Keep on walking

Yes, that is my foot, yes that is my hiking boot.

Hi! Worst blogger ever has returned for a brief moment. Time is not on my side when it comes to writing right now. In fact, I should be outside right now, but here I am in the non-walking position, and that means I am writing!

Five weeks from today I will – well, God willing as we say around here – will head north to Montreal. From there, Sue and I will get on a plane and fly to Paris. Camino Santiago, here we come! Yet, five weeks seems both an incredibly long time, and an incredibly short time. Long in the sense that I have a lot of training in front of me, and short in the sense that I have so much to do before I leave. Every day I am faced with the need to walk the walk. Talk is cheap, walk – not so much. I simply have to keep on walking.

There are many things I would love to write about, like the mass readings. In today’s Gospel we hear for the zillionth time that we need to be forgiving. Talk really is cheap, isn’t it? Last night I dreamed of an old friend, a person that I find it nearly impossible to forgive. Old childhood wounds and disappointments remain tender, more recent challenges burn white hot at times, erupting and taking me by surprise. Last night she crossed my mind as I was cleaning up after dinner, and she turns up in my dream. Wow God you are persistent, aren’t you?

In the dream we were both tentative and amicable, until Hillary Clinton showed up. Was she with us? Or on TV or a device? Oh wispy dreams, I cannot grasp your tendrils and remember. Anyway, there she was and before anything could erupt, my old friend said that we could not discuss politics. I felt total relief, instead of my typical urge to pick at the wound of disagreement. Then I awakened! Poof, dream over. Five minutes later I am drowsy and reading the Gospel about forgiveness. Talk is so cheap, ridiculously so and yest even at that price I can’t even talk theoretical forgiveness with this friend. What about walking? Can I walk forgiveness? It seems hardly possible.

Jesus tells us we must forgive in this way:

“I say to you, not seven times but seventy-seven times.”

And I can barely keep count of reps when I exercise, or even laps around my neighborhood – how do I do this?

How many miles must I

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A Prayer of Forgiveness At the Start of the New Year

Today is kind of a sick day for me. Saturday is usually really busy for me, but today I am taking it slow. I’ve been fighting something all week and it neither blossoms into full blown sickness nor lifts. So I will stay in today and do nothing… Sadly I am missing a memorial service that I would have liked to attend, but I just can’t do it.

In any case, this slow day has caused me to consider many things as a new year begins. Not a big one for resolutions, I do like to think about how I choose to live and this seems a good a time as any. Then I was cleaning out my inbox and came across this that I found on Sojourners awhile back. It seemed

Leaving Lent – Entering Holy Week

The Judean Desert, November 2004, photo by me.

I wrote about Lent quite a bit at the beginning, but I have not really kept up with it. So it goes. I really wanted to focus on forgiveness this Lent and to write more about The Forgiveness Project – I told you that.

But that did not happen.

 Signs of green in the desert. My workplace, photo by me.

And suddenly – here we are! There are signs of green in the desert as we work our way to Jerusalem. We may leave the desert behind, but I can assure you, death is on the way.

And then new life.

There is a lot going on in the Church right now that says death is on the way, but even at my worst, I am pretty sure that new life will not be far behind.

The desert has been what it needed to be. I have not really moved as far as I would have liked around forgiveness. I have made some inroads, slight ones, towards reconciling some broken relationships.

However, I have astoundingly broken other ones. *sigh*

 Jerusalem, from the Mount of Olives, May 2006, photo by me.

Anyway, the desert gives way to the city. I am reminded of what a short distance it is from the Judean desert to Jerusalem and how quickly… and starkly, the landscape changes.

And I know, from experience, you can’t go to Jerusalem and leave unchanged. If it doesn’t kill you, it does transform you. Metanoia.

Now to enter Holy Week. Jerusalem, here I come.

