God "Loves" Me?

GOD.

Simply saying this three letter word can conjure up different thoughts for different people these days. Thoughts that perhaps are hard to wrap our heads around, let alone our arms: A Bright Light, billowing clouds, a booming disembodied voice, a Force that is distant and yet somehow accessible, or even a kind of Cosmic Grandpa who some say actually hears us through a thing called prayer.

For others today, the word GOD seems small, antiquated, and irrelevant. Hasn't science disproved all that supernatural stuff? "We've evolved as a species and feel it no longer necessary to have a psychological crutch like GOD to get us through this life."

Finally, for others, (and this one perplexes the unbeliever to no end) GOD is as close and intimate and personal as, well, a person. God, they say, is above all a Lover, in fact, and He is crazy about us measly humans! So crazy that He came among us and has now and forevermore, a human face, a human heart! These folks believe Divinity married humanity in Jesus, forever.

Our first experience of God is so important, we either experience Him as the police guard that wants to punish or as Creative Love that awaits.

- Pope Benedict XVI

I think in our American culture, so focused on ME that we too often forget about the OTHER, the idea of an objectively real and personal God somehow feels like an affront to our freedom, our reason, and individuality. God? Oh, right. Him again? The Big Landlord? Believing in Him means joining the rank and file and stifling the fun. It means losing your spontaneity and intellectual freedom because every Sunday you have to blindly "pay the rent." Or pay for "fire insurance," as some glibly joke. But this is ridiculously simplistic.

In our deepest being we all know that we were not made for laws. We were made for love.

I think this fear of losing ourselves in a love relationship with God is actually keeping us from true freedom. After all, when we close the door to the transcendent, we fail to become fully human. A caged, clipped bird can forget it was designed to fly.

Humans by nature are religious beings, made for the Infinite, made for the Bottomless Mystery of a God Who loves us. We have a longing for this unending love, truth, and a beauty that does not fade. Need proof? Just listen to your own heart's desires! (or the music of Journey or Foreigner, heh heh). We long to give ourselves to the Infinite, to lose ourselves in Love, but when we close our minds to the idea of it being really real, transcendent, responsive, immanent through grace, then we clip our own wings. Consequently, we discover that we cannot give ourselves fully to anyone.

“Once God is forgotten... the creature itself grows unintelligible.”

- Gaudium et Spes

When we deny or dismiss the Infinite as unreal or irrelevant, we end up eventually stagnating in a pool of boredom. or narcissism, or egocentrism. What is the meaning of life if the source of that Life is dead? We then fall back on ourselves, but without the real power to love, to get beyond ourselves, to transcend. Then we settle on giving part of our hearts but not all, or worse, we go through relationships grasping instead of trusting that love will be given to us.

So where is the truth that will set us free? How can we know if God is real, and really loves me? Read Scripture.

When we're quiet and alone with that book, we can get some pretty deep thoughts. You might even catch a thought like the one Augustine whispered to himself way back in the 4th century when he cracked open the Scriptures. "The deepest desire of my heart is to see another and to be seen by the Other."

Is God Love? Is it just Law? Well, ask God. Let Him in, and you'll discover you have an infinite capacity for Him. And if God is truly a Person, a Communion of Persons, in fact, then how else could we actually know Him unless we let Him into the heart? I don't think my way through relationships with people, I don't reason out the issues at stake, mentally prep myself to fall in love. "On September 24, 2009 at precisely 9:37am I will fall in love." No, I reach out and speak words. I open the mind and let down the guard a bit with the one standing before me. I listen, wait, gaze long and let myself be looked upon. That look builds a relationship. Why should this be any different with God?

Prayer can progress, as a genuine dialogue of love, to the point of rendering the person wholly possessed by the divine Beloved, vibrating at the Spirit's touch, resting filially within the Father's heart. This is the lived experience of Christ's promise: "He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him."
- Pope John Paul II, Novo Millennio Ineunte 33

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Originally posted at The Heart of Things

The Ultimate Wedding Singer

How close do you want to be with God?

I guess it depends on where we are in this sometimes amazing, often confusing, maybe mundane or heart-wrenching journey of life. I think in the beginning that question can send a little shiver up the back of our necks. Intimacy with God? Yikes. God is just a Big Person, and we're like little kids in the Principal's office. Intimacy isn't in the vocabulary yet.

As we mature and "find ourselves," maybe we see God differently. But we're afraid that He will take over, take all of me, in the relationship. "Be all demanding and stuff." What about my freedom, my personality, my style? Will there be anything left in me but a bland sort of niceness? Will God just pour "holiness" into the mold of my being while the flavor that is me slowly dissipates?

