Prisoners of Our Own Minds

Dear Friends,

Harry Houdini, the illusionist, claimed he could get out of any prison in an hour or less, but no one was to watch him. A small city in England had invited Houdini to come and break out of their new, state of the art prison. On the appointed day, Houdini, nattily dressed for the event, came. Harry entered the prison, the locksmith closed the lock and all withdrew.

From his clothes, Houdini took out his concealed instruments as he set to work. An hour went by. The people waited outside. Two hours went by. Nothing happened.

Stunned and demoralized, Houdini leaned against the locked gate. It opened under his touch. The townspeople had played a trick on the trickster Houdini. They had never locked the gate.

Houdini, in fact, had not been locked in. He was a prisoner only in his own mind.

How are we like Houdini- prisoners held by a certain way of thinking, prisoners in our own minds?

We are bound by phrases like

                I can’t                                                                  I’d never try that

                I don’t want to                                                  I am afraid to

                You’ll never catch me doing                           I am too old to

                I don’t get it                                                       I’m not strong enough to

                I don’t like it.                                                     I’m not talented enough to

The biblical moment that comes to mind in which the disciples are like Houdini is when they are locked away in the upper room on the evening of the third day after Jesus’  death on the cross (John 20.19.)

They were fearful. What would happen to them if they leaned on the door, stepped out beyond it?

Thank God that Jesus could penetrate their self-imposed imprisonment. He stood in their midst and did not offer them a dressing down for their desertion, for that would have been unworthy of Jesus. It would have driven the disciples deeper into the prison of their minds.

Instead, Jesus offered them the peace that unlocked the door so they could step out into what would become a fruitful discipleship in their needy world.

You and I can be enslaved by greed, self-centeredness, so many subtle dictates we allow to be imposed on us. We can stay there, or we can move out from behind locked doors to the freedom of the sons and daughters of God. The move from imprisonment to freedom is a lifelong work of the mind, heart and spirit.

~Sister Joan Sobala

Commitment is Continuity of Purpose

Dear Friends,

 

Having just heard the profoundly human story of the wedding feast at Cana recently, we do well to think of the commitments Jesus made and followed through on: commitments to the people who walked with him, commitment to do whatever His Father asked of Him, commitment to heal, and to be faithful to the mission His Father gave him to advance the reign of God in our world.

 

Jesus, in word and deed, expressed His intention to be committed to us. No longer do I call you slaves, I call you friends (John 15.15). I will be with you always, until the end of time (Matthew 28.20).

 

Commitment: it is nothing less than continuity of purpose in good times and in bad, in sickness and health, through disagreements and growth in diverse directions. To continue and grow, every true commitment takes time, energy and attention. For followers of Christ, commitments also involve a God -awareness/ a God -centeredness which anchors our various commitments, though the seas of life grow turbulent.

 

Married couples make their commitment to one another on their wedding day. Women and men religious make public vows to God through their own congregations. Scientists, teachers, public servants, members of the medical community all make commitments to serve the good of others. Most often, commitments are lived out in a stream of daily, ordinary activities, repeated and routine. The danger is in letting important repeated and repeatable actions become automatic.

 

While ongoing commitments are the true stuff of life, the dominant culture of our society seeks newness to overcome the perceived boredom that precedes or comes with the discipline of commitment. Youth and adults are each targeted with innovations in communication, clothing, lifestyles and ideas. Part of the work we do in life is to sort out the trite new from the valuable new, the old and repeatable from the useless and repeatable. We ask: will this help or hinder the commitments I have made?

 

Here are some other questions to mull over when thinking about the commitments of our lives:

 

- To whom or to what am I truly committed? Where in my life is there continuity of purpose?       

- Where do I need to do the work of recommitment?

- What do I do daily in service to the commitments I have made which are in danger of being lost by unconscious repetition?

 

In our daily living with the commitments we have made, Jesus, our Brother and Lord, is with us. I will be with you always. Let’s help each other believe it.

