Category: Uncategorized

I have lost count of the number of conversations in which I have participated that concern what young children should be learning during their virtual learning experience.  How much do we focus on a curriculum? Or is simply living through the experience its own lesson? Is this the time parents should travel and expose them to the wider world? Should they be learning the skills they usually do not in school such as languages or musical instruments? And the list goes on.  

I keep coming back to the old saying about “everything I need to know I learned in kindergarten”:  kindness, gratitude, listening, cooperation, basic manners, etc. . . Perhaps because it is difficult for any of us to learn these things virtually, so they need more intentionality behind them.  

One of the On Being episodes interviewed Tiffany Shlain, in which she spoke about the five traits needed to flourish in the emerging “human economy”:  curiosity, creativity, initiative, multi-disciplinary thinking and empathy. These are not new traits, but they do have new applications, because our economy – the management of our resources – has changed. Not only have our resources changed, but so has our understanding of management, now more cooperative and influential than hierarchical and commanding.  

Some of the biggest questions in life have to do with the five traits Shlain says are necessary for our flourishing. How do we cultivate curiosity? How do we create space for being (in all its various meanings)? How do we overcome loneliness created by overuse of technology – a use that is usually motivated by the desire to be connected? How do we re-learn the art of the argument and recapture the value of compromise? How can we float ideas in an environment where our every word is captured, lifted, and judged?  

Clearly, these are big questions, but I believe they find their roots in the basic ideas of kindness, goodness, compassion, cooperation and others we all begin learning when we are very young. Maybe in teaching our kids these things, we are reminded of them ourselves? Maybe then we can begin to tackle the even bigger questions? Maybe.

And while we are thinking about this, may I recommend Shlain’s short video on the five traits: 

Every year this past Sunday, October 4, we celebrate the life of St. Francis of Assisi. He was known for (among other things) rebuilding a church in Assisi after listening to God’s prompting. His life is instructive to us all; whether it be his dedication to God’s call, the mistakes he made along the way, or sacrifices he made for the sake of others. 

Two years ago, I found myself in the crypt of the church dedicated to him in Assisi.  Overwhelmed by emotion and my own sense of mission to rebuild; or rather to restore the structures around us, I reflected on my own service to others. For many years, I have worked inside two great institutions:  universities and the Catholic Church. Both find their purpose in helping others to change, but are often resistant to the structural change that they now require. Two of the churches where I worked happen to be situated on university campuses, and required extensive renovations. 

As a result, “restoration” work has become a great theme in my life. Careful attention is required to know what must be kept, removed, or transformed. It requires that you have a plan, but that you also allow the structure to tell you what it needs; otherwise, you spend more money, time and heartache than is necessary.

I have always been very aware of the connection between the physical structures and conversations that take place inside those structures. Around the world, we not only need to restore the infrastructure that we inhabit and take us from one place to another; we need to restore the dialogue inside and between ourselves. But for all of its power and potential, “dialogue” feels like a tired word to me. In our educational, spiritual, private and public institutions, we are teaching and exploring dialogue as a process, when it is much more a way of being.  

Restorative dialogue is a particular kind of dialogue because it demands that we pay attention to history. Inherent to this is a reverence, gentleness and stillness. Decisions are not made, so much as they are discovered.

Restorative dialogue is a particular kind of dialogue because it demands that we pay attention to history. Inherent to this is a reverence, gentleness and stillness. Decisions are not made, so much as they are discovered. Restoration brings people together to encounter a shared story.  It offers a new starting place rooted in our original goodness, usually before the mistakes were made.  

I believe this is what is most needed in our dialogue today:  a sense that we are originally and fundamentally good. Then our progress is rooted in the best of who we have been, including the lessons learned from our mistakes. Then we will stand on the shoulders of the giants, like Francis and others, who have come before us – ready to rebuild and restore our lives, and the lives of others.

HUMAN HOLINESS

The Ascension is most closely related, in meaning, to Christmas, for both are incarnational.  At Christmas, what it means to be God became fully a part of what it means to be human.  In Jesus, the human and divine become united in the person and life of one man. That’s what happened in Christmas.

At the Ascension, this human being – the person and the resurrected body of Jesus – became for all eternity a part of who God is.  The life of a single human being is forever joined to the life of God the Father, the one who created the heavens and the earth.

It was not the spirit of Jesus or the divine nature of Jesus that ascended to the Father.  It was the resurrected body of Jesus: a body that the disciples had touched, a body that ate and drank with them, a real physical, but gloriously resurrected body, bearing the marks of nails and a spear.  This is what ascended.

RITUAL AND TRANSITION

First of all, I want to congratulate you on all that has brought you to this day, as well as the people who have brought you here: your families, friends, mentors, teachers, coaches and supporters. It is an honor to be able to celebrate this moment with you.

Ironically, it is a day I did not participate in myself. I simply didn’t like the pomp and circumstance, and I have never liked a lot of attention.

