Masked Marvels

I haven’t gotten used to it. I haven’t met anyone who has. It is somewhat of an obstruction like none other as we now find ourselves masked in public. I have struggled with why it seems so unusual, beyond the obvious reality of it being new for most of us. When I think of masked people, my mind, first and foremost, goes directly to superheroes, Marvel Comics, and even wrestling commercials which flash by while watching television. It is, more often than not, primarily men who are trying to hide something about their identity. The mask is a way of entering into character, releasing their invincibility against their human opponent, making them, in one sense, like “gods”.

There are many reasons why it feels uncomfortable to us but, quite pointedly, it has become a barrier to our own humanity. From the time we are kids we learn to react to the facial and body expression of other people, from parents, siblings, teachers, and the rest. We come to rely on others to express how we should feel or how to react in different situations based on the other person. We know when someone is happy, sad, excited, angry, and downright outraged and we react to their human expression. It becomes so habitual for most people we aren’t even aware it’s happening. When people are happy, we react by being happy for them. When people are angry, especially at us, we do what it takes to eliminate and diffuse the situation. As kids, it tends to be a great way because they haven’t quite fully grasped the wide array of feelings and emotions within us. Most have not been taught how to handle the feelings and emotions or at least their varying nuances.

However, as adults, things change. It wasn’t until I started going out wearing a mask to stores and such which something just didn’t seem right. A friend had pointed out to me, then, how the mask has taken away the facial expression to which we learn to react. Quite frankly, sometimes this is a good thing, especially when you find yourself around grumpy people in stores! However, I couldn’t help but notice the sense of shame and guilt I had been experiencing when I went to stores, as if I had done something wrong, and I had no one to affirm otherwise through smiles or nods. It felt almost criminal. It was like confronting a void, of sorts, something which had been stripped of us for which I, like many, come to rely upon. For some it feels like a stripping of their humanity and freedom, whatever that means. But there’s more to it.

For some this may be the first time in life reckoning with their own life. It may be the first time where we have no one else to tell us how to react, now finding ourselves as masked marvels. We become so reliant on “outside authority” to tell us how to think, feel, react, we become void of our own humanity, literally separating ourselves from our interior life. Not many can argue we lack depth as a culture and society. We can see it just in how our leaders act and react to one another. We’ve become so dependent upon others we’re left not knowing how to feel or think on our own. Is it any wonder why so many would protest placing something over their face? How will they know how to feel and what emotions emerge? How will I know how to react to varying situations? It’s revealing just how bound we are by our own darkness and why we want to fight for “freedom”.

Here’s the gift to the mask. The mask has simply turned the mirror inward. We know longer have the external “mirrors” allowing us to react and so we’re being given a lesson in self-discovery. It’s why I was so conscious of the feeling of guilt and shame when I entered the store. There was no one there wronging me in any way. It was my shame and guilt I was confronting. When I encountered others in the store not wearing masks, it was my anger staring at me. When I had run into a teacher from my childhood it was both my joy to see her but at the same time my own sadness not being able to stand in the store and catch up in any way. The mask, whether we know it or not, is giving us a great gift but like some gifts we don’t always know what to do with them, or for that matter, don’t even want the gift in the first place, feeling no need for it.

Like the masked marvels from comic books and the big screen, they both disclose and conceal something about ourselves. They may, in some ways, conceal our own humanity from others, but they are inviting our own feelings and emotions to disclose themselves to us. All it takes is a little awareness on our part as to what’s arising as we find ourselves wandering and meandering with this new reality of masks. It’s an opportunity to be happy and joyful for ourselves, not just because it’s a reaction to someone else telling us how to feel. Most importantly, it’s a time to confront so many of the negative feeling we tend to push onto other people through blame and victimhood and surrounding ourselves with others in the same way. If you’re angry, mean-spirited, feeling shamed or malice, welcome them home as the poet Rumi writes in the Guest House. They are yours and acceptance moves you to being more fully human.

I’d imagine we’ll spend years if not decades ahead questioning and learning all of which this time is trying to teach us about our humanity, revealing our selfishness, our values, or even lack thereof, but maybe most importantly growing into the person we often seem to know the least, ourselves. It’s too easy to react to the seething anger, the belief of rights being trampled, and the backlash towards leaders, but all of it is revealing something about ourselves and who ever would have thought it would be mirrored through a mask? Rather than digging into being the “gods” we think we are, a simple piece of cloth is inviting us to lean into what has lied dormant and hidden, our own humanity, teaching us to love the other and empathize with all who are truly hurting in this time, including ourselves.

