In this terribly broken world, a world currently wracked with tremendous uncertainty and great pain, a world in which things do not always go as we wish them to, a world marked by tremendous joy as well as profound tragedy, we humans seem to cultivate an innate longing for control.  Why can we not control the affairs of our lives? Why can we not ensure that we are not surprised by darkness?

     As we continue our Lenten journey through our present existential abyss, we have opportunity to rethink our longing for control.  We recognize afresh that we live in a world beyond our control.  We acknowledge that we are ultimately a collection of atoms spinning madly in a nexus of space and time, avoiding everything but ourselves.
     Nonetheless, we see, again, that though we are remarkable creatures, entirely capable of directing the course of our lives, we will never understand and control it all.  We remember that we are finite, that we have limits, that our marvelous attributes can only take us so far.  Sooner or later, we encounter a bump:  we realize that we are not so remarkable that we in ourselves can decide what we can be or what existence means. How could we?  We are only us.
     Consider the "Wanderer above the Sea of Fog," standing before the world, watching, planning, waiting, yet lacking a way to make absolute sense of or control it
     And that's precisely God's point:  in order to gain control, we must give it up.  We must give up who we are now to find who we are destined to be.  That's all God's asking us to do.
     Stay well.

     As March draws to a close and the planet continues to reel from the effects of SARS-CoV-5 (its now official epidemiological name), I mention that March is, in fact, Women's History Month.  Why?  For too long, historians tended to overlook women and the role they played in moving humanity forward.  Conditioned by the social nuances of their times, and driven, perhaps, by various levels of male chauvinism, most historians, traditionally male, dismissed the contributions that women have made to the human adventure.
     Happily, this is changing.  If we are to hold that men and women are both made in the image of God and are therefore of equal worth, we err, err seriously, when we ignore, reject, or pass over the many ways that women have shaped human history for its good.  To overlook, deliberately or otherwise, the achievements of women is tragic, really:  we are in truth forgetting the meaning of the framework, physical as well as metaphysical, in which the universe functions.  It's no accident that when the writer of Proverbs 8 described wisdom, he personified it as a woman.  He knew.  He knew that even if we hold that the world has been created by God, we render it existentially meaningless if we fail to acknowledge the full measure of our fundamental humanness.
     Whether you believe in God or not, believe in the worth of every human being.  Celebrate who we are!
     

     In this time of global crisis, I share this excerpt from a book, Thinking about God, which I published in 2007:

     "Materially speaking, we all learn different things from the darknesses of our lives.  The one who loses a spouse learns things that one who loses a home does not, and the person who suffers paralysis comes away with something that someone gripped by aimlessness may not.  Yet each of us who finds himself enmeshed in the throes of darkness, if we treat our experience rightly, finds a greater vision for understanding our life and understanding what is most trustworthy in it.  We are forever changed and, if we approach our experience intelligently, for the better.  Bottom line, we grow in holiness.

            If we approach darkness with respect, we will enter into the larger meaning and perspective and wisdom it bequeaths.  We learn that in the panic of helplessness and the agony of uncertainty we find genuine power, a power rooted not in us, our abilities, or our wealth, but in our willingness and capacity to trust God.  We then find that in letting go of what we cannot know we find new ways to hang on to that which we irretrievably do:  the fact and presence of God.  We lose control of our circumstances but realize a deeper insight into our souls, our souls in which we bond, not with the travails of space and time, but with the perspective of eternity.  And we treat life with greater care, acutely understanding what it really it.

            We may never know why tragedy befalls us.  We may never know why the world is full of suffering.  We may never know why God seems silent in the face of destruction and pain.  Nor, despite all the ink that has been spilled attempting to answer these questions, we ever will (at least not in this life).  

All we know is that these things happen, that despair and tragedy visit every human being.  This is a fundamental fact of human existence.

