A city, an entire region, is plunged into the abyss...
The world is a horrible place, full of suffering, brokenness, and bondage of every description. These things are ever with us, not only from seemingly random forces that defy our ability to comprehend, but also by reason of our broken human condition.
The world is also a beautiful place, not only in the wonders of creation: fiery sunsets, majestic mountains, and watercolor deserts in bloom, to mention only a few, but also in whenever one human being truly, sacrificially loves another. It happens, just as surely as does unspeakable evil.
I often think of "how shall I then live?" How shall I live in the face of the abyss? How shall I live in the face of evil and suffering and injustice and bondage? How shall I live in the face of last night's sunset, and the embrace of the woman laying next to me? How shall I live in the face of the friend whose relative is still missing and unaccounted for these several days after the hurricane? How shall I live in the face of the friends I have been given who would "go to the mat" for me, who are always there...? Perhaps there are many answers to this, but two things occur to me as I sit and type: I must give and I must love. And I must not stop giving, and I must not stop loving.
Often...I do not know how to give. A check is easy. Giving of myself is not. Often, I do not know how to love.
How shall I live in the face of other things, such as the culture all around me devoted to the gods of materialism and pleasure? In the face of the words of the Lord to whom I have given my allegiance, words to "go and make disciples," "love your enemies," "if you have done it to the least of these, you have done it unto me," and many others? How shall I live in the face of that Lord and Master's call to know him, to sit at his feet? The heart cries for such intimacy, and yet, often runs the other way....
Words such as intention(al), transformation, vocation, seek to tag the ruminations and dreams in my mind when I ask myself, "How shall I then live?"
A few things:
I want my life to be simple. Too many days, now years, of my life have been consumed by clutter (mostly of the mind and soul), minutiae, and the tyranny of the urgent. I believe I have identified the few things that really matter, and I don't have enough life left to spend on anything of lesser value.
So what matters? Another's list may differ. Here is mine:
1. Relationships in community. I'll just leave that one without further explanation. Volumes. Fill in your own thoughts about what that is, looks like, or might be.
2. Work. Work with meaning, work with purpose, work as formation of our souls, work with simplicity, work as...worship?
3. Prayer. Yes, prayer matters. St. Benedict (a guide to me, as most of you know) said that "nothing is to be preferred to the opus dei." The opus dei is the "work of God," and specifically it refers to the divine office or liturgy of the hours, the daily times of prayer and psalmody that provides the rhythmic backbone to monastic life. Prayer is indeed the "work of God," and it is doing the work of God as surely as anything else that can be done. And why should one not seek to have prayer as the "rhythmic backbone" of one's life?
4. Hospitality. I guess that word can be taken to mean more than one thing, but very personally to me it means that I must find ways to continually "put myself out" for the welfare of others. It might mean offering my home as home to the stranger, but it might also mean a host of other things. Most of all, it means a focus that is not myopically upon myself.
A word about dreams. Dreams can be fragile things. I've had many trampled upon and stomped underfoot by family and "good church folk", too. It makes one hesitate to speak them, to take the pearls of one's heart and cast them to...And I realize, not all dreams are "God's dreams" for us. Occasionally we need a voice of wisdom to disabuse us of our delusions. But...
Dreams to further realize the simple life I long for, and the four things listed above have taken shape in my heart and mind. I have found there are people who are dreaming the same dreams. I will stay on the path to those dreams.
That's all I can say for now.
Peace.
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A. Hanson