Will It Slip Us By?

At times, some of the greatest lessons we learn come from what at the time appeared to be an inconvenience. Now I’d be the first to admit the pandemic we now face as a human race ranks higher than an inconvenience, a blip on the screen. At least it certainly feels like more knowing how it’s changing our lives, and, quite frankly, not necessarily bringing the best out of us as if we face survival of the fittest. Hopefully in the end we’ll see how irrational the fear we operate out of can be and often inhibits our ability to handle chaotic situations. When we hear stories about hoarding toilet paper and Clorox products, as if we’ve never used the products before, it should simply make us cringe, showing the little concern we have of the other in our world!

For those of us who have to consciously work at not isolating ourselves, it can be really difficult. We’re told we need to distance ourselves from one another and hunker down for the worst, similar to when growing up preparing for an impending blizzard, knowing we’d be “stuck” for possibly days. As if technology hasn’t already done a number on interpersonal relationships, we’re now told that social distancing must be the norm. All of it being fine, but are we now willing to learn the lesson of what technology has done and is doing to us. Even more so, we’re going to find our faces glued to computer screens as we’re forced to work from home and remote locations. Will we find the time to unglue ourselves long enough to renew the aged tradition of simply being with one another? There are plenty of memes out there making us laugh about not knowing the people around us because of the busyness of our lives. We laugh at the partial truth being revealed to us right now and in these moments.

We are already a consumer-driven culture and society and without a doubt it’s what we hear of the most in these days. As I write, the stock market is once again down nearly 2000 points, as if it is becoming the norm these days, businesses are closing, even Wal Mart is shutting its doors early! What’s normal is a question for another time! However, our lives seem to be driven by numbers, and in particular, these numbers. Somehow the viability, health, and resiliency of, we the people, is driven by how well our retirement plans are doing in the stock market. Maybe I’m too far away from the 59 ½ age to claim anything in mine, but it’s a daily occurrence and apparent indicator to the health of our nation. Are we just too uncomfortable with the unknowns so we cling to the numbers? This is not to say we shouldn’t be prepared for retirement, especially considering the growing lifespan of men and women. However, the almighty $$ remains our most prominent god, ingrained in our very being. There is already talk about bailouts and saving industries, quite noble of us. However, it will be simply a band-aid on a growing pandemic of our obsession with money. It shouldn’t surprise anyone we’d be hoarding toilet paper and the such knowing we’d prefer to pad wallets rather than help others in need, each wo(man) for themselves. Will we allow our own selfishness to be addressed, changing to be more grateful? Will we become conscious of the deep truth, that, in the end, it means absolutely nothing?

None of it, of course, has slowed down the insanity of conspiracy theories, an avoidance of what is, and the revealing of a dysfunctional political system. It’s amazing to believe some kind of emergency declaration was even possible! Some would say we’re overreacting, as is our nature, but it also reveals how poorly we are at being proactive and seeing beyond a decision, unable to see long-term consequences of our actions. The political system is primarily a reactionary body and whoever gets the last word, wins. It’s about winning. However, when our morality and ethical code is driven by winning and money, too many lose in the process. As we see, it is the most vulnerable of populations who become victim of our inability to plan for a future. When decisions or lack-thereof, are driven by political gain we all lose because the poor, the vulnerable, and populations we’d rather write-off lose. Will we allow this time to open our eyes to the people around us, real people who have a story not unlike our own and need us now more than ever?

Will we allow this time to slip by, getting impatient wanting to return to a life we were comfortable with prior to a pandemic? Are we already getting tired of being around the people we’re now “forced” to spend more time with? It was hard to ignore the number of posts on social media this weekend about the cancellation of religious services. It left me wondering, what are we really missing? Are we missing eucharist, the obligation, the time, the routine? There is so much wrapped up in our Sunday rituals but maybe even this time allows us to evaluate what it is we’re missing in the absence of the moments. Did we think about the people we wouldn’t see? Better yet, do we know the people we see week in and week out on Sunday? I was always amazed at the number of people who remained anonymous each week. I wonder where they are and how they’re handling all of this. Does that sense of anonymity only deepen for people who have felt invisible? It’s easy to make “church” into a tunnel-vision when it’s meant to expand our vision, to the people, the hands and feet of the other, walking in our midst.

