Catholics and Muslims: A common cause

Interfaith harmony demands a mutual respect for human dignity. In Jordan, Father Nabil Haddad is working to make that happen.
Father Nabil Haddad wants you to visit Jordan. Although his desk in Amman is a long way from the homes of most U.S. Catholics, Father Nabil says the troubled region needs attention. Catholics, he says, need to show support for persecuted Christians who seek refuge in Jordan. And Westerners, he says, cannot continue to watch from afar.
Haddad, a priest in the Melkite Catholic Church, is the founder and director of the Jordanian Interfaith Coexistence Research Center (JICRC). He is well known both in Jordan and internationally for his work in interfaith relations, primarily between Muslim and Christian groups in the Middle East.
“Come,” he says. “Pray with us. Eat with us. Talk to us. Visits from you are the best manifestation of solidarity.”
It’s with this same sense of urgency that Haddad has focused his work in Jordan—an aberrantly safe country in a turbulent region that faces many threats, most recently that of the self-proclaimed Islamic State (also knows as ISIS).
Last summer, when ISIS took control of Iraq’s second largest city, Mosul, the extremist group also drove Christians out of areas that have been their homes since the first century after Christ.
As these Christians along with other persecuted minorities seek refuge in Jordan, Haddad has worked not only to promote tolerance between Christians and Muslims but also to form an alliance of all Jordanians working together for peace.

What was it like growing up as a Catholic in a Muslim country? 

I was born and raised in the northern part of Jordan, the same part of the country where the prophet Elijah was born. I’m a descendant of an old Arab tribe here that is called the Sassanids. This big tribe existed and lived in this part of the Middle East for a very long time. Christians are small in number here, but we have a very long history. 

 

In my early childhood years, I went to kindergarten at a Catholic school. But because my father was serving in the military, for elementary school I went to a public school for the dependents of the people in the military. It followed the same curriculum as other public schools, so Islamic education class was mandatory for Muslims. For Christians it was not mandatory, but I did not have any problem attending a class on Islam. I was a Catholic boy who attended Mass every morning before school. And I was an altar boy, but I did not have a prejudice against being in the Islamic education class.

 

On many, many occasions, I would be the first to answer the questions of the teacher who, in those years, was a Muslim imam. Sometimes I was asked if I would recite passages from the Holy Quran. I would get rewards and prizes. Sometimes the imam would say, “Let’s give him a hand!” 

 

That experience added so much to my formation in the later years that I spent in the seminary. I joke that I speak Arabic better than 99.99 percent of the Muslims of this world. I studied Islam. I love the Arabic language.

 

This gives me so much added value when I talk to my Muslim neighbors because they know I come from a background that understands Islam and the Quran. On many occasions they praise the fact that an Arab Christian and Arab priest knows and loves the Arabic language, which is the language of the Holy Quran. Sometimes I use this as one of the commonalities to connect with Muslim audiences. But this, by no means, has affected my very close relationship with the Catholic Church.

 

Are there parts of the Quran that you find useful to know today?

Yes, indeed. There is the sura that talks of St. Mary. I admire the respect and reverence for the Virgin Mary in the Holy Quran. There is also the sura that talks about the obedience and respect we need to give our parents. That is also the fourth commandment. I also refer to the oneness of God that is proclaimed in the Holy Quran.

 

I concentrate on these instances because this is what we have in common. I don’t quote the Holy Quran, but on many occasions I reference commonalities between Islam and Christianity. It’s not a matter of admiring Islam but admiring the common living that existed for many centuries.

 

You’ve been advocating for greater appreciation of Islam among Christians. When did you start working toward this goal?

This concentration started after 2001, after 9/11. Because of the schism that we saw in the world, and how some people were starting to view Islam, I thought it was very important for Christians to clarify things on both sides.

 

I came up with the idea that Christians need to work together with Muslims to make changes from within our society in Jordan. At the same time, I needed to speak my intentions and objectives in a way that Muslims would accept. This is where I refer to examples from history and Islam. I always concentrate on the fact that the teachings of Islam call for the respect and acceptance of both Christians and Jews.

 

That’s how I appealed to the hearts and minds of Muslims. I built a rapport and friendship through which I was able to serve my own people and my community. I was able to convey a message, and I believe that concentrating on my Christian love was a good method of evangelization.

 

How do you, as a Catholic priest, approach dialogue with Muslims?

My calling is to be a Christian in a society with a Muslim majority. A Christian is a Christian whether here or in France, Japan, or South Africa. A Catholic priest is a Catholic priest in any part of the world. But the terminology we need to use is different. Spreading a Christian message to the Muslims is different than giving a sermon from the pulpit 

on Sunday.

 

I tell them, “I remind you to be good Muslims as much as I remind myself to be a good Christian.” I try to make it easier for my Muslim friends to understand my Christianity in very Arabic terminology. I show them this respect as an Arab Christian, as an interfaith activist, and as someone who has an image of being liked by the Muslim community. 

 

I try to use this in a very positive way to convey a very Christian message that needs to be understood by every Muslim. I admire their understanding.

 

How can Muslims and Christians help to prevent the distortion of Islam by radical groups like ISIS?

Muslims and Christians need to form an alliance against ideological extremism. This endeavor will show Muslims that they are not alone. But moderation needs courage. And these days, it needs additional courage because the extremists have a louder voice. They are the ones trying to influence the majority.

 

The strategy from my visceral point of view is to shift from dividing ourselves, with Islam on one side and the West and the Christians on the other. I connect, I build, I support, I join hands with Muslims to remind them that we need to be building peace, love, and mercy—not extremism, hate, killing, and bloodshed. I remind Muslims that they are doing themselves a favor. They are not doing non-Muslims a favor. They are doing themselves a favor by saving Muslims who have not become radicalized.

 

Has the rise of radical extremists made your peace-building work more challenging?

Yes. In Jordan, we have some worries as Christians. Jordan is not isolated. It’s secure, but it is in a very turbulent region. Syria, Iraq, North Israel, South Lebanon—they are all around us. We see the persecution. We see the murders. We see ISIS. We have ISIS supporters in Jordan. There are ISIS sleeper cells here. 

 

But I don’t isolate the Christians’ worries from the worries of any Muslims. It would be very threatening for Christians not to coexist with Muslims. Christians must understand, here in Jordan and everywhere, that to be isolated by religion or to live in a Christian ghetto is very dangerous. Unfortunately, this is what we saw happen in Iraq. 

 

Let’s take Egypt as an example. Before the second revolution in 2013, Christians were isolated and faced discrimination. Intense clashes between Christians and Muslims during the 2011 Arab Spring uprising created a climate of fear that prompted an estimated 100,000 Coptic Christians to flee Egypt. Isolation for Christians means suicide.

 

But it will be fatal if Christians see danger as only affecting Christians. We melt within our society as Jordanians, and we need to confront the rise of extremism together in one Jordanian alliance.

 

Are you seeing more examples of Christians and Muslims coming together?

