Prayer Transcends Differences

I've been perusing some passages from Kathleen Norris' book "Amazing Grace: A Vocabulary of Faith". Her insights resonant deeply with my own journey of faith. She writes, "The brittle and divisive climate within the contemporary Christian church has forced me to take more seriously the value of forbearance as a Christian virtue. A conscious forbearance of the sort that Jesus demonstrates so amply in the gospels, and Paul exhorts us to in his epistles. Early in First Corinthians for example: Judge nothing, be stewards of the mystery...The polarization that characterizes so much of American life is risky business in a church congregation, but especially so in a monastic community. The person you're quick to label and dismiss as a racist, a homophobe, a queer, an anti-Semite, a misogynist, a bigoted conservative or bleeding-heart liberal is also a person you're committed to live, work, pray, and dine with for the rest of your life. ...How do they do it? They know, as one Anglican nun has put it, that their primary ministry is prayer, and that prayer transcends theological differences."

In my own experience, prayer transcends every difference. For me, Norris' words translate into the world of family life, work life, social and personal life. To be committed to Holy Mystery, is to be forbearing, as in bearing forward with hope, humility and joy the fragile connections we find ourselves growing in. I have friendships that have lasted twenty plus years and others that have only lasted a short while. I grieve the loss of friendships in my past that reveal for me my own shortcomings and weakness. I am always trying to find creative ways to restore or make amends for lost friendship to be re-established, often only to discover there are blocks I am unable to penetrate...some of them my own. Still, I hold on to hope that there will come a moment when these blocks dissolve and friendship or family connections will be restored, and the fracture forgotten...when we live as Christian community, "See how they love one another?" Some might wonder, why bother? Recently, I heard someone suggest we might actually outgrow relationships and need to shed them like the snake sheds its skin so that it can breathe. I agree with this when we are talking about relationships that are abusive; relationships that need space and distance for long periods of time if not permanently in this life...but I wonder at how easy it is to use this analogy to justify our judgment of others, our lack of commitment or Christ like love for each other...or more poignantly our lack of awareness at the underlying union we are enveloped in as the body of Christ, and how that union is made evident with prayer. Meanwhile, we hide in our niches, our comfort zones and venture out into the polarized world with our own set of polarized eyeglasses. Prayer transcends difference and makes bearing with Mystery light and easy; forbearing the only human way forward. I'm with Kathleen on this; I'll take more seriously the need for forbearance and 'judge nothing, be steward of the mystery.'

When Taking Life Too Seriously, Laugh

I was in an obsessive mode these past two days, off and on, over a very little email altercation; a misunderstanding or confusion of sorts with a prospective friend. Still don't know where that will land, but I've let go, as I seem to need to do on a daily basis, of my need for instant clarity around these things. Well, driving home today on this hot, July summer day, seeing the fields in full growth, listening to Margaret Atwood being interviewed by CBC, cleansed my soul of all of my self-imposed, small, self-seriousness and reminded me that I can laugh at myself. Atwood was answering questions with her usual dry, unassuming wit. I love her sense of humour, her love for the arts and for writing, and most of all that she can laugh at herself. The gift of humility, to be able to live with the truth of my obsessions, to watch them from a distance, like watching close friends unravel in their own paranoid obsessions, and to have the freedom to laugh at myself,...and to love myself still. This is freedom.

 What inspiration is there in settling for disappointment as the major focus for getting by in our love relationships?   I will find another point of inspiration, like laughing at myself, and thoroughly appreciating the finer characteristics of my fellow human beings...especially the ones flowing through the cracks and flaws. We chafe and we jive with each other as human beings...but in the deepest places of the soul we are one...and in my own soul, I'm hearing more and more laughter; less and less disappointment.