Conforming (phase 2), God So Loved the World - The Birth of Jesus (step 9), session 2

Oh, I've gotten terribly behind. I should be finished this step by now.

The Shepherds

And an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with fear. And the angel said to them, "Be not afraid; for behold, I bring you good news of a great joy which will come to all the people; for to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord." - Lk 2, 9-11

When Christ comes to us, our first response is often fear of the unknown, unfathomable, wondrous person before us and of what we are sure he is going to ask of us.  Surely the One who leaves the throne of heaven for our sake will not tolerate our shrinking back from our mission, and we know not where it will take us, what he will require of us.

Each year as we celebrate the birth of the Savior, I always consider Calvary, the foreknown path which the eternal Son accepted along with his Incarnation. It is good for us to avoid the trap of romanticizing the glory of angels and the wonder of Magi led by a star, detaching it as we so often do from Jesus' redemptive mission. But while that mission was "finished" at Calvary, it comes into its fullness in the Resurrection, the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, and the mission of the Church: the birth of Christ in the heart of each beloved son and daughter of God and our formation into the Body of Christ.  The Body suffers passion and death, but the Body is resurrected! This is good news of greatest joy!  Now: how can we be resurrected without dying?

And they went with haste, and found Mary and Joseph, and the babe lying in a manger. - Lk 2, 16

Let us not "go, if we must," and worship the eternal Son of God, but go "with haste" and encounter him in his humility, his vulnerability; let us grow with him in infancy and childhood and adulthood; let us enter into his suffering and his resurrected joy! Let us bear lovingly, knowing that it is Christ himself who bears within and through us.

All night long . . .

. . . they echoed in my mind:

" . . . or wishing you'd die in your sleep"

" . . . or wishing you'd die in your sleep"

" . . . or wishing you'd die in your sleep"

" . . . or wishing you'd die in your sleep"

" . . . or wishing you'd die in your sleep"

" . . . or wishing you'd die in your sleep"

" . . . or wishing you'd die in your sleep"

" . . . or wishing you'd die in your sleep"

" . . . or wishing you'd die in your sleep"

" . . . or wishing you'd die in your sleep"

" . . . or wishing you'd die in your sleep"

" . . . or wishing you'd die in your sleep"

" . . . or wishing you'd die in your sleep"

" . . . or wishing you'd die in your sleep"

" . . . or wishing you'd die in your sleep"

" . . . or wishing you'd die in your sleep"

" . . . or wishing you'd die in your sleep"

" . . . or wishing you'd die in your sleep"

" . . . or wishing you'd die in your sleep"

" . . . or wishing you'd die in your sleep"

I know you're now wishing you could take these words back. I'm glad you were honest with me about your feelings, though, even though they hurt me. I know you love me, and I love you, too.

Conforming (phase 2), God So Loved the World - The Birth of Jesus (step 9), session 1

The Birth of Jesus

Conforming (phase 2), God So Loved the World - The Birth of Jesus (step 9), session 2I'm glad I waited to start this step until now. I really wouldn't have wanted to get into today's reading (Luke 2, 1-14) any earlier. In a sense, I already did, on Monday at the Christmas at Fairhaven service.

I'm pretty far right now from being able to reflect effectively on this Scripture. The angels may have proclaimed peace on earth among those with whom he is pleased (Lk 1, 14), but the lack of peace in my heart causes me to wonder whether he is the slightest bit pleased with me. I don't know how to proclaim his love into the lives of those around me, especially the one who thinks she is hearing judgment and condemnation and an accusation of weakness instead of a call to live in God's love and strength. But when we think we know what we need and that we aren't getting it, the birth of a baby in a manger two thousand years ago can remind us that God meets our needs in ways we'd never think possible, let alone expect.

Conforming (phase 2), God Prepares a Way for Our Salvation - The Mystery of the Incarnation (step 8), Session 6

Consequently, when Christ came into the world, he said, "Sacrifices and offerings thou hast not desired, but a body hast thou prepared for me; in burnt offerings and sin offerings thou hast taken no pleasure. Then I said, `Lo, I have come to do thy will, O God,' as it is written of me in the roll of the book." - Heb 10, 5-7

Not a very long reflection on this one, except for my gratitude that Christ came for this purpose and a reminder that this has major implications for us if we are the Body of Christ.

Light in the darkness?

This was a pretty big theme last night at Fairhaven. It was a way nice Christmas concert - what I could take in of it, anyway, for dealing with our grandchildren's issues. I know that Jesus is the light of the world and hope for all. But it often feels as if all my hopes are for the next world.

Conforming (phase 2), God Prepares a Way for Our Salvation - The Mystery of the Incarnation (step 8), Session 5

Well, somehow I have misread the calendar and not realized I was supposed to be finished with this step on Saturday. So another step tonight, then one in the morning, and we'll double up as time permits during Christmas. (yeah.  right.)

Yes, the LORD’s eyes are on those who fear him,
who hope in his merciful love,
to rescue their souls from death,
to keep them alive in famine. - Ps 33, 18-19

Sometimes - a lot, of late - I feel like the Israelites in the desert, having grown accustomed to and then weary of this gift of manna with which God feeds my soul. I grumble in my mind against the tedium and challenges of gathering my daily bread, rather than being appreciative that God has given me what I need to sustain me.

For instance, when the battles against and ADHD and ODD six-year-old have again reached the point at which she rages against how mean I am as I try to hold her to some standard of behavior, to draw a line that doesn't allow her to intrude on her siblings physical persons or to destroy property, or attempt to teach her obedience when it is so completely against her nature, it is easy for me to be blinded to the patience with which God is blessing me, keeping me from losing my patience and lashing out against her in anger. Instead he is giving me a capacity to love her which I know that she recognizes, after the outburst when she is calmed.

Tonight was hard.

The worst of this happened in the car as I waited for her mom and grandma to take care of their business in the fabric store. It was challenging for me to not blame them - especially my bride - for needing to do this errand now, with the little ones already beyond their limit of being still and patient. It is a challenge for me to see that God is keeping me alive in the famine of my life, through them, as he supplies emotional support and connection that I sometimes judge as too meager for my needs.

Tonight was hard.

Yet I hope in his merciful love to provide what I need. I know why the manna must be gathered daily: it is to teach us to rely on God's providence rather than our own or even rather than the gifts by which he supplies my need.

There is much more in this wonderful Psalm, but tonight this is how he is keeping me alive in famine. I know: it is bountiful banquet, too.

Our soul is waiting for the LORD.
He is our help and our shield.
In him do our hearts find joy.
We trust in his holy name.
May your merciful love be upon us,
as we hope in you, O LORD. - Ps 33, 20-22

Weird dream

Funny thing. Last night I dreamed that someone I've always wished would regularly read these thoughts I express was actually asking me about something I posted here. I was pleasantly surprised, and glad to answer her questions.

Now, if only that would happen with her in real life.

You could argue that she shouldn't have to, and I wouldn't put up too much disagreement.

Conforming (phase 2), God Prepares a Way for Our Salvation - The Mystery of the Incarnation (step 8), Session 4

The Annunciation to Joseph

When Joseph woke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him; he took his wife . . . Mt 1, 24

I have always been truly humbled by Joseph.

I have had in my life one occasion in which the Lord used a dream to direct my decisions. That probably bears recounting in the context of reflecting upon this scripture story (Mt 1, 18-25).

I was always close to my maternal grandparents. We visited them at least weekly throughout my childhood, and were always with them on holidays and birthdays, along with my maternal cousins. Grandmom passed away when I was 19, and a few years later - after I'd joined the Air Force - Granddad died in 1984.

After I left the service in 1992, I worked for a time in the commercial education sector. What a racket, though it did effectively serve some students who were never successful in traditional educational environments. At any rate, one night I had a dream of Granddad. Two decades later I can't really remember any of the details, except that it included vivid scenes of actual events from my childhood with him, and a sense that he was present to me now.  I woke up from this dream with a profound certainty that I was being called to do more honor and respect the older members of our society, whom we younger people so often disregard in our haste to live our daily lives.

There was some other event that week that reinforced this message for me, though I haven't been able to recall what it was for quite some time. However, the next Sunday there was an item in our parish bulletin indicating that the local Catholic Social Services office was looking for people to serve in their geriatric respite care program. Volunteers would be trained to help older folks with tasks such as toileting, learn how to lift them safely and help them walk as needed, etc.  Again, I was immediately certain that the two events I'd experienced in the previous week were preparation for me to respond to this ad.

