"Give Up All Your Possessions and Follow Me"

“Good, Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”  A question uttered in a passionate moment from a youth to Jesus; a moment in which this young man stood perplexed while hearing the words of Christ in regards to a holy life, a life that he had tried so hard to lead.  He was certain that there must be more…and more there was.  “Jesus looking upon him loved him and said to him, “You lack one thing; go, sell what you have, and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.”  The young man became disheartened due to his many possessions.  He could not see in his heart the “possibilities”. 

Are you and I expected by God to get up today, box up all of our earthly possessions, order a U-Haul and send them to Churches United for the Homeless or another distribution site for the poor?  I do not know the answer to that?  This young man was discerning his faith.  He was seeking an answer and Christ gave him one.  We, the Scripture reader, do not know if he went home and wrestled with this for the rest of his life.  We know that his story has been given to us as a gift to reflect upon and ask ourselves “What does this mean for me?  What is holding me back from giving my whole self to Christ?” 

I have recently been handed this story as gift once again in regards to my own life.  I have spent the last three years in prayer, discerning the Will of God for my life.  My professional position ended and doors closed to me wherever I turned to begin again.  My husband told me that it was as if God knew the professional direction I would take and He just kept gently shutting this, and this, and this, and this while working on my spirit.  There have been intense rest stops assuring me that I was going in the right direction but they have been few and far enough between that my faith in His love for me was necessary or my family and I would have emotionally and financially crashed and burned.  I, like this young man, saw the goodness of following God’s way of life.  I was experiencing a peace within the pain, a direction within the uncertainty, and a greater awareness of His Grace and Mercy within difficult days BUT there was a part of me or satan within me that always echoed “Really?  Really, Jen?  Are you sure?  What if???”  Then, my knees found the floor and my prayer found a voice and I told Jesus what I needed…money to buy groceries….money to pay the housepayment…money to pay the medical bills…money to ease the anxiety of the what if’s.  It was direct and heartfelt and within the week I had the possibility of this money in front of me, most of it coming from equity in my home that the bank was willing to lend to us.  It would allow me to focus on writing my book about God’s deliverance with less anxiety but with the knowledge that if we needed to tap into this money, we were going further and further into debt.  This is where the gift of this young man’s story comes in.  God is asking me to trust Him; trust Him so much that I head into the future not knowing if there will be other possibilities that will come my way to minister for Him and find payment for that or use my possession, my home, to provide me with the opportunity to do His Will.  It is giving up for Him the last possession that this culture says I own so that I can “go and follow Him”. 

Well, here I am.  I am back; back to write and write and write about God and all that He inspires me to write.  I have been in relationship with God for all my life with my first “spirit(ual)” experience when I was two.  It was wonderful and whenever I close my eyes and my memory brings me back to my crib and the soothing, comforting light that warmed me as I stood in a winter snowsuit because we were poor enough not to have heat I know in my very soul that the Holy Spirit was making His Presence known to me that day.  May God continue in His Mercy to find me worthy.

QUESTIONS

Today we hear that the U.S. Navy Seals ONLY shot Osama bin Laden’s young wife in the leg.  Yesterday, the story was that she had thrown herself in front of her husband as a human shield and in doing so was killed.  It is her that my mind and my heart goes out to this morning.  I can’t help but wonder what her life story is.  Where is she from?  What had she dreamed of as a child?  Was she precious to her family?  Did she desire having children?  Were any of the children in the compound her’s or theirs together?  Had she been dreaming of a happier life lived outside secrecy before the raid?  Would she hate me because I am an American or could we have looked deep into each other’s eyes across the kitchen table and seen unshed tears over the state of the violence that grips the globe? 

I think of these questions so that my mind does not become numb with the reports that I am barraged with every time I seek out some relaxation in front of the television.  Mind you, I do not go there often but a day spent in study or in search of new employment can stretch my brain to a point that I could use either some of Mr. Roger’s love of life or news regarding the newlyweds in England.  I go there hoping to sit for a bit and relax.  I do not seek out the National News which always seems to have a political slant buried deep within the smiling faces reporting it.  For news, I head to Public Radio hoping that the system of media reporting has not stretched it far beyond the recognition of actual reporting of events.  So I question myself to ground myself in the reality that in a town thousands of miles away there are families trying to go about their day loving their children, cooking the day’s meals, going to and from some form of paid employment, glad that the sun is shining, and worried that there will not be enough of what they may need to keep them out of poverty or injustice’s harm.  It is a day like my day and violent death has entered their picture.  I feel sad for them.  I feel sad for the children who may have nightmares thinking someone may be coming for them.  I feel sad for the destruction of life and property.  I feel sad for the celebrations that are occurring in our country because of death. 

