7 Quick Takes Friday #12

I arrived in Klaipeda, Lithuania just in time to contribute to the 7 Quick Takes Friday meme hosted by Jennifer at Conversion Diary. This, though, is only because while it is near the end of the day Friday here, it is the high point of the day in the USA. It has been an eventful week, beginning with sadness last Friday with the death of Ray, only one day after Shane lost his job, and ending on more positive tones. So, here is a quick round-up, not by day exactly, more like by topic, of this week.

1. Mass. Thanks to Martin Luther King Day being a holiday, I was able to go to daily Mass twice in a row: Monday and Tuesday. I had taken Tuesday off because I had thought I would be flying at that time, but the situation with Ray threw some of those plans out of kilter. I even had time on both (!) days to have coffee (milk for me) with friends who had also been at Mass. I have been traveling so much they had forgotten who I was (not really), but catching up is always fun to do, especially when there is no real time limit.

2. SFO. Sunday I attended our Secular Franciscan meeting. I have not been in a few months. November I was in some state/country or other -- forget exactly where. December was cancelled. For some reason (well, actually because I brought up some requests), it turned into a prayer fest (inspiring), followed by a delayed holiday exchange of gifts (fun). Everyone had brought food donations for a local project, and I offered to take them to the project director. Good intentions rarely going unpunished, I managed to back the car into a tree when I backed up to get closer to the door for loading the food. Inconsiderate tree! It just did not seem to want to move out of my way. So, I have a dent in the back bumper that proves to Donnie that I really am as bad a driver as he thinks I am.

3. Prayer Group. I always look forward to our Monday night prayer group. I co-lead with a spiritual director, Robert, who comes down from the St. Francis Retreat Center. Actually, he does the leading, and I do the shepherding in the sense of networking, reminding people, gathering the clans. Since I had not expected to be in town Monday, I did not send out the routine notices, and I learned how important they are: no one showed up except Sr. M and me. From a selfish point of view, that was great. I love Sr. M and learn a lot from her, and we had two hours or more to share scripture, experience, and prayer. What a great way to end the day!

4. Shane moving forward. Shane has spent the week recovering from the shock of losing his job in spite of just having received a raise for outstanding performance. Although the Human Resource office has forbidden his supervisor, who disagreed with the decision, from telling Shane the reason, it would appear that little Nikolina's $2 million insurance bill accompanied by the significant amount of leave that Shane had to take at one time was the reason. The reason does not matter as much as finding insurance coverage for Nikolina, and surprisingly, Stanford University Hospital offered to try to help. Apparently, there are programs now for people in such dire circumstances. So, Shane spent some time in Palo Alto this week. I will provide an update to the Clan under Siege post on Clan of Mahlou once I get settled in here on the cold Baltic Sea.

5. A Matter of Attitude. The United Airlines plane that was supposed to carry me to Frankfort for transfer to a Lufthansa flight to Vilnius did not leave the San Francisco Airport on Wednesday. Flight 900 was simply a doomed flight, all because of as broken PA system. Apparently, planes cannot fly without a way to communicate between crew and all passengers, not just those in some of the cabins, and since the plane we were on had a PA system that ignored the back rows of economy class, we returned to the airport three times after trying to take off while mechanics scratched their heads over how to fix the system. They wanted to turn off the broken speaker but did not know which circuit breaker to pull. As a result, they pulled us -- off the plane and into seven hours of waiting for another plane. People became cranky, as did some of the customer representatives. (I think I shall send some suggestions to United; Shane used to work the complaint counter at Sears when he was 16 and did a better job of not personalizing the comments of frustrated people than did some of the senior airlines people on Wednesday. Patience is a virtue in such cases.) Of course, it is a two-way street, and not being cranky usually gets one a better deal. For me, it paid off: a hotel room in Frankfurt and dinner. Yes, I was a day late in arriving, but at least I arrived during the day. The alternative would have been to debark the plane in Vilnius at 0001 in the morning, with no place but a snowbank for a bed, Klaipeda being four hours away, the driver snoring away in the comfort of his own home, and the only nearby hotel having closed its doors two hours earlier.