For this reason, we know that we need to make a choice.  Do we want to believe that such things are absolutely random in a totally random universe?  Or do we want to believe that, below and beyond our world, God lives, granting purpose to all things?  How we choose will determine how we live.  Will we live with a sense of lingering uncertainty and despair, always wondering why, or will we live with a sense of abiding hope and purpose, always wondering not why, but how:  how will God make final sense of our situation?  It’s our choice.

Either way we choose, we recognize that like the eye of a hurricane, darkness nurtures wisdom in the midst of chaos, depth in the face of the shallowness and flimsiness of this material existence.  Its lessons are many and manifold.  Yet the darkness that is laid in the hands of God, the one who made us and the farthest stretches of the universe, offers the richest path of all.  

            Darkness transforms us by forcing us to trust in what we otherwise would not."

As COVID-19 continues to ripple through the world and people around the globe enter into ever deepening social isolation, I share this poem that was sent to me:

"Yes there is fear.

Yes there is isolation.

Yes there is panic buying.

Yes there is sickness.

Yes there is even death.

But, they say that in Wuhan after so many years of noise, you can hear the birds again.

They say that after just a few weeks of quiet, the sky is no longer thick with fumes, but blue and grey and clear.

They say that in the streets of Assisi, people are singing to each other across the empty squares, keeping their windows open so that those who are alone may hear the sounds of family around them.

They say that a hotel in the West of Ireland is offering free meals and delivery to the housebound.

Today, a young woman I know is busy spreading fliers with her number through the neighborhood so that the elders may have someone to call on.

Today Churches, Synagogues, Mosques and Temples are preparing to welcome and shelter the homeless, the sick, the weary.

All over the world people are slowing down and reflecting.

All over the world people are looking at their neighbors in a new way.

All over the world people are waking up to a new reality:

To how big we really are.

To how little control we really have.

To what really matters.

To love.

So we pray and we remember that, yes there is fear, but there does not have to be hate.

Yes there is isolation, but there does not have to be loneliness.

Yes there is panic buying, but there does not have to be meanness.

Yes there is sickness, but there does not have to be disease of the soul.

Yes there is even death, but there can always be a rebirth of love.

Wake to the choices you make as to how to live now.

Today...breathe.

Listen, behind the factory noises of your panic, the birds are singing again, the sky is clearing, Spring is coming, and we are always encompassed by Love.

Open the windows of your soul and though you may not be able to touch across the empty square...Sing."

     With the advent of Spring, we also remember the birthday of Johannes Sebastian Bach.  Wrapped in the rhythms of vernality and spring, Bach's birthday comes replete with the sounds of singing birds, greening forests, and deeper skies.  And his music fits the season.  Fresh, bright, and resonant with joy, Bach's music echoes the wonder of the newly born creation.
     We thank Bach for what he has shown us about life, wonder, and Spring.  We also thank Bach for giving us a glimpse of the unfolding mystery, and the mystery behind it, of this vast, vast--and loved--universe in which we revel.
     So did Bach write on every piece of music he composed, "Soli Deo Gloria" (All Glory to God Alone).  Bach knew very well from whence all things come, that we are not accidents.
     In this time of great uncertainty we can be grateful indeed that the world has a point.

     Yes, we of the planet Earth are in the grip of a frightening pandemic that is causing tremendous social and economic upheaval around the globe, and yes, more and more people are dying each day from a virus presently immune to vaccination.  On the other hand, believe it or not, today is the vernal equinox, the first day of Spring.  The days are lengthening, the sun is shining, and privations of winter are winding down.  Spring has come.  It must.
      We rejoice in the newness, we rejoice in the verdancy, we rejoice in the appearance of new life.  We rejoice in the power of the earth to, once again, rejuvenate and revive itself for our joy and wonder.  It's like a resurrection.

