I write, speak, invest, network, and question to stimulate fruitful conversation. Let's talk about human flourishing! It begins with freedom. Holy leisure is the key to human being, freedom and generativity. Please join me in the adventure of realizing Christ!
Archives for October 2014
5 Steps to Small
How can I become small enough to ‘fit’ the narrow range of perception of a person with whom I share so little experience, philosophy, language, or understanding. Only love can make a way where there seems to be no way, no bridge of commonality. And what does that look like?
I often say, “Love condescends,” as shorthand for this process of smallifying the self in order to be in unity with someone younger, or with less receptivity for what is being given, being communicated. Our example? Christ’s own condescension when He “emptied Himself of all but love” on the Cross.
Chiara Lubich and her Focolarini had a huge influence on this teaching, for which I’m grateful.
- First, I love because God first loved me. I cannot go into a ‘tight spot’ without awareness of my dependence upon His loving mercy to carry me, to make up for all that is lacking in me as I try to communicate with and engage them.
- Second, I must do only what I can do in true freedom, otherwise my gesture may violate the other person and will not be an invitation to freedom. If I do what I feel I must, do it with an interior demand for a response, or act without consideration of my own reality (limits, aspirations, resources), I may (sigh…how often have I done this!) clunk in like a bull in a china ship instead of slipping gently through the crack in their defenses.
- Third, I need to empty myself of contempt, resentment, irritation toward this person. I must erase all the mental labels by which I have distanced myself and protected myself from identification with him. I must open myself to the mystery of this person and approach his delicate being with reverence. Loving condescension is not looking down my nose at him, but descending toward him in love, believing I will see Christ through this encounter.
- Fourth, present and attentive toward this person, aware of but not impatient about my hopes for him, attuned to God’s love for me that wants to pour itself through me into this ‘smaller’ vessel, I wait (Yes, actually stop and wait; be still and wait upon the Lord!) for the dawning of creativity. When the Spirit moves upon the whole of the factors I am embracing, some form will take shape as a response, a gesture, an act of freedom by which I can love this person and, thus, invite him to freely respond.
- Fifth, I will know the mot juste, the Right Thing, the perfect gift, the path to take, because it will be beautiful!
Screwtape a la Charlotte
Have you read C.S. Lewis’ Screwtape Letters? Here’s my rendition:
My Dear Wormwood,
You’ve read the old manual and are stuck in the old ways. We must constantly come up with new ways to guide our patients to their best end, and away from the designs of the Enemy. New times demand new ploys. I realize this idea is painful, reminding us too clearly that ‘newness’ is the one area in which we actually have no power, but hear me out. In the absence of that creativity-from-nothing trick of the Enemy’s, we still have tricks up our sleeves. Human beings are easily convinced that change itself, or novelty is ‘newness’. Our ace in the hole is that we can keep twisting things back and forth ad nauseum and they keep thinking every shift in what they see is some new thing! Probably they hate to suspend disbelief in magic because they don’t fully believe in the possibility reality could be more delightfully surprising. Whatever their problem, it’s to our advantage. [Read more…]
St. Joseph Miracle
Members of the Catholic Creatives Salon spent Season Ten considering the beauty of festival as a preparation for the Eucharistic Feast. Together, we created a Feast of St. Joseph that was a miracle!
It’s a miracle when friends spend Real Time together…a miracle when ten friends spend four long hours together around a dinner table…a miracle when those four hours are so rich and full of life they feel like kairos – time out of time. It’s a miracle when wine is present to symbolize that a spirit of prayer and joy pervades a time of fellowship.
I spent last night experiencing such a miracle. After a lovely St. Joseph vespers with hymn and chant-tone psalms, we ten sat down to hear food blessed and recite the St.Joseph Memorare before digging in to the salad course, served on fine china, amid candles and lilies.
Between the salad course and the soup & bread – minestrone, full of goodness, and hot-from-the-oven sheaves of wheat – we listened to readings about St. Joseph’s role in the life of Christ, and his patronage of all we brethren of the Lord. Likewise, before the main course, readings about the miraculous St. Joseph staircase and St. Teresa’s statue – the ‘tattletale’ St. Joseph.
