Don't leave before the end

We’re so busy watching out for what’s just ahead of us that we don’t take time to enjoy where we are. — Bill Watterson

I ate lunch with George Aschenbrenner SJ last week, and when all the Lenten links started to pour into my Facebook feed and inbox, I remembered a piece of his advice that a long ago retreat director had passed along to a group of us in mid-retreat:  Don't start packing up until it's time to leave.  Don't let your mind wander ahead to "after retreat," but keep immersed in the graces of the moment.

So today I've not been leaping ahead into Lent, either by planning a steak dinner or by starting my Lenten reading (though the book is on my desk).  I've haven't packed my bags for the desert quite yet, but am trying to keep a measure of the ordinary for this last day.

Give Me A Word: Throw yourself before God

St. Simon the Stylite in his tower and a visitor.

I am writing a Lenten series for CatholicPhilly.com organized around the sayings of the desert fathers and mothers. What words would they have for us, in Lent's desert, that we might be saved?

If you are of a mind to join me on this adventure each week, here are some questions I am thinking about!   There are some resources posted at the end for reflection as well.

Do you ever long for a desert experience?
What sort of desert do you imagine visiting?
What do you think these desert solitaries might have to offer us in modern times?
Do you think it depends on whether your trip to the desert is voluntary or not?

The reflection appeared on CatholicPhilly on 3 March 2014.

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In his early days, Abba Euprepius went to see an old man and said to him, “Abba, give me a word so that I may be saved.” — from the Apophthegmata Patrum

I’m dreaming of deserts these days, and of a cave tucked high into the sides of a dry river wadi, its entrance warmed by the sun, its depths all mystery. A rough and narrow path to the door clings to the cliff side, discouraging casual visitors.

I can’t be the only one dreaming of escaping to warmer places. Winter has worn out its welcome in so many ways. Most of my driveway is still covered in mounds of sooty snow. My teaching schedule is in disarray, and with two more storms on the horizon, I have little hope of getting it back on track soon.

Too, we’re sitting on the edge of Lent, with its images of the Israelites wandering in the desert and of Jesus, retreating to the desert to fast and to pray. But I suspect my desert imaginings are rooted more what I’ve been reading than the weather or the liturgical season — I’ve been soaking in the words of the men and women who came to the Egyptian desert in the 3rd and 4th centuries, seeking God, the people we call the desert fathers and mothers.

We think of the desert as an inhospitable place, a place of privation, a place where nothing grows. But the deserts vast horizons offer a certain safety, an ability to see clearly the dangers well before they arrive on your doorstep. There is also a certain extravagance in choosing the desert, in throwing caution to the wind, leaving nearly everything and everyone behind, and choosing to face God alone.

Visitors to Egypt at the time reported thousands of men and women, living as hermits in the desert outside the walls of the towns and cities. I wonder if this what Isaiah meant when he prophesized that “The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad, the desert shall rejoice and blossom; like the crocus it shall blossom abundantly…” [Is 35:1-2a]

The fathers and mothers of the desert were not seeking to be mystics or sages, but to simply grow closer to God in the silence. They prayed, they fasted, and they were famously hospitable to those who came to see them. People sought out these hermits, walking the dry riverbeds and clambering up the cliff sides, asking them for “a word,” that they might be saved. Their short sayings were passed on, from brother to brother, from mothers to their sisters in Christ, and finally collected in written form, so that fifteen centuries later we, too, might have “a word” from the desert.

Lent is often called a desert time. What do I seek in the Lenten desert, a desert that God promises us will blossom abundantly? What words of salvation would the fathers and mothers of the desert have for me?

As Ash Wednesday approaches, I hear Abba Poemen’s extravagant advice: “Throw yourself before God, do not measure your progress, cast away your own will — these are the tools of the soul.” What would God make of me this Lent, if I walk out, alone and without expectations, into these desert days?

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To read from Scripture: Isaiah 55:10-13

To pray: 
Take, Lord, and receive all my liberty,
my memory, my understanding, and my entire will,
All I have and call my own.
You have given all to me.
To you, Lord, I return it.
Everything is yours; do with it what you will.
Give me only your love and your grace, that is enough for me.
— St. Ignatius of Loyola, Suscipe


 To listen:
 

“Silent , surrendered, calm and still,
Open to the word of God.
Heart humbled to his will.
Offered is the servant of God.”
— Margaret Rizza

Crying alleluia at the edge of the desert

I'm standing in the desert these days, praying my way into two series of reflections on the desert fathers and mothers, praying my way through some days where every time I open my door (or email or phone) there's a sandstorm going on out there, blowing grit into my eyes, making it hard to see, hard to breathe, virtually impossible to see how to move forward.

Yet, somehow, Her Most Holy Wisdom keeps poking her head up over the dunes, crying, "look this way; see me; I am solace in the midst of woe, a drenching rain in the desert."  Alleluia.

