18th Sunday Ordinary Time

John 6: 24-35

August 5, 2012

 

 In these exchanges Jesus is dealing with a conventional religious consciousness that is difficult to change.

It values miraculous deeds because they provide for physical needs and authenticate what a person says.
Conventional religious consciousness stops short of considering the deeds as signs that reveal the deeper world of Spirit.
In a similar way, those persons with this consciousness are concerned about actions that can be seen but not about the interiority of the actor, the place that enables the actions to be performed.
Their consciousness is locked into the visible, material, and temporal.
The invisible, spiritual, and eternal elude them.

 "Don't keep hungering after wonders as wonders, thinking the next miracle will solve your problems. Notice there is a deeper hunger in you, not for what perishes in time but for what lasts into eternity"

 "Turn your mind from doing things to the inner space from which you are able to do things. God's work is always co-done with God."

 "Don't ask, 'How will I know this is true?' Ask, 'Am I in communion with God and receiving divine life?'"

"Manna every morning will not solve the whole problem. Connect with me and be forever satisfied on a spiritual level."

 These are not easy adjustments to be made.

When they cannot be made, the villain is a hardened heart, an inflexible attachment to a surface way of being and thinking.
 However, when consciousness does adjust to the spiritual, it can change the human life in profound ways.

 One of my favorite stories of adjusting consciousness is titled

 “Junk.”, "Junk!"
 It goes like this:

 

God bless my mother, and God bless me. We made it through.

She had a stroke and long period or rehabilitation, and it was clear she was going to have to stay with us for a while. I had all these things in mind: it was a chance to pay her back for all those years. There were these things I was going to help her clear up, like the way she was thinking. I wanted to do the whole job very well, this big op

 Fights? Classics, like only a mother and daughter can have.

And my mother is a great fighter, from the Old School of somehow loving it and being very good at it and getting a kind of ecstatic look in your eye when you're really into it. I guess I'm exaggerating. It drives me a little crazy. I hate to argue. Oh, well .. .

But it got bad. Over a hard-boiled egg we had a bad fight. We'd both gotten worn out, irritable, and frustrated. Boom! I don't remember what about—just about how it was all going and why her stay had gotten difficult and all of us had become more and more irritable and short-tempered.

In the middle of it, she stopped short and said, "Why are you doing all this for me anyway?" It sort of hit me and I started to list all the reasons. They just came out: I was afraid for her; I wanted to get her well; I felt maybe I'd ignored her when I was younger; I needed to show her I was strong; I needed to get her ready for going home alone; old age; and on and on. I was amazed myself. I could have gone on giving reasons all night. Even she was impressed.

"Junk?" I yelled. Like, boy, she'd made a real mistake with that re­mark. I could really get her.

"Yes, junk," she said again, but a little more quietly. And that little­more-quietly tone got me. And she went on: "You don't have to have all those reasons. We love each other. That's enough."

I felt like a child again. Having your parents show you something that's true, but you don't feel put down—you feel better, because it is true, and you know it, even though you are a child. I said, "You're right. You're really right. I'm sorry." She said, "Don't be sorry. Junk is fine. It's what you don't need anymore. I love you."

 It was a wonderful moment, and the fight stopped, which my mother accepted a little reluctantly. No, I'm joking—she was very pleased. She saw how it all was. Everything after that was just, well, easier—less pressure, less trying, less pushing, happening more by itself. And the visit ended up fine. We just spent time together, and then she went back to her house.

 There is a deeper level where spiritual love elevates our efforts, and things are "easier, less trying, less pushing, happening more by itself." Anyone who does not need this, please raise your hand.