THE HOUND OF HEAVEN

Jack, a boyhood friend, and I were emailing back and forth to set a date to get together before the holidays set in. After we set the date and place, his and Kathy’s home, he talked to his brother Tom and mentioned that Arlena and I were coming over for dinner. Tom said that he had been listening to Sirius XM a few days before and heard a song by The Vogues that he remembers me using in a sermon forty-four years ago and remembered what it was about!

Jack went on in his email to ask me about a poem that has been haunting him almost as long, if not longer, Francis Thompson’s The Hound of Heaven. I said that I remember it well because it was the favorite poem of my high school English teacher. I also said that as famous as that poem is, I did not like it back then and I still don’t, mainly because I am not a fan of poetry.

After I sent my email, I found the poem online and read it again. I still don’t like it. It takes too much work to decipher, but I suppose that is what all good poems are to do: make us ponder the words, wrestle with their meaning, make them part of our being. I don’t want to work that hard: give it to me plain and simple…and make it rhyme.

Nevertheless, I worked my way through the poem and have to admit that while it was difficult to get through, it was and is worth it. The truth is, the imagery Thompson paints has remained with me since high school. In fact, it is so vivid that it is indeed very memorable and unforgettable no matter how difficult the poem.

The picture Thompson paints, at least for me, is about me, about my sometimes relationship with God. The truth and the reason why the poem is so famous is that the poem speaks to every one of us and our often relationship to God. We all, if I may be so bold to include every believer, spend an inordinate amount of time running away from God, running away from our responsibilities to live as God wants us to live, as we know we should be living, as we truly want to live.

The saving grace is that God, The Hound of Heaven, keeps chasing us down, never lets us get too far away. Eventually we stop running away and start back towards the Hound. Would that we remain that way. But we do not. All too often we turn tail and run away once again; and once again the Hound sets out after us, catches up to us and brings us back home.

The good news is that the chases are fewer and further between as we grow older and wiser, but they never end. That’s what sin is all about: our going after what we know and the Hound knows we want but do not need, after what is harmful to us and others but what seems so delicious and desirous.

And why would the Hound of Heaven give up on us, stop chasing after us? After all, the Hound loves us so much that he sent his son to give his life for us because of his love for us. What’s a little chase now and then?

PEACE ON EARTH

The message of the angels on that first Christmas morning was a message of peace, peace on earth, the whole earth and not simply that part of the earth where the Christ Child was born. The message was – and is – that Jesus was born among us to bring peace to a very divisive and divided world. Yet when we observe our own world, the world of 2012, not much has changed. And there is certainly not peace on earth, far from it.

What happened? Was Jesus a failure? Of course not! Those who failed and who continue to fail are those who profess the name “Christian”. We are the ones, we and our ancestors in the faith, we are the ones who have failed to bring peace on earth. Jesus did not come to bring peace in his own person but, in his own person, came to show us how to bring peace to this world.

Jesus’ “How to” manual was not all that difficult back then and it is not all that difficult today. It has not been updated nor is it out of date, nor was it ever. To bring peace to this world, to have peace on earth, all one need do is follow Jesus’ example, namely, to love everyone all the time. That does not mean that we ignore behavior that is not peaceful, that we do not name sin as sin. Jesus did not and neither should we.

What it does mean is that peace on earth only comes when each one of us lives our lives as Jesus lived his. The reason why there is not peace today is that we have not so lived our lives in such a manner, not since Jesus’ time and not today. The fact that we have not does not mean that living such a life is an impossibility. It simply means that we have not lived such a life.

If nothing else, that should give us pause, especially at this time of the year when the celebration of that angelic annunciation is upon us. While it is easy to look around us, around our world, and note the lack of real peace among nations and among people and bemoan the truth that we have failed to live up to Jesus’ teaching and example both individually and collectively, that is only for starters.

Part of the meaning and message of Christmas as well as that angelic salutation is for each of us to pause for a while and take some serious reflective time to examine our own peace-making responsibilities. Individually we cannot bring peace to this world but we can bring peace to our very small corner of the world. We can live in such a way that we are bearers of peace and not bearers of division.