So I contacted them, was screened and trained, and was assigned to help a 74-year-old gentleman who was caring for his 94-year-old dad. Their regular respite care provider had been injured in a motorcycle accident the previous week, and the son needed to be able to break out for a couple hours to do grocery shopping and other errands. I spent one evening per week over the next couple months hanging out with this gentlemen who'd been orphaned as a child and been employed by a baker in his youth, who'd later joined the Army and ended up settling in Dayton at the end of his service. I became concerned for them when the end of the quarter at work neared, for I was being reassigned to teach an evening class and would no longer be available to provide respite care, but it turned out that God had all that worked out already. My first week of unavailability coincided with the first week of availability of the volunteer whom I'd replaced, who was now sufficiently recovered from her injuries to be able to provide care once again.

This was no major thing, though, in the grand scheme of my life. What impresses me about Joseph was that this dream led him to make truly major changes in his life, to interpret the clear evidence of his betrothed's infidelity in an unprecedented, different way. I suspect he did not know at that time how this decision would turn his world upside down and lead him to a foreign country, and who knows what other major ramifications he may have experienced before disappearing from the gospel accounts. He had no waking visit from God's messenger as Mary had; still, he accepted this message as being from God and made radical decisions based upon it. And what a difference this made: Jesus' Davidic lineage comes from Joseph, so a significant number of the ancient prophecies concerning him came to fulfillment through Joseph's humble obedience.

Again, I struggle with living the life to which God is clearly calling me through far more accepted means than my dreams. My respect for Joseph is quite high.

Conforming (phase 2), God Prepares a Way for Our Salvation - The Mystery of the Incarnation (step 8), Session 3a

The Magnificat (cont.)

And Mary said, "My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior. - Lk 1, 46-47

I know I promised more reflection on this wonderful canticle. I'm just not sure I have it in me on this day when my past seems empty, my present feels devoid of friendship, my future feels hopeless of any improvement, and my life looks like an end-to-end failure to even bury the treasure entrusted in me and restore it to my master upon his return.

Somehow, God, if my life is going to magnify you today, you're going to have to make it happen.

I grapple to believe an Advent's coming . . . Confession

I no longer feel unforgiven, as I often did when I wrote these words. Now my struggle with hopelessness is very different, and I find myself withdrawing because no effort at engagement has resulted in any improvement.

So I try to remember what I wrote a mere two days ago, that God does what we can't, on a day when my heart is heavy and I'm also struggling to believe in God. (I'm so grateful that he healed our friends' daughter's hearing. It's what I'm clinging to at the moment.)

Karen, pray for me.

Today's word

A second new one this week.

syncretic \sin-KRET-ik\ - characterized or brought about by a combination of different forms of belief or practice

It's pretty easy to see where this one came from. I continue to need a syncretic approach to my emotional health.

Conforming (phase 2), God Prepares a Way for Our Salvation - The Mystery of the Incarnation (step 8), Session 3

The Magnificat

He has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts. - Lk 1, 51b (RSV, NKJV)

I love reading different translations of familiar scripture passages. I imagine that Mary's canticle has been set to music more often than any other New Testament passage, and while it may be most cherished in Catholic circles, other Christian denominations also treasure this passage as a wonderful model of unbridled praise and worship. I have personally sung at least a half-dozen arrangements, and written one as well (though a friend recently pointed out that my chord progression was heavily influenced by Styx). I have prayed it as part of evening prayer on many occasions.

Here are some other translations of this verse with which I was familiar:

• (he has) dispersed the arrogant of mind and heart. (NAB)
• he has routed the arrogant of heart. (NJB)
• he has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts.  (NIV)
• he hath scattered the proud in the conceit of their heart. (Douay-Rheims)

Because of my experience with this canticle of praise, I really expected no new revelation this morning from this familiar passage. You'd think I'd know better by now.  As he has done from the beginning, God once again breathes new life through his Word. This idea of the proud (of which I have too often been a member) and the "imagination of their hearts" really resonates with me. So often I imagine myself as more than - more accurately, something different from what - I really am, to the detriment of those around me and also of all that I am and am called to be.  

Isn't it strange that the greatest self-concept that our pride conjures up in the imagination of our hearts can never be so great as the true self into which God calls us to grow? Isn't it odd that the bliss we imagine could be ours and for which we pine fails to approach the joy which is already ours for the living?

(Okay, this next paragraph should be read with an exclamation point at the end of every sentence, but I hate it when people write that way . . . )

Now, to focus too much on this particular verse is to miss this great canticle's whole point. God is so much greater than both our biggest imagining and our greatest failure. He has already blessed us so abundantly, with boundless love past and present, with comfort in the midst of great heartache, with joy beyond telling, with wonder and awe at the marvels of this world, all of which are a foretaste of all that he has in store for us. God's greatness can be seen both in what he has done for us and in what he has promised to do, and as we have lately discussed in this context, God keeps every promise and makes possible that which we cannot even imagine.

This great proclamation of praise offers us so much to consider about God's great glory.  I've intentionally begun this session today so that I might have time to reflect on it another day; more to come . . .

Conforming (phase 2), God Prepares a Way for Our Salvation - The Mystery of the Incarnation (step 8), Session 2

The Visitation

"And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfilment of what was spoken to her from the Lord." - Lk 1, 45

Yes!! This!! Each of our lives is blessed to its greatest possible abundance when we believe that there will be a fulfillment of what the Lord has spoken to us!  This is a true Advent: to spend these weeks longing for God's presence, asking and allowing the Holy Spirit to help us believe what we have not quite been able to fully believe on our own:

• That we can do what God is calling us to do, because God empowers us (see last item)
• That we can count on God o fulfill his promise to provide for our needs  
• That God's desire for us to do what he is calling us to do is not rooted in some despotic wish to control our lives and deprive us of joy, but instead in a deep love for us and a desire to maximize the blessings he pours out in and through our lives
• That the things we choose in God's stead are a vaporous mirage
• That adoring, praising, and worshiping the Savior leads us to all of the "more practical" ways of living out the Gospel in our lives
• That holiness and sacrificial love are not burdens, but the great gift which is our only means of participating in the life and presence of God 
• That the Holy Spirit indeed dwells in us, sanctifying us and drawing us ever deeper into the love of the Triune God

Sometimes my unbelief can feel overwhelming, yet God's gift of faith remains. As we heard in Sunday's second reading:

May the God of peace himself sanctify you wholly; and may your spirit and soul and body be kept sound and blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He who calls you is faithful, and he will do it. - 1 Thes 5, 23-24

It is not us doing this, though we must participate in the process. I don't primarily sanctify myself or keep myself sound and blameless, though I must cooperate in both these things. But having given my fiat, I will trust - and ask - God's Spirit to be at work in me to fulfill what he has spoken.

Today's word

réchauffé \ray-shoh-FAY\ - 1. something presented in a new form without change of substance : rehash  2. a warmed-over dish of food

Whoever has the end-of-year duties for Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day feature has finally served me up another new one. This is at least the third year in a row that this has been too rare an event. They've instead made an annoying and dull habit of serving up a daily réchauffé of my existing vocabulary.

Conforming (phase 2), God Prepares a Way for Our Salvation - The Mystery of the Incarnation (step 8), Session 1a

The Annunciation to Mary (cont.)

And Mary said, "Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word." And the angel departed from her. - Lk 1:38

We long for the angel to linger, for that moment of clarity to remain with us, so that we might cling to that rather then embark on the long journey ahead with its doubts and misgivings. When we have moved beyond that moment of affirmation - you have found favor with God (30b) - in which God has reminded us that he has equipped us with everything we need, we become intimidated by the long road ahead of us.

In such times, the very fact that we were confident enough to assent to God's plan in the first place can be part of the sustenance we need for long road. We may think back to the time before our vision coalesced so clearly before us, and recognize something beyond our initial hunger and need that demonstrates to our memory that God was at work in setting our feet on the path we now tread.

Very often in our lives, though, it is no angelic being who is revealing God's will to us. The Church and the Scriptures teach us the way we are to go. We must learn to be as obedient to God's will as revealed through them as we think we would be to a miraculous intervention by an angel, or if we ever do encounter an angel we will be so entrenched in the habit of choosing our own will over God's that we will never be able to claim to be his servant and thereby to choose his will in this strange and weighty matter. And we know not what consequences will result from choosing our vision over God's.

God longs to allow his Spirit to overshadow us, to fill us with the presence of his Son (35) so that we might bear him to the world.

(he reminds himself.)

