"Preparized"

In the 1^st book of Samuel (1 Sm 1: 24-28) we are whisked back to the generation immediately preceding the birth and kingship of David. There is no temple for Israel.  But there is a sanctuary for Israel’s worship at a place called Shiloh in the hill country some miles north of Jerusalem. 

The sanctuary was the resting place for the Ark of the Covenant which was the visible proof of God’s presence with His people. Eli was the chief priest of the sanctuary. Living in the sanctuary was a boy named Samuel whose birth was in answer to a special prayer of his childless mother, Hannah.  In gratitude to God for giving her a son she dedicated him to the exclusive service of God. 

(He was later to emerge as a key figure in the rise of King David and thus in the entire history of salvation.) 

In Shiloh he was raised by the priest Eli himself and prepared himself to be a follower of the most high God. Samuel assisted daily at the altar, he read and became familiar with the sacred writings, and he got the best religious formation available. Yet when the word of God came to him personally, he became confused, because his heart had not yet been made tender by a personal experience with God. He wasn’t Preparized   

Each time God called Samuel he thought that it was Eli. (1 Sm 3: 1-18) It was not until Eli directed him on what to do that he finally succeeded in establishing a connection with God. His heart was made tender so that he could hear God’s voice.  He was Preparized 
A Prepared mind and soul with a heart tenderized by God’s holy word. Preparized

However we must ask this question; why didn’t God just come to Samuel and say: “Samuel! Samuel! It is I the Lord, your God. Now listen up?” Why did God speak to Samuel in a voice that could be confused  for Eli’s? 

It seems as if God speaks to us in ways that often can be heard in our neighbors and friends, brothers and sisters, children and parents, husbands and wives. God’s voice can come to us in everyone if we listen closely enough, If we are Preparized. That is why we need one another. We need one another so that we can begin to be prepared by listening to and hearing God's voice in those we love and those we have yet to love.

The theme of preparation and listening to God is evident in Christ's call of the disciples. Andrew and John had followed John the Baptist as a way of preparing for the One who was to come. For years they had prayed and fasted and waited for the joy of meeting the Messiah. Yet when they finally came face to face with the Messiah himself, they could not recognize him. (Jn 1:35-40)

Again it took the guidance of the familiar voice of John for them to recognize the Messiah. These followers of John the Baptist had a divine call to become disciples of Jesus. But they could not discover what divine providence had in store for them until they had a change in their heart made tender by Christ, the word of God made flesh. There will always people in our community like Eli and prophets like John to point out Christ to us and to help us discern what God is saying to us in our lives as individuals and as a people.

It is not easy to be tender of heart, sometimes the truth that we hear is too hard to accept. The other day a person very close to me brought a DVD to our house to watch. But it was a bootleg copy. I could not watch it. If I did I would have been as wrong as the people who taped it, copied it, sold it, and bought it. That is the truth, and no justification that everyone does it will make it right.

“What are you looking for”?  This question reflects Jesus’ first words that He spoke in John’s gospel.  Jesus originally spoke these words to His disciples, but He also speaks these very words to us. What are you looking for? Generally we tend to think that we should be asking, what does God want from us, what is he looking for? But no, he also wants to know what we want. The answer to that question is less for his benefit than for ours. Our answer tells us what our real priorities are, both toward God and the people around the world. What do we really want from life and from God? It is not such an easy question to answer - it is easy to be superficial or flippant - but it tells us where we really are. And it is a question we will have to answer at different stages in our life as circumstances change. 

Another question by the disciples but also an answer to Jesus' query: "Teacher, where are you staying?". In other words they are asking, "Jesus, where are you to be found? Where are we to go to find you, to be with you? Where in our lives do we encounter you?" If that were to be OUR answer to Jesus' question, "What do you want?", or as Samuel said: “Speak Lord your servant is listening.” we would be doing very well

Now Jesus answers their question: "Come and see." Knowing Jesus and where he stays is not primarily a matter of intellectual knowledge. It is not a matter of information. It is not a question of knowing all theology, dogmatic and moral, nor is it a question of being an expert in all the teaching and the rules of the Church: Pharisees of all times are good at that. Knowing Jesus is a matter of experience. One could know the new Catechism of the Catholic Church, all 700 pages of it, by heart and still not know Jesus. To know him in the Gospel sense is to seek, find and respond to his loving presence in the fabric of our daily lives.