We are 11 days into the Easter season; the season of Christ’s Resurrection and triumph over death.  Each day a new day dressed in the white pureness of redemption and heavenly glory.  We, Christians, are an Easter people and have our eyes turned towards upward into an assent of our mind and heart hoping to see the world as God sees the world; hoping to understand more deeply how He wants us to live and how we through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit can live lives overflowing with charity.  There have to be questions; questions that ground us in our faith and lead us to see how life should be lived.  God was in that room with the Navy Seals.  God was overseeing all that were His creations.  He has told us through Holy Scripture that there is nowhere that we can go that He will not be there…to the mountain…to the sea….into the forest….in the midst of the compound.  It became another moment, another fire fight, another news story, another wife shot in the leg.  May God have mercy on our souls and be with us in the silence of the night as we question “What really just happened here?”

DISCERNMENT

I have been deep into discernment, dear readers, while in the midst of preparing my home for possible flooding.  There have been moments of tense moving of my daughter’s things out of her bedroom while watching the river rising out of my front window.  There were times that I sat motionless in my kitchen staring out into the yard wondering if we had completed all that needed to be done if we were evacuated deep into the night.  I educated myself on all the city leaders had to offer and felt protected….to a point….to the point that was left in the Hands of God.  All of this was being done as my husband and I were being forced to have conversations about trying to sell our home and moving; conversations where we talked about all the changes we have made to alter our way of living to accommodate my being unemployed and now with the end of that in site, consideration of our home’s equity and possible jobs away from here.  We have prepared, we have used our resources, and now we have been brought…to a point…to the Hands of God. 

Suffering comes in many forms.  Sometimes it comes in the form of illness or abuse recognizable and visible to the eye.  Other times it occurs in the dark, in the aloneness that accompanies poor decisions or grieving.  Sometimes it sits within the unknowing, the uncertainty as to which direction to go in.  This week we enter into the remembrance of Christ’s suffering, Holy Week for us Christians.  We are brought through liturgy and sacrament to those times in Christ’s life where He endured the suffering brought on by our human frailty and sinfulness.  He did all of this with the vision of how it could have been, should have been if man/woman had not tried to do it all alone, without God and His knowledge of everything.  He did it so that we might live a life that not only included suffering but had the revelation of Resurrection; a life impacted by the knowledge that God is with us and available for us when we get to those “points” of having done everything “humanly” possible and now need the enlightenment of the Divine to give us the strength and courage to move forward.

One way we can enter into that enlightenment is through “discernment”.  Discernment is an intentional time of prayer, study, and community that takes an intimate look at our lives at a particular point in time and is driven by the unquenchable desire to seek God’s Will.  It is a holy time of working towards deepening our relationship with God and uncovering His Revelation for us.  I teach discernment and I am in discernment.  It makes for a profound situation in my life.  I truly with all my heart want to do the Will of God and yet I have this “picture” of how I want or how I feel I need that to look.  It is a picture painted by many people over the course of my lifetime and I am now the artist of the moment.  My choice of color and brush stroke, creativity or copy, scenic or figurative are all my selections to make.  I have the canvas and palette in front of me and it is my lack of courage to turn myself more into a vessel of discovery that holds me back.

So, here I sit today, in the holiness of discernment.  God is with me.  There is solitude and love.  I will need to make a decision soon or feel the effects of my unwillingness to change.  I am being called to be more authentically who He made me to be.  Maybe today will be the day.  Maybe at 8 p.m. my soul will sing with the rejoicing of my surrender and my paintbrush will fly.  For now, we sit together my King and I.  He knows I struggle and yet He keeps telling me “Who made the stars, Jennifer?  Who was it that told the snow when to fall?  Who died and rose so that you could live a life of happiness and peace?”  Like Job I need to re-member myself and know that God is God and I am not.  He is the Master Painter and I am the beloved canvas.  My soul knows there is only one way…..

