Throughout my life my father consistently recalled to me that I was named Lois, the Maiden Warrior, which is a loose definition of my name. His consistent influence over my life included being reminded from time to time of how the LORD desires to use that innate tenacity still whispers to me to this day. He and my mother also instilled in me through our family habits a desire for prayer and reading of Sacred Scripture. I’m grateful for their influence in my life, their words are gifts!
My father had a nickname for me–“Snowflake”. He had been raised in Swaziland, South Africa as a son of missionaries. Snow had never been a gift he enjoyed, but on a certain furlough to the United States I happened to be born to my mother and him on a snowy day. Six weeks later our family returned to snowless South Africa where he and mother served as missionaries. Years later on my birthday he gave me my first Bible. The words he penned to me have served as a lintel over my life. “To my dear Snowflake, may your life leave a mark but never a stain.” I’m a better person for those words my father spoke over me. Words are life changing!
Most importantly I am being transformed by the words my Heavenly Father offers me each day as I live my The Faith. The reading of Sacred Scripture, the treasure of Sacred Tradition, and the security of Sacred Authority present in The Roman Catholic Church speak God’s Word to me just as a loving father speaks to his daughter. Through living the Truth, Beauty and Goodness of our Sacramental Faith the LORD’S voice is leading me in the “long obedience in the same direction [towards] something which has made life worth living.”* Words give direction!
My day always begins with a prayer to our LORD from Psalm 19:15, “May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Your sight, O LORD, my Rock and my Redeemer.” Those words were written to me by a godly women who taught one of my high school English classes. She was affirming my writing skills by offering the scripture as a template for all I put to paper. Words are life-changing!
What’s in a word? Everything! “Thus says the LORD, your Creator, O [Child], and he who formed you, O [Friend]: Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name; you are Mine!” Isaiah 43:1
“Splendor and majesty go before the LORD; praise and joy are in his holy place. Let us rejoice and be glad, alleluia!”
As I sip on my coffee in this early morning hour, the silent footfalls of the day’s dawn gently echo these words in my soul. It is the awe I allow myself to ponder that will set the tone of this day. “Splendor and majesty go before the LORD….” As surely as the sun will soon rise and set, you will reveal to me your splendor and majesty. It may be in a moment of peace or upheaval or in the Holy Spirit’s whisper or, perhaps in the company of another.
I, your beloved daughter, can only accept this truth as I anticipate You coming in these moments in splendor and magnificent grandeur, to me. This life I live is lived on this earth, desiring Your Kingdom to come on earth as it is in heaven. This space I sit in is holy ground where You reveal to my seeking heart that all of life is sacred, everywhere is holy. “The LORD’s praise and joy will fill my soul” –I allow my imagination to merge with this truth that splendor and majesty are the LORD’S, and the LORD’S alone.
Father, I humbly prostrate myself before you and sing,
“Holy Spirit, Love divine, glow within the heart of mine; Kindle every high desire, Perish self in thy pure fire! Holy Spirit, Peace divine, still this restless heart of mine; speak to calm this tossing sea, stayed in thy tranquility. Holy Spirit, Joy Divine, gladden though this heart of mine; in the desert ways I sing,
I caught a glimpse of you this morning. You were standing in the grocery store check-out line, just ahead of another woman about the age you were when you departed this life. You were being your merciful and generous self, not thinking about a to-do list but rather engaging another with grace-filled attention and common conversation. You talked about recipes, traffic and yogurt. Not-so-interesting topics to you but they seemed interesting to the woman. You saw her like no one else could see her at that point in time–a woman of years and experience, in need of kind attention. The gesture of your goodbye to her was the cadence of hospitality dancing from your fluttering fingers as you always had for anyone you crossed paths with. A cadence that speaks to the other: “I am glad for this moment with you, I am richer because of this fleeting encounter.” Yes, I did see you….in me as I stood there with that woman and I hope someone looking on would say, “You look just like you mother.
