The "Thoughts of the Week" Collection

Truth in Silence

A quote from Thomas Merton, who died 40 years ago this past December 2008, one of several "giants" who left us in 1968 - including Bobby Kennedy and M L King, Jr.

“If there is no silence beyond and within the words of doctrine, there is no religion, only religious ideology. For religion goes beyond words and actions, and attains to the ultimate truth in silence. When this silence is lacking, where there are only the ‘many words’ and not the One Word, then there is much bustle and activity, but no peace, no deep thought, no understanding, no inner quiet. Where there is no peace, there is no light.”
-Thomas Merton

A la Carte Catholocism

"The term a la carte Catholicism has been used to denigrate those who pick and choose from the tradition, selecting only what nourishes, challenges, and heals them. On the other hand, nobody goes into a restaurant and chooses everything on the menu. One of the difficulties in Western religion in general is that we are inclined to take current manifestations of the tradition as the whole truth about the religion. I don’t think that is a responsible or honorable way to engage with a tradition. Tradition is to a community what memory is to the individual: a huge archive of knowledge that is tested over time. The questions of the human spirit are perennial, but they come in different forms at different moments in history; we shouldn’t equate contemporary, and often banal or inferior, manifestations of the tradition with the depth of the tradition itself. Sometimes the people who represent a religious tradition at a particular moment will masquerade as the absolute owners of the tradition, but they are not. They are only good or bad servants of the tradition. Although we might reject the faith’s current representatives, I don’t believe we can simply jump from one tradition to another. I can do Buddhist practice, but I cannot be a Buddhist. Nor can a Tibetan Buddhist come to Ireland and turn into a Catholic. It saddens me to see so many spiritually starved people in the West passing the great granaries of the Christian traditions on their way to some New Age or fundamentalist church, and not even looking in the doorways. When the grain is tested, as it is in the great traditions, you get true nourishment, not fast food."
-John O'Donohue

Advent and Christmas - the Season of radical ironies

"A bewildering pregnancy announcement; a virgin birth; a nativity born out of ‘no room for you’; the child surrounded by the undesirable; angels and shepherds together in light; a humble, simple God with outstretched hands in a manger, later at Calvary, embracing all; a mother’s response that God has lifted up the lowly and has filled the hungry with good things, while sending the rich away empty. And so today, as the hungry, and cold, and homeless watch so many, racing and anxious, immersed in the litany of purchase, whisper to themselves ‘there, but for the Grace of God go I’.” Another Christmas irony!
-Anonymous

Wisdom--the Greatest of All Treasures

"Many religious people think faith is about answers, but we may be remiss in this assumption. Scripture teaches us that we are to seek wisdom, that holy Sophia, not the certainty of easy answers. Faith is not passing a doctrine test; rather, faith is about the wisdom of God. Wisdom is a kind of knowing that probes the soul; it goes past answers, often raising more questions on our journey toward God than it resolves. The Jewish philosopher, Victor Frankel, referred to wisdom as “knowing penetrated by unknowing.” Yes, wisdom is elusive. Yet it is considered the greatest of all treasures, more precious than gold. Over and over, the Word directs us to seek, pursue, and chase wisdom. According to both ancient Hebrew and Christian traditions, wisdom has an active quality. Indeed, 50 years ago, the great writer Huston Smith pointed out that wisdom is the ethical life of God in the world. It is the living expression of justice, beauty, and love. Wisdom does not allow its children to sit contentedly in prayer closets, congratulating ourselves on how deeply we experience God. No, holy wisdom calls, pushes, directs, and compels every one of us to act on behalf of the great God of the universe and make shalom."
-Diana Butler Bass

Faith...

“Faith is the centerpiece of a connected life. It allows us to live by the grace of invisible strands. It is a belief in a wisdom superior to our own. Faith becomes a teacher in the absence of fact.”
-Terry Tempest Williams

Truly Holy

"St Benedict warns his monks not to wish to be called holy before one truly is. The irony of course is that by the time one is truly holy one will no longer want to be called holy. Or anything for that matter. As long as we are concerned that people should pay us 'honor,' think and speak well of us, we have a good test of the fact that we are still a way off."
-Fr. Laurence Freeman, OSB

Do You Want to Know God?