In the end, there’s a deeper truth being revealed about us as a human race, one of which we have moved so far from it’s become unrecognizable and one we fear. It’s the fact of we really need very little. It’s about simplicity. Take it from someone who’s life had been upturned the past year, still piecing it together for the future, you need very little. We’ve complicated our lives with stuff and a rapid accumulation of it. For over a year much of my belongings have been boxed up and inaccessible but also unnecessary. The more we have the more anxious we tend to be, thinking and convincing ourselves we need more. Again, just look at the insane stories of toilet paper. The more we accumulate the more we want. It’s our deepest truth, simplicity, and our deepest fear, not having enough, as if we somehow lack. It becomes about us, as if we as people are lacking in self-worth, belief, value, etc. Will we allow ourselves to embrace the deeper truth of ourselves in we are not defined by what we have or do but by who we are?

My fear is, like too many times before, we’ll allow this time to slip by and become inconvenienced because our lives have been disrupted. It’s unsettling for everyone. We’re in this together, despite social distancing and the feeling of being isolated in our little worlds. It is a time, though, to pause and reflect about our lives as the mortality of the human race is tested. Death has a way of doing it to us more than anything else. Don’t let the time slip away as another blip on the screen. Pause, stop, reflect. What really matters in your life? Who really matters in your life? Who are the people who have become invisible in the world around you? What’s their story? My guess is, not much different than your own. Turn off the television, the anxiety, the fear of it all and ask where it’s coming from. What are the deepest fears assisting in our allowing this to slip through our fingers?

Pause, stop, reflect. Don’t let the timeless slip away without teaching the value of the time we are given.

 

A Fractured Humanity

Of all the world religions, I’ll never begin to understand or grasp the level of disdain that exists for the Jewish faith.  Now maybe it was my own upbringing or simply the fact that over time my own image of God has expanded, transcending any of the ideas, theories, metaphors, or other means of trying to box God in to a convenient package that we can somehow control, and even worse yet, understand the motivation of the workings of God and Evil in our world, hearkening back to the original accounts of the desire to eat from the tree in the middle of the garden, the knowledge of good and evil.  The temptation to know and to control, if anything, limits our purview of God and over time distorts our ability to see clearly, a God who leads us to fall into greater depths of mystery.

Shortly following World War II, Karl Rahner, SJ, wrote warily of the shunning of our humanity, after witnessing the annihilation of our Jewish brothers and sisters in the concentration camps, recognizing that it is only in our limitation as humans where we can experience and find the existence of this mystery.  He writes, “They say there is no God because they are confusing the true God with what they took to be their God.  And as regards what they are actually referring to really does not are quite right.  The God they were referring to really does not exist:  the God of earthly security, the God of salvation from life’s disappointments, the God of life insurance, the God who takes care so that children never cry and that justice marches in upon the earth, the God who transforms earth’s laments, the God who doesn’t let human love end up in disappointment.”  It is precisely, he’d go onto say, in our often felt despair when clinging to such a God where the true God, the God of this mystery, of unknowing, resides.

It is quite difficult listening to news stories of tragedies as what unfolded in Pittsburgh, PA earlier this morning, as a people who awoke from the darkness of the lingering night sky, began their sabbath as they do weekly, gathered in prayer.  Who would have ever thought that their day would unfold the way it had?  Who would have thought that they’d be the ones now facing that despair in the face of a God that had been faithful throughout the trials and tribulations of a people on a journey to greater depths and understanding.  A people that has such a storied history in the face of evil, and more often than not, in the name of another religion, whether historically with Christians, Muslims, or the rise of atheism and secularism that has contributed a great deal of animosity towards all religion, clinging to their own Gods and yet blinded by them at the same time.

