn to see life
from their point of view
in order to better share in their struggle
for access to God’s gift of
freedom, oneness and love
that has been denied to them
by virtue of our selfishness.
Our Father
The heresy of American Christianity
is rugged individualism.
We speak of “my rights” and
“my relationship with God.”
We are self-centered and narcissistic.
The great prayer of Christianity begins:
“Our Father…”
We are connected, our prayer is communal.
Know yourself…and forget yourself.
God Provides
After my early morning prayer time today, I was left feeling scattered and a bit perplexed. In a word, I felt unnourished. I guess I wanted to “hear” something, something that would feed me. Instead I endured a noisy silence, hearing nothing but my own scattered thoughts, most of which reflected my concern about my inability to raise sufficient funds to effectively operate the San Damiano Foundation. We seem always on the brink of extinction. Then, as I pushed myself away from my desk, I spotted a little book I had not looked at in years. The book featured selected readings from the works of Ruth Burrows, an English Carmelite nun who is one of my favorite spiritual writers. I opened the book randomly and slowly read the following passage:
“We must submit our whole being to the discipline of the desert and not seek to avoid it. Like the Israelites of old we must press forward along a way we know not, trusting ourselves to God’s guidance, relying on him to supply all our needs.
Alas! Like them we grow weary of the wilderness, but let us not lose hope. Let us leave it to God to give us sufficient pleasure and comfort to sustain us. He will send us manna and make sweet water spring from the rock in due time, when we really need it.
We learn by experience that there is beauty and tenderness even in the desert, but it must be of God’s providing. Let us accept with humble love all the comforts both material and spiritual which he provides for us but let us not seek them for ourselves.
Oftentimes the silence and bleakness of the desert seems to penetrate into the depths of our souls, a desert of loneliness and aridity. We must not try to evade suffering; just trust in God to see us through, putting a seal on our lips, letting the silent peace of the desert enfold us.”
Suddenly and unexpectedly, I had been nourished. God provides. Praise God.
Note: this was written a few years ago…SDF still struggles to stay afloat and make films, but God continues to supply…often at the last second, and exactly what we need.
“Compassion is not sympathy. Compassion is mercy. It is a commitment to take responsibility for the suffering of others.”
-Joan Chittister, OSB
Seeing with Our Souls