What I did not appreciate in my younger years, and most certainly something I appreciate now, is the importance of ritual. It is an old-sounding kind of word, usually conjuring images of royalty, or medieval or primal images in our mind. But I assure you, we are ritualistic people because they help us to accept the changes that are necessary in order for us to grow. We need moments when we break our routine and recognize that we are different . . . as do the people around us. We need moments to celebrate, lest we forget how far we have come – because we have.

THE COURAGEOUS CHOICE FOR LOVE

Our Gospel today reminds us that we are called to love one another.  If you have been paying really close attention, you will find this command is part of the great theme of the Easter season.

Love leads us, we said a few weeks ago.  Love expands with use.

The experience of the resurrection is not something that we can comprehend – that we can understand; it is something that we experience – that is felt at our core. Belief is stronger than knowledge – not that it contradicts it – but it does transcend it.  Belief starts what we know and meets us where we are at, and then takes us to the place in our soul where hope and joy dwell.

As we have been discussing over the past few weeks, the Apostles and early Christian experience of the resurrection required a courageous choiceto forget the pain of their loss – to return to the lives they once knew – to return to fishing or walk back to Emmaus.  Or to be lead by love . . .  and become creators – to dare to think and do something that has never been done before. To become cultivators – who nourish the best of what people before them have done.

MOTHER’S DAY

Traditionally, today is known as Good Shepherd Sunday because of the shepherd and the sheep who hear his voice.  Of course, it is also Mother’s Day – a day when we also celebrate our shepherds who have sheep who don’t always hear their voice!

It is a day when I always feel little awkward trying to reflect on the experience of motherhood.  The sanctity of the relationship between a mother and child gives me pause and leaves me humbled.  I don’t know if I could ever have enough courage to allow my soul to live inside another person, but as far as I can tell, that is often what mothers do.

Thus, I want to share a story I read from the book “Untie the Strong Woman” by Clarissa Pinkola Estes.

THIS IS PRIESTHOOD

Next Sunday, the fourth Sunday of Easter, is commonly known as Good Shepherd Sunday,because of the Gospel regarding the sheep who hear the Master’s voice.  And for that reason, it is also regarded as day when speak about vocations – to the priesthood specifically, though most homilist include all vocations.

However, my experience has taught me that today’s Gospel is really the more accurate one about vocations– especially to the priesthood.  Next week is the nice version – the much more attractive version.  This week is about the hard reality.

“Do you love me”, Jesus asks.  Then follow me to where you do not want to go.  Follow me and you will die, and it will be glorious.  This is the life of service and sacrifice.  This is priesthood.  And it is not that I don’t wantto go, but rather, I am mindful of the death that is required.

These days there is a lot of talk about priesthood and a great deal of criticism, but today I think I would like to speak about it all from a different point of view– from that of today’s Gospel where love leads us to follow no matter the costs.

THE MOTIVATION OF CHANGE

What is it that Thomas couldn’t believe?  That Jesus rose again?  That Jesus appeared to his friends?  Perhaps it was that he and his friends would be able to do even greater works than Jesus? That they would have the power of the Holy Spirit to forgive sins and transform the world?  That they could set a foundation, then, for what we do today?

Admittedly, that is a little hard to believe.

I think we, too, would do well to assess our belief.  Do we really believe that we are capable of all that Jesus did?  Do we really believe that we can do the miracles we read about in the Bible?  Do we really believe that our forgiveness is also the forgiveness of God; and likewise, that what we cannot forgive, is held against them and us?

Every year we hear this story of Thomas right after Easter.  We hear it because we all struggle with believing in the promises of Christ.  Perhaps you are more doubtful of those promises this year than in the past.  Perhaps you can believe more easily.

MYSTERIES WE DON’T NEED TO SOLVE

Over the past few days, we have been contemplating the limitations of our own mentalities – how we tend to think that everything is limited.  The resurrection, it seems to me, is the ultimate example of God’s abundance.

Nothing is impossible with God.  The rules simply do not obey.

In 1965, the Late Jewish Rabbi Abraham Heschel wrote, “As civilization advances, the sense of wonder declines.  I argue that this sense of wonder – which we most certainly best see in our children – is humanity’s most compelling trait.  It is the seed of innovation and progress; the stimulus of love and relationships; and it is what leads us here – to a place where we can encounter that magnanimity of God in a single piece of bread.

THE ABUNDANCE OF GOD

We said yesterday that THIS is the instruction manual.  This is the path.  At its most basic level, what we learn from last night – the Last Supper and the washing of the feet – is that the love of God and love of neighbor are not two commands, but one.  Our service to one another breaks down the scarcity mentality that usually drives our decisions and actions.  Our service to each other challenges our competitive mindset and upsets our imposed pecking orders.  The service that flows from our encounter with God in the sacrament reminds us that we will always have enough because the well-spring will never be exhausted.

But service is not simply a decision.  Today reminds us that service, in God’s name, is a sacrifice.  Because this isn’t just doing some random act of kindness (thought that can be part of it) – the service to which we are called – the service with our participation in the communion of God requires will stretch us. It will require that give everything, if we take it seriously.

It requires THIS.  It requires the death of our own ego.

But death gives way to life.  And emptiness allows for abundance.  The more of yourself that you allowed to be carved away, the more abundant you allow God to be.