A Nightmare for Halloween

(This is going to be the spookiest post I ever posted, just to let you know)

It was a dark and stormy night (actually it was probably just drizzling or something, my dad doesn’t remember). The year was 1971, and I was just a wee lad, maybe two years old. We were living in the old apartments across from the Raceway just outside of Trenton, NJ. One night, my dad had a dream… but a vision is a more fitting word for what he saw. Retelling it to me just yesterday still gives him chills.

In his dream, there was shadow and fog, and a foreboding gloom. He couldn’t say where he was, the space was filled with such a deepening mist. Suddenly, cutting through the darkness was a sight so horrible that he bolted upright shaking. My mother woke at the start and turned to him. Seeing such a fear in his eyes, she asked what it was that he saw.

From the dark clouds there hung a thin brown wire, pulled taut by the weight of a small figure that spun slowly around. It was a child, ghastly white, hanging in his misty nightmare, the cord like a serpent wrapped around it’s neck. The child’s face was mine.

They got out of bed and my mother led my father down the hall to the kitchen for a cup of water. She had never seen him so visibly shaken. He kept mumbling that he had never had a dream so terrible, and so shockingly still. The image was still burning in his mind as they turned the corner of the hall that led to the kitchen, and to the left, the living room. Suddenly, my father says, an icy chill fell over his body and stopped him in his tracks. Looking down, as though some force of gravity compelled his eyes, he cried out my mother’s name.

I had escaped from my crib, and there between the armchair and the television set, I lay asleep. Loosely draped around my neck was a thin brown wire. It ran from the TV antenna to the floor and lay coiled up like a snake. They cast off the cord and found me breathing, soft and calm.

I believe God speaks in a thousand ways to His children, and everything is at His service. Above and below and within, in our waking and our sleeping, and in the myriad encounters that wash over us every day, there are movements of the supernatural. For this nightmare of my father’s, for the whisper of our angels, for the twists and the turns our lives so often take, for our sixth sense, and our premonitions, for the signs and the wonders that make life such a mystery, I am most thankful.

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Inspiration for the New Evangelization
http://www.missionmoment.org

Where the Wild Things Are

I heard a wonderful talk a couple of weeks ago on the topic of Science and Religion and Where They Meet (or something like that), given by a local Catholic scholar. Over pasta and salad in a fancy restaurant, we pondered the perplexing profundity of Power that made all things to Be (sorry, I couldn’t resist a little alliteration overload there).

In a section of the talk that had some mind-boggling factoids, the speaker called us to reflect on the vastness of the universe. He tossed up some numbers that were nearly impossible for us to catch with our 3.5 pound brains. The Sun is 30,000 light-years from the center of our galaxy. The Sun is 93 million miles from Earth, yet it is 270,000 times closer than the next nearest star. The Sun is only one of the more than 200 billion stars in our galaxy, the Milky Way. The Milky Way is only one of billions of galaxies in the universe.

Before these “astro“nomical figures, the human mind just quivers like jelly. “Whoa” is the only adequate response, or maybe just a little “Whu…” And get this: If the law of gravity were just infinitesimally off, lighter or stronger in its pull, the Universe would have either imploded or diffused at a rate that would not have allowed for life as we know it to exist. And yet, as we know, here we are. Formed from the heart of stars and the dust of the earth. Miraculous beings we are, who can reflect on all of this splendor! One in a gazillion we are, each of us. And each of us breathed into by the Divine Love that tumbled forth this ocean of light and dark, this magnanimity and microscopity, from the behemoth Jupiter to the fragile heart of a red red rose, wet with dew, glistening in the light of that same far off Sun.

Whew….

I think we need to hear these numbers and to ponder this vastness more often. We need to know where the wild things are, or simply that they are, somewhere. We need wildness, as Thoreau was so fond of saying. To know that there are still, even in this 21st of centuries, places on earth where a human being has never set foot. There are paths untrod and untrammeled by our sometimes dirty feet. There are delicate flowers on the tops of high peaks that will never be seen by human eyes. There are still species unnamed, depths uncharted, realms outside our reach. And that is good for us to know. It reminds us of a simple and startling fact: we are superfluous.