     

 The writer of Proverbs 27 observes that, "When the grass disappears, the new growth is seen."  Winter can be hard, winter can be harsh, and winter can be long, very long, rife with dissolution and vanishing, departure and hopelessness.  Even in the most tropical regions of the world, however, though spring, fall, and winter do not occur in the way they do in northern regions, "grass" nonetheless disappears.  Things die, things go away, things change.  And newness comes.  It's the rhythm of existence, the song of life.
     While we may not enjoy winter, personally, meteorologically, or otherwise, we walk in winters, small and large, every day, for in winters is the stuff of living, the glorious and aching mess of being alive, the raw material with which God fashions, in ways we rarely foresee, our springs.
     As the apostle Paul puts it in his first letter to the church at Corinth, the seed that falls to the ground cannot germinate unless it, now detached from its moorings, slips into the ground--no longer seen--and dies.  A seed's death is the winter that brings spring.
     Rejoice in the disappearance, rejoice in the newness.  Rejoice in a world that has both.
     And wash your hands . . . 

     Although the world remembered it a few days ago, it is worth remembering it again:  Pi Day.  If you have studied mathematics, you are likely aware of pi:  3.14 (and counting:  its decimal places are infinite), the standard, the framework, the number upon which so much else hinges.  Pi reminds us of the incredible order that is built into the world, how the universe is so remarkably tuned to what it is.  Even if the world is experiencing chaos which, many would say, in light of COVID-19, it currently is, it is, nonetheless, experiencing such disorder in the hands of an immensity of order.  While COVID-19 seems to evade all attempts to find it meaningful (religion notwithstanding), we can assure ourselves that if not for the orderliness of physical laws of the cosmos, we would not be 
able to begin to understand it as it is.  Though COVID-19 seems an aberration, and in many ways it undoubtedly is, it is an aberration occasioned and, in some respects, enabled by the immutable facts of physicality and physics upon which the universe functions.  Oddly, we wouldn't know it without knowing the essential intelligibility of the cosmos.
     Pi tells us that even if we do not believe in a creator or god, we cannot, indeed should not, avoid asking ourselves why, even if we understand its physical laws, we still do not know why we live in such a comprehensible, roughly, existence, such an irrefutably intelligible universe.
     How could such intelligence come to be?

     Although COVID-19 is dominating the news lately if you're Irish or have some Irish in you, you may well be thinking about another thing today:  St. Patrick's Day.  Patron saint of and missionary to the Irish nation, St. Patrick came into a remote and unsettled land dominated by various strands of Celtic religious thought and proceeded to teach and explain the Christian gospel.

     It seems that he did so rather successfully, too.  Despite what has historically been often very deep cultural rifts among the Irish populace, Christianity is still admired and celebrated throughout the land. God and Jesus remain very important.
     One of the beauties of St. Patrick's Day is that although it is a commemoration of the saint's supposed day of death, it is on the other hand a day of tremendous celebration.  Sure, some people celebrate to excess, but usually even this is done with every good intention:  life is beautiful!
     Amidst the revelry, however, we overlook the profundity of what Patrick had to say.  Consider one of his meditations on Psalm 46:

     "Be still and know that I am God.
      Be still and know that I am.
      Be still and know.
      Be still.
      Be."

     Amidst the "beingness" and celebration, Patrick is saying, remember from whom it all comes.  "Be" in your creator.

     Today is Friday the 13th.  It's not frequent, it's not often, but it happens.  As I think about the centuries of superstitions behind the meaning that we attach to this day, I also think about COVID-19 and the terror it is unleashing around the globe.  We may wonder how such things as this happen, we may wonder what these things mean.  If you are of a superstitious bent, you may sense an omen.  Or a portent.  Or nothing at all.
     Regardless, the virus is real.  As I look across the planet on this Friday the 13th, I see something close to mass hysteria as people and the nations they inhabit seek shelter from the storm, the storm of infection, the storm of potential death.  It can be frightening, genuinely frightening.  And it is.
     How easy it is to say that God loves us.  How easy it is to say that God cares.  These are fundamental bulwarks of Christian belief.  Yet we may not always see evidences of these truths in our lives, much less the lives of the countries to which we belong.  We may look for comfort elsewhere.  And we may well find it.
     To a point.  Though it isn't always easy to believe in the unseen, it is perhaps, in this case, the braver option.  We may not always understand the ways of "beyondness," but we understand even less the capricious contusions of a broken world:  why?  Why this?  Why that?
     The only reason we ask such things, however, is that we assume that the world has meaning, and that we who live and die in it therefore have meaning, too.  Yet how do we know this without knowing why we do?
     As a French writer pointed out a number of years ago, we cannot live without belief, a belief that, whatever we suppose or think, the world is bigger than we think.