This is happening every day. If you see what is taking place on social media, you will see there are debates between Muslims and ideological extremists. For instance, I saw an extremist on Facebook call on Muslims to not socialize with Christians on Christmas because he said Christians were infidels. 

 

But people responded to the extremist’s comment and said a true Muslim would not do this. I saw that this response came not from the Christians but rather from moderate Muslims. The moderates were attacking the extremists for the way that they interpreted the Islamic faith.

 

I also saw Muslims and Christians get together on Christmas. In my own church, in my own house, I had Muslim friends who came to congratulate us on Christmas. It is not done as an artificial gesture but a manifestation of this fraternity between Muslims and Christians. It has become more and more a part of the strategy in the daily life of Jordanians as we face the threat and reality of ISIS.

 

Now both Christians and Muslims who fear the threat of ISIS know they need to work together. We need to have this kind of friendly relationship, this amicable way of life, to stand against ISIS. 

 

How are Christians and Muslims in Jordan working together on a broader scale?

In February, we celebrated World Interfaith Harmony Week. This is an initiative that was very Jordanian at the beginning. It was proclaimed by the United Nations General Assembly in 2010, and it was adopted unanimously. We called on all houses of worship—churches, mosques, synagogues, temples, etc.—to talk about two commandments: love of God and love of our neighbors. 

 

The idea is that we are building harmony. We keep telling people that we need to show our love of God by showing love to our neighbor. It’s about time people realize there will be no dialogue in the interfaith community if we do not respect human dignity. 

 

This concept is not about working on interfaith dialogue by discussing theories or theology. It is about concentrating on the common values we share as human beings. For me, I am a Christian. As a Catholic priest, I talk about the Christian understanding of love.

 

For Muslims, they could choose to talk about mercy. Islam is talked about as the religion of mercy. We need to show love and mercy. Love and mercy cannot be rooted deeply in our daily practice if we do not remember our concern for the dignity of the human being.

 

This is the major terminology that we find in common between Islam and Christianity. For Christians, we talk about being created in the image of God. That is the greatest dignity a human being can have, to be made in the image of our God, our creator. Muslims believe in the same thing. This is what we have in common: the dignity of the human being.

 

I recently helped start an initiative called “Muslims and Christians Together for Human Dignity.” We need to defend it. And in this region, I believe human dignity is in jeopardy for everyone. We need to work very gently to protect it.

 

We also need to remind each other that God gave us this dignity. We need to respect God and obey God by showing our respect for human dignity, which we see in everyone. When we respect this dignity in others, we are respecting God.

 

How has Jordan been affected by the influx of refugees from surrounding countries in the wake of ideological extremism?

We have almost 1 million Muslim and Christian refugees from Syria and Iraq living in Jordan right now. It is very important to consider the region as a disaster area. Here I have seen that Christians are suffering.

 

It’s so very unfortunate, and we are living this dilemma with our brothers and sisters. We are giving them housing and food. We are giving them all the support we can. In my church, we are hosting families from Iraq, and we are working with other church organizations to provide support.

 

But the one thing we want to tell our brothers and sisters who are the victims of ideological extremism is that here in Jordan, they are not refugees. They are our guests, and we are here to serve them. This is a very strong message for both Muslims and Christians in our country. 

 

This effort is mandatory. In this region, because Jordan is so close to these events, to these tragedies, I think it is our mission to raise our voice. We must speak with wisdom and tell the truth of this region to the whole world.

 

The plight of Iraqi Christians is very important for this region to realize. It is not the duty of the Catholic Church or Christians in general to address this situation alone. It is the duty of the whole world, the international community. They need to stand and support these Christians, not only as Christians, but also as human beings, as the citizens of one of the oldest civilizations in the entire world. 

 

What is the current status of Iraqi Christians? How severe is the persecution they face?

I am talking to you while the church in Iraq is celebrating three days of prayer and fasting. They were called to spend three days of the fasting of Baoutha, which means “the cry” or “the cry for help” in the Chaldean rite.

 

In the north of Iraq, churches, holy sites, and Christian artifacts have been demolished by ISIS. For the first time in nearly 2,000 years, there are no Christians left inside the city of Mosul. Some of them went to Kurdistan, others went to Baghdad. I believe the Chaldean voice, the Christian Iraqi voices, should be carried as a cry not for the Christians but as a cry for peace for all.

 

The Christian voice and the Christian identity is not only being tortured—it’s being demolished. More than 120,000 Christians have been forced from their homes in Iraq over the last year. What we see here in Jordan is a manifestation of the daily pain that the church is having, and we need to move and to move fast, to work with superpowers, with the United States, with Europe, with the United Nations Security Council.

 

I believe we need to reach out not only to the Catholics but to all the people of goodwill. This refugee problem is not only about solving the problems of food and shelter. 

 

It is also about the dignity of these people. They have been victimized for no reason other than that they are Christians. And I’m not saying they are the only victims. Many other minorities, such as Yazidis, were tortured, killed, and raped by extremists.

 

This cannot continue. We should not simply watch this behavior and respond only with condemnation. We need to do something to save the lives and the good in this region.

 

Since the United States’ invasion of Iraq in 2003, we have watched Iraq go through a time of bloodshed and killing. And because so many Iraqi Christians have faced recent persecution by extremists, I think the Christian churches must raise their voices not only to protect Christians but also to work and to show their support for the human dignity of all.

 

I called upon Christians when I spoke at a gathering of 1,200 participants in Washington. I asked for the support of our Christian brothers and sisters of the United States and of Europe to show more solidarity than just their support in the media, on TV, and in newspapers. 

 

We need to see more Christians coming to this region, showing this support, and to shake and reshake the conscience of the people of the region. The world cannot continue to be silent or watch from afar. 

 

What does the loss of these Christian communities mean to Muslims in the region?

I always say, “How could Muslims talk about a tolerant Islam, a moderate Islam, when they do not protect and preserve the existence and the presence of their Christian brothers and sisters?” Christians should be given the freedom to be witnesses of Jesus Christ. 

 

The Quran mentions a mandatory respect for Christians and Jews. No one in the world is going to believe Muslims are living out their faith if they don’t reflect such respect for their immediate neighbors, local citizens who have lived here long before Islam began. How can Muslims talk about their faith if they don’t show this faith in action? We need to show within the Iraqi society that Christians are not only an integral part, but also that Christians have always been an added value to the society. 

 

This diversity within the society is the best practice for Muslims. It allows them to experience this kind of dualistic nature within the society. If we look at other societies where Muslims are the majority or the societies where they have fewer Muslims, you see there is extremism. Adding minorities does not only serve the existence of this minority, but it also teaches and reminds the majority that they have to live with these minorities and have to recognize dignity and show respect for them.

 

I say this as a member of a minority in Jordan. In some parts of Jordan, where you see villages that don’t have Christians sharing in the life of the society, people are more reluctant to deal with non-Muslims. It is as important for Iraq to protect the non-Muslim community as it is to protect the Muslim community in order to preserve diversity and peace.