Conforming (phase 2), God Prepares a Way for Our Salvation - The Mystery of the Incarnation (step 8), Session 1

The Annunciation to Mary

And Mary said to the angel, "How shall this be, since . . . ?" - Lk 1, 34

As God calls us to a course of action, how often do we offer a slightly and completely different response: "This can't be, since . . . "?  I have seen this at work in my own life and the lives around me countless times. The most egregious was my initial resistance to enter counseling, two decades ago. I knew, I thought, where that confession would lead, and I wanted no part of it, though it was unmistakable that I had to accept this responsibility.

Most of the things that God asks of us (ultimately, for us) are far more mundane things than the physical Incarnation of the eternal Son in the womb of a virgin. Mary's situation was unprecedented, and her question was not so much an "I don't believe you" or a "Yeah, right!" as a "Hmm. How is that going to work?" We approach our opportunity to trust God with far more skeptical assumption: "I don't see how that could work" or "but I have a good reason why that isn't applicable to me," so "it's okay (or even necessary) for me to do this instead." We are most stubborn about this when this is clearly not God's will as revealed through Scripture and the Church.

We forget the end of Gabriel's response to Mary: "For with God nothing will be impossible." Lk 1, 37.  We fail to trust God, and especially to truly believe it possible that God will bring more good out of the right decision we wish to avoid than out of the wrong one we seek.

There is more to reflect on in this session's reading (Lk 1, 26-38), especially with regard to Mary's ultimate response, but that will be for another post.

Conforming (phase 2), God Prepares a Way for Our Salvation - The Mystery of the Incarnation (step 8)

"Now we turn our attention from the Trinity to the entire earth, all inhabitants and all countries of it, and then slowly focus our attention on the image of Mary with the angel in Nazareth. This exercise of imagination is like to watching a movie with this opening closing down of the camera. With this visualization we have three big pictures to use in contemplation, the Trinity, the world and the scene in Nazareth." - Manual for the retreats, as quoted by Step-by-Step Retreats

This seems like the right transition at the right time. For two weeks we have recalled the longing of Israel for the Messiah and our longing for Christ's return, in the context of the parable of kingdom. Come to think of it, I probably need to wrap up the seventh step a bit in this context.

The people of Israel were of course waiting for the promised king who would restore the glory of their nation. The Lord had worked such amazing deeds for them, and they must have longed for that work to resume. But God never seems to do his marvelous works in the same way that he did them before. He always seems to have something bigger - and often less obviously spectacular - in mind. So the kingdom he has established is far beyond what the children of Israel anticipated with longing, and therefore those who were most invested in the ways that God had worked previously mostly failed to recognized it when he began to bring his plan of salvation to greater fullness.

So yes, it is good for us to prepare to celebrate this great mystery by taking the view described in the manual for the retreats. (I haven't included a direct link to the manual because the link from Step-by-Step's site appears to be broken.)  By first considering God's perspective and the eternal, infinite love for the universe which he created in love - and which, in his love, he desires for each of us to enter - and then allowing God to bring us into the presence of this young girl and angel in Nazareth, we begin to approach the place where we might consider the surprising ways he might be coming to us today. Recognizing each encounter's true nature prepares for us to give our own fiat in response to the circumstances that otherwise annoy and trouble us. And this allows the Holy Spirit to make the Son ever more incarnate in our own lives - conforming us more fully with our King whom we have been considering in the previous step.

Conforming (phase 2), The parable of the Kingdom of Christ (step 7), session 7

"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." - Mt 5, 3-10

Most kings are somewhat insecure in their power, at least to a degree, and this causes them to primarily align themselves with the powerful in order to shore up their security.

Jesus aligns himself with the weak, for he has security which can never be rivaled by any other power. When we, in our weakness, conform to him, we become aligned with his security and power. Yet we can only conform to him by aligning ourselves as he did, with our weak brothers and sisters.

Conforming (phase 2), The parable of the Kingdom of Christ (step 7), session 6

Conforming does not mean an external imitation but it expresses the essence of belonging to Christ, as “to be conformed to the image” (Rom 8:29) of the Son. Meanwhile tradition uses the expression Imitatio Christi, “Imitation of Christ” for what we call here conforming, it is not meant to be () a slavish copying Jesus’ words or deeds (nor) a sort of moralizing based on Jesus’ example. - Step by Step Retreats

If reforming is the act of allowing God to remove from our lives the outright sin that has deformed us, conforming must be a matter of embracing Jesus fully, with all of his radical implications in our lives.  I'm not sure the degree to which this is a matter of B following A. Perhaps the two processes end up working back and forth between each other over the course of a lifetime.

And they stripped him and put a scarlet robe upon him, and plaiting a crown of thorns they put it on his head, and put a reed in his right hand. And kneeling before him they mocked him, saying, "Hail, King of the Jews!"- Mt 27, 28-29

Sometimes I forget to think about the sort of King I am following, and what it means to conform to him. It is no accident that we have two consecutive sessions in this step that are taken from accounts of Jesus' Passion. This is how Jesus has won his kingdom to himself, how he defends it from attack, how he tends to his subjects' deepest needs. Even when we are rejecting and mocking him, his love is at work to redeem, reform and conform our lives.

It can feel like a discontinuity to reflect on these things in the season of Advent. But I think it is good, as we seek a fuller coming of Christ into our lives by conforming to him, to remember why he came in the first place, and how he establishes the kingdom that we desire to enter more fully, and what is the means of our participation in that kingdom - or, in another sense, what it means for us to be his conformed subjects.

Conforming (phase 2), The parable of the Kingdom of Christ (step 7), session 5

Jesus answered, "You say that I am a king. For this I was born, and for this I have come into the world, to bear witness to the truth. Every one who is of the truth hears my voice." - Jn 18, 37

Sometimes I hear the voice of God pretty clearly. When he tells me that he has given me the gift of faith, and that I am to be patient with those who do not so much have it, it can be unmistakable guidance. Yet at other times I feel as if I am not hearing him at all.

Perhaps, though, this is due to my tendency to find and to make my own way, to cling to my own desires rather than God's wishes for me. I struggle to fully trust that God is real and therefore that his plan truly is better than my own.

They cried out, "Away with him, away with him, crucify him!" Pilate said to them, "Shall I crucify your King?" The chief priests answered, "We have no king but Caesar." - Jn 19, 15

How often do we live our lives, make our decisions, with an insistence that "we have no king but . . . "? How often do we want to put the voice of Jesus to death rather than heed his call? I believe it is because we don't believe in his Resurrection, and therefore in our own. In this case, of course we will recognize no authority but our own.

People sometimes let Pilate off the hook here, suggesting that the Jews provided the impetus for Jesus' crucifixion, and that is somewhat accurate. But the Jews had no power to carry out their wishes except the one they exerted. Perhaps Pilate ultimately acquiesced to their request because they gave him what he wanted in return: they pledged their fealty to their occupiers.

Conforming (phase 2), The parable of the Kingdom of Christ (step 7), session 4

The proclamation of the kingdom in this session is of the separation of the sheep and the goats. `Truly, I say to you, as you did it not to one of the least of these, you did it not to me.' - Mt 25, 45 (full reading, 31-46)

Given the argument we had in Mass yesterday, it would be pretty easy for me to convince myself that God is giving me every opportunity to submit to despair.

I must remember that the purpose of these Exercises is not to put me at ease.

This Advent's extra challenge

I love and miss my ritual of awakening in the morning and praying by the light of the Advent wreath. This year, I need to be done in the bathroom in time for little people to get ready for school. By the time I'm done, the sun is rising and the house is too busy.

Perhaps I need to start getting up earlier than 6:15.

Conforming (phase 2), The parable of the Kingdom of Christ (step 7), session 3

"The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up; then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.

"Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls, who, on finding one pearl of great value, went and sold all that he had and bought it. 

"Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net which was thrown into the sea and gathered fish of every kind; when it was full, men drew it ashore and sat down and sorted the good into vessels but threw away the bad. So it will be at the close of the age. The angels will come out and separate the evil from the righteous, and throw them into the furnace of fire; there men will weep and gnash their teeth."  - Mt 13, 44-50

I can see why this phase has this title.

In some ways I'm pretty sure that I am not selling all that I have.

In others I'm pretty well convinced it's exactly what I have done.

Perhaps just as no parable can perfectly describe the kingdom of the infinite God, it is certainly true that no finite life can fully conform to it.

But just when I seem to be cutting myself a little bit of slack in my wont to self-judge, I read this sessions third parable with uncertainty concerning what sort of fish I shall ultimately be found to be. I need to remember that I am saved by grace, and trust grace to complete what it has begun.

Today's word

riant \ˈrī-ənt, ˈrē-; rē-ˈäⁿ\ - gay, mirthful

So here's another one I've never seen before, but it took me to the very end of today's WOTD's Did You Know? section, the Word Family Quiz, to find it. I was pretty sure when I tried to fill in the blanks that this was going to be a word I didn't already know. The only use I might ever make of it would be to rhyme it using its French pronunciation.