“Jesus took with him Peter and John and James, and went up on the mountain to pray. And while he was praying, the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became dazzling white. Suddenly they saw two men, Moses and Elijah, talking to him. They appeared in glory and were speaking of his departure, which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem. Now Peter and his companions were weighed down with sleep; but since they had stayed awake, they saw his glory and the two men who stood with him. Just as they were leaving him, Peter said to Jesus, “Master, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah”—not knowing what he said. While he was saying this, a cloud came and overshadowed them; and they were terrified as they entered the cloud. Then from the cloud came a voice that said, “This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!” When the voice had spoken, Jesus was found alone. And they kept silent and in those days told no one any of the things they had seen.” –The Gospel according to Saint Luke
Mountains seem to be a thing for you, LORD. I have climbed Mount Tabor sometimes with great speed and sometimes slowly over these decades since Mom entered the clouds of eternity to worship you forever, I’m not able to behold her transformed face as the disciples beheld your’s, but I’m sure if I could, I’d see her laughing. The surprise and delight that came to her so easily in this life now abundantly released into her soul.
I have been, in turn, Moses climbing Sinai and Elijah climbing Carmel and Horeb. There has been monumental stuff that’s happened to me on the mountain range of Faith. Your mountain with its clouds: the finger of the LORD God writing his Law on the stone tablet of my heart. Worship of this earth’s values and attractions shattering–exposed by a cloud the size of a man’s hand bearing the rain that no graven image could conjure. I am Elijah who chooses trust in you, revived by your whisper after wind shakes mountains and the earth quakes….“What are you doing here, [Lois]?”
And now in this grocery line, a Mt. Tabor transfiguration; where the glory of the God-head radiates from your face as the Father commands me to listen to you and to experience your passion and your resurrection and be transfigured by your holy Spirit What am I doing here, Lord Jesus Christ, on this the summit of Tabor?What is this heavenly mystery I see as you dazzle white before me? Why do you allow me to eavesdrop on your conversation with pioneer mountain climbers once covered by the veil of death but now revealed as the shroud of eternity free falls down the mountain? It is good to be here with you, but, why here? A grocery line that transports me in a moment that is luminous with the reflection of your glory! I should be blinded but instead I fall before you in worship. I see now with abundant clarity that you led me to this ordinary moment of waiting in the grocery line. And I feel you as you lead me back down this mountain where the mystery of transformation will illuminate my soul.
Could it be that it was my heart’s longing that opened the portal of eternity to me?Could it be that as I learn to live life praying–abiding in the ascent of listening–that you amend my fears and doubts, striking a lightning blow to my pride and arrogance. Is it in in the moments of give and take living that I see your divine purpose now unfold in my humanity? Is the mystery of transfiguration revealed when I learn to listen to you, to respond in obedience, to see that every moment is suffused with divinity waiting for my eyes to look up? Is it that overshadowing of your grace that happens on the earth under my feet; turning grocery store check-out lines into the holy ground of my transformation into your likeness?
“Become what you behold,” echoed from Tabor as I stood beside that woman today. The merciful spirit that is the spiritual heritage of Mom’s life has steadily become my spiritual gift over these years as I have submitted to your transformation every moment of living my ordinary life in the pursuit of holiness. My life is gradually being endowed with the generosity of spirit that was so natural to Mom and so unnatural to me. I look back now and see how your holy Spirit has poured into my life the mercy and generosity that I have prayed for as an inheritance from Mother. Today I felt Mom’s spirit dancing from my fluttering fingers in a gesture of kindness toward the woman. A physical and spiritual heritage become one in the transformation of my soul. And I listen to you, Father. My voice echoes back to you what Peter must have said to you as he fell on his knees before the miracle of The Transfiguration. “It is good that I am here, it is good that I have listened and obeyed. I hear you say to me now, ‘You are my beloved daughter.'”