“Blessed are the peacemakers, “Jesus once said. After observing the world in which we live, someone once added to Jesus’ words: “Blessed are the peacemakers for they will never run out of work to do.” Unfortunately, sadly, the peace on earth the angels proclaimed and that Jesus modeled, that peace will never be a reality in this world given our sinfulness.

That fact, however, does not excuse us who call ourselves Christians from doing what we can to be peacemakers in any and every way we can. We have lots of work to do.

WHERE HAVE ALL THE ANGELS GONE?

This is not a rant. It is a reality and I am not certain if I wished it were not, or not. The reality is that Christmas has become both a holy day and a holiday, separate and not always equal. In fact, in all truth, no rant intended, the holiday seriously trumps the holy day. It is not even close. The holiday lasts, these days anyway, over a month. The holy day lasts hardly a day even if or when it is celebrated.

A further truth is that the vast majority of people who celebrate the holiday do not celebrate the holy day. For them the holy day, Christmas Day,  is all about the holiday and nothing more. What is more, they barely even realize or recognize the fact that the holiday was once dependent on the holy day and is the result of the holy day. And they do not care.

Even the merchants of the holiday have forgotten this fact. This became even clearer to me while Arlena and I did some holiday shopping. We have a custom of giving our daughters a holiday gift, an inexpensive gift as a reminder of both the holiday and the holy day. One of our daughters has been receiving an angel. Try as we might, nowhere in the store after store we entered looking for an angel gift did we find any angels. I wondered, “Where have all the angels gone?” There were lots of snow men, Santas in abundance, Christmas elves everywhere, but there were no angels let alone Baby Jesus’s.

A further truth is that many of those who realize, who fully understand that the holy day is the reason for the holiday, that, as is often said, “Jesus is the reason for the season,” themselves do not celebrate the holy day. Christmas has, even for them, become solely a holiday. Not only have all the angels gone away, so has the celebration of the birth of Jesus taken a holiday, if you will.

Now I fully understand and even give thanks for the fact that the spirit of the holy day is very much a part of the spirit of the holiday. That spirit can be found in most of those who line up hours ahead on Black Friday to grab the Door-buster Specials that are being offered to lure them into the stores to buy and buy and buy. We seem to be kinder and more courteous this holiday season even as we are often more frazzled than ever trying to get ready to celebrate the holiday. The spirit and meaning of the holy day are alive amid the holiday frenzy.

This is good, but is it enough? Should we not take some time, and it really is not that much time – an hour or so – to truly celebrate the holy day, the way it should be celebrated, with worship? This is not meant to be a guilt trip so much as it is a reminder that giving thanks to God for the many blessings that we have all received, undeserved blessing at that, thanks for being able to celebrate the holiday in the way we do, should be a no-brainer. Should be.

The holy day will be here soon. Will we be among those who give no thought of it and simply celebrate the holiday or will we be those who celebrate it with thanks, thanks for the both the holy day and the holiday?

SERMONS, SHEPHERDS AND SHEEP

Bishop McConnell began his Convention Sermon last month that he based on Jesus the Good Shepherd Gospel passage by proclaiming, “I am not the Good Shepherd.”  He repeated that statement at least twice and then had all of us in the congregation say it along with him. To be honest, that is all I remember about his sermon. That is no reflection either on the sermon or on our Bishop. Most of the time, come Wednesday morning, I can’t remember what I preached about the preceding Sunday.

In fact, the fact that I can remember anything the Bishop said makes it a memorable sermon. I dare say that all of us have heard what we would call great sermons over the years and, in truth, can’t remember any of them no matter how great, how moving, how inspiring, how anything the sermon or sermons might have been at the time. It’s the nature of the beast.

So, if no one ever truly remembers what we say in a sermon, why do we insist on preaching in the first place? Is it simply an ego thing, namely that we like to hear ourselves speak and believe that we actually move hearts and minds with our words? Perhaps. Yet the reality is that sermons are teaching tools both for the preacher and those preached to. Every once in a while something is said that resonates with a hearer or two and that is enough. If most sermons fall on mostly deaf ears, so be it. One person getting something out of a sermon is enough to make the sermon worth preaching.