Early season struggles

Advent is not really beginning well. We'll try to turn this around tomorrow.

Today's word

caitiff \KAY-tif\ - cowardly, despicable

It is so rare that I encounter a word (in my own language) that I know I have absolutely never seen before, and the Words of the Day have been so pedestrian of late, that I was excited to encounter this one. (Apparently I never read Shakespeare's Measure for Measure.) I have rare enough opportunity to use the adjective "vile," so I think it unlikely that I'll ever need this synonym. Interesting etymology, though!

Societal light amid darkness:

(Where it is and where it isn't.)

Sometimes we just don't get it.

Jonathan Jones writes for the Guardian, and he's apparently having one of those moments. I've never read anything he's written before, so I don't know just how usual this is for him. I'll give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that it is a rare slip, even as I observe that he has missed what is far and away the important point of this photo in his frustration over the viral status of the "hug felt 'round the world."

The cop appears to be comforting the boy. After all the anger, all the divisions, here is a moment of human reconciliation.

What nonsense. It is one moment among many, and the choice to look at it and celebrate it is clearly a choice to be lulled by cotton candy. It has got more than 400,000 Facebook shares. Each one of those shares is a choice of what to see and what not to see. 

He's right, of course, that anyone who interprets this photo as representative of the current state of race relations in America, particularly between minority communities and the authorities who are supposed to be - and who are largely dedicated to - making their neighborhoods safer, is choosing to embrace naivete, to don rose-colored glasses and sing Kumbaya 'round the campfire rather than take a hard look at the daunting work that remains to be done to address a huge set of complicated issues which the events of Ferguson (and Staten Island, and elsewhere in the U.S.) are calling into sharper focus. Or, as Jones puts it,

Liking this picture as a definitive image of America’s race crisis is the equivalent of locking yourself in and turning up the volume to weep at Frozen while the streets are burning outside. 

I was hoping that the majority of likes for this picture, which Jones decries as inherently untruthful, are for a deeper truth that we realize and he overlooks. But I've since seen this going around with text that underlines his concern, that seems to paint a prettier picture of the status of race in America. This divide is clearest to me as I continue to talk with my friends, most of whom are white and middle-class, who universally don't get what all the fuss is about. It is, therefore, important for commentators like Jones to continue to draw this picture for us.

But I suspect that, for many of us, our appreciation for this photo is not rooted in any assumption that it indicates the status of relations between minorities and authorities. Rather, we recognize that it offers an important part of the real and lasting answer to this problem. All of the systemic changes in the world are not going resolve this if they are not accompanied by real, person-to-person contact. That's the hopeful thing we like in this picture, not that "See, everything's okay!" but "Yes, this is part of what it is going to take."

And yet we still very much need to address systematic issues of inequality. It remains critically important to examine the many ways societal history has put minorities on a disadvantaged playing field and determine how to address them. It is important that we not repeat this history among the Hispanic population. We must understand that we can't have a just society when a whole segment of it has a well-rooted fear of the people who are supposed to be keeping them safe. Anyone who thinks that picture of one cop hugging one tear-filled boy changes that is indeed myopic.

And this afternoon in the news is another non-indictment that will make matters worse again. Just as I point out the truth that Mr. Jones claims this photo lacks, so too I must acknowledge the truth that he proclaims. Things are likely to get worse before they get better, and they aren't going to get better at all without everyone involved taking a hard look at their own part of the problem instead of blaming the other guy.

The encounter in this photo is still a good and, yes, a true thing.

If there are some who would use it to tell a false narrative, that has been the case even for the very Incarnation of Truth.

Conforming (phase 2), The parable of the Kingdom of Christ (step 7), session 2a

The parable of the leaven in the wheat:

I'm not always clear on the meaning of this parable. Does Jesus mean that a little bit of faith in our life eventually transforms the whole thing? Or is he indicating that the leaven of one person's life transforms the lives around him? Perhaps the vagueness of this parable was intended to leave room for both interpretations?

I'm still doubtful that examining my life in the context of this parable provides any more evidence of my faith than doing so under the lens of the parable of the mustard seed. All I seem to know is that only my time with Jesus seems to provide me with consistent light for the rest of my life.

This seems an appropriate tie-in with the season of Advent, in which God's people wait in darkest anticipation for the coming of the great Light. 

Today's word

nostrum \NAHSS-trum\ - a usually questionable remedy or scheme : panacea

It seems to me that I must have seen this word before, but I couldn't conjure up anything near its meaning. Not related to rostrum, apparently. Nice explanation of the etymology in the Did You Know? section.

catholicon \kə-ˈthä-lə-ˌkän\ - cure-all, panacea

I'm certain I've never seen this one, which is based on the "universal" sense of the word catholic. 

Because if I had faith

I would surely know more joy.

Conforming (phase 2), The parable of the Kingdom of Christ (step 7), session 2

The scripture passage for this session is Mt 13, 31-35. This includes the short parables of the mustard seed and the leaven, along with the observation that Jesus spoke to the crowds only in parables, to fulfill what the prophets had said about him uttering what had been hidden from the foundation of the world.

I sometimes wonder if I have faith even the size of a mustard seed. Sometimes I feel I have just enough to keep me from wandering off into really harmful paths, but not nearly enough to grow into the sort of tree of faith that the Lord would have me be.

More on this session tomorrow . . .

Conforming (phase 2), The parable of the Kingdom of Christ (step 7), session 1

And the crowds that went before him and that followed him shouted, "Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!"  - Mt 21, 9

If I recall correctly, in addition to serving as the pre-processional Gospel reading on Palm Sunday, the triumphal entry is also sometimes used as the Gospel reading on the feast of Christ the King. Even those of use who consider ourselves delivered into his kingdom fail to fully live under his rule. Sometimes this is due to our stubbornness, in other cases because of our ignorance, and sometimes because the flesh is weak.

But when the chief priests and the scribes saw the wonderful things that he did, and the children crying out in the temple, "Hosanna to the Son of David!" they were indignant . . . - Mt 21, 15

Yes, sometimes this is us, too, when God seems to ask something of us that contradicts our sensibility. How judgmental of God and of our fellow sojourners we become! Humble obedience seems beyond our grasp. Only the Holy Spirit transforms us into subjects who eagerly seek and heed the King's commands to glorify him with our lives.

Conforming (phase 2), The parable of the Kingdom of Christ (step 7)

One main principle of the following exercises is that we will recognize the will of God at the present moment with the help of the contemplation of the life of Jesus.  - Step-by-Step Retreats, step 7

The orientation and meditation of this step begins by invoking the Gospel reading we heard yesterday, which is then the scripture specified for the fourth session of this step. Therefore I will not now reflect on this passage. Since I have three weeks for this step and seven sessions specified, it's probably good for me to spend a couple days just on the introduction to this step.

I'm a bit concerned that this whole retreat might end up too left-of-center for my liking, with too much emphasis on social justice rather and too little on being vessels of Christ's love. It is hard to explain the difference between those two things, because from the outside they can look like the same thing. I'm not reaching conclusions on that, though. In this retreat, and I'm trusting God to work in me the growth and maturity that I still lack rather than trusting my ability to have it all figured out.

In logotherapy Viktor Frankl stresses life’s unconditional meaningfulness, since meaning can be found in every situation - also beyond the possibility to work and to love, even in suffering and death. - ibid.

(Part of my caution about this retreat stems from these continual references to Christotherapy and logotherapy. That aside . . . ) 

I find myself struggling to find the meaning in the situations of my life, yet being willing to struggle, to trust that it is actually there. We are facing so many circumstances right now that are so maddeningly beyond our control that we don't see God's hand at work in. And there are other frustrating ones within our control for which I don't see any signs of growth or hope.

My calling is not . . .

. . . to spend (at least parts of) seven evenings a week watching television - even shows I like; I'm not just talking about the ones I disdain - just so that I can be with my bride.

But if I'm not going to do that, I need to do something better with my time, not just something different.

And when I subsequently go to bed alone most evenings, I need to do it without this resentment.

The second phase: Conforming

One is “conformed” to Christ in every single spiritually and morally good act without the necessity that it should be performed for consciously supernatural motives. - Step-by-Step Retreats, introduction to the second phase

This second phase is subtitled "To conform the reformed, or the illuminative way." In terms of the number of steps, it is more than twice as long as the first phase, and this make sense to me. The process of getting the Holy Spirit to conform me to the image and likeness of Christ should be a longer and more painstaking one than to regenerate me in the first place.

