Posts tagged christianity
October 25, 2009 · Filed under Uncategorized · Tagged balloons, children, christianity, contemplation, love, mother, peace, prayer, spirituality, thomas keating, weaned child
I hate balloons.
Before I had children I had no particular opinions about balloons. They were festive at parties and fun when filled with water and thrown. It was when I had children that I started to hate them – because children love balloons.
They love to bounce them around rooms off pointy objects, to float them high above their heads on wavering strings. They say goodnight to them as they hover above their sleepy heads and look expectantly for them first thing in the morning. The one thing that they will not accept is that balloons break.
I remember when Sam was two that I would run away in horror from well meaning people handing a balloon to my sweet little boy. It was impossible to say no once he had seen it and a nightmare after he had it. If I tied it onto his wrist he cried and insisted that the balloon string would not stay straight up and down. He wanted to hold it in his little hand. He would take 3 or 4 or 5 delighted steps looking up at his balloon until he forgot to hold on and watched his balloon float up into the sky.
“Balloooooooon!” I remember him crying, “Balloooooooon. Come back. Mama will the clouds get it and bring it back to me?”
The truth is that there is nothing wrong with balloons. There is not that much to them. A little rubber and air. The very things that make a balloon a joy are the same things that make it impermanent and fragile. But the child loves the balloon so much he can’t bear to see it go.
How often we treat our life like a child treats a balloon. The gifts that we are given we cling onto fearfully. We forget that our life is the divine breath and the dust of the earth. The playfulness and joy of the impermanence and fragility of our earthly life inspire terror in us. We hold on to that which was not meant to last.
Sam is older now. He still likes balloons. But he knows that they break. He knows that they are here for a very short while. He even enjoys sometimes to purposefully open that hand. He relaxes his grasp and watches as a balloon floats off into the freedom of heaven.
October 3, 2009 · Filed under Uncategorized · Tagged chartres, children, christianity, contemplation, contimplation, labyrinth, love, peace, prayer, spirituality, weaned child
The heat is finally letting up. Summer in Phoenix is rather relentless and the heat doesn’t normally end until sometime in October. The first week that I can walk outside without feeling my skin frying is a good week.
We went on a hike this week with the kids. I love getting out in the desert with them. TJ was excited because he had listened to a book about the Saguaro Cactus in his kindergarten class. I looked back to see what was keeping the twins and saw TJ excitedly explaining to Mary about that cactus. “This cactus is one year old” he was saying. “It won’t get its first arm until it is sixteen.” She was listening earnestly. TJ’s face just shone as he took on the role of teacher. I smiled too. Never mind that the cactus he was pointing out was really a barrel cactus. I didn’t correct him or try to teach him anything new about cacti. I was happy for his new confidence – for his innocent interest in the world around him.
So many times in my life I have learned new things about God and I can’t wait to be the teacher – to share my information with the world. I imagine that God smiles like that at me as I confidently run to impart my new-found information to my friends and family. In reality, the truth of who God is so much greater than all the different species of cactus in the desert. I see as a child- like TJ in the desert – using the limited knowledge I have been given to try to make sense of the vastness I am confronted with.
Our journey of knowing is like walking the Chartres labyrinth. We learn and grow and then we turn around and walk the other way. God is this – God is not this. Of course it feels sometimes like we are not getting anywhere at all. The closer to the center we get the longer the journey back. Now we know in part but, like with the labyrinth, we can be confident that there is a center where we shall know fully just as we are fully known.
September 27, 2009 · Filed under Uncategorized · Tagged bible, child, children, christianity, contempletion, contimplation, learning, love, music, peace, pray, prayer, salt, salt of the earth, spirituality, teach, teacher, testing
This week in music I was quizzing the children on the notes. Sometimes in class I go around and ask each child individually to tell me what note I have written on the board. It is a bit of a shock for the kids who have been goofing off to have to answer the question. Sometimes they have no idea how to work it out. This is what I’m looking for. I am waiting for them to ask me, ‘Wait, how do I figure that out?” so that I can take them through the process while I have their full attention. Many times there is a child close to them that tries to whisper the answer. They would like that. They would like to get the answer right and have me pass on to the next child but, as I explain to the class, the answer isn’t really important – it’s knowing the process, knowing how to come up with the answer that is important.
