Abbey Awe | Lauds of Room for Good Things to Run Wild

Room for Good Things to Run Wild

Holy Imaginations,

minds and hearts 

and souls and bodies saturated in

the Beautiful story of God,

are the tools of transformation.

+ Room for Good Things

to Run Wild

To close the month of May 2025, I had the joy of returning to the Abbey of the Genesee, one of my favorite thin spaces, for a special time with friends old and new at the Benedictine monastery, as we focused on the hours of prayer, infused with Psalms throughout.

On the evening that the Great Silence began for our group (24+ hours of silence together at the monastery), I had planned to keep my phone off for the entire duration. But since I was sharing my room with two other men who were already asleep in the still darkness when I made my way to bed, I turned on my phone for a flashlight and noticed I had a text. 

I could have ignored it, but I was wondering if something might have come up at home at this late hour that my wife or one of my kids needed to contact me (ex. our oldest daughter has just earned her driving license, so new adventures in parenting have been added to the mix), so I checked. These were the words I first read:

Hey, Sweetheart, if you get this

before you go to bed this evening,

would you call me or 

(our oldest daughter) back?

Acknowledging the places my mind could go, I noticed another text with these words featured in a snapshot of a conversation with my oldest daughter and one of her friends from childhood:

Friend: Hi, can you help me?

Daughter: What's up, love?

Friend: I really want to find God

and give myself to Him

but I have no clue where to start.

Daughter: You're serious?

(tearful and cry emojis)

Friend: Yes, ma'am.

I've been thinking about it a lot.

Daughter: I'd love to help.

Do you want to come over tomorrow?

What made you start thinking about it?

These words were then followed by:

Papa, can you call me back?

It was close to midnight then, and I sensed that God was inviting me to trust Him in how His Spirit was at work in my daughter and her friend while I was in solitude and silence for the next 20+ hours. 

And I trusted that in this space, the communion of saints would be stirred to pray for my daughter and her friend, too, in ways that are infused by the Spirit with groans beyond words.

Abbey of the Genesee Prayers at Night

So I prayed before I went to bed.

I prayed while I was in bed.

Awakened through the night,

I sought to join the whisper of God.

And then I woke 

and went to the sanctuary

to pray for my daughter

and her friend during Lauds

with the monks and others.

Lauds
come just before dawn …
It is the hour that takes us
from darkness into light —
awakening to life, to God.

And in that morning hour of prayer

God seemed to answer 

as the Holy Spirit used 

the exact Psalms from Scripture

for that specific Thursday morning 

sunrise hour of prayer to 

answer back through

the communal prayers of the saints

at Genesee and around the world.

+ Psalm 81:6-7
(as words God is speaking /

will speak to Zoey's friend,

a voice she's learning to recognize)

A voice I did not know said to me:

"I freed your shoulder

from the burden.

Your hands were freed 

from the load.

You called in distress and

I saved you."

+ Psalm 80:1, 3-4

(as words I and my family

were praying for this friend)

O Shepherd of Israel,

hear us ...

O LORD, rouse up Your might,

O LORD, come to our help.

God of hosts, bring us

(bring this friend and her family)

back; let Your face shine

on us (and them) and

we shall be saved.

The night before and that morning in bed, I had been thinking of and praying for Jesus to be the Good Shepherd to this young woman. And then I woke up to pray with the communion of saints at the monastery that morning in Psalm 80: "O Shepherd of Israel, hear us ... " 

And then shortly thereafter during the Terce hour of prayer:

Terce

is the marker of midmorning.

It was at this “third hour”

on the day of Pentecost

that the Spirit came

to the early Christian community,

as the enabling Power of their witness

the prayers, including those of the Abbott, were focused on Jesus being the Good Shepherd whose sheep hear His voice as He continues to gather more and more people to His fold. 

All this occurred while I was reading Josh Nadeau's book, Room for Good Things to Run Wild: How Ordinary People Become Every Day Saints, the title of which is based on G.K. Chesterton's quote:

The more I considered Christianity,

the more I found that 

while it had established a rule and order,

the chief aim of that order

was to give room for good things

to run wild.

After we broke the silence together that night to share about our experiences and receive the Eucharist together, I shared with the brothers I was with about who and what I had praying for throughout the night and day, and how they had unknowingly been participating with me in praying for this young women when they prayed during Lauds that morning.

