Listlessness and the Consuming Fire

Lately I have felt listless and depressed. Without the challenge of my Masters program to occupy my time, I have become acutely aware of the tedium and slow death inherent with just hanging on. My feelings over the last couple months are spoken eloquently by this quote via Jamie:

"...it is always easier to busy ourselves than to merely exist. Even important and useful work can distract us from remembering who we are, and what our deeper purpose might be. Monastic wisdom insists that when we are most tempted to feel bored, apathetic, and despondent over the meaninglessness of life we are on the verge of discovering our true self in relation to God. It is worth not giving up, because when we are willing to do nothing but 'be,' we meet the God who is the very ground of being, the great I AM whom Moses encountered at the burning bush." [Acedia and Me - Kathleen Norris].

I want to hide from these words.  I have cherished my darkness, grieving the loss of a stage of life. I have felt unprepared to stare into the burning bush. Yet even in the midst of the paschal mystery, Christ is there.  These last couple weeks leading up to vacation have been an easing of the darkness for me.

Today I retreated into the consuming fire.  I made my way to Northfield and enjoyed an americano in reverie.  I really love Northfield or the romantic dream that is Northfield in my mind. Mom told me this morning that my cousin Jon is talking about planting a church in Northfield with a friend.  Here again I enter the paschal place.  I have long harbored a dream of doing just that.  It doesn't seem likely that we will leave the Michigan District to come back to Minnesota, still it is hard to give up a dream.

I went over to Carleton College and walked the Stewsie Island Labyrinth.  In the center I sat with God and gave up my dreams. As I walked the path out - the path of ministry to the world, I felt God offering me encouragement for ministry in Sebewaing.  I could use my newfound love of spiritual direction when visiting with people, but I have resisted doing it.  God challenged me again to obedience.  This challenge would have seemed convicting, even condemning since fear has made me disobedient for so long, had it not been for God's laughable word a few weeks ago "I trust you."  God trusts me?!  Back in the car, the words of Switchfoot go straight to my heart:

Free,
Come set me free
Down on my knees
I still believe you can
Save me from me
Come set me free
Come set me free
Inside this shell
There’s a prison cell

And today I do believe God can save me from me.

A Monstrance

From the consuming fire of the sun beating on the labyrinth, I went into the consuming fire of Divine Mercy Adoration Chapel.  The Catholic church in Faribault set this chapel up ten years ago for perpetual adoration. It's like the 24 hour prayer movement contemplative style. There I sensed the presence of God  with power.  It made me tremble.  One neat practical application of Catholic Eucharistic Theology is the monstrance.   The believe in the actual presence of Christ in the bread and wine.  The monstrance is a display in which they can place the consecrated host so they can stand in the real presence of Christ.

I am not a practiced catholic, (not really a catholic at all, shh!) I haven't quite figured out how to genuflect.  In the presnence of the monstrance I prayed these words:

You are my King

and I don't know how to honor You

You are my Lover

and I don't know how to love You

You are my Soul

and I don't know how to trust You

I imagined the presence of Christ being concentrated in that peace of bread in the center of the monstrance. (Why not?) If we can see the presence of Christ concentrated in a wafer, how much more in the real and visible body of Christ  - each other.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu said,

"If you and I took our theology seriously, this is the point -- we bear God in us; we are sanctuaries; we are temples of the Holy Spirit. We shouldn't just shake hands and greet each other in the normal kind of way. We ought, each one of us, to genuflect before one another." 

Somehow that thought brought me to tears. Perhaps it was a powerful realization that I am not alone, grieving my losses in some corner, but I am part of a living and active body. I have a place and so do those around me that my eyes see with distrust.