I love Icons—they are truly beautiful and their gaze is penetrating to the soul of the person. As I pray with them their eyes gaze upon me and I am invited to gaze back. It is a moment of seeing and being seen. We begin to see God clearly because the gaze draws forth the small, the laugh and the hope of love. It is the gaze of a spousal love, a parental love that goes beyond any description. What God does not want is for us to look at him as some curiosity, something to be dissected. He does not wish us to put him on a shelf like a beautiful knick-knack or hang it upon a wall like a wondrous oil painting. God does not want us to view him through the lens of a camera/cell phone where we can add all sorts of filters and other “add-ons” that obscure and remake the beauty into something we control and construct. Our Father simply wants us to gaze upon his beauty as he gazes upon our beauty made in His image. Our Father gazes upon our beauty not as static but as an ever transforming in our conversion towards the holy in becoming the saints we are made to be. He gazes upon us through the gift of free will where his invitation is always to return his gaze from the cross. The gaze is an encounter to be seen and to see like two lovers joining together in life. The gaze that transforms and sees beyond the hurt and enters into healing and renewal of live. The gaze reminds us of how God is not a check list of prayer to be done but he is “Our Father” who loves us before we were formed in our mother’s wombs. The penetrating gaze of God is not accusatory, rather it is an invitation to encounter his mercy and love and in this becoming an Icon of beauty.
The 10th Word: A Word of Surprise: What is Love—Adventures in Grace
The million dollar question; What is love? Our Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. The answer is so simple that we forget it because we like looking for it in the complicated. The Most Holy Trinity is love. We discover the answer in the love of family, community. We discover the answer in prayer and the sacramental life. We discover the answer in the service and sacrifice in caring for the other. It is the search of being faithful to the struggle in the continued search for holiness in our lives and for others. It is the constant refrain of dying to self. Think of a story of love. Where the husband cared for his ailing wife. Where a mother watched over her children playing in the park. Where two friends sat at a table in a coffee shop talking. It is a little boy tossing a ball up in the air and catching it again and again. It is the tired father gathering his children in his arms to read a story of love. It is the silent child contemplating a bug.
Almighty God, author of my life, help me learn to read what you have written on my heart Give me discerning eyes and an untiring spirit to look within me in order to understand how to reach outside of me. give me the generosity to help others to read you, to sound you out one letter, one word of radical giving at a time —Author Unknown
I don’t remember learning to read, it happened gradually as it does for most children. I do remember when I began to move from word to story. It all began with a little boy named Mark, who played in a park with a dog that would bark. At that moment I discovered how my imagination allowed me to become that little boy playing with his dog and how the adventure could move beyond the page of the book into the greater idea of meaning in a letter, a word, phrase and story. I could read. God reads us and in turn we are invited to read God who is the living Word, as the prayer above suggests…one letter, one syllable, word and sentence at a time. It is discerning the pattern, the phonic sound, the syntax. True discerning of Gods will, my journey to do his will is always that, sometimes simply, sometimes complex, in walking with others becoming the center of the story in Jesus and then going out to toil in learning to read once with others which in grace and blessing brings the other back to the center with Jesus…again and again, over and over with some stories becoming fruitful while others a jumble of letters and phrases, unintelligible in the beginning but in reality a story to be shared and given in God. God who in the Spirit will help us to rewrite and unscramble the fear and failure into the beauty of a living word. The fusion of God’s grace and blessing and our acceptance the becomes a reality, a story of life and love amidst the hurt and sin that surround us. In discerning the spiritual blessings and the decision we make we begin to decipher anew how our stories become deeper and more full of life where the next chapter gathers the past into a foundation of a future of blessing. The temptation is to fear the fusion of the Spirits fire and all make the story about me and only me, my hero story where we never write the next chapter but begin to fearfully repeat with unimaginative variation the small story again and again. Never looking outward to hear other stories or find the other in our story that is worthy of growing…to never seek the second chapter, the continued journey, the quest for the greater but remain stuck in the repeating script of mediocrity. God sending us out is the invitation to be life—go be life giving—to be a child who enters into the imagination of God.
The Seventh Word: Balanced—to absorb and be absorbed
In seeking freedom we are often searching for a balance in life but find ourselves trapped into an illusion, the deception of the evil of the sin of isolation instead of the union we desire. We close our spiritual eyes, the eyes of our heart, and allow our physical desires tome from satisfied into the excess of indulgence the feeds the gluttony of our desires. Our heart breaks and instead of turning around, we say: Let’s try that again. The deception is that fantasy while the truth means confronting the messiness of the story that takes time, effort, pain and sorrow as St. Catherine of Sienna reminds us, “He who grows in love, grows in grief” The fantasy we fall for is the false spirit who blinds us with a vision of glory. With a spotlight shining towards a great and glorious accomplishment somewhere in the future where we are tempted to run as fast as we can, forgetting everyone and everything to grab on to the fantasy, the vision of glory. The false spirit keeps the temptation alive by allowing us small victories that quickly turn to dust in relationship, conquests and flattery of how great we are. The Holy Spirit, the truth of God, invites not with a shining trinket but with the voice of trust to take on small step where the lamp of God guides our footsteps, our ministry, our life to walk with the other in the shared ministry of trust. He says, Follow me, and we respond in the confidence of hope that foundation that we are building is true in the creating the true future…not of our making…of God’s holy will. We seek God not a goal. The false spirit of fantasy temps us to move beyond the path with others and find the shortcut of unfreedom, where holiness becomes an exercise of my will and ego against the love of God and the community. The true Holy Spirit invite each of us into a the cross, the holy work the conversion from death to life. Choosing life is accepting the journey…on slow step at a time…the unwinding of the story of God’s plan, It is the life of absorbing the grace. The stretching and expanding grace of love where we are called to be absorbed into something even greater: becoming…just becoming like God.