After Sicilian meat roll, creamy garlic & cheese potatoes, basil carrots and asparagi al forno (oven roasted asparagus – heavenly!), we learned of St. Joseph’s patronage of families, fathers, expectant mothers (pregnant women), travelers, immigrants, house sellers and buyers, craftsmen, engineers, and working people…and that San Jose is the most used place name in the world. No wonder!
As the cheese and fruit were passed, we heard a beautiful prayer to St. Joseph in Italian. It’s hard to express how perfect Italian felt in this place, at this particular time, for all of us whose hearts all long a bit to go home to Rome. Talk turned to Blessed Pope John Paul and our various visits to the blessed city. Mmmmm….delicious, in so many ways. Two poems – my own St. Joseph Carpenter, and one by Paul Claudel (I surround her on all sides, Joseph says, of Mary….) – served as literary dessert.
It’s a miracle when you can eat all that and still have room for dessert! But then, the whole evening was an experiment in miracles. How fully is it possible to in-fill time…to layer meaning upon moment in a densification of time…to place eternity within the negative space of agenda, content, activity? Chocolate-almond biscotti and, traditional for tavolas di San Giuse, ricotta-filled, chocolate-ganache-topped cream puffs…we found room!
It’s a miracle when friends pull together a drama like this and then stay together to strike the set. But stay they did, until the loaded table was cleared; until every dish was washed, dried and put away; until the spilled wax was scraped up and the floor swept; until everyone’s prayer request was in the basket destined for a Mass in honor of St. Joseph; until the borrowed space was as though we had not invaded it with our merrymaking and solemnity. Just as we stay until Father cleans at the altar, we stayed.
It’s a miracle when, tired and busy-tomorrow and facing long drives home, friends stop for one more moment in kairos together – a sung Litany of St. Joseph and a closing prayer. Our desire had been to learn, to experience, to realize, “What is a feast, a festival, festivity?” “How does our capacity for festivity relate to our capacity for Christ?” “What kind of miracle is made by human effort that forms a vessel for the infusion of grace?” And we had. Thank you, St. Joseph, and thank you, my friends, for the miracle of this feast!
Woman Down
This is the post that led to the talk, Women on the Way to Healing: She had a strong faith, a good Catholic husband, ten children, a beautiful home, good looks, a bright and well-educated mind, a healthy lifestyle, and a depression that just wouldn’t quit. She was my friend, and she’s dead. [Read more…]
Baby in Bath Water
Hilary Hart’s Body of Wisdom was given to me as I’d been speaking about How Women Disintegrate and How Women Heal. I did resonate with about 70% of what she said, felt wary, but interpreted positively, about 20% more, and must reject the last 10% unequivocally. That leaves me in a quandary.
I can’t recommend the book itself, on the chance that a poorly-grounded Catholic might not discern the problems in it, but I feel the kinship of lived experience, and am grateful for the author’s poetic depth and insight. Read as a theological argument, Body of Wisdom is easily dismissed. But it would be unreasonable to read in that way what is meant as an evocation of conversation among wise, mature women. I must enter into such a book as I would enter an encounter with a person – in awe of the mystery before me, with respect for our differences, and appreciation for every good, true, beautiful, praiseworthy aspect of her being. With that in mind, and with no love for any ‘feminine spirituality’ that leads outside the bounds of my Catholic faith, I call attention to what edifies me in Hart’s offering.
First, I’m thrilled at her acceptance of gender as an essential aspect of being – a signifier rich with metaphor, that points toward the realization of a distinctively feminine approach to life, relationship, spiritual growth and service. Contra the androgynous, mentalized, self-defining ‘spirituality’ of modern Gnosticism, Hart’s approach is earthy, grounded, embodied in and affirming of physical reality. Contra the anti-human, mechanistic efficiency of modern scientific materialism, Hart presents woman as deeply spiritual and irreducible to objective functions or roles.
I’m also delighted to see, on every page, the affirmation of life’s sacredness, of child-bearing as a sacred trust, of new life as a wonderful treasure. It strikes me that we would do well to make such a beautiful, feminine appeal to women’s life-giving nature a greater part of our own fight against abortion.
