becoming like a child

REFLECTIONS ON TENDERNESS

There are two stories from the Christian Bible that I want to recall for you today: one is often shared right after Easter and the other shows up from time to time when our emphasis is on the gospel according to St. John. The first is known as the story of Doubting Thomas; the second the miracle of feeding the five thousand.

When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the religious authorities, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.” But Thomas, one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. So when the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord,” he said to them, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.” A week later there were again in the house and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.” Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!” Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”

Take just a moment to sit with this story in the quiet: let it move around inside your head and heart a bit so that its wisdom is present for you. 

More than at any other time I can remember, I sense that people of faith are now being called to personally practice living into the tender peace of Jesus – and then find creative ways to share it in public. All around us there is uncertainty: manipulation of our anxiety at the highest levels, ignorance and hubris clashing daily with science alongside an urgent sacred invitation to strengthen solidarity. If you’re like me, it has been six full weeks of confusing sheltering in place where our homes have become like Noah’s ark and our lives, plans and expectations turned upside down. These 42 days of wandering through the wilderness of social distancing and self-quarantine have been emotionally exhausting, artistically innovative and economically disastrous. Simultaneously we are beginning to grasp that this is both the resurrection of a new era of social compassion, and, the last rites of the old order of consump-tion without consequences. And just to make it more complex, because we’re in the middle of this transition, no one really knows how long it will take to emerge from this muddle. All we know for certain is that tenderness and teamwork are as vital today as they were at the start of the pandemic – and there are precious few ways to express this commitment in public.

· Of course, we stay inside as much as possible. We can also be in touch with our legislators – and must. We can continue to creatively reinvent social media so that it reinforces the ties that bind. And some of us may be fortunate enough to share our stimulus checks with sisters and brothers in need. I know that many of you are exploring ways to safely reach out to your neighbors so that the most vulnerable among us are not forgotten or forsaken.

· But that’s about it: there really is little we can do outwardly during these days of solidarity in solitude. That is why it is my conviction that God is calling us beyond the obvious to more consistently make Christ’s peace a priority right now: whenever we’re able to go public again, we’re going to need women, men and children consciously living as agents of healing, hope and social transformation. Like the disciples in our story we know what it’s like to be locked down in our rooms in fear from outside forces that are overwhelming and dangerous. We know what it is to wait and wonder what will become of us all when this is over. And like the disciples, we know that when this time is complete, we will have a role to play in re-ordering our broken world.

A recent article by George Packer in The Atlantic made our place in the new world clear as he wrote of both the inadequacies of our federal response to this pandemic – proof that we are living in a failed state – and the consequences of long neglected social, racial, gender and class inequalities: “When the virus came here,” Packer said, “it found a country with serious underlying conditions, and it exploited them ruthlessly. Chronic ills—a corrupt political class, a sclerotic bureaucracy, a heartless economy, a divided and distracted public—had gone untreated for years. We had learned to live, uncomfortably, with the symptoms. It took the scale and intimacy of a pandemic to expose their severity to shock Americans with the recognition that we are in the high-risk category.”  A short Op Ed piece on Face Book entitled “We Are NOT in the Same Boat” was more blunt: 

I heard that we are all in the same boat, but it’s not like that. We are in the same storm, but not in the same boat. Your ship could be shipwrecked, and mine might not be. Or vice versa. For some, quarantine is optimal. A moment of reflection, of re-connection, easy in flip-flops, with a cocktail or coffee. For others, this is a desperate financial and family crisis. For some that live alone, they’re facing endless loneliness. While for others it is peace, rest, and time with their mother, father, sons and daughters. With the $600 weekly increase in unemployment, some are bringing in more money to their households than they were while working. Others are working more hours for less money, due to pay cuts or loss in commissioned sales. Some families of four just received $3400 from the stimulus package, while others saw nothing. Some were concerned about getting a certain candy for Easter, while others were concerned if there would be enough bread, milk, and eggs for the weekend. Some want to go back to work because they don’t qualify for unemployment and are running out of money. Others want to kill those who break quarantine. Some are at home spending two to three hours a day, helping their child with online schooling, while others are doing the same on top of a 10–12 hour work day. Some have experienced the near death of the virus, some have already lost someone from it, and some are not sure if their loved ones are going to make it. Others don’t believe this is a big deal. Some have faith in God and expect miracles this year. Others say the worst is yet to come. We are not in the same boat. We are going through a time when our perceptions and needs are completely different. Each of us will emerge, in our own way, from this storm. It is important to see beyond what is seen at first glance. We are all on different ships during this storm, experiencing a very different journey. 