6. Frankfurt. Oh, the lark of it! Yes, I was stranded. Yes, I was supposed to start teaching Friday. Yes, both the students and I would have to make up the missed hours. Nonetheless, there I was in Frankfurt, speaking German. Rusty German, to be sure, but I was able to practice it at check-in, dinner, the ticket counter in the morning. I rarely get a chance to speak German (although a trip earlier this year did help to refresh my memory), and for me the practice and renewal of the language was worth the irritation of an interrupted flight. Oh, and did I mention that the duck dinner was sumptious?

7. Klaipeda. Finally! I arrived in Vilnius in the early afternoon on the coldest day in history for that date's temperature, easily picked out the tall driver from the university, clambered into his station wagon, and proceeded to chat for the next 3-4 hours, the length of the drive from Vilnius to Klaipeda. The driver did not speak much English but was quite at home in Russian. A chance to practice another foreign language although Russian does not seem "foreign" to me. The only difficulty was my lack of a four-hour bladder, four kids having demolished the only bladder I ever had with constant kicking throughout pregnancies. Fortunately, we found a roadside facility about an hour from Klaipeda, and I was much more lively after that.

However, now I have to go to bed (yes, I know it is only noon in the USA), so that I can get up and prepare to teach six hours of class tomorrow (down two hours from the eight hours that the dean had promised (threatened?) the students. We can get in all the hours required for the semester in the next two weeks with only six hours a day on weekends. Only?? It will be interesting to see if the students can match my fortitude for work. And so, without further ado, good-night!

Monday Morning Meditation #25: Not As Man Sees

This week I read past the rejection of the Israelites of God as their king and their demand for a human king and past the story of King Saul and his periodic turning away from God and God's forgiveness again and again. All of this sounds like a modern-day story, and I suppose I could have reflected on any of it. However, I did not feel God leading me in that direction. Rather, my mind came to rest on the story of the annointing of David as successor to Saul. Samuel, in trying to discern which of the seven sons of Jesse the Bethlehemite presented to him would be king was led to think that the eldest, comeliest, tallest, and strongest was the most suited. "But the LORD said unto Samuel: 'Look not on his countenance, or on the height of his stature; because I have rejected him; for it is not as man seeth: for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the LORD looketh on the heart.'" It was ultimately the less physically endowed, harp-playing David who was chosen.

Reading: I Samuel 16:7

Meditation: I wonder how many better decisions we might make and better conclusions we might reach if we were to see as God sees, not as man sees. How many times have we judged a book by its cover, to use a modern expression? One of the most well known instances of this of recent days would be Susan Boyle's appearance in front of the Britain Has Talent judges. One could see their mirth at the thought that such a frumpy woman could sing. They even toyed with her. And then she opened her mouth!

A student of mine a number of years ago did a graduate thesis on presidential elections in the United States. Quite surprisingly (perhaps surprising only to me because I am so very short), the tallest candidate nearly always was elected president. (Hm, our presidents are getting taller and taller -- and, given this criterion, Hilary Clinton never had a chance.)

When we judge people from the outside, we make the mistake that God prevented Samuel from making. And because we do not see as God sees, there is likely much evil passing as good among us for evil can dress itself in the garbs of good very easily, slipping into our lives, living with us, and being widely accepted simply because it looks like good.

We may never be able to see as God sees, only as He helps us to see when the need arises. Nonetheless, we can come a little closer if we look at the heart, as God instructed Samuel, and not at the body, and especially if we put aside our preconceived ideas of beauty, good, and worthiness and listen to what God tells us about each of these and about the people, things, and ideas in our lives. No, we cannot see as God sees; we will always see more or less as man sees, but we can keep in mind that our eyesight is not 20/20 spiritually and allow God to lead us when our vision is especially clouded.

And that is far as I can go with you on this Monday morning. I must retire to prayer to repent for those times that I have tried to see with my own eyes, to thank God for pointing out what I should really be seeing, and to give praise for His incredible patience in being willing to teach me over and over again how to see. After that, I will spend time in contemplation, my favorite part of the day, letting God take over the direction in which my relationship with Him moves.

I will now leave you to your prayer and contemplation, but first, I would like to bring to your attention a Monday morning prayer post that you might enjoy:

Fr. Austin Fleming, priest of the Archdiocese of Boston and pastor in Concord, Massachusetts, posts a prayer each Monday morning that he calls "Monday Morning Offering." I enjoy his prayers very much. I hope you also will find them inspirational. He has graciously given me permission to include a link to his blog on my Monday Morning Meditation posts.