In reading of the gunman, it was rather ironic or maybe even paradoxical, that his own animosity had grown even more acutely in thinking in his own mind that “the Jews” were somehow sympathetic towards the “caravans” of people fleeing Latin America violence, blaming them in this way.  If there is any truth, it’s in the metaphorical reality of a people that has the history of being a “caravan” people, fleeing the violence of Egypt in seeking the Promised Land.  It’s not to say that people Israel has been perfect, rather quite the opposite.  It is only in their own recognition of their limitation in fleeing persecution and slavery, that they begin to see the frail side of freedom and power, and, at times, become what it is they hated about Egypt.  Their story is our story, all of us.  We are a caravan people who continue to seek the Promised Land, but in the process of seeking and being found, we continue to cling to our Gods, as Rahner writes, and only then can we begin to catch glimpses, and only glimpses, of the deeper mystery we call God.

We live in an age when we find ourselves not only disconnected from our storied history but from our own humanity as well.  The warning of Rahner following World War II remains a warning to us all, maybe even more so in the age of technology when a persistent barrier prevents us from looking the person we loathe in the face and seeing them for more than a religion, a belief, a color, their gender, or any other means that we’ve accustomed to separating ourselves from one another. 

Certainly our own history, as a Christian, has often fed into these realities with faulty interpretations of Scripture that have long been outdated for our age and a clinging to our own Gods of dogma, security, and this senses of certainty that only gives an earthly assurance to us but never moves us to a place of trust and faith as it did people Israel in their own time of wandering.  It is in wandering that we find ourselves, blindly following the Gods of our times, calling us to consume information, consume by buying, consume by taking in and hoarding, somehow giving us the satisfaction and security we desire but creating a blockage in our hearts to understand and accompany the other in the caravan we call life.  The story of our Jewish brothers and sisters is our story as well, never fully known and always unfolding.  When we lose sight of that, we begin to not only box God into what we want and choose to define, but we box ourselves in as well.

We are a people held captive often by our own doing.  We are a people held captive by our thinking, our ideology, our politics.  We are a people that fails to recognize and accept our own limitations in freedom and of our humanity, seeking a “more” that is never fulfilled, leaving us angry and resentful towards the other that we have deemed worthy of such life, resorting to violence, hatred, judgment, bigotry, and all personified by a political system that is fed in that same way.  We are a people held captive by our own doing, still thinking that we too can eat from the tree in the middle of the garden, the knowledge of good and evil, taking matters into our own hands, not being abandoned by God but rather abandoning God all together.

Today, as so many in the past, one person took matters into his own hands, thinking in his own mind that what he was doing was good and failing in the way humanity has since the beginning of time.  We consistently toss ourselves from the garden, the paradise we desire, in order to create our own rather than living in trust and faith.  Our distorted religious culture continues to feed into a narrative that evil can be eradicated from the earth by our own doing and more often than not, violently.  Despite the fact that our Jewish brothers and sisters have at their helm the celebration of their own Passover and we Christians, a Cross, we still fail to learn that the only answer, and the most difficult, is the power that comes in and through love and forgiveness.  Once again we are given an invitation from the true God of our faith to respond to a senseless violent act against a people of faith, how will we respond?  Do we respond by arming ourselves with guns, failing to learn from our past of becoming what we have hated or do we respond in the way all people of faith are called to respond, with love and forgiveness?  If we desire to restore a humanity to our civil discourse, our religion, and even our culture, it is only through the deepest desire of our frail humanity, as Rahner states, with love and forgiveness, even in times of despair.

Hungering For More

Wisdom 7: 7-11; Hebrews 4: 12-13; Mark 10: 17-30

We live in a time often referred to as the “Information Age”.  We all have little gadgets in our pockets that we can pull out and find a wealth of knowledge, information, useless facts, and you name it, all at our fingertips.  It’s become something like an extra appendage of ours as we carry them around, always in contact and answers without any kind of wait.  Yet, there’s a downside to it all.  We have, in many ways, lost a sense of mystery or the unknown, when we would have to wait for information or news and now it comes with just a click.  We’ve also lost a sense of truth and depth.  Ironically, the truth seems to always be the people I agree with and yet a deeper sense of truth is gone.  The very thing that was supposed to keep us connected has in many ways made us even less so, leaving us with a deeper hunger and thirst for something more out of life, a deeper sense of truth, wisdom, and connectivity.  All of us, as well, who learned computers early on learned first hand that they are binary, the ones and zeros, and nothing more.  That too feeds into the great divide that exists and separation that exists.  We never have to leave our corners but it also leaves us wanting more of the wrong thing rather than truth, wisdom, connectivity that can only come by allowing us to grow more deeply in our humanity rather than trying to make ourselves into computers.

