What I Say

From Monday's mass readings (emphasis mine; probably goes without saying):

When Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?”  

And they said, “Some say John the Baptist, but others Elijah, and still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.”  

He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” 

Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”  

And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.”

If anything the historical person Jesus of Nazareth claimed about himself is true, then he is the most significant human ever to live. I happen to believe everything he said about himself, and consequently that the fact of his being is the most significant fact about all history, all reality. That, along with a lot of massive implications, is who I say Jesus is with my intellect and my words. I've thought about it a lot, as most of you will know. I'm convinced. I believe.

And yet: Do I? How should I live if I believe this? How does my awareness of the fact of Jesus shape my life?

I wonder about this every time I hear this reading. It might be the most uncomfortable line in the Gospel for me.

Jesus Blood Never Failed Me Yet

is a rather incredible song I didn't know existed until a few days ago.

I occasionally write in other places.

Like this, in which I consider the implications of Pope Francis's Laudato Si for whether I give a first thought, much less a second one, about people in, say, Kuala Lumpur.

On the Strange Heartbreak of Joy

I tell you this to break your heart,
    by which i mean only
that it break open and never close again
    to the rest of the world.
- Mary Oliver

Once in while, I've felt my heart pressed with greater joy than I knew it could handle. It's always a quite realization. I marvel once I notice, and I gradually comprehend that it's no temporary jolt but a new abiding way of being. Whatever space in me receives joy has expanded.

Joy is a way of understanding reality. Each time my feeble little heart and brain grasp a new grain of Truth, it grows my heart, and since nature abhors a vacuum, the new space fills with wonder at that Truth, which is to say, it fills with joy. Since the Truth abides forever, so does joy.

The only way to make that new space is to break apart the old one. Each time I've felt that press of joy, it's been in the wake some realization or experience that forces me to let go of some old understanding*. This kind of letting go always feels like a death, albeit a teeny one, but in the equally teeny scheme of my life, persisting through some of those experiences feels like a hell of a trial. I feel my heart twinge in my chest - literally, physically - and I wish it weren't so even as some other part of me sees joy coming.

God breaks my heart all the time, over and over. It feels like He's wringing me out. In my better moments I understand that feeling is just me twisting away from Him, and I understand that the breaking I feel is joy clearing out things that weren't part of me to begin with. And clearing out those things is a kind of death, is a kind of heartbreak, is the only way my scaly heart can make room for joy.

Like rings on a tree trunk, each time this happens, joy grows exponentially. Each heartbreak lets more of the world, more of Christ, seep in. And each time, I am bigger, stronger, with more to give and more space to receive.


*These aren't even sad things, necessarily. A great example is my time in Brownsville. I have nothing but positive things to say about those two years and those ten people, and also it was the hardest, most uncomfortable thing I'd ever done.

Mah heels need some serious bruising!

Today's reminder from Jesus to quit with the vice grip:

“Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life." (Jn 12:24-25)

There's a song I really love that includes the lyric:

So, God, bruise the heels we've dug in the ground
that we might move closer to love
Pull out the roots we've dug in so deep
Finish what you started; help us to believe
- Jars of Clay, Eyes Wide Open

Believe what, exactly? That the death we experience when we let go of ourselves does indeed lead to a better rebirth.

Actually, that's not quite right. The thing I'm letting go of when I let go of myself isn't even me. It's all the misunderstandings I've accumulated about myself and about others, and all the armory and reflexive panic I tinkered up for myself in response to those misunderstandings.

The paradox is that the more I let go of control, the freer I am. It is indeed a kind of dying to relinquish my idea about how the world works, about who I am, and it's an ongoing pain the in the tukhus. Yet, every time I force myself to die a little bit, I am freer and better and more myself on the other side.