henri nouwen writes of the season of lent that begins tomorrow with this reflection:
"God's mercy is greater than our sins. There is an awareness of sin that does not lead to God but rather to self-preoccupation. Our temptation is to be so impressed by our sins and failings and so overwhelmed by our lack of generosity that we get stuck in a paralyzing guilt. It is the guilt that says: 'I am too sinful to deserve God's mercy.' It is the guilt that leads to introspection instead of directing our eyes to God. It is the guilt that has become an idol and therefore a form of pride. Lent is the time to break down this idol and to direct our attention to our loving Lord. The question is: 'Are we like Judas, who was overcome by his sin that he could not believe in God's mercy any longer and hanged himself, or are we like Peter who returned to his Lord with repentance and cried bitterly for his sins?' The season of Lent, during which winter and spring struggle with each other for dominance, helps us in a special way to cry out for God's mercy."
knowing you need God's mercy is the place the journey often begins with Jesus, and it is also knowing you need God's mercy after you believed that will matter for the journey. One is uttered in desperation and the other one in praise. the mercy that saves is the mercy that sustains. lent is the season of crying out.
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
God is not in a hurry
one of my goals this week is to reread one book and read another...
gerhard lohfink has written a book that i connect with. i am picking it up again and rereading and through the review seeing things i saw before plus other things, the way you look at something a second time and are amazed you missed it the first time.
in the book he says that God is not in a hurry, and starts small, and begins new and special things in specific places. he works through specific places through specific people...so we know of people like abraham and places like jerusalem and an execution on a cross. and we can also read in the bible of the vast quantities of time in which his intentions happen, across generations, his purposes happen but at a different rate of change than most would accomodate.
"God begins with very small things, not by setting masses in motion. To change the whole world God has at first no one but Abraham...the description of how Abraham moves from one encampment to another reveals something else: God is not in a hurry. In light of the problems of the world the movements of a wandering Aramean and his concerns for tent and flock seem positively laughable, and yet the reader senses that something crucial is happening here: the very fact that someone relies entirely on God's promise will change the world. God takes time, but not empty time. In one place in the world now faith is being practiced; not an otherworldly, world-ignorant faith, but a faith that is at home in the daily events and economic necessities and yet lives out of an endless promise....It is the very opposite of the temporal urgency of revolutionaries....All this makes clear that from the point of view of terrible social affliction there is no time. From the standpoint of the world the hands of the clock are always close to twelve. And yet God continually provides humanity with more time, even exposing gigantic periods before them, because God does not use force like a revolutionary in a blind rage. God favors a 'silent revolution' hat has time to see, to understand, to learn, and to repent."
gerhard lohfink has written a book that i connect with. i am picking it up again and rereading and through the review seeing things i saw before plus other things, the way you look at something a second time and are amazed you missed it the first time.
in the book he says that God is not in a hurry, and starts small, and begins new and special things in specific places. he works through specific places through specific people...so we know of people like abraham and places like jerusalem and an execution on a cross. and we can also read in the bible of the vast quantities of time in which his intentions happen, across generations, his purposes happen but at a different rate of change than most would accomodate.
"God begins with very small things, not by setting masses in motion. To change the whole world God has at first no one but Abraham...the description of how Abraham moves from one encampment to another reveals something else: God is not in a hurry. In light of the problems of the world the movements of a wandering Aramean and his concerns for tent and flock seem positively laughable, and yet the reader senses that something crucial is happening here: the very fact that someone relies entirely on God's promise will change the world. God takes time, but not empty time. In one place in the world now faith is being practiced; not an otherworldly, world-ignorant faith, but a faith that is at home in the daily events and economic necessities and yet lives out of an endless promise....It is the very opposite of the temporal urgency of revolutionaries....All this makes clear that from the point of view of terrible social affliction there is no time. From the standpoint of the world the hands of the clock are always close to twelve. And yet God continually provides humanity with more time, even exposing gigantic periods before them, because God does not use force like a revolutionary in a blind rage. God favors a 'silent revolution' hat has time to see, to understand, to learn, and to repent."
shadows in an old photograph
i received a picture of my dad in the mail in a publication where he went to college. it was an older black and white photo. i have seen that photo before but he almost seems unfamiliar. when i calculated the year of the photo i realized i would have been in second grade.
i tried real hard to remember life with him when i was that old. i looked at the picture trying to find the familiar things i remember with white knuckled determination. it is harder now. he died in 1976 and one of my greatest fears in losing him was that i would forget something i wanted to remember - the things i wanted to take with me the rest of my life. i think i wanted him to remain my dad and be with me in my life through the collection of experiences; so in the place of flesh and blood i would embrace memories and stories. this was a way death was defeated. this was a way i could fight to keep him with me when he was gone. death would not win. but i am afraid i am forgetting something.
