Good Friday: My Smallness, God's Great Goodness

I went for a long walk this morning at the nature center not too far from my home.  I love this place; it's one of two places where my wife has my blessing to scatter my ashes.  We go there at least once a month with our son; our dogs usually go with us.  We've spotted three deer standing together in a heavily shaded spot near the edge of the trail.  We've seen many turtles, countless geese and ducks, a couple of beavers, and a small snake or two.  Walking the trail and glancing out at the pond, I almost always feel the presence of God.  It's one of the places where I feel closest to God, in fact, on par with the afternoons of solitude I sometimes spent on the shores of Lake Huron as a teenager.

As I walked the trail this morning -- with my wife and son in Chicago for a few days -- I realized how timeless the trees and the life cycle of birds are, and how timeless and endless the process of decomposition is.  The logs that are decaying now will crumble within a few more years, and they will again become part of the earth.  Yet new trees will exist -- in that place, or ten yards over -- or, if a poor decision is made by some short-sighted person and the nature center is someday turned into a subdivision, well, trees will grow elsewhere.  But nature continues.  As much as we need to respect and protect the natural world, the whole process of birth, growth, and death is timeless.  Yet, paradoxically enough, those particular trees and vines and birds and deer are very much a part of this moment.  The same is true for me.  I am alive now, and someday I will not be alive -- not on earth, anyway, not in my current, flawed form.

And it's true for every last one of us.  I'm small; we are all small.  Look up at the sky on a star-filled night and  try convincing yourself that you are not small.  The closest stars, other than the sun, are billions of miles away (and the sun is 93 million miles from us).  This planet has existed for billions of years.  The dinosaurs have been gone for 60 million years.  Infinity is almost the right word here.  Yes, we are small.

And yet we matter.  The individual human being matters -- if not to all the people around that person, then at least to God.  The least of our brothers and sisters, Christ tells us, must be viewed as deserving of love and respect.  (Yes: millions of boys, girls, women, and men have been allowed to starve to death due to the callousness of other human beings -- that is our doing, not God's.  Genocides have been committed -- our doing, not God's.)  God loves each individual person born at any point in human history.  I'm convinced of that.  I can't prove it to you; I wouldn't put much stock in anyone who said they had hard evidence that God, the creator, is not just the great clock-maker of deistic lore.  No, it's a matter of faith.  But it's a belief that is at the core of my faith.  Good Friday is at least partly about God's infinite creativity, God's infinite love for us very finite creatures, and God's willingness to come to live among us and help us learn how to die to self -- our foolish, materialistic ways; our violent, inhumane ways of dealing with other people and the world of nature; our willingness to dehumanize others; all signs of our brokenness, our sinfulness -- so that we may live more fully in the love of God that nurtures and redeems.  God creates, God loves, God transforms.

For me, Good Friday is about God's great goodness, a goodness that is shared generously with me despite my smallness:  my limited life span, the limitations of my body and mind; my brokeness as a sinner.  And God's nature truly helps me to realize that death and decay do not mean the end of everything good.  The God I worship is the creator of life, the creator of all good things.  There's just no way death gets the last laugh when that God is the inventor of all creation.

This Rich Mullins song came to mind near the end of my walk, so I found it on YouTube as soon as I got home.  This is from a chapel service at Wheaton College, one of his last performances before his death in 1997.  The song is all about grace, and nature, and God's love which is both more powerful and more gentle than anything we can imagine.  Not a bad song, I think, for a holy day that focuses on God's redemptive love and our own frailty as God's creation.

Nest of Cardinals...and Gratitude

My wife pointed out to me last night that a mother and father cardinal established their nest in an elevated nook of our back porch (on the branch of a huge shrub) while we weren't looking.  Evidently several chicks hatched while we were away on vacation, and we can now see mom and dad bringing food home on a regular basis.  Occasionally, my wife sees little beaks straining upward.  (She has better eyes than me.)  At this moment, sitting here with the door open before the day's heat takes over, I hear clusters of their chirping, the sound of joy or hunger, I'm not sure which.  Would love to snap a picture, but I don't want to trespass on their space.