It comes from taking a plunge, trying out the teaching of Jesus even when it seems to go against what most people think to love unconditionally, to forgive, to turn the other cheek, to carry one's cross after Jesus, to suffer abuse and persecution for being his follower...

Come and see, that is the way to follow, there is no other way. The two disciples accept the invitation. They do go and stay where Jesus stays and do so for the rest of that day. And what was the result of staying with Jesus? One of the two, Andrew, became not only a committed follower but an evangelizer - the two cannot be separated. He immediately went in great excitement and found his brother, Simon, and told him, "We have found the Messiah!" And thus Simon became Peter and also a follower, an apostle and the leader of the new community.

It is important to note that Peter, in spite of his future important role, was not called directly by Jesus but through his brother. And that happens again and again. Everyone, including the greatest saints, were called by another, often lesser, person and brought to Christ.

Each one of us is led to the love of Jesus by other people. To me, all of us are looking for the one basic truth that only God can give us—love—true love--unconditional love. 
We want a love that will last forever and will never let us down.  We’re looking for a love that will never cheat on us or deceive us or frustrate us.  We want a love that will fulfill the deepest longings of our heart and mind and soul. That is what we are looking for.  That is what we all yearn for.  That is what every one of us, whether they are aware of it or not, needs. Love, true love, God-like love. It is only God’s love that can tenderize us.

Considering Thoughts

I have yet to fully recover from what God has called me to. I remain struck by the enormity of the task and the weakness I feel in my spirit. And yet I continue this harrowing journey believing fully well that it is He who has written this pathway in my heart. Indeed, I am filled with overwhelming joy and awe that I dare to believe He believes in me. All the while, the why's and how's and of course the why me's, rattle around in this fragile faith that inhabits my timid soul. But because I have yet to fully recover from what God has called me to, I shout and rejoice at full throttle for what other response can be expected from a lowly soul such as mine.

Dare I ask you to join with me? Or have you recovered from His call?

Oh, by the way dear Lord, may I never recover.

Rags to Riches to Enriched

“The word of God is living and effective,…
penetrating even between soul and spirit, joints and marrow,
…able to discern reflections and thoughts of the heart.
No creature is concealed from him.” Heb 4:12-13

This small part of the letter written to the Hebrews is deeply revealing and powerfully truthful. For it teaches us, it enlightens us to the nature of God. That nature is love, complete and profound love, a love so total that our God watches our every motion and knows our every notion. If we ponder this very small verse of the letter to the Hebrews and use that as our lens, it reveals why and how Christ viewed the rich young man and by inference you and I in Mark's Gospel chapter 10.

The obvious thing we see in Jesus’ response to the young man:

“Jesus, looking at him, and loved him and said to him,
You are lacking in one thing.”

Christ’s immediate reaction is love and the desire to help and guide this young faulty follower.  And yet what Jesus told him something was too difficult for the young man to do.

As I reflected on this scriptural passage I realized that often it is easy to put myself into the place of those I read about in the bible, It’s easy for me to believe that I would respond differently to Jesus. It is easy for me to believe that I would follow him if He stood before me, looked into my eyes and asked me to abandon all that I've worked for to follow Him. Yes it is easy to say that, it’s easy to believe that this would be my answer…

Yet there remains the truth…He is…. Jesus is asking me to follow Him, He asks me every day, He asks me every moment to abandon my riches and follow Him. But let’s be very clear about something. He asks all of us to do the same... But the question is What are our riches, what denotes for us that one thing that we unknowingly or knowingly cling to, that thing we cannot give up, cannot abandon, cannot abandon even for Jesus? Whatever that one thing might be, the only thing that can penetrate our selfish desires is faith. Without faith we cling to the world…But with faith we cling to Jesus.