Cultivate Renewal, Abbey of the Genesee, May 2025 A.D.

Multiple men were moved to tears, and then multiple men prayed for this friend of my oldest daughter. And then I received a call.

I just wanted to share with you, Papa,

that my friend prayed to receive

the Holy Spirit after I shared with her

about Jesus through the Story of God.

A stirring and a stillness dropped into the waters of my soul then. And the ripples are still being felt. I will get to spend some time with my wife, my daughter, and her friend over a meal soon to hear more of the impact of this seeming moment when heaven drew near to earth and people were transformed by the mystery of the Master who resurrects new things to life. 

But for now, I leave you with these words I continue to meditate on:

Take a moment to listen,

to hear the Hidden Music,

and where Jesus might be leading you,

all the ways He wants to heal you 

and transform you,

all the ways He wants

to make His Kingdom known;

and then have the courage

to take a step. 

To follow.

It will be hard,

the hardest thing you ever do,

but it will be an adventure,

and it will be Good,

and it will lead you Home.

+ Josh Nadeau,

Room for Good Things

to Run Wild,

pg. 258

Bonus Post on Prayer:

+ What's the Point of Prayer?

More Abbey Awe Posts:  

+ Awakening to New Wonder in Vigils

+ Finding God in a Thin Place

+ God Moves Thru Unlikely Saints  

+ Facing Death w/ "Of Gods & Men" 

Gloria Patri

4th Century Church

Adapted by New Life,

2022 A.D.

How lovely all creation shines,

How glorious from sky to sea.

All beauty is a blazing sign

To God the Everlasting.

Glory to the Father,

Glory to the Son,

Glory to the Holy Spirit.

As it was in the beginning,

As it is right now,

And will be forever,

World without end.

Amen.

The glory of Almighty God,

The centerpiece of all that is.

The selflessness of triune love,

Demands our highest worship.

(Chorus)

Amen, amen, amen,

World without end,

Amen.

When we behold the radiant Son,

The shadowlands will fade away.

At last the One who is to come

Will rule the new creation.

He’ll rule the new creation.

(Chorus)

With presence and peace in Christ,

Rev. Mike “Sully” Sullivan

Email Pastor Mike | Website | Visit Us | Support Us | Facebook Us

Lenten Film Reflection | Facing Death w/ "Of Gods and Men"

"Of Gods and Men" 3-Minute Review

Throughout my career
I've met all sorts of different people.
Including Nazis ...
and even the devil.
I'm not scared of terrorists,
even less of the army.
And I'm not scared of death.
I'm a free man.

+ Fr. Luc
(see Of Gods and Men
Movie Review by Kenneth Turan)

In our rapid fire culture, the meditative rhythm "Of Gods and Men" is a stark counter that may seem slow at first. But give it time and you will be baptized, drop by drop, moment by moment, into a sublime cinematic experience that now brings me to tears. 

The story of serenity and sacrifice.
The soundtrack of psalms in French.
The Spirit who prevailed
in the spirits of these men
who showed the greatest love
Jesus spoke of:

Greater love has no one than this:
to lay down one’s life
for one’s friends
(John 15:13).

Br. Luc, one of the Cistercian Trappist monks of Tibhirine, shares about this love with a young women from their village in one of the film's opening scenes:

"Ever been in love?" 

the girl asks with gentle curiosity.

The old monk looks at her 

and replies with honest eyes, 

"Yes, several times. And then ... 

I encountered another Love, 

even greater.  

And I answered that Love." 

+ Br. Luc

I think it took me going to the Abbey of the Genesee and St. Mary's Monastery multiple times (see "Abbey Awe | Awakening to New Wonder"), and experiencing the presence and prayers of Benedictine monks (including Cistercian Trappists), to understand the power of this humble and loving community of Christ that these men were in Algeria in 1995 A.D. even as they faced execution by extremists.

So many of the words from this film about faithful and communal love resonate with me and help me embrace Ash Wednesday and Lent:

We are martyrs out of love, 

out of fidelity, if death overtake us, 

despite ourselves, 

because up to the end, 

up to the end we'll try to avoid it. 

Our mission here 

is to be brothers to all. 

Remember that love is eternal hope. 

Love endures everything. 

