Sun and fog

The sun is an appealing image of God and of God's love. In his book The Experience of God Raimon Panikkar says "The origin of the word God is Sanskrit: Dyau, day, suggests brilliance, the light, divinity (like theos in Greek). Light makes it possible to see and light gives life. It is not at all by chance that the sun is accepted universally, including by Roman Catholic Christianity, as one of the divine symbols."

The sun is always shining. Clouds and fog sometimes block it from shining on us. At night our part of the earth turns away from it.

God's constant love is always shining. The clouds of our selfishness and self-centeredness keeps God's love from us. The fog of not knowing and not caring keeps us from experiencing the full rays of God's love. In sin we can even turn away from Divine Love completely. But God's love does not stop. It is always pushing toward us, trying to turn us back or to burn off the fog and the clouds that we throw up.

Autumn Reflection 2

I like this picture better than the one in the last blog. The sky, which has been doing marvelous things lately, adds a lot to this picture. This stretch of trees seems way ahead of the rest of the woods around here in changing colors. I wonder if it is the fact that its roots get watered by the lake. We had a very dry September. Many of the leaves are just turning brown and dropping.

Autumn Reflection

It occurs to me that the brief brilliant beauty of autumn is nature's way of helping those of us who love summer to let it go. These past few days have been exceptionally beautiful. Today's sunrise was another glory. There has been very little wind so the lake is like a mirror, reflecting everything along the shore. All day my eye keeps returning to the fall colors on the opposite shore as they are reflected in the still water, reminding me to be still so I can reflect the Divine.

The days have also been exceptionally warm, even hot. So I am still swimming, hanging on to that gift of summer. The water has cooled considerably but is not unbearable.

(Clicking on picture enlarges it.)

Moon Reflection

"The sky tells the glory of God, tells the genius of God's work."

Psalm 19:2 (1995 ICEL translation)

The night before last I stepped outside just before going up to bed and the moon was glorious. It was a half moon, very bright, reflecting off some thin, elongated clouds, so bright only two stars shone near it. It seemed that the air was filled with moonlight and I was caught up into this Light. It was one of those moments that seem to stop the heart and then make it stretch for something more. I tried to find words to express what I was experiencing but could only raise my arms in surrender. I went in and got a coat and stood for a long while held by the moonlight.

Earlier the same kind of clouds had made the sunset a brilliant orange display and I sat in the yard enjoying it. The next morning as I was getting ready to pray I noticed some pink in the sky, and when I looked to the east the same kind of clouds were putting on a stunning red-orange display. I grabbed my coat (it was 43 degrees) and hurried down into the front yard so I could get a better view. Bliss.

To Be a Saint

I've just finished reading a terrific book, My Life with the Saints, by James Martin. It is a sort of memoir, relating different periods of his life to different saints. One of the clear messages of the book is that God calls all of us to be saints. No matter what our limitations, no matter what our circumstances, God wants to make each one of us saints.

God is not calling us to be St. Joan of Arc or St. Francis of Assisi. God made each of us different, with a unique set of gifts and talents. God will make each of us saints in our own peculiar way. Thomas Merton said, "For me to be a saint means to be myself." God wants to make me all that God created me to be. Mother Teresa of Calcutta said, "You can do something I can't do. I can do something you can't do. Together let us do something beautiful for God."

To want to be a saint, then, is not pride. It is to want what God wants for me. Merton quotes a friend as saying, "All that is necessary to be a saint is to want to be one. Don't you believe God will make you what He created you to be, if you consent to let Him do it? All you have to do is desire it." I do desire it.

Peace in God's Will

I am reading Dante's Paradiso, in a new translation by Jean Hollander with extensive notes by her husband, Robert. Several times over the years I have started reading Dante's The Divine Comedy, but I never made it out of Hell. So when I read a very good review of this new translation I decided to start in Heaven. I am hoping it might help me with my attempts at a more contemplative life-style.

In the third canto the first person Dante meets in heaven says, "In His will is our peace." This line was one I heard about when we studied T.S. Eliot in college. He refers to it in his own lines:

"Teach us to care and not to care.

Teach us to sit still,

even among these rocks

our peace in His will."

I have known, then, that this is the way to a peace that can possess our hearts even in the midst of pain and worry, but getting my will in sync with God's will is not easy. As I become more aware of God living in me and, especially, as I become better able to give myself to God within me, I want God to help me think the way God thinks and to want what God wants. In that way my will lines us more with God's will and I will be more and more at peace.

Blissful Stillness

Last Wednesday was a uniquely quiet day. There was not a ripple on the Lake. No breeze. Sometimes hours would go by without a boat anywhere in sight. No ducks. No geese. No sound, not even a distant sound of a lawn mower or of a truck backing up or of a dog barking.

The day was sunny and warm. The stillness and peace made me think of the silence of God. I found myself wondering if this were what heaven was like, this perfect bliss.

At a funeral yesterday I this is what we pray for when we say, "May they rest in peace." An end of suffering. But even more, to be held forever in the warm embrace of Blissful Stillness.