Dear Lost Soul,

You have been on my mind a lot these last few days. It is natural, I suppose, that I wonder who you are. But it is more than that.

I have been pondering who you are on the inside, i.e. what it is that led you to be so broken, so lost, so hurt inside that you would intrude into my world uninvited to take a couple things that you felt you needed.

I imagine you standing in the cold, pulling the screen off my bedroom window and hearing my security system blasting at you the warning that police were being called. Yet you did not run then, as most would, but kept on going.

When I imagine you heaving a 35 lb cinder block through my window, I can only imagine what kind of desperation or anger must have fueled that act. Are you hungry? Are you cold and tired of living on the streets? Is there a drug that is controlling your life and you cannot escape the unending cycles of relief followed by retching illness when you have to have more? Is there some bitterness or rage, like a cancer eating away at your soul?

Most people expect me to judge you. “Scumbag” and “Low life” are the words they have for people who do what you have done.

But who am I to judge you?

Surely your sin has affected me. My week was considerably more stressful because of your act. A window to be boarded up. Police and detectives to be met. Some of these meetings at 2:30 in the morning. The loss of the material things is a minor matter but leaves a sadness in my heart nonetheless. How many times have I written, “My camera and I…” (My beloved companion now rests in someone else’s hands.)

However, as much as your sin affects me and the world, my sin affects you and the world as well.

When I am selfish or proud, when I am self-absorbed or indifferent, it is quite possible that I have made your struggle through life that much harder. If not your life directly, by imitating the sin of Adam, I have undoubtedly helped perpetuate the consequences of that original sin.

I have separated all of us just that much more from the living God. Each of us is subject to corruption in body, mind and spirit because of my sin. We are one and what I do affects all others.

I am not letting you off the hook, of course, for your sin does the very same thing. I am just saying that perhaps this letter is written to me as much as it is written to you. We are both lost souls.

However, through no merit of my own, I have come to know our Savior. And so I know it is not hopeless for people like you and me.

Part of me is wishing that the few drops of blood you left behind on my carpet, beneath the shards of broken glass, will help us to find you. It is not that I want to punish you but rather that I want to help you stop. I fear that whatever has hold of you may be very hard for you to stop by yourself.

In any event, know that you are beloved of God and that I pray for you. May you too find our Savior so that whatever is wrong in you may be made right. I wish you many blessings on your journey.

Love,

Mary

(To those inclined to worry about me, please be assured that I am fine. I’ve been rather stressed but that will pass. And no, I’m not afraid and no, I don’t plan to move. 😉 These things happen.)

(alcohol inks on 6″ x 6″ tile)

Last night, after a session of meditative painting, I declared the above painting finished. Not because I thought it a great work of art but to save myself from fussing with it further. All week, I had been working on it, a little here, a little there. “It needs just a bit more orange here,” I’d think, and the next thing I knew it was again past my bedtime.

When I finally let go, I asked myself: why did you paint this image? And I discovered that I really didn’t know. Like most creative works, it evolved in the process of its birthing – yet there had been some conception of it in my mind long before I actually began the labor. Why?

In my puzzlement, I timidly asked God for a poem. It is only recently that I have dared to ask God for poems and I do so with a shy humility. I do not doubt that God has given me many poems in the past, but it is quite a different thing to ask for one.

Indeed, I have taken to asking God when I feel l might like to write a post or paint as well. “I would like to write for You (or paint for You), if You would like to give me something…” the prayer begins, accepting that God may have something else in mind and that all good gifts come from Him.

Before the poem came, I had thought I might simply post the image and invite readers to tell me if they saw any meaning in the painting. Why did this image push so hard to be born?

And so, I invite you, if you are inclined, to reflect. But it is not a Rorschach 🙂 and I know that the message to the painter may be unique and different than it is for each reader of the image. Whenever you are ready, the poem is below.