+ Br. Christian

This post could reflect on a multitude of themes and scenes, many of which others have done better at unveiling the depths of than I ever could. For an example, watch Bishop Barron on "Of Gods and Men" (SPOILERS). Or check out Christopher Page's "eight elements that make the film that make it a powerful and moving experience to view": a profound vision of corporate worship; a community filled with love; deeply felt humanity; life filled with beauty; simple orderly lives (prayer alone + prayer together and work alone + work together); deep witness to the peaceful presence of Christ; a strong and respectful portrait of Christian faith; and deep spirituality (read "Of Gods and Men" – The Gospel of Love, The Power of the Film #1 and #2).

"Of Gods and Men"  (Des Hommes Et Des Dieux) Official Soundtrack 

But for today, I simply want to record the words from some crucial moments in the film where the monks went through their Benedictine liturgies via The Divine Office, which includes all 150 Psalms, canticles, orations, and readings from the Scriptures that shaped them to become like our sacrificial Savior in profound ways in the face of evil and murder. Profound ways that I pray and trust will continue to shape me as part of the community of Emmaus City Church.

Lauds 

The time and the spirit of Lauds recalls the resurrection, the dawn of the new day, a new creation, as Christ dispels the darkness. Our Savior and all of nature rise, and so do we in this great act of praise.

Lord, open my lips 

And my mouth 

will proclaim Your praise. 

+ Psalm 51:1  

 

Mass  

Every event in the monks' story is surrounded by worship. The monks’ lives flow into worship and their actions and words flow out of their worship. The words they chant in their worship are all from ancient sacred texts. But they are neither obscure nor archaic. The words of their chants speak profoundly to the events of their lives. After they hear the horrifying news of the slaughter of twelve Croatian workers at Tamesquida, the monks gather in their chapel and chant:

Because He is with us 

in this time of violence, 

Let us not dream that He is everywhere 

Other than where we die. 

Let us make haste, 

let us draw patience from Him. 

Let us to turn to the Man of Sorrows 

Who beckons us from the cross 

Because He is with us as on Easter morn. 

Let us not forgo the blood He shed. 

Let us break the bread. 

Let us drink from the chalice of passage. 

Let us greet the One who sacrificed Himself 

By loving us until the end. 

Their chant reassures them that, in the midst of a violent and horrifying world, they are not alone. The suffering of the world is held. They can enter into the familiar rituals of worship and find strength and comfort. This speaks to a deep human desire to acknowledge the reality of a transcendent power present and active in human affairs ... opening (our) hearts to the mystery of the divine. 

Through Him, with Him 

and in Him you shall receive, 

Almighty Father 

in the unity of the Holy Spirit 

All glory and honor, forever and ever.

+ In a Spacious Place  

 

Compline  

Just before bedtime, Compline is the prayer of the person aware of his weakness and sin, seeking the peace that is rest and protection in God. It is St. Benedict’s composition and, unlike the other offices, it begins with no call to prayer but with a blessing and with a Scripture passage that reminds all to be sober and watchful in the face of evil. This is followed by an examination of conscience and an act of contrition. We seem to join Christ in Gethsemane, and the themes of darkness (evil), light (God), and sleep (death) predominate, and we pray for a happy death. In contrition, petition and confidence, we cry out, “Do not forsake us, O Lord, our God.”

 

"Accepting our powerlessness and our extreme poverty is an invitation, an urgent appeal to create with others relationships not based on power. 

Recognizing my weaknesses, I accept those of others. I can bear them, make them mine, in imitation of Christ. Such an attitude transforms us for our mission. 

Weakness in itself is not a virtue but the expression of a fundamental reality which must constantly be refashioned by faith, hope, and love. 

The apostle's weakness is like Christ's rooted in the mystery of Easter and the strength of the Spirit. It is neither passivity nor resignation. It requires great courage and incites one to defend justice and truth and to denounce the temptation of force and power." 

+ Read Visual Parables: Of Gods and Men for more reflection on these considerations

  

Christmas Eve Mass  

Midnight Mass is the first liturgy of Christmastide that is celebrated on the night of Christmas Eve, traditionally beginning at midnight when Christmas Eve gives way to Christmas Day. This popular Christmas custom is a jubilant celebration of the mass in honor of the Nativity of Jesus. God came to us not through military strength or kingship, as was expected, but instead through poverty and childhood. 

