While riding the bus recently I missed my stop because the bus captain was daydreaming. It was only when I said it did not matter and that I just wanted him to be more attentive in future (conveyed in my most gentle manner, a great effort for the usual brusque me) that he abandoned his aggressive manner and apologized.
It struck me this is how we are as a people now. Hard, defensive and aggressive. Attack first even when in the wrong. It doesn't take much to get our back up for the boundaries of our personal worlds seem to have swelled radically, spilling over into others' worlds obtrusively. And we bristle when people so much as brush softly past our enormous, hyper fragile bubble worlds.
In the World segment of Vision Therapy, we are reminded that the biblical imperative is to love persons and use things. John Powell highlighted the theology of possession which is to enjoy fully what we have been given in this world by our Creator, but to also hold our possessions lightly in our hands, especially possessions like money, authority, acclaim and status. I would include possessions such as our intellect, talents and capabilities as well.
When we walk around with clenched fists, unwilling to let go of our possessions, we become less loving and joyful, we become watchful and distrustful, ready to pounce on those who dare lay their grubby fingers on our stuff. We end up using people to get what we want. We become afraid to live. We even cut ourselves off from the parts of reality we do not want to face or cope with and therefore excise the experience of living out both pain and pleasure in their fullness. We think only of ourselves and we do not want to deal with inconvenience, especially when it comes to others who cause it.
To counter unhealthy possessive tendencies, we are encouraged to foster a theology of dispossession which is to be free of the tyranny of our possessions. To unshackle our hearts and to instead save our hearts for love, and to save our love for persons.
This entails us keep giving God our blank cheque every day so that even when our backs are against the wall, we can respond with open hands.
As John Powell put it:
Life is always questioning us about our vision. Life is always in the dust of our daily living. Life is always exposing our attitudes to us if we are willing to let it do that for us. If we connect this to the biblical imperative to love persons and use things then life is constantly examining our conscience for us.
The frictions of life lay in our priorities, exposing our preferences, what we really love, and how we are called to love. Matthew, chapter 25, tells us how we are called to live in order to meet Jesus: Loving persons and using things, which come at a price. It is precisely at the moment we think we cannot afford to come out of our comfortable worlds that we must.
Helping the least of our brethren does not come when we have time and money on our hands, or only when it is convenient for us. The time is not later, but now. We should give not just out of excess - time or money - but when we do not think we can.
Feed the hungry instead of splurging on what we ourselves are lusting to eat. Welcome the stranger even when we are down and least feel like it. Clothe others by forgoing something new we desire. Look after the sick when we ourselves are not feeling all that great. Take the trouble to visit those in prison, by giving up precious and carefully hoarded free time.
When I am most tempted to say I want to be left alone and I don't want to have to care for others then I know I am called to be more available: to forget my own exhaustion and reach out; to give up my own personal preferences for the good of the other; and to give back until it hurts my bank account. I am constantly asked to come out of my comfort zone and venture into the disturbing, deeper waters of the world and unite with it.
On November 18, during his morning homily Pope Francis reminded us against living a "comfortable spirituality" where we are content to be "lukewarm". He warned that feeling spiritually comfortable is a state of sin for we do not wish to engage in the world other than in ways that predict what is good for us. We only care for appearances, expending all our energies so that we look good spiritually on the outside, ignoring that a humble, contrite heart moving in the Spirit is more important. We reject a real conversion of heart that calls for action as Zacchaeus who gave back what he had taken. To love persons and use things requires a poverty of spirit that requires us to make selfless and good choices.
I like what Elizabeth Duffy wrote in her meditation for November 24* on the widow with two coins, She, from her poverty, has offered her whole livelihood Luke 21:4.
Any time we think we can no longer bear a particular circumstance, we've actually reached an opportunity - there's a chance to obey, to suffer, to serve, to give in spite of ourselves and the apparent poverty of our circumstances.
When we've reached rock bottom, our very next breath is a coin in the basket.
A good way to live life, in poverty, not tied to our possessions, material or otherwise.