We did not have to exist for God’s happiness. And yet we are here for His Glory. Love is by definition superfluous, extravagant, overflowing. We are on the crest of that wave of Love, that exitus, exhaling, inspiration that made all things for Love. And He has made us now, in a certain sense, necessary, to give the return of Love, as sons in the Son who return the gaze of Love. We are a crucial part of this cosmic symphony. God has created us to be the conductors (or sub-conductors of our section of the work). We lift up the voices of these instruments He has made. So for the places beyond our reach, for the deeps of space and the worlds unseen, for the creatures great and small and for the height and the depth and the breadth of all that IS, we praise Him and give Him thanks!

Psalm 8

When I see your heavens, the work of your fingers,
the moon and stars that you set in place –
What are humans that you are mindful of them,
mere mortals that you care for them?
Yet you have made them little less than a god,
crowned them with glory and honor.
You have given them rule over the works of your hands,
put all things at their feet: All sheep and oxen,
even the beasts of the field, The birds of the air,
the fish of the sea, and whatever swims the paths of the seas.
O LORD, our Lord, how awesome is your name through all the earth!

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Inspiration for the New Evangelization
http://www.missionmoment.org

Blurred Faces in Sacred Places

Wawa is the name of a convenience store chain in the north-east section of the United States (is it out west too?). You can get chips, soda, batteries, a newspaper, even toilet paper there. And COFFEE. There are those who are addicted to Wawa coffee. I am NOT one of those people, but that coffee is mm mmm good!

Now the more I read the Bible and the stories of the saints and that crazy holy Pope John Paul II, the more I begin to see things differently. I can’t help it. I can’t fight it. The sacramental vision kicks in and I realize we are not alone. Eeeek! We’re surrounded by a Supernatural Love. He is everywhere! And everywhere I can find Him, and His angels too, leading and guiding us through our days. The Divine Whisper is just a hair’s breadth away from us, if we but bend in to listen…

This brings me back to Wawa. The other day I was stopping in for a cup o’ joe. I make it a point to try and look the cashier in the eye when I purchase something. Just a little human moment, a little “how you doin’ in this great adventure called Life?” Wawa Boy was too quick for me. It was busy and he was kicking out his customers like karate! With cat-like reflexes, he took bills and turned them into change, he bagged and he bopped, with the cashdrawer opening and closing like a hungry hungry hippo (anybody get that reference?)

I caught myself slowing down as I approached my turn in the line, a bodily antithesis to his hyperactivity. “Hooow… arrrre… yoooouuuu?”

He didn’t look up, didn’t miss a beat. Zip, ding, “Haveaniceday.”

I wondered if he was even human. Maybe Wawa has cyborgs working for them now? Half human, half machine. We have the technology now, don’t we?

Oh what a rush we’re in (and let me be the first, again, to say I’m in the vortex). A friend of mine was told once in a “drive thru” McDonald’s: “Sorry sir, your fries are going to take about 60 seconds!” They actually apologized. I was in the cathedral downtown once when a man came in on a cell phone. He continued his conversation, loud and clear, up the empty aisle (Mass was over), past Our Lord in the tabernacle, past the shimmering stained glass, and into the side chapel. Blah blah blah. We are blurred faces rushing through sacred places.

We all know how insane the world is today. We all know that we are moving too fast. We hardly listen to each other. We have no time for the things that really matter. We know this. What we don’t know is how to turn off the Machines.

We have so many time-saving devices today… but we have given them all of our time! We can get so much done through e-mail and cell phones, I think we should have a four hour work day and still get paid for eight! WHO’S FOR IT?

We’re like addicts…. always checking our cell phones and our e-mail. Did someone communicate with me? Do I have any new messages???!!! Many of us spend more time staring at screens, than we do other people.

SOMETHING HAS GONE WRONG, SOMETHING IS BACKWARDS…

A wise monk once said “When eating an orange, eat the orange.”

And another said …. “By drinking a cup of green tea, I stopped the war.”

Let’s ponder these thoughts.

Can we do it? Can we even begin? Let me pick up on this one tomorrow. I gotta run…

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Inspiration for the New Evangelization
http://www.missionmoment.org

Mass Confusion

Some people are bored out of their minds when they go to Church. What they experience in the Mass seems to be completely unrelated to the experiences of life in “the real world.” They read Readings, pray Prayers, offer Offerings, and “take Communion.” Often it seems they’re just going through the motions of a conversation that’s uninteresting, but obligatory. Like when you were a child, visiting “older people,” and you had to sit in the dining room with them.