It was worth all the Bishop’s work in preparing his sermon even if I am the only one who remembers what he said and if all I remember those words, “I am not the Good Shepherd.” I, for one, at that moment in time, needed to be reminded that I am not the Good Shepherd. Only Jesus is. And yet, I am a shepherd. How good I am at shepherding is another question, one that I cannot answer. Only the sheep I shepherd can answer that question. If I want to know that answer, I will have to ask.

On further reflection, which is what makes the Bishop’s sermon memorable for me, I am also reminded that not only am I a shepherd, I am also a sheep who is to be shepherded. In fact, we all are. We are, each and every one of us both shepherd and sheep. Our faith in The Good Shepherd reminds us that we are called to watch over those entrusted to our care just as there are those who are called to watch over us because we have been entrusted to their care. We are to shepherds and to be shepherded.

There are no exceptions even as we at times wish there were, wish that we were. There are times when we wish we did not have to look after those over whom we have been placed as a shepherd because the work and time demanded is too hard. On the other hand, there are times when we wish our shepherd would go away and leave us alone because we want to live the way we want to live and not the way our shepherd is reminding us that we should live.

Shepherds and sheep, we are both. Whether that was the point of the Bishop’s sermon or not, he at least made me think about it. That was enough.

PUNISH ME WITH A KISS

Most of us, truly all of us, every human being, are hardwired to do what is right and good and just. It is part of our DNA, children/creatures of our all-loving God that we are. The Old Testament, filled as it is with one law, one regulation after another commanding and demanding what to do and what not to do, nevertheless puts it very simply: when push comes to shove and we ask ourselves what we are to do, we already know the answer. We do not need any law. The answer is already written in our hearts; the words we are to say are already on our lips. We simply have to do and say what is there.

When we say or do otherwise, when we say or do that which we know in our hearts is wrong, when we commit a sin, we know it immediately. In fact, even before we act, we know we will be doing wrong. Sinful and selfish acts are never accidental. They are always intentional, knowingly intentional. No one has to tell us that we have gone against who we are, against who we were created to be. No laws are needed. We know in our hearts and heads even before we act.

Even more, after we have gone against the grain, if you will, after we have done what we knew ahead of time we should not, afterwards there is no running away from or denying the truth. Our conscience will not allow that to happen even as much as we wish it would. What happens next, often almost immediately, is that guilt sets in. We ask ourselves why we were so selfish to act that way, why we were so foolish to say what we should not have said. We feel terrible.

We cannot undo the harm that we have done. We cannot take back the deed or the words. Redress and apology may soften the hurt but won’t make it not to have happened. That only worsens the pain. What we long for, even if we are reluctant to admit it, is some form of punishment. Somehow we seem to believe that if we are punished for our sinfulness, for our selfish and hurtful words and actions, we can be relieved of the guilt and forgiven for our sins.

In fact, the greater the sin, the greater the punishment we seem to desire, not just for our own sins but for those of others. Our civil laws set standards of punishment according to the crime committed. Yet, even after we have paid for our crimes, the punishment did not undo the crime that was the cause for our punishment. The internal punishment that a guilty conscience imposes does not remove the sin.

The truth is that often the harshest punishment another can inflict on us and we can inflict on another seems like no punishment at all. Saint Therese of Lisieux, small-timer sinner that she was, used to pray to God to, as she said, “punish me with a kiss”. The harshest punishment a convicted and admitted criminal receives is to be forgiven by the victim or the victim’s family, to be, as it were, punished with a kiss.

To give or be given that kiss of forgiveness is often the most difficult action for us to bestow on another or for another to bestow on us. It is indeed and in deed a very hard way to learn a lesson but often the only way as well. Pucker up!

IT’S THE DOOR’S FAULT

Ever walk into a room with some purpose in mind, only to completely forget what that purpose was? Turns out, doors themselves are to blame for these strange memory lapses. Psychologists at the University of Notre Dame have discovered that passing through a doorway triggers what's known as an event boundary in the mind, separating one set of thoughts and memories from the next. Your brain files away the thoughts you had in the previous room and prepares a blank slate for the new locale. It's not aging, it's the door! Thank goodness for studies like this.