 

What can American Catholics and Christians do to help the situation? 

Christians in this region need to hear a louder voice of support and solidarity. Many of them, especially the Iraqis, feel they are left out. We have to stop these very unjust aggressions and killings, and the international community needs to realize this and speak up.

 

There are powerful nations that can help to accomplish this. We need a stronger will on the part of the international community from Christians, from Catholics, and from Westerners.

 

Our Christian brothers and sisters are showing solidarity and support. We need to push now and exert enough pressure in order to bring these refugees back to their homeland. We owe it to them to offer support so they can get back to their homes. They cannot continue living as refugees. This—to furnish them with their basic rights and not to be driven out of their own homes—is a very Catholic and a very Christian duty.

 

Now, some of them believe that they cannot go back to Iraq because it’s not safe. Many of them are trying to leave Iraq forever, and they say this openly. This is a very big loss for the Christian witness in this region. These Christians don’t have anything. They have no money. They don’t have their own documentation. They don’t have their papers. Many of them are losing hope.

 

That’s why we need this region to hear a loud voice on the part of our brothers and sisters, the Catholic Church in the United States, and other Christians. We need to see this solidarity in order to give refugees hope in this region.

 

We need this kind of hope. We need it. How can people live without hope

- See more at: http://www.uscatholic.org/articles/201512/catholics-and-muslims-common-cause-30488?utm_source=December+12%2C+2015&utm_campaign=Dec+12%2C+2015&utm_medium=email#sthash.WkRwYXTl.dpuf

Have yourself a defiant little Christmas

In those long ago days of Christmas innocence when it always snowed gently in a starry and windless night, my parents would hustle my sisters and me into the back seat of the car, and we would drive slowly, snow crunching under the frozen tires, into the neighborhoods of the rich to see the lights.
The lights were the decorations that people put up on the outside of their houses and winter lawns. Multicolored lights would be strung over an entire house, etching door frames and windows, wrapped round into wreaths and bows. In the frozen front yard there were statues as large as small children. They were usually a mix of the “Night Before Christmas” and the “Crib”—reindeer and wise men, sleighs and shepherds, elves and Mary, angels and carolers, Santa Claus and Baby Jesus. Occasionally the stiff, on-guard soldiers from the “Nutcracker Suite” would make an appearance. All were lit up so that night passengers in slow moving cars could gawk through frosted windows and say, “Look at that one!”
But it was not these elaborate scenes that first brought the truth of Christmas home to me. It was my home, seen in a new way.

Light in the midst of darkness

One Christmas when we returned from our trip to see the lights, I pushed out the back seat, straightened up, and saw our house. We lived in a two flat. My grandparents lived on the first floor, and since they usually went to bed around 9 (a custom I have recently begun to envy), their flat was dark. Our flat on the second floor was also dark—except for the Christmas tree.
The tree was strung with lights, and their soft glow could be seen through the upper window. The outer darkness was all around, yet the tree shone in the darkness. There was no razzle-dazzle, no blinking on and off, no glitz—just a steady shining; a simple juxtaposition of light and darkness. Its beauty drew me.
I ran up the stairs. My parents had already unlocked the door and turned on the house lights. I sat in a chair and stayed with the tree. The attraction of the tree continued for a while and then began to recede. Soon the practical took over. I noticed some tinsel that needed to be smoothed and rehung. As I tinkered with it, whatever was left of the tree’s radiance dimmed, and then, abruptly, the revelation ceased. Just a pine tree shedding needles on the rug.
It was only when I was older that I knew in a murky mental way what my child’s heart had intuited. Christmas tries to point to an inner light, a tree of lights inside the house of our being, and invites people to come close and ponder its beauty. We notice this light because it is contrasted with an outer darkness. And it defies the darkness, refusing to allow the outer world to dictate the terms of existence. In theological language, people have an inner reality that transcends the outer world and it is capable of shining forth even in the darkest of situations. “In him was life and the life was the light of people. The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it” (John 1:4–5).
Of course, our awareness of this truth is fleeting. We return to ordinary consciousness. We smooth the tinsel and vacuum the needles.

Greenness in the midst of barrenness

The Cherokees have a short creation story that encourages the same Christmas insight. The story is “Why Some Trees Are Evergreen.”
When the plants and trees were first made, the Great Mystery gave a gift to each species. But first he set up a contest to determine which gift would be most useful to whom.
“I want you to stay awake and keep watch over the earth for seven nights,” he told them.
The young trees and plants were so excited to be trusted with such an important job that the first night they did not find it difficult to stay awake. However, the second night was not so easy, and just before dawn a few fell asleep. On the third night the trees and plants whispered among themselves in the wind trying to keep from dropping off, but it was too much work for some of them. Even more fell asleep on the fourth night.
By the time the seventh night came, the only trees and plants still awake were the cedar, the pine, the spruce, the fir, the holly, and the laurel.
“What wonderful endurance you have,” exclaimed the Great Mystery. “You shall be given the gift of remaining green forever. You will be the guardians of the forest. Even in the seeming dead of winter, your brother and sister creatures will find life protected in your branches.”
Ever since then all the other trees and plants lose their leaves and sleep all winter while the evergreens stay awake.
This tale does not use the symbols of light and darkness. It talks about greenness in the midst of barrenness and associates this greenness with the ability to stay awake. “Staying awake” is standard code in spiritual literature. It means remaining aware of our life-giving connection to divine reality, even when inner and outer forces militate against it. Just as the light in the darkness reminds us of this truth, so does the green-leafed tree in the leafless forest.

Love in the midst of rejection

The major Christian symbols of Christmas also use contrast to emphasize the invulnerability of our inner transcendent relationship to God. “And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger, because there was no room for them at the inn” (Luke 2:7). In one densely symbolic sentence, Saint Luke brings out the contrast of love in the midst of rejection. Jesus is wrapped in swaddling clothes—a symbol that he is a loved child. He is laid in a manger, a feeding trough—a symbol that he is meant to be food for the world. These two symbols point to the reality of self-giving love, the essence of God, and the identity and mission of all those connected to God.
Yet this love is surrounded by rejection—there is no room for him at the inn. This exclusion at his birth is a harbinger of his exclusion by the religious and political elite of his time. He will meet with violent opposition and eventually be put to death. Yet, as the whole gospel testifies, this rejection will not undercut the truth of who he is. He is the beloved Son of God on a mission of communicating divine life to people. This truth is seen most clearly in the premier moment of violent rejection—his death on the cross. These future events are hinted at in the interconnected symbols of swaddling clothes, manger, and no room at the inn. These symbols capture the truth of a loved child in a world of rejection.