Now we know from those trusty polls that Church attendance has dropped, belief in the Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist has dwindled into a foggy, half-mumbled ascent, and faith in Church leadership has been deeply wounded by recent and ongoing scandals. Not a very comforting picture. For many living in our fast pace, gimme’-something-worth-my-time culture, the kind of experience of Church as a seemingly dry repetition of words and gestures just doesn’t “do anything for me.”

This conclusion has led some in the Church to want to jazz up the Mass. Make it more “exciting” for people. Reach out to the youth with a different kind of music, something they can feel. Getting faith means getting funky, loosening up, changing stuff around…. improvising.

“Oh we love Father Soandso, he comes down from the altar and walks around and tells jokes… and stuff.”

A few years ago, I found myself at a national meeting of diocesan staff who were all in the field of Catholic Evangelization. There were priests, deacons, sisters, lots of laity, and even some bishops. The burning question was “How do we get them back?” We prayed together, and the prayer laid out was supposed to be a model for us leaders to bring back to the parishes. The theme was “multicultural.”

Here are some snapshots of our time together:

– processing two by two towards a large clay pot filled with sand, each of us holding a lighted incense stick which we were to place in the sand, after a short bow.

– singing a song whose lyrics included the phrase “free us from dogmas that bind”

– watching a young Vietnamese deacon burst into the circle where we were praying, leaping up and down, swirling a stick with a ribbon on it (like one of those Olympic sporting events)

– tamborines, remember those?

– and finally, after our closing Mass together (which was led by one of the bishops), it got really crazy. People were clapping and the young deacon was grabbing random people (not the bishop) and dancing with them in the middle of the chapel. One elderly nun in full habit (yep, full habit) was pulled bodily out of her chair to join in the dance.

That’s when the congo line burst out.

It snaked around the room, stilted and dizzy, looking like a wedding reception gone awry; where the open bar should have been closed, awhile ago.

During all of these multi-cultural activities and prayers, I would glance from time to time over to a little shelf in the chapel, off to the left of the altar. There, in a niche on the side wall was the tabernacle, in shadowy stillness. (Sigh…) The Presence was there, drumming on, a throbbing Heartbeat that seemed to me to be keeping a different time, another Rhythm. It was the same beat that Abraham stepped to, over countless Mesopotamian miles. It was the same pulsating power that Moses kicked up his heels to, throwing off his sandals in absolute adoration. And before this Presence, David danced with wild abandon.

I looked back at the congo line, now forming a grand circle. Everyone was turned in on themselves, smiling and satisfied that at least “we” get it. But did we? I think for too long we have been a circle, looking at the Church as if it were all ours, as if it were our job to keep the thing moving and growing and maintaining itself. Better music, more programs, rockstar priests!

And all the while, Jesus waits… like a young man at a dance without a date, sitting in the shadowy stillness of an empty church that seems to be emptying still. What would happen if you and I walked over to Him, and took His hand? What would happen if our eyes met? Would we take the lead, or would we let Him take us? What if we stepped to His Rhythm for a change?

I wonder what would happen?

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Inspiration for the New Evangelization
http://www.missionmoment.org

The Cross-Shaped Door

If I could be Less
I wouldn’t be in this mess
But because of my More
I can’t fit through the Door!

In the gospel of Mark, we find the story of the “rich young man.” I would guess that most of us know it pretty well. A man comes to Jesus, a good man, and he is searching for more than just being Mr. Nice Guy. He has a burning desire to get beyond the mere following of the rules. He has a thirst for something (or perhaps Someone) that the Law simply cannot fully satisfy, so he turns to this new Master.

People say Jesus is… qodesh, different. And He is different. The Hebrew word also means holy. He travels with the poor, He owns nothing, He expects nothing, and yet thousands follow Him. His very glance, they say, can heal. He speaks with authority, and deep joy streams from Him like rivers. They say “We have never seen anything like this before.”

Jesus listens to the rich young man’s plea, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” Haven’t we all asked this question, in some way, shape or form?

Mark’s gospel says “And looking at him, he loved him…” What a powerful image in itself! The God of the universe, listening and looking at me! And I looking back at Him! St. Theresa of Avila says that’s the essence of real prayer. “Watch Him watching you. Look at Him looking at you.”

And Jesus said to him…

(OK here it comes! The answer to my heart’s deepest longing! Yes, I’m ready. Bring it on!)

“You are lacking in one thing…”

(One thing, that’s it? OK, what is it? I can do this!)

“Go, sell what you have, and give to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.”