There is much emphasis in this introduction about how Christ can be at work in and through us even if we are unaware of it and do not attribute this work to Him. True though this may be, it seems to me that the more important emphasis for a pilgrim who is sufficiently aware of the journey to be making such a retreat as this is on participating in and recognizing the Spirit's conforming work within us.

I am tired of this exercise

No, not Ignatius.

The exercise where an abuser makes the news or the television or social media and everybody righteously condemns him or her and I have to convince myself again how I'm different. 

Twice today, and counting.

Reforming (phase 1), Hell and Mercy (step 6), session 7

Maybe I'm already there.

I mean, is my calling really to sit on the sofa and consume banal entertainment and try to find some form of fulfillment in that, for the sake of nurturing our unity? And then to go to bed alone (again) while she partakes of more?

I'm feeling pretty ungrateful this morning for God's abundant gifts. Maybe that is the beginning, at least, of hell.

Bless the LORD, O my soul, and all within me, his holy name.
Bless the LORD, O my soul, and never forget all his benefits.
It is the LORD who forgives all your sins, who heals every one of your ills,
who redeems your life from the grave, who crowns you with mercy and compassion,
who fills your life with good things, renewing your youth like an eagle’s.
The LORD does just deeds, gives full justice to all who are oppressed.
He made known his ways to Moses, and his deeds to the children of Israel.
The LORD is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger and rich in mercy.
He will not always find fault; nor persist in his anger forever.
He does not treat us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our faults.
For as the heavens are high above the earth, so strong his mercy for those who fear him.
As far as the east is from the west, so far from us does he remove our transgressions.
As a father has compassion on his children, the LORD’s compassion is on those who fear him.
For he knows of what we are made; he remembers that we are dust.
Man, his days are like grass; he flowers like the flower of the field.
The wind blows, and it is no more, and its place never sees it again.
But the mercy of the LORD is everlasting upon those who hold him in fear, 
upon children’s children his justice,
for those who keep his covenant, and remember to fulfill his commands.
The LORD has fixed his throne in heaven, and his kingdom is ruling over all.
Bless the LORD, all you his angels, mighty in power, fulfilling his word, who heed the voice of his word.
Bless the LORD, all his hosts, his servants, who do his will.
Bless the LORD, all his works, in every place where he rules.
Bless the LORD, O my soul! - Ps 103

There are a number of verses herein trying to speak to me; ordinarily I would selectively quote and reflect upon a few of them. Today my dark mood and cold heart seek only to rebut them. I know this Psalm is truth, yet it does not reach through the shroud I have wrapped around myself.

Last night in my bride's frustration I had the good sense to simply offer frequent hugs, which she appreciated. Today I feel certain that there are none that would bring me comfort.

This concludes phase 1. By no means do attribute my foul mood to these Exercises. I know I have my attention in the wrong place despite them, not because of them. I pray that Grace may keep my feet upon the path that I would forsake.

Reforming (phase 1), Hell and Mercy (step 6), session 6

My toe still hurts, but it is better than last week. Hell is not like that.

I am watching as one loved one after another makes choices that are clearly against God's will and (redundantly) not in their own best interest. Perhaps hell has a degree of that. The parable of the rich man and Lazarus suggests as much.

I continue to experience moments of brightness that get me through the frustrations of life. Hell is certainly not like that.

I guess that last maybe leads me (finally!) to something else to reflect on about hell. There have been moments in my life that have had me very close to ultimate despair. I suspect that hell may be eternal ultimate despair. I certainly don't look forward to my darkest moments, so I know I want no part of such a dark eternity.

Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is remitted. - Ps 32, 1

I am indeed abundantly blessed.

Blessed the man to whom the LORD imputes no guilt, in whose spirit is no guile. - Ps 32, 2

This one I'm not so sure about. I'm sure I have previously expressed my admiration for those who are simpler than I perceive myself to be. I know that there is guile in me, thoughts and feelings that I feel I must both suppress and hide for the sake of those whom I love.  I suspect this may be common for people in lifelong relationships, and so I don't take myself too extensively to task for it. Yet I must be guileless before God, who knows my every thought; this is the One with whom I can and must always be my true, honest self.

To you I have acknowledged my sin; my guilt I did not hide.
I said, “I will confess my transgression to the LORD.” And you have forgiven the guilt of my sin. - Ps 32, 5

Yes, God is quick to forgive the contrite sinner. Still my transgressions remain sometimes too dear to me, though, and contrition slow.

So let each faithful one pray to you in the time of need.
The floods of water may reach high, but such a one they shall not reach.
You are a hiding place for me; you keep me safe from distress;
you surround me with cries of deliverance. - Ps 32, 6-7

You are indeed my hiding place, my refuge, O Lord. You have delivered me from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of light. Help me to seek it in all things!

Today's word

officious \uh-FISH-us\ - 1. volunteering one's services where they are neither asked nor needed : meddlesome  2. informal, unofficial

That moment when you realize that you have always and consistently misunderstood the meaning of a word. I always took it to mean something like "pompously, demonstratively official."

Ending with the third track of Physical Graffiti

I just read an article outlining seven habits of chronically unhappy people. I thought I might find myself all over them.  Instead there was only one that looked as if it described me, and when I read its details, it turned out not to pertain to me either.

Today I have been letting the Holy Spirit remind me that I can trust God to provide a greater joy for me than I could ever know by not trusting (and therefore following) God's revealed plan for my life, and I am trying to approach that without impatience. I am reminding myself that it's true for my life, too, that manure is not a delicious hamburger, and that I am instead called to a great feast.

I am also being reminded that if it were easy, it wouldn't be called dying to oneself. (Sorry, the live versions I found were all from the same show and weren't in tune.)

Reforming (phase 1), Hell and Mercy (step 6), session 5

Is choosing hell over heaven the same thing as choosing sin over God's plan for us?

I am considering someone I know who has said, in unequivocal terms, that the sin in which he has participated all of his life is so much a part of him that he chooses it rather than choosing to love his family by laying down his life for them. From his perspective it is more a case of his wife not choosing to allow his addiction to continue to influence their children's environment. Maybe he isn't fully able to choose otherwise, but he has made it clear that he also has no interest in doing so.

Yep, this could be hell.

I don't know what makes us think that laying down our lives for each other is going to be easy. And I don't know what makes some of us manage to do that, or makes others of us refuse to. But only in sacrifice do we find glory, and if we are unwilling to choose sacrifice, are we not instead choosing hell?

And you he made alive, when you were dead through the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience.  Among these we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, following the desires of body and mind, and so we were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.  But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up with him, and made us sit with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.  For by grace you have been saved through faith; and this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God -- not because of works, lest any man should boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.  - Eph 2, 1-10

I'm just including the entire text of the passage for this session. There's too much here, and all of it is cause for hope that God will get hold of this man whom I love and cause him to see his need and accept the gifts of grace and love which he rejects. He is no less deserving of them than I, and even though he is hurting those I love, he knows not what he is doing.

If it weren't for my belief that God's grace is greater than our sin, I would have no hope at all for this situation.

Reforming (phase 1), Hell and Mercy (step 6), session 4a

The reading for session 4 (Lk 15, 11-32) has led me back to reflect on the reason that I think is most likely to cause people to choose hell over mercy. Since I don't want to get ahead of the calendar, this is a great opportunity to spend more time considering the snare of judgment.

This is the trap into which we fall very easily when we begin to think of salvation as a reward we earn rather than a gift of grace. The older brother felt that he deserved such a reward, and that his wayward brother certainly did not. He might have been correct on both counts, based on their respective behavior, but in focusing on that he prevented himself from freely receiving all that his father desired to give him.

So here are a few thoughts related to this wonderfully revealing passage:

• God's greatest gift to us is himself, which we can only receive in relationship.
• We receive our relationship with God in the context of our relationships with one another.
• A natural result of receiving the gift of our relationship with God is that we desire that gift for others.
• When we would deny others' God's merciful gift, we reveal that we have really considered it a reward, something that we deserve. This rooted in immature thinking about salvation, heaven, hell and grace.

I have long been of the opinion that the older brother of this parable represents our most insidious obstacle to entering the heavenly banquet for all eternity: what if we don't like who we'd have to spend eternity at the table with? Certainly, many who accept the Father's gift of grace and mercy do so only after heinous actions. If we mistakenly believe that our ticket to the meal gets punched as a result of our worthiness, we are less likely to accept "that unworthy person" who is admitted as well.

Still, the father in the parable reminds us that everything he has is ours, and invites us again to enter into the feast he has prepared, to rejoice with him that our brother who was dead has been restored to life.

