God Talk and Tea

Learning to fluff our feathers and find shelter in our faith

Today a beautiful red cardinal lighted on the head of a cement pelican that sits on one of the posts on my front porch railing.
He cocked his head to the side and looked in the window at me, where I sat at my desk, as if to ask what happened to all the food I left for my feathered friends earlier in the morning.

I laughed to myself and thought, “You were not the early bird today, dear friend. You were beaten by several blue jays, a host of finches, some blackbirds, and of course, the local squirrels.”

Obviously, I love birds.

There are few things that give me a greater feeling of contentment than to watch the birds come to the railing outside my den window and eat the bread or seed I’ve left for them. Seeing their unique beauty, listening to their chatter with each other, even observing their squabbles, are some of the best moments of my day.

I have often wondered how these amazing creatures weather the varied and severe storms that could prove to be a mortal danger.

A professor in Tufts University explains that aside from a bird’s natural built-in protection such as feathers, which offer remarkable insulation from cold air reaching the skin, and feet designed so body heat is not lost to cold air, there are two things that help birds survive – location and preparation.

Being small allows birds to take advantage of microhabitats, such as the lee side of trees or deep inside thick hedges.  He notes that wind speeds, and even the effects of driving rains, are dramatically decreased in these microhabitats. As long as the birds stay put and fluff up their feathers for increased insulation they can usually weather the worst of storms.

But staying put also means they cannot forage for food, so an important part of their preparation for storms is to get as much nourishment as possible before the storm hits. Many birds can sense changing air pressure and, in preparation, spend as much time as possible foraging and eating.  Because eating produces metabolic warmth for birds, who need to consume one-third to three-quarters of their weight daily, food is imperative if they are to survive.

It is no different for us when we are faced with so many of the severe emotional and spiritual storms that often hit without warning. We are strongest when we weather the storm from within the shelter of our faith and when we keep ourselves nourished with prayer, the Word of God, Eucharist and the support of our faith community.

Preaching in one of his weekly Angelus messages, Pope Francis taught on the Gospel of Matthew and the story of Jesus walking on the water to his Apostles during a storm. He recalled how Jesus instructed Peter to come to him on the water and, with his eyes on Jesus, Peter did just that, and walked on the water – at least for a few seconds. Peter then yells out to his Lord, “Save me!” and Jesus reaches out his hand and saves him.

Pope Francis reminds us, “The faithful and ready response to the Lord’s call always enables one to achieve extraordinary things. But Jesus himself told us that we are capable of performing miracles with our faith, faith in Him, faith in his word, faith in his voice. Peter however begins to sink the moment he looks away from Jesus and he allows himself to be overwhelmed by the hardships around him.

“But the Lord is always there, and when Peter calls him, Jesus saves him from danger. Peter’s character, with his passion and his weaknesses, can describe our faith: ever fragile and impoverished, anxious yet victorious, Christian faith walks to meet the Risen Lord, amid the world’s storms and dangers.”

Oh, to have gratitude like the fishes

The stories of the saints are chock full of inspiration, so when I had the chance to speak to more than 400 Catholic school teachers recently, I decided to share one of my favorite stories, attributed to an event in the life of St. Anthony, a powerful preacher and insightful teacher.

When preaching in a town near Padua, where there were heretics in great numbers, St. Anthony became frustrated that his words and teaching about Christ were falling on deaf ears. So, after a prayerful discussion with God, he made his way to the shore to preach to the fish.

“"Listen to the word of God, O ye fishes of the sea and of the river, seeing that the faithless heretics refuse to do so," St. Anthony proclaimed.

No sooner had he spoken these words than a great multitude of fishes, both large and small, swam to the bank where St. Anthony stood. All the fish held their heads out of the water and seemed to be keeping their attention on St Anthony's face.

St. Anthony began to preach to them, saying: "My brothers the fishes, you are bound, as much as is in your power, to return thanks to your Creator, who has given you so noble an element for your dwelling; for you have at your choice both sweet water and salt; you have many places of refuge from the tempest; you have likewise a pure and transparent element for your nourishment.

“God, your bountiful and kind Creator, when he made you, ordered you to increase and multiply, and gave you his blessing. In the universal deluge, all other creatures perished; you alone did God preserve from all harm.

“He has given you fins to enable you to go where you will. To you was it granted, according to the commandment of God, to keep the prophet Jonah, and after three days to throw him safe and sound on dry land. … Because of all these things you are bound to praise and bless the Lord, who has given you blessings so many and so much greater than to other creatures."

At these words the fish began to open their mouths, and bow their heads, expressing reverence and praise for God in their own way.

There is more to the story, of course, and it turns out well for the heretics, as you might expect. But what resonated with me the most, at least the first time I read the story, is the honor and praise of the fish, offered out of gratitude for the many blessings of God.