I am very much like that. I am not comfortable with my weakness and my lack of knowledge. I would like God to help me like one child helps another – whispering the answer to me without the knowledge. I would like God to make me patient and kind and good. And while God is at it organized and smart and witty and able to juggle work and home with ease. I want God to slap these qualities on me like a badge but I don’t get that. Instead it seems to me that God waits for those moments of weakness – those moments of “I don’t get it” to teach me just a little bit more. God is not interested in me getting the answer right this one time. God is interested in me knowing how to get the answer right every time. It makes me careful about what I pray for. A long time ago I prayed for patience and God is still answering that prayer – by putting me in every frustrating situation that I can imagine! By the time my children are grown and out of the house I may have learned patience. Why does God do that? Why doesn’t God just fix us up easily? Why does it feel more like I am being carved out than dressed up?
Saint Francis was asked what true joy is and he responded with a story. He told his fellow monk that if they were to arrive at the end of their long journey (in the snow- uphill – both ways) cold and hungry and their brothers rejected them and turned them out into the snow – if they could still rejoice at that moment then they would have found true joy. This is a joy born of God catching us in our weakest moments and teaching us where to look for true answers. This is why God says, “My strength is made perfect in weakness.”
If we move away from our weakness we move into roles and expectation and that is exactly where we may lose ourselves. I think of a scene from a movie about St. Francis. He comes before the Pope, his favor is granted, and he leaves – completely free because he is nothing but himself. The Pope, however, is pulled back by his advisors. He is returned to his throne and his robe and his big Pope hat. He is lost in his role. He is trapped in Popeness.
The sermon today was on (among other things) the comparison of believers with the salt of the earth. If salt has lost its saltiness it is ruined – throw it out. It struck me today that salt can’t lose its saltiness. Saltiness means the essence of salt. What Jesus is saying here is that it is the very essence of who we are as children of God that God does not want to lose. Clare must not lose her Clareness or she will be no good in the reign of God. And so – rather than making little copies of good, organized, thin, brainy, witty, people – God made me. And God made you. It is in our weakness that we find the freedom of being exactly who we are. And who we are is exactly enough for God.
September 23, 2009 · Filed under Uncategorized · Tagged children, christianity, contimplation, love, peace, prayer, spirituality
I think every parent has had that horrible moment in a store when you look down for one second and when you look up your child is gone. Last year I was in Target with Mary and TJ and they were happily looking at some costume jewelry so I walked one foot away around and end cap. I could still hear them. When I walked back around less than a minute later I realized that it was only TJ that I had heard. I called for Mary expecting her to be around the next aisle. When she wasn’t I started to get concerned and ran to the main aisle calling her name. At that point I saw a tear stained Mary being led toward me from quite far away by a nice looking lady. In the few seconds that I had been out of sight she had looked up and panicked when she couldn’t see me. The first thing that she thought of to do was to run to try and find me. She told me that she was afraid that I had left her.
When she had calmed down we had a talk. I told her that I had been close enough to touch when she couldn’t see me. I said, “If you ever can’t see me and you are scared just freeze and call ‘Mama!’ I will always be close enough to hear you because I will never walk away and leave you alone. Never run away when you are scared because you will always be running farther away from me.”
We have actually practiced that and now Mary is good about freezing and calling , “Mama!” if she can’t see me.
When I think about my images of God changing and growing I don’t think only of the picture I have in my head. It is not difficult to realize that of course God is not the old man with the beard or a blond Jesus in a toga. What is harder to change is the direction in which I look for God. I am used to considering God as someone who must be sought. Like Mary I sometimes panic thinking that because I can’t see God that God is absent or I have been abandoned. I have trouble getting used to a God to says. “I am always here. Just call. I am never far away.”
The most radical image comes from Jesus who said that he is the vine and we are the branches – am image of unity with God that seems to reach too far. It says that the direction of my prayers must change – from those of a child who calls and runs in fear – to those of one who grows in silence and looks to her deepest self to find the unity with the Eternal Vine.
September 22, 2009 · Filed under Uncategorized · Tagged children, christianity, contimplation, love, peace, prayer, spirituality, thomas keating
It’s funny the small moments that show you how much your children have grown. Since I see them every day I tend to ignore their growth and it springs out at me unexpectedly. With Sam it is his sheer size. He sprawls. His limbs seem to go on forever. I remember when he first went to school it used to amaze me when he came home with jokes that were new or new ways of saying things. Up until that point everything he knew I or Tim had taught him. It was amazing to me to relate to him as a person who had a life apart from me. Now that he is in fifth grade he is so completely his own person. I am so lucky that he shares that person with me. And yet as much as I rejoice in who he is – there is a part of me who mourns the loss of who he was as well.