For additional inspiration throughout the week, I would point out two sets of blogs: (1) the list of devotional blogs that follow the enumeration of Monday Morning Meditations on the sidebar of this blog and (2) my blogroll, where I am following a number of inspirational priests and writers about spiritual matters. I learn so very much from all these people. I highly recommend them to you.

Sabbath Sunday #9: Tender Mercy

Fr. Christian Mathis (Blessed Is the Kingdom) has made the suggestion that we "rest" on the Sabbath by taking a break from our normal blogging and sharing an older post of which we are particularly fond. Rest? Gladly! I don't get to do that very often, but now, thanks to Fr. Christian, I get to do it at least once a week -- and it gives me more time to spend with God, which is a wonderful gift.

Given Friday's death in the family, with which we are still coping, I hope you will understand if I simply point to yesterday's post on that matter, Tender Mercy, rather than taking the time to find an older, perhaps more interesting, post.

Many thanks to all of you for your condolences and especially your prayers at this time. They -- and you -- are appreciated.

Tender Mercy

Many, many thanks to all of you who have been praying for Ray and our family, especially those who promised to pray at 6:00 last night as he was taken off life support. There was no way to let you all know that the 6:00 prayers were excess -- but, then, are any prayers really excesss? -- for Ray had already passed away by that time.

At 9:20 a.m., Noelle called me at my office. She told me that the hospital had just called. The doctor relayed the information that Ray's respirator hose had suddenly and unexpectedly torn, and he had died instantly. The doctor added that no one had touched the hose at all, so there was some puzzlement as to how it had happened; this is not something that they routinely worry about or look for.

That event made unnecessary the need to go to the hospital at 6:00, give permission to remove Ray from life support, and watch him die. While Noelle is experiencing much grief from losing Ray, there was wonderment and immense relief in her voice as she told me what happened. She had been very apprehensive about the planned trip to the hospital.

"This is a blessing, Mom," she told. "A real blessing. He did not die by my hand, by my concurrence that he should be unplugged. He just died because his life was over."

Sometimes God's kind mercy is so startling that one cannot even say a normal prayer but just keep repeating over and over in awe and gratitude, "My Lord and my God, THANK YOU!"

Concurrently posted on Clan of Mahlou and Modern Mysticism.

Joy in Despair

For me, in dark moments, moments of grief, I am helped by focusing on moments of joy from the past, knowing that life is a balance of both. As we await the pulling of the plug and the formal end of Ray's life, with the understanding that he really died a week ago and has been artificially kept alive thanks to marvelous modern technology, I think back to something that happened a few years ago and which I describe at the end of my book, Blest Atheist.

Even if there are difficulties ahead, there will be help and protection. There will also be rewards. There always are. With God, the rewards are unanticipated and unusual. The simplest among them are the greatest.

One evening last December, the thought came into my head that I should take my evening walk around the mission grounds early. Normally I walk there around 9:00 p.m., and it was only 6:00 when I felt the push to go outside for my walk.

No, I thought. Why would I want to go now? Even though the eventide falls around 5:30 on December nights in San Ignatio, I still prefer to go later—after dinner and dishes and before retiring for the night. It is a marvelously restful way to end the day. Walking brings out the happy endorphins, and just being at the mission provides great encouragement toward prayer.

No, I’ll go later, I thought and began cleaning the kitchen in preparation for dinner. Then the impulse came again. The “argument” went back and forth a couple of times until I approached Donnie, who usually accompanies me on these walks.

“Donnie, how do you feel about taking our evening walk early tonight?” I asked.

“Why?” he asked.

“I don’t know why,” I answered. “I just feel like we should go early.”

Donnie acquiesced and quickly assembled his pipe tools. (He likes to sit and smoke while I walk.) We opened the door and stepped out under the night sky. And there it was, spread across the heavens: a breathtaking lunar ice halo.

Ice halos are rings of light that surround the sun, moon, or other sources of light, such as street lamps. The ones in the heavens are caused by millions of ice crystals in thin, cold, cirrus clouds floating in the troposphere reflecting and refracting light. This particular ice halo was circumhorizonal, a rare phenomenon for which adequately descriptive words, other than scientific ones, are even rarer. Refracted light from the moon spread in a 360-degree circle all around the sky on the same level as the moon yet at the same time touching the horizon wherever we turned—or so it seemed although in actuality the circle of light was parallel to the horizon and not lying upon it. The halo filled the whole sky, with the full moon in its zenith filtering a stream of light through a gossamer foramen in the firmament onto the mission grounds below.

