It Ain’t Easy Being Green… Or Is It?

Kermit the Frog used to sing, “It ain’t easy being green” but today, in our eco-conscious climate, it seems being “green” has never been easier. It’s a regular agenda, and not just from the crunchy cons, or the liberal left. Enter Pope Benedict:

Contemplating the beauty of creation inspires us to recognize the love of the Creator, that Love which “moves the sun and the other stars”…. It is imperative that mankind renew and strengthen “that covenant between human beings and the environment, which should mirror the creative love of God, from whom we come and towards whom we are journeying.
– Pope Benedict XVI

A Covenant with Creation?

For Catholics, this whole Green Movement isn’t just a passing fad. It was part of our marching orders way back in Eden; “Be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it. Have dominion over all living things.” For most of our subsequent story, sadly, that call to stewardship, harmony, fecundity, and dominion, has decayed into a twisted domination. The word subdue meant to remember our headship as human persons and not fall into the trap of idolatry (the earth becoming an idol). But we went too far and laid waste to the land, like little Saurons creating our own little Mordors over and over again.

In the Holy Father’s Message for the Celebration of the World Day for Peace, given just a few weeks ago as we entered into the year of Our Lord 2010, he called attention to the pure gift of the environment we so often take for granted, saying:

“Many people experience peace and tranquillity, renewal and reinvigoration, when they come into close contact with the beauty and harmony of nature. There exists a certain reciprocity: as we care for creation, we realize that God, through creation, cares for us.”

That’s a uniquely Catholic vision… a sacramental vision. God, through creation, cares for us. The stuff of the earth, the swirl of molecules, the dance of matter, the splendid mosaic of earth and sky and water; all of this grand display is a storybook for us. God speaks through it all! What a wonderful thing. Everything is full of His wonders. A line from a Peter Mayer song comes to mind; “This morning outside I stood, saw a little red-winged bird, shining like a burning bush, singing like a Scripture verse. Made me want to bow my head… everything is holy now.”

I think a good dose of the natural world does wonders for the soul, especially in these days when it seems only the latest gadget is capable of instilling wonder and “magic.” Granted, we have some amazing works to ponder, but none are so magical as those that flow right from the Mind of God. Who can fashion a single seed, pregnant with the uniqueness of a rose, a giant Redwood, a human life? Only God. What a wonderful world! Great and wonderful are Your works O Lord! Let’s give them a second look, a long and penetrating gaze, and drink in the gratuitous beauty that God filled them with. For this cup overflows just for us!

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

Take a Breath, Take a Break

I’m so busy.

I wish I had more time.

I’m stressed out.

It never ends.

There’s always something.

I need a break.

Then take one.

September is a crazy month, I know. It ushers in the busy season for many of us. School’s back in, buses are clogging up the morning streets again. Sports, lessons, homework, teaching, grading, running to those meetings that the summer kept at bay, holiday preparations, transitioning the house for the new season, for the coming cold.

But something else in September is present to counteract this hectic pace. Cold crisp air, burning blue skies, leaves afire, the mournful song of geese overhead, the scent of leaves, of wood-fires, sunsets that throb with color, and starry nights. These are invitations to stillness and to watching. And it only takes a moment to breathe them in, to slow down, to drink freely. Each of these encounters has power in them, because they are natural. And Nature is seldom in a hurry.

I was walking to the parking lot after a long and busy day, with the prospects of a long night of grading and planning ahead of me, when I saw this single leaf in a tree on a patch of grass at the corner of the road. I looked at it. I took a deep breath. And behold, it was good.

Let nothing trouble you, let nothing make you afraid. All things pass away. God never changes. Patience obtains everything. God alone is enough.

– Saint Teresa of Avila

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

September Speaks

If conscience is the voice of God in the soul, then Creation is Him singing.

Watch, wait, look long and look deep. Creation is dying again. Listen to Her wisdom.

Watch, wait, look long and look deep. See this mournful train.

September sets the first steps of Her Via Dolorosa…. Creation’s road to Calvary.

Watch, wait, look long and look deep. September speaks a dying wish. To Her children in their maddening rush, in their race over roads of stone and in their cages of glass and steel… Listen. Watch. Be still.