I have to admit that there is one ‘onesie’ that I can’t bring myself to throw out. It was Sam’s and later TJ’s. It says, “This little mouse likes eating corn.” I am a good purger and most of the evidence of babyhood is gone from our house, but that onesie keeps floating around. I can’t bear to part with the idea of a Sam who was so small.
I have been thinking lately that my image of God needs to grow as much as my children do. It is natural to begin with a childish view of God in childhood. But as we grow up our image of God should too. I don’t mean that we should read more books or form more opinions, although of course we may, but that God will gradually reveal more and more of God’s nature as we enter into friendship with God. As we sit in silence or serve the poor or read the Bible, our view of God grows and changes. And at some point accepting our new view of God requires that we let go of our old views. Sometimes our old views of who God is fit our new lives as well as that onesie fits Sam now. And yet the giving up and the letting God of our old images of God feel like a small death.
We expect that our children will grow, that our relationships and communities will grow and change. And yet we are afraid to allow our image of God to grow and change. It seems almost blasphemous. It seems to us that our safety and orthodoxy is in holding on to the God we have known since childhood.
For me right now as I feel called to let go of the images of God and of Jesus that I have had for many years, I must take a leap of faith. I don’t know what the new images will be. I just feel that my old images are inadequate to the God I am coming to know. I feel perhaps like the cartoon person clinging to a branch at the top of a cliff. A hand comes down. I am saved! But to grab the hand I must release one hand from the branch. I have done this but now must go one step further. I must let go of the branch altogether if I am to be pulled to be safety. But the branch is what I know. It is my safety. It is what has saved me all these years. But it must be left behind to reach true safety.
In the Chronicles of Narnia when Lucy returns to Narnia after an absence Aslan (the Christ figure) appears bigger to her. “Aslan,” she says, “You’ve grown.”
“No child, “he replies, “You have.”
September 13, 2009 · Filed under Uncategorized · Tagged children, christianity, contimplation, god, goddess, love, mother, peace, prayer, spirituality, TV
A typo at church got me thinking today. The song that the choir put up for worship read:
Here I am to worship
Here I am to bow down
Here I am to say that you’re my god.
(We were having a joint service with our sister Hispanic church so the music was more contemporary that usual)
Of course we are used to seeing the word ‘God’ not ‘god’ when referring to our creator. We capitalize it as we do all names to show the personal relationship that we have to God. But it was interesting seeing it in small letters. To me ‘gods’ or idols are the things that we put our trust in that are not God. The Old Testament has a lot of passages warning us to avoid putting our trust in false gods. It is easy for the modern reader to ignore these passages because we don’t normally make statues and bow down in worship to them any more. But we do put our trust in many things that aren’t the eternal creator.
I actually picture lots of little gods around my house. When I am stressing out over house work and scheduling I picture a little Martha Stewart goddess that I am lighting insense to – putting my trust and obedience in her promises for a better life if I keep a clean and orderly house and put home cooked food on the table.
I frequently visit the Donald Trump shrine – trusting that having all my bills paid and a healthy bank account will make my life peaceful and fulfilled. Venus’ shrine also has never been neglected. The goddess of beauty and romantic love has never lacked followers and I find myself bowing down too as I worry about gray hairs and wrinkling skin.
TV helps to reinforce these gods in my life. Experts tell me how to stay healthy and beautiful. Of course their advice seems to change every year but that doesn’t stop me from running after, ‘The tummy fat burning diet.” or “The look for spring.”
What I wondered today is if God is my god? I know that I love and trust the friend ‘God” but do I put my trust in God the same way I do in a healthy bank account, good health, a trim waist, a good job? Is God really my one and only god?
September 11, 2009 · Filed under Uncategorized · Tagged children, christian, christianity, contemplation, love, peace, prayer, spirituality
Getting the children off to school in the morning is quite a process. Breakfast, kids dressed, teeth brushed, lunches made, homework packed.
We start the morning peacefully. (As long as I have my coffee before I have to speak.) I have made a playlist of music that starts with Barber’s Adagio for Strings and ends with Barenaked Ladies 7 8 9. It’s timed so that we are supposed to be out of the door by the last song. When the music starts I am soft and cuddly. “How did you sleep, sweetheart?” I ask my sleepyheads. The closer we get to the last song the more strident my voice gets. “Why didn’t you empty your lunchbox out last night? What have you been doing for the last 10 minutes? Hurry up hurry up!” It’s hard not to do this. Teachers are waiting who have asked that the students be there on time, with a lunch and a cold pack and a napkin and their homework. I want my kids to have a good breakfast and look nice. It is important that they be prepared for the day.
