Going deeper into Anna and Tobit... I desire to shine like a coneflower, like Christ.

We returned to work on Monday to get the promised, but secret if not hinted at big news... our residential program will be closing down as of June's graduation. Much talk among friends since then with more than one assuring me that my position "must be safe." Who knows? Reassurance didn't help Anna and it doesn't help me.


Monday evening I walked to my church. And spurred on by a friend, who thought it wasn't a "great" story to say the least; and a friend, who had never heard it... I let loose into story telling mode. It is my best mode by far and I laughed out loud as we explored scripture.


Before I had walked to the church, I pulled a bright orange/yellow piece of paper out of my Bible to mark a page. After the laughter, I slowed down and with some pausing read...


Dear Jesus, help us to spread your fragrance everywhere we go.
Flood our souls with your spirit and life.
Penetrate and possess our whole being so utterly that our lives may only be a radiance of yours.
Shine through us, and be so in us, that every soul we come
in contact with may feel your presence in our soul.
Let them look up and see no longer us but only Jesus!
Stay with us, and then we shall begin to shine as you shine;
so to shine as to be a light to others; the light O Jesus,
will be all from you, none of it will be ours;
it will be you, shining on others through us.
Let us thus praise you in the way you love best by
shining on those around us.
Let us preach you without preaching, not by words
but by our example, by the catching force, the
sympathetic influence of what we do.
The evident fullness of the love our hearts bear to you.
Amen


That is what was hiding in my Bible, a prayer by Cardinal John Henry Newman, which is read daily by Mother Theresa's Missionary of Charity. This prayer resonates with my belief in God. I want to shine. I have read it every day this week.


Two hours later, I sat to Examen my day and I wrote "Where are your righteous deeds?" into my journal. I decided then that I would focus on teaching science and gardening and let my job be what it is and what it will hopefully be. Basically to live with uncertainty. I decided that I would bake bread with my students the next day as they came back and heard the news. And I would sell none of it. It would all flow into my students, well, I did eat my share.


Then after examining my day, I picked up "Inviting God In" by Joyce Rupp, and the random meditation included a quote from the above prayer.


Then I went to Flickr and found someone had commented on a photo which I had posted six months ago. I looked at the title, and I had no memory as to why I called it SHINE... then I read the comments below, and I saw a Flickr friend had given name to it. I hope to one day shine like this:






peace


...

Anna and Tobit have conversations

Anna to Tobit, after being accused of stealing the goat which she has brought home ...

"Where are your acts of charity? Where are your righteous deeds? These things are known about you?" Tobit 2: 11-14

Tobit is thrown for a loop by those words. And he lands in despair and the very next thing he does is pray to God. He does not pray to have the strength to ask for the love to treat his wife in a righteous manner. No, he asks to die. Tobit has not had it real easy leading up to this conversation. Maybe he does not want to fall farther away from the righteous person, who before being blinded, would risk his own well being to bury those who had been executed.

Anna will have two conversations with Tobit during which he tries to reassure her. The first time it works and her weeping stops and she has some hope her son will survive a dangerous journey. The second time shows why reassurance is not what mournful people need. And Anna makes it real clear she does not feel better about her son who has not returned in a timely manner when Tobit reassures her that he thinks he is fine, just delayed.

However, after this fight, when she sees her son, she does one thing before running off to greet him. She tells Tobit.

Something is percolating in my brain as I read this, but it is unclear. something did become clear last night...

as I read Tobit this week, I kept thinking, I know this story, so I assumed it was from when I read the Bible several years ago. And it may be, but much more recently (a google search reminded me) I read a novel by one of my favorite authors, which was based upon this story: On the Road with the Archangel by Frederick Buechner.

After the visitors-- part 1

Mary and Joseph received visitors in both Luke (shepherds) and Matthew (wisefolk) after the birth of their son, but what they did next is not something I want to tie together in a historically accurate timeline. In the silence of Wernersville, I sit with each separately and imagine the possibilities of each. Take the child to the Temple or flee to save his life.

LUKE 2:22-38 First time I went with them to the Temple I was amazed at the awareness of Simeon and Anna.

Before going into silence, we chat at dinner where a woman is talking about Zen and mindlessness. I think I see what she was trying to say, but I am baffled, and say that I see it as mindfulness. The call to be present. The will power to be aware of God's unfolding creation. And later reclining in my easy chair, I find two servants of God whose eyes glance upon a poor couple with child and see the savior. I have it so much easier. Four Gospels, thousands of years of tradition and established churches are all here and now to tell me Jesus is my savior. Can I see it as clearly as they did?

Ten hours later I am again traveling with the family to the temple. I hear Simeon's speech to Mary as if it is being directed to me. It ends with these words "... and a sword will pierce your soul too." How did those words sit with Mary? How much for one woman to take? Anna enters the scene and knows that finally her savior has arrived and announces it to all who are seeking the redemption of Israel.

My handout for the spiritual exercises this week reminds me that my goal is to get to Know Jesus, to Love Jesus, and to Follow Jesus. That means I am headed to the cross. Mary will have much more to endure. Mother to a savior is painful business. I know the story, but for her it is still unfolding. But that does not mean that following him 2000 years later is easy.

It takes me to Julian whose sound byte is "all things will be well" But God starts by telling her, "I may make all things well."

Exactly one year ago I flew to California where my sister was suffering. Two strokes, a few blood clots, and then surgery to remove cancer from her ovaries had left her wiped out. The chemo had not even started. Would I have guessed that she would visit us 12 months later? Coming by herself? Are all things well? I don't know. But I do know our God given human bodies can heal in mystifying ways and if there is a 5 year survival rate, than some survive. Sophia renews all things. Jesus reconciles all things. We are small in the midst of all things, but we are a part of it. I think of the strength in my sister's hug after I fed her strudel a few days ago.

My stoic self melts.