All naiveté isn't bad!

The second naiveté is an understanding reached on the far side of critical analysis and thinking.  Having come to recognize that things could theoretically be other than they are, we are brought to the perception that they are as we thought them to be, but on the far side of all our questioning, we know in a way that we did not know it before . . . It is surely part of what Christ meant when he insisted that we must be born again, becoming not again childish but, for the first time, childlike.  Eliot puts it nicely in Little Gidding:

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.

So it is with sacrifice, and so it is with beginning to understand the cross. - Fr. Richard John Neuhaus, Death on a Friday Afternoon


I thought I'd reached at this second naiveté years ago.  I'd explored the opposite of faith, and found a great emptiness there.  Then I was touched by God's love, experienced the movement of the Holy Spirit within my soul, and thought there was no going back. But that didn't keep me from failing so spectacularly, and so I suppose I've either been experiencing a "third naiveté" this year, or I needed January's mini-crisis of faith to truly find myself in Christ.

I'm discovering that it is an entirely different and joyful and intimidating thing to put away my self-judgment and start to really thrive in God's love.  There's a big difference between, "Oh, I'm such a worthless sack of excrement, isn't everyone - especially God and most certainly my wife - so great for loving me anyway!" and being able to truly rejoice in who I am in Christ. Perhaps now I can quit demonstrating to myself - albeit in far smaller ways - what a "bad person" I am.

The "intimidating" part is that I no longer have an excuse for shrinking away from becoming the man God dreams for me to be.

Who is in charge?

Last night, Fr. Jim Manning challenged us with a simple question: who is in charge of our lives?  It seems to fit this post of last week.

I see it answered in the lives of those whose difficult circumstances are marked by a mysterious peacefulness: a dear friend whose mother calmly passed away yesterday, spared the end stage Alzheimer's devastation that otherwise loomed; a new sister in the Lord who's had to bury three of her daughters due to cystic fibrosis, sharing her powerful testimony of how our loving God ministered to her and each of her dear girls - and to the doctors and nurses who witnessed it - in their last hours in this world.

I see it answered in different ways in my own life.  Yes, I am learning to follow Jesus enough to share how God has delivered me through even my worst moments.  Yet in doing so there remains unknown ahead of me, and it is still a challenge to trust that God's providence will meet our every need.  Too, I struggle to walk in the grace that I believe my Lord would pour more fully into my life.  I have always undercut that grace.  As if to prove my unspoken, unrecognized certainty that I'm not worthwhile, my decisions have reinforced my  unconscious low opinion of myself, over and over again.  I thought that merely being conscious of my poor self-esteem would be sufficient to keep me from manifesting this pattern in my life and allow me to impose my alleged will on my actions.  But I have decades of practice and habit of not walking fully in grace, and now I begin to see that it takes more, and less.  More: trusting in God to fill my lack; less: gutting it out by my own efforts.

For when I am aware of my vulnerability and weakness, and immediately give myself over to God's sufficiency, in peaceful resignation to him I encounter the solution that I've sought for so long.  In this moment, at least, I am finally free to, simply, be.

But only when I truly allow God to be in charge: more of you, Lord, and less of me.

"He bids me, 'Come, and sleep . . . '"

An old man, whose day is done
lies prostrate in the night.
In his left ear, continual ringing;
His right hears the rhythm of his heart.
Together they sing and pound out
The lamentation of his soul:
Potential forever wasted,
Promise unfulfilled,
Union never achieved,
Choices driven by unknown brokenness,
Dreams abandoned.
The song leaves him yearning.
Yearning.

He knows there is an answer.
On the cross, the only Answer.
The lamentation must die.
Thoughts of potential - die.
Mourning of promise - die.
Longing for union - die.
Regret of choices - die.
Unfruitful dreams - die.
Discordant song - die.
Unfulfilled yearning - die.
The very self - die.
'Til naught remains but the Answer,
For only thus can the man live.

Reading entirely too much into a simple dinner?

I'm trying to figure something out.  Tonight, the mrs. has a 6:45 commitment at church.  So here we are, with dinner finished in plenty of time for her to comfortably get where she needs to be, all because at 5:00 she said "oh, it's time to start the grill . . . "  As a result, the thick-cut chops had plenty of time to get done, and everything else just fell into place from there.

So why does that so rarely seem to work when I have to be somewhere?  Is it because I'm not usually here to actually get things started, or to do the cooking?  I mean, all she really did tonight was observe the time, and since I was home this afternoon I took care of the rest.  But I got the impression that she'd have done it if I hadn't.  This makes me wonder if she has some passive-aggressive thing going on?  Does she resent my being gone a couple evenings each week?  I mean, if it's that easy to work backward from when she has to be somewhere to what time the ball needs to start rolling, what keeps it from happening when I have somewhere to be?