VOCATION

Good Morning, Dear Reader.  Today, I continue with this concept of lay “vocation”.  Many Catholic churches, in speaking about vocations, only include the vocations of those ordained or entering the “religious” life.  The rest of us, the laity, are usually categorized under the headings of “Married” or “Single”.  In Dei Verbum, the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, we find the statement ‘The laity, by their very vocation, seek the kingdom of God by engaging in temporal affairs and by ordering them to the plan of God.  They live in the world, that is, in each and in all the secular professions and occupations…They can work for the sanctification of the world from within, in the manner of leaven.’  Cardinal Joseph Bernardin writes prophetically, “The best method for increasing the number of priests and religious is to foster a vocation culture in which all young adult Christians understand their careers and their states in life as a response to the universal call to holiness.”  It is this “vocation culture” that goes beyond being married or single that I find intriguing.  I envision a culture whereby we, Christians, have this vision of God’s personal calling to us held in front of us as our guide to decision making in all things, professional, relationship, community based, parentally, etc.

When I found myself unemployed at the beginning of this Recession, I discovered that my despair was generated from my identity as a “working” professional.  When my layoff came, I was devastated.  Not only had I lost my income but I had lost the ability to meet with people that I had grown to love.  I lost the creative outlet of being a member of various visionary professional committees.  I lost the awareness of myself as someone working on behalf of those in our community who are disenfranchised, and I lost the ability to purchase for my children things such as haircuts, visits to the dentist, trips to see family members, etc..  Everything verged on feelings of despair.  I began questioning who I was and started to feel that with the loss of my professional position I had also lost a huge part of myself.  The one very good thing that I continued to do was to take the time to contemplate God’s Will for me.  I knew He loved me but struggled terribly at not being given a picture of certainty for the future, showing me how I would continue to assist my husband in housing my children and feeding them.  The Holy Spirit did some major work within me in revealing to me that if my life had been focused on my “vocation” as a lay minister within God’s Church, I would not have lost anything.  My focus would not have been on my identity as a professional but on that of God’s daughter, knowing her spiritual gifts, and working within the world.  It would have saved me great suffering as my illusions of control over my life came crashing down like a house of glass during a storm. 

I know that many clergy seem to think that we, parishioners, “get” the idea of faith integration and that we should just know that our vocation is before us due to our Baptism, but the influence of the evil one within the world is strong and before you know it we are captivated into believing that it is our position within the company that saves us….at least from poverty or the need to selling our homes and moving away.  Our focus on God’s peace and joy can be diminished by the daily comings and goings from a place of employment that is adhered to 5 to 6 days a week.  Before you know it our life’s system is into place and we are drawn into this capitalistic understanding that we are doing as well as our checking and savings accounts.  Woe to the poor man or woman who cannot pay their way!  Where have they gone wrong?  A “vocation culture” would change all of this.

Instead, we need to focus on “vocation” as a personal “call” by God to all Christians to use their spiritual gifts and their talents and circumstances of life to impact the world around them, all the while knowing that God will see to their every need.  That does not mean that everything will stay the same as it was but a “new normal” may emerge out of the ashes of the “past”.  It is through our Divinity as sons and daughters of God that we are to see our earthly affairs.  It is respectful and responsible to set our eyes upon the banquet that has been set for us in the heavenly kingdom of God and to act in this world as one who knows a deeper Truth.  How frightened do we really need to be when we have the entire community of saints available for our intercession?  How alone are we in our suffering when the Savior of the world stands alongside us within our trials?  How uncomfortable does our journey into the uncertainty of unemployment, illness, divorce, flooding, etc. have to be when Christ has said to us again and again “Do not be afraid…I am with you always, to the end of time”?  We have within us the perseverance of one who knows eternal rejoicing.  Jesus Christ took on our humanness and knew our fears and trepidations.  He knew that we could lose sight of our identity through the “bite of an apple”.  With that He continued to turn His eyes to heaven and seek out His Father in prayer, thanksgiving, and lament.  We need only to trust in His firsthand understanding of what it is like to be here and deal with our day-to-day issues so that we may be strengthened in our vocational identity by the specialness of His love for us.

Take heart, my brothers and sisters in Christ.  We have been called by name and in that call we are being given the strength and wisdom to persevere through all that may come towards us.  Christ sends us with the directive that we do not need to fear anything, we just need to be cautious and loving.  The Holy Spirit will do the talking if we but open ourselves as a new wine skin to hold the wine of Truth.  Yes, we may be ostracized.  Yes, we may be fired.  Yes, we may have stones thrown at us be we will be right with our Lord for our eyes will be on the glory of our eternity.  So, with this, go out into the world and be as Christ to one another.  Be loving, respectful, inclusive, aware, prophetic, daring, and risky in your faith.  Do all of this knowing that you have a vocation in God’s plan.  You will be fed and clothed.  Your children will dance and sing within your increasing joy and will feel, with you, the blessings of our Father.  Pray for His direction in your life as you fill out your applications for employment.  Pray for His revelation as to “who you really are” as you hang your diploma on the wall.  Pray for Divine revelation and grow in seeing the world through God’s lens.  Then, may your day be nourished and affirmed as you make your way towards the evening hours and thanksgiving be on your lips as you fade into restful slumber in the arms of the One who loved you to His death.