But the image that will stay with me from my recent presentation came from a creative group of teachers who pointed out that fish come to the surface of the water when they are being fed. It was an observation and a lesson powerful in its simplicity, which good teaching most often is. I know I will never look at fish in the same way again, especially those in a fish tank or fish bowl.

They will always be a symbol and a reminder of the need to come up to the surface from the deep recesses of our lives to be fed by the Word of God. They will bring to mind the many blessings that call us to gratitude, especially those we have failed to consider. And they will help me to remember that we are unique, among God’s creatures and among our sisters and brothers.

Just as a fish will not sing God’s praise with the voice of a sparrow, we must offer our love and gratitude to God in our own voice, with our unique gifts through the work of our own hands and hearts.

May the New Year be a time of imitating the fishes – being grateful, being ourselves and praising our God.

"Blessed be the eternal God; for the fishes of the sea honor him more than men without faith, and animals without reason listen to his word with greater attention than sinful heretics."  St. Anthony 

 

Think before you speak is divine wisdom

“Thoughtlessness – I try not to think about it.”                                                                                                           

Actually, it’s been on my mind a lot lately, and since I read this quote from young contemporary author Jarod Kintz, I’ve been thinking that he might have stumbled upon the mantra of the 21st century.

Thoughtlessness, it seems, has become not only an acceptable state of affairs, but an expected one as well. Just open up many a Facebook page, read any comment thread, or listen to the conversations of store clerks and managers the next time you’re shopping. It won’t be hard to hear them as they stand among a mass of customers, talking about people and problems as if they were behind closed doors – where they should be.

While social media has the potential for accomplishing great things, it also has the potential to become a repository for careless words, perhaps not of the same magnitude as malice, but hurtful none-the-less. The human penchant for expression, unencumbered by limits or good sense, can damage a heart or a reputation, and, yet,  it’s so easy to be drawn into the opportunity of letting the world know what we think when we are angry, hurt or just full of ourselves.

I frequently hear from bewildered readers, friends or family members asking some variant of, “How could they have said that? Didn’t they stop and think about how much that might hurt me?”

The answer is usually, “They didn’t.”  That’s the meaning of thoughtlessness – a careless indifference to consequences.

I have often wondered why we feel we should be able to say or write or do whatever we want, regardless of who it may hurt.   Perhaps we have embraced it as our right because we have been led to believe that the “I” is more important than the “thou” – a premise that would be challenged by all of the world’s religions that value reciprocity and the relationship of humanity to God. It is in our relationship with God, and God with us, that we discover our relationship with others.

In a society that glorifies the self, that feeds the ego with an unbalanced emphasis on the importance of personal satisfaction, achievement, and awareness, we are blessed still with the beauty of God’s wisdom, commanding us to “do nothing out of selfishness or out of vainglory; rather, humbly regard others as more important than yourselves,each looking out not for his own interests, but [also] everyone for those of others” (Philippians 2:3-4).

The Book of Proverbs also teaches us to “forsake all thoughtlessness, and live; and walk in the way of understanding.”

We are challenged by our faith to be more than what our society and our culture tell us we should be. It is not an easy challenge to take up. But as Christians we are graced with something powerful that I think we often forget about – the Gifts of the Holy Spirit: Wisdom, Knowledge, Understanding, Fortitude, Counsel, Piety, and Awe.  

We may remember those gifts as a list we needed to memorize as we prepared for Confirmation, but in reality they are tools of God’s grace, of God’s life within us, making it possible for us to take up the challenge and live with the mind of Christ – who never spoke a thoughtless word.

“Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you know how you should respond to each one.”  Colossians 4:6

Image from http://www.quotesandwishes.com/tag/positive-thinking/. Visit for some great photos, quotes.

'A perfect dose of grace' for all seasons

 This small but powerful book of stories is the perfect read for you when you want to reward yourself with some well-deserved quiet time! Rabbi Irwin Kula, author of “Yearnings: Embracing the Sacred Messiness of Life” wrote, “If you want to find God, know love, and truly understand these are the same, read this beautiful book. But be prepared to have your heart opened up, to laugh and to cry, to take many deep breaths of awe and wonder, and to shout out to the Heavens and to the people in your life, Thank You! Hallelujah! What a perfect dose of grace this book is for people of all backgrounds!"  

You can deliver this book now to your e-reader by visiting Things My Father Taught Me About Love, Kindle edition.

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

God has a fondness for flying dogs

I have always loved the writings of St. Francis de Sales because I have always found encouragement in his admonitions to be gentle with ourselves. He wrote, "Patience is the one virtue which gives greatest assurance of our reaching perfection, and while we must have patience with others, we must also have it with ourselves."