 

~ Sister Joan Sobala

 

                                                          

 

                                                                                                             

Garden of Life

Dear Friends,

Near the front door just inside Home Depot, last week, was a display for seed pots, starter packets to grow annuals from scratch long before planting time in the northeast. It’s a matter of hope that spring will come, even though winter is in full force this week.  Meanwhile, beneath the earth which is growing ever deeply more frozen, perennials are snuggled away, survivors of the elements, the way annuals cannot be. We can think of ourselves as having aspects of our lives akin to annuals, while other aspects of our lives are perennial .  Both are necessary, inspiring, valuable, beautiful. Both arise out of our baptisms.

Christians are rooted in Christ, identify with Him. Whatever blossoms in us by way of God’s own mercy, compassion, generosity, faithfulness to our human relationships, and faithfulness to our God in worship arise from that seed  called baptism.

The neatest thing about this baptismal seed is that it never dies in us. We may not always treasure it, shelter it, cultivate it, but it the perennial in us that never dies as long as we live. This fact irritates some people who want it gone - to shoo it away, like the dog that trailed Francis Thompson – the dog in The Hound of Heaven.  Other people hold onto the seed of baptism, though their lives don’t reflect a commitment to nurture it. One of my relatives has not been to church in years. When serious illness began to threaten her life, I talked with her gently about reactivating her relationship with the church. “I’m Catholic’” she shot back at me. “Never been anything  but!” There it was. If it’s enough for God, it should be enough for me.  Baptism doesn’t go away.

Whether or not we are aware of the beckoning of God for us to come closer, we may well  experience annuals growing  in the garden of our lives, along with those sustainable, hearty perennials: passing realizations,  attitudes and insights that put us in touch with the world in ways that enlarge us  and make us fruitful  as we have not been before. 

Other people might come along to seed our garden for just this one moment, just this one week or month or through an interchange as strangers.  The annuals of this year’s life with God are not necessarily going to be ours next year. Let’s hope that we can be aware of what we have now growing  in our lives, and if possible, be aware of the source of this unexpected blossom and fruit. And be grateful, too.

So during this week, when we celebrate the Baptism of Jesus by John in the Jordan and we recall all that God has planted in us, we would do well to celebrate our own baptisms and the great seeds God has graced us with forever or just for now. As the American writer of heart- gripping things, Mary Oliver, says” “Sometimes I need only to stand wherever I am to be blessed.”

 ~Sister Joan Sobala

The Gift of Imagination

Dear Friends,

This year, the Magi and the crew of the starship Intrepid travel together. Early in the history of Star Trek, advertising proclaimed that the story was about a group of adventurers that “goes boldly where no one has gone before.”  For both confessed Trekkies and closet Trekkies, this declaration has great appeal.  So many of us go exactly  where others have gone before. We follow other people’s patterns. Sure, we make some adjustments, but to go where no one has gone before takes imagination and courage, and all too often, we deny we have these qualities.

God works through the human imagination. What we cannot imagine, we cannot expect. What we cannot imagine, we cannot do. If we can imagine a brave new world by following a star, then we can travel on in hope to a new geographic, meteorological, psychological, intellectual , faith- inspired place.

The Magi hold out to us the gift of imagination – to pursue wellness, commitment in our relationships, the promotion of peace, and the implosion of the cycle of violence and hatred.

A second gift is the courage the Magi had to leave their citadels of learning, to risk travel into the unknown and to trust their instincts that following the star would lead them to the king. After their unsatisfying meeting with Herod, the Magi were forced to ask: “Where do we go from here?”  In the end, they went to Christ, the seemingly obscure child in even more obscure Bethlehem. They had the eyes to recognize Him, and offered Him gifts fit for royalty  Then they dared to go home by another route.

As we encounter God here and now or wherever we go, dare we to ask:  “Where do we go from here after we’ve met our God?”