i looked hard at the picture. it bothered me a little that he now seems so far away. what does it mean if i am not remembering things as well. i was wondering yesterday if i have collected enough memories to last the rest of my life. what will i remember in ten years and what will i forget. what will matter as i live into a future of being an old man, living into the years that he never reached. i can only imagine what kind of old man he would be...what kind of father, husband, grandpa or great-grandpa he would be.
i have more questions now than answers. would he have ever stopped preaching...would he still like the lakers and the cardinals...would he still sing robustly off-key...would he still want to play catch...would he still say he loved me or that he was proud of me...would he still care about changing the world...would he still leave notes for my mom to wake up to...would he still talk about the horses he trained or the farm he tilled...would he still grow tomatos and change his own oil in his car?
he has been gone so long. i survived without him. i can only imagine in a fictional way what he would be like now, and there is only a little pleasure in imagning how that might be. fictions can be useful but they are not satisfying. before i put the picture down i realized that i am even now older than he is in the picture, which feels odd. what is this feeling i have as i realize that i am living and doing things that he only got to hope for, even wondering what that would have meant to him.
the picture is still on the kitchen table. i have looked at it several times. i showed it to my wife and son and spoke of the feeling of him being a little unfamiliar after all these years. it is like i am remembering less than who he was. it makes me angry. it is like i am only hanging onto failing memories and thinner stories now, in these days. i don't know what to think if i am only remembering shadows and echoes of what was a real person, whose absence i grieved and whose presence shaped who i am. i don't know what i feel about this, but it must be more than anger.
i tried real hard to remember life with him when i was that old. i looked at the picture trying to find the familiar things i remember with white knuckled determination. it is harder now. he died in 1976 and one of my greatest fears in losing him was that i would forget something i wanted to remember - the things i wanted to take with me the rest of my life. i think i wanted him to remain my dad and be with me in my life through the collection of experiences; so in the place of flesh and blood i would embrace memories and stories. this was a way death was defeated. this was a way i could fight to keep him with me when he was gone. death would not win. but i am afraid i am forgetting something.
i looked hard at the picture. it bothered me a little that he now seems so far away. what does it mean if i am not remembering things as well. i was wondering yesterday if i have collected enough memories to last the rest of my life. what will i remember in ten years and what will i forget. what will matter as i live into a future of being an old man, living into the years that he never reached. i can only imagine what kind of old man he would be...what kind of father, husband, grandpa or great-grandpa he would be.
i have more questions now than answers. would he have ever stopped preaching...would he still like the lakers and the cardinals...would he still sing robustly off-key...would he still want to play catch...would he still say he loved me or that he was proud of me...would he still care about changing the world...would he still leave notes for my mom to wake up to...would he still talk about the horses he trained or the farm he tilled...would he still grow tomatos and change his own oil in his car?
he has been gone so long. i survived without him. i can only imagine in a fictional way what he would be like now, and there is only a little pleasure in imagning how that might be. fictions can be useful but they are not satisfying. before i put the picture down i realized that i am even now older than he is in the picture, which feels odd. what is this feeling i have as i realize that i am living and doing things that he only got to hope for, even wondering what that would have meant to him.
the picture is still on the kitchen table. i have looked at it several times. i showed it to my wife and son and spoke of the feeling of him being a little unfamiliar after all these years. it is like i am remembering less than who he was. it makes me angry. it is like i am only hanging onto failing memories and thinner stories now, in these days. i don't know what to think if i am only remembering shadows and echoes of what was a real person, whose absence i grieved and whose presence shaped who i am. i don't know what i feel about this, but it must be more than anger.
prayers and a poem
i have always wondered what it would be like to be a contemplative sort of person, with a deep and rich spiritual interior connection and resonance with God. it has always been discipline for me, rather than a feature or a first impules of mine as my sort of person. my prayers are more often on the move attempting to do something, like change the world. praying is definitely doing something, i just tend to be on the move a part of the cause.
i was thinking about this the other day while reading a book of poems by wendell berry.
i like the part about the "thump" and the picture of passion at the end - when thinking about prayer.
AN EMBARRASSMENT
"Do you want to ask
the blessing?"
"No. If you do,
go ahead."
He went ahead:
his prayer dressed up
in Sunday clothes
rose a few feet
and dropped with a soft
thump.
If a lonely soul
did ever cry out
in company its true
outcry to God,
it would be as though
at a sedate party
a man suddenly
removed his clothes
and took his wife
passionately into his arms.
i was thinking about this the other day while reading a book of poems by wendell berry.
i like the part about the "thump" and the picture of passion at the end - when thinking about prayer.
AN EMBARRASSMENT
"Do you want to ask
the blessing?"
"No. If you do,
go ahead."
He went ahead:
his prayer dressed up
in Sunday clothes
rose a few feet
and dropped with a soft
thump.
If a lonely soul
did ever cry out
in company its true
outcry to God,
it would be as though
at a sedate party
a man suddenly
removed his clothes
and took his wife
passionately into his arms.
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