What is that one thing, for you? What is it that you are unwilling to give up for Jesus? For some of us it is power… some, wealth; some, the unwillingness to forgive; some, peer pressure; some, self-righteousness.

For each of us there is a stumbling block or two that stands directly between ourselves and our ability to surrender ourselves completely to Him. There is a very symbolic tale that goes something like this:

Hunters of monkeys in the Amazon have a clever way of trapping monkeys. They slice a coconut in two, hollow it out, and in one half of the shell cut a hole just big enough for a monkey's hand to pass through. Then they place an orange in the other coconut half before fastening together the two halves of the coconut shell. Finally, they secure the coconut to a tree with a rope, and wait. Sooner or later, an unsuspecting monkey swings by, smells the orange, and discovers its location inside the coconut. The monkey then slips its hand through the small hole, grasps the orange, and

tries to pull it through the hole. Of course, the orange won't come out; it's too big for the hole. To no avail the persistent monkey continues to pull and pull, never realizing the danger it is in. While the monkey struggles with the orange, the hunters approach and capture the monkey by throwing a net over it. And as long as the monkey keeps its fist tightly wrapped around the orange, it is trapped. The only way the monkey could save its life is to let go of the orange and flee.

This system works because the monkey is unwilling to let go of what it has clutched in its fist, yet it cannot have both the orange and its freedom. Even when the monkey sees the hunters approaching, it does not let go of the orange and escape, but jumps around screaming making every effort to escape yet it never releases the orange.

The monkey is entrapped by its own unwillingness to abandon what it desires so deeply, the monkey looses its freedom, sometimes its life, for the sake of a possession. I can imagine the monkey saying its last prayers as it sees the hunters coming.

 “Save me, Lord save me; please save me. I believe you have given me this orange, help me to keep it and my freedom too.” 

A good example is the rich young man in Mark’s gospel Chapter 10 vs 17:30 whose prayer probably was: “Give me eternal life, O Lord; only do not ask me to give up my wealth.”

If you love animals and see the monkey struggling to get the orange while the hunters are closing in on it, what would you do? You would probably shout to the monkey to abandon the stupid orange and run for dear life.

 

This is exactly what Jesus does to the rich young man. He sees the man in danger of losing himself in his wealth, he sees him losing eternal life all because of what he desired.

So he calls on him to give up the thing, that one thing that separates him from God and save his life. But the man is unable to do that.

But why did Jesus ask him to do this?  Let’s look at that reading from the letter to Hebrews again: 

“The word of God is living and effective,…penetrating even between soul and spirit, joints and marrow,…able to discern reflections and thoughts of the heart. No creature is concealed from him.”

By keeping this reading in mind we then listen to Mark’s Gospel tells us that:

“Jesus looked at him and loved him” 

He knew the heart of the young man. He knew there was something that separated him from God and wanted to shout “Let Go, Let Go! Just let go and enjoy eternal life.”

The teachings and directives of Jesus often seem difficult and perplexing but in the end it is to His will, His comfort that we are asked to surrender.

 The road we travel to follow God is rarely easy, yet it is always right, and I have no fast, quick, simple lose thirty pounds in thirty days answer, other than it is his way or the wrong way.

But what keeps me trying to follow Him is that, I know he loves me greater than I love myself… I know he knows me far better than I know myself. I know he knows what is best for me, and to this I can surrender, to this I can abandon my desires, to embrace his desires for me.

And so here we are, for what I have written is for you too. He loves you far greater than you can love yourself, He knows you far better than you know yourself. He knows what is best for you…it is for Him you are to abandon all that you have … to find all that he wants you to be…

Through My Brothers' Eyes (continued 2)

I looked at the kids and the lady in the blue dress with the disgusted look on her face and wondered, “How on earth can I fit in?” They all looked at me; I was in their territory. I was the outsider, the new kid, and everyone knew it. I guess we’ll see, ma’am.” I said, finally finding my voice and hoping it sounded more confident than I actually was.

