If you could cut through all the clutter and super-structures of your life—of your own making and not …. If you could step outside of the world you’ve constructed for temporary comfort and sanity …. If you could strip away the insulation that keeps you from hearing the groaning of your soul …
…then maybe you could find that holy ground buried deep within where you can have a true encounter with the Divine.
We are at times vaguely aware of something tugging on us from we know not where. And that drives us to satisfy ourselves with so many things. We sense a myriad of feelings or impulses—hopeful and promising feelings—and we usually either pass them off or go out and do something ill-conceived.
If we are determined, we might build up for ourselves a world that substitutes for our deepest longings. But in the end it disappoints and makes life so complicated.
We, like the rich young man, cling to our personal riches to make us happy or to temper the vicissitudes of life.
Personal riches, unless we really have lots of money, usually mean all the choice items, personal qualities and gratifying relationships in our lives we’ve stored up and intend to keep. These include our intellectual and spiritual abilities, knowledge, any special skill or gift, honorable standing in various groups, esteemed career or ministry, lasting friendships, positive family relations and support. Nothing wrong with any of these things in and of themselves.
You could describe the accumulation of such things as resulting in a sense of personal excellence: the things I cherish most about myself and my world and that I’ve had a hand in developing.
Over time, we identify more and more with our personal excellence. We claim it as our own and cling so tightly to it that we’ve decided—consciously or not—that is who we are and all we are. And, in fact, that is the truth as long as we go along our self-determined way, oblivious to who we were created to be in all the depth and dimensionality God intended for creatures endowed with body, mind and soul. But when the glory days come to an abrupt end, where are we?
At other times, we find ourselves facing those particularly painful moments that resulted from our own monstrous actions or those inflicted by others. Our sufferings get the upper hand and that is what we identify with. They can paralyze us from living fully on one hand, or keep us from seeking the resolution of our spiritual debilitation on the other. And we stay there in that oddly “comfortable” place for fear of facing our situation.
By contrast, our smaller, every-day sufferings keep our proud egos in check. They keep us humble. But once we emerge from the dungeon, it is all too easy to return to admiring, counting, or counting on our personal riches.
As it turns out, we place tremendous limits on who we can become because of the need to be “somebody.” We have a fear lurking in the background that we will amount to nothing and take off in a million directions trying to make something of ourselves. You already are somebody.
Or, we succumb to giving up in the face of a new period in our life that is very different and not what we had in mind. We fear that our life will just fizzle out, leading us to a dead end. And this fills us with deep anxiety about what to do, if anything, to make a “proper” response and conclusion. We become immobilized. But, we are selling ourselves and God short, limiting him to what he can do through us by taking a path to “death” that is not ours to take.
Life is not over until it is over, and that is when the payoff usually comes. We can be so close and throw it all away for lack of faith and hope.
If we always loved one another, this problem could be greatly diminished. Because, in the end, we want and need to be loved, to be encouraged to find our center—and there find our God as well. And we need to love beyond ourselves. But since we can’t always count on the love of others or ourselves, we need to need to keep moving closer to the love of God. And that can only come by a letting go and a change of focus.
Also, consider that life is not about “me.” Although, God in his generosity makes it about me. It’s really about the spiritual masterpiece God is creating in me. So, it’s about Us.
As in any great musical work, for example, there are various sections to a movement. They allow for the announcement of the main theme, a development of that theme, and a variation on the main theme toward the end of the piece. Some of the developmental sections can be very dark and unpredictable, but have the ability to transform what was begun into something new and better.
God, too, takes us through these most “interesting” phases of his masterful work in us. He knows exactly what we can become, of which this temporary stop on earth is only the first step, but needs our full participation. And to the degree we participate, God establishes a spiritual capacity within us to grasp his Kindgom, Himself, and ourself all the more. A capacity that stays with us for all eternity.
So how do we proceed?
First, we must grasp the immensity of the vision, of the calling God has layed out before us.
Then we must divest ourselves of all the structures, complexes and things we’ve attached to our ego, this I of ours. We must dismantle what might appear to be gleaming skyscrapers proudly raising their domes to heaven and say we’ve done only our duty as best we could. Or if we see mountaints of personal failures and sins towering before us, we must stop looking at them and entrust all to the mercy of God. And then move on in our relationship with God. And keep moving, even after our former glory or failures have faded.
Maybe the Lord has blessed you beyond all expectation. If so, do not cling to these blessings and call them “mine.” Which is actually a theft. Nor despair with the thought, “Is this it?”
Follow Mary, who received copious blessings from and encounters with God, and yet returned everything with humble gratitude. It was her constant openness and humility that opened the way for her Son to come, whom she freely gave up as Savior to the world, though she as his spotless mother was entitled to hold onto him as no other.
We have no excuses. We either want Christ to come or not. Only He can fill us with well being and spiritual meaning. If that is what we want, we have to strip away the facade and barriers and let him in. We have to let go—we should want to let go. Because what we often see worth or safe clinging to—fortune, shame or desparation—blocks God’s gratuitous graces. He is literally waiting on us to take the focus off ourelves. He’s waiting for our generosity in response to all his gifts to be able to give us even more. A generous, open soul gives freely and therefore receives more. That is the operation of Love.
Our sufferings eventually drive us to this point of understanding, but it need not be as difficult as we tend to make it. If we are tired of the complexities of our lives, our sinfulness and bad habits, our lack of peace because we insist on always controlling things to everyone’s detriment, we can start over.
God’s extravagant love and mercy, expressed directly through the Sacrament of Reconciliation and tapped in sincere prayer, enable us to spiritually reset and find our center. His love, The Love, has the ability to recreate us. He makes hearts whole and strong again, filled with his goodness and divine peace.
It is the personal encounter with Christ that changes us. No book, no prayer, no psychological or religious exercise will touch us in the way God can. And while these things might help bring us to him, in the end, we must appear before God in all our nakedness and let his love cover us.
If I want Christ to come, I must decrease, fixing my gaze upon him. Only then can I let him in.
Once we are together, it is no longer I, but We. And having received Him, We can together transform hearts.