+++

so ancient the tree

standing timeless, eternal –

yet lush and youthful it is,

alive in the mystery

of each leaf’s unfolding.

deepening into summer,

yet bursting with spring,

unchanging it changes,

with hints of autumn gold.

all in one tree. all in one time.

its roots plunge down deeper,

unafraid of earth’s darkness.

its limbs extend skyward,

embracing high heaven.

it is strong. it is unshakable. it is victorious.

it is Christ, the Savior.

(p.s. the butterfly, of course, is me.

i must be near Him.)

+++

 If, dear reader, you found yourself shocked by the line, “it is Christ”, know that I was shocked even more. I know, of course, that I could never paint our glorious Lord.

And yet in the painting and the poem, in the process of their being born and now being shared, God has given me something for which I must thank Him.

To Him be glory always.

(Note: my Orthodox friends celebrated Theophany on January 6, whereas my Catholic friends and I celebrated Epiphany on January 4 and celebrate the Baptism of Christ tomorrow, January 11. May God manifest Himself in all of our hearts.)

This past week was an especially migrainous one for me. It began last Saturday when I was unable to wake up, my brain lost in a fog of compulsory somnolence. Because I was scheduled to work that morning, I struggled to pull out of the mental haze, first with cold water to the face, then with the usual morning prayer while sitting on the floor.

I knew I had lost the battle when I felt unable to remain upright on the floor. I called my patient to cancel, took some medication and allowed sleep to enfold me. A few hours later, I forced myself to get up. My head no longer hurt but, not having much energy or focus, I slogged through the rest of the day. And the next day. And the next.

As I started coming back to my self, I felt a bit of euphoria. How good life is! However, that night, stabbing pains assaulted my left leg, my brain wouldn’t stay asleep and the next day, yes, another migraine emerged. (With this alternate type of migraine, my brain decides that it cannot stay asleep for several consecutive nights.)

I am not writing all of this to complain. Not at all. I have been blessed far beyond anything I could possibly deserve and this little affliction is nothing compared to the burdens that others bear. Rather, I am writing to describe what almost seemed a plot to keep my spirit down during this most beautiful week of spiritual feast.

One of things that happens during migraine attacks is that my sensibilities are dulled, often from deep fatigue but sometimes just because. Hence, I can pray and I am just repeating words. I am dull before the Lord, if I even remember to bring myself before Him. I go through motions, wishing there was more but there isn’t.

One thing that I have learned in the process, though it has taken me some time to absorb the reality of it, is that how I feel at any given moment is of little or no significance.

And so, Theophany, Epiphany and related words have been with me throughout the week, even if my mind and heart seem as grey and cloudy as a Cleveland winter sky.

I am somewhat embarrassed to admit that it took my computer’s search engine to bring me to a deeper understanding – but it is true. I had not fully understood before why the baptism of Jesus was celebrated at the end of the Christmas season and how it might be associated with the Magi searching for the Christ Child.

Manifestation. It began with the Magi, travelers from foreign lands somehow knowing that there was a great King born. Something was revealed – but only hinted at. At the baptism, however, God reveals Himself as Triune: the Father’s voice is heard, proclaiming Jesus as the Son, and the Spirit is seen descending upon Him.

Divinity shines forth into our world at that moment in a way that it never has before. The waters of the Jordan do not make the Christ holy in baptism. Rather, He makes holy the water as this Truth is gratuitously poured out on humanity. “The Great Blessing of Water” in Orthodox tradition is a beautiful celebration that delivers this holiness to the homes of believers.

Often when I am in one of these periods of muddled mind, I become hyper-focused on a project that does not need to be done, keeping me distracted from both my discomforts and the responsibilities that feel like too much. During one such period this week, I recorded a Theophany story as related by St. Porphyrios in the book, Wounded by Love: The Life and Wisdom of Elder Porphyrios.

The love the shines forth in this story is a deep reminder that the One who has come into our world has come for every one of us, regardless of our state. There is no darkness too profound for His light, no plot that can block Him from the heart that calls to Him with even the tiniest of whispers.