I could almost hear the proud words, “Look what I did!” The hymn of Isaac Waats came to mind instantly: “The moon shines full at His command, and all the stars obey.”

On the mission grounds canopied by the horizon-to-horizon crystal glow, I walked, my arms extended. Irrepressible joy spread past my fingertips, riding on the splendor of light toward the horizon.

Then it was gone. Had I come at my usual time, I would have missed it.

These then are the things that have been seen and experienced by the blest atheist. All the events reported herein [in the book] have enriched my life, but the greatest of these was God sharing with me the lunar ice halo: “Look what I have done!” The hound of Heaven had finally caught me and then had shown me what I had been missing: “Look what I have done!” Indeed, I could almost hear those words and a few more: “Look at what I have done—for you, for all people, because I love you whether or not you even believe that I exist.”

All the miracles that God has done in my life and in the lives of others through me have been wondrous, but pulling me outside to view the ice halo stands out above them all as the most affirming act of God’s love. The miracles were about healing and turning bad into good. They have been important, of course. Viewing the ice halo, however, was about relationship: God’s relationship with me, God’s relationship with all of us. When God called me from my house onto the street and into the field at the mission, I understood that I was special—not special out of many, but special among many, special like all people are special to God.

On an individual level, I was and am at best only a Good Samaritan, and still God wanted a relationship with me. In so many ways, I was and am but a child who finds the adults who can help a sick child artist, a crying lady, a boy in white, or an orphan dying from brain tumors. Like a child, I have no burning desire for financial gain, material possessions, or fame and power. Those desires were beaten out of me in my youth. Although many of these things have appeared unbidden in my life, my true treasure is the people who have come into my life from all continents of the world. There is where my heart is. I want to “pass on” the good that God has brought into my life by using my linguistic proficiency, cultural acumen, and multi-domain knowledge gained from living in the land of splat! to connect people who need help with people who have the ability to give help, no matter where they live or what language they speak. For what good is money if it cannot be used to help those in need? What good are material things unless they make this world a friendlier place: a blanket to warm a homeless man, food for a hungry family, clothes for those burned out of a home? What good is power if not used to empower the powerless to be free to flourish? What good, too, is dreaming an impossible dream if it does not kindle the dreams of others? What good is reaching an unreachable star if it does not sprinkle light onto a dark existence? What good is happiness if it does not splash joy onto dispirited ground, inspiriting the life within to sprout and reach for the heavens? If, indeed, as I have found, helping those in need, making the world a friendlier place, empowering the powerless, kindling dreams, lighting the dark, and splashing joy across the land is what a Good Samaritan does, then I want to be a Good Samaritan for life. To my delight, God seems willing to use me in that capacity. For certain, God knows my heart and what I treasure.

God has many Good Samaritans. Some, like me, are blessed to help a few wounded souls in intensive ways. Others are blessed to help many people in more extensive, but less intensive, ways. Some God leads with their full knowledge. Others, like me for so many years, God leads through their hearts alone. In return, God gives them a treasure far greater than money, honor, power, or prestige: they know a perfect joy that nothing else can give.

I am sure that others saw the ice halo that night for God encourages all people to step bravely out of the grey boxes in which they are cowering and stride buoyantly forth into a divine world resplendent with color, love, and joy. In our tiny town, though, I was the only one who showed up at the mission to see the splendor on that particular winter evening. Others may have showed up elsewhere for the ice halo could be seen for miles. Perhaps even more were called to behold it but were not listening. Those who did listen experienced an unrelenting tug to come outside and witness an awe-inspiring manifestation of God’s loving caress ephemerally spread against the heavens and permanently imprinted in the mind and on the heart.


Note: Concurrently published on all Mahlou blogs.

The Paper Clip

When I reached my seat on the Washington-Phoenix leg of my flight home last week, I found a paper clip on my seat. Now that was a rather odd item to have been left behind, I thought, and commented on it to the person in the seat beside me.

“Maybe you will need it,” she said, off-handedly, and we went on to discuss other, seemingly more relevant things.