     In a broken world, a world in which things do not always go as we wish them to, a world marked by tremendous joy as well as profound tragedy, we humans seem to cultivate an innate longing for control.  Why can we not control the affairs of our lives? Why can we not ensure that we are not surprised by darkness?

     In this week, the week of the second Sunday of Lent, we have opportunity to rethink our longing for control.  Lent is all about giving up.  We give up our time, we give up our pursuits, we give up our lives, we give up control.  We recognize that we live in a world beyond our control.  We acknowledge that if we try to control everything, we will inevitably end up creating a world of us and us alone, a world without any real point except poor little us.  We reduce ourselves to a collection of atoms spinning madly in a nexus of space and time, avoiding everything but ourselves.
     Lent is one of God's way of telling us that though we are remarkable creatures, seemingly capable of directing the course of our lives, we will never control it all.  Lent reminds us that we are finite, that we have limits, that our marvelous attributes can only take us so far.  Sooner or later, we encounter a bump:  we realize that we are not so remarkable that we in ourselves can decide what we are and what existence means.  How can we?  We are only us.
     We in Lent are like the "Wanderer above the Sea of Fog," standing before the world, watching, planning, waiting, bereft, however, of ultimate control over that which we see.
     And that's precisely God's point:  to live wisely, we must give up.  We must give up who we are now to find whom we are, in truth, destined to be.

     Purim!  Yesterday, our Jewish brethren completed their annual celebration of Purim.  Purim is a remembrance of liberation, a day to recall how God, once again, rescued the Jewish people from potential annihilation.  Like the Exodus, celebrated in about a month from today at Passover, Purim recognizes that despite all the machinery we have amassed to keep ourselves safe and secure, personally and internationally, it is ultimately transcendence that provides ultimate meaning and value to our efforts.  It is only the work of larger presences that ensure purpose in our dogged attempts to keep ourselves free.
     Purim tells the story of Queen Esther, a Jewish woman chosen by the Persian king Ahasuerus, probably Xerxes I, to be his latest bride.  As things go on, Esther's uncle, Mordecai, learns of a plot concocted by the courtier Haman to slaughter all the Jews in the Persian Empire.  In words that have resonated with believers for centuries, he goes to his niece and advises her that, "And who knows whether you have not attained royalty for such a time as this?"  It is you, Esther, and only you who can intervene with the king to save us.
     And Esther does, delivering her people from potential destruction.  Although we may not always see the passage of transcendence in our earthly reality, and while we may miss its intimations of its presence in the life of the world, Purim demonstrates to us that, as much as we might like to suppose that the cosmos is void of larger purpose, such purpose prevails.  Given our technologies, we may well be able to rescue ourselves from almost any situation of peril, yet we may overlook the greater point:  in a planet stripped of transcendent meaning, what does it really matter?
     "For such a time as this."  We really do have value.

     Yesterday, March 8th, was International Women's Day.  It's definitely an occasion to celebrate.  After all, it's no secret that, historically, women have frequently been relegated to second place status in almost every area of human existence and that, moreover, this continues to happen, too much, even today.
     It's time, indeed, way past time to remedy this malady.