In the afternoon a different kind of preparation begins. Then we parents start to prepare our kids for the wider world of peers and sports. It is important for them to keep active and to fit in with other kids, to be a team player. My kids have played baseball, soccer, done ballet, gymnastics and karate.
In all this running around other preparations can be lost. Am I preparing my kids to be joyful? To be compassionate? To feel themselves as a member of the community of our family not as a passenger of life with me as their cruise director? What I communicate to them becomes so important. It is so easy for me to be so caught up in the stress of doing that I communicate to them that they are a burden rather than a blessing. “Why do you always make us late?” “How could you forget your lunch again?” Maybe we need to do fewer things. Or maybe I just need to remember that above all I am preparing them to be children of God; that with our children we are like Saint Joseph with the Christ Child. We are looking after someone else’s child.
I remember when Tim and I brought Sam home from the hospital. I was scared with such a tiny breakable bundle. I felt like a responsible person ought to be going home with us to make sure we didn’t screw up! It still amazes me that God trusts me with these little people that are so precious and yet so vulnerable. I know that I can’t expect myself to be perfect. But I do try to say ‘sorry, I was frustrated – you didn’t deserve that’ when I mess up. And I tried to keep in mind in the middle of a crazy morning today that I’m preparing them for a height and depth and breadth and width of love that is eternal.
September 9, 2009 · Filed under Uncategorized · Tagged children, christianity, contemplation, contmplative, karate, love, peace, prayer, spirituality, thomas keating
I was at karate tonight. I started studying karate about 5 years ago when I did a mommy and me karate class with Sam. I loved it and have been training about three times a week for the last four years. I’ll say up front that I am not very good at it. I am too old, too fat and my knees turn the wrong way. But I enjoy it and I think it is good to have at least one thing in my life that I pursue for fun with no expectation of ever being very good.
But even with low expectations I got frustrated at myself last month. I caught sight of myself in a mirror doing my moves terribly; my fighting was laughable. I felt like every one else was moving freely and easily and I was stuck in jello. ‘Why do I keep doing this?’, I wondered. ‘When I am doing everything wrong. Maybe it is time to quit.’
Before I got too frustrated though, I recognized the feeling. I have had it many times before: when I was learning to sing, to play piano, to speak Spanish. It is the frustration that comes with improving. It is the embarrassment that I felt when I one day realized that I had been confidently telling my new friends, “I go yesterday. She go store now.” For months I was blissfully unaware how childish my Spanish sounded until one day my command of the language grew and I realized that I sounded like an idiot. And then the work began again. I studied, tried, failed until I felt that I had a reasonable command of the Spanish language and then once again realized how many mistakes I was still making. It is not until we realize how many mistakes we are making that we can begin to change. So the realization of our poor Spanish or off-key voice or inattentive prayer life is really an invitation to take another step – to go further in our art.
Karate is like many religious practices. At first it seems like the difficulty will be mastering the language, memorizing the steps, learning how to show respect and to whom. But after some years the Japanese (or Latin) is mastered, the steps (or the bible or Mass) memorized, we know our place. Then we realize that the real work begins; centering ourselves to find our balance, knowing when to give all our energy and when to relax, holding lightly, moving quickly, knowing when to give way and when to stand firm with all our might.
September 2, 2009 · Filed under Uncategorized · Tagged children, christianity, contimplation, love, peace, prayer, spirituality
I am so tired so bear with me if my post goes a little off track. The kids have a combination of colds and nightmares that are keeping me up at night.
About a year ago the kids and I were talking about the idea of ‘treasure in heaven’. I didn’t describe it as doing good deeds for the sake of reward in heaven but as a natural consequence. What matters in heaven is love. Every time we love we become richer in the thing that is most important on heaven.
Mary has remembered that conversation for a year. She reminded me yesterday that she will have lots of “love coins” when she got to heaven because she loves lots of people. “Yes you will,” I said. “How sad it is for the people who have spent all their time trying to be rich and powerful. When they get to heaven they will be very poor.”
“That’s OK.” Mary said, ” I’ll share my love coins with them.”
I think everyone in heaven is like that.
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