Sometimes the voice of God comes to me in different voices. That of my spiritual director. That of my husband. That of my fourth grader. Tonight it came to me in the voice of Tom Hanks.

A while back, before Lent, I had the most hysterical prayer experience. Really. Some people pray and speak in tongues. Others receive the gift of tears or wisdom. Me? I receive the gift of laughter.

I was sitting in my typical morning prayer space, chai tea at my side, walking through the steps of presence-ing, openness, and then, in good Ignatian fashion, reading the scripture for the day, placing myself in the scene, using all my senses, almost to the point where I could feel the breeze blowing off the Sea of Galilee as Jesus spoke. The reading was from Mark 5.

The apostles were in need of bread. Jesus was somberly warning them symbolically against seeking bread from the Pharisees. In my prayer I’m standing behind a few of the apostles, when one leans over and whispers to the other quizzically, “What is he talking about???” And the second leans in, and in the most annoyed voice says, “I don’t know. I think he’s pissed we forgot the bread.” At that second Jesus looks right at me and just rolls his eyes and sighs with a smirk and I, sitting in my prayer chair, just doubled over in laughter. Tears are streaming down my face as I read it again. It was better than an SNL skit. They were so utterly human. I could do nothing but laugh deeply at Jesus’ predicament, the straight man to the ignorant Will Ferrell-like apostles. It was such a wonderful gift of prayer.

But just as I sat to write about it, in comes Tom Hanks in the “There’s-no-crying-in-baseball!” voice saying “You’re laughing? You’re laughing? There’s no laughing in Lent!”

I am stopped cold at the keyboard. Seriously? Everything in my nature wants to fight that sentiment—why can’t there be laughter in Lent?

I turn to Ignatius. Teach me.

And there it sits. Note 80 of the Spiritual Exercises. The Eighth addition to Help for Prayer in the First Week: “[I try] not to laugh nor say a thing provocative of laughter.”

As translated by David Fleming, S.J., “I do not try to find occasions to laugh, knowing how often laughter can be the attempt to escape from the uneasiness of a situation.”

Now that’s a serious downer. But once again, I am hit over hit over the head with the Truth.

My desire to write about and fill my prayer with laughter may reflect my uneasiness with the realities that Lent calls me to face: the realities of sin, fear, hatred, suffering, sacrifice, and even death. None of these are a laughing matter. At some point, I have to grapple with them within the world, within myself, seriously. Lent is the Church’s way of making sure we all make some time for that point to happen. Yes, laughter is very much a part of the beautiful human nature that God has created and to not laugh for 40 days seems inhuman to me. I hear the author of Ecclesiastes say there is a time for everything. I trust that this time without laughter holds invitations for my growth. I trust that if I’m willing to make some somber space in my life, not hiding behind the surface laughter or “busyness” that really stems from my insecurities, there is much to be gained from this season.

And before I dive head first into this somber season, I find myself heartened by one thing in particular: I’ve seen this movie before and I know who gets the last laugh!
Photo: “A-maze-ing Laughter” (Used under Creative Commons license)

Related posts:

1. Autumn & Lent
2. The Joy of Hope

Option 1: Obligations stretch out before me. Reading, papers, exams, committee meetings, conferences, house tasks…these are the things that fill my time. Sitting in prayer or reflection can quickly turn into a moment of planning. I have obligations to fulfill and I feel like I need to fulfill them well.

This goes for the practical…
“I am going to read two hundred pages tonight.”
“I need to put in one hour a night studying for this exam between now and April.”
“How am I going to get to my appointment, then to class, then to the prison, and also find time to shop and cook?”

As well as the more intangible…
“That’s a great insight! I should bring that up in class.”
“I need to plan this out so I don’t say something stupid.”

Option 2: When I am not plotting, I am reliving. Recollections fill my imagination, and this is not always where I need to be. Sometimes I think about triumphs, but more often failures (neither one of which I am certain I can recall with complete accuracy anymore).

Sometimes I am busy thinking of people that I wish I could talk to:
“I wish I had remembered to call them.”
“I miss her.”
“What ever happened to him?”

Sometimes I am recalling moments where I felt particularly useful;
“I cannot believe I did that.”

or ones that might make me cringe:
“I cannot believe I did that.”

