Conversion

Lent is off to a great start for me, maybe my best ever. That's due to a lot of factors, all of them Grace.

This past Saturday I provided music for a men's retreat. The upside of serving in this way is that I get to attend the retreat, as well. This year's theme was Conversion of Life, one of the vows taken by Benedictines. The retreat master has a Benedictine background (as an oblate, not a monk), and this is the second year he's brought us a message rooted in that order's vows. While most religious orders take vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, the Benedictine order is old enough that their vows (conversion of life, stability, obedience, though the latter not in the traditional interpretation of the word) predate the better known "evangelical counsels."

At any rate, and without sharing Saturday's entire message, it has me reflecting further, as I suppose a good retreat tends to do. It occurs to me that the biggest obstacle to conversion in my life, and I imagine I share this with most people, is the degree to which I'm willing to be converted. And as I write, it also occurs to me that this is related to our last Why Catholic? session, at which we discussed false gods.

I think everybody has things in their lives about which we say "No, God. Not that. I'll give you anything You want, but don't ask me for that. That is too central/essential/valuable to me." Sometimes that is something that we very well know God wants removed from our lives completely - a relationship or habit that we know in our heart is not God's will for us. In other cases, that is something that might not be a bad thing, in the proper context, but we have gotten the thing out of proportion. That is often nothing more than the thing that represents our (illusion of) control over our own life. We will often have very logical sounding reasons why that is actually a good thing in my life, or rationalize that only an outdated, flawed, human church would ask me to give that up, never a loving God (as I understand God to be).

That ends up being our false god. It is the biggest obstacle to the conversion of our life, and to our becoming the person God dreams for us to become. (I choose that wording very carefully: it is God's dream for us; loving us perfectly, it is God's great vision for me, for you, for each person.)

When we begin to follow Christ, we undertake a spiritual journey which, of course, God has begun in us and nurtures in us. This journey takes us from the person we were without Christ to the person the Father dreams for us to become in the Son, when the Holy Spirit has finished transforming/converting us. All of us, by God's grace, have made progress in that journey. Yet we become enamored of the place we have reached, or of some aspect of our old homeland which we cannot bear to leave behind. This is a familiar part of our life, and the life that awaits us is hidden. We have trouble fully believing that the destination is really that much better. So we cling to that, not realizing the degree to which that keeps us from becoming who God dreams for us to be.

This Lent, I seem to be letting go of a that or two, though it could be that I'm just finding new, less obvious ways of clinging to them. If the former, it is by God's grace, for while I must participate in the process, it isn't me doing the work. I'm praying that God will continue this conversion in my life, and help me become the person He dreams for me to be.

Spiritual snootiness

I hope I'm not engaging in some of that myself, with this post. This is actually a response to a thread on a blend's blog, but parts of it might feel a little chastising there and, not wishing to hijack that blog, I figured I'd post this here:

There is a tendency among some Christian circles (maybe others, as well, but these are the ones I've noticed it in) to proclaim a message that goes something like this:

"You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit - fruit that will last. Then the Father will give you whatever you ask in my name." (Jn 15, 16) So, if our prayers are not answered as we wish - and usually in the way that spares us or our loved ones the most pain - it must be because of a shortcoming in our lives, that we haven't borne the fruit that we have been appointed to bear. We're not living rightly, or asking rightly, or our faith is insufficient (i.e. smaller than a mustard seed; Mt 17, 19-20), or there's something else wrong with us.

I think this is a dangerous and inaccurate message that takes our life in this world out of the context of our life for eternity, the only context in which this life - and all of Christianity - really makes any sense.

Whether our prayers have been answered or if they've seemed ignored, I believe this: God loves us deeply, more deeply than we can ever know in this world. God's great desire for us is to know perfect Love, which will take all of eternity. God isn't some tyrant who only bestows blessings if we've sufficiently toed the line; rather, our openness to God is the only way we can be disposed to receiving all that God dreams for us. God knows what we cannot even imagine, and God's vision for us surpasses our analysis of our need, our loved ones' need. The greatest agony of this life is as nothing compared to the joy and love we will live in for eternity. And when we're not in a space to receive this message, God doesn't love us any less because of that, nor forsake us. God continues to wrap loving arms around us, to be at work spiritually in our lives to draw us into perfect Love, so long as we earnestly seek the Truth.