Ouch…

Sell what I have? But I thought these were the blessings You gave me? I thought the land and the crops and the comforts were all Your gifts. If I do good then the blessings come, right?

Let them go. They are not Me. They are only reflections of Me. Only a foretaste of the Kingdom to Come. The first glimmers of a sunrise but not yet the Son.

“At that statement his face fell, and he went away sad, for he had many possessions.”

We don’t know what came of this young man. But his searching for truth and his most moving of questions has afforded the millions of us after him with the teaching of what we must do to be perfect. Let them go. Don’t let your possessions possess you.

Listen to the words of Jesus, words that seem tinged with sorrow, whispered as this young man walked away: “How hard it is for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!” The disciples were amazed at his words. So Jesus again said to them in reply, “Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God! It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for one who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.” They were exceedingly astonished and said among themselves, “Then who can be saved?” Jesus looked at them and said, “For human beings it is impossible, but not for God. All things are possible for God.”

When I was young, I remember a priest telling us that in the Temple in Jerusalem there was a certain gate called the Needle’s Eye. For a camel to pass through it, the travellers had to unpack its heavy load, taking away all of the luggage that could hinder it’s entrance, and the camel had to stoop to get in. But it could be done. True or not, I like the image.

Heaven has a Cross-shaped Door. For us to enter in, we must open wide our arms. We must let go of the things we hold so precious here below. Even the slightest grasping of a gift other than the one before us will hinder our entrance into Love. So even now, can we let go? Can we unpack our hearts of all the useless baggage, the clutter, the sins of the past that have been forgiven? Can we move forward in the shape of the Cross, on the radical path, the Way of Total Self-Giving, through the eye of the needle, letting all the excesses of our lives be knocked away?

This is the challenge of the Gospel, this is the freedom we are made for. Searching our hearts, so long deceived by the lies of materialism, we know it’s true. Can possessions really fill the void? No, only a person can. For we are made for relationship and communion. And not just communion with persons here below, for they too are signs and sacraments of the Person of Jesus, the One Who alone can satisfy us!

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Inspiration for the New Evangelization
http://www.missionmoment.org

The Mission Man, of Happy Memory…

Six years ago today, I had the unbelievable grace of being in Rome for the Jubilee celebration for Missionaries. A World Mission Congress gathered hundreds of missionaries and mission educators from around the world. We had a few days of meetings, prayed together, shared stories, ate pasta and some real gelati, and finally came to a closing liturgy in St. Peter’s Square for World Mission Sunday.

This Mass was celebrated by Pope John Paul II. As a remembrance of the first missionaries, the Twelve Apostles, twelve men and women were chosen to receive a simple mission cross from the Pope and commissioned “to bring Jesus back to your country.” I was given the amazing and unexpected grace to be selected as one of those twelve souls, representing the United States of America!

That moment of kneeling before Pope John Paul II, a man I consider a spiritual father, and hearing the prayers and songs of over 80,000 people in St. Peter’s Square will never fade from my memory. It was there at the feet of Peter that I believe the seed was planted for the Mission Moment ministry. My goal (and every Christian’s goal) should simply be to bring Jesus to the world, one word, one step, one moment at a time…. to open eyes to the wonder of faith, and the beauty of grace that comes streaming down from the Cross. Witness to the reality that we are loved. Deeply and unconditionally loved.

This can translate itself into your life in a million different ways. It does not have to be some elaborate program, this sharing of the gospel, but a simple daily “yes” to Grace.

I think of Pope John Paul II, and of how he lived the mission. It was so much deeper than mere words for him, more than meetings and encyclicals, and apostolic letters. What do people say who had the chance to meet him? “He looked me in the eyes, and I felt peace.” Is there any other way to live the gospel? Is there any other action that says “Jesus” than this look of love?

Life is complex, but living is utterly simple.

Look with love. Listen with love. Open up to receive Love. Empty yourself now to give that Love away. This is the essence of mission. It’s the movement of Love. And each of us is given so many mission moments in our life. Tomorrow is a Monday morning (for some it’s a Tuesday 😉 When and where will we be given a moment of grace? May we have the same grace to recognize and respond!

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Inspiration for the New Evangelization
http://www.missionmoment.org

Old Inuit Song

I think over again my small adventures, my fears.
Those small ones that seemed so big.
For all the vital things I had to get and to reach.
And yet there is only one great thing.
The only thing –
To live to see the great day that dawns
and the Light that fills the world.