"Oh, yeah. He used to be so much fun. Then he became.... a Christian."

I think in our American culture, so focused on ME that we forget about the OTHER, the idea of becoming holy somehow feels like an affront to our freedom. In our minds, becoming holy could even connote becoming less human. Closeness with God equates with far-ness from fun.

Now if all we've got is this skewed vision, I would affirm those fears. I didn't want to give in when I first heard the Divine Whisper, slipping through the scenes of Luke Skywalker watching the suns set, or in the mystical melodies of John Williams, or the sculptured and ethereal beauties of the Sistine Chapel. For the above reasons and for more, I was a little nervous about leaping into the arms of this unearthly Love. Does this resonate with anyone?

I think through fear of losing ourselves in a relationship with God, we then fail to really give ourselves fully to anyone. We end up stagnating in a pool of doubt, giving part of hearts but not all, or worse, we go through relationships grasping instead of trusting that love will be given.

In those classic lines from the film The Wedding Singer... We give up on this idea of selfless love. Robbie decides to live footloose and fancy free like Sammy:

Robbie: "That's it, man, starting right now, me and you are going to be free and happy the rest of our lives!"

But then a person gets to wondering if there's more to this highway than just my way.

Sammy: "I'm not happy. I'm miserable."

Robbie: "Wha - what?"

Sammy: "See... I grew up idolizing guys like Fonzie and Vinnie Barbarino because they got a lot of chicks. You know what happened to Fonzie and Vinnie Barbarino?"

Robbie: "Yeah, I read that Fonzie wants to be a director and Barbarino, I think... the mechanical bull movie? I didn't see it yet."

Sammy: "Their shows got canceled. Because no one wants to see a fifty-year-old guy hitting on chicks."

Robbie: "So what are you saying?"

Sammy: "What I'm saying is all I really want is someone to hold me and tell me that everything is going to be all right."

There it is.

Read Scripture. All He wants is to gather us in like a mother hen gathers her chicks. Who made the love we want afterall? Who set it swirling into time and space, tumbling straight into the world from the mystical Heart of the Trinity?

When we're quiet and alone, we can get those deep thoughts. You might come up with an answer that sounds like the one Augustine whispered to himself way back in the 4th century (the human heart never changes). "The deepest desire of my heart is to see another and to be seen by that other person."

So we can let Him in. In fact, if we want to really know love, we must let Him in. And then when we hear a gospel like today's, we can smile:

"The mother of Jesus and his brothers arrived at the house. Standing outside, they sent word to Jesus and called him. A crowd seated around him told him, "Your mother and your brothers and your sisters are outside asking for you." But he said to them in reply, "Who are my mother and my brothers?" And looking around at those seated in the circle he said, "Here are my mother and my brothers. For whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother."
- Mark 3:31-35

Imagine being one of those people gathered around Him, in the dusky twilight of the Judean hills, when those words of Divine Intimacy first fell from His lips... When Love Divine breathed through our biology, and we could touch theology!

Today, I am invited into this circle. I too can sit before Him, in the light of this Face; the face of the man who entered into our human family to lift us up to His Divine Family. That Family is my true home, that Love is my destiny. Come Lord Jesus...

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Originally posted at The Heart of Things

God All in My Face

We have Mass every morning at Malvern Prep. Last week, because of a spring concert and the need to set things up in chapel, Fr. Steve had to make a makeshift altar and bring it down in front of the first row of pews. Now I usually sit in the front row for Mass to get up and read, so when the altar came down, my entire field of vision was filled up with the sacred stuff of the Lord's Supper; the linen cloth, chalice, candles, the paten with the host on it, the hands of Fr. Steve moving over the wine and the water and the bread at the moment of consecration. I could almost reach out and touch the altar if I tried. God was all in my face.

This was a little overwhelming; I was drawn in, captured. There was no escape and no chance for distraction. When God is all in your face, you have to look at Him. And when I looked I didn't see a big scary Overlord coming to dominate me or show commandments down my throat. I saw a God Who became little, to liberate me and give me the dominion over my weakness that I desperately need. He's so tiny that He can fit inside me and fix me from the inside out.

This experience got me thinking about the way God works. God loves stuff. He loves the material world, His first gift and testament to us. And even though we've scribbled all over it and torn out some of the pages, He still sends us love letters through this book. He comes to us through the things He's made; bread and oil and water and wine. He's redeemed us with their help, especially in the physical sign and reality of Jesus' very flesh and blood!

