a pilgrimage into the little way of St. Thérèse...

"If you are seeking the divine, you have already made contact with the divine in yourself," writes Richard Rohr in Immortal Diamond: The Search for our True Self. This insight has its origins in the pre-Reformation wisdom of the Christian Church that posits that in the beginning what God created was good, so it remains good for eternity. This would include you and me. While the anxiety of the Protestant Reformers caused them to obsess on human depravity and worthlessness, the early community of faith knew that life begins with original blessing and flows back to it, too. 

It may be true, of course, that for a variety of reasons our lives fail to document that blessing. Brokenness, unrestrained anger, fear, shame and addictions may reinforce behavior that is unhealthy and troubling. We see evidence of that all around us. Yet original blessing never ceases to be true. As Jesus said to the thief beside him on the Cross: "Today you will be with me in paradise." As Bono made clear years ago: grace trumps karma. For many contemporary people with an interest in spirituality - and for almost everyone raised in a Reformed setting - the primacy of original blessing is essential. We need to know from the inside out that we were shaped and formed by God and that we shall return to God, too. Only after we have fully digested and embraced this truth can we honestly and incarnationally move towards nourishing and strengthening the spirit within us so that "our life gives evidence of our encounter with God." (Rohr)

Does our encounter with the holy bring about in you any of the things that St. Paul describes as 'the fruits' of the Spirit" "love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, trustfulness, gentleness and self-control." (Galatians 5:22) (That is to say are we any) different from our surroundings (after our awareness of being blessed by God's Spirit is realized) or do we reflect the predictable cultural values and biases (or our social context)? (p. 109)

Last night I started to read The Soul of a Pilgrim by Christine Valters Paintner. I also began reading a few online articles about the spirituality of St. Thérèse of Lisieux. After reading Jean Vanier - whose wisdom and insight has not been invalidated by his troubling brokenness and sin (at least for me) -  I became curious about "the Little Flower" and her practice of living as a child for God. St. Thérèse invites us into a "small way" - her practice of celebrating the beauty and awe of God's creation even when it is surrounded or saturated by fear and violence -as is always the case. Like Malvina Reynolds, who wrote, "God Bless the Grass," Thérèse rejoices in the grass breaking through the concrete. She experiences original blessing and invites us to trust it like a child. And that resonates with me. After trying to be big and wise, important and meaningful, I am coming to terms with the fact that my faith is small. It is child-like - not childish - but simple. Beyond the evidence, I trust God's love. I have had seasons of doubt. I have fought God's grace and run away from it, too. But over and again, I return like a child to rest in the Lord. A scholarly article on the "little way" of Thérèse offers this summary:

Littleness, hiddenness, poverty, nothingness, powerlessness - these are the words that by predilection Thérèse uses to explain the Christ mystery at work in her life. And these same words describe her way to God. The diminutives are not to subtract, but to enhance, not to lead to a (diminished) state of spiritual being, but to show how all the smallnesses we ignore and pass over can be used for growth. The hidden, the inconspicuous, saves us from the empty flash and glitter of trying to be great, special in the eyes of others. We don't have to aim at being famous for 15 minutes, the amount of time Andy Warhol guaranteed to everybody. The littleness of Thérèse is for the sake of gathering in the particles of our life, to make sure nothing will be lost, not letting the fragments slip through our fingers like pearls dropped into the dust.

Nietzsche, who lived at the same time as Thérèse though he was born much earlier, is an apostle of power just as Thérèse is an apostle of powerlessness. Nietzsche said, "Where I found the living, there I found the will to power." Thérèse declared, "I have my weaknesses also, but I rejoice in them...It's so good to feel that one is weak and little."

Nietzsche said, "It is for others that I wait...for those who are higher, stronger, more triumphant, and more cheerful, such as are built perpendicular in body and soul: laughing lions must come." Thérèse cries out, "O Jesus!...I feel that if You found a soul weaker and littler than mine, which is impossible, You would be pleased to grant it still greater favors...I beg You to cast Your Divine Glance upon a great number of little souls. I beg You to choose a legion of little Victims worthy of Your LOVE!"