“The word that came to [me] from the Lord: ‘Come, go down to the potter’s house, and there I will let you hear my words.’ So I went down to the potter’s house, and there he was working at his wheel…“
The vessel he was making of clay was spoiled in the potter’s hand, and he reworked it into another vessel, as seemed good to him. Then the word of the Lord came to me: ‘Can I not do with you, [Lois] just as this potter has done?’ says the Lord. ‘Just like the clay in the potter’s hand, so are you in my hand, [Lois].'”
I was your Jeremiah, LORD, a disconsolate servant biding her time, waiting for justice in the land between nowhere and now here. My soul waited for a good word from you, my Creator. I was spoiled in your Potter’s hand… It was you, Creator, that allowed my body to lose its equilibrium, to fall away from a lifetime of mind over matter? You were aware! So it must be your purpose! You don’t waste clay. I am clay in repair….clay in restoration….clay in transformation.
Your lump of clay on the wheel, keen to be mended from injury that reduced me to spoil on your wheel. I felt the gentle pressure of your potters rib at once wringing out the nonsense of my despair and defining contours that demanded my submission if I was to rest in the providence of your Divine Will. What was beautiful to you took my soul’s abandonment to your hand before I would see the beauty of being thrown about upon your wheel.
Round and round my thoughts travelled as your hand reworked me for your intended purpose. I heard your word to me, “Can I not do with you just as the potter has done?…. you are still safe in my hands.” Am I? I am! Chastened for doubting your goodness. Humbled, not broken. Weak being made strong. My clay and my soul, my desire and my will, flattened against the wheel by the weight of glory in your hand. Gently, relentlessly you shape me as you lift me from the wheel to become the vessel that seems good to you!
I’m your lump of clay slowly giving way to the tools of transformation in the Master Potter’s hand; my humanity giving way to your image. What is this rise in my spirit? Submission, anticipation, acceptance? You are working all the disparate fragments of a life past. The loss with its thousand disappointments, the anxiety that handicaps my body, the uncertainties of ability folding in on themselves as you knead hope into my soul. A vessel marred by struggle, strengthened by hope in you. Gently, relentlessly you shape me as you lift me from the wheel and I become the vessel that seems good to you! The wheel slows, your hand hovers over me….you whisper to me “you are beautiful,” and I finally listen.
I see now that as the wheel turns, your wounded hands steady in purpose, dissolve the hard edges of pride. Your wounded hands are at once pouring your blood out upon me and absorbing my suffering into your Passion as you mend and sculpt a chalice…. a vessel worthy for worship.
“And your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, ‘This is the way, walk in it,’ when you turn to the right or when you turn to the left.” (Isaiah 30:21)
“This is the way, walk in it.” Why is sometimes so hard for me to just follow your will for me? Don’t answer, Lord, I already know the answer. Pride! Everyone has some inner space to navigate in order to receive the abundance of grace You desire for them, and that space is unique to each person. For me, it’s over-weaning pride, the underbelly of balanced pride. It’s that, “I can handle this!” comeuppance in my spirit that’s the problem, isn’t it?
I can connect the dots of how pride became over-weaning PRIDE. The long fight with this rearguard of delusion in my soul grew from the feelings of the insecurities surrounding mom’s chronic disease, and they’ve shadowed my life and fogged the way of humility from time to time. Now, as I look back, I realize I couldn’t restore mom’s health through my own efforts yet somehow in my emotional formation, I came to believe it was up to me to shield her and others from suffering. That delusion led to this prideful determination that I would protect anyone I loved from suffering. Not such a bad motivation, is it, Lord?
I learned early on that we grow in holiness as we obey the Spirit’s leadership in the walk of faith: to trust was to obey and to obey was to trust. It was the consistent lesson from Dad and Mom to us as we lived in our reality. Learning obedience and trust have included pratfalls along the way. And it always come down to two areas of my life: The great tests of my faith have been through circumstances around what you know I hold most dear in my life–my family. It has been one thing to say to You, “Yes, I want to ascend the heights of grace, yes, I want to seek understanding by learning to trust.” It is quite another thing for me to say, “Yes, I will choose to allow my husband or child or loved one to suffer through circumstances while You teach me to trust and obey.” Worse yet, the great tests of my faith have been with the mindset that accompanies my pride. “Yes, I desire to be humbled, LORD…But I will not allow anyone to know the emotional or physical battles I fight every day in this ascent to holiness…I will not entrust myself to others.” Do you shake your head and wonder when I’ll loosen my grip on pride?