And then there are the times when I am aware of my sins:
“I was judgmental and selfish when I…”
“I was prideful and ungrateful when…”
“I was being overly critical…wait, no. I was not critical enough…”

Analysis: These triumphs and failures, I picture them as stones of various sizes that I offer to God. Some I think are gems, crowning jewels. These are my accomplishments. “I am such a good person. Look at how much I did!” Some of the stones are jagged rocks, the kind that would lead to my death at the hand of an angry mob. “I fell short…again. I am such a bad person!” Either way, my sense of identity is attached to what I do, good or bad.

So, I bring these things to God and hold each one up before him. I am searching either for emotional salve or spiritual approval (which is not a bad reason to go to God). The problem is, I am so attached to the things that I offer up, what I have done or what I will do, that I might forget why I pray to begin with. I do not sit in prayer so I can ruminate and plot. I pray so that I might understand how God is moving in my life and calling me into a deeper expression of the creation fashioned in me. Unfortunately, with one eye to the past and the other to the future, my awareness of God diminishes in a cross-eyed stare.

It might come as no surprise, then, that metaphorically speaking, when I hold up these “prayer stones,” God never picks them up.

Why?

Because they are not really real. First, I am not so much offering these moments up to God in prayer as I am reflecting on me and projecting my will upon the world. I am immersed in my own emotion or machination, preoccupied by my sin and my success. Second, while I am viewing my behavior in a reflective way, it is not helpful to judge my own actions and decide which I will celebrate as “me” and which I will try to pretend are not really a part of me. The problem is that they are all of me, but for whatever reason I cannot make them fit together into my vision of self. The thing is, part of the miracle of God is not that I live in perfection, but that the Spirit is somehow bringing all of these parts of me together, refining me, and teaching me how to live with myself.

Option 3: To paraphrase GC 34, I am a sinner called to follow Jesus. There is a space in my interior world where I become aware of the immense love that God has for all of creation. In this place, my past and future come into focus in a mysterious overlap. It is a place where I am aware of my limitations and strengths as well as my failures and triumphs. I feel my emotions and my desires. I see my successes, but do not become so attached to them. I recognize my sin, but I stop dwelling on it. I still might feel strongly about doing something well or having messed something up, but beneath it all, I feel God’s love. I recognize I am being taught. Triumphs and failures are only so because of how they build up community. I see my shortcomings not as negatives in and of themselves, but as part of who I am. Likewise, my triumphs are not what make me lovable, but simple moments where I was expressing a certain fullness, a fulfillment of a gift. At this point, my actions stop be just about me and what I am doing, and start being about how I am in relationship to God and all of creation.

I have started calling this space “the Joy of Hope.” It is a space where desire, obligations, emotions and virtue become revealers of a grace-filled possibility. It is as though the two lenses of my understanding (past and future) meet to give the present world a shape that I can recognize God’s presence in. That is, rather than my deeds becoming something that I can grade my self worth on (A- on that random act of kindness, C+ on that moment of service) they become lenses through which I learn to see grace at work. My focus centers on understanding why God loves me, and why God loves us. I find myself in a place of interior possibility. I find myself better able to sit in the presence of God and feel the grace of His gaze. It is a mindset where I begin to see how the love I carry into my relationships is what is important, and that my actions reveal my spiritual state. Or perhaps said in a better way, I see how I am participating in grace more clearly. I become more aware of how I am responding (either accepting or rejecting) the loving presence of God in my life.

Related posts:

1. Roots of Hope, Peace, Joy and Love
2. Contemplation on Divine Love
3. Twelve Days

I did something really radical last week. I occupied Omaha.

Under the guise of taking my dog for a nice long walk, I marched through the streets of downtown with hundreds of other people carrying signs ranging from “Close the Fed” to “We are the balance to their checks!” Unlike the violent protests depicted on TV, the Omaha event was more parade of hope. Omaha protesters are obscenely nice. We love our police! We obey all traffic rules. We make way for people pushing baby carriages.

And yet, I found it awkward to yell out or chant or carry a sign. This protesting thing is somewhat new for me. I know I agree that policies and programs need to favor the poor over the wealthy. I know there is a place for government as our collective representation and voice to help create jobs for the unemployed. I know all society is better off with a vibrant and large middle class rather than a deep gap between the wealthy and the poor. I know wealth does not fill one’s soul. So why did I feel so nervous to stand on a corner and proclaim that? What is the fear that lies behind my hesitation?