In any case, the green leaves and the chirps and the summer breeze all leave me feeling very grateful for the five senses God blessed me with.  And I am reminded, as well, of a short video that fits rather nicely with any moment of gratitude.  (Sometimes I watch this piece after a long day, and I always sleep more peacefully that night.)

The speaker here is Brother David Steindl-Rast, a Benedictine monk.

The Transendental God, Ecology, and Vietnam's Future

Thomas C. Fox has an intriguing piece in the National Catholic Reporter.  He explores the interplay between women's religious communities (Catholic sisters, for instance) in Vietnam and the signposts that point to the forces that may help determine Vietnam's future.  Thanks to the insights of the women he is interviewing, he sees ecology as playing an essential role, along with a respect for God's gift of creation.

A brief excerpt from the article:

I asked the women sitting with her what they felt is the single greatest social challenge facing Vietnam today. Without coaxing and almost in unison the women said ecology. Unless the people attend to ecological needs, they explained, all other social issues will only get worse and the fabric of Vietnamese society will weaken.

Studies have indicated, for example, that one third to one half of the Mekong Delta, the nation’s primary food source, is in peril and could be under water in 50 years if expected sea levels continues to rise.

That ecology would be viewed by these women as Vietnam’s number one social challenge took me by surprise. But it was followed by another because they were coming to ecological issues through what was for them a relatively new spiritual framework: the presence of God in creation.

My spouse and I spent some time in Vietnam a decade ago, and we hope to make a return trip as a family in another year or two.  While I'll never claim a full understanding of a culture as rich and nuanced as Vietnam's, I can attest to both the beauty and the economic importance of the Mekong region, having made an all-too-brief day trip there during the three weeks we spent in the country.

I also have at least a simple appreciation for the co-mingling of Buddhism and Catholicism in Vietnam.  It is, of course, chiefly a Buddhist culture, though many Vietnamese self-identify as Catholic, and still others (a significant number, from what I've heard) identify themselves as both Buddhist and Catholic.  That may seem like a jarringly "hyphenated" identity to very conservative Catholics, for whom Buddhism probably sounds as strange as some just-discovered Martian faith.  In truth, however, Buddhism and Catholicism have--at least on a good day--much in common, including the call to compassion and a respect for all of God's creation, both that which is sentient as well as that which is inanimate.  (In other words, don't drill, baby, don't drill, at least not in ANWAR.)  

Fox closes his article with a lovely, and poignant, quote from Sr. Dang Thi Ngoc Bich:

God is a transcendent Creator, giving life to all creation. The task is clear. We need to preserve this creation.

 Amen to that.  Love God, love and care for what God has created.  And consider, on occasion, the consequences inherent in not preserving God's great gift of nature.

Observe the Quiet, Observe the Birds

This morning, in the last few minutes before we were to leave for school, I found my nine-year-old son stationed in front of the glass door that overlooks the bird feeders on our back porch.  He was sitting there, cross-legged, and he whispered, "Quiet" as I entered the room.

We sat there for ten minutes, watching the birds.  Mostly finches, brown finches.  The dogs entered the room, and my son again whispered, "Quiet."  The dogs were uncharacteristically cooperative.  My wife came in.  "Quiet," my son said again.  My wife, too, cooperated.  We left the house with quiet good wishes to each other, a quiet closing of the door.

How frequently I forget that there's a sacrament to be had in watching birds eat their breakfast.

In Praise of Emmanuel, God With Us

May the peace and tender love of God--who chose to be born in a humble manger in Bethlehem, in a vulnerable human body, with tears to shed and laughter to share with friends as well--be with every person who seeks peace and welcomes true joy.

May God, who loved and still loves without condition, bless those most in need of love.

May the spirit of Christ get carried forward by each of us in quiet, small ways. May each of us, in small, simple ways, be a source of love and peace for those around us.  Yes, us--the ones who are frail and full of flaws.

May the beauty of the incarnation--the birth of Emmanuel, God with us--stay with us long after the trappings of the season are put away.

Edwardsville, Illinois, Christmas Day 2010

Merry Christmas to anyone ("Anyone out there??") who stumbles across this blog!