Just as Star Trek is not about one person’s remarkable story, the  Magi  sought  Christ together. The feast of the Epiphany, which we just celebrated  tells us unequivocally that God has plenty to give and it’s available to all. All are coheirs and sharers in the promise.

To our neighbor and to the stranger, let us be bearers of help, nourishment and affection. Let us embrace the refugee and the people from whom we are estranged – people who are at first glance different from us.  All people belong to God, and find God however they can. We are in this spaceship together.

This New Year, the Toys Are Us store at Times Square is dark. Gone.  History.  Too expensive  to stay in this noticeable place.  To borrow their name, the Magi Are Us. And we are not gone, although we might have some sense of the cost.  Waiting to be released in us this year are the imagination and courage to not abandon the star, and to embrace the Holy Child waiting in every person we meet. In faith, this year, let us go boldly where no one has gone before.


~Sister Joan Sobala

Offering the Best We Can

Dear Friends,

Last week, we looked at Mary and Joseph, Zachary and Elizabeth and their profound places in the story of Christ’s coming to be with us as our brother and Lord. We found that they were also mirrors of ourselves and offer us valuable ways of approaching the Christmas season. Once more, we turn to biblical characters this way, as we consider the innkeeper, the shepherds and magi.

The innkeeper is an anonymous, busy, fleeting figure in the story of Jesus' birth. This innkeeper offered the Holy Family not the best, but the best he had. And God found the best he had enough.

We are innkeepers, too. We admit or keep people from the inn of our hearts, the inn of our homes. Do our kids, coming home from college find comfort in us? Do strangers find comfort? How about the sick for whom we care? Whom do we allow to stay in our homes? Are people nourished physically or spiritually in our inns? We also have inopportune times when our personal inn is full and someone comes knocking. Maybe we can’t offer our best – only the best we can. God will find this enough.

The shepherds and magi were definitely not A-types, bound to the morning. They paid attention to the night – to the star. The star did not discriminate against people. The magi were wealthy in some ways. The shepherds were poor in some ways. It didn’t matter. The shepherds were probably smelly and illiterate – local folk who saw the star in the sky and went straight to the manger. The magi learned about the star from their studies. Like so many worldly-wise, they went to the top first – to Herod. Surely he would know where the newborn king was. Only then did they bring their gifts to Jesus.

In each of us is a shepherd and a magus. We are called in the night to follow the star no matter how much or how little we know. We experience danger and disbelief when we tell others of following the star. The shepherds and magi never met. There are parts of us that don’t meet either.  Within ourselves are many worlds and they are all redeemed by Christ.

In fact the whole world is filled with shepherds and magi, each following a star (think refugees and migrants.) Some journeys seem endless or repetitive, like going around a rotary without being able to exit. One thing to keep in mind about our fellow-journeyers: the star does not discriminate against races, nations, classes and genders. See the shepherd and the magus in everyone.

Finally, there’ll be no new blog for the week of December 28, 2015, so here’s a thought we can apply to the turn into a new year. Written in 1905 by Minnie Haskins, I turn to it when facing an unchartered part of life:

 I said to a man who stood

at the gate of the year:

 

Give me a light that I may tread safely

into  the unknown.

 

And he replied,

 

Go out into the darkness and

put your hand into the hand of God.

 

That shall be to you better than light

 and safer than a known  way.

 

So I went forth and finding the Hand of God 

trod gladly into the night.

And God led me toward the hills

and the breaking of the day in the  lone east.

 

So heart be still;

God knows.

God’s will is best.

 

Abundant Christmas Grace and Every Blessing for 2016,

 

Sister Joan Sobala

New Birth in Our Lives

Dear Friends,

This week and next, I hope you’ll spend some time with people who are prominent or shadowy in the biblical stories of Jesus’ birth and early years. This week, we’ll look at one old married couple, Zachary and Elizabeth, and one young married couple, Mary and Joseph. Next week, we’ll spend time with the innkeeper, the shepherds and magi. Each of these would have had a different story were it not for each other, or were it not for Jesus.