GOD'S WILL BE DONE

Following the Will of God….These words flow sweetly off of my lips these days.  I have spent the last four years questioning, yearning, and following the Will of God.  I asked and He answered me.  Am I really telling you, dear reader, this?  The journey to get to this comfort level in which I can write these words to you has been a long and challenging one; one in which Satan has not wanted me to be successful at.  Years ago I would never even have considered letting my spiritual self out of the closet.  My mystical experiences, my compelling need to ask “why” to pretty much anything ,  the constant feeling that I was seeing situations from a place 30 steps away from others, and my intense love for God were gifts given to me to comfort myself with..were mine to explain my dissenting opinions with others…and were meant to inspire me to look more deeply into situations and discover the Hand of God as a personal revelation.

 Today, I find myself at another point on the journey, a journey that began with one charismatic minister asking me two questions:  1) Are you sure you are Catholic? and 2) How is God asking you to use your experiences to help others?  These questions came as part of my meeting with a “review” committee within the Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) method of learning.  It was a meeting set up by my CPE Supervisor to help me clarify my call into ministry.  I knew I was expected to respond as one is expected to respond at a dissertation, I suppose, by my immediate response was one of uncomfortable silence.  The moment was profound and I could “sense” that;  if I would just be a little more “authentically” me, the Wisdom of the moment would reveal itself.  I opened up my mouth to speak and very uncomfortably said to him that, yes, I was Catholic.  I have always “sensed” a very strong and intimate relationship with the Holy Spirit and (gulp)  I I always thought that my mystical experiences were just meant for me; that they were a gift for me to contemplate about and be comforted with in times of suffering.  I had never considered that they had been given to me to share with others. 

Opening myself up to the Will of God required that I “gird myself” and see Wisdom and Truth.  Who was I?  Why had I witnessed these “Holy” moments surrounding suffering and death?  What did God want me to do and how was I going to protect myself?  These were the questions that on occasion I would lay awake thinking about or would try and shove out of my consciousness as I was quietly fishing, waiting for the thrill of the bass strike.  God followed me everywhere.  I began to see Him in the eyes of my homeless clients.  I began to hear His words to me in the voices of my CPE brothers and sisters.  I would sing words of hymns at Mass like “Here I am Lord.  Is it I Lord?  I have heard you calling in the night.  I will go, Lord, if you lead me.  I will hold your people in my arms” and I would physically shiver.  The shiver seemed to be two-fold (remember the need to have the why always answered?).  I shivered with an anticipation of something to come and I shivered with a fear of un-totalled cost. 

At the time I was working at one of the local shelters and meeting with homeless men and women on a daily basis.  My soul, my spirit in the closet, was not comfortable with following “best practices” case management and began to knock on the door of my heart and murmur quite strongly on occasion, “Let me out”.  As time went on and clients kept coming, achieving, leaving, and returning I was caught in a dilemma…Did I still want to live a life of Truth or was I willing to knowingly say “no” to God.  It became quite a struggle between faith and fear.  I fought with the angel of God.  I knew with everything in me that the people who were sitting in front of me pouring out their life stories and timidly expressing their suffering and disappointments were sharing these things with me from a place deep within them that was yearning for human understanding; a connectedness that would give them hope and strength to live one more day in this manner.  Their stories of violence, abuse, rape, torture, lost loves, shame, addiction, as different as the color of their hair or the clothing that they wore, overwhelmed me.  There were moments of feeling successful and then they would return again to play the tape of the “story” one more time or to be turned away for lack of maintaining.  I tried to keep it somewhat superficial but God was knocking at the door.  He was calling to me to do the one thing I knew how to do…go deeper.  “Ask them about Me” He would beckon.  So I did.  Their responses were so remarkable that I was in awe.  I remember one hardened homeless gentleman perking up at the question of whether or not he considered himself to be a religious person and he said, sitting up straighter in his chair, “Oh yes. “  He then grabbed his backpack that he kept close to him and as he pulled out a picture of Jesus he said “I take Him with me wherever I go.  I even have a Bible in my tent down by the river, right by my bedroll.”  I didn’t know what to say next because the response was so unexpected.  Having learned that the breathless moments I had experienced before were called “Holy” in ministry I became aware that day that God was reaching out to me in the faith of this homeless man and I was meant to hear this.  That day I chose to open the door to the spiritual stirrings of my soul and continue to seek Truth and deal with fear.  I didn’t know what that meant but the decision was an “ahah” moment for me.  I sensed that the Will of God needed to be followed by me or my life would be less than it could be and those who I served would be denied the Presence of God moving through me to them.  I had the ability to help “heal” them by showing them love as my brothers and sisters in the midst of the messiness of their lives. 