Planned Obsolescence and Radical Forgiveness – The Ethos of Repair and Replacement

The Ethos of Repair and Reconciliation – A Reflection on

Today’s Gospel, The Prodigal Son

Abba Mios was asked by a soldier: “Father, God then accepts the repentance of the sinner?” The Elder, after counselling him with many instructive words, suddenly asked him:

“Tell me, my beloved, when you tear your uniform, do you throw it away? “No,” the soldier answered, “I sew it and use it anew again.”

Then Abba Mios also thoughtfully told him:

“If you take pity on your clothing, will not God take pity on His own creation?”

The other night I offered a reflection on prayer, fasting and mercy at St. Edward’s Evening Prayer. While working on what I would say, it occurred to me that I thought that fasting was hard… I however had to refocus on the idea that mercy was much harder.

In case I needed any reminding of that, today’s Gospel from Luke is a clear message about what God wants.

God wants us.

In reading the short anecdote about our desert  father, Abba Mios, I really had to pause and think about how the ethos of repair in our culture works its way into the theme of reconciliation.

You may be thinking, “what is she on about now?” Well, here is what I think…

We live in a “throwaway” culture – a culture of planned obsolescence. There is a whole other series of reflections about just that and the mess that our economy and world are in, but I will save that for another day. There are numerous societal, cultural, ecological and economical aspects that can be explored!

In any case, we do inhabit a world in which things are meant to run out of usefulness and break more quickly than they should. That is so that we might get rid of them and go right out and get lots more new stuff that will need to be replaced sooner rather than later.  This goes from everything to clothes and shoes to appliances large and small, houses, cars…

And people?

Well, there is a lot that I could say about people, but I will focus on one aspect and that is forgiveness.

It is so hard to forgive and to be forgiven. What a burden it carries. There is something to be said about going out and just getting some new people. Well – not really, but it does seem that way, doesn’t it. And even if we don’t get some new people, we can certainly find numerous ways to sustain the energy that is required for keeping those that we are angry or hurt with out.

That’s why I think the Abba Mios story is so interesting… It may be harder to comprehend in an era in which our cloak does not get repaired, our sock does not get darned, our torn seam does not get re-sewn… We just get a new one.

However, there are other things that we might expend energy in trying to restore and keep, but either way the emphasis is on things.  Our things mean a lot to us, our stuff.

But what about people?

In the parable of the Prodigal Son, a story so well-known we see a story of truly radical reconciliation.  It is important to have some understanding of Jesus’ time – this kind of event did not happen lightly.

The father is clearly out there waiting for his son… He sees him in the distance! Typically, the scorned father would be waiting inside and might not be all that concerned. This father, who is Our God, is anxiously anticipating our return!

He throws his arms around his son… Another socially unimaginable moment from that time.  The son would, if anything, have to pay the father homage and then maybe get the father’s attention.

No – this father, Our God is elated to embrace us and welcome us back.

I could go on and on, but you get the picture.

We are not thrown away, we are never thrown away. There is no planned obsolescence for us.  Each of us is God’s unique and loving creation and God treasures each and every one of us.

So I would simply ask you to consider all the things – and people, that you might otherwise throw away. Especially with the people – this might mean:

• a friend who has offended you so deeply that you will never speak to them again a spouse who has hurt you beyond imagining 
• a son or daughter who has not quite lived up to your expectations for them
• a relative who has brought, in your estimation, shame up on the family
• anyone who disgusts or annoys you
• yourself

Yes – yourself. We are all called into this radical reconciliation moment by our God who loves us and if we can’t give ourselves the forgiveness needed, if we can’t accept God’s outrageous attempts at such deep love and welcome, we may miss the moment on the road when our own prodigal person returns.

Especially since it might be yourself! We never really know who we will be called on to forgive… and we really can’t imagine how radical God’s forgiveness is. But we can try- and that might mean being merciful and forgiving to ourselves first.

So bear this in mind…  may have to recycle your old iPod, but don’t do it with your people. Or with yourself.

God is always waiting.