Listen. And then, with me, whisper to Him your own prayer…

(In hopes that the copyright police will be lenient with me for using such a long quote, please consider this a brief book review. Wounded by Love is probably the best spiritual book I have ever read. It is full of warm humanity and interesting stories but most of all a deep love of Christ that is so profound and yet so humble that one cannot help but want to read the book over and over in hopes of absorbing even of fraction of the author’s holiness.)

Forgive me, dear reader, for imparting Scripture to you once again when I am sure you are quite capable of reading it on your own.

However, this passage from 1 John moved me in many directions at once as I read it aloud to myself this evening, hearing the words more fully than I would have had I read them silently. I needed to share it with someone.

I have always loved the writings of St. John, especially his Gospel and his first letter. In describing himself in his gospel as “the one whom Jesus loved”, John clearly felt very close to Him. I have often thought that everyone who encountered the Christ must have felt that he or she was “the one whom Jesus loved” – but perhaps only John had the courage to write of this experience so boldly.

As I read his letters, I imagine John as an old man, still longing to be sure that others understand the depth of this great love he has encountered, that his joy might be full in the sharing. He speaks as father (or grandfather) might to his children, with loving instruction and firm but gentle admonition.

What is so captivating about this passage is the rather poetic and enigmatic manner in which John tells us of God’s lavish love that has already made us His children, while at the same time informing us that anyone who sins has never seen or known God.

In the first movement, John has me rejoicing as child of the Father; in the second, I am panicking for I am a sinner who has never known Him.

John writes simultaneously of a hope that has not yet been revealed and of a hope fulfilled, of sin being abolished by Christ and of the need to purify ourselves. How can this be?

I am certainly not wise enough to explain it.* But it is true. As I live my life in history, I can only really conceptualize experience as what was before, what is now and what will be. I live in linear time.

John, the human being, was walking in linear time too when he wrote his letter. But he had also been given a glimpse into the eternal Now where all is accomplished, though appearing to the human eye to be unfinished.

Many when they hear of this notion imagine a pre-determined existence in which God is simply watching and waiting for the movie to play itself out until the end. Not so.

God doesn’t wait. In Christ, He entered time but became its Alpha and Omega, already its beginning and its end. As John wrote, “we shall see him as He really is” because God already is. None of His reality needs to move through time, to wait, to become.

His truth is always full and complete. His love is always full and complete.

Unchanging, He is. He has made us His children. He does not need to “wait” to see whether I will sin or make myself pure before He “decides”. His love is forever now and it is lavishly poured out upon us.

How could I not want to purify myself, “to try to be as pure as Christ”, in order to see the God who in my sinfulness I cannot yet see?

I do indeed “entertain this hope”. And so, once again, I take up the struggle, trusting all the while that I am His beloved child.

+++

* Fr. Stephen Freeman writes with much greater knowledge about this language of eschatology in a recent article on his blog, glory2godforallthings. 

In the last several years, a new tradition has developed in my life that has been profoundly meaningful.

I cannot really say that I began the tradition as much as that I was drawn into it and now it carries me in unplanned directions, much like a river winding its way unpredictably through the countryside.

I first learned of this practice, among many others, from Christine Valters Paintner, a Benedictine oblate at abbeyofthearts.com. As each New Year approaches, she invites her readers to choose a word (or allow a word to choose them) to ponder and “wrestle with” for spiritual growth in the coming year. This is intended to be similar to how people in the past, fleeing to the desert to seek God, would ask a spiritual Father (or Mother) for a word or phrase to guide them.

The first year I considered doing this, the word “yes” leapt out at me immediately, even though I wasn’t altogether sure what I was saying yes to. I knew, initially, that it was “yes” to a commitment to give of my self at a point when I felt I had nothing more to give. But I also sensed that there was much more to this “yes” – and, of course, there was.

