Our Trees

The Christian symbol of faith is the crucifix that gloriously becomes an empty cross. Christians tend to avoid this first part to our detriment, because we can not get to empty crosses without hanging on them. A Christian education, with letters behind a name, does not necessary make a disciple. However, it does assist in a framework where sacrifice, experience and divine relationship can be identified with.

God seems to meet His disciples, in their experience, where we tend to listen; in pain. In one of my favorite films, The Princess Bride a statement is made, “life is pain; anyone telling you any different is trying to sell you something.” This is where our Christian experienced rubber tires meet the hot concrete of life. It is what we do with what Christ did for us, and what we do in walking through our own crucifixion that reveals what we truly believe. There are no short cuts to heaven; it has to flow through, “Your Will Be Done.”

In saying the Lord’s Prayer, we are challenged to believe it. When a Christian sees Christ’s crucifixion there is no way to go but through it or run from it. It is in His pain that we have strength for ours, because He has shown us that only through His wounds does our heaven await. When hanging on a tree it becomes ours. It might not have been chosen, but now we have been nailed to it. Sometimes going through it is the answer, because it is the only choice we have. Christians sometimes only can have faith on our tree, because God did on His.

When God Is Enough

“At a time when you did not know God, you became slaves to things that by nature are not gods; but now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how can you turn back again to the weak and destitute elemental powers? Do you want to be slaves to them, all over again?” (Galatians 4: 8-9)

Have you ever noticed that most of our spiritual struggle comes from a constant desire to avoid the void? We reject God as being enough for us, in the multiple empty moments of life, reaching for something we think will satisfy. The void is there and needs to be faced because, within it, we are found and healed. Bono says, “home is where the hurt is.” There is wisdom in this.

Thousands of moments of God as enough or not, are chosen within the day by the disciple. The current one is what we are called to, through God’s grace, to bridge the gap between a discontentment with and relationship with God. It is only this moment that matters. This desire to fill the void is spiritual language not to be feared, it is a calling back the soul to dwell satisfied with the divine. In God’s own satisfaction, between the Trinity, is where we are taught and find our selves.

The spiritual lesson, to be learned here, is that our being slaves to God helps eliminate a growing tendency to be slaves to things that “by nature, are not gods.” We are made for submission and inclusion into Something beyond ourselves, for we can only get so far, only spiritually feeding off tangible humanity. From what well do we chose to drink in this desert?

Once a person becomes a slave to God, they are the freest born, because that person has learned that God is their Source and can be the Only Giver. Nothing can completely give that “by nature are not gods.” As the saying goes “do not hang your hat on what can not support the weight.” The soul allowing God within reduces spiritual friction and has the freedom to stretch into eternity, yet is freed to become solidified here as God roots His kingdom. Internal dialogue, listening, and letting God be enough, has the habit of making what is the shadow of a man; a man. For man can only be as strong as what supports him.

Seeing Indistinctly

“At present we see indistinctly, as in a mirror, but then face to face. At present I know partially; then I shall know fully, as I am fully known.” (1 Corinthians 13:12)

We can only know if we allow ourselves to be known. God asks us to open up to Him in such a personal way that for the great majority of us this is extremely uncomfortable. There is something real near, we can feel it and it is only seen indistinctly. The Spirit is reaching out and the more we allow it into us, the more we seem to have capacity within. We are the partial people, that continue to battle for openness to God that will not leave us alone, in a world that celebrates being closed and strong. So much around us has taught to guard, so God is always like a child saying “come out I want to play.”

A friend of mine’s father killed her mother (his wife) and himself recently. He took a gun to her head and his pulling the trigger. What could I do but hold her and let her know I was there. She did not need spiritual philosophy but relationship; a relationship built on a real person that was not afraid in the dark cold night to hug and hold. There were no answers, just allowing openness to know and be known. That is why the Christian God is personal, because everything else fails in comparison for the human. We are material, which is where God meets His people. What He made us of He became, what we needed He gave.

Over 300,000 people died and millions displaced in Southeast Asia from a wave. An adjustment in the earths crust changed everything in the region. Saint and sinner were washed away together, with no discrimination given by the wave to the baby in the crib. How can a Christian have faith after everyone and everything they have known has been washed away? The answer is you can not, if there is faith, it has to come from and depend on what is outside and above fragile humanity easily be compromised by water. One reason Christians can claim to see is because they have learned the failure of there own eyes. We see indistinctly and have had to learn to allow ourselves to be known by and rely on the only One that can.

Humility to Human

One of the foundations to any legitimate Christian spirituality is humility. A false humility thinks less of self, the true version thinks more. True humility teaches that creatures can only improve by what makes it, growing only in “eating bread from heaven.” In Christian humility believers not only realize the ego must get out of the way for charity, but learn by getting out of the way they are given a divine strength to run in resolution to what is beyond. Humility, sub-servant externally becomes one of the greatest of internal spiritual actions, towards spiritual maturity beyond the self.

We can learn how to live this humility from saints, humans like us. What has made them saintly is a grace, grasp and resolve that they live best when they are not the point. A saint has come to realize they are just little icon of what made them. Saints are wisely open to others, even when multiple souls advise that living in this world has proven the demand for self protection. This is one reason why the saints are effective; their external openness to smallest becomes giant among the masses of ego. Their openness to smallness allows room and training for the great spiritual work given to them. It is their humility, accepting the mess of themselves and human experience that becomes a spiritual life truly lived. Case in point, St. Francis of Assisi embraced, reluctantly at first, humility knowing it was the only way open to spiritual life:

“In the Incarnation, Francis [St. Francis of Assisi] saw that becoming human was the basis for humanity. In embracing our humanness, Jesus did not cling to being God. This choice was the epitome of humility. In so choosing, Jesus could accept everything to which human nature is prone, even death. This image of Christ as seen on the cross became an essential component of Francis’ new self. Like Jesus, humility for Francis meant not to cling to anything or appropriate any goods, titles, honors or position. It meant to be servant to all, even inanimate creatures. It meant generosity of spirit and generosity of heart, the willingness to let all others be first. It meant obedience to all, being subject to all, just like Jesus, the Word made flesh, who did not cling to honor, status or power. In recognizing his true self in this image, Francis embraced the essence of his being and the realization that he needed nothing else to give him worth.” (Roch Niemier, O.F.M. St. Anthony Messenger, Oct. 2006 p. 19-20.)

As with St. Francis, the saint opens to God’s help, humble enough to be filled up, after the rejection of many things lesser. The saint has learned God fills and protects the soul, even as the same time the saint accepts they will “be fed and trampled on”. Saints have gained enough humility to believe that only God creates their value, His value through them is to overflow into this dangerous world. God has devised one of many plans to feed His ego ridden children, if they will not feed on Him, He will burn evil out of the hearts of man, even if He allows them to feed on their saintly bothers and sisters. This world demands in its’ weakness, security and substance. Saints have enough humility and confidence to knell to be sacrificed for egos, if need be, for they were there once as well. These saints have become so human that they are transformed into something new, not a losing of humanity, but fulfilling the human to possess less shadow from the fall.

Humility can do that, humility becomes the tool to power Christian self-realization. The question is do we want, in humility, to participate in the hard work to ourselves? The hope that we have is that what Godly humility starts can be brought to completion in man by a Godly grace. God creates man so like a man was to be made, that hell shutters at the power.