I believe it was St. Thomas Aquinas who wrote that pride is disordered self-trust. It seems to me that in every upheaval that precedes my eventual obedience there is a redemptive moment when I’ve realize that disordered self-trust has me in its grip. If I’m going to be transformed into the image of Christ through a circumstance, I have to loosen my grip on my pride. LORD, I’m in awe of your patience with me and I’m grateful for the lightness of being that flows over my spirit each time I submit to You! It seems the path of surrender only opens before me as I learn from each temptation to turn to my pride--“to the right or to the left..choose you this day whom you trust.”
I read somewhere that suffering and death are the specters that brood and hover around the edges of fallen humanity–sometimes they stand just outside the boundaries of living in the present moment, other times they possess us. That possession is sometimes suffocating and other times sly; slipping in and around my thoughts until I’m in a cul-de-sac of confusion! Humbling myself by praying “God of Grace, this does not belong to me, it belongs to you” or “Jesus I surrender myself to you, take care of everything” is responding to the truth that You are the voice that is saying to me, “This is the way, walk in it.” And as I entrust myself to You, you train me in the grace of stilling my thoughts and stepping back to look at the circumstances through your eyes.
It’s a season of suffering that has gradually fractured into a thousand fragments like spent dandelion; let me grieve. Don’t fill my ears with the should haves and the would haves and the could haves that already crowd my mind; give me time.
When memories draw tears up from the well of my heart; let me weep. Don’t nudge me into making new memories out of pieces of old memories; let me keep them even when they hurt. I’ll let go in God’s good time. you see loneliness tip toe into my soul; let it come. Leave me space in this sacred loneliness for days gone by; I’m okay here, alone in the garden with my Savior; we watch as the dandelion gently lets go of life.
When my face turns away from you to gaze upon a distance scene; don’t doubt. I am still here with you in the present though the past is still a steadfast companion; do not worry, I will eventually say the final goodbye.
When I say “I can’t,” know that I have fought hard battles with my pride to say those words; understand me.
When my physical pain drives me into the dark shadows of doubt and despair; pray with me there. My head knows it is a fact of existence for me, but my soul is learning to catch up to what is. Pray for me as I offer up my suffering to my Savior who knew of me before I knew of me, who knit me together with a mangled spine; sit with me and wait for my soul to find her way in the shadow of my Savior’s Passion.
Letting go of who I thought I was is leading me to see what my Creator’s sees of me. Through disability I am me is unfolding as I let go of what was and embrace what will be; pray for me as I unfold.
And when last seed of life has left the dandelion, follow me on the wisps of wind that come with time. Where loss quietly finds a way toward resurrection–finally finding new soil to grow in. Rejoice with me as I resurrect from the valley of the shadow of suffering in the green pastures where hope springs eternal.
I learned recently about CeaseFire, a faith-based intervention organization that’s mission is to stop gang violence specifically and racially-motivated strife generally. I learned they have what are referred to as “interrupters” who mediate potentially volatile circumstances
with the objective of peace and reconciliation. One interrupters name is Tim, a former gang member who found Jesus in a prison cell. Tim now stands for peace and he “punks” peace on the streets. I am inspired by his rough humility and transparency. He shared a story of a time when he himself had just successfully interrupted a confrontation between two gang members and on his way home from that meeting he was confronted by another gang member who purposefully cut him off in traffic. They ended up out of their cars and trash talking to each other. Tim said this, “I suddenly realized I was riding the same wave of pride that causes the violence I’m trying to interrupt!” He went on to say the toughest mediation is the mediation inside you. That’s what got me! I’ve never been in a gang, never faced significant injustice, heck, I’ve never even been in a fight that came to blows with my fists.
