A maze without an exit

That is what makes us persevere through a life: to see Him that is invisible.

I could just be floating --for all that I lack tying me, anchoring me down. No home (a month-to-month lease), few bills, no small Vincents to care for, a job that wants me to stay put -yet doesn't utilize me (I might as well be invisible), no roots to anywhere or anyone that has not left or is not leaving. It's rather upside down when I think of the swirling world around me... busy, busy, busy.

Nearly every day I have hours upon hours and even more hours of time, space, emptiness, and possibility to fill.

I have tried (oh, how I have tried) to get busy. I love busy, and would even admit to thriving in busy. Busy is what I was cultivated in, it was my culture -the part that rivals DNA for involuntary being-ness, my rhetoric, my nourishment. Business and life were interdependent. Without the one I withered, dithered, and pathetically moped myself into a mess of lazy wailing "I have nothing to do."

(Aside): I am never bored. My mom had plenty of quick remedies for children who were "bored," so I'm quite good at entertaining myself. 

In spite of my ability to occupy myself with sketching, writing, reading, etc. it gets redundant (a fancy synonym for boring). Also, I should note that my home in nearly always clean, laundry washed and folded, dinner made. No neglect of responsibility, but in 400 sqft, it doesn't take much to tidy and wipe to sparkling perfection.

And I often resent (at times with hot tears) that my efforts to get busy are thwarted. I've applied for jobs, graduate school, pursued home buying, contemplated adoption or foster parenting, adopted hobbies and exercise, studying GRE vocabulary for fun (not really, this is just to clarify that I am NOT one of those people. If you are, that's okay. You're weird and I'm not.) Returning to my point, I have tried every avenue for engaging the "doing" side of life and every attempt meets a dead end.

It's like I was put in a maze that really has no outlet. I think that the point is to get out. But succeeding at the maze is actually to sit down, to be at rest in the maze.

Doesn't that seem torturous and pointless?! Anyone claustrophobic? Or being-phobic?

Unfortunately, a television host will not appear to release me from the maze so that I can get back to doing as soon as I've figured out that I need to sit. How I wish! I think sometimes God should do this. I get an attitude okay, I've learned my lesson, can I get out now and get back to real life?

But that is real life. Sitting in the maze day after day after day --I so want to add until. Until my twitching, busy, bored, driven legs can have freedom to run again, as fast as they can carry me. But they need to learn a new normal, a new rhythm, a new, gentle, peaceful, calm, trusting way to exist.

So I'm sitting there, training to sit? Is that it then? Just sit, forever? Never doing??

I read the italicized line above in a book today: That is what makes us persevere through a life: to see Him that is invisible.

What I am training for, while being, is to SEE. She writes, "Every moment I live, I live bowed to something. And if I don't see God, I'll bow down before something else." The problem with seeing God is that he is invisible.

I can see so many tangible realities so well. I can use my eyes and hands and feet to solve a maze for a material exit but how are they at moving me toward the invisible with as much determination and heart as in doing for that which can be finitely experienced?

She adds, "O Lord, open the eyes of my heart, the eyes of my hands, the eyes of my mouth, the eyes of my feet. I long to live all eye" --because we need every sense to see God. "Can I live all eye and gaze on God and live?"

Can I live in a maze without a material exit, without an outlet for doing, without the aims of action, or business that come with material reinforcements of success, value, money, and emotional stimulation. Can I, instead, exist in a space that is not made for exit, but that is constructed to redeem the life of the soul through pursuing -persevering to see him that is invisible.

Quotes from One Thousand Gifts -Ann VosKamp

May you be made whole

I found this on a hike. The note reads "To the one who gives me strength, gives me a purpose, and gives me the desire to fulfill it Philippians 1:6"

Yesterday I soaked in streams of sunlight and literally stopped to smell the roses on my way to church. It was such a beautiful morning for a half-mile walk. We arrived just in time to hear the church bells chiming and to see a fair amount of older people smiling and greeting one another as they stepped into church. It evokes a familiar, holy, and precious feeling to watch their reverence and to smell and hear the creaking ancient wood of pews and years of candle smoke, incense, and the fading scent of Easter lilies still preserved from a week prior around the sanctuary.