For what happens to me, She whispers, must happen to you.

September speaks in muted tones, in dew-wet droplets on fragile webs, shining like jewels. In the burnt edges of leaves in their final hours, in the cold breath over corn past their ripening. Listen, September speaks.

All things pass, all things change, all things die. And those that give their life away to the summons of September, will be born again.

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

Fertile Ground

We spent the weekend up at the Lakehouse again, and the time spent there never fails to amaze me. Always something knew to see, always a different variation on a theme – be it sunlight or mist or rain – and we never grow tired of that music. Standing on the dock and just looking is a contemplative gaze, and has the power to pull the child out of every heart.

The webs were incredible this time, like I’ve never seen them; dripping with jewels from the all day mist that never seemed to lift on Saturday. I spied an otter for the first time, sifting her way along the coast searching for those funny freshwater mussels. A great blue heron landed by the water’s edge and got us all up early to see it. Steve and Ray set sail in the boat at a scandalously early hour and were rewarded with a fly by Bald Eagle, 20 feet over their heads!

Wolf spiders that had everybody staring. The two snakes that were too shy to show themselves on the rocks. Goldfinches undulating overhead, more often heard than seen. And finally, that soft and silent water that laps up on the shore, perpetually inspiring, reflecting and causing reflections sometimes “too deep for words.”

A good way to start off another school year…. on this fertile ground, with this reminder that everything speaks to us if we can be still and listen, and look.

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

This Week’s Mission Moment

The simple sense of wonder at the shapes of things, and at their exuberant independence of our intellectual standards and our trivial definitions, is the basis of spirituality.

– G.K. Chesterton

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

Peace Out

“Maintain a spirit of peace and you will save a thousand souls.”
– St. Seraphim

We just finished a week’s vacation in Maine with the family “from the north” – my dad, brother, wife, and two little ones. My brother Sean manages a summer camp “up they’ah” and he took us all on a little pleasure cruise last night. We slipped over the glassy surface of Washington Pond, just as the sun was tipping his hat to the day on the western rim of the world, in a pontoon boat. It was recently “kitted out” with new carpet and new cooshy seats, each equipped with a snazzy drink holder. In essence, it’s like taking your living room out for a drive (or float I should say).

Our little guy is just 11 months old now (we can’t believe it), and Sean and Amy’s little ones are each under 5. Needless to say, the down time for us adults is few and far between. It comes in dribs and drabs, like scattered coins that we’re quick to pick up. Last night’s cruise, brief as it was, came like a shower of gold.

The kids were strapped, secured, and seated, and under the watchful eyes of five adults. So for a few moments, slipping out across the cool water, we each in our turns could let the mind wander….

Water lapping up on the hull.
Wind over the face.
Dark pines on the edge of the water.
Sunshine peeking through the trees. Sunshine pouring honey on the
lake’s skyward gaze.
A loon in the distance.

The face of my father looking out and up as he held the throttle that muttered bubbly commands to the engine below. And on the deck, quiet submission. For just seconds at a time, a quiet surrender to the peace of the moment.

Then words. Then a laugh or a thought. Then stillness again, and a loving glance at Reality. I heard Rebecca say to our little niece, “Nature is God’s book for us to read.”

The dance of light on the surface. The cool evening breeze. The clear sky turning deep blue and orange at its edges.

Isn’t this what all our work is for? Aren’t these quiet movements of the body and soul through the world the moments we treasure? This stillness. This pause. This breathing pace. Not long. Not belabored. They come fast through the dark fields of our space like the Perseids and then they are gone. But the memory stays. The flash, the awe, the wonder of the thing leaves its indelible mark on the soul. And if we’re still, open, listening, these fleeting seconds, I believe, can change us. Strengthen us.

In the flurry of our work in the “real world” these moments of peace can keep us afloat.

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

Beauty as Teacher

I’ve had this article in my treasury of killer quotes from Pope John Paul II for a couple of years now. It shares his thoughts on Beauty and its connection to Truth. In the words of the Lucky Charms mascot, they are magically delicious! Magic in that they break the spell of modern reductionism with the counter-spell of wonder and awe, and the sacramental vision that sees not just dead matter, but the Divine Heart that shapes and holds it in existence.

