Healing Silence

My assignment was to take an image that portrays silence. Walking through a foot of snow as the flakes were gently drifting to the ground was a moment of grace and sheer exhaustion. I wonder if the path to silence entails a journey in which we are so exhausted by the demands of life that we simply “fall still.”

As I meander through the woods following the trail of the deer I come upon a creek winding through the forest. The snow has covered the banks of the water and I need to be watchful so that I do not put my foot into the freezing water.

It is absolutely still. The snow continues to accumulate on the ground and create a tapestry of beauty on the rocks and limbs below that have fallen into the creek. It is a moment to simply watch and listen to the silence. Even put the camera down for a moment and allow the surrounding beauty to heal the wounds of busyness.

Perhaps, this is what it means to commune with the Lord. To empty oneself from all our worries that make us tense throughout the day and allow our bodies and souls to drink in this healing silence.

There has been a lot on our minds that stretch us to our limits. The fear is that we will break under all this tension and our hearts and bodies will become weak and ill under this stress.

Now is a moment to find our balance, to humbly come before the Lord and surrender our despair and allow God’s grace found in this cold and desolate place to heal the wounds of all our despair.

O Blessed are you who are poor… O Blessed are you who mourn… for in these moments when we can easily become bitter and cynical- maybe even throw in the towel, Our Lord shows us another way.

In this silence, we find the Truth and Peace that we have been searching for in our life. Only in Jesus can we live the Beatitudes that are hard lessons but the path to peace. Jesus came to keep justice and mercy, truth and peace together. He came to save us.

And this morning in silence, in this snow-covered museum of cold and ice, we find a path where we find our balance, renewed energy and a spirit that can make our fragile and weak spirits strong again.

Immanuel watches over us as we reflect: "People listened to me expectantly. Waiting in silence for my counsel. (Job 29:21).

Lord, I pray for all my Sunshine Friends that in this silent moment we find the Jesus who comes to breathe a sign of relief and a moment to heal all our fears with his tender love and quiet peace.

It's Hard to Measure Up

Sometimes, it’s just hard to measure up.

I realize that it was simply impossible for a human being to be and remain good or pure. If, for instance, I wanted to be attentive in one direction, it could only be at the cost of neglecting another. If I gave my heart to one thing, it left another in the cold. No day and no hour go by without my being guilty of inadequacy. We never do enough, and what we do is never well enough done, except being inadequate, which we are good at because that is the way we are made.This is true of me and of everyone else. I am constantly catching myself feeling inadequate and falling short of my expectations. It sounds strange that we should be guilty where we can do nothing about it.

Henri Nouwen expressed similar feelings: There is a nagging sense that there are unfinished tasks, unfulfilled promises, and unrealized proposals. There is always something else that we should have remembered, done, or said. There are always people we did not speak to, write to, or visit. Thus, although we are very busy, we also have a lingering feeling of never really fulfilling our obligations. A gnawing sense of being unfulfilled underlies our filled lives.

Last week, I thanked a man who went out of his way to help me and he replied to pray for this “heathen.” In other words, he did not feel comfortable coming to church because he was acutely aware of his imperfections. What he didn’t realize was that people who come to church are acutely aware that we simply do not measure up to God’s expectations. Why is this?

At the end of the day, we cannot measure up and cannot not disappoint others and ourselves. The fault is not that we are not sincere or that we do not put out the effort. The fault is that we are human. We have limited resources, get tired, experience feelings we cannot control, have only 24 hours in our day, have too many demands on us, have wounds and weaknesses that shackle us, and thus know exactly what St. Paul meant when he said: Woe, to me, wretch that I am, the good I want to do, I cannot do; and the evil I want to avoid, I end up doing!

What I want you to realize is that despite our inability to measure up we need to be a people of hope with renewed energy in our lives. In case you did not realize it, to be human is to be inadequate. Only God is adequate and the rest of us can safely say to ourselves: Fear not you who are inadequate! For God who made us this way surely gives us the slack, the forgiveness, and the grace we need to work with this.

The key to be fully human is to accept our imperfections, our congenital inadequacy, which can bring us to a healthy humility and perhaps even to a healthy humor about it.

But it should bring us to something more: prayer, especially the Eucharist.