Or are my expectations unreasonable?  After all, as I read over it, this seems to be a pretty selfish post . . .

In whom do I trust?

St. Patrick's cathedral in New York is directly across from Rockefeller Center, and at the entrance to Rockefeller Center is the great sculpture of Atlas holding up the world.  On Good Friday, the doors of the cathedral are opened, and you can see the cross from the street.  Turn in one direction, and there is the mythical Atlas holding up the world; turn in the other, and there is the One broken by the world.  Which image speaks the truth?  Is the world upheld by our godlike strength or by the crucified love of God?  Upon that decision everything, simply everything, turns. - Fr. Richard John Neuhaus, Death on a Friday Afternoon


I'm often reminded of how often my "trusting God" is really "trusting Tom to make best use of the gifts God has provided."  These two are not nearly the same thing.  The latter is really me playing Atlas, trying to hold up my world by my strength.  Oh, please don't think I'm suggesting that I shouldn't try to make the best use of God's gifts.  But it seems to me that there is a difference between doing so and putting my trust in my ability to do so.

It's very much like the difference between having an abundance of material blessings and putting my trust in those blessings.  If I invest too much of my trust in the roof over my head, then when that structure is threatened in some way I am likely to make the wrong choice about what to do about it.  But if my trust is in God's providence, I know that I will always have someplace to lay my head.  This is why, during the Feast of Booths, the Jewish people were to sleep without an enclosed roof, so that they would be reminded that it is God who provides their security.  With that focus, I can consider what to do about any peril to my residence based on what I believe God would have me do, not on saving my abode at all costs.  (There are, of course, too many more implications to this to mention, but an important one is how I respond to others in need.)

If I am holding up my own world, then when that world begins to crumble on me, I focus my effort on how I can hold things together.  Then I'm more likely to make decisions that aren't in keeping with the person I am called to be.  My security is threatened, and I must defend it.  But if my security is Christ Jesus - well, depending on how you look at it, it either can never be threatened or has already been as crushed as it (he) could ever be!  I need not fear any circumstance.  I need not make a decision that seems "necessary" or "pragmatic" but is in fact a compromise of my person.

So I'm sure I'm not alone in needing to ask myself from time to time: Who's holding up my world?

Freedom!

Overcoming your greatest fear is a wonderful and liberating thing!

Now LOTS of people know, and they (mostly) don't hate me!  (Maybe I offended a few who left without saying so.)  I don't know if I've ever felt more affirmed and appreciated.  A long-time friend looked me in the eye afterward and she said, "Tom, I just want you to know, I love you more than ever."

It was pretty uncomfortable, though, to hear so many people describe my testimony as "courageous."  What I described was the antithesis of courage.  I'm simply describing the good that God has done for me, from a deep sense of gratitude.  That doesn't take courage; faith and trust the size of a mustard seed, maybe.

Yet, as a result, I've receive yet another humbling and precious gift.  It's true: we can never outdo God in generosity!

The Final Word

"It is finished" does not mean that suffering and loss and the rivers of tears are things of the past.  "It is finished" means that they do not have the last word.  It means that love has the last word. - Fr. Richard John Neuhaus, Death on a Friday Afternoon


As Fr. Neuhaus suggested earlier in his book, it is true for me that the celebration of Easter does not mean that Good Friday is cast behind me.  I simply must finish this wonderful book, and I must not rush through what remains of it!

Love has the last word.  I have seen this borne out in my own life, as my mistakes have been overcome by the love I've received.  My wife, my daughters, my friends who continue to be vessels of priceless treasure to me have brought me to resurrection life.

One of my very most favoritest Christian musicians - Michael Card - did a musical trilogy back in the 80's on the life of Jesus.  He worked backward, so the last album of the trilogy was on the incarnation of Christ.  Its title cut was called The Final Word, based on how St. John refers to Jesus in the prologue to his Gospel: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God . . . And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us.  Michael Card says:


 . . . When the Father's wisdom wanted to communicate His love,
He spoke it in one final perfect Word.


He spoke the incarnation, and then so was born the Son.
His final word was Jesus, He needed no other one.
Spoke flesh and blood so He could bleed and make a way Divine.
And so was born the baby who would die to make it mine.


So, the love has the last word, and the final word is Jesus.  Of course!

And as I read this word from the cross, "It is finished," I realize that love has completed what love came to do, reconciling us with love for all time.  All that remains is for us to choose to be reconciled.