Processing into the dark chapel to begin the Christmas service, the Cistercian Trappist monks sing this hymn, and in "Of Gods and Men," the youngest monk, Br. Christophe, gently places a figurine of the newborn Jesus into the manger scene. This gesture, and the hymn that the monks sing together in unison, is a reminder of the humility and vulnerability that characterize Christmas.

 

Once they (the extremists after one tense visit before the final kidnapping and killing) were gone, all we had left to do was live. 

And the first thing we did was – two hours later – we celebrated the Christmas vigil and mass. It's what we had to do. It's what we did. And we sang the mass. 

We welcomed that child who was born for us absolutely helpless and already so threatened. Afterwards, we found salvation in undertaking our daily tasks: The kitchen, the garden, the prayers, the bells. Day after day, we had to resist the violence. 

And day after day, I think each of us discovered that to which Jesus Christ beckons us: It's to be born. Our identities as men go from one birth to another. And from birth to birth, we'll each end up bringing to the world the child of God that we are. ... The incarnation, for us, is to allow the filial reality of Jesus to embody itself in our humanity. The mystery of incarnation remains what we are going to live. In this way, what we've already lived here takes root as well as what we're going to live in the future.  

+ Br. Christian

 

Often, we become so accustomed to the story of Jesus’ birth that we hardly recognize the very powerful lesson it tells us about the way God works: not through massive displays of power, but through the simplicity and poverty of His creation. The holiday of Christmas, the monks help us realize, is an acknowledgement that God’s Kingdom of peace, justice, and love will be achieved in very unexpected ways, by and through people about whom we usually don’t give a second thought. Born to a stigmatized mother in a forgotten town, his life threatened by a power-hungry king, Jesus was the definition of “marginalized.” Most people didn’t care about Him, and those that did wanted Him dead. Yet, it was He who became the most important bearer of God’s transformative love. No wonder the monks exude an aura of awe as they sing quietly in dim candlelight.   

And nothing exists 

Except Love which now begins ...

God has prepared earth like a cradle 

For His coming from above. 

This is the night, the

Happy night in Palestine 

And nothing exists except the Child, 

Except the Child of life Divine 

By taking flesh of our flesh,

God our desert did refresh 

And made a land of boundless Spring. 

+ Read Christus Paradox: Reflections on “Of Gods and Men” for more reflection on these considerations   

 

Infinite Love, 

You do have a heart 

For You seek the prodigal son 

And hold against Your breast 

This troublesome child 

Which is the world of mortals. 

We do not see Your face, 

Infinite Love, 

But You do have eyes  

For You weep through the oppressed 

And look upon us 

With a shining gaze 

That reveals Your forgiveness.

I take these words with me this spring and fall as I get to return to the Abbey of the Genesee again, with fellow ministers and spiritual leaders and then with my family. And may the words above also go with you during this Lenten season.

Bishop Barron on "Of Gods and Men" (SPOILERS)

More Film Series Reflections: 

+ A Hidden Life 

+ A Quiet Place  

+ Arrival   

+ Children of Men 

+ Joyeux Noel  

+ All the Light We Cannot See

Bonus Benedictine Stories: 

 + The Monks of St. Joseph's (MA) 

+ Trappist Cistercian Monks 
of Abbey of the Genesee (NY)

More Monastic Posts: 

+ The Genesee Diary  

+ Thoughts in Solitude  

+ Awakening to Wonder 

+ A Window into the Heart of God 

+ Saintly Swagger in Story of God  

Christ is all,

Rev. Mike “Sully” Sullivan

Email Pastor Mike | Website | Visit Us | Support Us | Facebook Us

Lent | In The Face of the Deep, The Holy Spirit's Work is Wild

The Holy Spirit by Cal Ogelsby, 2014 A.D.

The Spirit's work
in the life of His people
is often a wild work,
a desert work.

He knows and loves the places
that seem empty to us
as much as
He knows and loves the places
that teem with life.

He calls us to the wilderness
to work in us in ways
that could not be done well
(perhaps not done at all)
were we not drawn away ... 

+ Paul Pastor
The Face of the Deep

I continue to return to The Face of the Deep by Paul J. Pastor to reflect and meditate on the Holy Spirit who welcomes us into the holy wild. This book has not only been a great companion when I first read it during a silent retreat at the Abbey of the Genesee, but also a needed re-read during Lent.

This post will include favorite pull quotes from the chapter entitled:

 "The Wind of the Wilderness: 

The Spirit of the Desert." 

