CYCLE OF LIFE

THE CYCLE OF LIFE

“You are not a human being in search of a spiritual experience. You are a spiritual being immersed in a human experience. . “ Pierre DeChardin 1881-1955

Living in this world can be summed up in a few words: For every moment of perfection, there is a moment of chaos and the only constant is the presence of God within.  It is that which keeps us fighting back.  Picking up the pieces determined to repair the damage, and accepting that one day we are the victim and the next day we are the rescuer. 

The great French Jesuit Philosopher Pierre DeChardin, looking at the wasteland that Europe had become following WWII, composed this prayer:

            “Ah, you know it yourself, Lord, through having borne the anguish of it as a man: on certain days the world seems a terrifying thing: huge, blind, and brutal.

 At any moment the vast and horrible thing may break in through the cracks—the thing which we try hard to forget is always there, separated from us by a flimsy partition: fire, pestilence, storms, earthquakes, or the unleashing of dark moral forces—these callously sweep away in one moment what we had laboriously built up and beautified with all our intelligence and all our love.

Since my human dignity, O God, forbids me to close my eyes to this . . . teach me to adore it by seeing you concealed within it”.

            When St. Paul was in trouble, the faithful in Philippi sent him money and food. He responded,  “I know how to live in humble circumstances; I know also how to live with abundance. In every circumstance and in all things, I have learned the secret of being well fed, of going hungry, of living in abundance and of being in need. I have the strength for everything through Him who empowers me. Still it was kind of you to share my distress… May God supply you with everything you need through Christ our Lord. “ (Phil 4:12-14 19-20)

The experience of life on earth doesn’t change from century to century. 

Parents and teachers know the feeling of wanting to drill a hole in a child’s head to pour in all the things you think they should know.  It wouldn’t work anyway because every human has to learn in his/her own time. Every human has to meet God on their own.  All anyone can do is tell them about God and encourage them to move in His direction. 

So, you ask, how do I do this?  How do I learn to put my trust in God?” John Ortberg put it perfectly in the title of his book, “If you want to walk on water, you’ve got to get out of the boat!”   Simply put, you just do it.  One day you speak to God and tell Him you will not worry that day, you will put everything in his hands, then do it.  It won’t be easy.  You’ve been carrying all the concerns and cares of your whole family, your workplace and the world on your back for years, but it’s time to stop.  The following is not a cliché or an old saw, but the formula for dealing with the cycle of life, “Let go and let God.”

Here’s to making the effort.

Carol Lemelin OPA

CHOICES

CHOICES

Two brothers were fighting over an inheritance and asked Jesus to help. Instead he told them a story of a rich man who had accumulated so much wealth he had to build more barns to hold it all.  He sat back in satisfaction and said, “Now I have so much I can just relax and enjoy life.”  God said to him, “You fool, today your life will end and all your goods will belong to someone else.  You laid up the riches of the earth while you cared nothing for the things of God.” 

(LK:12-18-21)

That parable is uncomfortable for most people, for it is a rare person who does not acquire and save material goods.  It gives us a sense of security to have money in the bank and property we can call our own.  When calamity strikes, say a week old power outage or a year-long water shortage, earthquakes, floods or fires, our security is breached.  Then people cry out; “Oh God, what have I done to deserve this?”  God could easily answer; “What did you do to deserve your comfort and security?”

God is not in the business of reward and punishment.  When the world and its inhabitants were created, God gifted humans with something no other creature has; Free Will.  Animals march to a different drummer, so to speak, but that drummer only plays one tune.  Geese cannot decide to fly north for the winter and fish cannot decide to sun themselves on the beach. 

Humans, on the other hand, can do whatever they wish for as long as they live.  Everything that happens, with the exception of natural phenomenon like weather, is the result of free will.  Every decision a human makes affects the rest of the world.  We are responsible for our choices. The spirit of God is present in the world but does not interfere with choice.  The worst sort of gift is one where the giver sets rules for how the gift is used.  God is perfect in this as in everything else. 

When I worked in retail, I trained personnel and the thing I stressed to them was that they think about the person who came to the department after them. If they left a mess, the other worker had to clean it up.  If they took ten extra minutes for lunch, the other employees had to do their work.  Caring about how our choices affect others is the foundation for the command to love one another.