Again she smiled. With her stare still fixed on me, she said to one of the kids watching the little drama, “Langston, come up here and help Mr. Miller find a seat.”

I heard  footsteps as someone  walked toward me. I was still looking at the lady in the blue dress, like some poor animal stuck in the lights of an on-rushing truck who knew its own doom was coming directly at it. I could not move. I was stuck in the twilight zone, unable to stop staring at her. I was transfixed until I felt someone tugging at my sleeve.

“C’mon. Hey, c’mon.” I was shaken back to the moment. No longer paralyzed, I turned and looked at the boy who had tugged on my shirt. Unlike the rest of the class, he was the same color as me. He was a Negro, and about my height, which was short. I mumbled something unintelligible and allowed him to guide me to the back of the classroom; I noticed there were several empty seats there, while all the rest of the desks in the room were occupied.

“Hi,” I mumbled to him as we maneuvered through the rows of desks to the back of the class. He didn’t respond but kept walking just in front of me. About two-thirds of the way to the empty desks he slowed down and stared at a rather large kid, a large white kid. He turned and glanced back at me, shot a look at the big white kid again, then looked back at me and quickly stepped past him, almost hopping. This little episode took only a split second, but I got it. Just as I was about to walk past the big white kid, the boy suddenly stuck his foot out. Had Langston not warned me, I would have tripped and fallen right there, right on my face in front of everyone. Fortunately for me that didn’t happen. I skipped over his foot just as he stuck it out. I didn’t bother to look at him; I just kept walking, following Langston.

When we reached the back of the room Langston nodded toward a desk just in front of him. I returned the nod and quickly sat down at the empty desk, noticing that no one sat next to me or him. Sitting  at my new desk I sighed and then realized everyone in the room was staring at me, all those faces seemingly floating in front of me watching, staring, including the face of the lady in the blue dress. They had all seen the dramatic little scene unfold and I wondered about their thoughts. I knew I was being sized up; I realized it instinctively. I thought to myself, I may be the new kid, but I am not a dummy. I hope they realized that.”

As they  turned around to face the front of the room, and the lady in the blue dress was again busy at her desk,  I heard a voice:

“That big kid, the one that tried to trip you, his name’s Jerry. He’s tough. Be careful. You’ll see him at recess rough-housing around. He’s a bully. That boy in front of him is his flunky. He’s Glenn. He ain’t much when Jerry ain’t around.” Langston whispered this in my ear. I sat in front of him, leaning back as he leaned forward so only I could hear him. Since no one was sitting next to either one of us I was comfortable listening to him. “There are a couple of nice kids, but they only talk to you if Jerry ain’t around.” I looked at the big white kid and could see that he was much bigger than me. A dirty sweat stain ran around the collar of his t-shirt, which fit snugly around his thick neck. The once white t-shirt clung to his back from sweat. The way he looked and acted was an immediate threat to me. I was frightened about how to handle this situation. I was small and wondered what I could do to avoid any trouble.

The room was warm from the sun streaming in windows that ran the width of one side of the classroom. I noticed the sleeves of his dirty t-shirt were stretched by the size of his arms. There was no question this was a big, big kid. I would have to be alert. I had no protectors in this school as I had had at my old one. No cousins, or brother, or friends, or sister to shield me from whatever I was going to have to face.This was going to be a difficult test. I’d have to have a long talk with my older brother Pete. He was in high school and had far more experience about this kind of thing I did.

I glanced around the room and was relieved that I was no longer the focus of attention. When the lady in the blue dress stood up the sound of her chair scraping against the floor startled me. As she straightened and started to speak, the classroom door suddenly opened and a boy walked in. He strode quickly, with quite a bit of confidence, and walked directly to where the lady stood. The entire time from the moment he entered the room he smiled a really big smile. He nodded at some of the kids, who evidently knew him. His easy manner seemed infectious. Even the lady in the blue dress smiled openly at him. It was certainly not the grimace she had given me.

“Good morning, Mrs. Connor. How are you this morning?” The boy  was jaunty even in the way he spoke to the lady in the blue dress, who now had a name.