"Then learn to understand the weaknesses and imperfections of others. But how can you understand the weaknesses of others unless you understand your own? And how can you see the meaning of your own limitations until you have received mercy from God, by which you know yourself and Him? It is not sufficient to forgive others: we must forgive them with humility and compassion. If we forgive them without humility, our forgiveness is a mockery: it presupposes that we are better than they."
-Thomas Merton
No Man Is An Island. New York: Doubleday and Company, 1955: 163.

Listening in Silence

"Contemplation is essentially a listening in silence, an expectancy... In other words, the true contemplative is not the one who prepares his mind for a particular message that he wants or expects to hear, but who remains empty because he knows that he can never expect or anticipate the word that will transform his darkness into light. He does not even anticipate a special kind of transformation. He does not demand light instead of darkness. He waits on the Word of God in silence, and when he is 'answered,' it is not so much by a word that bursts into his silence. It is by his silence itself, suddenly, inexplicably revealing itself to him as a word of great power, full of the voice of God."
-Thomas Merton.

Prophetic Zeal

“The church must be reminded that it is not the master or the servant of the state, but rather the conscience of the state. It must be the guide and the critic of the state, and never its tool. If the church does not recapture its prophetic zeal, it will become an irrelevant social club without moral or spiritual authority.”
—MARTIN LUTHER KING JR.
Strength to Love, 1963.

Our Generation

“This is the duty of our generation as we enter the twenty-first century—solidarity with the weak, the persecuted, the lonely, the sick, and those in despair. It is expressed by the desire to give a noble and humanizing meaning to a community in which all members will define themselves not by their own identity but by that of others.”
-Elie Wiesel

A Person's Measure

"If we are worth anything, it is not because we have more money or more talent, or more human qualities. Insofar as we are worth anything, it is because we are grafted on to Christ's life, his cross and resurrection. That is a person's measure."
-Archbishop Oscar Romero

The Great Problem

"The great problem of our time is not to formulate clear answers to neat theoretical questions but to tackle the self-destructive alienation of man in a society dedicated in theory to human values and in practice to the pursuit of power for its own sake."
-Thomas Merton, OSCO

Genuine Peace

"What kind of a peace do we seek? Not a Pax Americana enforced on the world by American weapons of war. Not the peace of the grave or the security of the slave. I am talking about genuine peace, the kind of peace that makes life on earth worth living, and the kind that enables people and nations to grow, to hope, and to build a better life for their children--not merely peace for Americans but peace for all men and women, not merely peace in our time but peace in all time."
-John F. Kennedy, speaking at American University in Washington DC on June 10, 1963

The Big Wheel

Prayer is like a big wheel, turning towards God. The different spokes of the wheel represent different forms of prayer. So you have scripture reading, sacraments, the Mass, devotions, pilgrimages, many different schools of prayer—from the Jesuit Exercises (of St. Ignatius) to the charismatic praying in tongues. All these forms of prayer are valuable, even if not everyone is called to them all. However, all the spokes meet in the hub, and in that hub you will find the prayer of Christ.
-Laurence Freeman, OSB

Pure Religion

"Religion that is pure and undefiled before God and the Father is this: to care for orphans and widows in their affliction and to keep oneself unstained by the world."
-James 1:27

Mardi Gras

The phrase conjures images of drunken revelry and riotous carnality, tempered with a little voodoo carnivàle.
“Fat Tuesday” seems the antithesis of anything holy or sacred.

But its origins, of course, are in the Church’s season of Lent. Ash Wednesday is preceded by Fat Tuesday ("Mardi Gras" in French) which, historically, was a time to eat up all the rich foods—meat, butter, eggs—you would not be consuming during the Lenten fast. The word “carnival” literally means “farewell to meat”.

But what does it mean, I wonder, to "feast before the fast" when we are encouraged every day in this culture of excess to feast?

Our mindless gluttony, our promiscuous eating habits (we’ll eat anything, anywhere, anytime) are regarded matter-of-factly. If such habits are questioned at all it is usually from a medical point of view, not a theological one. After all—many rationalize—religion is about what we believe, not about what and how we eat. We know we shouldn’t eat so much but our cravings are just so hard to control.

The season of Lent stands in stark contrast to such thinking. Lent calls for fasting, prayer, penitence, self-examination, awareness of our mortality, simplicity of living, and a compassionate spirit toward the needy. Yet in an age when self-scrutiny is often mistaken for self-absorption, such a disposition is not easy to cultivate; such a contrast not easy to manifest.