Later, we became absorbed in our own readings. I had casually pulled the U. S. Airways magazine out of the seat pocket in front of me and started flipping through it, more as a warm-up to doing any serious reading – I had brought a book with me – than anything else. Then, my interest was piqued. I noticed the title of an article about open-space work areas. We are having heated debates on that topic at work, as I strive to put an additional 100 people into our current space. The space committee had just handed (well, e-mailed) me a plan the day before that I knew would draw an irate response from some employees who will have to give up private offices that they have had for nearly ten years and join the open-space environment. The article reported on research, published by Harvard Business Review, that showed a range of advantages to open-space designs and provided excellent grist for a reply to my employees’ anticipated concerns.

That was one article I wanted to save, but I know me. If I put the magazine, which passengers are encouraged to take with them, in my carry-on, I might or might not remember when I took it out that this particular article was there, and after a day or so, I might simply toss out the magazine along with others. (I frequently bring home the airline magazines in the event that Donnie might like to read something or I might like to re-read an article, which, hah!, only happens in my plans). However, I had the perfect solution to the memory-failure dilemma. I had a paper clip. I clipped the magazine open to the first page of the article. Now I would, for sure, remember and have the article available when needed because it will be needed.

So the lady beside was right. I was going to need that paper clip. It’s the little ways of taking care of us that sometimes make God seem the most powerful.

Monday Morning Meditation #24: Here I Am, Lord

I just could not find anything in the remaining chapters of Joshua upon which to reflect, nor in Judges. Perhaps it was my restless soul, given the current state of alternating hope and despair re Ray. Stumbling on mechanistically into I Samuel, Chapter 2, the passage in which God called Samuel to himself, brought me out of my intellectual stupor. Yes, that is a story no one can read through casually. It has so much significance for our own lives.

Reading: I Samuel 3: 1-10.

Meditation: How many times have we been called and, like Samuel, attribute it to some earthly event or person? How many times have we ignored a call because we were too busy, not listening, or afraid to step up to the duty? Discernment is not always easy, but sometimes we don't have to do all the work ourselves. Sometimes we don't have to do any of the work at all; God takes the initiative and lets us know what He wants us to do through other people, scripture, seemingly personally directed homilies, other events, and myriad other ways. When God wanted me in my current position, He closed all the doors to my staying in Jordan, and when I decided to leave, God found ways to let me know that He wanted me to stay, including sending people to me with the comments I needed to hear in order to decide to stay. (See my earlier post, The Jobs God Would Not Let Me Have and the One He Insisted I Take and Keep.)

The important thing is to be 100% open and willing. Once I realized that God really wanted me in my current position, I immediately stopped looking to move on. At that point, an extraordinary thing occurred: my boss raised my salary considerably because he had learned that I had been interviewed elsewhere and he wanted to keep me. It was more money than I needed, and I assumed that it had come in part as a blessing from God. So, I have returned most of the money to God through sending it to various charities. It does get spread quite thin at a time, but it is what allows me to use God's credit card and keep payments current. I give where God points out I should give. Ah, the blessings from saying "Here I am, Lord; I will serve You wherever it is You want me to be" have been tremendous.

I love the song, "Here I am, Lord,", which goes on to ask, "Is it I, Lord?" It is one of the songs listed on the right side bar, but I am putting the URL here to make it easier for those who have not heard it to listen to it. To listen to the song, click here.

I hope you will find that song as much of an inspirational beginning to the week as I do. And that is far as I can go with you on this Monday morning. I must retire to prayer to repent for those times that I have not quickly enough realized that God was calling me to do something or other, to thank God for trusting me with some of His tasks, and to give praise for the extraordinary power that allows Him to reach us through all the interference that comes from what we call daily life. After that, I will spend time in contemplation, my favorite part of the day, letting God take over the direction in which my relationship with Him moves.

I will now leave you to your prayer and contemplation, but first, I would like to bring to your attention a Monday morning prayer post that you might enjoy:

Fr. Austin Fleming, priest of the Archdiocese of Boston and pastor in Concord, Massachusetts, posts a prayer each Monday morning that he calls "Monday Morning Offering." I enjoy his prayers very much. I hope you also will find them inspirational. He has graciously given me permission to include a link to his blog on my Monday Morning Meditation posts.

For additional inspiration throughout the week, I would point out two sets of blogs: (1) the list of devotional blogs that follow the enumeration of Monday Morning Meditations on the sidebar of this blog and (2) my blogroll, where I am following a number of inspirational priests and writers about spiritual matters. I learn so very much from all these people. I highly recommend them to you.