Eastertide Blessings in this opening of the Season of brilliant Light breaking through an oppressive and fearsome darkness. Peace and love shatter the prison of despondency, cynicism, demoralization and fear.
Watching our 2 year old granddaughter on an egg hunt, enjoying the moments of discovery and the joy of looking for what’s hidden, is a moment that will remain with me.
Innocence savors the moment and reminds us what it means to be fully human: vigorous and earnest searching for what’s unseen with faith it’s there to be found !
Joy awaits the childlike heart that upon finding feels exhilaration.
Holy Saturday 2020 for millions is being spent apart from family as protection against the spread of Covid-19! We have been waiting for weeks to see a strategy for opening the country back up but the timeframe is largely set by what the virus does.
Waiting is what Holy Saturday and the Vigil is all about.
While we wait for the New Dawn of Easter, we can harness the gift of silence to prepare for the Light. Emerging from the chrysalis, the butterfly is wholly transformed from a creature that crawls to one that takes flight.
No chrysalis, no flight. We keep vigil tonight in the darkness so that when the Light breaks our hearts are truly set on fire.
Whether we envision the 40 years the Israelites remained in Egypt, Exodus, or 40 days in the desert for Our Lord, both were times of trial. “Athlos” is the Greek word for the hero’s work (the origin of the word “ athletics”).
The athletics of the Soul involve overcoming the limitations of ego, the lesser self, to open up the higher Self. The athletic work of the spiritual initiate is to confront her shadows, fears, and temptations. It is nothing less than the alchemical work of transformation.
Carl Jung regarded it as essential to distinguish between the two expressions of self: ego ( tied to our sensations and emotions) and Self ( tapping into the collective and the unitive). The mystics, such as the Desert Fathers, would agree.
Looked at through the lens of the two levels of “self” we can discern the Archetype of the Quest. Whether viewed collectively as the struggle of a community, or individually, as the hero’s journey, both involve a confrontation with our baser instincts, our animal nature. Desert time brings with it true solitude: the environment that forces us in on ourselves.
The pandemic of 2020 has defined this Lenten Season. Passover and Easter will be a time of continued isolation away from usual gatherings and customary celebrations. We are all discovering the possibilities of virtual connection.
We are also struggling with cabin fever and finding ways to meaningfully spend our time. The air is filled with dread and foreboding mingled with prayers for health, healing and safer times. Absent the usual distractions of work and customary activities, this has become a time of Exodus in a very concrete way.
If our time in solitude is one of self-examination, of prayer and contemplation, and honest reflection on our thoughts and feelings, it can be true spiritual athlos. If so, it will bear real fruit and unleash the Way of the Heart, illuminating our Easter-tide. If not, we become further ensnared by the ego’s self protection focus, survivalism, and reactivity: an all- consuming viscious circularity.
True solitude only enriches true community. Anxious solitude renders community full of suspicion and fear. The two dimensions, solitary time and community, are inseparably linked. They depend on each other.
Community without solitude yields superficial and ceremonial exchanges, an interaction of masks. Community fed by prayerful solitude is authentic, an exchange of gifts: the caring of sisters and brothers.
May we be opened in this Season by the Holy Spirit to experience the full Presence of the Christos.
Each bird has its unique call signifying its species. Quite impressively, birds have dialects, variations by locale. Whether to make territorial claims or impress the opposite sex, calls and songs are a blend of species patterns and learned nuances.
Individuation blended with common patterns make up the choral world of birds. We delight in listening and, the closer we listen, the more attuned we become to subtlety.
This same story of commonalities orchestrated with uniquenesses and accents is the mark of human speech and expression. We hear the special qualities of a single voice while marveling at the alchemical blend of melodies and harmonies among choraleers.
The Christic journey is about seeking the simple one word portal to the Sacred. The anonymous English mystic and author of The Cloud of Unknowing and Book of Privy Counseling, encourages such one word prayers. The goal is an open heart that calls for emptying of all other thought: Contemplation.
Only God’s Grace makes contemplation real, yet we need to spend our lives making space for the Spirit to fill. Like the birds, we have our own voice. Embedded in it, woven into the harmonics, is the voice above all voices.
Gerard Manley Hopkins captures this mystery in his inspired poetry:
“Let me be to Thee as the circling bird, Or bat with tender and air-crisping wings That shapes in half-light his departing rings, From both of whom a changeless note is heard. I have found my music in a common word, Trying each pleasurable throat that sings And every praised sequence of sweet strings, And know infallibly which I preferred.
The authentic cadence was discovered late Which ends those only strains that I approve, And other science all gone out of date And minor sweetness scarce made mention of: I have found the dominant of my range and state – Love, O my God, to call Thee Love and Love.”
It is not an idle thought that saw de we must care for each other.
It is not a moral platitude to place on a lovely card or to say when we are comfortably “fat and happy” or without a care.
It is not a quaint sentiment made to order for those looking to merely sound wise and then off they go to solitary activity.
We perish alone. This is the root fear of all people.
We were not made to be islands set apart without the tether of real connectedness. Only the hermits truly called to solitude know the deep truth of interdependence.
They feel closer to their communities of brothers and sisters in proportion to the depth of their solitude. They feel that yearning for true communion.
The other’s voice reminds us of our part in the the choir. The glimmer in their eyes reminds us of the first spark that cleared our vision; our first light.
I see the gift of Solitude now as conditioning to better hear the voices of my sisters singing of love and life, loss and remembrance.
How I yearn to see again the faces of my sainted parents, grandparents, baby sister, aunts and uncles. I strain hard to recall the sound of their laughs and the tembre of their voices.
“We don’t live alone. We are members of one body. We are responsible for each other. And I tell you that the time will soon come when if men will not learn that lesson, then they will be taught it in fire and blood and anguish. Good night.” J B. Priestley, An Inspector Calls
Exposed on the cliffs of the heart. Look, how tiny down there, look: the last village of words and, higher,(but how tiny) still one last farmhouse of feeling. Can you see it?
Feelings in the moment are so intense and all consuming. Whether irritation, gratification, awaiting delivery of a delayed package, anger, resentment, envy or desire, they loom large at first and then often simply evaporate.
Rilke captures for me this human foible in a time when we are all learning scarcity. Toilet paper is now an obsession along with paper towels. All the stores near us have been out of stock for days. It is the “ go to” topic of conversation along with whether or not we should all wear masks.
Altitude is our friend. We need to rise above the mass hypnosis of “Armageddon” and locate the nearest thing of beauty and give thanks. Take it in and savor it. Beauty is the antidote for fear and thoughts of pending annihilation. This simple moment is precious. The higher up the mountain we climb, the farther we can see across the valley.
Our hibiscus is blooming in our front yard, a flaming red flower, as is the delicate pink petals of the begonias in the backyard. The half crescent moon illuminates the night sky and a family of Ibis regularly stop by and walk across the lawn on many mornings. From up top of the hill, we can see the lake in the distance; a comforting scene.
Shifting perspective from looking from below to gazing from well above changes everything. With practice, we too can come to see, as Rilke saw, “ the tiny last farmhouse of (earlier) feeling.”
We come back to ourselves and the soul becomes ascendant once more.
The Harried Mystic 