Rudyard Kipling's poem If says it all for me, so enjoy:
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise;
If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken
And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools;
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on!”;
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings—nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run—
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!
* See October-December 2014 issue of Living Faith.
It struck me this is how we are as a people now. Hard, defensive and aggressive. Attack first even when in the wrong. It doesn't take much to get our back up for the boundaries of our personal worlds seem to have swelled radically, spilling over into others' worlds obtrusively. And we bristle when people so much as brush softly past our enormous, hyper fragile bubble worlds.
In the World segment of Vision Therapy, we are reminded that the biblical imperative is to love persons and use things. John Powell highlighted the theology of possession which is to enjoy fully what we have been given in this world by our Creator, but to also hold our possessions lightly in our hands, especially possessions like money, authority, acclaim and status. I would include possessions such as our intellect, talents and capabilities as well.
When we walk around with clenched fists, unwilling to let go of our possessions, we become less loving and joyful, we become watchful and distrustful, ready to pounce on those who dare lay their grubby fingers on our stuff. We end up using people to get what we want. We become afraid to live. We even cut ourselves off from the parts of reality we do not want to face or cope with and therefore excise the experience of living out both pain and pleasure in their fullness. We think only of ourselves and we do not want to deal with inconvenience, especially when it comes to others who cause it.
To counter unhealthy possessive tendencies, we are encouraged to foster a theology of dispossession which is to be free of the tyranny of our possessions. To unshackle our hearts and to instead save our hearts for love, and to save our love for persons.
This entails us keep giving God our blank cheque every day so that even when our backs are against the wall, we can respond with open hands.
As John Powell put it:
Life is always questioning us about our vision. Life is always in the dust of our daily living. Life is always exposing our attitudes to us if we are willing to let it do that for us. If we connect this to the biblical imperative to love persons and use things then life is constantly examining our conscience for us.
The frictions of life lay in our priorities, exposing our preferences, what we really love, and how we are called to love. Matthew, chapter 25, tells us how we are called to live in order to meet Jesus: Loving persons and using things, which come at a price. It is precisely at the moment we think we cannot afford to come out of our comfortable worlds that we must.
Helping the least of our brethren does not come when we have time and money on our hands, or only when it is convenient for us. The time is not later, but now. We should give not just out of excess - time or money - but when we do not think we can.
Feed the hungry instead of splurging on what we ourselves are lusting to eat. Welcome the stranger even when we are down and least feel like it. Clothe others by forgoing something new we desire. Look after the sick when we ourselves are not feeling all that great. Take the trouble to visit those in prison, by giving up precious and carefully hoarded free time.
When I am most tempted to say I want to be left alone and I don't want to have to care for others then I know I am called to be more available: to forget my own exhaustion and reach out; to give up my own personal preferences for the good of the other; and to give back until it hurts my bank account. I am constantly asked to come out of my comfort zone and venture into the disturbing, deeper waters of the world and unite with it.
On November 18, during his morning homily Pope Francis reminded us against living a "comfortable spirituality" where we are content to be "lukewarm". He warned that feeling spiritually comfortable is a state of sin for we do not wish to engage in the world other than in ways that predict what is good for us. We only care for appearances, expending all our energies so that we look good spiritually on the outside, ignoring that a humble, contrite heart moving in the Spirit is more important. We reject a real conversion of heart that calls for action as Zacchaeus who gave back what he had taken. To love persons and use things requires a poverty of spirit that requires us to make selfless and good choices.
I like what Elizabeth Duffy wrote in her meditation for November 24* on the widow with two coins, She, from her poverty, has offered her whole livelihood Luke 21:4.
Any time we think we can no longer bear a particular circumstance, we've actually reached an opportunity - there's a chance to obey, to suffer, to serve, to give in spite of ourselves and the apparent poverty of our circumstances.
When we've reached rock bottom, our very next breath is a coin in the basket.
A good way to live life, in poverty, not tied to our possessions, material or otherwise.
Rudyard Kipling's poem If says it all for me, so enjoy:
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise;
If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken
And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools;
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on!”;
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings—nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run—
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!
* See October-December 2014 issue of Living Faith.
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