Solomon, in the Book of Wisdom, points the way with such beauty.  Like us, he looked for satisfaction out of all the ways of the world, through power, position, wealth, possessions, even health as he points out today.  Yet, nothing seemed to satisfy the deeper longing in his heart.  All of the ways of the world simply seemed to pass and he was left all the more hungry for something out of life.  He takes the turn inward, growing in relation to the living word of God, and his life begins to change.  He begins to grow more deeply into the truth and wisdom that he desired, spelling it out for us today in such beautiful feminine language.  Solomon learns, as we all do, that the only way to wisdom isn’t through knowledge and information, nor even the ways of the world.  Rather, for Solomon it was growing more deeply into his own humanity, learning the nuances of life rather than the binary ways of the world, connecting with the deeper places within his heart and soul.  It wasn’t by accumulating anything, but rather learning to let it go and creating space for the true God and Solomon grows into one of the great wisdom figures.

It was the same for the writer of Hebrews and the community in which he writes.  This is a community that had grown stagnate and drifting away from its mission and purpose.  They had lost sight of their own deeper humanity and connectivity and had grown bored with the word, no longer capable of hearing and listening and being moved by the Word.  The writer reminds them and us that the true Word is living and effective, sometimes even when we aren’t expecting it, cutting us like a two-edged sword.  A relationship with the Word is the only one that can cut through the hardening that begins to happen in our lives or even the numbing that takes place by staring at screens, objectifying our humanity rather than growing more deeply into it.  Ultimately, it’s our own thirst for knowledge and thinking we need to know and accumulating information that leaves us hungering for more while feeling empty.  It begins the slow process of disconnecting us from our hearts.

Of course, we then come to the pinnacle with the story of the rich man in today’s gospel.  Here’s a man who had everything.  He had wealth.  He had power.  He had position.  Heck, he even thought he was perfect in the eyes of God and was in a very binary way.  He had the life so many dream of.  Yet, despite literally having it all, including a knowledge of this God, it wasn’t enough.  He was left feeling empty and still wanting more out of life.  He settled for hiding behind his own screen per se, when it came to God, rather than entering into relationship.  His way of thinking and this desire for perfection, often associated with being right and superior, became an obstacle towards God.  All we know is as the story is told that he leaves sad.  There is a deep sadness that hangs over this man and he walks away.  He’s sad because he couldn’t give up his possessions.  He was even more sad because he recognized that they also would never satisfy that longing within.  After an encounter with the living Word in Jesus, he doesn’t feel all warm and fuzzy, but rather a deep sadness of what his life had become and yet feels trapped within by his own choosing.  We never know if that Word finally penetrates his heart and moves him to a deeper place in his own humanity and to enter into relations with the most vulnerable, the poor.  It was easier to keep them at a distance.  Yet, the two-edged sword cuts him straight through where it needs to, straight through his heart.  Wisdom and truth aren’t found by accumulating knowledge, information, or wealth of any kind, rather, by letting go and for him, that seemed impossible.

It feels impossible for all of us.  We become possessed by our possessions, whatever they may be.  It may be easier to keep staring at a screen and keep accumulating information, but it will keep falling short and leaving us wanting more in life.  We desire that deeper wisdom and truth, that sense of connectivity and intimacy, but it’s not going to come in the ways we’re told of the world.  Rather, it comes through relationship with the living Word and through our relationships with others.  It comes through getting it wrong and failing more often than trying to present ourselves as perfect.  It comes with growing more deeply into our own humanity where we learn to see the other as ourselves rather than separate from.  Our hearts are easily hardened.  The heart of a nation and the heart of the world often stand frigid, resulting in the divisions and wars and continued poverty, sacrificing our humanity for worldly powers.  As with the rich man in today’s gospel, the choices are all placed in our hands as well.  Will we allow our possessions, whether wealth, information, phones, knowledge, or whatever, continue to possess us, captivating all our attention, leaving us hungering and thirsting for more out of life or will we allow ourselves to be possessed by the living Word, cutting through our hearts?  It comes with great price and cost but the promise of life eternal will always move us towards the truth, the wisdom, and the connectivity we truly desire and leave us fulfilled in this life and the life to come.