The Eighth Word: Respond—slow down—prayer—invitation
In the beginning God spoke a word of creation, and it was good. In the beginning God speaks a word of creation to each of us, a daughter and son, in which we are asked to respond. He speaks: “follow me” and continues with the invitation “remain in me”. The in-between of the then follows with at the experience of so many things including the miracles, blessings, loves, joys and peace (to name a few) were we discover the truth of grace—mercy—reconciliation in the middle muddling of life. It is in the slow-down and the prayer we soon discover the moment to be with in the groundwork of relationship. A relationship joining the first and last words to constantly beating and growing in our heart. Life begins with a daily, hourly and each minute response and choice to love and be love, to seek and be sought, to be embraced and to embrace by the beloved and those others in our lives. I like the responding to the call: it is full of excitement, possibility and movement. I like the invitation to remain because there is a the promise of peaceful and restful of holding and being held in a soft and warm embrace. The middle, the work of discipleship is hard—unrelenting, it is full of failures and hurts where I cannot always grasps the smallness of the necessary miracles or the grandness of the joy of companionship because I am in the middle where distraction and the next thing always seem to be vying for attention. The middle of prayer, of slowing down of remembering “in the beginning” become the initial love and the promised love of eternal gift. The middle becomes the soil fertilized and tilled producing he fruit of abundance. It is the surprise of seeing the first sprout, it is the hard work of the harvest…it becomes the banquet where we are once more asked to respond and invited to remain in love.
God takes the initiative to call me and my response is often; What? Really? Are you sure? In truth He calls each of us by name, He chooses us….what is our response. We know how He tirelessly calls us by name, he never stops and invites us again and again to say, in love, one simple word “Yes”. I can often fear this call. I can often doubt I am worthy of this call. I often run from this call. I often refuse to be embraced by this call. Yet, the insistence of the call continues, the whisper, the breeze, the gentle movement of the heart continually seeks to enter the spaces where the the noise, the storms, the hardness of the world can never fill, can never satisfy, can never bring true peace. The temptation of loosing oneself in the world is to become the object, something that becomes limited, easily used up, tossed away for the next thing. To loose oneself in Christ is to become the son/daughter, to become someone to be discovered and rediscovered in the infinite love of beauty. We hear the whisper of “in the beginning God made” as the renewed invitation where he chooses me (each person) to enter into a relationship where the embrace of God brings us home. It is the moment where we allow ourselves to be embraced, I allow myself to be embraced and held, to be healed by the good where I am discovered and rediscovered anew.
The Fourth Word: At the mercy of….the road of blindness (MK 10:46-52)
I imagine being at the mercy of God and being called in my blindness. I have stumbled about and went by the most difficult road; a path of despair, of fear and of hurt and injury. The path of anger where it becomes normal to confront those who seem to make the journey so much for difficult. It is here that I hear his voice, faint but strong. A voice that begins to lead me, and if I choose to follow, to discover a road, a way of care and blessing, of hope and trust, and I realize, that I am already there, in His mercy. As as I move to Him, I hear the laugh of welcome in his voice, the calm certainty of the joy of the final steps of the journey, the feeling you have of taking those final few steps to the pinnacle, where the tiredness, hurt and soreness of the journey slip away into beauty. It is a journey taken many times because of the stubbornness I have in holding on in the pride of my sins, where in blindness I shout “I can do this myself.” Where I ignore and forget the gentle call of the whisper of love. The journey is, God’s call. I am called as I am to be renewed in the “I AM” of God’s blessings: healed and called, renewed and called, loved and called—where the shortness of the journey is the reality, I am already there because he has never left me. It is the moment where the tears of joy are renewed in the familial love of the Father. Jesus sees, calls and loves.