Hart counsels, as I do, that women must be deeply true to themselves in order to give fully and effectively to their families and others. She thinks – and I heartily agree – that friendships among women (when ordered toward high good and away from rage, despair, pettiness and superficiality) are essential for the development and realization of what St. John Paul II called ‘feminine genius.’ We also agree that the world (even the Church, I’d say) desperately needs the gifts, giftedness, and self-giving of women to rebuild social capital, lines of communication, and networks of support for a culture of life.
A woman’s capacity for creativity, social influence, and healing can be ignored (or dismissed as ‘New Age-y’, which is ridiculous, but I’ve seen it happen), or deeply engaged to restore balance and bring healing to the disordered, broken world around us.
I suggest we focus on what Hart – passionate, poetic, person-oriented – has to teach about waking up the genius of women, and leave a modest veil over her understandable excesses. They are understandable, because she, as yet, stands outside the protective covering of a Church structure that she interprets, wrongly, as all-masculine. Where the Church has gone far beyond her thinking – female saints and doctors, Marian devotion, theology of the body, for instance – we can amplify her sense of the positive power of womanhood. Where she excels – attention to the lived experience of women, rich and emotionally engaging prose, respectful interfaith dialogue, for instance – she should lead us.
This book has a place in the conversation of discerning, well-formed Catholic women – especially those who nurture friendships with non- or newly-Christian women.
My Favorite Feast
What’s your favorite movie? When I’m asked, the kids answer for me: Babette’s Feast! Well, that’s one of my all time favorites, and I do think everyone should see it. [Read more…]
Nature Deficit Disorder
I recommend Richard Louv’s Last Child in the Woods frequently – and not just to get people to bring their kids out to my house in the country! The fact is, living on our ‘farm wannabe’, I can see for myself the benefits Louv describes. What’s more, I can see the effects of ‘time in nature’ on ‘nature deprived’ kids who come out to play. Last Child is a warning to us all of the dangers of abstracting children from the natural world. [Read more…]
Plumfield, My Alma Mater
Thanks to Anna Duran and the Catholic Education Resource Center and Crisis magazine for these reflections from Mitchell Kalpakgian on Louisa May Alcott’s Plumfield as a great model for educators. I’m pretty sure I’m a home educator because of Louisa . [Read more…]
Hallowed Be This Ground
Catherine De Hueck Doherty’s Apostolic Farming is the perfect stocking stuffer for the farmer, or farmer-wannabe, organic gardener, sustainable agriculture buff, or nature-lover in your life. It’s tiny, but so chock full of beauty and wisdom it deserves to be read very slowly. I suggest it as a stocking stuffer so that you’ll have time to read while looking at seed catalogs during the winter. [Read more…]
I Was an Entity Learner
One of the most fascinating books I’ve read: Josh Waitzkin’s The Art of Learning. Waitzkin is the chess champion (once a child prodigy) who was the subject of the movie Searching for Bobby Fischer (also good). As an adult, he moved from chess into martial arts and chronicles the correspondences he finds between the two disciplines. [Read more…]
Fear Takes Me By Surprise!
I thought I’d hate this book! The title, The Gift of Fear, hit me the wrong way. Was Gavin de Becker going to promote fear as an approach to life, tout the benefits of self-protectiveness and toughness, teach readers to look out for #1?? Boy was I surprised!
Instead of finding out where he was wrong-headed, I discovered how right he was. Well, he at least agrees with me about a lot of things! His thesis, that a guarded, defensive posture toward life actually prevents our fear mechanisms from making us aware of real danger, resonated with me – a page right out of my ‘poetic personhood’ talks. [Read more…]
Beautiful Education
If I could make one book required reading for Catholic parents and educators, it is Stratford Caldecott’s Beauty for Truth’s Sake. In six succinct chapters, he leads readers from the history of education’s disintegration to a vision for its restoration and ‘re-enchantment’. Caldecott’s proposal to return wonder, beauty, integrity and, thus, enchantment to the sphere of education calls for a reawakening of some ancient sensibilities. [Read more…]
- « Previous Page
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- …
- 6
- Next Page »
You must be logged in to post a comment.