Julian of Norwich & the Hazelnut

"And in this he showed me something small,  no bigger than a hazelnut, lying in the palm of my hand, as it seemed to me, and it was as round as a ball. I looked at it with the eye of my understanding and thought: What can this be? I was amazed that it could last, for I thought that because of its littleness it would suddenly have fallen into nothing. And I was answered in my understanding: It lasts and always will, because God loves it; and thus everything has being through the love of God.

"It lasts and always will, 

          because God loves it... "

Christmas Meditation

While all things were in quiet silence, And that night was in the midst of her swift course, Thy Almighty Word, O Lord, Leaped down out of thy royal throne.  Alleluia!

When I first watched this remarkable video taking us to the far reaches of the Universe, I thought "What a perfect meditation this is on the great Mystery of Christmas!"

For it gives us a visual perspective of the unimaginable distance that Christ spanned when He came forth from the Father and came into this world.  If the Universe seems vast, it is as nothing compared to how far it would be to travel from the Divine to the Human.  It cannot be measured, yet God did indeed choose this insignificant little planet in a minor solar system in a not too important galaxy, He the Lord and Creator of all.  As we pray in the Divine Office on January 1st, 
O Admirabile Commercium!...... 
O Admirable Exchange!
What is the exchange?  It is a human nature for a divine.  When the Word became flesh, God took on the nature of man.  In doing this He also gave us the wonder that we humans could also become divine.  That is what Christmas means.  O Wonder!

O Living Flame of Love

The Living Flame of Love

St. John of the Cross, Discalced Carmelite
Stanzas the Soul Recites in Intimate Union With God

O living flame of love

That tenderly wounds my soul

In its deepest center! Since

now you are not oppressive,

Now consummate! if it be your will

Tear through the veil of this sweet encounter!

O sweet cautery,

O delightful wound!

O gentle hand! O delicate touch

That tastes of eternal life

And pays every debt!

In killing you changed death to life.

O lamps of fire!

in whose splendors

The deep caverns of feeling,

Once obscure and blind,

Now give forth, so rarely, so exquisitely,

Both warmth and light to their Beloved.

How gently and lovingly

You wake in my heart,

Where in secret you dwell alone;

And in your sweet breathing,

Filled with good and glory,

How tenderly You swell my heart with love.

The Dance of Life

My friend, Jean, has a huge problem with God. “How can there be a God, she asks, “when there is so much suffering in the world?” And cruelest of all, she finds, is the suffering of innocent children. She can’t even bear to watch Nature films, as they may show predator animals pouncing on poor little prey animals. What kind of a world is this? If God is Love, how can he be so cruel? No matter how I tried to answer that question for her by pointing out, for instance, that God’s ways are certainly not our ways, my friend was never satisfied. But can you blame her? My attempt at an answer really was far too small for such a big question.

Then, one day it came to me--not an answer, but a realization. I was watching one of those Nature films, which I happen to love because they always turn my thoughts to the Creator of this marvelous world. It seems to me that if we could learn how to read and understand the secrets nature holds, we would know at the same time many of the secrets of heaven.

In this particular episode a hungry cheetah was in hot pursuit of a terrified gazelle. Each was running for their life, and each had a very different end in view: one asked, will I go hungry? and the other asked, will I escape being eaten? I found myself rooting for the gazelle, urging it to Run! Run! Run for your life! Then I remembered that the cheetah had cubs to feed, and she was hunting for them. She doesn’t always succeed; the gazelle has a fighting chance; but this time the cheetah did bring down her prey. The camera showed the terror in it’s eyes as it went down, and something else as well for just an instant. It is said that at that moment of truth the fallen animal goes into a sort of ecstasy, it goes “out of itself” and feels no pain. I think that must be true, for animals have great wisdom about Life, and maybe on some wordless level my little gazelle understood the mystery I was witnessing and struggling to understand.

As I watched the realization suddenly came to me: it’s all God. In reality there is no hunter and there is no hunted: there is only God. It’s all God. God is in the cheetah, hunting down his prey, and God is in the gazelle, running for her life. It was Life pursuing Life so that Life could continue the Dance of Creation.

Another time I saw this same secret of nature in a DVD documentary on the ocean--The Blue Planet. On the surface the ocean seems like a huge, watery desert, but deep within there is a constant dance going on between the big fish searching vast areas for their food, and the little fish desperately trying to escape being eaten. As I watched, the words of the psalm came to me, “He gives them their food in due season...” And the food He gives, of course, is the little fish. Is it cruel? Does God not love the plankton and little fishes? Once again I saw and realized that it is ALL GOD. If God is Love, then we really can say that it is ALL LOVE. The huge schools of sardines and anchovies form themselves into a swirling ball in their effort to escape the predators. In the middle of the feeding frenzy it is all chaos and heart-stopping escapes. One has to draw back and see it as God must see it: as one great whole. From that vantage, the big picture looks very much like a dance, turning, twisting, circling around and around in a Pas de Deux of Love and Life.

