Wholeness
The road to wellness is paved with charity and selflessness; it is in giving that we are made whole.
The road to wellness is paved with charity and selflessness; it is in giving that we are made whole.
Two Friends
(Photo by Michael Kenna)
One is a doctor.
One is a photographer.
The doctor thinks the human body is fascinating. He understands how the organs and major systems work. He can rattle off an amazing repertoire of insights into cell structure and nutrition absorption all the way up to the complex intermingling of assorted bodily workings. The body, to a large degree, fascinates him because he knows it so well.
My other friend, the photographer, loves the human body as well. He’s taken thousands and thousands of photographs of a wide variety of bodies, of both sexes, of all ages. He can lecture at length about how light bounces off various skin types and how certain poses accentuate certain body parts. He’s fascinated by the body too - even though he has absolutely no idea how it works.
This Sunday is called ‘Trinity Sunday.’ It’s a unique feast because we don’t honor a person or an event – like St. Francis or Christmas - but instead we pay homage to a theological construct. In two thousand years of Christian evolution we have come to the conclusion that God is best understood as a mysterious interplay between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Yes, some people, like my doctor friend, have keen theological insight into what we mean by ‘Trinity.’ Their understanding of scripture, history, ontology, sociology, and philosophy helps them arrive at rather precise conclusions about what God is all about. Meanwhile, other people, like my photographer friend, choose to bask in the presence of its beauty, whose existence inspires great confidence even though they would never attempt to understand it.
On Trinity Sunday, both of these polarities come together; both are accepted, both are honored, and both are equally valid. We acknowledge God in God’s complexity and God in God’s wondrous beauty - for we know that any claim to fully understand God means we have become God.
The soul of this day, then, looks for ways to connect with this numinous force who calls both mind and heart to attention. How do we best understand God – with our heart or head? A bit of both? And how is this Holy Trinity stretching our understanding so that we might learn more about our lives and our world?
I have two friends.
Finding Vocation
Don’t get all hung up on finding “your calling.”
In my experience, few people have just one “calling” – there
is rarely “one thing” that people have been given to do over the course of
what, for most people, is a very long life.
The fact that the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reports
the average American will have 10 different jobs before they reach age 40 metes
this out. And, yes, that number is expected to do nothing but grow.
Sure, everyone has likes and dislikes, which lead us to
excel in some areas more than others: that’s how God made us. But our likes and
dislikes change over time. Since we usually become better at the things we like
(practice isn’t practice, it’s having fun!) this doesn’t mean we can only
attempt things that we are already ‘good’ at. It means we should nurture those
things we like to do but not limit ourselves to this – after all the first time
anyone does anything, they are not good at it.
So don’t get down on yourself, but try to celebrate the
challenge and experience we had going to business school though now we work as
a chef. Or graduating at the top at our conservatory class although now we have
now found a home in H.R. God gave us many interests and abilities, and thus the
possibility of being good at many different things.
Yes, life may be a series of trying on different hats, but
just because we’ve found one that fits doesn’t mean we can never try another.
Sure, we can only wear one at a time but life is long enough and God is good
enough so that most of us get a chance to experience a wider swath of humanity.
So keep dreaming and don’t get hung up on finding your life’s one calling. It’s better to accept the complexities of our gifts and desires and concentrate more on identifying today’s groove, living in the now, and the joy of God’s continued gift of vocation.
So keep dreaming and don’t get hung up on finding your life’s one calling. It’s better to accept the complexities of our gifts and desires and concentrate more on identifying today’s groove, living in the now, and the joy of God’s continued gift of vocation.
Let Us Pray
In the classic book ‘Anne of Green Gables’ Miss Cornelia, a
staunch Presbyterian, hears that a friend is ailing.
Cornelia is told the situation is so dire that her friend
will now have to, ‘rely on the Lord.’ Cornelia gasps and is overcome with
emotion. She replies, ‘Surely, it isn’t as bad as all that!’
Mark Thibodeaux, a spiritual writer, likes to delineate
between four kinds of prayer. The first, is the one that Cornelia is edging
around – prayer when ‘you haven’t
got a prayer’ - which is a prayer of petition like ‘Oh God, heal my friend!’
Or my favorite is the old Catholic petition for a parking
spot, ‘Mother Cabrini, Mother Cabrini, find a place for my little machine-y.’
Petition is the most common kind of prayer. Thibodeaux
labels it as talking at God. This is
contrasted with a second kind, talking to
God. There’s a third kind, listening
to God. And there’s a fourth called being
with God.
We explore deeper forms of prayer because there is no better
place to find centeredness, direction, and meaning in our lives than in prayer,
especially those latter three types. We
pray because our souls are starved for meaning and we believe that prayer is a
way to transcend the boundaries of self and reach beyond, to a reality we know
is there.
Yes, like exercise and a proper diet, we often fail to make
adequate accommodation for prayer, but when we do, it’s golden.
So friends, what might we do to make more space for prayer?
So friends, what might we do to make more space for prayer?