This column from CatholicPhilly.com grew out of an earlier post here.  It appeared on 28 February 2014.  And if you are in need of soaking in some alleluias before the long silence, try this playlist.

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“Let’s see how many alleluias we can get in before Lent begins,” suggests my pastor as he pages through the breviary to pick a hymn to open Morning Prayer. I know what he means; I’m never as mindful of all the ways alleluia plays in my life as I am on the brink of Lent.

 A single clear voice chants in the silence. Alleluia. Trumpets fly and organs resound. Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia. A gospel choir sways. Alleluia. A psalmist pulls at a harp in the desert 3,000 years ago. Alleluia. Praise the Lord, in Hebrew. We’ve been singing “alleluia” a long time.

My son Chris sang Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah at his voice recital a few weeks ago. I had heard it before, but listening to him sing I was struck by the many ways I sing “alleluia,” from James Chepponis’ resoundingly majestic Festival Alleluia to the rusty-voiced response I make to the lector’s invocation at morning Mass.

Cohen wrote dozens of verses when he was composing the piece, trying to grapple with the many meanings he heard in the word “alleluia.” Was it holy, broken, cold, blazing with light? I wonder if this is how the psalmists felt, trying to figure out how to sing out their praise of God. Baffled. Overcome. Broken.

Last week in church, the little girl sitting near me was restless. She might have been all of 3 years old, her bright purple bow bobbing up and down as she climbed on and off the pew. As the first chord to the Gospel Acclamation from the Mass of Glory was struck, her mother bent over and whispered to her, “This is your song!” Suddenly she was quiet. The cantor sang it through once, and when she raised her arms, I heard from behind me in a clear and delightful soprano, “alleluia, al-le-luuu-ia!”

Her mother was so right. Alleluia is not only her daughter’s song, but all our song. Like Daniel’s three young men in the furnace, hearing the praise of the Lord resounding in all creation, and on the mouths of all the people of God, we are created to praise the Lord.

I am struck by the thought that if alleluia is truly our song, we might consider responding to everything that happens with that one word, “alleluia” — praise the Lord. Chanting it with passion. Humming it in the ordinary. Spitting it out through clenched teeth. Crying it aloud in joy. Howling it in our worst grief. Holding it in expectant silence through Lent’s desert. Alleluia. Alleluia. Alleluia.

At the very end of the song, Cohen says he’ll “stand before the Lord of Song with nothing on [his] tongue but Hallelujah.” Could I stand before the Lord of Song, with nothing on my tongue but “hallelujah”? Then again, could I stand before God with anything on my tongue, but alleluia?

(Mis)communication skills: feline edition

Academic cat companion in a more helpful mode.

What the cat said: Mwrrr.
What I understood:  Please let me in, it's cold outside.
What the cat actually meant:  I have a bird to play with, may I bring it in?
What I said:  Fluffy, no, no!  (inarticulate shrieking)

This is not what the doctor ordered when it came to vocal rest.

The bird is gone, the cat is annoyed with me, I may now return to my regularly scheduled lunch.

How do you pray with the Psalms?

Rita Ferrone has a post up at PrayTell asking how people pray with the Psalms (prompted by her two pieces here and here).

In the second of her two essays she explores Jewish theologian Andre Chouraqui's beautiful essay on the psalms which introduced his translation of them into the French.  Chouraqui called the psalms "150 mirrors of our agonies and our resurrections," an image that continues to call me to hear them as giving voice not just to my own prayers, but as a way for the whole Church, indeed all of creation, to be heard groaning.

When I first read Rita's questions, particularly this one: "What are the challenges, struggles, blessings and rewards of praying with the Psalter, as you’ve experienced it?"I struggled to think how I might respond.  I've prayed the Liturgy of the Hours for 30 years, and think I am of the same mind as Chouraqui — “We were born with this book in our very bones." I've recited the psalms in private, chanted them with monastic communities, sung them at liturgy, and drawn them from the depths of my soul while my husband lay dying. I've heard them on Christ's lips as he hung upon the cross during the Exercises, shivered to hear Allegri's Miserere searing soprano line, swayed as my sons' chorale beat out a percussive Psalm 150.  The psalms are in my bones, the psalms are my bones.

I suspect it might be easier for me to talk now about the moments when the psalms are not hovering at the edge of my mind, not gently insinuating themselves into my day, than to talk about how I pray them.

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Ferrone quotes Chouraqui:  "This book was something written down; but they lived it even as they read it, and it was no less necessary to live this book than to read it." which made me think of this snippet of Dietrich Bonhoeffer:  "The only way to understand the Psalms is on your knees, the whole congregation praying the words of the Psalms with all its strength."

Perhaps the only way to talk about praying the Psalms, is to pray them with all your strength, allowing your voice to be pulled into the chorus that has sung these prayers for thousands of years.