Some of us will give up chocolate or cheeseburgers this Lent, and that may be a start. But without a sustained, honest reckoning of the bad habits, destructive impulses, and false desires that claim us, our addictions and pathologies, both great and small, easily remain intact.

The desert experience of Lent is a great gift and a risky one, too. We risk looking foolish in a world that promotes excess in all things; we risk the realization that we have misidentified our real needs and desires and what ultimately can satisfy them.

We risk, in short, our very transformation.
-Debra Dean Murphy

The Pastoral Planning Process--a Wonderful Example:

The Inspiration of Mass

“What I love most about being Catholic is the Mass. When I am aware of the Mass as a sending forth, I realize how powerful it is. Stick close to the Mass. Don’t let anyone or anything distract you from what it really is. Allow it to forgive you, to prepare you, to send you forth. Leave the church as if you had been shot out of a cannon, embrace your mission to make this a better world, and develop your own spirituality of work to sustain you.”

-Gregory Pierce

An Advent "Thought of the Season"

“I hate, I despise your festivals, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies.
Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them;
and the offerings of well-being of your fatted animals, I will not look upon.
Take away from me the noise of your songs; I will not listen to the melody of your harps.
But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.”
-Amos 5:21-24

A Jewish friend once told me that he never felt so alien in America as he did at Christmastime. I was in listening mode when he spoke, so I didn’t respond with what first came to mind, namely, “Me too, buddy, me too.”

Though the festival of consumption this economy designates as Christmas temporally corresponds to the Christian season of Advent – with a few days in November added on for maximal purchasing opportunity – that’s pretty much where the resemblance ends. I realize that some Christian traditions don’t observe Advent while the Orthodox keep the Nativity Fast (AKA Nativity Lent), but that’s a quibble. My point is the same – Christians might actually welcome the so-called War on Christmas if the season is really nothing more than one last chance to keep the retail sector afloat. Let us keep Christmas in our churches, families, soup kitchens and homeless shelters while Wal-Mart and Costco peddle alleged savings at the Winter Holiday. At least then, I’d have confirmation of what I already half-know – I’m alien in America.

But this December, there’s a double dose of alienation. The first real votes of the presidential primary season are less than a month away, and I’m barraged with non-debates, silly polls and quasi-religious posturing, complete with bizarre You Tube questions like “Which candidate believes every word of the King James Bible?," reminding me that American politics resembles the politics of the in-breaking kingdom the way retail Christmas resembles the Incarnation.

In the Catholic liturgical calendar, the last Sunday of Ordinary Time is celebrated as the Feast of Christ the King. It was introduced by Pius XI in 1925, with the horrors of World War I still fresh in European memory, to call Catholic Christians to invest their ultimate loyalties in Christ, not some lesser, earthly power. (If only German and Austrian Catholics had taken that to heart over the next twenty years!) While the Matthew reading from the lectionary for that Sunday is the Last Judgment (Chapter 25), Luke has Christ on the cross. It’s hardly the throne or podium any earthly king or president would choose to ascend. In a way, the feast helps November’s remembrance of the last things – death, judgment, heaven and hell – blend seamlessly into the hopeful waiting that is Advent’s hallmark. In Advent, everything is turned around as we simultaneously look forward to the end things and back to the birth of a peasant child in a provincial barn in an apparently godforsaken corner of the Empire. It’s that in-between and upside-down space Christians call their native land, and none of us has the power to get there any faster than life and God are already taking us.

-Brian E. Volck

Military Solutions...

For Christians, one lesson is clear: We must become more discerning when our nation's leaders advocate a military solution. We have biblical resources for doing so, if we will draw upon them.

In fall 2002 and winter 2003, before the United States invasion, many Christians and their leaders joined other Americans in supporting the President, who argued that Saddam Hussein posed such a danger to America that war was necessary to dislodge him. Of course, it is the most natural thing in the world for loyal citizens to support their leaders and rally around the flag when war is imminent.

Furthermore, many Christians believe it's not just natural, but also biblical. Many a war has been supported based on a reading of Romans 13 that says God-appointed government leaders are authorized to use the "sword" of state violence.

For believers who understand the passage this way, it means that we should trust and obey our leaders when they give the word.

But the events of the last several years can help us recognize that this strand of the biblical witness must be interwoven with other, equally important strands.

Here are some of them:

An appropriately pessimistic understanding of human nature ("there is none righteous, no, not one") can remind us that government leaders are not infallible in their reading of data, not necessarily beyond reproach in their motivations, and not always fully truthful in their public statements.