Today's word

meliorism \MEE-lee-uh-riz-um\ - the belief that the world tends to improve and that humans can aid its betterment

I had a sense of this one based on the roots, the first of which I recognized from ameliorate, which was also invoked in the write-up.

Reforming (phase 1), Hell and Mercy (step 6), session 4

In today's reflection on hell, I find myself thinking about our tendency to long for things that can never fulfill us. We might think of these as addictive thought patterns, and sometimes these are part of actual addictions which bind us spiritually as well as psychologically and physically. We can become fixated on what I want, what I don't have at present or long to have again, and it can keep us from entering into the love and the abundant life that is waiting right before our eyes. We believe that the object of our obsession will make us happy, and might even bask in it when we have it for a time, but it doesn't fulfill us, it merely consumes us and keeps us from the abundant life to which we are called.

How appropriate for this reflection is the scripture reading for this session (I should probably explain that, for this step, I haven't been reading the scripture for each session until after I reflect on some potential aspect of hell), Lk 15, 11-32.

For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.' And they began to make merry. - Lk 15, 24

Indeed, this lost son had been through this pattern of obsession, and emerged on the other side determined to return to a better life than he had. But his father's mercy proved greater than his own addiction to wild living, and our God's love is greater than our own similar sins.

Tomorrow I believe I will reflect on the older brother, since I am now back on schedule and need to slow down my session frequency a little to remain in step with the calendar.

Reforming (phase 1), Hell and Mercy (step 6), session 3

Yesterday I suggested a reflection idea I wanted to come back to, and now I'm going to revisit it even though I really don't want to. It is painful. It feels sad and lonely, and I have no control over it. But there are a number of people I love deeply who are at various stages of cutting me out of their lives, or at least of keeping me at a far greater distance than I wish for.

This feels different from when I was isolated by my own sin. In that case, I knew what I had done wrong warranted the rejection I was receiving. Most of those relationships have been healed over time, much to my surprise. These felt very different from what I imagine hell to be, as I suspect that life in hell includes a high degree of disdain for others' (and God's) opinions that was not a part of my emotional makeup back then. I knew I deserved the isolation I was experiencing, and viewed it as only just. I imagine that God meets even a belated humble recognition of this sort of truth with grace and mercy.

What I feel now for those who are separated from me by their choice is also probably not very like hell, as I believe it to be. I don't think that God condemns people to hell, with the result that people in hell feel as if God is depriving them of what they really want. I think it's more as if hell is like getting what we think we really want and it never satisfying us, because we really want the wrong thing. In fact, I think that God hurts for our sake when we choose to fix upon such objects of our desire, and I think that God feels the pain of our choices more than we have the sense to feel it for ourselves. But the agony of hell is going to be the realization of all of that pain and the insistence that it's still better than humbling ourselves and accepting God's will.

For the mountains may depart
and the hills be removed,
but my steadfast love shall not depart from you,
and my covenant of peace shall not be removed,
says the LORD, who has compassion on you. - Is 54, 10

I pray that God's mercy may indeed prove greater than hell, and that he would bring every one of us to the point that we would choose it.

Reforming (phase 1), Hell and Mercy (step 6), session 2

For today's meditation upon hell, I am going to draw upon the pain of the credenza falling on my foot last night and of the burning of the subsequent shots of lidocaine which ultimately numbed my toe so that the doctor could stitch it. In both cases, I knew that the pain would pass. In fact, I was walking around frantically after the credenza landed on my foot, trying to determine whether the toes which hurt were broken, and concluding that as pained as they felt, they were not. In fact, I couldn't feel the toe that is broken and cut. Suppose I could have? That would have been more hellish, I imagine. The burning of the lidocaine as it was being shot into the flesh of my toe and foot certainly was. Yet I knew three things about that which are not true of hell:

• It would be a temporary and passing pain. 
• It was ultimately for the good.

In these two ways, I suppose that the lidocaine was more like purgatory than hell.

• It was localized rather than all-encompassing.

So if I could remove those three elements, my physical pain last night might give me a glimpse into what hell might be like.

(Note to self: two more reflections on hell to write about, maybe in the same future session: watching a loved one make terrible mistakes, and how God feels on our behalf; these might be the same thing.)

They shall return and dwell beneath my shadow, they shall flourish as a garden; they shall blossom as the vine, their fragrance shall be like the wine of Lebanon. - Hos 14, 7

For the second consecutive day, the recommended scripture (Hos 14, 4-10) includes a verse which appears not to exist. 

But this reminder from God that he has prepared a better and ultimate answer for our exile is exactly the call to patience that I need as an answer to my circumstances.

Today's words

threnody \THREN-uh-dee\ - a song of lamentation for the dead : elegy

I recognized this definition when I saw it, but couldn't recall it just by seeing the word. I think it was within the past month or so that I first encountered it, perhaps somewhere where it was identified as a synonym of "elegy."

That last word always reminds me of the hilariously awful story in which I first saw it, which I hope isn't true: 

A musician of more ambition than talent composed an elegy at the death of composer Edward MacDowell.  She played the elegy for the pianist Josef Hofmann, then asked his opinion.

"Well, it's quite nice," he replied, "but don't you think it would be better if . . ."

"If what?" asked the composer.

"If . . . if you had died and MacDowell had written the elegy?"

A small positive from this story: I have now learned a little of whom both MacDowell and Hofmann were. The latter's life story is another of many that warn of the dangers of addiction; alcohol was his poison.

Then there was this word from today's Dictionary Devil that I also remembered after the fact from a post when it was the WOTD . . .

²imperial noun \im-ˈpir-ē-əl\  3. [French impériale; from the beard worn by Napoléon III] :  a pointed beard growing below the lower lip

. . . not to mention this more-obscure definition of this well-known word, which I must have recognized from somewhere, as it was one of the first definitions that I matched up in the puzzle.

Reforming (phase 1), Hell and Mercy (step 6), session 1

At the beginning of this meditation we ask the grace to know at least by imagination the pain the of being definitely lost and damned might be; and pray for that we don’t fall in this danger of rejecting God if not for the love of him at least for the fear of the consequences. - Step-by-Step Retreats, Phase 1, Step 6 overview

Actually, click the link and read the entire overview. It introduces a fascinating approach to this step.

The first "hellish" situations I will reflect on is the feeling of being alone, hopeless, and afraid it's never going to change. This isn't the worst thing I can imagine, though, and I will imagine worse ones in other sessions of this step.

 "And in that day, says the LORD, you will call me, `My husband,' and no longer will you call me, `My Ba'al.'" - Hos 2, 16

I don't know yet whether this will be the pattern of the entire step, but clearly this first session's reading (Hos 2, 16-25, though all the versions I see only have 23 verses in chapter 2) is intended to bring the merciful answer to the contemplation of what Hell must be like. It seems to me that many people live with hellish situations in their lives to which they don't believe there is a better answer.

I suspect that my feelings of isolation and loneliness are not nearly so hellish as I imagine them to be, though.  They are probably more a case of God drawing me to himself, using my desire for deeper communion to teach me that it can only really be found in one Source.

Reforming (phase 1), Our Personal History of Salvation (step 5), session 7

The reading for today's session is Ps 136, followed by ongoing praise in the same vein involving my personal history of salvation. What a humbling and uplifting way of approaching this!

This is the end of this step that had me so worried at the outset. There has really been no abatement of the emotional turmoil to which I was concerned about adding by doing this step now, but undertaking these sessions hasn't added to that, as I thought it might.

The fact is that God's love is greater than our sin, and knowing our sin honestly and with open eyes just reveals God's love, his grace and mercy, more completely. It is a great temptation and trap to instead become stubborn and arrogant about defining sin for ourselves so that we can feel self-justified. But this keeps us from knowing God's tender care and great compassion.

There is so much more to say about this, but Caesar calls (as does my stomach).

Reforming (phase 1), Our Personal History of Salvation (step 5), session 6

The lengthiest reading yet: Job 38: 1 - 42: 6, by far.

We insist on declaring to God what is sin, and further insist that we are declaring it against our oppressive fellow man and not against God himself.  I am as guilty as anyone of minimizing my sin, especially since it now pales in comparison to what I formerly committed.

"Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge? Gird up your loins like a man, I will question you, and you shall declare to me . . . " - Job 38, 2-3

"Shall a faultfinder contend with the Almighty? He who argues with God, let him answer it." - Job 40, 2

"Will you even put me in the wrong? Will you condemn me that you may be justified?" - Job 40, 8

I'm chagrined by our collective cheek in pushing the boundaries of socially acceptable behavior, and even more so by my individual audacity in minimizing or justifying my sinfulness.