Chew slowly, and take these gems with you on your vacation! These thoughts came from a letter of the Pope’s delivered by Cardinal Angelo Sodano, the Vatican secretary of state at the time, to the Meeting for Friendship Among Peoples. The event was organized by the ecclesial movement Communion and Liberation. The original article can be found here. The weeklong event is attracting hundreds of thousands of people to 131 meetings and conferences, 23 performances and 16 artistic exhibitions on the theme “The Feeling of Things: Contemplating the Beauty.”

“The brilliance of contemplated beauty opens the spirit to the mystery of God.”

“Beauty has its own pedagogical force to introduce knowledge of the truth effectively. In fact, it leads to Christ, who is the Truth.”

“Indeed, when love and the search for beauty spring from a dimension of faith, one can penetrate the depth of things and come into contact with the One who is the source of everything that is beautiful.”

“It is evident that nature, things, people, are able to cause astonishment because of their beauty. How is it possible not to see, for example, in a sunset in the mountains, in the immensity of the sea, in the features of a face something that is attractive and, at the same time, compels one to know more profoundly the reality that surrounds us?”

“Truth is perceived in the beautiful, which attracts to itself through the unmistakable fascination that springs from great values. Thus feeling and reason find themselves radically united in an appeal addressed to the whole person. Reality, with its beauty, makes one feel the beginning of the fulfillment and seems to whisper to us: ‘You will not be unhappy; the desire of your heart will be fulfilled, what is more, it is already being fulfilled.'”

The message points to the Book of Wisdom in the Bible, which reminds us that “from the greatness and beauty of created things their original author, by analogy, is seen” (Wisdom 13:5).

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

Rain Rain Rain

Just close your eyes and listen to the first minute or so of this video and you’ll swear you’re in a summer thunderstorm. I love it.

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

Small Wonders

I love taking pictures. I’m crazy about taking pictures. So I finally decided to get meself a Flickr account and share my little vantage point of this splendid reality with the world at large (you can check it out here). I’ve named the account “Small Wonders” because I think that pretty much sums up the little gems that surround us every day.

We must open our eyes to admire God, who hides and at the same time reveals himself in things, and introduces us into places of mystery… In reality, for those who know how to read in depth, each thing, each event brings a message that, in the final analysis, leads to God.

– Pope John Paul II

With the wonder of technology and the camera feature on so many of our cell phones today, we can all have the chance to capture the small wonders around us… even this close up of my neighbor’s cucumber plant! So keep your eyes peeled and your heart ready for a game of Divine “Hide and Seek” with the Lord. He loves it when we take time to read His Love Letters, big and small.

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

Sea and Believe

I love the ocean. It helps me believe in things much larger than me. Transcendent things, eternal things; Beauty, Peace, The Oneness. Ultimately… God.

Standing before the sea this morning, here in cloudy/sunny Sea Isle City, I had a physical encounter with a spiritual truth. The sea became a channel of grace. And that’s the definition of a sacrament, in a very broad sense. I wasn’t alone either. Other daily communicants were gathering for this celebration of the sun, rising in benediction over the new day. Does this sound scandalous? Let’s recall that the world was God’s first church, or Temple, as the Hebrews saw it. In the beginning, we were all priestly in our vocation of praise and worship to the One Who fashioned it all from nothing.

We’ve spent two nights here and are leaving soon. So I had my farewell coffee sitting in the sand, while Rebecca and the wee lad slept. I snapped this picture with the phone, then just stared and listened for a while as the slow, rhythmic beat of the heart of the sea came into me.

Ponderings…

Who was the first ancient soul to build a craft and seek to cross this watery road to the world’s edge? That took some guts.

What is it about the lapping up of water on sand, endlessly, that stirs me, invites me, into endless peace?

I truly believe we’re drawn to the sea because God is still speaking through it; His first sacramental encounter with us. He sings through it’s salty symphony, He shines in the sun!

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