So we must evaluate the claims of any government (in any nation, led by any person, of any party or political ideology) with a critical eye.

Scripture repeatedly condemns governments and government leaders for unjust or unwise actions, especially in resorting to violence. Pharaoh, Ahab, and Herod come to mind. If it could happen in biblical times, it can happen now.

The life and teachings of Jesus establish nonviolent resolution of conflicts as the norm—with war as the exception. We can all agree that Jesus taught peace, blessed peacemakers, and was a man of peace himself. Certainly, the early church abhorred violence, and its members believed they were being faithful to their Lord in doing so.

For me, the next time I am asked to support a war, my default setting will be no rather than yes. As a follower of Christ, I will have to be persuaded that the particular confluence of circumstances is so grave as to require a military solution. Before Christians sign off on another war, we must do our best to figure out whether the government has done everything possible to make peace. And there are lots of good, creative options.

In addition, we need to carefully rethink just-war theory. At its best, this post-biblical resource establishes rigorous criteria that help Christians apply critical thinking to any claim that it is time to go to war: just cause, competent authority, last resort, right intention, proportionality, and other tests.

But sometimes just-war theory produces predetermined results depending on the prior loyalty of the person employing the theory. If we cannot reform how we use just-war theory, then we ought to abandon it and come up with something better.

When the Iraq war is over, we will need a time of national (and Christian) mourning and repentance. Whatever one thinks of the origins of the war, or what to do now, its cost in blood and treasure for both Iraq and the United States has been profound. We have seen (once again) the limits of what war can accomplish. Perhaps our sorrow can lead to a renewed commitment to the things that make for peace.

David P. Gushee
Adapted from an article in Christianity Today Magazine

A Veterans Day Unobserved...

Recently, Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury and spiritual head of the Church of England, reflected on the controversies that have engulfed the worldwide Anglican community in recent years.

"Every morning, I have an opportunity to remind myself that what matters is not the Church of England or the Anglican Communion but the act of God in Jesus Christ for the salvation of the world.

When I am inclined to think that the whole thing is falling apart and that I am making a more than usually bad job of it, the transforming thing has got to be, and in my experience always is, renewing a sense of gratitude.

Whether the Church of England survives or not, whether the Archbishop of Canterbury survives or not, Christ still died on the cross and rose again, and that’s enough to keep you going for quite a few lifetimes.”

These are challenging and encouraging words for any Christian. For Catholic Christians living in South Jersey, and in particular the parishioners of St. Stephen and other local parishes, these words serve as a reminder that, no matter what the outcome of parish and school restructuring, nothing can change what God has already accomplished for us.

When people say, "The world changed on September 11, 2001," Christians have to say "No, the world changed on 33 A.D." The question is how to narrate what happened on September 11, 2001 in light of what happened in 33 A.D. The sacrifice to end sacrifices was made by God through the sacrifice of his Son, and the ending of sacrifice means that we don't continue to sacrifice other people to make the world come out all right. Justice has been done. We've been given all the time in the world to announce that God would not have God's kingdom wrought through violence. That's good news. It's hard news, but it's good news.

-Stanley Hauerwas

A church that does not provoke any crises, preach a gospel that does not unsettle, proclaim a word of God that does not get under anyone's skin, or a word of God that does not touch the real sin of a society in which it is being proclaimed: what kind of Gospel is that?

-Archbishop Oscar Romero, Martyred March 24, 1980

"All creation is an immense sacrament. All created things are signs of God that we decipher in order to find our way to God. The medieval Franciscan theologian Saint Bonaventure put it this way: Every creature is a word of God. Verbum Divinum est omnis creatura. This is so because the Word, the second person of the Blessed Trinity, becomes one with all of creation in the incarnate Christ."

-Murray Bodo, O.F.M.

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.

We ask ourselves: ‘Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?’ Actually, who are we not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightening about shrinking, so that other people won’t feel unsure around you.

We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It is not just in some of us; it is in everyone. And as we let our light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear; our presence automatically liberates others.

-Nelson Mandela

Christ to shield me today
Against poison, against burning,
Against drowning, against wounding,
So that there may come to me 
abundance of reward.
Christ with me, Christ before me, 
Christ behind me,
Christ in me, Christ beneath me, 
Christ above me,
Christ on my right, Christ on my left,
Christ when I lie down, 
Christ when I sit down, Christ when I arise,
Christ in the heart of every person 
who thinks of me,
Christ in the mouth of everyone 
who speaks of me,
Christ in every eye that sees me,
Christ in every ear that hears me.