A defiant Christmas

The truth of Christmas emerges in imaginative contrasts. Perhaps the best way to view these contrasts is in terms of inner and outer realities. No matter how severe the outer world is—darkness, barrenness, rejection—it cannot snuff out the light, wither the greenness, or destroy the love. Although we do not always reflect on it, there is an edge to Christmas, an in-your-face attitude. Author G. K. Chesterton put it simply and well, “A religion that defies the world should have a feast that defies the weather.”
If I ever return to the custom of sending Christmas cards, the cover will be a picture of a light shining in the darkness or an evergreen in the midst of a barren forest or a laughing child in a ramshackle stable. Inside, the greeting will be straightforward, “Have a defiant Christmas.”
Of course, I really do not want people to have a defiant Christmas. I want them to have a harmonious Christmas. I want the inner and outer world to be in sync. Light inside and out, greenness inside and out, love inside and out. In other words, I wish people the full peace of Christmas—good enough health, good enough finances, good enough relationships, and a good enough stable, nonviolent society and world. As the lapel button calling for the Second Coming from the ’60s put it, “Parousia Now!” Idealistic as it is, that’s what I want.
But that is not what we always get. Christmas arrives to find our health precarious, our careers, jobs, or vocations under stress, our finances dipping badly, our relationships in need of repair, and our society and world slightly insane. How can we celebrate Christmas in situations like these? Isn’t the only realistic response anxiety and gloom?
When the outer world is darkness, barrenness, and rejection, Christmas is a lesson in bringing forth and responding to the inner world of light, greenness, and love. Spiritual teachers think that since this inner world is rooted in a transcendent love, it is more powerful than all the attacks that emerge out of both our finitude and sinfulness. “I have said this that you might have peace in me. In the world you have tribulations, but cheer up, I have overcome the world” (John 16:33). Christmas cheer, when it is modeled on this passage from Saint John, engenders in us a gentle defiance to the tribulations of the world. Gentle defiance is not on the standard list of Christian virtues, but it is the Christmas gift that we all need to unwrap at one December or another.
How do we open this gift of inner light, greenness, and love? How do we get in touch with it? How do we allow it to flow into our lives?
There are some clues in the characters that Christians meditate on in the Advent-Christmas season. Gabriel, Mary, and John the Baptist give hints on how to have a defiant Christmas.

The clue of Gabriel

There is no shortage of angels in the infancy narratives of Matthew and Luke. In Matthew’s story they appear in dreams and give crucial advice to Joseph and the Magi. Luke has angels announce the Good News of the birth of Christ to the shepherds. But the prominent angel who appears to both Zachary and Mary is Gabriel (whose name means the “might of God”). Gabriel’s message is complex and different for both Zachary and Mary, but he has a similar piece of advice for both of them: “Do not be afraid.” (A command that spurred author Madeleine L’Engle to comment, “It gives you some idea of what he looked like.”)
It also gives us some idea of how humans relate to the deeper spaces in them where angels visit. We know we have fears. We fear the loss of health, work, relationships, finances, and so on. However, we may not be aware that we are afraid of the transcendent love that grounds our true selves. The words of Gabriel that trigger Mary’s fear are, “Hail, O highly favored one. The Lord is with you” (Luke 1:28). It is not the fearsome visage of the angel that makes Mary afraid. It is his greeting, his uncovering of the loved self that is on a mission from God. But why should this cause fear?
We are used to identifying ourselves in more modest ways—by our genes, job, roles, psychic makeup, and relationships. “I am the daughter of Ralph and Anna, and I work in health care and am dating Frank. I’m shy but this year I am going to become more assertive.” Everyone is able to draw a similar, no-nonsense portrait of themselves. However, the spiritual identity has been left out of this ego sketch. This spiritual identity is of a different caliber, and its assessment is far from moderate. It is the immoderation that makes us afraid.
We are highly favored ones on a mission from God. No matter how we protest or place obstacles in the path of what God wants (and we will), the angel will out argue us and get us on our way. God’s evaluation overcomes our resistance. Quite simply, divine love is not put off by our allegiance to partial and negative aspects of our personalities and situations. It seems that God thinks that baptism works. We are children of divine love as well as products of biological evolution and cultural alienation. So the angel chooses to address this baptismal identity that we seldom take seriously. This greeting drives us well beyond our comfort zone. Naturally we are afraid.
But how do we become unafraid? Only over long years and after much meditation.
But there is one realization that may help. When we hear Gabriel’s greeting of love and mission, we may think he is saluting the ego, the “me” I look at when I look at myself—the strange mix of boastings, rationalizations, and repressed inadequacies. How can we believe this is “O highly favored one” when it is so obviously in need of redemption? The real address should be, “Hail, O screwed up one!” Gabriel has made a mistake and knocked on the wrong door.
Gabriel has knocked on the right door, but he is talking to someone we seldom identify with. He is addressing our deeper selves—not the me we look at but the looker; not the me that is known but the me that knows. This deeper self coexists with the ego and relates to its powers, imperfections, and alienations and continually shapes the ego as its vehicle of expression in the world. And it is this self that Gabriel wants to awaken, for it is this self that is grounded in divine love and is the servant of divine intentions. Faced with Gabriel’s proclamation of love and mission, do not protest, “You do not know me.” Take the angel seriously and say, “I do not know myself.” The clue of Gabriel is to let go of our fear and entertain the possibility that we may be more and better than we know.

The clue of Mary

At first glance there is an interesting inconsistency in Luke’s infancy narrative. When Gabriel appears to Zachary and tells him that he is soon to be a father, Zachary responds, “How shall I know this? For I am an old man and my wife is advanced in years” (Luke 1:18). Gabriel is not happy with this and reminds Zachary who he is talking to. “I am Gabriel who stands in the presence of God. I was sent to speak to you and bring you this good news” (Luke 1:19). (A free paraphrase would be: “Let’s get things straight. I represent the power of God, and I’m on a mission to tell you what God is doing. And your only reaction is to doubt if it can happen?”) Zachary is then silenced until the birth he did not think could happen has come about.
When Gabriel tells Mary she is to become the mother of the Son of the Most High, she says something very similar to Zachary, “How can this be, since I know not man?” (Luke 1:34). Is she silenced for this questioning? No way. She is given an explanation (a mystical explanation, but still an explanation), “The Holy Spirit will come upon you and the power of the Most High will overshadow you” (Luke 1:35). Both Zachary and Mary have questions about the possibility of what the angel has predicted. How is it that Zachary is silenced and Mary is given an explanation?
But a closer look at the conversation between Mary and Gabriel reveals that Mary’s question is her second response to the angel’s Good News. Her first response is to be troubled and to consider what the greeting meant. Mary is a ponderer of what she does not immediately understand. Zachary’s doubt effectively dismisses the angel’s message; Mary entertains his troublesome words. By the time she asks her question, it is not to doubt the message but to figure out what she must do to cooperate with the message.
Saint Luke stresses Mary’s pondering. When the shepherds make known what the angel told them and the child they found, “all who heard it were amazed” (Luke 2:18). But not Mary. “She kept all these things, pondering them in her heart” (Luke 2:19). After the episode of losing and finding the boy Jesus in the Temple, Saint Luke tells us, “His mother kept all these things in her heart” (Luke 2:51). Later in the gospel we are told that the good soil that yields a hundredfold are those “who, hearing the word, hold it fast in an honest and good heart, and bring forth fruit in patience” (Luke 8:15). Mary lives between the dismissal of Zachary and the amazement of the crowds. She ponders, and that is the clue she gives us to the mystery of Christmas.
But what are we to ponder? Exactly what Mary pondered—the people and events that are near. Everyone has his or her own cast of characters—parents, spouses, children, relatives, friends, neighbors, acquaintances, strangers. Everyone is surrounded and inundated by sights, smells, sounds, touches, and tastes. This overstimulation often becomes too much for people. They yearn for the dull days of January.
The trick is to learn to ponder in the midst of the plenitude. When we receive the richness and variety of Christmas into an open heart, a revelation comes about. We begin to sense the spirit that suffuses the flesh. Everything becomes sacrament—the visibility of an invisible grace. The original Christmas was about spirit becoming flesh—“God becoming human.” Every Christmas since then is about cherishing flesh until the shy spirit emerges. When the spirit-grounding of life shines through its surface, we know that creation and its Creator are bound together in love. We know all that passes in this world of time is held everlastingly in this Eternal Now. We know that Mary pondered to penetrate the depth of reality. And if we follow her clue, we will know why she sang, “My soul magnifies the Lord; my spirit rejoices in God my savior” (Luke 1:46–47).

