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Passing the test.

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Did you ever see Stan Lee’s TV show “Who Wants to be a Superhero”? The contestants were assigned tasks, but there was a hidden assignment that they didn’t know about. In one they had to get from point A to point B really fast – but there was a distraction. A young girl was on their route, crying loudly about how she was separated from her mom. Unbeknownst to the contestants, she was an actress – and this was the real test. The ones who passed the test that round were the ones who stopped and helped her. They didn’t worry about being late on their time – their focus was in helping.

How often do we notice what the real test is? How often do we stop and take time to help?

I admit I’m terrible at it. I have a lot of excuses why I can’t help.

I’m late getting to work. I have ice cream that is going to melt. I don’t know how to help. I don’t have the tools, the training, the time.

So I don’t stop. I drive on by. A lot.

When I do stop, I find that I actually do have everything that is required. I think it is going to require a cast, and really it requires a band-aid. I think it is going to require a therapist, and really it just requires a hug. I’m starting to think that I certainly don’t have to stop for everything, but the things I do get over my fear and stop for turn out to be things that are within my power.

Sometimes my problem is that I don’t want to get too involved. I don’t want to make personal connections. It is way too common that people I help start to see me as something other than a servant. They start to see me as special. They mistake the messenger for the message. They start trying to follow me instead of the One I follow. They ask for my phone number. They want to become friends on Facebook.

It isn’t me. It isn’t me at all. It never was me. I’m just the face that God wears sometimes. I’m just the hands that God uses sometimes. When they see me again, I’m more than likely just going to be me, plain old me, not special, not sparkly.

So sometimes I don’t want to get involved for me, and sometimes I don’t want to get involved for God. I don’t want people to mistake me being me as a slight. Because when God is working through me, it is really amazing. There is a connection. There is understanding, and healing, and compassion.

Me? I’m an introvert. I feel lost in a crowd. When I’m just me and the Spirit isn’t there, I’m not all that. I’m not bad, but I’m not what they think I am.

Sometimes I warn people if I think I’ll see them again. I had to do this a lot in college. The energy often isn’t there the next time. That energy doesn’t mean that “we are meant to be together.” It doesn’t mean that we should “hook up.” It doesn’t mean I’m going to be your guru or your girlfriend. It just meant that God needed me to help you right then, and I listened.

Does this mean I’m passing the test, or failing it? While I think it is essential to always point people towards God, I think it is also important to always be a vehicle for God. I’m not, always. It is tiring. It is hard. But then again, so is exercise, and I do that because I think I’ll get stronger if I do it. Perhaps this faith-walk is the same.

I still don’t think I’m going to stop to change out a tire for somebody, especially when I have just bought ice cream.

“Get thee to a nunnery”?

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So how come nuns get a special place to retire to? It is a lot nicer than a retirement home. Cleaner, smells better, better lit. Better food. There are no special codes to get in and out either. There isn’t a feeling of being trapped.

They have donated their lives to serving those who suffer from “poverty, sickness, and ignorance.” Their whole lives have been given up in the service of the church. No husband, no income, no possessions; they have sacrificed themselves to serve others.

How is this different from a teacher, or a police officer, or a nurse? How are their lives of service different? Their lives, the lives of the secular who serve, are harder in fact. They have to secure for themselves a home. They have to buy their clothes. They have to pay for the electricity, the water, the gas. They have to do upkeep on their homes. They have to pay for their training. If they are smart they save for their retirement. Then they have to find a place that has an opening that is nice to retire to.

This is a beautiful convent that just happens to be a nursing home. The grass is lush. The rooms are pleasant. It was built as a retirement home for aging Sisters of Mercy. Not all nuns, just these particular kind of nuns. The sister who welcomed us said that they had served the poor and the homeless all their lives, and now with their convent they are still serving them. But then she got a little quiet. How? By letting people come here on retreat.

Now, they aren’t leading the retreats. They are allowing people to come and have their retreats here. They didn’t initiate it. They had 41 sisters to start with and are now left with 18. Other people started calling, wondering if they could use the space. There are a lot of empty rooms.

This makes me wonder about the ranks of nuns. Surely there should be others who are ready to retire. A steady influx of novitiates would result in a steady stream of retirees 50 years later. But the stream is drying up.

Do people not want to serve God by being a nun? Is it too much of a commitment? Is it a stigma attached to the Catholic Church, and church in general? Or are people choosing to serve God in less open ways?

You don’t have to be a sister to serve. You can be married or not, female or not, Catholic or not. You can work in a church or a school or a department store. You can work anywhere where you can use your talents and your gifts to help others.

God wants each of us right where we are, right as we are.

Be honest in your dealings. Treat every person fairly. Speak truthfully and kindly. In these ways you are serving God.

You don’t have to join a nonprofit. You don’t have to give all your money away. You don’t have to go on a missions trip to Belize or the Congo or Africa.

God is here. The poor are here. You are here. Get going. You don’t even have to “get thee to a nunnery.” Just go.

(Started 9-14-13 at 11:30 am, middle of a 26 hour silent retreat. Expanded 9-16-13)

On going to a spiritual director and not an ordained minister.

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I’m always a little anxious before I go to see my spiritual director. I had to start seeing one when I was in the process to discern if I was being called to be a deacon in the Episcopal Church. That process was put on hold by the priest in charge when I came back from Cursillo a little more Pentecostal than she could handle. Then I wrote a blog post where I feel that Jesus meant for the Church to be a) not buildings but people and b) not ordained ministers, but everybody, and c) more social outreach than social club. That ticked her off a lot. So I no longer go to church, but I still go to my spiritual director. This was my choice. I get a lot from going.