The Wind of the Wilderness

The Spirit of the Desert

Let all teachers hold their peace;
let all creatures be silent in Thy sight;
speak unto me Thou alone.

+ Thomas a Kempis
The Imitation of Christ
pg. 165

Be Led to Sacred Silence

in a Place Apart

When I have hiked into the true wilderness, it is the depth and quality of the silence that enters my soul and leaves me changed. When I meet people – and there are many – who say that their most profound encounters with God are in nature, it is this sense of quiet they usually want to remember. It is the sacred silence of a space, silent not because of the absence of sound, but silent because of the effect it has on the soul. A holy silence of the interior, prompted by a sacred simplicity on the exterior. A reminder that the true silence of the Holy Spirit is presence as much as it is absence. It is entering a place apart. … I began to know the rough roar of silence as the voice of the Spirit. He was leading me, mysteriously, to a place apart. + pg. 167, 169

The Spirit Whistles
in the Wilderness Wind

If the Bible were a movie and if places were characters, "the wilderness" would hold a starring role. It's a recurring setting, all the way after the expulsion of humanity from the garden in Genesis, to the "wander in tears, forty years" of Israel's desert time, to the visions of Ezekiel, to the famous temptations of Christ, and Jesus's well-known habit of wandering into desert places for prayer. The wilderness is a place of contradictions, a place portrayed in Scripture as an empty place yet full. The wilderness is cruel and bare, yet a setting for kindness and miraculous provision. The wilderness reveals things often by obscuring them. The wilderness welcomes God and the people of God by – sometimes concretely, sometimes abstractly – meeting evil. More than anything, the wilderness is the background that most clearly highlights the high, good strangeness of the Holy Spirit, who, so often in Scripture, whistles like a wind among the rocks of the desert. A cloud by day, a fire by night. Faithfully leading. Faithfully obscuring. 

The Wild, Affirming,

Driving Desert Work

The Spirit's work in the life of His people is often a wild work, a desert work. He knows and loves the places that seem empty to us as much as He knows and loves the places that teem with life. He calls us to the wilderness to work in us in ways that could not be done well (perhaps not done at all) were we not drawn away, brought away, thrown away, finding ourselves on a lonely trail. This was Jesus' experience. Directly after the soaring high of His baptism in the Jordan, the joy and affirmation of the Father speaking His belovedness over Him, the Dove of heaven seemed to distend and whip apart into a lionlike whirlwind, launching Christ into the first great trial of his adult life. In Mark's account, he writes: " ... And the Spirit drove Him into the wilderness. ... " The Greek word translated here as "drove out" is a rough one, from which we get our word ball, and as you would expect, it means to throw, fling, send flying, hurl. It is not gentle. Like a Major League Baseball pitcher sending a fastball straight through the strike zone, the Spirit in Mark's Gospel downright hurls Jesus (the Beloved, remember) into the wilderness. + pg. 171 

Danger, Scarcity, Abundance ...
All a Work of Love

The Spirit is not playing around. Nor is Jesus – who, in the more detailed accounts of this story elsewhere, is fasting, hungry and thirsty during this time in the desert. He is besieged with temptations in the wilderness – the temptation to work miracles on His own behalf rather than the Father's; the temptation for immediate acclamation and acceptance by the people who would eventually reject Him, screaming for his crucifixion; and the temptation for an easy path to world power rather than the death-road, the God-road to the eternal Kingdom promised to the seed of David. All His suffering and all His overcoming are kept between the lines in Mark's Gospel. I like that. All that we are given here to make sense of Christ in the wilderness is the duration (the ancient "forty" of Noah's flood, of Moses on the mountain, of the wandering years of Israel in the desert), the Devil, the beasts, and the angels. A long time. Danger scarcity, abundance. The wilderness. And this, like every work of the Holy Spirit, was love. + pg. 171 

Silence with Jesus

is a Very Good Place to Start

I sat with my spiritual director, Father Stephen. He asked me to describe my relationship with Jesus. I was silent for a minute, fumbling around inside my head until I came across the right words. "It's as if," I began, "Jesus and I are sitting together in a dark room. He's not saying anything. I'm not saying anything. I look at Him. He looks back at me. We're together. But silent. Quiet. Like we're each waiting for something. He was quiet for a while himself. I sat, adjusted my chair. I wondered if I should continue to talk, to fill up the room between us with words. I didn't like the silence. I wanted to speak or for him to speak or for Jesus to speak. Anyone, really. He breathed deeply. "Silent?" he asked. "Silent." "Well, that's a very good place to start." + pg. 172