These anonymous words were not written in judgment or anger. They were not intended to shame those of us with privilege nor celebrate another’s sacrifices. They were not crafted to divide us, but to unite us with the facts – hard and challenging – and true. Like the disciples in the Upper Room after the Crucifixion in St. John’s gospel, you see, some of us – like Mary Magdalene – sense this to be a moment of new hope and possibilities. Others, like most of the male disciples, are bewildered and afraid. And some, like Thomas, are angry and agitated. In that same upper room were people who stood by Jesus even at the foot of the Cross as well as those who deserted and even betrayed him. They were all in that same room, but clearly not all in the same boat, as they wonder how to face the same storm.

So notice what happens next: Jesus shows up. Let me say that again: Jesus shows up. This is crucial. He is still unrecognized by most in the room. The testimony of Magdalene – the apostle to the apostles – has not yet been embraced or trusted by the majority. And each person feels alienated and adrift even as they shelter together in the same place. Outwardly they may look like a community, but inwardly it’s every person for him or herself. So just as he promised, Jesus shows up saying: Peace be upon you all and within you all – receive the Holy Spirit – as I breathe on you.

One wise commentator wrote that when Jesus shows up: “He does not criticize or judge those in the room for their fears nor their moments of infidelity. He does not make any critical remark to Peter, who denied him. He does not make anyone feel guilty (or diminished.) Rather, he confirms his choice of them as his beloved ones – and moves within them to bring them rest.” (Vanier, p. 341) Peace be with you all: Shalom in Hebrew – Eirēnē – in Greek: meaning receive the blessing of well-being, experience calmness of mind, stability of soul, good health in your body and right relations among your neighbors with a deep sense that God’s love is in charge. Peace be with you.

And just so that there would be no confusion among this still divided community of first century Jews, Jesus breathed upon them: This embodied prophetic act evoked the oldest creation story in Judaism – the second in the book of Genesis - where God breathes the Holy Spirit upon adam ha adama – the being formed of mud – fashioned out of the same soil that created all of life. And when the sacred breath, the Holy Spirit, is pushed into its lungs by the Creator, the creature becomes NEPHESH CHAYYAH – a living soul – animated by the very essence of God. What the text is trying to tell us, you see, is that the broken-hearted, dispirited followers of Jesus were restored to wholeness when they experienced the blessings of Christ’s peace. From the inside out, they had to sense the Risen Christ within before they could embody the Risen Christ in the world. The inner peace Jesus offered had to be embraced as trust before they could live beyond the illusive confines of control. Remember: the opposite of faith is NOT doubt; it is the illusion of control.

At a level that is deeper than all that is wounded and fearful in us, the disciples had to feel within themselves the love of God Jesus shared along with a forgiveness that was greater that their inconsistencies and brokenness. They – and we – must know from the inside out that we are unique and precious, that we are never alone even when there is pain and uncertainty because Christ is alive within and among us.