Eternal Positioning System (EPS)

Jeremiah 31: 31-34; John 12: 20-33

One of the speakers at the conference I attended at Notre Dame was Nicholas Carr, who has written extensively on technology and the impact it is having on our lives.  Not only how we have become dependent upon it but even how it is changing the way our brains work, and not always for the better.  He had told a story about the use of the GPS which many of us, including myself, rely on daily to get us from one place to another and of course to get to that place as fast as possible with as little time wasted.  He mentioned how that system was introduced to Eskimos in the Arctic Circle who have remained on that land for centuries.  As the Arctic Circle changes with climate change and ice melts, it was thought that this would be a great benefit to them in navigating the changing terrain.

However, over the course of time it became apparent that it had become more of a hindrance.  Whereas for centuries they had trusted that internal voice and their instinct to get them from one place or another they began listening to another voice and over time people began to die!  They were literally falling into the icy waters because they began to listen to a false voice and depending on that voice rather than trusting from within and so they eliminated the use of the GPS in order to save themselves.

That is true of all of us, not just because of GPS but because of our culture and society in which we live.  We begin to trust every other voice, and often being deceived, other than the voice within.  That is the shift that Jeremiah calls forth for the House of Israel who we hear of in today’s first reading.  Jeremiah tries to make the point that this experience of exile in which they find themselves is not necessarily a bad thing.  It may feel that way and they may feel lost and abandoned, but it’s a time to learn to trust that voice within to lead you and navigate you through the difficult of times.  It’s no longer going to be as he says, a God “who took them by the hand” but rather will “place the law within them and write it upon their hearts”.  That’s the real change that is necessary for Israel, and quite frankly, for all of us as well.  The eternal that was first given to man in the beginning is once again being given to trust and the more they listen and trust that voice, the more they are led forward in life and out of this experience of exile.  From the beginning God has placed the eternal GPS within and yet we doubt, we question, we become deceived by the other voices that demand our attention and even convince us that that’s not of God.  Jeremiah reminds us, that’s precisely what leads you to the experience of exile and as crazy as it seems, what will lead you out.  The false promise is exposed for what it is and the real promise is revealed again.

The same is true for the disciples and all who now enter into these tumultuous times in John’s Gospel.  John is well aware of the lie and deceit that people are led to believe and the false promise that it entails.  It sets up this climactic chapter, following the raising of Lazarus, will now lead to the demise of it all.  From this point on everything begins to fall apart for the disciples and they are going to be left with the same choice as Israel, their forefathers, as to the voice in which they will trust and there will be many competing narratives the next two weeks and most of which will come from the place of fear and control.  They’ll hear from Pilate, the religious authorities who very authority is being threatened along with the political rank, gathering the crowds around fear of the truth in Jesus.  What began in the beginning in Genesis when Adam and Eve give credence to the wrong voice, the father of lies, will now come to a head with the eternal Christ.  They have convinced themselves that this cannot possibly be God, and yet, for John, in the mouth of Jesus, reminds us today that it all has to fall away into the depths of the earth in order for new life to come forth.  The events that will unfold, now that the hour has come for Jesus’ purpose, will not only reveal the truth of this God of love but will expose the lie from the beginning and not only the disciples but each of us will be left with that same choice as to which voice to believe and to trust.  The one that promises an absolute quick fix to our problems, the avoidance of suffering, the false promise of a better life or the one that leads to what we too desired from the beginning, the gift of the eternal life here and now and in the age to come.

These next two weeks will provide great opportunity for reflection in our lives and the tumultuous experiences that we often face as well in times of trial and darkness.  It is, though, in the darkened earth that the seed takes root and begins to bear much fruit.  Lies and deceit seem to become a way of life, exposing all of us to confusing and throwing our GPS out of service, leaving us wandering and like Israel, in exile.  Yet, the voices are hard to deny.  They seem so right.  Yet, they begin to drown out the truth and the eternal navigational tool within that tries to lead us through.  These weeks demand of us silence and listening hearts in order to tune back into the voice of the eternal within our hearts.  No one is there to take us by the hand and make the choice for us for we have been given what is necessary.  It’s a matter of once again being called to trust and believe not only that redemption is at hand, but that the one who is the way, the truth, and the life, continues to guarantee the eternal promise that unites the divine within to the eternal, leading us to everlasting life.