Can't Understand
Without Slowing Down

In her classic Walking on Water, Madeleine L'Engle wrote: When I am constantly running there is no time for being. When there is no time for being there is no time for listening. I will never understand the silent dying of the green pie-apple tree if I do not slow down and listen to what the Spirit is telling me, telling me of the death of trees, the death of planets, of people, and what all these deaths mean in the light of the love of the Creator who brought them all into being; who brought me into being; and you. It's a beautiful truth, but a wilderness truth, a desert truth. A truth of windy silences – to somehow believe that to understand ourselves, to understand the great breath of creation, we must first walk backward, back along the trail, back through the deaths of things large and small, slowing life and heart and mind, all the while listening for the voice of God, all back, back, back, to the edge of the deep, to the starting place of being. That hazy place where the Spirit summons us up from the waters of beginning and whistles love and joy, creating and sustaining. "It's good that you are; how wonderful that you exist!" We must know the Spirit's desert road, the trail away from the roars of man and nature. ... It is time for the wilderness. Somehow, with the Spirit, we must learn to enter a place apart. For all its difficulty, it is a very good place to start. + pgs. 172-173 

The Spirit Tears Us Up

with Blessings ...

This Too Is Love,

If We Can Accept It

The sacred silence of our interior becomes the void, the good and empty place into which the Spirit can speak. ... He leads us into desert places ... He pounces, tumbles us in the sand and grit either roughly or gently. Away from the noise He carries or flings us, from the dullness of full belly and full brain. ... He tears us with blessings, tears us open sometimes till the red blood flows out so thick and abundant that we fear our life is leaving, that our bones will be left behind us when we wander on. And for all this, He makes no promises other than His love. If we can believe it, even the bitterest wrestling with the Spirit out in the desert is for our good, the good of His beloved. We must sometimes suffer wounds before we can be bound again, better made and wiser than before, bearing the scars of wilderness as witnesses to the nearness of God. This too is love, if we can accept it. + pg. 174 

It Is the Wind of the Spirit
That Seeks to Polish Us
with the Sand of the Wilderness

It is the wind of the wilderness, dry and cutting if necessary, that blows our own thoughts out of us and the Spirit's knowing into us. It is that wind that will eventually allow us to see though our eyes be closed and hear though our ears be deafened. It is the Holy Spirit, the wind of the wilderness, that flings us into the desert like rag dolls, cradles us out there like children, feeds us like the ravens above Elijah's creek. It is the wind that seeks to polish us with sand, to let the erosion of the grit reveal our truest contours. To see what we take with us out of nothing. What we leave with the nothing. But for all this, who wishes for the wilderness? For some it has a romance before and after we are there and its own glass-like beauty that shimmers when we're in it, but for any beauty we may find, we still quail and quiver. The wilderness is where the Spirit takes our masks away, where our own hearts are flayed, where the faces of devils and angels, once obscured by rocks and birds and lust and thirst, stare at us, challenging us to blink before they do. + pgs. 174-175

If We Can Not Say

Thank You to the Desert Yet,

Then It Is Likely

We Are Still in It

What are we to make of a Spirit – the Spirit of the same Jesus who knew the pain of wilderness so well – who not only accompanies us into the desert but throws us into it? If it is true that He is the wind at our back, blowing us into places abandoned by men, places hard to live in and dry, places of thorn and curse and cruelty, places of the sun by day and the catamount or wild dogs by night, then what are we to say to Him for such treatment? "Thank you"? I mean no presumption, and I speak this in faith. If we cannot say thank you for the desert yet, then it is likely because we are still in it. The wind of the wilderness, ever seeking your good, does not expect your gratitude when you have not eaten for forty days. "What are you doing here?" The ancient question hangs, as it did for Elijah, over the mountain, over the hot bedrock of the desert. But we might as well ask it of the Asker. And who knows if we will receive an answer that human ears can understand? He only promises love. No answers. Not ease. Only love. + pg. 176