When this happened only then does Jesus send his friends out into the world to share “and transmit the forgiveness of God and the peace that passes understanding.” (Vanier.) That’s what these 50 days in- between Easter and Pentecost symbolize: a time to experience, practice, discern and deepen Christ’s tenderness and peace within our hearts. Fr. Thomas Keating of the Centering Prayer movement put it like this: “the two great gifts of Jesus to his disciples are… the forgiveness of sin and the restoration of a living intimacy with his holy spirit.” Until they are received, we are unable to recognize Jesus, let alone trust him, follow him or love him in public. And this is where Thomas comes in – resentments, doubts, anxiety, anger, confusion and all.

Who knows why Thomas wasn’t with his friends in the Upper Room the first time Jesus showed up, but he wasn’t. So the more the disciples say “The Lord is risen,” the more Thomas wonders, “Why was I left out? Aren’t I good enough? What’s wrong with me?” In fact, Fr Keating says, Thomas felt “neglected and rejected, frustrated, resentful and finally enraged.” Without encountering Christ’s peace and forgiveness, Thomas is left only with his old habits and they do not lead him into peace. They only give birth to bitterness until Jesus shows up again and Thomas experiences his presence, love, peace and forgiveness.

There’s no telling IF Thomas put his hand in the side of the resurrected but still wounded Messiah; all we know is that after this encounter there was a healing in Thomas so that resentment was released and fear put to rest. It is my hunch that the gospel tells a variety of stories about Jesus showing up after the Cross in different ways – to Magdalene, to those in the Upper Room, to Thomas and later Peter - so that we might understand that we, too can encounter Jesus. No one is shut out. The stories reinforce that Jesus shows up for us at different times because one size does not fit all. After our encounter with his love, forgiveness, renewal and embrace – the peace of Christ within – then we will be asked to nourish it. And practice living more deeply into it before trying to embody it outside our locked doors.

· Do you know that after Paul of Tarsus encountered the living Christ on the road to Damascus – and spent some time in solitude getting his bearings back again – he took three years of training out in the desert with some of the earliest contemplative Christians before beginning his public ministry?

· I can’t emphasize this enough: our encounter with Christ’s peace if foundational and then we have to make it our own. Let it become part of the air we breathe and the way we walk and talk so that radical trust takes up more room within us than fear and anxiety.

That’s why the liturgies of the church give us feasts and fasts: there are always times for celebrations and extended pilgrimages in the Christian year, right? Advent prepares us for Christmas and Epiphany. Lent precedes Easter and Ascension. And the pilgrimage between Easter and Pentecost teaches us about hunkering down for 50 days before going public. It is a rhythm that consciously mirrors the ebb and flow of day and night as well as the transition of the seasons. St. Paul wrote in chapter one of Romans: “What can be known about God is plain to us, because God has shown it to us ever since the creation of the world: God’s eternal power and divine nature, invisible though they are, have been seen and understood in the created world God since the beginning of time.” The rhythm of sacred living is all about first experiencing something of God’s peace, practicing going deeper into it and then sharing it beyond ourselves. It is a gift, a discipline, and an offering. Fr. Richard Rohr recently spoke of this in a homily that contextualizes the coronavirus for us: “Psychologically, spiritually, and personally,” he said, “I’ve been trying to understand what God might be saying to us right now?”

I’m not saying that God causes suffering to teach us good things. But God does use everything, and if God wanted us to experience global solidarity, I can’t think of a better way. We all have access to this suffering, for it bypasses race, gender, religion, and nation (albeit in different ways.) And that means we are in the midst of a highly teachable moment… We have a chance to go deep, and to go broad... Depth is being forced on us by great suffering, which always leads to great love. But for God to reach us, we have to allow this suffering to wound us… Real solidarity needs to be felt and suffered. That’s the meaning of the word “suffer” – to allow someone else’s pain to influence us in a real way… As we allow these feelings, and invite God’s presence to hold and sustain us in this time of collective prayer and lament… this experience can force our attention outwards to the suffering of the most vulnerable. (Because that’s what love does) love always means going beyond yourself to others… And love alone overcomes fear: “Faith, hope and love,” St. Paul wrote, “these three abide and the greatest of them is love.”