"I had heard of thee by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees thee; therefore I despise myself,  and repent in dust and ashes." - Job 42, 5-6

So often we try to dictate to God how the world ought to be run. It is the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil run rampant in our world and in our lives. But Job's is the only humble response before God.

Addendum: Here's a great article that indicates just how far down this road we - even we in the church - have gone.

Facebook annoyances from today:

Item number one: Okay, I've noticed it before, but have never commented on it as I am so tempted to every time: this picture should definitely have the skull rotated 180° vertically. I suppose it is a sign of my own anal nature that this bothers me enough to interfere with the humor. (Also: was the first politician a woman?)

Item number two: Reeaaalllly?  Some people think that because they are "so close" to someone because of all the deep conversations that they've shared that they can publicly question their marriage decision on Facebook? I hated the decision, but I'm certainly not going to slam it there!

Item number three: I've decided to stop posting comments with links to the Snopes site for all of those gift card scam posts. Any of my friends and relatives who are so gullible - even after years of being online - that they don't recognize a phishing scam when they see one deserve to be phished.

Reforming (phase 1), Our Personal History of Salvation (step 5), session 5

After a weekend of no sessions, I'm officially behind now. But I can't really complain that the weekend was wasted. Especially, the Unbound: Freedom in Christ seminar on Saturday was a gift. The Unbound ministry uses the analogy of an onion, peeling away layers bit-by-bit, and I can see how that fits. I've learned more now about how we give spiritual influences a foothold in our lives, especially through habitual sin and extramarital sexuality. My Unbound prayer session focused on the spiritual results of abuse received and abuse committed, but there are a world of other choices I've made that have spiritual consequences, too.

I didn't have a prayer session during this seminar, and the easy reason why is that my involvement providing music ministry during the prayer sessions kept be from participating in any. But there is another reason that I dare not deny: I must still renounce the lie that there it's okay to fall back upon the endorphines when I feel alone and rejected. I suppose they're my escapist drug of choice.

And that probably brings me at least partly in touch with today's session, which deals with the personal sin of squandering the gifts God has entrusted to me. The reading today is Mt 5, 14-30, and it seems to me that the warning at the end is applicable to the gift of holiness when we bury it rather than live in it.

Reforming (phase 1), Our Personal History of Salvation (step 5), session 4

Just when I was on my own case for getting too far behind the power curve comes this session that really should fall on a Friday anyway. I suppose if I'd synched up with the liturgical calendar just a week sooner it would have hit on last Friday.

But the reason why it's a Friday session is because it contains the wonderful hymn of repentance which is part of morning prayer every Friday: Psalm 51.

My transgressions, truly I know them;
my sin is always before me. - Ps 51, 3

It is too often true that we hide our sins from ourselves, let alone from God. We may have a lot of different reasons for this, including our wish to think more highly of ourselves. This lack of humility is an integral part of our sinfulness. But like David, I have found my sinfulness is undeniable. But there is a danger for those of us who can't ignore some great failing in our lives, especially a failing which we have already addressed and dealt with, and which God has already long since forgiven. Keeping our attention focused on the past keeps us from growing in the present, from allowing God to set before our minds the sin from which he longs to cleanse us today, in his abundant love for us.

I am not describing a perfectionism in which we are never good enough, but a calling to holiness which God offers us as a gift and we often fail to fully receive. Having received such an apparent gift of grace, we may fail to grow in grace in all the ways God envisions for us.

Create a pure heart for me, O God;
renew a steadfast spirit within me. - Ps 51, 10

I believe God rejoices when we pray this in earnest!

My sacrifice to God, a broken spirit:
a broken and humbled heart,
O God, you will not spurn. - Ps 51, 17

What are the hallmarks of a truly contrite heart?  There is clearly more involved here than mere regret of our actions. I think of the months and months over which I failed to take decisive action against my most hurtful actions, and the decades of tolerating my less harmful ones, and I conclude that true humility of the heart is a challenge that I have not fully embraced. I believe God's grace is greater than my shortcomings, though, including my failure to be steadfast in holiness.

There is power in the name of Jesus
to break every chain - Will Reagan

If ever there was a perfect song for an Unbound: Freedom in Christ workshop, this is it.

Today's word

chouse \CHOWSS\ - cheat, trick

A completely new one on me; I'm pretty sure I've never seen it before. I wasn't familiar with all of the uses of its synonym chicane, either.  

Reforming (phase 1), Our Personal History of Salvation (step 5), session 3

"`If they do not hear Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced if some one should rise from the dead.'" - Lk 16, 31

Okay, I realize that the reading for this session is intended to make me consider something very different, that it wants me to focus on my neglect of the poor. I'm not going to totally ignore that element. I certainly haven't done as much for the poor as I believe I am called to do, for their sake and mine. And while I think that my life would look much less material were my vocation singlehood, I don't believe I'll be able to offer that as an excuse for not tending to Lazarus.

But this prophetic word which Jesus spoke in a parable continues to resound through the ages. Why is it true? Because Moses and the prophets invariably point to the Savior through the millenia and in each word spoken through them. We cannot recognize the risen Jesus if we reject the law and the prophets.

Within the step, but not rushing through it

Since I have my retreat amid the Spiritual Exercises in step with the liturgical calendar now, and with the holidays coming up, and with the step that I'm currently in feeling as if I shouldn't rush through it, I will be spending some time on related writing between sessions.

Today I find myself reflecting on my lifelong self-indulgence and my daughter's (I don't know, probably daughters') focus on appearance. I can't help but believe that the latter is related to the atmosphere I created around our home when they were growing up, and has become a perpetuation of the former. "I'm a wreck, but don't I look great?" seems related to "I'm a wreck but let me escape it for a few minutes in the endorphines." Neither of those approaches deals with the rest of what's going on in our lives, though, and for me, that can be a scary thing to face.

I know that I am called to love and build up my bride, and I know that our choice of each other has resulted in a couple who share very few interests in common. I have long run from the latter aspect of our reality somewhat, because I have discovered so little that I can really do about it. I can only embrace her interests so much, and I know that it is the same for her, and we have found so little that we enjoy in common. I feel fortunate that we still love each other so deeply despite this, and that the frustration that each of us feels to varying degrees at different times does not overwhelm our love with a desire to turn away, to seek greater compatibility outside of each other.

I suppose it's also helpful that my own interests don't consume my attention to such a degree that I am able to just throw myself into them and let a gulf grow between us. Yet that hasn't kept me from feeling a void in my life that I have, until fairly lately, continued to fill in the same way I have always escaped from the unpleasantness in my life. I may no longer indulge that so destructively as he taught me to, but it has nonetheless remained a way of escaping for a while into something that consumes me.

It seems as if this personal history of salvation step may provide a means to see how my past echoes somewhat in my present, even if far removed from the level of harmfulness that used to be there. I'm grateful that the boundaries I put in place - with my therapists' help - have become so strong that they continue to fulfill their purpose, and I am grateful that God is leading me to progress even further from them as he calls me further up and further in.

The holiness and wholeness to which God is calling me is so much more than I have allowed him to immerse me in thus far. I seem to be finding in these Exercises an approach that doesn't feel like an interior battle.

Today's word

usufructuary \ˌyü-zə-ˈfrək-chə-ˌwer-ē, -sə-\ - 1.  one having the usufruct of property  2.  one having the use or enjoyment of something

I often know the masked word in Dictionary Devil puzzles. By the time I match up all the definitions, the masked word's definition, length and starting letter are frequently enough for me to identify it before the puzzle reveals it upon completion. Not today!

I am somewhat familiar with this word, though. I think the context in which I've heard it relates to maintaining a right-of-way through someone else's private property. 

 

Reforming (phase 1), Our Personal History of Salvation (step 5), session 2

But I say, walk by the Spirit, and do not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh . . .  - Gal 5, 16-17a

I know that I sometimes use my less pure thoughts as a way of escaping my stress and loneliness. But I also know that the thing that keeps me alive is the desire to be the person God is calling me to be.

Fortunately, the former are becoming rarer and briefer. I am noticing that things at which I never used to hesitate are now clearly choices that I am unwilling to make. But I still don't guard my mind to the degree that I should.

This lesson's reading continues through verse 23, but I really feel that the rest of the chapter goes right along with it.

Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit.- Gal 5, 24-25

Why do we expect crucifying the flesh with its passions and desires to be painless? I think that, early in my Christian walk, I expected the Holy Spirit to simply lift every negative impulse from me. I heard an interesting talk on the radio last week about Jesus, temptation and sin. The speaker wanted to address people's objection that, if Jesus' ever-present divine nature was such that it would be, in a sense, a contradiction of himself to commit sin - if he was in this sense incapable of sinning, because he would always exercise his free will according to his Father's plan for him - how could we accept that he was ever then really tempted?  As part of his rebuttal, the preacher asked who better knows the weight of the barbell: the one who successfully holds it aloft or the one who fails in their effort to fully lift it? Jesus knows the full weight of temptation better than we do precisely because he did not succumb to it.