This decision of mine led me into so many grace-filled, God moments that my cup overflows with them.  I think of sitting with this man or this woman holding each other’s hands and praying for relief of suffering, release of hatred, right ordering of shame, love of neighbor, forgiveness of naïve and limited understanding and I am filled with joy.  As much as I miss each and every one of them and I pray that God bring others into their lives who will also be intentionally following His Will I feel truly blessed and at peace with the work that I was given and that I said “yes” to.

SPIRITUAL DISCERNMENT

Have you ever thought what you would talk about if Jesus was sitting across the breakfast table from you?  In the movie, “Jesus of Nazareth” there is a scene where Jesus is sitting amidst the “sinners” at Matthew’s house and he is being asked some pretty direct questions while men and women are groping one another.  The director shows Jesus with his head facing towards the ground while the people are speaking to him.  When they are done, he raises his head and looks them directly in the eye.  Their facial features and demeanor take on a mixture of awe and fear.  Would Jesus at your table be a friend?  A judge?  A healer?  A prophet?  Your Savior? 

Spiritual Discernment has been a part of the tradition of the Church since the apostles gathered to pray and discern who would replace Judas within the twelve.  Throughout its history we can find discernment whenever there has been serious decision making.  The Church finds herself reaching out to God in a very formalized, sometimes ritualistic way to ask God to make Himself and His Will present to the assembly.  I see it in the light of the priests within the desert walking into the tent of the Lord and being in His Presence sensing and/or knowing their unworthiness and yet being drawn forth into an experience that is immersed in relationship. 

Most Catholics that I have known seem to think of the selection of the Pope as an example of discernment or St. Ignatius of Loyola and his Spiritual Exercises program that he used to do spiritual direction with enquiring students.  They do not see it as a way to enter into or go deeper into their relationship with God.  It really isn’t until they come up against some pretty difficult situations in their life that they feel they cannot seem to come up with the answer for that their instincts turn them towards the Almighty…a kind of last resort.

So…if I told you this morning, dear readers, that you can be with God, the Trinity, every day at your kitchen table able to talk about whatever is occurring in your life and what decisions you have to make and what experiences are making you anxious all because God is in love with you and He wants you to discover your love for Him, would you believe me?  Would you want this?  Would you want the Creator of the universe to laugh with you, to joke with you, to hold you, to tell you how He sees the “whole” picture?  Would you want Him to calm the waters of your anxiety?  Would you want Him to tell you how you are going to handle the flood waters this year or your continued unemployment?  How about whether or not your child would get well or your mother beat her current bout of cancer?  Would your husband or wife return to you?  How long would it take for you to spill out all the worries of your world letting the tears flow like the laments of the Psalms in the Presence of Your Creator.  I imagine Him sitting with his gaze on the table in front of Him letting you spill forth all that is human so that when you are through or exhausted He would lift up his eyes to you and calm the raging waters of your heart.  He would look directly into your eyes and for that moment everything would be at peace and you would feel the divine comfort that all humanity has searched for since Adam and Eve wanted to have the knowledge of God.

I have designed and offer a Spiritual Discernment program for St. Joseph’s Church in Moorhead, MN.  A few years ago God placed within my heart the desire to bring this experience of awe and love to others in a way that incorporates an element of the Divine and the clinical method of learning.  Those who have come affirm that it can be transforming.  Some have even discovered their Spiritual Gifts and have progressed to impact the Church.  I am only the vessel, the handmaiden who, like Matthew, opened myself and my life up to God and He brought such an experience of love and peace and wholeness that I could not return to what once was…woe to me if I did not follow through as minister on His behalf. 

So, this morning I invite you to think about Jesus at your kitchen table and what you would want to say to Him.  Feel free to write to me at the e-mail listed and let me know how you envision this experience.  Have a blessed day!