So it strikes me that God doesn't want to remain forever distant from us, "out there" past Orion or lodged merely as a thought in the cerebral cortex of men and women. He wants to get into our blood, get under our skin, and He firgured out how to do it in the Eucharist that I was only 5 feet away from last week. Isn't this nuts? Isn't He crazy about us? That's the only explanation for me that works. He's not the dominating Judge with a beard beaming white and flowing robes pointing a gabel at me. He's a God Who's become so small just for the love of me.

I want to encourage everyone reading this to try letting Him in even more. Open up. Come closer to the altar, that place of fire and healing. I've discovered there's no other way to be cured of my arrogance, pride, fear, doubt, guilt than to let Him in. He's the cure, the antidote for all the poisons we've taken into our bodies and souls, knowingly or unknowingly. And He's not going to yell at us for being so foolish. All He wants to do is set things right again.

Howard Jones and the Meaning of Life

Howard Jones. This name, depending on how "old" you are, may have stirred up images unbidden to your mind, images from a faraway past; images of parachute pants, breakdancing, big hair (exhibit A), scenes from random movies involving, perhaps, John Cusack or Sean Astin from Goonies. Ah yes, the 80's...

I grew up in the 80's and was shaped by the soundtracks of John Williams, the movies of Steven Spielberg and George Lucas, and yes, the lyrics from songs like Pink Houses, Cherry Bomb, and artists like Bruce Springsteen, Journey, and Mr. Howard Jones.


The 80's culture wasn't all squealing guitars and bad hair you know (except maybe Flock of Seagulls... Now that was some bad hair). As in every time and place, there were human beings with the same longings and desires of the heart for love and beauty and freedom that there are today. As I re-listen to the songs I used to love, I realize that there were some profound truths whispering through the big honkin' headphones of my big clunky Walkman.
So let he without Reboks cast the first stone...

Ponder these lines from the song Everlasting Love by Howard J.

He wasn't looking for a pretty face
She wasn't searching for the latest style
He didn't want someone who walked straight off the TV
She needed someone with an interior smile

This is what Pope John Paul II would allude to in his teaching on human sexuality as the "interior gaze" that men and women should have for one another... To see the person and not just the parts... the soul and personality shining through the human body.

She wasn't looking for a cuddle in the back seat
He wasn't looking for a five minute thrill
She wasn't thinking of tomorrow or of next week
This vacancy he meant to permanently fill

YES! Love is meant to be exclusive, faithful, more than a flash in the pan. Howard, you are the man. And then he cries out with a longing that I know echoes in my heart, and must in every heart... a longing that betrays the lies of our wounded culture that sees sex as the be all and end all of life here below. No, human love is pointing towards a Love Divine, and "Everlasting Love!" That's why we are so caught up in it in our movies and our music.

I need an everlasting love
I need a friend and a lover divine
An everlasting precious love
Wait for it, wait for it, give it some time

Wow... so today, in the office or in the car, listen in to those "soft rock" stations, try and discern in the lyrics of these lovers this longing for More. We can't deny it... we are made for it.

Let's end with another icon of the 80's.... John Cougar Mellencamp:

A million young poets
Screamin' out their words
Maybe someday
Those words will be heard
By future generations
Ridin' on the highways that we built
Maybe they'll have a better understanding
Maybe they'll have a better understanding....

Hole Hearted

OK, raise your hand if there was ever a time in your life when you thought to yourself "If I could just have/meet/become/get _________ then I would be totally happy.

"Now raise your hand if you subsequently got/met/became that ___________ and thought to yourself " But wait.... If I could just have/meet/become _________ then I would really be totally happy."

The rock band Extreme once sang: "There's a hole in my heart that can only be filled by you, and this hole in my heart can't be filled with the things I do…"I remember hearing this song and running out to grab it when it first debuted in 1991 as a "single" - a little cassette tape with just the one song on it. Old school, I know. Right off the bat my spiritual sense was tingling, like Spiderman. "Oooo, why yes, I have one of those holes in my heart too," I thought to myself. "Seems like everything I think will fill it just fails to satisfy. I always want more!"

Life's ambition occupies my time
Priorities confuse the mind
Happiness one step behind
This inner peace I've yet to find

Wow.... Is this not the soundtrack of our lives? Are we not all starving for inner peace? Look at the self-help sections in bookstores. I just did a google search for "self help" and it gave me 95,300,000 websites to visit. Seriously, who's got that kind of time?Thanks be to God I've come to realize a simple truth that will save me all of that searching: Self-help is useless. I can't help myself. I'm helpless. I can't "pick myself up by my own bootstraps." That's physically impossible.