I love to kneel in whispers and silence to ask God to meet me in worship, to sing, reminiscent of the Palm Sunday excitement ushering Jesus, God, and the Spirit as Lord to be with us in our gathering. I love everything about the Catholic tradition that places God at the very center of community, worship, prayer, communion, gathering, and gospel. Sometimes I am tempted to return to that religious tradition entirely, but more on that some other time. For now it is a retreat for my spirit.

The mass includes three readings, all short passages from the bible real aloud. The first two are followed by a reading from one of the gospels. The priest and congregation stand to listen to the gospel being read. We hear Jesus' words to his disciples. Yesterday the account was John 20:19-21. Jesus appeared to the Apostles who were gathered together "for fear of the Jews," and he came into their midst and said to them "Peace be to you." And he repeated a second time "Peace be with you. As the father has sent me, so I am sending you." Then he breathed on them and said "Receive the Holy Spirit."

The Homily is a time where the priest reflects or teaches on the readings- similar, I suppose, to the protestant sermon but in my experience very different because it is not very declamatory or subjective. In an accessible and reflective manner, a priest filled with the spirit is able to discuss, expound upon, and posit truth from scripture. Yesterday he discussed in humorous analogies, the many functions that humans ascribe to God: God as a divine moral police officer, God as a magician, God as a life coach, etc. And after clearly establishing the error of these expectations he suggested that John gives an alternative function when he articulates Jesus' greeting: "Peace be with you."

Peace, or Shalom is a very well-known Hebrew word in English, as many Jesus followers articulate its meaning in sermons and bible studies. The Ancient Hebrew Research Center provides this explanation, "The verb shalom literally means to make whole or complete. The noun shalom has the more literal meaning of being in a state of wholeness or with no deficiency."

When Jesus utters, "Peace be with you," he is speaking or declaring a state of wholeness with no deficiency over his followers.

The circumstances in which they existed did not alter. The disciples were previously cowering, hiding, for fear of being found associated with Jesus. And instead of performing feats of magic-God or life-coach-God, he spoke: you are made whole and complete. Everything that one needs to be restored to fulness is given in Jesus, through the Spirit.

And the priest shared what I interpreted to mean that we have, every day, all that we need for wholeness, to be restored to God, to live our lives as citizens of the Kingdom of God on earth. Although at times I may sense anxiety or depression and believe that I NEED relief, or that I NEED to figure out how to work out the circumstances of my parents moving to Washington while I stay in California, on days when my job seems so petty and insignificant and I NEED something new, and when friendships are as shallow or absent as orangey red leaves to crunch in on a perfect fall day -they leave you unfulfilled and longing for new horizons, places, and people that have to be out there somewhere, God help me NOW, I pray. Jesus said, "you are whole, restored, and complete" in Him, through the Spirit. And I have to train my soul, my flesh, my emotions, and my longing to rest, to take on the verb shalom, to actively engage in restoration and wholeness by seeking the Holy Spirit, by resting in truth, by receiving eucharisto, which is literally gratitude.

Every new day holds the potential for restoration and wholeness in Jesus. It is the gift that He gives, the life that he brings, the new birth and resurrection that occurred because of His sacrifice. Perhaps that is it.

I took a video of a metaphor on my drive from San Francisco to Southern California last week. I turned on the radio as my phone was low on battery and for a few moments got the clear-ish strains of Christian music uttering claims about God, Jesus, and the implications for humanity. Then, I got fuzz and a pastor came on with very declamatory claims about God, and then the two mixed with static and the noise of conflict. When I looked out of the window the view was a peaceful and clear as I had ever seen a landscape. I had been praying and lamenting on my drive that knowing God is so difficult amidst competing messages. I think he responded in this way. The foreground is all that we strive as humans to know of and about God. The background is shalom. Jesus brings the noun of restoration and wholeness in silent, quiet peace.