I try to celebrate Eucharist every day. I do this because I am a priest and part of the covenant a priest makes with the church at his ordination is to pray the priestly prayer of Jesus, the Eucharist and the Liturgy of the Hours, regularly for the world. But I do it too, more personally, for another reason: The older I get, the less confident, in some ways, I am becoming. I don't always know whether I'm following Christ properly or even know exactly what it means to follow Christ, and so I stake my faith on an invitation that Jesus left us on the night before he died: To break bread and drink wine in his memory and to trust that this, if all else is uncertain, is what we should be doing while we wait for him to return.

Immanuel watches over us as we reflect: "Do not be angry beyond measure, Lord; do not remember our sins forever. Oh, look on us, we pray, for we are all your people.” (Isaiah 64:9).

Lord, I pray for all my Sunshine Friends that they may realize that despite our imperfections our God reaches out to make us his children who shine like the stars.

Take a Breath

The other day, while driving on the expressway in the snow, I suddenly felt a strong pain in my abdomen like a knot. Since December 1^st, we have been dumped with record amounts of snow except for one brief melt. I must have had a lot of stress that day for here I was having a painful, panic attack while driving on another miserable snowy day.

So, I started to slowly breathe. Yes, we do not breathe when we are experiencing lots of tension. We literally hold our breath. We tend to tense up inside and hold our breath when facing a situation that we feel out of control.

So like a good strudent, I tell myself, yes I also talk to myself and say to: breathe, slowly, calmly. This exercise is called the Relaxation Response and it helps to relieve the pain and fear. I’m slowly breathing in through my nose, taking a moment to hold the breath and slowly exhale like blowing a kiss. As I exhale, I might add a word or phase that helps to keep me calm, “God, give me strength.”

This anxious moment did cause me to reflect upon the Word of God which says, "Be strong and of good courage; be not afraid neither be dismayed; for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go." (Joshua1:6).

What does that have to do with having knots in your stomach when driving on slippery roads? If, according to the Word, a sparrow can not fall to the ground without God knowing it, then that means I have the attention of the Almighty. And driving on icy roads in which I feel that I about to lose control of the wheel is cause for me to have God’s attention.

So, if God is aware of me, then I should be of good courage. God is with you, my friend, right now - where you are. Driving to work on another snowy morning, taking your medicine for a cold, battling a life-threatening disease, or starting over again after a lost of a job or relationship.

No matter where you are, or who are you, God has assured you of His presence. It is true, no matter how high one goes in the sky, or how deep one goes in the ocean, one can't get away from God.

So be of good courage. Be not afraid of the difficulties that are in your life, or the trial through which you are going. Things might really be bad, but please acknowledge God with you. You have a friend in Him.

Immanuel watches over us as we reflect: "Let everything that has breath praise the Lord. (Psalm 150:6).

Lord, I pray for all my Sunshine Friends that they be especially blessed and be given great reassurance. May they know of your concern over them. May they never be forgotton. Because if you know of the fallen sparrow, you certainly know about this special, dear one.

Just Let Loose

A Sonshine Friend shared this frightening story about his experience during our recent snowstorms. He was traveling on 104 when he lost control of his truck on black ice. The truck began to spin out of control, not once but three times around. He remembers seeing this ditch, then guard rails and then he feared the cars that were behind him had no way to stop before they would crash into his spinning vehicle. He admitted to me that he had never been so scared in his life. But the hand of God must have been on his shoulder because his truck stayed on the road, never went into any ditch and finally came to a stop in the middle of 104.

What he did not know at the time was that a New York State trooper witnessed the entire spin and slowed all the traffic behind the truck. The trooper was most kind in that he came to the rescue of our frightened driver and shared that he had thought for certain the truck was going to turn over and spin out into the ditch. This trooper slowed the traffic behind our driver so that no one would hit him from behind.

Without a doubt, he prayed in gratitude to God for protecting him and saving him from a serious injury or worse.He recalled that as he was spinning out of control the first time, he tried to steer the wheels but it was no use. He suddenly just “let go of the steering wheel.” When he finally let go of the steering wheel, the truck spun for two more times and ended safely in the middle of the road.

You might be going through your own “slippery experience.” We need to constantly remind ourselves that there is a God who is always underneath us with everlasting arms.

Immanuel watches over us as we reflect: "You have a mighty arm: Strong is your hand and high is your right hand.” (Psalm 89:13).

Lord, I pray for all my Sonshine Friends that they may let loose of that which they are holding on. The difficulties, the problems, the tensions can be released. May they be encouraged to turn loose and fall into your everlasting arms. May they hold less and less onto their situation, and more and more onto you. In you is their hope.