The clue of John the Baptist

John the Baptist lived in the desert, wore rough clothing, and ate locusts. These are certainly symbols, but even so, this man is no wimp. He is a denouncer of kings, a sayer of hard words, a believer in judgment, a preacher of repentance. It has been joked that even on the platter his head was shouting a prophetic tirade. In most people John inspires respect and fear. Yet I find him a poignant character, and it is this poignancy that is his clue.
John waited for one to come. The one he waited for had an ax in his hand and would chop down the tree that bore no fruit. He had a winnowing fan in his hand, and he would separate the chaff and the wheat. He was the “wrath to come.” The only hope of people was to repent and, possibly, be spared.
But Jesus arrived, and he was not exactly what John had in mind. So from prison John sent his disciples with his own pressing question, “Are you the one who is to come or should we look for another?” (Luke 7:19). Jesus answers empirically, telling the disciples to tell John what they see and hear. “The blind see, cripples walk, lepers are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor hear the good news” (Luke 7:22). These are not John’s favorite images of judgment and division but are images of transformation, of reclaiming all that is broken and alienated. That is why Jesus’ last line to John’s disciples is, “Blessed is the one who is not scandalized in me” (Luke 7:23). The John of judgment may be scandalized by the Jesus of transformation.
We are not told explicitly whether John was scandalized by Jesus. But we might surmise that a different dynamic took place. On one level John’s expectations were not met, but on another level they were fulfilled and surpassed. In spiritual teaching there is a distinction between desire and hope. Desire is the projection of what we want in the future. Hope is the arrival of something we did not expect, but once it comes, we recognize that it was always the deepest yearning of our hearts. Could that be what happened to John the Baptist?
What is the deepest yearning of John’s heart and, in fact, all our hearts? I suspect it is for an infusion of spirit, to be united with the animating spirit of the world. We think this spirit will come in a certain form: We identify it with a certain shape. We know what we want, and, if Christmas is to be a success, we had better get it. Yet if we stay stuck on our desires, we just may miss our hope. What we think we need is always something specific—a person has to show up and say exactly what we want to hear, an object has to be obtained, a situation has to work out as we have imagined it. Our mind clings to these desires and in the process blinds us to other possibilities.
John the Baptist waited for a man with an ax. What arrived was a seed scatterer. He waited for someone with a winnowing fan, and along came a bridegroom breaking bread. John thought the spirit would take the form of judgment. Instead, judgment became the prelude to healing, and the fullness of spirit was shown in the resurrection of all things mangled and broken. John’s greatness and his clue is that he was able to let go of the forms he desired and discern the spirit in forms he never dreamed of. If we demand the spirit arrive in the ways we expect, we may go unvisited this Christmas. But if we refuse to be scandalized by the stubbornness of the spirit to blow where it will, it may arrive in our lives in what, at first glance, will surely be a disguise. But, upon pondering, it will be our heart’s hope and our souls will be awakened. Ask John the Baptist.

The path to defiance

The Christmas season is upon us. Is everything perfect? If so, the message is light, greenness, and love. If not, the message will have to be light in the midst of darkness, greenness in the midst of barrenness, love in the midst of rejection. This is the gentle defiance of the spirit.
The way to this spirit is both arduous and simple. We have to move beyond the comfortable reduction that we are merely genetic and social products and recognize we are also children of God. We have to ponder the surface of life until its spiritual depth is manifested and open to spirit in whatever form it takes—for it will often take a form we do not suspect. These general strategies, culled from the infancy narratives of the birth of Jesus Christ, will awaken the gentle spirit in us, a spirit that defies the world.
Perhaps the greeting card that symbolizes a defiant Christmas has already been written. Fra Giovanni put it this way:

I salute you!
There is nothing I can give you which you have not; but there is much, that, while I cannot give, you can take.
No heaven can come to us unless our hearts find rest in it today. Take Heaven.
No peace lies in the future which is not hidden in this present instant. Take Peace.
The gloom of the world is but a shadow; behind it, yet within our reach is joy. Take Joy.
And so at this Christmastime, I greet you with the prayer that for you, now and forever, the day breaks and the shadows flee away.

- See more at: http://www.uscatholic.org/church/saints-feasts-and-seasons/2008/11/have-yourself-a-defiant-christmas?utm_source=December+12%2C+2015&utm_campaign=Dec+12%2C+2015&utm_medium=email#sthash.YRS8siXY.dpuf

If college students aren't shocked, startled, uncomfortable and challenged twice a week, they're doing it wrong.

I am a professor at a Jesuit university, and when I face 260 young adults in a lecture hall, I now face something I never expected to encounter in a classroom: the belief that students should be protected from wrestling with challenging ideas.

Most of my students are intellectually curious young people who engage energetically with controversial issues. Still, over the past semesters I’ve noticed a small but growing number of students who resist any point of view that is not theirs—and my colleagues across the country have noticed it on their campuses, too. These students avoid not only other perspectives—they avoid encountering other perspectives. When a politically charged issue is raised, these students do not object to one opinion—they object to having the issue brought up in front of them at all. To them, controversy in the classroom is bad. Unfamiliar ideas are to be dodged and thoughtful critique shunned. Their thinking should never be jostled. Yet that jostling is the point of education. 

I teach journalism and media studies. We explore the ethical decisions media producers face in telling stories and deciding which stories to tell. We question and explore how media portray race, gender, sexuality, and class, and how those representations shape our culture, attitudes, and ideas about ourselves and each other. We talk about what’s in the news and on television, who earns Academy Awards and who doesn’t, which books were banned and why, and how the printing press led to profound shifts in cultural power—and that’s just for starters.

I tell students (and write it into my syllabus) that our discussions may lead them to test, shift, or decide to keep their existing perceptions. That’s the lifelong work of an intelligent person living an examined existence. That’s what a fine, inquiring intellect is about. That’s the journey to maturity and true adulthood. And that’s not okay with some students.