-From the verse known as 
"St. Patrick's Breastplate." 

"To be grateful is to recognize the Love of God in everything He has given us -- and He has given us everything. Every breath we draw is a gift of His love, every moment of existence is a grace, for it brings with it immense graces from Him. Gratitude therefore takes nothing for granted, is never unresponsive, is constantly awakening to new wonder and to praise of the goodness of God. For the grateful person knows that God is good, not by hearsay but by experience. And that is what makes all the difference."

-Thomas Merton

Prayer leads you to see new paths and to hear new melodies in the air. Prayer is the breath of your life which gives you freedom to go and stay where you wish and to find the many signs which point out the way to a new land.

Praying is not simply some necessary compartment in the daily schedule of a Christian or a source of support in time of need, nor is it restricted to Sunday morning or a as a frame to surround mealtimes. Praying is living.

-Fr. Henri Nouwen

Blessed John XXIII's "Decalogue for Daily Living:"

1) Only for today, I will seek to live the livelong day positively without 
wishing to solve the problems of my life all at once.

2) Only for today, I will take the greatest care of my appearance: 
I will dress modestly; I will not raise my voice; I will be courteous in my behavior; 
I will not criticize anyone; I will not claim to improve 
or to discipline anyone except myself.

3) Only for today, I will be happy in the certainty that I was created to be happy, 
not only in the other world but also in this one.

4) Only for today, I will adapt to circumstances, 
without requiring all circumstances to be adapted to my own wishes.

5) Only for today, I will devote 10 minutes of my time to some good reading, 
remembering that just as food is necessary to the life of the body, 
so good reading is necessary to the life of the soul.

6) Only for today, I will do one good deed and not tell anyone about it.

7) Only for today, I will do at least one thing I do not like doing; 
and if my feelings are hurt, I will make sure that no one notices.

8) Only for today, I will make a plan for myself: I may not follow it to the letter, 
but I will make it. And I will be on guard against two evils: 
hastiness and indecision.

9) Only for today, I will firmly believe, despite appearances, 
that the good Providence of God cares for me as no one else who exists in this world

10) Only for today, I will have no fears. In particular, I will not be afraid 
to enjoy what is beautiful and to believe in goodness. Indeed, for 12 hours, 
I can certainly do what might cause me consternation were 
I to believe I had to do it all my life.

For generations the church has been polarized between those who see the main task being the saving of souls for heaven and the nurturing of those souls through the valley of this dark world, on the one hand, and on the other hand those who see the task of improving the lot of human beings and the world, rescuing the poor from their misery.

The longer that I've wrestled with what the early Christians were actually talking about, the more it's been borne in on me that that distinction is one that we modern Westerners bring to the text rather than finding in the text. Because the great emphasis in the New Testament is that the gospel is not how to escape the world; the gospel is that the crucified and risen Jesus is the Lord of the world. And that his death and Resurrection transform the world, and that transformation can happen to you.

You, in turn, can be part of the transforming work. That draws together what we traditionally called evangelism, bringing people to the point where they come to know God in Christ for themselves, with working for God's kingdom on earth as it is in heaven.

That has always been at the heart of the Lord's Prayer, and how we've managed for years to say the Lord's Prayer without realizing that Jesus really meant it is very curious. Our Western culture since the 18th century has made a virtue of separating out religion from real life, or faith from politics. When I lecture about this, people will pop up and say, "Surely Jesus said my kingdom is not of this world."

And the answer is no, what Jesus said in John 18 is, "My kingdom is not from this world." It's quite clear in the text that Jesus' kingdom doesn't start with this world. It isn't a worldly kingdom, but it is for this world. It's from somewhere else, but it's for this world.

-N. T. Wright,
Anglican Bishop of Durham, England

Recently we marked one of my favorite days in the liturgical year, the Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. For 47, I guess I'm old fashioned, but I love everything about that image. In recent years, however, I've begun to wonder: What are the social, economic and political implications of the Sacred Heart of Jesus?

That question, I believe, can lead us to a whole new world of love, compassion, forgiveness, nonviolence and justice, to our own disarmed, sacred hearts. Some people like the image of the Sacred Heart because it projects a safe, non-threatening God. It demonstrates the enormity of God's love for humanity, and calls us to disarm our own hearts that we too might be gentle, nonviolent, compassionate and perpetually loving.