Of course, that is a tall order, but St. Francis was well aware that the person each of us is hardest on is often ourselves. We can accept the shortcomings and idosyncrasies of others, especially our friends, but we beat up on ourselves for the slightest imperfection.

Warts of "not good enough" seem to pop out all over the place when we look in the mirror each morning. I can't image God feels really good about that.

Rather, he must feel like the little child who has just created a crayon masterpiece only to be told by the teacher that maple trees are not purple and dogs do not have wings.

Well, maybe not in her world, but in the eyes of the Artist, the work is perfect.

Canine lessons are good for soul and body

For the past week I have been dog-sitting for my son’s newest addition, Sadie. 

Rescued several weeks ago from a kennel, we know very little about Sadie’s background, but her many fears, especially of enclosed spaces, like houses, rooms, or cars, provides a challenge, since she often has to be pushed or lifted to get her from one place to another – that is unless we are going outside.

Once she has the sense of space and the thousand scents that fill the air, Sadie’s body begins to relax, her tail raises from between her legs and she moves with less hesitation. If we stay out long enough she sometimes regains her puppy behavior, snatching at sticks, throwing pine-cones in the air, and lunging like she’s ready for a game of catch-me-if-you can.

But when it’s time to go in, her powerful hind legs put on the breaks at the door, making the emphatic statement that inside is not a good place to be.

While Sadie’s young life may have been compromised at some point and her memories of “inside” raise fear in her canine heart, her preference for nesting in a bed of ivy, or lounging under the pine bushes, comes, for me, as a reinforcement of the Nature Principal – a wonderful book I finished reading just weeks before Sadie’s visit. The book’s message is still fresh in my mind, as is its sub-title, “Human restoration and the end of nature-deficit disorder.”

Says the book’s author, Richard Louv, “Primarily a statement of philosophy, the Nature Principle is supported by a growing body of theoretical, anecdotal, and empirical research that describes the restorative power of nature—its impact on our sense and intelligence; on our physical,  psychological, and spiritual health; and on the bonds of family, friendship and the multi-species community. Illuminated by ideas and stories from good people I have met, this book asks: what would our lives be like if our days and nights were as immersed in nature as they ware in technology? How can each of us help create that life-enhancing world, not only in a hypothetical future, but right now, for our families and for ourselves?”

The questions Louv poses, no matter our religious traditions or spiritual leanings, are essential to our wholeness as a human community; a community that can still benefit from the lessons of our non-human companions on the journey that is life.

Sadie has also reminded me of one other thing -- I don't have to stand at the door and whine, waiting for someone to let me out. I just have to turn the knob.

Real love provides more than leftovers

My son and daughter-in-law are animal lovers, and even before they moved in to their new house, with lots of space and a great yard, they were fostering the biggest Great Dane I have ever seen, the Snuffleupagus of Great Danes, Pluto. They made room for him in their apartment, along with Evie, an adorable and feisty miniature schnauzer, and two ferrets. Pluto, who was abandoned and had pony-length legs about as thin as his ribs, has since become a well-loved, well-fed part of the family, and has taken a paternal interest in the two bunnies also recently added to the herd.

But love has welcoming arms and a big heart so I was not surprised when, last week,  they  rescued another young Great Dane just hours from her being euthanized and took her home to get her healthy before putting her up for adoption through a Great Dane rescue organization.

Remmy, in the photo, is young, and small for a Great Dane, and could easily walk underneath the behemoth Pluto, except that she is so weak and emaciated from not eating or being cared for, she has trouble walking at all. This is complicated by not having the use of one of her paws, which she drags when she does walk. So she has gratefully taken to the couch where she is showered with attention and affection, plied with high quality food, and is learning to play, something she seems to know little about.

Looking at her photo, I am reminded of the dogs in Scripture who scavenge for scraps under the table, dropped by the children who were fed first, and best. Fortunately, Remmy’s circumstances have changed. She is now one of the children at the table, and I am confident she will thrive under the care of my kids who have learned that real love provides more than leftovers.

Growth requires new ways of thinking and being

For a number of years, I worked with a boss who encouraged us often to think outside the box, a phrase that has, today, become so commonplace as to be ordinary. Still, whenever I hear the phrase I think of him and his desire for us to engage in extraordinary thinking.

While cleaning recently, I came across some remnants from a hamster cage, including the exercise wheel. As the image came to mind of our long-gone hamster running in the wheel within the cage, I thought again of the objective to “think outside the box.”

Life for our hamster was one of routine, engaging in the same behaviors day after day, getting the same results, including running in a wheel that went no where. Hamsters, it would seem, are not able to consider life outside the box as a possibility and then take the necessary action to make it happen.

If they were, our hamster might have piled up enough hamster litter around the wheel to make it stationary and then use the wheel to climb out of his cage. A simple wire mesh cover wouldn’t withstand for long the impassioned gnawing of hamster teeth, and voila, life outside the box!