A business major in his senior year came to my office hours to ask me why he had to be exposed to discussions about how advertising often objectifies women. “I just don’t see it,” he shrugged. “That’s not something I agree with, so I don’t want to hear about it.”

I pointed out that how advertising portrays women is actually a measured phenomenon. “It’s not really something you need to agree or disagree with,” I said. “These are research findings from many scholars over many years.”

“I don’t like it,” he said. “I don’t see why we have to talk about it.”

Another day after class, a young man asked me why he had to hear about how media represent homosexuality. “I don’t think I should have to listen to that. I just don’t believe in it.”

“You don’t believe homosexuals exist?” I asked him.

“I guess they exist,” he said. “But I don’t want to think about them.”

This signals an alarming approach to the world: If I don’t like the truth, I’ll just pretend it’s the personal belief of some person I don’t like. That kind of thinking is not the path to working collaboratively with fellow employees, competently leading an organization, or achieving social justice in our time. It is, however, the kind of thinking that our current political climate supports: my side is utterly right, your side is utterly wrong, and there are only two sides.

If these students were in math class they couldn’t dismiss an algorithm as too challenging to learn. But if they don’t like research showing that violence in video games affects young children, they want to wish it away. I wish chocolate didn’t make me fat, but that doesn’t change the fact that it does. A wish is not a fact or an opinion. It is a mere wish, perhaps even a delusion. And heading into a competitive career marketplace (and out into life, for that matter) armed with only wishes and delusions is a bad plan.

Thinking critically means understanding the difference between fact, opinion, and bias. It means challenging assumptions, checking facts, asking perceptive questions, forming coherent, logical, and fact-based arguments, and presenting them clearly in discussion, in papers, and in life. Question everything, even your teachers, especially your teachers. And then search for facts, for research, for as much truth as you can find.

I tell students that I don’t want them to think like me, I want them to think for themselves. But I want them to truly think, not refuse to think while pretending ignorance is a defensible intellectual position. College broadens students’ horizons of experience and deepens their understanding of and compassion for other people, identities, and beliefs. I tell students that they should be encountering fresh information every day, if they are keeping their ears, eyes, and mind open. If they aren’t shocked, startled, uncomfortable, and challenged twice a week in college, they’re doing it wrong.

Ignatian spirituality is rooted in lively intellectual inquiry. It is not the Ignatian way to infantilize students who are thoroughly capable of wrestling with thorny realities. But that doesn’t mean it’s easy for them. Students need to be brave.

And most of them are. They tackle intellectual challenges with impressive fearlessness and real enthusiasm.

These are not the students who avoid controversy in the classroom. These are the students who engage, even when it isn’t easy, and work their way through cultural and social sticky wickets. These are the students who learn how to discuss sensitive issues with compassion. These are the students who will leave college with strong leadership skills. But students who want courses altered to protect them from the messiness of life may not leave school as well prepared.

My university’s culture is to encourage students to see the social and cultural structures surrounding them, and to participate in making meaningful social change. Social change is not limited to volunteering at a soup kitchen; social change means shifting from apathy to empathy, and from ignorance to informed, critical thinking. It requires thoughtful consideration of real world issues, not running away from them. The mission, vision, and values of Catholic colleges ought to reflect Catholic ideals, but blocking thinking before it starts is surely not ideal. Ignorance does not produce wisdom and compassion. Fear of dissent is the sign of a weak, underdeveloped philosophy—not a vibrant set of values and beliefs based on ethical standards.

The classroom is the natural environment for controversial, challenging issues to be raised, aired out, explored, examined, and challenged. Learning how to do this is a valuable life skill. Critical thinkers are desirable employees, colleagues, bosses, and leaders. People who fear ideas are not effective leaders. People who avoid uncomfortable realities are not people who can make a difference, who can reshape reality to be more fair, more equitable, more just. The conversation is not the enemy. Exploring new ideas is not wrong. The only thing threatened by clear thinking is ignorance.

Young people who fear encountering controversial ideas aren’t bad students, but, like perhaps too many of their elders, they are overprotective of their assumptions. A media theory called Selective Exposure explains this as a human tendency to consume only texts that congratulate us on what we already think, rather than expose ourselves to new information that challenges what we believe. Some choose a Catholic university with the idea that the curriculum will not engage with controversial issues and therefore will not make students feel uncomfortable. The highest calling of a Catholic university, however, isn’t to proliferate dogma but to produce compassionate, informed critical thinkers who can work for social justice in the world. So why is comfort a higher value than learning how to think and reason?

Many young people are trying to honor the beliefs of their parents and respect the traditions of their families—things that will surely survive a robust argument and things that are ultimately only enriched (if we are brave and listen to each other) by new experiences and knowledge. Life will teach them, even if I cannot. 

- 

Poorly worded: Can we have a Mass that speaks to real people?

The translators of the new Mass prayers have neglected one cardinal rule: Consider your audience.

As the days dwindled before their triumphal entry, the new liturgical changes had not yet risen to even an underwhelming response. “One in being” in the creed pretty much satisfied the mass of still-loyal Catholics, since they neither understood what it meant nor cared enough to Google it. And its replacement, “consubstantial,” is hollower and even less intriguing. Parishioners’ only real problem is why such stuff even matters.

When the official church has to publish a booklet explaining, step by step, why “this is good for you,” bet your bottom dollar it’s not going to be any help at all—especially not where Catholics really need it to help, in their weary and puzzled souls.

To any objective mind, the new changes to the Mass are unarguably not food for ordinary people’s souls. It would be an unusual step, but all authorities would have to do is just ask the people: “Does this bring you and God closer? Does it really make you feel part of a bigger life with the people who share this space and time today?”

On the contrary, the changes are palliatives to the specialist minds of theologians, liturgists, and church historians. In a conversation with several priests, I was dimwitted enough to ask, “But what about the audience?” And one said, pretty intensely, “The audience doesn’t matter. It’s the message that matters!”

And just what is that message? Freedom from the fear of sin and death? Or conformity and obedience? Even the liturgists’ rarefied toolbox of now-required terms springs from some transgalactic thesaurus. I doubt too many parents wonder if their college kids “have missed liturgy this week.” Epiclesis is not even in my 45-year-old dictionary, and it sounds like some eye disease. I strongly doubt that those who have taken a summer theology course and now speak of “mystagogy” also refer to a horse as an “equine quadruped.”

For some time I helped out in a parish every Sunday. But a personal quirk of mine had long conflicted with the personal quirk of whoever had the final word on the previous Mass prayers. I simply could not use the ugly phrase “our spiritual drink” in a conversation with Someone who gives me reason both to be celibate and to put up with his stubborn refusal to fulfill my expectations. So I would say, “Heavenly Father, we offer you these ordinary gifts—bits of bread and a cup of wine—and we ask you once again, by that great miracle, to infuse into these gifts—and through them into us—the living presence of Jesus Christ, our Lord and our brother.”