To mitigate peace, You said, “don’t fight back.” Well, actually you said more than that:
“You have heard that it was said to the men of old, ‘You shall not kill; and whoever kills shall be liable to judgment.’ But I say to you that every one who is angry with his brother shall be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother shall be liable to the council, and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ shall be liable to the hell of fire….“You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you, Do not resist one who is evil. But if any one strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also; and if any one would sue you and take your coat, let him have your cloak as well;and if any one forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. Give to him who begs from you, and do not refuse him who would borrow from you…”
Matthew 5: 21-22; 38-42
It is highly unlikely that I will find myself myself on the streets of an inner city known for racial strife. I doubt I’ll ever be stuck in a war-torn country. But, I am painfully certain that I ride the wave of pride that can inflict pain on another. Your Word in so many places reminds me that when pride or fear rules in my heart in any relationship, the potential for violence is there, though it is often disguised in words and attitudes and motivations.
That’s the rub about You, Jesus; you look right past my entire pretense, all my righteous appearance as if You didn’t care about that at all. Dog-gone-it, LORD, don’t you appreciate how much effort I put into my Self-righteousness? When I stand before you in the final judgment and for that matter, when I stand before you in every moment, you aren’t comparing me to a gang member, or a Stalin, or a Hussein, or even my grumpy neighbor, No, you compare me to you! Nuts! That’s a tall measure.
William Barclay says it is much easier to go about declaring that there should be no such thing as violence, than to live a life in which we personally never allow any such thing as bitterness to invade our relationships with those we live every day. That kind of violence is everywhere, no boundary lines exist on that one and that kind of gang territory can tear apart a relationship faster than any verbal fight.
Back to being an Interrupter. How can I interrupt the cycle of anger or pride or fear or resentment? Slowing down, wearing the shoes of the other, seeing with your eyes and not my own. That kind of action is easier to do when the other is not so important to me. Much, much harder to do with the ones who are closest or when it’s something I’m passionate about.
Some of the most painful, cutting, violent words are words between husbands and wives, siblings, and family members. Occasionally I’m the one who must an interrupter in someone’s relational conflict. To bring peace with a word seems impossible; to mediate resentment that has built over years require much more than a few words. The word can only come from your Spirit’s gift to me–wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude and knowledge, piety and reverence. That manner of interruption accomplishes the impossible.
And then there’s times when I feel what Tim said, “the toughest mediation is the mediation inside you.” I ask your holy Spirit when I get caught up in my own resentments and the temptations to retaliate or to even the playing field, “What needs to be examined in my spirit; Why am I stuck in these emotions?” Eventually, your Spirit faithfully brings me back to this thought: “In the grand scheme of things is what I consider my territory, my rights, and my way important enough to forfeit your forgiveness?” That stops me in my tracks, sometimes it takes me awhile to come to a full stop, but I eventually give over.
God of Peace, lead me with your staff away from the temptation of comeuppance toward the people around me.
God of Peace, release me from the briar of collected grievances that twist through my thoughts and choke out patience and gentleness.
God of Peace, anoint the wounds I allow to fester with your healing oil.
God of Peace, lead me to the still waters and cleanse me of the violence my spirit wields in my thoughts and words.
Mom had an expression I heard often growing up, “Hope springs eternal.” In my teen years, she would remind my melancholishness that not all is lost in circumstances that seemed hopeless. She would remind me of that during my long bouts of depression that accompanied the passage from a child to an adult.
Many a night when she would come into my room to pray with me, she’d sense my blues that increased when the sun went down. They were always accompanied by fear because I was still learning that the LORD is a faithful Father and ever-present to my needs. Needs seem so monumental when you are a melancholy teenager, but now I look back and chuckle. I’ve lived a lot of years since then and I’ve been through the school of hard knocks–I’ve learned what real struggle and doubt feel like.
Later in life, she would remind me to hope when life threatened to crowd the joy out of my heart or when life as a mother challenged my abilities. She would remind me of that when I began to face some of the real-life challenges that everyone faces from time to time. She would often tag on the line from the psalms, “Weeping may last for the night, but joy comes in the morning.” Mom was a strong-willed optimist and that eventually rubbed off on me. I’m grateful for her presence in my life and especially that she modeled before me the importance of choosing hope in the LORD.