The paradox in Thérèse is the power of her powerlessness since it calls forth the might of God. The appeal of weakness is for divine strength to work in and through it. When we acknowledge our weakness, no longer demanding the right to be in control of our lives, divine power becomes infinitely available to us. Then we reach to the contemplative depths of our human nature where we become passively alert to the revelation of God. We develop the mystic gaze that sees God everywhere in everything. (http://carmelitesofeldridge.org/therese.html)

There is a freedom - a sense of relief - in living small and little. It is the embodied way to "think globally and act locally." Or as the Talmud puts it: 

This is one of the reasons I have been attracted to reflections on pilgrimage: it, too, is a small way - a practice of being and discovery - within the ordinary. It is not an idealized spirituality. Rather, it is about walking and noticing, traveling lightly with the eyes of wonder, and being practical in the best sense of that word. Reasonable and safe. Not heroic or inflated. Valters-Paintner suggests that the spirituality of pilgrimage is grounded in St. Mary. On "the feast of the Annunciation," she writes, we remember "Mary's own pilgrim journey of saying 'yes. She walked into the unknown with only her trust in God to carry her. Any one can identify with Mary and her questions, 'How can this be?" when the angel of the Lord tells her she will be with child." (P. 12) There is a smallness and an innocence to this journey, too.

Somewhere online I read something about the soul of a pilgrim noticing the little clues along the way that evoke an appreciation for synchronicity. For most of my conscious life this type of noticing has been important - and last night two small clues appeared that quietly encouraged my journey. One involved a short word of encouragement I have been asked to offer at our Friday afternoon Zoom time of prayer for the community of L'Arche Ottawa. We sing and talk, we read scripture and then reflect on what it might be saying to us at this moment in time. The daily lectionary reading comes from St. John's telling of the miracle of feeding 5,000. Without diminishing the pure blessing of this event, I found that I was drawn to the small boy who simply offered Jesus what he had - and by God's grace that simple offering became enough. Such is the truth of the little way. Like the poem by Christina Rosetti that I know as "In the Bleak Midwinter," all that I have to offer is small, too: my heart. (I love Sarah McLachlan's take on this song. It feels like my life in the spirit.)

The other clue of synchronicity showed up as I was sorting through a box from the basement. This past week I painted and did some upgrading of our kitchen. In cleaning up in the aftermath, I needed to attend to the mess in the cellar. So as I watched the evening PBS news (delighted to see Judy Woodruff reporting from home) I came upon a small, folded-up piece of notebook paper. It was a note from my daughter, Michal, from our days in Cleveland, OH. There's no date but I would guess it comes from first grade. It is precious.

Inside is a message about our shared love for dogs. Pay special attention to the closing where she gets playful with words, punctuation and white-out for her corrections. Pure joy.

The little way of Thérèse- the spirituality of the pilgrim - speaks to me just like this note does: with tenderness and trust. 

The asceticism and detachment of the Little Way is not for the sake of toughening our moral fiber, giving us mastery over the petty irritations of life. It is not based on a stoicism of the will but on a theology of grace that sees a God of infinite mercy suffusing and permeating every aspect of my personal existence. This God interacts with me at every second, immanent in all that happens to me, undergirding all the choices I make. Thérèse expresses this loving accessibility of my God in three often - quoted words: Everything is grace... The Little Way is a journey of recognition, of seeing the divine more clearly in areas of my life where God has been obscured, hidden - in relationships with others especially. The sharp word, the callous rebuke, the impatient answer - all become of consequence - especially if they rise out of a habit. Habitual ways of dealing with our world always deserve our attention. They tell us about ourselves. They tell us where grace is being blocked or being welcomed.

credits:

+ Anamcara Books

+ Robert Lentz