There will be a reckoning as Jesus said in his parable.  God has no problem with us building a secure home or saving for retirement.  He simply wants to be part of it. We can choose God’s way or we can ignore everything but our own desires no matter what the fallout maybe for others.  It’s up to us.  Our gratitude to God for our Free Will should show in our choices.  The rich man simply didn’t get it.  We need to take care that we do. 

Blessings,

Carol Lemelin OPA

BE THE TREE

BE THE TREE

           

            Ever notice how often people express jealousy about the seeming ‘good’ lives of the crooks, cheaters, and liars?  It is a colossal waste of time, of course, because we can’t make judgments about anyone or anything. We express disappointment with God and think God is ignoring them and their behaviors.  Confess it, you’ve thought that yourself. When we see their big houses and cars we feel slighted.    The very first Psalm, however, makes it clear how God feels about this seeming discrepancy.

Blessed is the man who doesn’t listen to or associate with the godless…

He is as a tree planted near a stream that yields

 It’s fruits in season; it’s leaves never wither.

But not so the wicked, not so!

The wicked will not arise at the judgment,

 nor will sinners be in the assembly of the just.

Because the Lord knows the way of the just,

but the way of the wicked leads to ruin.

            I find it interesting that should be the very first Psalm.  Like your first school book that starts with ‘A is for apple’, or your first arithmetic book with ‘1 +1 = 2’, the psalm is simple and cannot be misunderstood.  In school you are expected to build on those simple principles.  The same is true of the psalm. 

           

            Even though the psalm was written long before His coming, this is an apt description of the life of Christ, who lived in constant communication with God.  It was that flow of grace, which sustained Christ and what he taught his followers.  It is also true that billions of people have lived such lives and from which most of the goodness in the world is derived.

            On the day my second baby decided to come in 40 minutes I prayed,

  “I assume you are going to help me with this, because this is definitely not my idea”.  

Everything that could have gone wrong that day didn’t. Since that day I have kept the lines of communication with God wide open.  I realized for the first time that God actually is there and will sustain.  I felt it as if I had drunk it.  Sounds crazy I know but it’s the only description I can think of.  Through the deaths of many beloved people, set backs, disappointments and fears, God has been at my side. Only recently have I understood that it has been more wonderful than just being at my side; He is within.  I know exactly what the psalmist meant because I feel just like that tree.

            Let us pray for those around us, that this knowledge will be theirs.

Blessings,

Carol Lemelin OPA

EAT, DRINK AND BE MERRY!

EAT, DRINK AND BE MERRY!

“Go eat rich foods and sweet drinks

 and allot portions to those who had nothing prepared,

for today is holy to our Lord.

Do not be saddened this day,

 for rejoicing in the Lord is your strength!”  (Neh 8:10)

            Nehemiah tells the people to eat and drink and be merry because it is a Holy day! Imagine having a party to celebrate God!  Is it reasonable to assume that everyone who celebrated stayed sober and devotional?  Of course not, but just because some people overdo it, is no reason to stop celebrating God.  The faithful are encouraged to sing, dance and eat in gratitude to God throughout the Bible.  Somehow though, religion has taken the fun out of that celebration and solemnity has replaced joy.

“Stay in the same house and eat and drink what is offered to you…” (Lk 10:7)

           

            When Jesus counsels the disciples that when they go to new places on their journeys of faith, to eat and drink what is offered to them, you notice he doesn’t suggest the food must be kosher.  He knows what they don’t, that someday they will be proclaiming the Gospel in non-Jewish communities and the food they are offered will not be familiar.  A reminder to all that what separates from one another is external.  Internally, we are all the same to God.

            In both cases God is acknowledging who we are and what we do.  God is part of all of it.  There are no places in our lives where God is absent.  Jesus loved parties; wedding receptions, formal dinners and cookouts yet the elders of his time called him a drunkard.  That did not stop him because we needed to see that his humanity was just like ours and that God is part of it. 

            Personally, I have been in the depths of grief this week because I was in Virginia to attend a memorial for my son by the children of St. Ann’s school.  The 8^th grade class, now in High School put a plaque in his honor on the flagpole.  Their stories and love for him were both wonderful and heartbreaking.  It has been a crazy mixed up blend of joy, grief, pride and gratitude and through it all He is there.  As Corrie Tenboom reminded us, “There is no pit so deep, that He is not deeper still.”

            The joy in knowing that God is with us at all times; that His love is boundless and His strength and care will sustain us throughout life ought to make us want to sing and dance!

Rejoice! 

Carol Lemelin OPA