The time came though when those were my words to her as she slowly lost her battle to live. She lived before me what I think Ralph Waldo Emerson was hoping to communicate when he penned, “What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.” It was the hope in the LORD that filled mom with endurance and courage in the face of chronic disease. Her hope was her strength and it was eternal in the fullest sense of the word.
Mom’s words whispered to me today as I cleaned up winter from our garden today; as I brushed some decaying leaves away from the soil I saw the evidence of my Creator’s everlasting care. There beneath the refuse of the past season’s death, there were the tender green shoots of our Crimean Snowdrops lifting their delicate white caps upward toward the early Spring sun–“Hello again beautiful world, I’m here again to glorify the Creator!” I saw mom at that moment, her head was raised in hope fulfilled: eternal worship of our LORD!
LORD, there are times now when I feel short on hope. Help me to see beyond the present moment that threatens to steal my joy. I look at the whole scheme of things, to the very edge of my soul, and my heart wants to respond with a “YES” to mom’s words woven into the fabric of my life. It is there in that crossover moment that I see I have a choice to make: either I will dig down deep into the wellspring of life as my eyes gaze heavenward into Hope Eternal, or I will stand ankle deep in the despair, or resentment or pride or just plain sloth that has stopped me in the tracks of doubt.
There are some people I just avoid; you know the types–self-centered and critical, distracted. I walk away from time spent with them feeling depleted in spirit and sucked dry of joy, do you have people in your life like that? People that seem more interested in talking to you instead of listening to you. Their postures reveal they’re in a hurry. They keep their eye on the phone they hold in their hand while you sit there hoping for a conversation with just them, and not with their phone. I can’t tell you how much I resent that black-screened rectangle idol sometimes, yet I know you are probably holding one in your hand right now to listen to this podcast. I don’t resent them for how they are used, I resent them for the distraction they are.
Sometimes I wonder what the LORD feels when I am distracted in prayer with him overly concerned about the voices in my head. I wonder if he looks at me and feels the absence of my spirit? I wonder if he resents the idol I hold in my hand? I wonder how he feels when I rush in and out of prayer with all tongue and no ear. I know where the problem lies, it’s in me and the idea that I hold on to that I am praying to Him. What kind of relationship is that? Sometimes I wonder if he says to himself, “Shut your mouth, Lois….can you listen for a minute?….will you turn off the noise between me and you?
It seems to me that when you and I allow the distractions of ourselves to dominate our idea of the relationship we have with God, we ARE all surface and no depth; consumed by what I have to say instead of what the LORD is whispering to me. Absent of any sense that He is Emmanuel, God with me. Our LORD is a perfect gentleman, he waits for us to weary of our own redundant preoccupations, he waits for us to fix our gaze on him and to simply stop.
Father Jacque Philippe’s book, Time for God, has been an essential guide for me in the prayerful life. “What matters in prayer is not what we do but what God does in us during those moments, the essential act in prayer is, at bottom, to place oneself in God’s presence and to remain there… This presence, which is that of the living God, is active, vivifying. It heals and sanctifies us. We cannot sit before a fire without getting warm.”
I’ve come to believe that the remedy for praying to Him is learning to understand that prayer is with Him. Doesn’t that sound genuine and inviting? How can we get there? When I unite my prayer and my desires with his heart I change my posture; placing myself with him in his presence. When I enter into his rest this way I believe he hears me saying, “I’m glad to sit with you, to kneel before you, to enjoy your company!”
The question I ask myself, you may ask yourself: Why do I delay the graces God has for me by filling the air with my words? A monologue that’s all about me, myself, and I: my self-promoting desires, my self-centered attitudes, my selfish wants….do you notice the theme here? Is it familiar to you? I remember something Dallas Willard wrote about the effect of praying with God. There is a pervasive and spiritually strengthening effect on all aspects of our own sense of self when we relax into conversation with God. I kindle to that image!