All of these people met God in their ordinary lives. When we think of them deeply, we find ourselves revealed as well.

Zachary and Elizabeth represent the true and faithful of Israel, who had waited ceaselessly for the coming of God -- out there beyond their family and friends. As a priest, Zachary knew the Scriptures, and was welcomed into the innermost part of the temple. God’s messenger came to him in this ancient and familiar place and told him that newness would break through in him.

Zachary was disbelieving, responding in effect “I can’t. I’m too old. We are too old. You can’t be serious.” But God was serious and for his disbelief, Zachary was rendered speechless. Somehow he conveyed this staggering news to Elizabeth. She believed. They came together and together they waited – two old people whose youth was restored for the sake of a child and a message. Imagine their waiting, their intimacy, their awe. 

You and I give birth in our later years. God comes to us un-old and familiar places and says: “Newness will break in upon you.” In our older years, we do not give birth physically, but we give birth nonetheless – to an idea, an attitude, a movement.  Maybe we give birth to people who are already born by letting them go or by encouraging them to use their talents in other imaginative ways. As with Elizabeth, the new births of our lives need welcome and nurturing.

Mary and Joseph were tender youth who had ordinary and expectable hopes for their life together: marriage, a family, reaching old age together, seeing their children’s children. But all of this was not to be. God strained their faith and their relationship to the limit. Both said yes to God, but not without an interior struggle.

Mary and Joseph prepared or were prepared over a long time for the things that broke in on them with apparent suddenness. They could only see this in retrospect. That’s the case with us, too, Joseph attempted to reach a decision through analysis. In the end, he paid attention to the dream. How important it is for us to pay attention to our dreams.

What else has occurred to you about the mirror of these figures for your life and our world?

~Sister Joan Sobala

Second Chances

Dear Friends,

In the first reading for the Second Sunday of Advent (C Cycle), Jeremiah’s secretary, Baruch, a poet and prophet in his own right, says to the city of Jerusalem, bereft of its people: “Up Jerusalem – stand on the heights. See your children are coming back to you!” (Baruch 5.5) The exiles,  held  captive in Babylon, had a second chance. The city had a second chance. And in a real way too, God had a second chance.

And then there is John the Baptist, offering his listeners an invitation to receive a baptism of repentance. And what are the key ingredients in John’s baptism if not reconciliation with God and others – a second chance.

There isn’t one of us who hasn’t had a second chance: the near miss on the highway, the birth that eases the pain of a previous miscarriage, the disease found out and dealt with, the chance to love again, telling someone something we dread revealing and finding love in their response.

Maybe we remember being told unequivocally by someone important to us that, since we didn’t “get it right” the first time, we would be denied the possibility of a second chance.

Or maybe we ourselves have denied others a second chance – closed the door to them, so to speak, and thrown away the key.

For some of us, a second chance doesn’t necessarily mean a change in direction. Maybe we’ve done something well, and a second chance is to do more. Or, maybe we’ve done something poorly and our second chance is to do it well. A new meaning for “Play it again, Sam!”

Later in the month, when we celebrate Christ born among us, all creation, all people  have  a second chance. Our world, our nation seems to be riddled with bullet wounds. We feel as though the very goodness of life is  curdling through the violence and hatred we experience. But God does not deny our communities a second chance. God holds out to the world the same potential for conversion and transformation that is offered individuals. If God is ready to give the world a second chance, then every strategy for justice and peace is worth the attempt and every labor for the relief of suffering is worth the effort.

All of this is why Pope Francis encourages us to live every day between December 8, 2015 and November 20, 2016 in the exercise of the spiritual and corporal works of mercy. Make tangible some use your time and talents so that others may have a second chance. Then, come Christmas and the unfolding year ahead, “our mouths will be filled with laughter and our tongues with rejoicing.”(Psalm 126.2)

~Sister Joan Sobala