Be Where You Are // May 27, 2008

I am in a spiritual shift... again...

I think that most of us need to constantly be moving in our spiritual walk - our walk with God. I just finished Thomas Cahill's Desire of the Everlasting Hills and am following it up with Rabbi Lawrence Kushner's God was in this Place and I, i did not know it.

Both have been profoundly moving. Both have furthered my walk with God. Earlier, I had posted a long article about love and what that means for me. Today, I will give you a couple passages and you can draw your own conclusions.

From, Desire of the Everlasting Hills,

The Son of Man has become the Ward of all mankind. Incarnated as Jesus of Nazareth, he is, after his resurrection the principle of Jewish Justice itself, incarnated in the person of anyone and everyone who needs our help. It is ironic that some Christians make such a fuss over the elements of the Eucharist - bowing before them, kneeling in adoration because Christ is present in them - but have never bothered to heed these solemn words about the presence of Christ in every individual in need. Jesus told us only once (at the Last Supper) that he would be present in the Bread and Wine, but he tells us repeatedly in the Gospels that he would always be present in the Poor and Afflicted - to whom we should bow and kneel. It is perverse that some Christians make such a fuss over the bound text of God's Word, carrying it processionally, holding it with reverence, never allowing it to touch the ground, but have never considered seriously the text of Matthew 25, in light of which we should always catch God's Needy before they hit the ground. It sometimes seems that it is to church people in particular - to Christian Pharisees - that these words are directed. pg. 247

To those that would count themselves out because they are not Roman Catholic, you need only look to the spirit that Cahill points to in order to see yourself.

I saw me, and I have committed this sin. I have seen those with profound needs not as Christ, needing shelter, needing love - but as "one more broken soldier" I have to deal with before I can hit the rack. I have seen those that need my care and empathy not as Christ for whom I would do anything, but as "cases" and "clients."

Then I read this from Rabbi Kushner: (The book is a "midrash" a Jewish homiletic on Gen. 28:10-16 and focuses its attention on Jacob's words when he awoke from his dream, "Surely God was in this place and I, i did not know!" The book focuses on spirituality in a Jewish context and looks at the passage from 7 different Rabbi's perspectives. I have had to read each chapter twice to fully grasp the meaning...) Several thoughts from various pages in the first chapter.  

What Jacob is saying here essentially is, "If I had known [that God would have been here], I wouldn't have gone to sleep in such a holy place!"

The beginning of knowing about God, in other words, is simply paying attention, being fully present where you are, or as Rashi suggests, waking up. We realize, like Jacob, that we have been asleep. We do not see what it happening all around us. For most of us, most of the time, the lights are on and nobody is home.

Right now for instance, you are a reader. You are consuming these words and the ideas they bear. But suppose you were a typographer, then you would also notice the shapes of the letters. Suppose you were a poet. A paper manufacturer. A blind person. A composer. We find what we seek. And we seek who we are.

Perhaps Jacob thought, "If God was here and I didn't know, then perhaps God has been other places also..."

Spirituality then, is that dimension of living in which we are aware of God's presence. It is being concerned with how what we do affects God and how what God does affects us... it is about patience and paying attention, about seeing, feeling, and hearing things that were only a moment ago inaccessible.

{The world around us is so complicated and loud} We must therefore create an elaborate system of filters, lenses, and blinders to screen out the extraneous images, leaving us with a very small field of vision. {And we build a world that shuts out everything we don't want to see. Instead of the poor and needy who are Christ, we see welfare queens and drug adicts. Instead of broken souls suffering with no recourse we see the weak, complaining lot that needs to go out and get a job and contribute to society instead of tearing apart our precious social structure. In the words of Scrooge, "are there no prisons? Are there no workhouses?"} {my thoughts}  

God said to Moses, "Come up to Me on the mountain and be there." If Moses were to ascend the mountain, why would God also bother to specify that he "be there?" Where else would he be? The answer, suggests the Rabbi, is that people often expend great effort climbing a mountain, but once they get there, they're not there; they're somewhere else.

Whenever I seem to get to the top of the mountain and get some perspective on life, it does not take long for me to "be somewhere else." I'm not sure that the Army is where I'll be for the rest of my ministry. I'm not sure what the future holds but one thing I am endeavoring to do right now:

Be where I am.