This hole in my heart.... this longing for More, this sehnsucht that sometimes seems to pull my heart out of me in a crazy mixture of joy and pain can only be filled, quenched, and completed by the Maker of my heart.If I'm not blind why can't I seeThat a circle can't fitWhere a square should beI think most of us have come to realize this second truth; that nothing can fill our hearts... that is, no-thing can fill our hearts. That our hearts are made for relationship, for other persons, and ultimately the Persons of the Holy Trinity, the Three Who are Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

How long it takes for many of us to come to this discovery... for us to make this journey out of self, to empty ourselves so that God might fill us? Sometimes a lifetime. But all along we should keep up the journey. Keep singing the songs of our generation, but with a heart that stops at nothing to find the truth that really fills us. We've got to scratch below the vinyl so to speak, until we come to the core, to the very heartbeat of Music itself, to the Sanctuary where all Song is born. There, finally, we'll find true harmony.

Here are the lyrics from another melody:

I will rise then and go about the city; in the streets and crossings I will seek Him whom my heart loves. I sought him but I did not find him. The watchmen came upon meas they made their rounds of the city: Have you seen him whom my heart loves? I had hardly left them when I found him whom my heart loves. I took hold of him and would not let him go...

- Song of Songs 3:2-4

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This is a post from the new blog "Twisted Mystics" Listen to our radiospot
on the first Tuesday of each month at 7:10am here!

How Can I Bring God into a Dating Relationship?

What a powerful question, but I feel I should warn you right from the start, that’s dangerous business. Once you let God in there’s no telling where things might end up. In the immortal words of Kip Dynamite, you just might find your “soulmate” and be ridiculously at peace for the rest of your life.

First off, I think we should revisit just what we mean when we speak of the reality of God. I think this is key because the world can often distort the true image of God. The clear waters of our baptism can get a little muddied by our personal sins, and a true image of God can get twisted into something either scary, distant, or always waving a finger at us when we mess up. Is that God?

Let’s go back to the beginning…

Remember when you were five or six and the world was one big Wonder Land? Everything was a gift then, wasn’t it? From a snack to a bike ride to snowflakes. Here’s the thing: we need to see everything still as a gift, as something flowing from the Giver that is meant to bring us joy. This counts for people too. So as you grow older, meet new friends, start dating, the best attitude is to see in everything the gift that God wants to give. A mystic named Caryll Houselander once said “Every ordinary thing in your life is a word of God's love: your home, your work, the clothes you wear, the air you breathe, the food you eat.... the flowers under your feet are the courtesy of God's heart flung down on You! All these things say one thing only: ‘See how I love you.’”

Wow. So who is God? Ultimately the One Whose Love is the seed of all loves! If that’s the case, how could we not have Him as a part, and indeed the heart, of all of our relationships, especially the ones that have the spark of love in them? If we keep God (aka Love) out of our relationships, then what are they based on?

STARTLING NEWS:
All that is Good, True, and Beautiful participates in God. When you see a great movie that moves you, and you talk about it, you’re sharing in God. When you go to visit your boyfriend’s sick grandpa or go to Mass on a Sunday with your girlfriend (great idea), you’re living in God. When you walk in the fields together and you’re struck by the beauty of creation, you are both sharing in the beauty of the Creator. If you’re an honest seeker of the Good, the True and the Beautiful, then you already have God at the heart of your relationships. The next step is naming this, acknowledging Him; not being afraid to admit that He’s the One you want at the heart of your dating. (It’s a great way to clear away superficiality and pettiness, trust me.)

Letting God into our dating is a real adventure. It keeps things real, and wakes us up to the miracle of our uniqueness; the uniqueness of everyone, every shade and texture on this coat of many colors that is the human family. This is not easy, especially for teenagers with the weight of peer pressure bearing down. But we must look into each other's eyes. We must return to that innocence and openness that we had as children, looking, seeing, receiving the gift, not grasping at it. If we see dating as sharing in God’s gifts, then life will become this adventure!

There’s a line at the end of Les Miserables….. “to love another person is to see the face of God.” Wow. Take that one to the dating scene. Make respectful love the first move, not lust, and you’ll find God in the center of that relationship. Let the journey begin!

Words of Hope

"It is Jesus in fact that you seek when you dream of happiness, he is waiting for you when nothing else you find satisfies you; he is the beauty to which you are so attracted; it is he who provokes you with that thirst for fulness that will not let you settle for compromise; it is he who urges you to shed the masks of a false life; it is he who reads in your hearts your most genuine choices, the choices that others try to stifle. It is Jesus who stirs in you the desire to do something great with your lives, the will to follow an ideal, the refusal to allow yourselves to be grounded down by mediocrity, the courage to commit yourselves humbly and patiently to improving yourselves and society, making the world more human and more fraternal."

- Pope John Paul II, World Youth Day Address 2000

"There is one and only one possible road to joy: selfless love."
- Peter Kreeft