There wasn’t any help on what to expect when I first went. It is kind of like going to a psychotherapist, but weirder. We talk about my relationship with God and Jesus by talking about my relationship with my husband and friends and job. I’m not sure where we are going sometimes, and I’m not sure I see the connection. But I am sure that every time I finish a session with her I want to come back the next day even though the next meeting is in a month. She manages to uncover things that I didn’t even know were hidden.

Having a spiritual director is weird coming from a faith community that has a hard time saying “I’ll pray for you.” I’m more comfortable hanging out with my Pentecostal friends than my Episcopal friends when I’m in the mood to talk about God’s interaction with my life.

This is a little weird. Supposedly I was part of a Christian church, but we would talk about God and Jesus in the abstract. We didn’t talk about God and Jesus right here, right now. They were characters in a book, not real presences in our lives. They were ideas and archetypes.

My spiritual director is part of this faith tradition, but she says things like “Invite Jesus into this situation” and “Jesus wants to be your closest friend.” She asks questions like “Where is Jesus in this moment?” This is some pretty foreign stuff. I feel like I’m doing it wrong. I feel like I should already know how to do this, how to answer these questions. I feel like I’ve been duped by priests all these years, who have kept all the good bits for themselves and left the scraps for me. I feel like I’m adult trying to learn how to ride a bicycle for the first time, when I should already know how.

I’m grateful for this time with her, and grateful to find someone who can help me. The goal in spiritual direction is “intimacy with Jesus”. This is a foreign concept to me. This isn’t something that I was ever taught in any church I’ve ever gone to. It sounds like a good idea though. It sounds like something I should already be familiar with. It sounds like the whole point of being a Christian – how can you obey God’s will if you don’t know it? How can you know it if you don’t hear it?

The funny part is that the closer I got to this idea of hearing from God, of intimacy with Jesus, the further I had to get from church. The more I talked to the priest about God talking to me, the more she thought I was crazy. The more I go to the spiritual director, the more she wants to hear about these stories and cheers me on. I’ve written about some of these stories in my “Strange but True” section.

Oh – I get it. The priests don’t want you to hear it for yourself. They want to tell you what God says. They want you to be dependent on them. They don’t want to teach you how to hear from God.

It is this kind of control that Jesus came to remove. Jesus isn’t about hoarding power. He is about giving it away. Jesus is a radical. Jesus is a revolutionary. Jesus showed us in the loaves and fishes story that God’s rules aren’t like our rules. There is so much more to how God does things than we can ever imagine. God wants us all to connect to that power and be multiplied. God wants us all to be stronger, more alive. Then God wants us to use that vitality to help others. It isn’t about paying off our mortgages sooner, as one of the “prosperity gospel” liars says. It is about using that strength and power to help people who don’t have homes at all.

On interdependence – God needs us and we need God.

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We need God, but likewise, God needs us.

Carl Sagan tells us that “We are a way for the cosmos to know itself.” We are part of the cosmos – we are created from tiny bits of stars that exploded long ago and far away. We are undeniably part of this universe. We are created from its very essence and we also seek to understand it.

Likewise, we are part of God. We are a distillation, a permutation of God. Now, don’t get me wrong. In no way do I believe that we are God. There are plenty of people these days who say that simply because we have the light of God within us, we are God. I think it is essential to not confuse the creation with the Creator.

In Jeremiah 18:6, the Lord says “…You are like the clay in the potter’s hands, and I am the potter.” And in Isaiah 64:8 we hear “Yet Lord, You are our Father; we are the clay, and You are our potter; we all are the work of Your hands.” We are vessels created by God, designed so that we can share the light and love of God in this world.

But it is also essential to not think of ourselves as dirt either. We are, every one of us, every person on this planet, precious children of God. We are forgiven and blessed and freed. We are created and called by God.

God needs us to do His will. We were created as the arms and legs of God. We are essential to bringing forth good in this world. Just like with vessels, we are meant to hold the God essence within us and take it to others and share it. We are meant to share love and hope and healing with the world.

It is all too easy to say “How could God let that happen” with whatever fill-in-the-blank atrocity or disaster has occurred. But really, the answer is “What are we, agents of God, going to do about it?” We are God’s agents in this world. We are the people who raise others up, who feed them, who clothe them, who comfort them, who teach them. We are the ones who stand up against injustice. We do this because God is moving within us, whether we realize it or not. Jesus tells us in Matthew 12:50 “Anyone who does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother!” (NLT)

I think it is helpful that we choose to do good in this world and that we choose to align ourselves with God. But the best part is that God is using us even if we don’t know it, and even if we don’t want it. I find it makes things easier if you know that God is in charge, that God is driving the bus.

In Deuteronomy 11:13-15, we learn this. “13If you will only heed his every commandment that I am commanding you today-loving the LORD your God, and serving him with all your heart and with all your soul-14then he will give the rain for your land in its season, the early rain and the later rain, and you will gather in your grain, your wine, and your oil; 15and he will give grass in your fields for your livestock, and you will eat your fill.” (NRSV)

So love and serve God, and God will love and provide for you. It is reciprocal, and mutually interdependent. Just like we need each other for survival, so does God need us. We are essential.

Remember God is always with you.

“It is the Lord who goes before you. He will be with you; he will not leave you or forsake you. Do not fear or be dismayed.” (Deut. 31:8)

“Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.” (Joshua 1:9)

”Teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” (Matt. 28:20)