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Inspiration for the New Evangelization
http://www.missionmoment.org

Magnetic Love

Just a simple yet profound gem today from Pope John Paul II…

The presence of Jesus in the tabernacle must be a kind of magnetic pole attracting an ever greater number of souls enamoured of him, ready to wait patiently to hear his voice and, as it were, to sense the beating of his heart. “O taste and see that the Lord is good!” (Ps 34:8).

– Pope John Paul II, Mane Nobiscum Domine

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Inspiration for the New Evangelization
http://www.missionmoment.org

Let’s Kayak to Work!

My wife is amazing, and she is crazy about celebrating birthdays (lucky for me). So on Saturday, she drove us over to beautiful Chester County, through old farmlands, past crumbling stone walls, and down shady roads that had more twists than an episode of LOST.

She wouldn’t tell me where we were going.
She didn’t say what we were doing.
And I was very cool with this.

After a gorgeous ride through this country, sporting it’s finest fall colors, we pulled up to the Northbrook Canoe Company, a string of tired old buildings with wide boards and people wearing flannel shirts. It was nestled beside the cool and meandering Brandywine River. I got out of the car and cried “Woohooooooooo!”

Now there is something about water that just cries “God” to me. It’s flowing with His presence! Tolkien said that in the music of the sea there is still a trace of that ancient music that made the world. It makes it’s way through all the courses and the currents and the veins of the earth; a sweet music that can calm our minds and smooth over the troubled surface of our hearts.

We were dropped off 3 miles upstream by a flanneled man, (he was an artist and his grandpa came over from Italy, and he had shades like Bono). As the flanneled man in the van pulled away and left us in the wilderness with only two paddles to defend ourselves with, I took in a deep breath of that sweet farm air and descended to the water’s edge. “Yippee! It’s my birthday surprise!” Little did I know that another surprise was awaiting me, just seconds away. I would not cry “woohoo” when it was given to me.

I got Rebecca nestled in her vessel, set her afloat and then attempted to fit my 6’4” body into the 5’3” watercraft. Yes, I fell in the water. It was cold and I got wet. And then we laughed. See, I had actually planned to do this. I thought to myself, “Self, let’s give Rebecca a little laugh as we begin our voyage downstream.” So that worked out real nice.

The trip was absolutely beautiful… we couldn’t have asked for a better day. In the sun-dappled stillness, we sliced through the water like otters, and the shimmering liquid peeled back before us like the plastic sleeves of a photo album. So we put our pictures in there. And they were pictures like this:

– me, all wet and soggy, with some leaves stuck on my arm
– us, slicing the water like otters
– a Great Blue Heron, sailing majestic and silent over the Brandywine (good eye Rebecca!)
– sycamore leaves, drifting beside us like fossils through amber in a watery museum
– schools of fish, silent and slick beneath us
– gnarled old roots of trees gaping out at us like toothy smiles from the Old Forest
– maple trees dropping their leaves, sailing over us like shards of stained glass soft to the touch

At one point in our journey, Rebecca said “This is just another way of transportation.” What we held in such solemnity, when placed in the past, was just travelling from one point to another. But for our ancestors, the travel was closer to the earth. There was no climate control, no adjusting of the vents or turning up the radio. You were a traveller, and you were moving through another world. You would watch it, drink it in, listen and look at it as it passes you by and you pass through it. You would appreciate it, and maybe even learn lessons from it as you went.

I remember seeing a commercial once of a new SUV. The Leviathan, or whatever it was called, was cruising through the desert, then past beautiful, snow-capped mountains in the distance, handling turns with laser precision and stuff. Then the camera zooms in to show you the comfort of the interior. And there you see the kids in the back seat, as the country goes zipping past in all its splendor, watching a cartoon on a TV that’s built into the rear of the vehicle. What the?

So I think we need to start kayaking to work. Let’s walk if we can, or if we drive, let’s drive slower! Or leave earlier so we can slow down and watch the world go by! Or let’s just quit our jobs altogether and live on farms again!

Woohoooooo!!

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Inspiration for the New Evangelization
http://www.missionmoment.org

Mission Moment

We are born with a lingering hunger
We are born to be unsatisfied
We are strangers who can’t help but wonder
And dream about the other side…

– Nichole Nordeman

Find out more about this amazing Christian artist at her website

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Inspiration for the New Evangelization
http://www.missionmoment.org