Rohr is speaking of spiritual practice – training ourselves with the peace that passes understanding in the context of suffering – so that the presence of Christ within can ripen and mature and then go public. The peace of God’s love that Jesus lives has a role to play in how we rebuild our lives when the pandemic is over. I don’t know about you but I don’t want just the bureaucrats, pundits, politicians and lobbyists to be in charge of the new world. I want people with broken-hearts and gravitas in their souls to be at the table - and in the streets. I want those who know what suffering feels like to be deciding policy and making economic decisions. A poem by Naomi Shihab-Nye called “Kindness” puts it like this: “Before you know what kindness really is you must lose things, feel the future dissolve in a moment like salt in a weakened broth. What you held in your hand, what you counted and carefully saved, all this must go so you know how desolate the landscape can be between the regions of kindness.”

How you ride and ride thinking the bus will never stop,
the passengers eating maize and chicken will stare out the window forever.

Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness
you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho
lies dead by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you,
how he too was someone
who journeyed through the night with plans
and the simple breath that kept him alive. 

Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.
Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to gaze at bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
It is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you everywhere
like a shadow or a friend.

In this season of strengthening solidarity in solitude, learning of kindness through suffering, and nourish-ing Christ’s peace within so that we can share it in public, I wonder if yet another paradoxical process – the practice of pilgrimage – might be appropriate for us to consider? You know that when we go on pilgrimage – which comes from the Latin word, peregrīnus, meaning stranger or foreign one – we move into new places with fresh eyes. We journey to be awakened. Moved. Able to notice the small things that bring blessings into being and consciousness. Pilgrimage is not a romantic spirituality. Nor is it tourism. Rather, it is about walking and observing, listening carefully and traveling lightly with the eyes of wonder, as we take all the time we need to get to a place we do not really comprehend yet.

Christine Valters-Paintner, abbess of the Abbey of the Arts, suggests that the spirituality of pilgrimage might be appropriate for this time of training between Easter and Pentecost if we consider the journey of St. Mary. On "the feast of the Annunciation," she writes, we recall "Mary's own pilgrim journey of saying 'yes’ as she walked into the unknown with only her trust in God to carry her. Anyone can identify with Mary and her questions, 'How can this be?" when the angel of the Lord tells her she will be with child." And yet Mary chooses to move into the unknown with a smallness and innocence that is the embodiment of trust. Mary’s smallness suggests to me a second story – a pilgrimage and training in the ways of tenderness that is counter-cultural and non-intuitive – born of the imagination yet grounded in the witness of Jesus and those he loved.

I’m thinking of St. John’s account of the miracle of feeding five thousand women, men and children on a mountainside in Palestine. In Eugene Peterson’s reworking of the text from The Message the story says:

Jesus went across the Sea of Galilee (sometimes called Tiberias) and a huge crowd followed him, attracted by the miracles they had seen him do among the sick and institutionalized. When he got to the other side, he climbed a hill and sat down, surrounded by his disciples. It was nearly time for the Feast of Passover… When Jesus looked out and saw that a large crowd had joined them, he said to Philip, “Where can we buy bread to feed these people?” He said this to stretch Philip’s faith. He already knew what he was going to do. Philip answered, “Two hundred silver pieces wouldn’t be enough to buy bread for each person to get a piece.” One of the other disciple s— Andrew, brother to Simon Peter — said, “There’s a little boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish. But that’s a drop in the bucket for a crowd like this.” Jesus said, “Make the people sit down.” And as they sat down on the hill side, about five thousand of them, Jesus took the bread and, having given thanks, gave it to those who were seated. He did the same with the fish. And it was enough: all ate as much as they wanted.
Often the focus is on the miracle – and I don’t want to say anything to diminish that because it speaks to us of the beauty of God’s steadfast love that endures forever. But I find myself drawn to the small boy in this story these days who offered to Jesus and the wider community all he had – five loaves of bread and two fish – and it was enough. Could it be that this is the spiritual practice we need right now? Is it possible that in the face of a comparably overwhelming situation we, too could become like this child? Practicing trusting God’s love and then offering up simple acts of love? I know that there are many spiritual paths that can take us deeper – and they all have value – but right now I wonder if a spirituality of smallness and tenderness might be the way to help us grow into Christ’s peace – and be ready to offer our tender humble gifts for healing on the other side of the contagion?