     And God would agree.  If we examine the verbs the writer of Genesis uses to describe the creation of man and woman, we see why.
     The verb used to describe God's creation of Adam is a fairly common one.  It connotes a general act of making or creating.  It presents the creative act as a rather casual one, as if God put together Adam from various parts he found as he wandered to and fro through the universe (although he really did not).
     The verb used to describe the creation of Eve is very different.  Used far less frequently, it is a verb that presents creation as a very systematic, thoughtful, and carefully constructed act, as if the creator--God--is working from a blueprint, a very complex activity.     
     What does this tell us?  That although God created man and woman, he did so in different ways.  While men and women are equally important, the woman is the most complex creature in all of creation.  Why?  Out of the two beings that comprise the human species, only she is able to give birth to human offspring, that is, living, viable beings made in the image of God.  Only woman can sustain the human race.
     And this is more than enough reason to laud and celebrate women.  Clearly, if not for our mothers, none of us would be here today.  If not for women, not one person would be able to enjoy this existence.
     Most importantly, if not for women, none of us would have opportunity to find God.

     Today marks the birthday of one of history's most remarkable artists:  Michelangelo di Lodovica Buonarroti Simoni, otherwise known as, simply, Michelangelo.  Why do we find  Michelangelo so significant?

    
 Like all of us, Michelangelo was a creature of his time, a person working in one of the most fascinating eras in the history of the West:  the Renaissance.  As I have said elsewhere in this blog, the Renaissance was a singular point in the evolution of European thought.  It was a time, a very brief time, when the secular and sacred seemed to fuse together, blending in the most amazing way in all areas of human endeavor.
This was perhaps most notable in the art of the period.  Across the board, people sought to do art as a fusion of unwavering belief in the goodness and creative power of God and their comcommitant belief in their innate creative abilities, abilities given to them, they constantly affirmed, by God.  Deeply committed to the joy of art, profoundly dedicated to the presence and love of God, Michelangelo's astonishingly fertile mind produced some of the most memorable artworks in human history.

     Although much of today's art is very different from the of the Renaissance, the essential truth about its origins remains:  the human heart and mind cannot help but create, be it to the wonder of humanity and its world, the glory of God or, ideally, both.  Michelangelo demonstrates to us that we are awesome beings, beings capable of creating things beyond our imagination.  We are creatures of immense possibility, possibility inherent in a universe created by an infinite God.
     There are no limits to whom we can be.

     Is property theft?  Pierre Proudhon, the nineteenth French anarchist, thought so.  While most of us who live in the acquisitive and affluent West might recoil at such a suggestion, we might wish to think again.  We of course all like our own possessions and our own space; we all like to think that some things belong to us and no one else.  And woe to the person who tries to take them away from us, be they home, food, family, job, or gun.
     We all must acknowledge, however, that in a planet of limited resources, what one person holds often means that another person does not.  Although in terms of a car or item of clothing this does not seem significant, if we view such things through a more refined sense  it surely is.  In a planet of limited resources, consumption matters.


     Not that I am suggesting that property is, categorically, theft.  Just that unless we are willing to look at what we have as a gift that perhaps one day we will be asked to give up for a greater good, we undercut the a far deeper purpose of existence:  a flourishing life for all.
     Neither capitalism nor Marxism have room for this type of altruism.  No economic system does.  This type of posture comes only through the heart.  We may quibble with Proudhon's position, but he came to it out of a worldview absent of God.  If there is no God, then, yes, property is theft.  It is Darwinian survival at its worse.
     But if there is a God, property becomes a greater good, not for its owner, but for the world in which its owner lives.

     This past Sunday marked the first Sunday of Lent.  Repentance and circumspection dominate, as those so inclined spend ever more time pondering the exigencies within their lives, the fleeting puffs of materiality in which we have life and breath.  Life looks more remarkable than ever:  a befuddling experience, yes, but the only experience, at this point, we have.

     Given the wonder of the world, it's easy to rejoice in life without also wondering why life is, why we have it, why this existence has been given to us.  To what end do we live?
     In its call to slow down, to meditate and consider, to let go of the immediate, Lent carves multiple inroads into this question, dissembling the perfunctory and expected and normal.  It calls us to not blast life apart without knowing what we are blasting it into, to stop striving for what will not last, and to relax, as the Psalmist says, in the reality of God (Psalm 46:10).  Lent invites us to look at what matters most.  Who will we really be when we leave this world:  ashes or creatures of eternity?