The Fifth Word: Adventures in Grace…at the foot of the Cross
Acts in God’s eye what in God’s eye he is—Christ —for Christ plays in ten thousand places. Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his To the Father through the creatures of men’s faces. Gerard Manly Hopkins, S. J. from “As Kingfishers Catch Fire”
God’s grace is practical as love is practical. It is not practical as the the world would say practical—but practical as a life of relationship, friendship would say it—it is practical like putting on a well worn and comfortable sweatshirt on a chilly day, it is practical like smiling at a child, it is practical hearing the song bird in the morning or the simple tune of praise in the church. I get to choose what is best, because God chooses what is best for me. It is the free will of practical love, of practical grace. The adventure comes from he acceptance of a super abundance—not from scarcity or stinginess—it is the monsoon flowing from the side of Christ on the Cross. We are reminded once again how God sees as we read the verse from the Hopkins’ poem above. It is how Our Lady of Guadalupe saw when she looked upon San Juan Diego. It is how St. Clare saw when she study herself and the world in the mirror of the eyes of love. It is the practical of seeing the other as a friend. Practical can often stop us from singing, dancing, loving and playing—God’s practical relishes all of these gifts because the give life—the most practical and wondrous thing ever. Playing with God isn’t silliness, it is liveliness—it is being, just being, being enfolded in friendship and truth—the liberating of the soul unlocking the chains “for Christ plays in ten thousand places” It is very practical.
The first word— Do not come ready for a fight; come ready to surrender.
We often come to God ready for a fight rather than to surrender to His Divine Will. We are challenged to turn the table…enter into state of conversion…and “follow Him” who invites us into love. We are reminded in our surrender that; we are blessed in the gifts of life and love given to us. Accepting these gifts is to surrender to the who I am and let go of the who the world tells me I am. We are reminded of the blessings we are to God and to others. We are told by so many saints in history that God has no other hands, feet, mouth or presence than our hands, feet, words and presence in this world. Jesus sends his disciples (us) out to be a blessing. If I can recognize my surrender, my conversion and my blessing then I am able to freely share…my life with God and others. We are reminded that we are beloved children of God. A beloved son or a beloved daughter born in baptism and called to the obedience of love. We are loved. Just because we are, we are loved by Our Father. I need not be other than who I am and to be in Him…with Him in doing His will. We come to surrender— in the sunrise and the sunset we become the blessed in these ever changing mosaics of love for us…for me it is in the still water reflecting the light and in the rain drops that become the prism of the splendor of the rainbow of promise in the deep dark pool of water drawing us to look into a mystery, into a greater We come to surrender
The second word—It is about Invitation to see beyond ourselves
The invitation to confession and repentance (metanoia) “Gaze upon the mirror each day, O Queen and Spouse of Jesus Christ, and continually study your face within.” St. Clare of Assisi
They say that in the recent study of the Tilma of Guadalupe in the eyes of Our Lady is the image of St. Juan Diego along with two other figures. I can imagine how Juan Diego gazing at the Blessed Virgin was lost in the eyes of love. The mirror of love our eyes become. “Gaze upon the mirror…continually study your face within” We know this feeling as the saying goes on earth of how we are lost in the eyes of our lover. How those in love gaze and see the very best of who they are in the eyes of their beloved. Lost and found at the say time…it is an invitation to see beyond ourselves. When we are able to gaze into the eyes of Jesus, Jesus on the Cross and enter into the eyes of love and forgiveness, we can begin to see beyond our selves as our reflection is that of the purity of love…seeing ourselves as God sees us. The conversion, metanoia, is to begin to be able to see the reflection of the beauty of Christ in each person, where in our eyes they become worthy and loved in the real image of Jesus Christ. It is about invitation and seeing beyond ourselves. It is not a command….it is an invitation to follow Him….to see with the eyes of life Do I see the flowers that radiate the colors and movement of joy? Do I see the tree that becomes the home of a bird, a squirrel, an insect…of life? Do I see the sky, still and full, quiet and unmoving? Do I see the dirt full of potential, of life, of death? Do I allow myself to be seen? Do I see God?
“Words are powerful; never think they’re not. The gap between any word and what it describes is slider beyond measure—or it should be….Lies attack our perception of the world.” (p. 103-104)
God is so good. When we read the quote above we can remember the Word of God is in our hearts and should be on our tongue. Each word we speak should be one of bringing ourselves in closer union with God and with each other. The power of each word is the power to heal and bring peace. This is a truth even in the correction of neighbor or the calling out the hurt of society. The Word of God is a Word of Love and as we hear in the Letter to the Hebrews it is “sharper than any two-edged sword.” (Hebrews 4:12) Truth is both liberating and painful. It is both joyous and troubling of heart when we stand against the lies of the world. “Read will go on to say that the false “isms” of the world often look very similar to God’s call to follow him,, but they lie and bend and twist and distort little by little the true path and entrap the follower not in Love but in isolation and fear. It is the 1% rule on the journey of life…if we begin our journey towards truth and life (God) and we take the 1% deviation, then by the end of the journey we may not be feet from our destination but hundreds of miles…but this is the gift of the “two-edged sword” of love and mercy…the correction of forgiveness, conversion, and truth turns us back to the true destination of our life. God. In this we must be firm in our faith and in living and speaking our faith. as our Lord Jesus reminds us, “teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age.” (Mt 28:20)
Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruits.” (Prov 18:21)
quotes from “Annunciation: A Call to Faith in a Broken World”, by Sally Read
