How--By What Spirit--Will I Walk?

I will walk in the presence of God, in the light of the living.

http://www.usccb.org/nab/091810.shtml#reading1 

All of the lessons for today remind us that there is something quite different from the natural body and the spiritual realms of our being.  But because we are so firmly locked into our natural bodies, we often let that realm of our experience dominate our realities.  And despite the problems associated with our natural bodies, we like to hold on to them and would even like to have them back in the same form again when we are resurrected.  We are really quite fond of our earthly selves.  Paul tries to help us to get past that hang up and to think of our futures in terms of the spiritual.   He tells us that we are not going to be resurrected in our earthly forms, but something a lot better.  I am old enough to be pretty glad about that.  My body has all sorts of aches and pains.  Focusing more on the spiritual is getting a lot more appealing for me now that it is quite clear that my natural body is pretty fallible.   

                                                                             Barbara Dilly, Creighton University

      http://onlineministries.creighton.edu/CollaborativeMinistry/091810.html

    I meet this morning's readings as I confront the reality that this 50-year-old body of mine, altered at birth by cerebral palsy, is at the point of diminishing stamina, and in need of today's technology--a motorized scooter.  My head and my heart are yet to be in unison in embracing this reality.  Yet, my heart knows what is coming--what will be.

    Physical balance has been an issue throughout my life.  A different balance presents itself to me now.  In question?

    What is the difference between accommodating to the needs of a physical body, who is aging, and submitting to the physical body's changing needs?  Better stated, what is the difference between being accommodating to, and being submissive to my changing body?  

   I have lived 50 years by confronting life head on, without knowing that that was what I was doing.  If someone said, "I don't think you can do it," my response has been, "Do you wanna make a bet!"

     Before I was able to be defiant intentionally or habitually, I found a way to perform the two-handed exercises the physical therapists designed to get me to use both hands by using only my fully-functioning left hand.  Before I knew what I was doing, I accommodated to my physically-impaired right hand.

     I am less defiant than I was then.  I recognize the need--the wisdom-- to be so.  

     Today's psalm says, "I will walk in the presence of God, in the light of the living."

     "How will I walk?"  The means is clear.  My question is, "How do I bring the spirit by which I lived--walked--49 of my 50 years into harmony with the Spirit by whom I am called to  live--to create?" 

By the Grace of God, I Am What I Am

     Each time I read the same words--the same biblical passage designated in one of three liturgical cycles--I hear different messages, I understand different nuances of the same words.  Different passages within the same set of liturgical readings speak to me with each reading.  I come to the readings a different person from my last reading.  I leave a changed--a transformed--being.
     This morning, By the Grace of God, I Am What I Am stood out--I Am not i am.
     "We are loved into existence.  From tears of joy, our goodness can flow."  Jeanne Schuler from Creighton University used these words to describe this morning's passages.  As I read her reflection, I heard, "...our goodness can flow."  
     Taking the biblical passage, along with Schuler's reflection, the immediate question that comes to me is, "Do I capitalize on what I Am?  Do I view myself as someone, who has a Gift to offer--a Need to fill?  Or, do I simply go along about my day being what i am without any appreciation of and for what I have been given.
Schuler says, "We are loved into existence."
     She is speaking of God.  Yet, we can take her reflection one step further. Who, in our lives, love us, such that we may offer what we have been given to other people?  
     It is easy to think that, as a Minnesotan, all I should give, if I am to give anything, is to give the nice--the Minnesota nice--parts of my life.  Yet, the Minnesota Nice parts of my life do not contain the treasures--the pearls--of my life that are encrusted in my life challenges.  
     The treasures--the pearls--others have given me have not come from the Minnesota Nice parts of their lives.  The treasures--the pearls--others have blessed me with have deeply rooted in their challenges--in the living of their challenges.
     I love to write.  Sometimes, I am frustrated that my clearest writing emerges from my darkest moments--my deepest challenges.
     I want to write with the same clarity that flows at those moments of despair.  Yet, that is not to be. That is not to say that I should aspire to deep challenge, and despair, in order to write with clarity.  I love to write, but, I am not a masochist.  Rather, if I Am to be loved into existence, I Am compelled to cry Tears of Joy, so that my Goodness can Flow.
     The problem?  The obstacle?  Happy does not equal Joy.  Happy is momentary.  Happy is fleeting.  Joy is enduring.  Joy is deeply rooted.
     I shudder think of what my life would have been--what it would be--if I believed that, i am what i am.
I do believe in living with a sense of purpose.  That does not mean I am better--that my purpose is better--than anyone else's is.  
     My purpose is my compelling reason to breathe deeply each day.
     I shudder to think what my life would be, if I thought that my challenges were excuses to use not to live to the fullest of my potential.
     By the Grace of God, I Am What I Am.  May each of us be loved into existence--may each of us cry Tears of Joy, so that Goodness may Flow.

Justice Stephen Breyer: An Open Mind

Just now, Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer expressed the essence of "an open mind."
His words excite me.  He was asked whether he has entered a case ever prejudging how he felt about a case.  He surprised Larry King, when he said that he did.
Specifically, Stephen Breyer said that to have an open mind is to "be open to changing them [your prejudgments] with argument and fact."
Breyer said that we do not come to issues with a blank slate.  We need to listen to--think about--Breyer's words when we express ourselves in speech, and in writing.  By doing so, we hold in proper esteem people in our lives--in our world.  By doing so, we have the greatest hope of effecting change in our world for the betterment of all.