From my friend Frank:
Self knowledge through meditation is much more than being fully present to life so you can enjoy it more, though that is a very important benefit. It is like frosting on the cake, but the cake is awareness of your true self as divine and ultimately union with universal consciousness, which some people and religions call God.
In the Zen tradition, meditation is “just sitting.” In the Catholic tradition, prayer is “raising the mind and heart to God.” The Catholic definition is good in that it does not go into detail specifying any particular methods of prayer. The Zen is even less definite. Although it does say sitting, any straight spine posture is okay.
For me, my morning half hour of meditation/prayer has become just assuming a cross legged posture, and expressing an intention to be present to God. Mind and heart?! My mind remains in the present moment perhaps for one minute out of the thirty. My heart at least makes the intention before it too wanders elsewhere. Only my body remains where it is. Most of my prayer/meditation is just “raising the body to God.” It sitting, but not “just sitting.”
Visit “Buddhist Lent” in the Specials section to learn how a Buddhist monk would compare his Lenten time with Christian Lent.
Today, St. Valentine’s Day, reminds us to put love first in our life. Next Wednesday, Ash Wednesday, reminds us to “repent,” which means become a new, love-centered, person. If we choose to “give up” something during the forty days of Lent, perhaps it should be something that keeps us from loving.
Our lives are so busy. We often keep adding commitments and activities to our already over-extended days. Perhaps this Lent could be one of dropping some activities from our life, which would allow more time to pray for those we love. Or at least we could give up some activity each time we add another new one. What’s going to drop? Some busyness? Or you?
Next week I begin to grow obsolete, a mouse is lost, and we pray about Christmas.
One day the Apostles came to Jesus with cell phones and asked Jesus if he wanted to be part of their family network. Jesus said he would think about it. For the next weeks Jesus’ sermons were interrupted by Jewish ringtones. And, although the apostles claimed to be taking notes during Jesus’ sermons, some appeared actually to be listening to music. Why else the ear buds? Once when Jesus was praying in an olive orchard, the apostles started checking their facebook stuff instead of praying. On a different occasion when Peter was trying to walk across some water to Jesus, he got a call, got distracted, and started to sink.
The final indignity came when Jesus called out in a sermon, “Let those who have ears to hear, hear.” The Apostles had been on their phones and hadn’t quite heard what Jesus had previously proclaimed. They began asking each other if Jesus had really said that the cheese makers were blessed. Then Jesus collected the Apostles’ phones and threw them into the Valley of Gehenna. He told them they could never enter the Kingdom of God if they were cellfish and their phone was the center of their life.
Somehow this story never got recorded in the Christian Scriptures
Next week the apostles play football, Jesus’ mouse stays behind, and we pray sacramentally.
Pi is an infinitely long non-repeating series if digits. Any string of digits you can conceive is found somewhere in the digits of pi. Express your birthday as digits, and you can find it in pi. Try it at http://www.angio.net/pi
Even more remarkable, if you designate all the keyboard characters as numbers (similar to what a computer does), you can find any combination of them in a series in pi. Not only is your birth date in pi, so is “Happy Birthday!” Because pi is an infinite series, every book that has ever been written is a string of digits somewhere in pi. So is every book that will ever be written. So is the conversation you had yesterday. So is the conversation you wish you had yesterday. The only trouble is that you have to find them among all the seemingly meaningless strings of digits. Some of those seemingly meaningless strings may actually be messages in a yet undiscovered language. This whole pi thing is either very profound or very weird.
Thanks to my friend Jim for telling me about the short story “The Library of Babel” by Jorge Luis Borges. This library is like a physical expression of the infinite letters of pi. Go to
http://people.math.sfu.ca/~van/teaching/Math-303/Fall14/Borges_LibraryofBabel.pdf
Next week a few words about the center of our life. Jesus asks an important question of the mouse and the disciples, and we learn prayers of compassion and gratitude.
Just about everyone knows the Christmas story of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, but how many people know the Christmas story of Jesus, Maria, and Jose? Consider this. Could God become human a second time? Could it be that last year that God had once again bridged the gap between the divine and the human when a young Milwaukee woman conceived a child and then gave birth to a son nine months later in Chicago? What if this holy family were now in Mexico, waiting for immigration reform, getting ready to celebrate Jesus’ first birthday?
You can read this short, short, story on this blog. Go to “O Little Town of Chicago” in the Specials menu.
About a dozen years ago some very talented people created a musical based on the idea, what if God had not become a human two thousand years ago. What if God waited until the end of the twentieth century to become incarnate? What if Jesus were an African-American born in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania? They called the musical !HERO, and released it as a novel, a set of comic books, a CD, and a DVD. It’s urban and gritty and full of gripping music. Check it out for yourself. Here’s their musical version of the Jairus’ daughter miracle. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9xRKTFlYcyg
Next week postcards return to Germany, Jesus’ mouse meets a woman at a well, and we learn how to interpret dreams.