A Favorite Story of Abundance

There is something that awakens inside the soul when one realizes that in God's view of the world there is no such thing as scarcity. Let me tell you one of my favorite stories of abundance. I will try to tell it as it was told to me by my friend Randy, a Keetowah Cherokee: In the 1950s, Canada's government was consolidating rule in the Arctic by forcing the native Inuit peoples onto settlement reservations. One old man, a grandfather, resisted. He did not want to live in the white people's houses. He did not want to eat their food. He did not want to lose his culture. His family, concerned that he might do something rash in his yearning for the old freedom, took away his weapons, his tools, his precious knife – all that he needed to live off the land in the frozen, blustery tundra. Or at least they thought they took everything away. They could not take away his knowledge, his way of seeing things. And his way of seeing was the most important thing he had. One dark night, as the wind shrieked around his place, the grandfather stepped out into the blizzard. He was empty-handed, but only for a moment. He defecated into his hand, molding his own "waste" into a keen blade as it froze, spitting on it, wetting and sharpening the bloodletting side with saliva. It froze solid and sharp. He took the knife and killed a dying dog, skinning it to make coat and harness. He used its rib cage for a sled, its flesh for food. He hitched up a healthy dog, and with a flourish of his blade, the grandfather disappeared into the white desert. ... The grandfather was strong in the old ways of seeing things – that is to say, seeing the world, for all its dangers, as a place (in its own desolate way) of abundance. + pgs. 177-178

Even the Desert Places

Whisper Back the "Very Good"

of Their Maker

For all appearances to the contrary, there is no such thing as scarcity where the Spirit is concerned, even in the wilderness, even after the forty-day fast. The bare clarity of the desert may corner us, reduce us, winnow us, take us next door to death, even, but if the process is allowed to work, we will see, gradually or all of a sudden, that we have never been alone, that there has never been utter silence, that tools and food and fire and comfort and meaning and the kindness of God can be everywhere, even here, for those who can see things as the Spirit sees them. ... Abundance can look like barely enough sometimes, sometimes like scarcity itself – five loaves and two fish before a hungering multitude. ... After all, in spite of the hunger and thirst, who, among all those whom God led into the wilderness, starved there? Who died of thirst? For the wind of the wilderness, there is no such thing as scarcity, no such thing as emptiness. In spite of any curse and harshness, even the desert places whisper back the "very good" of their Maker, who rustles the sage and dances among the rattlesnakes. + pgs. 178-179

The Difference is Seeing

The difference of the desert is the difference of the seeing. If we think the Spirit is cruel to blow us into the windy and desolate places, then we have not yet understood this. We need such barrenness much more than we think. ... The wind of the wilderness blows where it wishes. The Spirit's presence can be as arid and contradictory as the desert – but always in the service of love. + pg. 179

The Wilderness is Empty of Words

It Is Full of Meaning

At some point, every person's path leads into the wilderness. Into the desert, to be quiet for a time, or perhaps to rage and to curse God where only ravens and silent angels can hear. Sometimes we wander there; sometimes we walk with purpose. We look for the path. Sometimes it is clear. At other times the sands cover even our own footprints. Sometimes it is a place emptier than empty; sometimes we glimpse a silhouette under the cleft of a rock or a cloaked figure moving parallel to us down a far ravine. The wilderness is empty of words; it is full of meaning. It is silent yet howls until the head pounds. Sometimes it is an experience of such profound suffering that others wonder how you make it. Sometimes it is so simple and personal that others wonder why you don't just "get over it." In any case, being thrown into the wilderness is an act of love. There are no promises whether you will live or die. But even there, in the deepest desert, the Spirit can lead you to wells of living water. + pg. 180

The Desert, Like All Places, 

Is the Dwelling of the Holy Spirit

Though He may cast you there, He will fling Himself alongside you, rough as sackcloth, gray as ashes, and good. He does that so that in the emptiness, like so many before us (like Jesus Himself), we might find fullness; in the absence, presence; in the scarcity, abundance; in fasting, a feast spread in the presence of our enemies. In the roar of the wind in both ears, the joyous shriek of the Dove of creation, that ghostly white wind of the wilderness, you might hear Him asking the ancient question: What are you doing here? He knows your answer already, but it is no matter: you have been kindly hunted, brought or carried or thrown here because it is you who must answer Him. 

+ pgs. 180-181

Links to other Lenten posts:

+ Ache for Meaning

+ Memento Mori 

+ I Hope to Lose 

+ Facing Death

+ Look at the Birds

+ Meet Us in the Mess

Christ is all,

Rev. Mike "Sully" Sullivan

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