The above paragraph was sent to me by a close friend. We share the same birth year and the same proclivity to walk into a room and immediately forget why we were entering that room in the first place. When we do that often enough as we are now doing, our first thought is Alzheimer’s or the onset of some type of dementia. To allay my fears I often start going through the multiplication tables just to prove to myself that I am not losing it and that there has to be some other explanation for this sudden loss of memory. Now that I know that it is the door’s fault, I can rest a little easier.

But what about those times when I am in a conversation with my wife while driving down the road or sitting at the kitchen table and a thought comes to mind that I want to share; but by the time it is my turn to speak, I have forgotten just what it was that was so important for me to impart? The car door has been closed for a while and there is no door in the kitchen. Whom do I now blame in order to calm my fears of losing my mind as I am growing older?

Actually I have found an excuse for my forgetfulness: information overload. Because I am so intelligent, because I have read so many books and articles, because I have absorbed so many facts and figures over the years, the computer in my brain is slowing down because it has amassed so much knowledge. I am not a six-year-old whose brain is quite empty and who can learn a new song in five minutes. It takes me five days because my brain is so full. No wonder I forget so quickly sometimes.

Works for me, does that explanation. In fact any explanation for my sometimes forgetfulness works. But no explanation, no matter how farfetched, sets aside the truth that I am growing older and that the end of my life draws closer and closer with every passing breathe and every fading memory and forgotten thought. It’s not dementia that frightens us so much it is death, or certainly the awareness that I am closer to death every day.

Fortunately those forgetful moments, at least in the present, even though they arrive more and more, do not dominant my life. For that I am thankful even as it is embarrassing when I have to admit that I forgot what I wanted to say or why I walked into that room. Perhaps if those moments were more and more frequent, as they are for so many of my contemporaries, I might not be so flippant as I now am. Perhaps I would really be worried and would look for the truth rather than some made-up excuse even if I did not want to know the truth. As they say, ageing is not for the timid or the faint of heart.

UNDER CONSTRUCTION

For as long as I have been alive, or at least for as long as I can remember, and that is a very long time, Route 28 North from New Kensington, where I grew up, to Pittsburgh has been under construction. It still is and, at the present time, massively so. For that matter, so has the Pennsylvania Turnpike. None of this is to complain, except, of course, when I am in a hurry and have to travel one of those roads and am delayed when I come upon one of those “Road Under Construction” signs.

Roads under construction are part of life; but, then, too, so is life itself. Life is a process of construction, of building, repairing, fixing-up. Some would also say that life is also a process of destruction, especially as we grow older and the body wears out and no amount of transplanting and grafting and plastic surgery and Botoxing will stem the tide of  disease, decay and, eventually, death.

Not only is our physical life constantly under some form of construction (destruction, for those of us who feel the pains and limitations of aging), but so is every other part of our life. No one of us comes out of the womb a mature human being – not physically, not mentally, not emotionally, not spiritually. Every part of our life is in constant flux, is constantly changing, as long as we have life and breath in us.

Sometimes, just knowing this truth, or at least in grudgingly acknowledging it, we find some peace of mind. As children there were times when we were angry because we could not do what our older siblings or acquaintances could do simply because they were older and bigger and stronger. But we were assured by our parents that someday we could and would and that knowledge allayed some of our anger and frustration.

Life is always, at any and every age, a work in process, a time of construction even as part of that construction is constriction, the lessening of our abilities to do what we were once able to do but now, because of our age, preventing us from doing so. And while our limitations and debilities constantly remind us that we are not getting any younger, we still have life and an abundant one at that.

Yet, even when we have or had or will have life in abundance, even in those years when we can (or could) go and go and go and never seem to tire, when we questions about health never arise (or arouse), there is (or was) areas of growth, parts of our life still under construction. The older we get, the wiser we become even when our memory begins to fail us.

Even when the latest construction projects on Route 28 and the Turnpike are completed, both will still be under some form of construction forever. That’s the nature of anything material. Ever known a homeowner who was not repairing, upgrading something? The same is true for us human beings. We need to remember that truth whenever we reflect, for instance, on our spiritual lives. Most of us bemoan the truth that we are not as spiritual as we would like to be or know we can be. We have room for growth, for construction. Drive that road carefully, but drive.