When we watch someone we love go through something awful, we wonder why God doesn't do something about it, if He's real. But He is doing something about it: loving them, even through us, and loving us as we love them. God did not spare His own Son the vastly-underestimated pain of the Passion, yet loved Him through it and brought Him to glory. Why do we suppose our own path through this fallen world to glory, and that of those we love, should not also include unspeakable pain, but also the grace to bear it and be transformed through it?

A perhaps not-so-humble reflection on humility

Our new parish priest shared two local news stories that illustrate an alarming lack of humility among Christians. I won't share them here; they're not the point. But they got me to thinking on this topic.

I'm often appalled at our lack of humility, given that it is the defining virtue of Jesus' earthly life. I'm especially concerned over how quickly we judge others, and have concluded that we often do so because too many of us are walking around with an inaccurate, grade-school concept of salvation. I, too, grew up with the "good people go to heaven, bad people go to hell" mindset that underlies the entire "scales of justice" view of God's mercy, which we may have never grown out of. Instead, we hold onto a foundational belief that we somehow deserve the love that God has bestowed on us.

We may be largely unaware of this attitude; when someone says that no one merits God's grace, we nod our heads in agreement with the definition of grace we've internalized - "unmerited favor." Who could disagree? Yet our response to someone who commits what we consider a terribly sinful, even heinous act, betrays our underlying assumptions. We may say, "There, but for the grace of God, go I," but we don't really believe it. Instead, we often conclude that the offender has forsaken their very humanity.

Perhaps so. But God has not stopped loving him or her.

As long as we believe that we're "mostly pretty good" people, we tend to assume that is mostly why God loves us, and that we’re going to heaven because that’s how "mostly pretty good" people are rewarded. After all, there must be some sort of eternal karma for all the sacrifices we make: the vices from which we abstain, the hurtful things we choose not to do, the pleasure we deny ourselves, the good deeds for which we go out of our way. Rather than seeing these good and important decisions as our response to and participation in God's love, we often consider them to be the steps in our stairway to heaven. We think our own virtue ensconces us in the at-least-somewhat exclusive club of those with whom God is pleased, and quickly judge that others' sins (or beliefs, or other perceived shortcomings) forever bar them from membership. As we cling to such a viewpoint, there will always be those – and we each know who they are – with whom we’d never deign to worship or socialize, let alone spend eternity. Murderers, rapists, child abusers, addicts, racists, abortionists, gays, spics, niggers, honkeys, . . . , jews, muslims, protestants, catholics, conservatives, radicals, liberals, intolerants – there seems no limit to the ways we can delineate our "them" – are going to get what they deserve, we think, not considering that God has given us grace that we could never deserve rather than the death Christ bore in our place.

The sin in my own life has been too great to allow me to operate under an illusion of superiority to others. Not even this lengthy post is rooted in a sense of greater worthiness, as I know many of those who have not had to come to grips with such failings are truly purer hearted than I am, even with all the change God has already made in me. I know that if God's eternal reward is for those who've lived rightly, then I will surely be rejected. I could never hope to make up for the pain I’ve caused by any amount of right living. Yet last week in my living room, my friends expressed incredulity that someone who works for the Lord as I do could believe himself undeserving of God’s love and mercy. "If you're hopeless, what hope is there for me?" they practically said. Fortunately no one suggested that we compare our sinfulness, which could become a sort of reverse pride! But I explained that I'm not at all hopeless; it's just that my hope is in Christ rather than in myself.

I’ve always assumed that one who has been forgiven a truly hurtful action would forever understand the nature of grace. They'd know that no one is more deserving of it than another, and strive to live their lives in response to such an unfathomable love. But while my friends seemed aware of their own shortcomings, they expressed shock that I don't think my visible efforts to live as I am called would be sufficient to overcome my own sin, and thereby gain the reward which Christ has already won for me. They seemed sure that such a conclusion should drive me to despair, rather than to live as fully as I can in this magnificent Love that our Savior has revealed to and purchased for us.

Finally reaching the point: to me, this is humility - to understand (without self-condemnation!) that I don’t deserve God’s love, yet to be willing to receive it anyway, respond to it, be transformed in it. The more this process occurs in my own life, the more deeply I will desire it for every other person. I seek to encourage and embrace others who are sincerely seeking the Truth, trusting that God will lead them to Him, even if I disagree with them. Then will I share Christ's compassionate love with others according to the leading of the Holy Spirit, not considering how "deserving" of it they may be.

Sometimes this will mean speaking difficult words – after all, enabling another's sin isn’t an expression of love – but I will always do so lovingly.