The following year, the word “obedience” chose me. There is no way I was choosing that one for myself. But it clung to me until I assented – and I am so glad it did. This past year, 2014, “humility” naturally fell into place as a continuation of the theme and I obeyed with a bit less struggle.

One of the many interesting things about this process is that I have found that none of the words ever seem to let go at the end of their year – because, of course, I can never be finished with them. One deepens into the other, pulling me further and further into a process of transformation. I am not designing the transformation nor am I in control of it. I simply find myself continuing to say “yes”.

As 2014 started drawing to a close, I began to ponder what my next word might be. Several worthy candidates came to mind and I had almost chosen one – when a totally different word chose me.

It is hard to explain the experience of having a word “choose” you if you have not undergone this, but indeed it does happen. Though it might sound rather grand if I say that the word came to me in a dream, its appearance was more like a burr that gets stuck in your sock and keeps prickling until you pay attention to it.

In the dream, I was overhearing a brief conversation between two people and one of them said that he was “chastened” by Christ. That word has not left me alone since. And that is how I know it has chosen me, even though I certainly might have preferred one of the ones of my own consideration.

I seldom if ever encounter the word “chasten” in either my spiritual or secular circles. It has a bit of an antiquated sound to it, with some Biblical translations now rendering the word as “discipline” in its most famous passage (Hebrews 12:6):

“…for whom the Lord loves, he disciplines; he scourges every son he acknowledges.” (New American Bible Revise Edition)

vs.

“For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.” (King James Version)

In any event, whatever the translation, the meaning is disturbingly clear. I am to be chastened, disciplined. I must be.

Despite the Scriptural reassurance that it is done out of love, I must admit that I find the idea a bit frightening. And most likely it scares me because I still have considerable work to do with regard to obedience and humility. (The obedient and humble do not fear correction.)

How I love C.S. Lewis at moments like this! The Chronicles of Narnia are replete with images of a Lion who growled at minor infractions, had a long conversation with Edmund that he never forgot and painfully de-dragoned Eustace Scrubbs. These “chastenings” were never portrayed as comfortable in the least but who could have turned them down, coming as they did from Aslan?

Certainly not I.

Thus, I can only continue to say “yes” to the loving Father who wants to correct and discipline me, who wants to free me from all of my sin and brokenness, that I might be fully His.

And so, with the rest of the created world, my word and I stand at the threshold of 2015, pondering the year ahead with hope and trust.

   Squirrel pondering in my back yard this morning.

Tomorrow I return to Ohio. Despite much to do and sleep beckoning, there is something inside needing to be expressed before I leave Minnesota.

I came to here a week ago in order to spend Christmas with my mother and brother. It can be a wearing trip from Cleveland, despite the conveniences of modern travel, but I could not imagine going anywhere else but where my family is.

I do not need to travel to see my father anymore. Since his death 6 months ago, he is always near. However, not surprisingly, I sometimes find him even closer when I am here to see my mother…in my motel room, when I close my eyes at night…

When I was a young child, like most of that age, I loved Christmas for the excitement of opening presents, decorating the tree, playing special music and baking cookies. But especially the presents!

However, by the time I was an adolescent, I had become rather serious about faith and longed for more simple, Christ-centered celebrations.

Family traditions are solid structures, however. Christ was certainly in Christmas but everything else remained, much to my dismay at the time. (The gifts I gave did take on a rather unique flavor during this phase though, often being homemade or from fair-trade shops.)

Finally, perhaps a half dozen years ago or more, I proposed to the family that we let go of the gift exchange. We are a small family with no young children. We all had more than we needed in terms of material possessions. We could celebrate with cards, time together or small, homemade things. The motion passed, with only a little reluctance.

As the oldest generation ages its way toward heaven, this too has had an impact on the family experience of Christmas. We can no longer do what we once did and some can only be present in spirit.

Yet, for me, it is simple and beautiful, even if tinged with sadness.

This year, upon my arrival, I found my mother sick with what seemed to be a bad cold. As the days passed, she became sicker and sicker. It soon became apparent that some strain of influenza had taken over her 88 year old body and did not want to let go.