Then I understood that God does not see things in opposition, as we do. When he sees the Hunter and the Hunted He is not seeing either/or, This vs. That. He is seeing the relationship between them that make them one. God does not see things in duality, but only in the wholeness in which all things are. As Thich Nhat Han said so beautifully and so simply, “We all inter-are”. God see everything whole. Each of the myriad life forms that flow from His creative Spirit are manifestations of the One LIFE from which they came forth.

This is not easy for us to see because we are too close to it, we are in it. The sardine, swimming for dear life in a huge school of thousands of other sardines is hardly aware that it is part of a magnificent, eternal dance. This awareness is for humans to have so as to give glory to God. There is a Buddhist saying that comes to mind here: LIFE LIVES ON life. We all eat and are eaten. When we forget this, we cry; when we remember this, we can nourish one another.

So, am I suggesting that the Holocaust is not about Nazis trying to exterminate the Jews? Or that little children with terminal illnesses are simply one life form being exchanged for another? Of course not. In Nature, it has been said, it is not the individual that matters; it is the species. This adage no longer applies when we are speaking of Human Nature. So how does God see us, He who does not see things in duality but in wholeness? Only the mystics are given to see that we are swimming in this Ocean of Life; the rest of us are too close to see ourselves there, for we are IN it. But God does not have that limitation. He sees us as we are, first to last, in the finished product. He sees us as made in His Image and Likeness, He sees us in His Only-begotten Son, in whom he is well-pleased.

When God sees the Holocaust, He sees His Chosen People entering into the Kingdom He has prepared for them from all eternity, having triumphed over evil. When He sees the innocent suffering of children, He looks upon each child with such infinite love and tenderness that their suffering is transformed by the power of Love into beauty. The beheld have become their beholder and they spend all eternity thanking God for giving them such beauty as only His gaze of Love can do. It is only we, in our limited vision, who think we see disaster and ruin when in reality what we are seeing is the Dance of Life, giving glory to God the Father Almighty. In the Heart of God the lion and the lamb, the gazelle and the cheetah lie down together, rejoicing; they have entered the Joy of the Lord. Truly, it is all God.

Role of Women

Recently a young college woman wrote, asking for some input from us which she might use for an honors project on the roles of women in society and family. She sent a list of questions to help her with this. I reflected on this a bit and sent her my answers, hoping they might be of some help. And how about you? How would you answer these questions?

1. What do you think is the role of a woman in life?

The role of woman in life proceeds from her nature. A woman's nature is always all about Life. She conceives, brings forth, and nurtures Life. This life can be in the form of a child, but can also be in all forms of life. Woman is also called to be an equal partner and helper to Man, just as he is to her, and thus they both come to fullness as human beings, made in the Image and Likeness of God.

2. How are we supposed to live as women to be in grace with God according to the bible?

To be 'in grace with God' essentially means to live with and by the divine life in us. A woman achieves this when she is most fully feminine (in Jungian terms), according to her nature. The feminine is a perfection of God; it is most complete when united with it's opposite, which is the masculine--another perfection of God. The ideal model of this is found in Christ, who though He was predominately male, united in Himself all the perfections of both male and female.

3. What do you consider as a bad woman?

I don't consider any woman as 'bad' in herself. She is incomplete insofar as she fails to live up to her true nature.

4. Do you think man and woman are consider the same? why or why not?

Man and woman are the same in that they are equally human beings and children of God. They are different in that they are male and female, and all that that infers.

5. what is the role that God intended for us as women?

Women are given by God the unique role of bringing forth and nurturing life. (See Question #1). Whatever form that takes, a woman must always be generative in order to be fulfilled. For most women, this is achieved in and through a faithful commitment to marriage as wife and mother. Some women fulfill their role as nuns, or teachers, or doctors or nurses, or by devoting themselves to the care of others in some form, and so on.

6. Is sexuality something not accepted by God?

God created the human being as male and female; He created us as sexual beings, and He does not despise anything He has made. Sexual union is holy, and makes us like God from whom all life comes forth. It is only unholy when we pervert it to our own selfish pleasure, having no relation to God who is Love.

7. Whats the importance of being a virgin?

To be a virgin means to be just what you are in yourself, never having been touched, used, or exploited. We speak of it, not just about persons, but even of things, e.g., a virgin forest; virgin snow; virgin olive oil. etc. It denotes something unique and precious, which once lost is gone forever. Sad to say, human virginity is not highly valued by many today. Some even say they are embarrassed to admit they are still virgins--just the opposite of how people thought only a few generations ago.

I believe that this value has been lost because the deepest meaning of sexual union has been lost by many. If intercourse is viewed in a shallow way, meaning nothing, merely for recreation, no commitment, no consequence, no emotional bond, it is no wonder that the integrity of the body as expressed in virginity is not valued.