But a woman in the choir, a member of a pontifical prelature, took a (quite long) list of my liturgical depredations to the long-suffering pastor—among them, substituting “his friends” for “his disciples.” I spoke personally to her and said, “If you’re distracted by those finicky details, you miss the whole essence of the Mass!” She replied, “I like your homilies, but I want a liturgy not only valid but licit according to the Roman ritual.”

And there you have it. The rulebook versus the needs of the family.

New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan had the courage to ask our advice on how to invite the 30 percent of recently disenchanted Catholics, the fastest-growing Christian group in our country, back into community with the rest of us. Like any good executive, the archbishop is calling in his staff because the “product” has nosedived in desirability. But the staff keeps prescribing remedies without even a cursory consultation with the “buying public” about their true tastes and needs.

There’s the answer: The only place the life of the ordinary Catholic touches the life of the visible church is at weekly worship. What if we give them a Mass that speaks to their honest, confused adult souls? Mass might seem desirable again. If the American bishops could corral the best poets, dramatists, and songwriters to come up with a Mass that preserved the long-ratified structure but also moved the soul, the church might still have a chance.

Both the words “humble” and “human” are rooted in the Latin word humus, which means “dirt.” Would it be thinkable to make the words of our prayer together both humble and human—that is, down to earth—rather than riddled with stilted theological distinctions? Could the language of our prayer be dictated from the bottom up rather than from the top down?

As a simple example, in the eucharistic prayers, where we pray “for our pope and our bishop and all the clergy,” might we also pray for the poor, the lonely, the sexually confused, those who feel like losers, and those who crave some dignity, all of whom we should warmly welcome?

Years ago, because of my unease with the stiffness of the church’s official morning and evening prayer—prayers written by people with concerns other than my own—I wrote three books called Daily Prayers for Busy People. Some examples may clarify the tone suggested here:

Living God, at the Incarnation your Word took on himself what you had never felt before: vulnerability, woundedness, doubt. Welcome! Amen.

Or perhaps: Great Friend, we live hemmed in by mirrors, criticizing our lack of progress, power, popularity, security. Help us to shatter the mirrors. Amen.

Perhaps those are too “breathy” for public use, but they might be a step in the right direction.

We need not descend to the fireworks and screaming that draw 20 million viewers to American Idol or to the diametrically un-Christian Survivor. We surely don’t need to stoop to the level of personal agonies exposed in trashy morning talk shows, or even emulate the former queen of daytime TV Oprah Winfrey—although she may have been closer to understanding and touching the human heart than we are. Why not aim the prayers of the Mass at an audience savvy enough to understand Jon Stewart isn’t just kidding? Somewhere between The Wall Street Journal and USA Today.

This is not merely a matter of getting our numbers back up. It is a matter of our doing precisely what we have been commissioned to do: Offer the Good News, the liberating message of forgiveness and resurrection. Beyond question, in its present state, our message does not yet appear to be desirable to those most in need of it.

Such personal, rather than punctilious, concern for souls over doctrines would also be welcome to those of us who have resolved to stay. No matter what.

So help me God: ‘Faithful Citizenship’ and Catholics in public life

The poignancy of the moment was emotional. At the White House last Thursday, with a painting of Daniel Webster looking over my shoulder and a bust of Thomas Jefferson looking on, I raised my right hand and pledged to defend the Constitution of the United States and to faithfully execute my office. I closed with the profound oath, “So help me God.” With that I took up my responsibilities as part of the president’s White House Advisory Council for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships.

What does it mean to be a Catholic in public life? What role should our faith play in how we vote, what policies we promote, and how we meet the responsibilities of citizenship and public office? How should Catholicism matter for our politics, for jury duty, for serving in our military, for judges and legislators, for candidates and bureaucrats, for voters?

It so happens that next week the American bishops will offer pastoral counsel for such questions at the annual meeting of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) in Baltimore. Every four years, synced with presidential elections, the bishops release a guide for engaging in public life as voters, citizens, and officeholders. But this year, expectations are that we will see only a new introduction and some small tweaks to their 2011 document, Forming Conscience for Faithful Citizenship.

If so, then our bishops disappoint us. Faithful Citizenship, as it has come to be called, reads like something from another age. Indeed, it’s from 2011 B.F. (Before Francis). Its tone is juridical, and does not convey the merciful and pastoral message of His Holiness. In form, it is an un-Francis-like assemblage of pronouncements for judging citizens, politicians, and officeholders. Moreover, those criteria are oddly presented. Faithful Citizenship seems to imply that governments’ duties to prioritize laws that address the needs of those in poverty, ensure care for creation, and advance the common good through social justice policies and programs are merely secondary or aspirational goals. The further implication is that we’re free to use our prudence to pursue these concerns in any way that we please.

In contrast, under Pope Francis these church teachings have been given a powerful urgency. We have been reminded that such teachings were never secondary, optional, or merely aspirational. The pope insisted even in his speech before Congress that the church’s social teachings have the full gravitas of the church’s moral authority behind them. They are integral elements for how Catholics think about the responsibilities of governments and citizens.

Ahead of what looks to be a morally complicated election year for Catholics in America, what’s wanted is pastoral guidance that reflects the same urgency for the church’s social teachings that His Holiness has conveyed time and again. Our bishops should be reminding Catholic voters and officeholders of the church’s insistence that government itself (and not just charitable individuals) has a responsibility to address poverty, injustice, environmental degradation, and to provide for a moral economy. Our bishops do a disservice to their flock if American Catholics imagine that the church’s teachings for citizenship and government are restricted to matters like abortion, marriage, or religious liberty.

It’s also a disservice if American Catholics conclude from Faithful Citizenship that some issues are prudentially flexible while other issues are somehow too important for prudence. None of the church’s teachings for governance come with a step-by-step blueprint for how they are to be achieved.  It may well be that more immediate success in reducing the incidence of abortion comes from providing better health care to at-risk populations than from de-funding Planned Parenthood. Working to pass 20 week bans at the state level might do more than working to overturn Roe v. Wade. Likewise, increasing TANF (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, or welfare) might not be as effective in addressing extreme poverty as increasing the minimum wage or passing a jobs bill focused on repairing America’s crumbling infrastructure. Providing for more local caseworkers might make more difference than increasing the food stamp (SNAP) allowance.

These are all matters of careful prudential consideration. Reducing abortion and poverty are morally required goals, but how we best achieve these goals is a prudential decision. Prudence, however, is not a right to choose any approach one pleases because it fits our political preferences; we’re obliged to carefully assess what really works.