Because she was so sick, no one came over except my brother and me. She was unable to go to church, of course, and was even unable able to pray at some points, she told me, because she could not stay awake.

My brother’s family had a gathering a couple days after Christmas but, not wanting to leave her alone, I spent the day quietly in her apartment. She ate almost nothing and could remain awake for but 10-15 minutes before sleep overtook her again.

Today, she is a bit better, staying awake a little longer, eating a bit now and then and no longer feverish. Yet she is still very weak and frail in a way that I have never seen her.

Several years ago, I had a Christmas like that with my father, seeing him for the first time as an old man whose grip on this life was slipping away from him little by little. And there was nothing any of us could do about it.

Certainly there is no beauty in my mother’s suffering and illness. I would not wish that on anyone. But there has been a simplicity and beauty in the Christmas experience, despite her concerns that I wasn’t having any “fun” during this visit.

As my parents have entered the latter stages of their lives, I have been invited more and more deeply into the life of Christ, His body in this world. Christmas has become what I have longed for in a way that defies words.

This year, I live and pray with a sense of my father gazing upon Christ in glorious eternity.

This year, I grow closer to Him as I am given the privilege of sitting with my mother in one of her many times of trial.

All I want is to be with Christ.

And that has been given. Alleluia.

I sit in my motel room, late at night, having completed the day our culture calls “Christmas”. Of course, I should be sleeping.

But something tugs inside of me, longing to express the Truth that keeps revealing itself in the One who is simultaneously with us and sought by us, the One for whom we waited but was already here from the beginning…

The Word, the true Light, that enlightens everyone, that darkness will never overcome… The God that no one has ever seen, now revealed, grace upon grace, of whose fullness we have all received…

There is nothing of mine sufficient to express such a Truth. Of course there could not be – how could I imagine it otherwise?

And so I will sleep, leaving you with a wondrous image I was permitted to glimpse some two years ago, along with the words of John, a man who knew the Word intimately and testified to the Light…

It is late on Christmas eve… As each minute passes, the feast of Heaven and Earth draws closer, the feast that announces that God is with us.

What words or images could I possibly offer to express what this means – when I myself do not understand? Yet something in me longs to proclaim it. The beauty, the truth of it.

The Word was made flesh to live among us, to reveal the face of a loving Father always with us, intimately present in every moment of my life and yours.

Yet I hardly seem able to remember this for more than a few minutes at a time, if at all.

I am like one afflicted, so preoccupied by my disease that I forget the medicine I have been given. Or like one starving, too weak from hunger to remember to eat my food.

But He is here. He has come to be the medicine that heals me, the food that nourishes me back to life.

He has come to look for me when I am too lost, too weak, too preoccupied to look for Him. He wraps me in love, like an infant in the arms of its mother, until I am strong enough to walk along side of Him.

Having taken on flesh Himself, He has humbled Himself so as to feel my fears, to endure the humiliations and pains I experience because of sin. He is with me and He is with you, at each step and around every unexpected corner.

Through each step, in every sorrow and triumph, He gives me His heart to live in my heart. I begin to see. And believe. And know. His heart becomes my heart and my life becomes love.

And then I forget. I become like one afflicted, one starving…

And He comes looking for me again. No, I cannot say that. For He never left my side for a moment.

+

Emmanuel.

+

God is with us.

+

Alleluia.

(An image, rather than words, emerged to express both the gift and the longing…)

As I begin this venture of a new blog, a curious fear stalks me. The fear is not a new one but I thought I had left it behind. How silly of me.

I will confess it, here and now. I am afraid of comments. It doesn’t matter if it is a publicly posted comment or an offhand remark made in passing by a reader that I know personally. They scare me. (Thanks to the kind souls who got me started with comments, forcing me to face my fear.)

While it might seem logical that I would fear critical or controversial comments, I haven’t really thought much about them. My true terror seems irrational: I fear the positive comment, the one that pays me a compliment, the one that makes me feel good.