- I didn’t tell many of my friends I was going to protest (Fear of ridule? Conflict?)
- I had no intention of coming anywhere near being arrested for this cause (Fear of punishment? A permanent record? Somewhere down the road, this coming back to haunt me?)
- I had the nagging sense there were lots of other ways I could spend a Saturday morning (Fear of insignificance? Wasting time?)

Each of those fears sounded a lot like the Spirit Not of God giving me any possible justification for not challenging the structures of social sin and oppression in today’s politics.

But in contrast to that Voice, I heard very clearly the Spirit of God speaking in the words and life of Dean Brackley, S.J. Dean was one of the first Jesuits to take the place of the Jesuits murdered in 1989 in El Salvador for speaking out on behalf of the poor. I can imagine he struggled with all those fears I had on a much larger scale when he took on his role to stand at the University of Central America, speaking out against his own country’s military and defending the human rights. Dean didn’t just march in protest on a random Saturday, but instead lived in solidarity with the people and taught and worked on their behalf. He identified so much with the oppressed of El Salvador that given the choice of where to spend his final days while battling cancer, he chose to be there with them. According to Dean, “The wake-up call to service resonates with our deepest need for something worth living for, even dying for, to find ourselves by losing ourselves.”

Ignatius teaches from the very foundation of his spirituality that we are to seek neither wealth nor poverty for ourselves. But we are called to seek justice and to ensure that systems of taxation, commerce, education, defense, and labor set up by our government are not leading to suffering for anyone. If we sit on the sidelines in these debates, we aren’t standing for anything.

Thank you, Dean, for showing us what it means to lose ourselves and take a stand for something greater, for others. Sign anyone?

Photo: “#OccupyLA protest by srd515, on Flickr” (Used under Creative Commons license)

Related posts:

1. Coming Face to Face with Evil
2. Why I Am Still Here

The question comes: “So, are you nervous?”
The response: I have no idea what I am.

How do I explain that every day my stomach
wants to jump out of my mouth?

My prayer life is rocky, I cannot focus,
and I am completely restless.

How do I explain that my line of conscious thought
is whipping around like a downed power cable or a firehose;

that I have plenty of people that I can talk to,
but that I still cannot trust my emotions;

that the evil spirit is working me over,
and that while I know it is happening, I cannot do anything about it.

Strangely, even in the midst of this
it is equally true that I can feel the presence of grace.

I know that the power cable is attached to the Source on one end,
that the hose is connected to a deep well.

My brother calls it letting God play kite:
God, as a kid with an ice cream cone and a kite, likes to watch us go.

I am not sure I like this image
but it feels right somehow.

I am aware of God’s care
and I know with everything I am that “all will be well?”

But part of me asks
“are you just playing with me?”

They said things might get a little strange as ordination approached.
I did not really take them all that seriously.

Its going to be ok. I feel that actually – it will all be ok.
This is not my vocation after all, its God’s.

It is a strange thing about vocation:
we never quite know where it will take us.

Vocations do not really equate to comfort.
They equate to doing what makes sense to us.

I do this because it seems like a good life,
and because it is something that needs to be done.

I know that I can live this way and find joy and happiness;
I also know that it is not easy.

Then again – whose vocation is?
I mean, if we are doing it right

“Easy” is not why we choose to be doctors and teachers
and plumbers and parents.

We do it because it makes sense: someone has to do it
we can do it, and we find goodness in it.

Vocations are about a response to God’s call
and we get to live out this response with each other.

I chose to respond to the call to be a Jesuit
because I really liked the people I met and the spirituality made sense.

I persist in the call because of God
and the people who have been taking care of me on the way:

Spiritual directors, superiors and colleagues;
Teachers who became friends, friends who became teachers;

People who taught me how to care for others
and how to let myself be cared for.

That is how this vocation happens.
It is not mine, I just get to respond.

As I respond, I continue to learn how to live in ups and downs.
As it is, even now, I am convinced that all will be well.

In good Ignatian fashion
I am relying on a judgment made in consolation.

I am practicing presence of mind
and not taking myself too seriously…this too shall pass.

I am withdrawing from the bank of graces remembered
(and I am grateful that so many deposits were made).

Twelve days to go.
Thy will be done

Related posts:

1. The Joy of Hope
2. Connecting to the Source

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