Of course, such a life is fraught with danger and challenges, not the least of which is the need to be self-sufficient, to secure sustenance and shelter, to learn to navigate a new environment full of other creatures who may either hurt you or help you build a new community of like-minded hamsters. It is easy to see why some hamsters might eventually go running back to the safety of their cage and their wheel, while others never even consider life outside four walls. 

Obviously, hamsters, like other caged animals, are not endowed with the ability to consider the meaning of their lives. Reflective thinking is the domain of the human mind. Still, even with that gift, we are often unable to consider other options. We live in fear of the unknown and the uncertain, and retreat to the security of familiar behaviors even when the results make us miserable.

Sometimes the most confining of boxes are not the circumstances of our lives, but, rather, our attitudes and our decisions, serving as self-constructed walls which ultimately restrict our growth. And surely, we were meant to grow.  God’s creation is our model. Within the living realm of nature, there is fluidity and movement, folding and unfolding. There are no squares, no boxes, except those we construct ourselves.

All life is designed by God for growth and change, for becoming.  But growth is our choice. We can nurture it, or we can stop it dead in its tracks. God would tell us, as he directed Moses to tell the people of the Exodus, “Choose life!”

 

A spider's lessons on life and friendship

Who would have thought that, in the middle of winter while taking garbage out to the deck, I would run into a very large spider hanging down from a single line of web? In the warmer weather, we seem to have an overabundance of spiders, but I’m not accustomed to seeing them when there's frost on the windows. Still, I don’t know much about spiders, except, perhaps, for the compassionate, intelligent Charlotte of “Charlotte’s Web” fame.

For some reason, I never read the award-winning children’s book until I was an adult, and I still got weepy, especially when Charlotte says to Wilbur, the pig, “You have been my friend. That in itself is a tremendous thing. I wove my webs for you because I liked you. After all, what’s life anyway? We’re born, we live a little while, we die. A spider’s life can’t help being something of a mess, with all this trapping and eating flies. By helping you, perhaps, I was trying to lift up my life a trifle. Heaven knows anyone’s life can use a little of that.”

What’s life anyway?

There seem to be days when we just can’t find an answer, when things seem so overwhelming that we wonder why we are here in the first place. But then, in those moments when we are able to lift up someone’s life a trifle, or when our lives have been enriched by someone else, we know, like Charlotte, that we are here for each other.

"Wilbur never forgot Charlotte. Although he loved her children and grandchildren dearly, none of the new spiders quite took her place in his heart. She was in a class by herself. It is not often that someone comes along who is a true friend and a good writer. Charlotte was both."

Hey, there's a goose in my manger!

Pulling in to my driveway yesterday, I noticed something different about the Nativity scene on the   front lawn. As I got closer, I realized someone had added a ceramic goose to the small group of animals looking in on Mary and Joseph. I smiled, and thought, “Why not?” There are geese in Bethlehem, and why should sheep, donkeys and camels be the only ones blessed with such a privilege?

 Considering the intuitive nature of animals, it’s likely hosts of angels weren’t the only ones gathering that evening. It’s possible the manger was visited by geese, deer, badgers, porcupines, bats, hyenas, leopards, even sand rats. The Son of God would surely welcome animals of all sizes, shapes, and natures.

 We owe the Nativity tradition to St. Francis of Assisi who, in 1224, planned a “living” recreation of the birth of Jesus to fill the local villagers with the spirit of Christmas. With real people dressed in robes and real animals gathered outside a cave on the outskirts of town, St. Francis urged the people to remove hatred from their hearts and rejoice in the season of Christ’s birth.

Along with his living nativity scene, Saint Francis also used music to teach his congregation about the birth of Jesus Christ. Tradition credits St. Francis with adding religious lyrics to popular tunes and creating the first Christmas carols.

 Maybe I should move my garden statue of St. Francis a little bit closer to the Nativity.

"The belief that the animal creation worships at the season of Christ's birth is familiar and widespread; only those who can see ghosts at Christmas have the power of hearing the cattle, sheep, and horses talk, as they do talk at this holy season." Ruth Firor, Folkways in Thomas Hardy

      The Oxen

   Christmas Eve, and twelve of the clock.
"Now they are all on their knees,"
An elder said as we sat in a flock
By the embers in hearthside ease.

We pictured the meek mild creatures where
They dwelt in their strawy pen,
Nor did it occur to one of us there
To doubt they were kneeling then.

So fair a fancy few would weave
In these years! Yet, I feel,
If someone said on Christmas Eve,
"Come; see the oxen kneel,

"In the lonely barton by yonder coomb
Our childhood used to know,"
I should go with him in the gloom,
Hoping it might be so’

Thomas Hardy