I heard that either last Tuesday or Wednesday, as it resonated with the reading I received during prayer group last Tuesday evening:

What then? Are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! Do you not know that if you yield yourselves to any one as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness?  - Rom 6, 15-16

So when we choose the flesh, we make ourselves slaves to the flesh rather than to the Spirit. And since no one can serve two masters (Lk 16, 13), using the wrong things even as a brief respite from realities and frustrations keeps me from being fully available to God's will for my life.

Reforming (phase 1), Our Personal History of Salvation (step 5), session 1

“Mind-fasting” is the central technique of the Christotherapy together with the complementary “spirit-feasting.” - Tyrrell, Christotherapy as quoted by Step-by-Step Retreats

I first read this and cringed. It was not the first part of this step's overview that provoked this response in me. I find the idea of revisiting what God has delivered me from intimidating, especially in my current emotional dynamic. But I am going to trust that God will continue to supply my every need, including not letting me get bogged down in an unhealthy place.

But when I first read this, I thought of mind-fasting vs. spirit feasting as something that was likely to be utterly beyond me. My mind chews on things incessantly; I know I am more introspective and analytical than is likely good for me. Then I read on:

It means an emptying the mind from the thoughts, attitudes and desires discerned as harmful, a letting go of the destructive tendencies by the help of the Holy Spirit and sort of replacing it with authentic, life-giving inspirations and feelings. - ibid.

and I realized that I have already begun this process. We'll see where the Lord takes it.

Did that which is good, then, bring death to me? By no means! It was sin, working death in me through what is good, in order that sin might be shown to be sin, and through the commandment might become sinful beyond measure. - Rom 7, 13

I had to fight against misunderstanding this when I was going through (and putting our family through) our personal tribulation. It was not the good thing that I had done that was causing the terrible circumstances we were experiencing. Rather, these were the result of the wrong I'd done, the brokenness in me that needed to be made whole. I was not being punished for confronting my sin, but the nature of confronting my sin meant dealing with things that had been previously swept under the rug to putrify.

Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! - Rom 7, 34-35a

Thanks be to God indeed, that as I read verse 34a I am not overwhelmed by it as I have so often and so long been.

Danger, Will Robinson!

I don't know if I can or should take this step right now . . . 

Reforming (phase 1), Existential Experience of the History of Salvation (step 4), session 7

This session's reading is Amos 2, 6-16. There isn't a particular verse that resonates with me, but this whole section on the transgressions of Israel follows shorter ones indicting Damascus, Gaza, Tyre, Edom, Ammon, Moab and Judah. The words against Israel are underscored in chapter 3 by the assertion that, of all nations, they should have known better given that the Lord had delivered them into the promised land so wondrously.

We're still referring to the existential experience rather than the personal one, so it is probably premature to align myself too closely with Israel in this. Perhaps it is better to see the pervasiveness of God's righteous judgment upon all peoples, and to realize that the salvation he has provided for us is the answer for all people, including me and including those I love.

I am a little nervous about entering into step 5, but that's next up.

I am noticing that beginning when I have and taking the sessions as I've been doing thus far has put me almost on track to now pick up with Step-by-Step's calendar approach to the Exercises. On the one hand, I really don't want to slow my momentum; it has been nice to use this as a daily meditation. On the other, I really see value in following the upcoming steps along with the calendar events that are associated with them. We'll see, maybe revisiting past sessions along the way may provide fresh insights already, allowing the Spirit to help me keep growing and not lose my focus on allowing God to work in me in this wise tradition.

Contentedness

Not that I complain of want; for I have learned, in whatever state I am, to be content. - Phil 4, 11

I clearly need to learn this lesson.

I can do all things in him who strengthens me. - Phil 4,13

I'm not so sure I have connected these very much. If I complain about the lack of contented peacefulness that verse 13 brings me, I am undermining my experience of verse 11.

Reforming (phase 1), Existential Experience of the History of Salvation (step 4), session 6

And when he drew near and saw the city he wept over it. saying, "Would that even today you knew the things that make for peace! But now they are hid from your eyes." - Lk 19, 41-42

I still don't know if I'm doing this step right. But I find that consideration of my personal sin as a component of the sin of the whole world is a useful thing for me, in multiple ways.

• It makes me less surprised at things that have many of those around me shocked. "How could they" - whomever the "they" of the current story is - "do such an awful thing?"  Well, how can I be surprised that the accumulated effect of sin in the world has led us to such extremes? In fact, I've been wondering in recent days: how much of a spiritually binding effect does the widespread tolerance of sinful behavior have on our world?
• It makes me less judgmental of others. Of course, I had an element of this good trend in my life already simply because . . . but to see all of our sin as connected helps me to live that not-supposed-to-be-a-cliché more effectively: hate the sin, but love the sinner. How can I not feel compassion for the sinner if the whole world's sinfulness is interrelated?

Okay, that's a lot of rhetorical questions for a short reflection. But I find that this reading fits right in with my heartache over the brokenness I see in my own family.

Today's words

unwonted \-ˈwȯn-təd, -ˈwōn- also -ˈwən- or -ˈwän-\  1.  being out of the ordinary :  rare, unusual  2. not accustomed by experience

I can get to the second definition from the meaning of wont which I am wont to use. I didn't get the first one, though.

exiguous \ig-ˈzi-gyə-wəs\ - excessively scanty :  inadequate

I don't care for the indicated pronunciation, which to my mind should be more like \ehg-'zi-gyu-wəs\. While I recognized this word (both of these are from today's Dictionary Devil puzzle), in my modern cultural bias I suppose I tended to associate the "excessively scanty" definition given with clothing rather than circumstances; when I finally saw it in that context, it clicked. 

Thoughts inspired by a message conversation with a friend

"I am just trying to receive the current circumstances of my life as a gift, a glimpse into God's love for his beloved sons and daughters who choose our self-centered roads over his greater desire for us. How he aches for our sake, when we lack the sense to recognize our own pain. I am also trying to remember that I am not supposed to find fulfillment in anyone except him, and to stop looking for it whence it cannot come. And I am trying to trust that he will provide it . . . .

"I feel like Lucy Pevensie's siblings in Prince Caspian: following her because I cannot see who she sees; not even quite daring to believe she has actually seen him, either; taking direction more from knowing that I lack any other way forward than from knowing God himself."

Should I take comfort that I have finally entered into the dark night of the soul, as opposed to the mere self-neglect that has heretofore been the primary constant within my spiritual walk?

Like the deer that yearns for running streams, so my soul is yearning for you, my God. My soul is thirsting for God, the living God; when can I enter and appear before the face of God? My tears have become my bread, by day, by night, as they say to me all the day long, “Where is your God?” These things will I remember as I pour out my soul: For I would go to the place of your wondrous tent, all the way to the house of God, amid cries of gladness and thanksgiving, the throng keeping joyful festival. Why are you cast down, my soul; why groan within me? Hope in God; I will praise him yet again, my saving presence and my God. My soul is cast down within me, therefore I remember you from the land of Jordan and Mount Hermon, from the Hill of Mizar. Deep is calling on deep, in the roar of your torrents; your billows and all your waves swept over me. By day the LORD decrees his merciful love; by night his song is with me, prayer to the God of my life. I will say to God, my rock, “Why have you forgotten me? Why do I go mourning oppressed by the foe?” With a deadly wound in my bones, my enemies revile me, saying to me all the day long, “Where is your God?” Why are you cast down, my soul; why groan within me? Hope in God; I will praise him yet again, my saving presence and my God. - Ps 42

with a thirst brought on by not finding water for desperate days on end though sometimes I mistake things far less than you for the object of my desire I look for sustenance from the wrong sources, from the very gifts with which you have graced me. This false bread can never sustain me. Only you can satisfy I remember the days when the simple act of praising you was sufficient to lift my spirit, to allow me to hope in you why does even praising you fail to bring me comfort? it is this vocation for which I am created. yet I will not stop praising merely because it brings no relief; indeed, you are no less worthy of my praise, and praising you is still your gift to me. the depths of my thirst long to drink from the depths of your love. as well they should. Indeed, I revile myself. yes, I shall praise you all my days, each day that you grant me, though hope itself should seem to abandon me.

Perhaps I can find a crumb of comfort in knowing that Jesus himself prayed this Psalm.