“Good morning, Jimmy. I’m fine thank you. What brings you to my class this morning?”

Without hesitation he answered her, almost interrupting her question. “The office sent me to pick up a new kid and take him to Miss McDade’s class.  Here are the papers they told me to give you.” The boy looked around at the kids with his broad, open smile; he was clearly comfortable and confident. “They said his name is Arthur Miller. Is he in here somewhere?” He looked around the room and quickly spotted me. “Are you Arthur?” The teacher looked at him, then slowly followed his line of sight to me. The smile she had on her face when looking at the boy with the big smile melted to that now familiar and terrible grimace she had reserved just for me.

(to be continued)

 

The Geeks are the Cool Kids

Okay, now I’m a movie critic.

Well not really, what I am is a supporter of all things wonderful and uplifting and extraordinary and true. There is a story that isn’t told enough…It is all about how a young mind when treated with dignity and great expectations, can reach beyond social limitations. That is this story. It is real and wonderful, so please take a moment and watch the movie trailer… When you’re finished watching know that it’s alright to smile. I certainly did, you see, I was on the chess team in high school too.
Click on the link below and enjoy.

http://www.youtube.com/embed/tFzUYRC3_H8

Victoria Smiled

I visited a school Last Wednesday, St. Rita’s Catholic School in Hamden Ct, I’ve been there before. The principal is someone I’d call a friend, a good friend. Her name is Sister Maureen. She reminds me of the nuns of my youth except she smiles and laughs. But like the Nuns of my youth her real strength and dedication has as its foundation a deep and wonderful faith. It’s obvious when you hear the students speak to her, always with respect but never in fear. I like that about her, how the kids see her, respectfully. And not with surprise that’s how she treats them, respectfully.

I had spoken with the students I was scheduled to meet with before, so I wasn’t certain how many would remember the talk we had about bullying. It was a year or so ago and for many kids yesterday’s lessons are not always remembered and applied today…Yesterday was yesterday and today is today…nonetheless I was hopeful.

Upon entering the school I was joyfully met by the School secretary who remembered my name…that was a surprise but encouraging. Because I was early I had time to visit a teacher, Ms. Robinson who I had worked with for many years at another Catholic School in Hartford.  It was wonderful seeing her again. We spoke of the kids we both knew and the difficulties she faced when making the decision to leave the school and the children she loved. But the decision was made and she left Hartford.  St. Rita’s school is lucky to have her; she is a brilliant teacher and a strong advocate for kids. 

She asked me to say hello to her students in her new school.  Surprisingly they remembered me and some of the lessons I spoke of a year ago. Just as surprisingly I remembered many of their faces. They were a little older but still children, their excitement to see me was infectious. After a few quick “hellos” and “I remember what you said Deacon Miller”. I left Ms. Robinson’s class and walked down the familiar hall to see Sister Maureen and her 8^th grade students.

As I drew near to the room I could hear her gentle voice. Her words were muffled by the closed door so I couldn’t understand what she was saying, but the sound of it was familiar. When I opened the door all the faces in the room turned towards me. 

“Deacon Miller, Deacon Miller, Deacon Miller!” A chorus of young voices echoed in my heart. Dear God I so love what I do.

I spoke with them for nearly two hours. We spoke of the problem of bullying, exclusion, cruelty and meanness. We spoke of anger and racism. We spoke of stereotyping. They were well prepared, for they had just seen the documentary, “A Class Divided.” Their discussion of that film was brilliant.

The film was recorded in 1968 by a forward thinking teacher who divided her 3^rd grade
class into two groups… kids with brown eyes and kids with blue eyes and the
consequences that occur when you pit one group over another. It is an intriguing look into the human condition of power and separation. If you haven’t seen the film I highly recommend it.

Sister Maureen gave her students the remarkable opportunity to see and evaluate human behavior. I pray they are moved by this film and the lessons Sister Maureen teaches them.

When I left the class I was escorted by two students Mike, an outgoing, loquacious tyke, a certain future attorney, and Victoria a child of great intellect with a delightful smile to match…

I must return.