I figure most people tend to forget that this gentle Jesus also denounced injustice, turned over the tables in the Temple, and was arrested, jailed, tortured and executed. But there's even more to the story. On December 29, 1673, when Jesus appeared to St. Margaret Mary Alacoque, he said: "My divine heart is so impassioned with love for humanity, it cannot contain the flames of its burning charity inside. It must spread them through you and show itself to humanity so that they may be enriched by the previous treasures that I share with you, treasures which have all the sanctifying and saving graces needed to draw them back from the abyss of destruction."

The abyss of destruction? Poor Margaret Mary probably didn't have a clue about what Jesus was talking about, but we sure do. Today we stand at the brink of unprecedented global destruction, global warming and global violence. This violence pushes us personally and internationally ever closer to the abyss of destruction, but the grace of the Sacred Heart -- with all its burning social, economic and political implications -- has the power to convert us into people of Gospel nonviolence, pull us back from the brink, and create a new world of peace with justice. The Sacred Heart of Jesus is our way out of the madness of war, violence and injustice.

But who thinks of the "abyss of destruction" in light of the Sacred Heart of Jesus? If we were to adopt the image of the Sacred Heart of Jesus as our image of a nonviolent, peacemaking God, and live not just individually but communally, nationally and globally according to that nonviolent, radiant love, the world would be disarmed.

The image of the Sacred Heart invites us to practice universal love, eternal forgiveness, infinite compassion, active nonviolence and perfect peace. That means, among other things, we can no longer support killing, injustice, war, or any kind of violence.

It means further that we must live out a new ethic and create new nonviolent structures that institutionalize nonviolent love, dignity and peace for every human being on the planet.

The heart of God beats on with a disarming, global love awaiting our response, inviting us back from the abyss of destruction. The proof of our serious acceptance of this divine love will be nothing less than feeding the hungry, housing the homeless, educating all children in the methods of nonviolence, guaranteeing free healthcare to all, cleaning up the earth, ending our wars, dismantling our weapons, and sharing our resources equally. The Sacred Heart cancels out all violence. It offers perfect nonviolence.

To honor it is to worship a God of nonviolence, to welcome that disarming love and to practice that same loving, universal nonviolence. If we dare live in that nonviolent love of Jesus, and unpack its social, economic and political implications for ourselves and the world, we will become instruments that help lead humanity back from the abyss of destruction. Nothing is more important.

-John Dear, SJ

"Covenant" by Sr. Margaret Halaska

The Father knocks at my door, seeking a home for his son: 
Rent is cheap, I say.

I don't want to rent. I want to buy, says God.

I'm not sure I want to sell,
but you might come in to look around.

I think I will, says God.

I might let you have a room or two.

I like it, says God. I'll take the two.
You might decide to give me more some day.
I can wait, says God.

I'd like to give you more, but it's a bit difficult. 
I need some space for me.

I know, says God, but I'll wait. I like what I see.

Hmm, maybe I can let you have another room.
I really don't need that much.

Thanks, says God, I'll take it. I like what I see.

I'd like to give you the whole house but I'm not sure -

Think on it, says God. I wouldn't put you out.
Your house would be mine and my son would live in it.

You'd have more space than you'd ever had before. 
I don't understand at all.

I know, says God, but I can't tell you about that.
You'll have to discover it for yourself. 
That can only happen if you let him have the whole house.

A bit risky, I say.

Yes, says God, but try me.

I'm not sure - I'll let you know.

I can wait, says God. I like what I see.

Reverence in Church:

There are many misunderstandings about prayer. For many, prayer is talking to God, sometimes with a great list of requests and needs, sort of like childrens' Christmas lists mailed to Santa Claus. But, at least for me, prayer is more often becoming a time of listening than talking.

There is so much noise in our world and our lives (much of our own making); prayer becomes a quiet space enabling us to stop talking long enough to see what God might be trying to say to us. The disciplines of prayer, silence, and contemplation practices by the monastics and mystics are precisely that by stopping the noise, slowing down, and becoming still, so that God can break through all our activity and noise in order to speak to us. Prayer serves to put all the parts of our lives in God's presence, reminding us of how holy our humanity really is.