Fun amidst serious music

One of my fellow singers - a founding member, actually - in the music ministry I've joined has a rather strong flair for the dramatic. With quite a bit of experience in community theater, he serves as our staging director, and also maintains our website. As it happens, he's had a couple of speaking parts in the service in addition to a vocal lead. Well, in reassigning speaking assignments to the newer members at last week's rehearsal, I was given one of his. His absence from that rehearsal was a non-factor in the decision, but the group joked that I'd have to break the news to him. I replied, also in jest, that I was afraid of what might happen to my website bio.

So last Tuesday I sent him an e-mail explaining what we'd decided, and offering to switch assignments with him in the event we had misread his preference. But, "just in case," I told him I'd also saved him the trouble of revising my bio, and included one that I thought was a real hoot. He evidently agreed, replying that he'd be willing to sacrifice the part, but only on the condition that I stand up in front of the group and share my revised bio with them. I responded that I'd be willing to brave such a degrading experience to facilitate this humble work of grace in his life (not that I have any dramatic tendencies of my own, mind you).

So Monday night, early in rehearsal, I shared this with the group:
" . . . is a back-stabbing, glory-grasping Johnny-come-lately, unconcerned with the discord he sows - even within an established and revered organization - by his self-promotion. However noble and unselfish their loving labors, however close-knit the group, he soon unleashes his chaos, relentlessly pursuing his own agenda, wheedling his will, nefariously undermining the carefully nurtured harmony that preceded his arrival. An avid bicyclist, he never takes his turn at the front of the line. You'll easily spot this attention hog: the malicious villain will surely be front and center; should he fail at that, he'll be the one singing off-key!"

Somehow I forgot to include the adjective "scene-stealing," an unintended oversight.

So, the part I lead is the last Station. Near the end of rehearsal, as I finished reading, the entire group, with one breath, let out with a quiet, seemingly awestruck "Wow!" A couple of them dabbled at their eyes, as if I'd moved them to tears.

Apparently our staging director rearranges us for each parish to balance our optimal blend with high visibility for any parishioners within our group. So where do you suppose he put me for the service at our parish? In the middle of the front row, of course.

Zebulun and Naphtali

Readings of contrast yesterday, and an interesting take on them. "The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light."

Historical background: around 722 BC, the kingdom of Israel was overthrown, and that conquest began in the regions of Zebulun and Naphtali. It was from these regions that the light of salvation would arise in Jesus' public ministry, and where Christ would first proclaim that the kingdom of God is at hand.

As our new priest pointed out, there are several implications in our own lives, but the one I found myself considering was how we only find our greatest growth from the darkest areas of our lives. We each have our Zebulun and Naphtali, our areas of darkness. Often we think that God is absent from our lives in these areas, or we reject God's will in order to embrace our own. But often we learn later that love is at its most illuminating brightness in our deepest darkness. That darkness may arise from the loss of someone we love. It might spring from crushing guilt and shame, either deserved or wrongly accepted. It might have its roots in personal failure, or in uncontrollable circumstance. Whatever its source, God's love shines brighter than that darkness, and it will light up our lives and shine on those around us if we follow Christ, as the first disciples did.

Peter and Andrew. James and John. They left their former lives behind. Perhaps they'd dealt with the fisherman's life for so long that even the unknown future offered by this itinerant represented a greater hope for significance. But the remaining depths of my own life likewise call out for a transformation, from hopeless darkness to glorious light, that can only take place if I walk with Jesus in those areas, as well.

It takes a degree of abandon that we too often fear.

I'm so excited!

For over ten years now, there has been a wonderful music ministry in our area. Their main service is one of the two most prayerful and reflective experiences I've ever had of the Stations of the Cross. We've actually had the other at our parish the last two years, a pianist and singer from the Cincinnati area.

At any rate, I've previously considered auditioning for this group, but didn't feel I had the time to dedicate to it. But with Lent and Easter being so early this year, my time balance has changed, as we'll finish our services before cycling season starts. And what do you know - the group is glad to have me along! So, I get to sing with a really talented and fun bunch of folks, doing something that I know from experience is really worthwhile, that truly enhances people's ability to identify with Christ - and those around him - in this ancient reflection on the Way of the Cross. We'll be singing in nine different area churches, all on either Friday or Sunday during Lent, so it's a pretty busy schedule!

No words

Some situations just can't be blog fodder, no matter how much they're on one's mind, y'know?