Is it possible that if we practice offering up our simple gifts to one another every day like a child we could mature into the assurance of Christ’s peace that these gifts will be enough? Here’s the context behind the story:

· Jesus has left Jerusalem after visiting an asylum where he brought healing and hope to people who had been discarded, hurt, forgotten and abandoned. This is why such a crowd was following him: Jesus was living a life of tender compassion that drew crowds wherever he went.

· The story also tells us it was about time of the Jewish Passover. No detail in St. John’s gospel is accidental so we’re being alerted to the experience of God setting free the Jewish slaves in Egypt under the leadership of Moses. St. John wants us to know that the love of Jesus is like that of Moses bringing freedom and dignity to all who have been wounded.

The story of the miracle starts with an experience of Christ’s tenderness. And that small detail concerning the young boy really speaks to me: he freely gave to Jesus all he had – and it was modest – and that was enough. The child opened his small bag and little heart – and that was enough. Jesus took what he had, blessed it and shared it - and that was enough. What a story for our times?! What a spiritual discipline for this season!? It’s an invitation to begin a pilgrimage into the blessings of small gifts – to practice sharing the little we have – knowing that all we really have is very small and trusting that with God’s love that will be enough. The Psalmist points to this pilgrimage in the era of our plague when she sings: O Lord, I am NOT proud; I have no haughty looks. I do not occupy myself with great matters, or with things too hard for me. Rather, I still my soul and make it quiet, like a child upon its mother’s breast; like a small child, my souls is quieted and at rest within me. O people of God, wait upon the Lord.

In the Christian tradition there are a few pilgrims of simplicity and smallness who have gone before us so we don’t have to reinvent the wheel. I think of St. Francis and St. Clare. I am currently spending time with St. Therese of Lisieux, “the little flower,” who lived a spirituality of the small way. She asks us to pay attention to the things in our lives that we often overlook: the hidden and the inconspicuous that are not too great but keep us grounded in humility. Her small way is that of a child who rests upon her mother’s breast and does not grasp at power or glory - just love and tenderness. This way may not speak to you – but it is compelling to me. Especially in the face of the hostility to sharing and kindness that is just below the surface of our culture.

Over the next five weeks I will be sharing more thoughts about this pilgrimage into tenderness – how to practice trusting the inner peace of Jesus so that our small gifts of love offered to God will be enough – of living into the promise of peace that can ripen within us – of reclaiming the integrity of the love of that small child on the hillside. And what I’d like to ask you to do if this small way resonates with you is over the next week pray with me like a child. There is a stunning Advent carol, “In the Bleak Midwinter” that sets the music of Gustav Holst to the haunting poetry of Christina Rossetti and gives shape and form to the small way that is just enough. If you go to You Tube there’s a sweet version by Sarah McLachlan you could us to guide your prayer. It goes something like this:

In the bleak midwinter - frosty wind made moan - 

earth stood hard as iron - water like a stone

Snow had fallen snow on snow – snow on snow - 

in the bleak midwinter - long, long ago

Angels and Arc Angels - may have traveled there - 

Cherubim and Seraphim - thronged through the air

But only his Mother in her maiden bliss 

worshiped the beloved with a kiss

What can I give him: poor as I am?

 If I were a shepherd, I would give a lamb

If I were a wise man, I would do my part - 

but what I can I give him: I give him my heart. 

See if you can pray this at least once each day with me for the next week. Let’s be still for a moment and lift our hearts to the Lord in prayer…