If you take bread. If you have passed through water. If you have been taken.
If you bless bread. If you have passed through fire. If you have been blessed.
If you break bread. If you have passed through the desert. If you have been broken.
If you give bread. If you have fallen from the sky like manna. If you have been given.
Then God shines through the bread like Hopkins’ “shining from foil shook.”
Then God shines through the gathered people.
Then God shines through you.
Then the bread of the New Creation graces our altar table.
Then the gap between God and creation is once again bridged.
Then the Incarnation is still happening
Bethlehem means house of bread. The awaited descendant of King David would be born in Bethlehem, the house of bread. The Blessed Mother is the oven in which the Bread of Life grows. Even though a sword waits to pierce both her heart and that of her son, life is stronger than sorrow and death. The Bread will rise again. It will rise again, and again, and again in our hearts and on our altars.
Addendum: I just found out that there is a book about Pope Benedict XVI as though written by his cat. So I guess it’s not too unusual for Jesus to have a book about his life written by his mouse, as in this blog’s The Mouse and the Master. Find Benedict’s biography at http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1586172522?ie=UTF8&camp=213733&creative=393177&creativeASIN=1586172522&linkCode=shr&tag=crux0d-20&linkId=GJHZGG76GBL6FMFL
Next week Jesus is born in Chicago, Jesus’ mouse meets the weeping woman, and we will explore symbols in meditation and prayer.
Yesterday was the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, commemorating when the Blessed Mother Mary appeared to St. Juan (John) Diego as a pregnant Aztec peasant. This event is important for a number of reasons. Mary visited an oppressed peasant, not a Spanish oppressor. She appeared as a poor peasant herself, not as a well to do European lady. She even spoke the Aztec language rather than Spanish. She brought comfort and hope to a people who had lost not only their land, but also their Aztec religion which had showed itself to be false because it could not stand up against the Spanish conquerors. Finally, Mary identified herself as Mother for all of us who call God our Father and Jesus our brother.
The third Sunday of Advent’s readings shed light on the Guadalupe story. In reading one, the messenger who is described is similar to Our Lady appearing in Mexico, even to the clothing they each wear. The responsorial psalm is the Blessed Mother’s greeting to her cousin Elizabeth, a message similar to what Our Lady said to Juan Diego. The second reading, like the Guadalupe message, is a message of hope. Finally the John the Baptist portrayed in the Gospel reading is similar to John Diego. Both were sent to bear testimony. Neither claimed fame or glory for himself. Both said they were on a mission that they were given. Both proclaimed the arrival of someone greater than themselves.
Next week we visit the house of bread, the mouse learns the Lord’s Prayer, and we find the presence of God in scriptural prayer.
When we are in a relationship with a pet, that animal must not be treated like an object. And since a pet is more than an object, we cannot use it for our own purposes. So an animal we share our house with becomes in some ways like a person. That’s why, once adopted, a pet must be cared for and loved until its death. In a somewhat lesser sense, even a tree in our yard has a claim on us. I was horrified when one of my neighbors took out a beautiful old red maple tree because he wanted to build a bigger garage. He never built the garage, but a great life was cut down. So we need to treat all other beings, especially our pets, as our friends. We ought to love them and not use them. They do not exist for us. We exist together.
God treats us better than we treat our pets and our trees. Would we become an animal like our pet, take on all the limitations of that animal, if it were the only way for our pet to become a human being? Becoming who we truly are requires that we de-center, like God, from ourselves and become everything else. Our pet is not our pet. Our pet is us. Our world is not our world. Our world is us.
Next week Jesus’ mouse has a special meal and we compare two people named John. In meditation and prayer we pray in the presence of God.
Winter always makes an appearance, sometimes in the world around us, sometimes in the world within us. The time of the sun diminishes and the coldness of the wind increases. The freshness of life seems to vanish with the once green leaves. But often, even in the cold, we can feel the warm rays of the sun on our face, promising that someday spring will return. Winter never has the last word.
The first Sunday of Advent’s initial reading sets a winter scene, “we have all withered like leaves, and our guilt carries us away like the wind.” In the responsorial psalm we ask to turn to God and face away from the wind of guilt, “Lord, make us turn to you; let us see your face and we shall be saved.” A different wind, the wind of our repentance, will take us toward the warm face of God. Although God has already saved us from winter, the second reading looks ahead to an eternal spring. We “wait for the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ,” which is God’s final Advent. This is the ultimate gap bridging event when God becomes all in all with the universe through Jesus. The Gospel cautions us to “Be watchful! Be alert! You do not know when the time will come.” So we continue to pull our coat tightly around us and face toward the sun.
Next week the mouse will share some of Jesus’ difficult sayings, and we will reflect on how to treat a pet during Advent. Meditation and prayer will consider some traditional prayers.
bridgingthegaplessgap 