Faithful Citizenship also fails in conveying the Catholic ideal of civic virtue.  Civic virtue is the glue of political solidarity. Its value for addressing the crisis of contemporary American politics cannot be overstated. At a moment when politics in America is increasingly just a marketplace of competing special interests, we desperately need Catholic teaching that tells us to transcend our private interests and promote the common good of all. Democracy only works when citizens have sufficient civic virtue to put the good of all ahead of their own desires and interests. If as a country we are ever to overcome the vitriolic and divisive politics of the moment and to overcome the governmental gridlock created by that divisiveness, then civic virtue must be promoted. For officeholders and elected officials, civic virtue reminds them (as Pope Francis said so powerfully before Congress) that they are to be not leaders, but humble servants to the common good. Faithful Citizenship could do much to remind American Catholics that the church’s own teachings not only insist on civic virtue, but that these teachings offer a way forward from the crisis of our current politics.

Finally, Faithful Citizenship could remind American Catholics that citizenship is not a license, but rather an ongoing formation of the soul to serve the common good. With citizenship comes rights and privileges, yes, but, more importantly, duties and responsibilities. Last Thursday at the White House, with my right hand raised, those duties and responsibilities were keenly felt. Yet, each of us as citizens have implicitly taken such an oath—to defend the Constitution and to faithfully execute the office of citizenship that we hold. So help me God.

Thirty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time

Image: Epstein, Jacob, Sir, 1880-1959. Coventry Cathedral - Archangel Michael and the Devil,
from Art in the Christian Tradition,
a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN

November 15, 2015

Click here for scripture readings

Many people have undergone the type of major collapse that Jesus predicted.

Their theological, social, and political worlds have suddenly disappeared.

Others have suffered less (but still) harrowing forms of dismantling: the sudden death of a loved one, a Friday afternoon layoff, a stock market crash.

But unscheduled and traumatic change is a fact of everyone's life.

And we do not skate through it.

Change may happen quickly.

But transition is a slower process.

It is how we psychologically adjust to the change.

It entails grieving over what has been lost, feeling we are without our bearings, and looking forward to something new.

The problem is when we are in the midst of transition, we cannot envision the new. .

.

The time of transition itself has been characterized as that moment when the trapeze artist has let go of one bar and has not yet grabbed the next bar.

It is midair living.

The identity we had is gone and the identity we will have has not arrived.

So, depending on the intensity and gyration of the transition, we gain a reputation as not being ourselves.

We eat too little or too much.

We slough off work or become addicted.

We are silent when we should talk and talk when we should be silent.

We start things we don't finish and we try to finish things we didn't start.

We are tired of our friends asking how we are and hurt when they don't ask how we are.

As I overheard someone say about me in the middle of a transition, "Oh, don't mind him and his long hair. He's numb."

In the in-between time of transitions we have joined that legion of our fellow human beings who, in a past moment of arrogant stability, we labeled as "not knowing their [derriere] from their elbow."

Welcome to confusion so profound it is anatomical.

Transitions are so discombobulating it is difficult to see any value in the in-between state.

It is easy to look to the future and bet on our innate resiliency. "Hang in there. You'll get through."

However devastating the loss may be, we will find a way to deal with it, to adapt and continue.

It may take time, but a stable future awaits us.

Even if we do not get completely over it, we will get beyond it.

As our unhelpful friends say, "Life goes on, and so will you."

Spiritual teachers, an unconventional lot, take a different tack.

They say, "Don't hurry to a new security."

They think there is potential in the present process of floundering.

It is not in the hope of reaching the next bar but in the interval of being between bars.

The potential is in midair living.

Without tongue in cheek, spiritual teachers suggest that the in-between time is an opportunity to remember that we are always more than what is happening to us.

We are not only immersed in transition, we transcend it.

Our soul is not only related to the changing temporal order but to the unchanging eternal order.

When we lead a stable life on the physical, psychological, and social levels, this spiritual truth often eludes us.

When disruption occurs—and we either choose or are forced to change—an invitation emerges in the middle of the transition.

Since we are between earthly stabilities, we may just shift awareness to our heavenly connection.

In doing this, we begin to develop our spiritual potential.

In mystical, biblical terms the in-between time is the third day of creation.

On that day God drew up out of the waters dry land and separated "the waters under the sky" from the dry land (Gen 1:9, 13).

The waters symbolize the formlessness and turmoil of transition.

The appearance of dry land gives humans a place to stand in the midst of the swift and dangerous currents.

What God did on the third day of creation, God does every day.

Divine reality is always supplying a place to stand.

However, we most need this divine grounding when we have lost our human grounding, when we are in the midair between the

bars.

Thirty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time B

Image: Ruth Agmon, Ruth and Naomi - the Dialog,
from Art in the Christian Tradition, 
a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN.

November 8, 2015

Click here for scripture readings

The noise of the coins would have been telling.

Thirteen trumpet-shaped receptacles surrounded the outer court of the Temple.

The sound of coins being placed in the containers would have echoed in the Temple area and announced to those present the potential size of the donation.

Large ones would have sounded loudly, while the smallest of coins would have been barely audible.

As Jesus watched the crowds putting money in the treasury, he could hear what the rich  contributed as well as what the widow offered.

Jesus had no direct contact with the widow, but he noticed her offering of two of the smallest coins, just enough to buy her a little bread.

Today's Gospel tells of a widow found in a place she didn't seem to belong among the rich and well dressed.

Like a leper or a prostitute, a widow was regarded as an outcast.

She was among the scribes, who received respect and honor in public.

Jesus accused these same scribes of devouring the savings of widows.

This same widow might even have had her savings devoured by these very scribes.

It must have been difficult to go among them to the treasury.

Many of the rich had already put in sizable amounts, and here she was with her pittance.

And yet Jesus recognized her offering as all that she had.

In Mark's Gospel, Jesus demonstrated to his disciples a clear sense of his mission.

He liberated people from demons, sickness, sin, and oppressive laws and traditions.

Nothing kept him from working to bring the reign of God closer to God's people; he was not swayed by public pressure, fear, misapplied tradition or empty

religious authority.

Jesus spoke and acted with courage in his commitment to serve.

And it cost him his life.

Jesus was clear that God's invitation looked very different from what the religious

authorities or even his disciples had come to expect.

God cared what happened to the least. God wanted people to rejoice that others were cured or healed.

This God welcomed the sinner, the forgotten, the outcast and the widows.

This God's reign was very different from what many in authority had predicted.

All of the characters in Mark's Gospel saw the same signs, heard the same words.

All were invited to love others as God had loved them.

Yet loving the way that God loved challenged their ideas of who their neighbor

really was.

It was a big leap — bigger than some could make.

By his example, Jesus showed his disciples that loving this way was possible, but that it also leads to suffering and death.

This was the reign God wanted, but not one the world readily welcomed.

These were not the kinds of relationships that people would rush out to cultivate

God's reign stretched human generosity and notions about the kind of people that God loved.

We have seen the same signs and heard the same words of Jesus in Mark's Gospel all year.

We hear this same invitation to love.

This world, even this God, might be very different from the one we have come to expect.

Today God still seeks the forgotten ones, the disdained and oppressed.

The refugees and immigrants, legal or not.

God searches for the lost and holds the little ones close.

God holds the outcasts with our arms.

God searches with our eyes and heals with our words and our actions.

And God is waiting to hear the sound of our offering.