I think of the words of St. Teresa of Avila, “Prayer is an upward surge of the heart.” Now, there’s the posture I need to take that will free me from the navel-gazing I’m prone to do. As I begin to understand that prayer is the response of my whole self, born from my reverence for and trust in my heavenly Father, then I am moving closer to intimacy with my LORD. The knowing and being known through conversation, where my eyes are opened wide to the genuine life of communion with the LORD.
Friend, do you sense that our heavenly Father is patiently waiting for your presence to him? Do you weary of struggling against the thoughts that distract and dismay you? I sure do!
Oh, LORD, when we are all tongue and no ear, silence us.
When we wallow in regrets pick us up out of the mud we’ve made of our life. Hold us in your arms, speak to us your cleansing words of life.
Teach us how to listen. We desire quietness to rule our spirits. Would you enlarge our hearts with longing for you? Would you unite all our desire with yours?
You speak words of life, you give wisdom to those who listen, and you grant insight to those who will look into your eyes with humble gratitude. Teach us to pray with you!
In the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning, it is now, and ever shall be, world without end.
“Lifting up his eyes to heaven..” Sacred Scripture often makes a point of this physical posture you took in Your interaction with your followers; they, like me, probably were transfixed on the world around them when their eyes should have been fixed on You. They faced the distractions of the culture–the constant yammering that arrests man’s imagination; it’s no different now. The culture’s navel-gazing fear, pride and anger is the reality of this earthly kingdom from time and memorial.
When I take the time to consider the movement of Your eyes, it stops me in my pell-mell stumbling through my everyday life. It keeps me from being caught up in the current events in the world that do nothing to console my spirit or feed my soul. I sense You patiently waiting for me to take my gaze off fears, pride and anger, just as You drew Your disciples out of their fears and their prideful posturing. You beckon me to listen to your Word and contemplate the eternal. You allow me to eavesdrop on the mystery of praying without ceasing by the epiphany of you Trinity shown at Your baptism, and then you turn to me and say, “You are my beloved child.” You direct me in my prayer to pray without ceasing for Your Kingdom to come in me as it is in heaven. The scrim of heaven and this world is immediately lifted by Your words, “Holy Father…..I speak this in the world so that they may share my joy completely…I do not ask that you take them out of the world but that you keep them…..” I am as slow as your disciples to learn that as I lean into praying without ceasing I am somehow learning to “lift my eyes to heaven” where you display my chief end, where joy is made complete!
“Man becomes the image of God not so much in the moment of solitude as in the moment of communion.” (St. John Paul II) I know this to be true, but sometimes I don’t want to be in communion with “my trinity;” my neighbors, my family and the anonymous “they” that I coexist with in this earthly kingdom. It would be easier to keep my face in a cloud rather than live out the truth that my transformation often comes with the difficult relationships that tax my capacity to love my neighbor.
“Become what you behold,” you tell me. If this is true, then I do become one with you in a heaven of love, grace and mercy as I fix my eyes on You from my corner of the world. Pope Benedict XVI wrote: “The meaning of Christ’s Ascension expresses our belief that in Christ the humanity that we all share has entered into the inner life of God in a new and hitherto unheard of way. It means that man has found an everlasting place in God. [It would be a mistake to interpret the Ascension as] the temporary absence of Christ from the world. [Rather] we go to heaven to the extent that we go to Jesus Christ and enter into him. Heaven is a person: Jesus himself is what we call ‘heaven.’”
LORD, the fix of my gaze so often is on me, myself and I. Forgive me. Train me to lift my eyes to heaven, to you the True God.
LORD, may the posture I take always be as your beloved daughter: still as a child at rest in her Father’s arms. Eyes fixed on your beautiful face.
LORD, the Psalms proclaim, “All my being bless your Holy Name.” May every breath of my being fixate on your Word to me so that my every thought, action and deed blesses You, my Heaven.
The Maiden Warrior 