It is an odd sort of thing. In the course of my professional work, I encounter so many people who are starved for a positive word, an acknowledgment that they have done something well, that they have some value. To be criticized and demeaned from childhood has left them with very little sense of self. What self they have is often badly damaged or sadly immature. And here I am, seemingly so unappreciative of the kind words of others.

Yet it is not that I am unappreciative. It is that I am afraid.

I am afraid because I know that my problem is not low self esteem emanating from a damaged sense of self, but pride festering within a bloated ego.

I am so very thankful for God’s gifts to me, the “talents” He has entrusted to me as well as the loving parents who instilled in me a healthy sense of self. It is my sin that scares me, my weakness in the battle against the passions.

Until I was led to read and learn with the Orthodox a couple of years ago, I don’t think I had ever heard the term “passions” before. Conceptually similar in my Catholic upbringing were references to “the seven deadly sins”. However, despite 16 years of Catholic education, I don’t believe anyone ever explained to me their meaning.

My point is not to criticize the many religion and theology teachers I had over the years. Rather, what strikes me is how readily one can grow up within a devout family and participate in every church ritual with serious intent and miss learning something so essential to the Faith.

My only related memory was, as a child, reading a little book to prepare for confession – and it frightened me. I did not know what a “deadly sin” was and could only assume that it was worse than a regular sin. Hence, for years to come, I believed that I sinned (in a deadly way) when I felt good about myself for something I did well. That was my understanding of pride and it was my job to banish it.

Unfortunately, there was so much that little book did not teach me. It did not teach me that all the good that I do or accomplish is God’s gift and therefore it is my duty and joy to praise Him without ceasing. It did not teach me the beauty of holy humility, the emptying of self before God with complete knowledge of my utter helplessness and need.

Not that I would have understood this at that tender age. But what I did learn learn was to suppress my natural feelings out of fear and to substitute a humility that seemed false, a lie I was to tell myself. It seemed that I was to deny the positive data of my accomplishments so that I would not think too highly of myself.

At some point, the entire model became unsustainable, as the “deadly sins” of normal human feelings like pride (not to mention the really shameful ones, like anger and lust) demanded to be heard in my life. To survive emotionally, it became necessary to embrace my human self.

I came to realize that I was not so different from my patients who had damaged, immature or nearly absent selves. None of us can genuinely surrender our selves, even to God, if we do not first have a real self. For the abused, this may mean a period of extensive healing of old wounds and positive growth so that they can know who they truly are.

For me, healing has meant learning to discard the prideful and artificial sanctity of a self who works hard and follows the rules, thus thinking she owns whatever goodness is made manifest through her. I have been called to discover not who I am but what I am.

To discover that I am nothing before God but a helpless sinner is not easy for one such as me. It is not because it is demeaning. It is not. In fact, it is perhaps the most liberating and loving experience that there is.

It is difficult because the ego in me is always fighting it, not wanting it to be true, scrambling to find evidence of how good I am, how smart, talented or holy. And that is all smoke and mirrors for the truth.

For the truly holy know what they are. Mother Teresa in the Catholic community bore witness, “If you are humble, nothing will touch you, neither praise nor disgrace, because you know what you are.” Among the Orthodox, Elder Paisios knew very well that the many miracles occurring through him were God’s actions not his; he said of himself, “I’m a tin can shining in the sun – it looks like gold, but it’s empty.”

I am just beginning to know what I am. What I truly am, sinner before God, empty of any significance of my own.

And, in this newfound awareness, I am afraid that I will fall to temptation. But I must expect that of myself – because of what I am – and be prepared to repent and place my hope and trust in God’s unfailing mercy.

Therefore, I cannot take this little “talent” He has entrusted to me and bury it in the ground because I am afraid. Rather, I must step out from the darkness of my own corruption, share what He has given and trust in His healing Light.

Please pray with me and for me, as I pray for you, kind reader.