And also for us, prayer is the act of reclaiming our identity as the children of God; it declares who we are and to whom we belong. The action of prayer places us outside the realm of the powers and principalities. As prayer declares our true identity, it destroys our false identities. In prayer we act upon who we really are, and thus prayer has the effect of diminishing the illusions that have controlled us, and helping us remember what is really true. Prayer allows us to step out of our traps and find ourselves again in God.

Contemplative writer and priest Henri Nouwen once shared that the desert fathers regarded prayer as an act of "unhooking" from the harness of the world's securities. Such prayer may be the only action powerful enough to free us from our spiritual bondage to property, money, power, ideas, and causes, which often control our behavior.

Only those who have truly found their identity in God can resist the violent tugs and pulls of the false values offered by the world. By re-establishing our security in God, prayer becomes an effective weapon in resisting the world's false securities. Prayer changes our frame of reference; it is not merely a preparation for action.

Prayer must be understood as an action in itself, a potent political weapon to be used in spiritual warfare against the most powerful forces of the world. Prayer is not undertaken in place of other actions; it is the foundation for all the other actions we take.

I recall the way Archbishop Desmond Tutu would pray in South Africa, during the apartheid era. His prayers constantly affirmed God's power over the claims of the state, and that was a threat to their power.

And prayer, in recognizing God's authority over the evil powers, moves us beyond opposition to affirmation, and beyond resistance to celebration. Thus prayer and the results of prayer can be the most revolutionary of acts.

The powers that be in this world are aware of this and that is why they consider those who pray in this way to be a threat.

-Jim Wallis

"Most of what we do in worldly life is geared toward our staying dry, looking good, not going under. But in baptism, in lakes and rain and tanks and fonts, you agree to do something that's a little sloppy because at the same time it's also holy, and absurd. It's about surrender, giving in to all those things we can't control; it's a willingness to let go of balance and decorum and get drenched."

-Anne Lamott

Earlier this week, I was speaking to a group of Methodist ministers and we sang the Christmas carol "Joy to the World." Two moments in the song took my breath away.

The first came when I sang "let every heart prepare him room." If the carol is right, the way earth receives God's "prince of peace" is through individual hearts like ours. By making space, by opening our hearts to Christ, by letting our lives be the stable and manger into which good news quietly comes, by rendering the vacuum and vacancy within us vulnerable to the incoming of the Spirit ... we become, like Mary, "theotokos" - God-bearers. That might sound kind of mystical, not political, and I guess it is.

It is something that I believe we all can actually experience: the possibility of preparing room in our hearts so that Christ truly comes. That brings me to the second transcendent moment in the carol for me this week: "No more let sin and sorrows grow, nor thorns infest the ground. He comes to make his blessings flow far as the curse is found."

The coming of a good king in the ancient world meant a lot, and although kingly language may sound archaic today, I think we can recapture its meaning when we think of a thorny land, polluted by sin and cursed by sorrow, becoming verdant and fertile and healthy again - blessedness flowing over the land like a warm breeze.

And of course, this is where the personal and political meet. Thinking about justice, talking about peace, debating public policy, and working for social change are important ... but not as a substitute for the very personal choice to "prepare him room" in our hearts, so that (as the saying goes) we can be the change we want to see in the world.

The way "earth receives her king" (and the blessings he brings) is not by bombs and guns and wiretaps and coups; not by aggressive blog postings or passionate media pronouncements by pundits. Rather, the king (and the kingdom) come first to the quiet hearts of humble people who "prepare him room," and the joy flows to the world through them.

That's the language of spiritual formation, no doubt. But how can there be political transformation in the external world of thorns, sins, and sorrow if our inner lives don't become the manger into which hope, healing, empowerment, love, and joy are born?

What happens in the political realm - in the public world where people treat one another justly or unjustly, peacefully or violently, as neighbors or as enemies - can never be separated from what happens in the personal realm. And the reverse is true, too.

- Brian McLaren

"Many religious folks insist on answers that are always true. We love closure, resolution and clarity, while thinking that we are people of "faith"! How strange that the very word "faith" has come to mean its exact opposite.

People who have really met the Holy are always humble. It's the people who don't know who usually pretend that they do. People who've had any genuine spiritual experience always know they don't know.

They are utterly humbled before mystery. They are in awe before the abyss of it all, in wonder at eternity and depth, and a Love, which is incomprehensible to the mind. It is a litmus test for authentic God experience, and is -- quite sadly -- absent from much of our religious conversation today."

-Fr. Richard Rohr