Can I share a secret? I’m not a big fan of confession. Oh, I know we need it. I need it. But confessing my sins is not only painful (because it brings up old wounds); it’s also difficult. It requires ruthless self-assessment. To confess my shortcomings and missed chances is to risk feeling like a failure. Why would anyone willingly do that?
Still, there’s confession and there’s confession. Confessing my sins to God—honestly and without artifice—is easier than confessing to someone I know. Perhaps it’s that I trust God to be more forgiving. Indeed, “God is merciful and gracious and abounding in steadfast love.” But confessing to someone else is harder. With my neighbor, there’s give and take, conversation, vulnerability to the unknown and unsuspected. I risk being wounded when I discover I’ve wounded others. I'm obligated then to do something to make things right.
After last night’s Ash Wednesday service, someone joked, “Maybe we need to use the joys and concerns time in worship to confess our sins… and be specific!” Take heart: we won’t be doing that, at least not out loud. But the fact is, we all need to be able to say to God and to our neighbor, “Here’s how I messed up,” to follow it up with, “How can I make things right?” and then to follow through. Reconciliation requires confession. In the end, that keeps me open to it, uncomfortable as it is. Without being able to confess my sins, I can’t make peace with my neighbor. With it, our relationships can grow strong.
My prayer for you along the way is that you will find renewal this season in self-examination and confession that leads to reconciliation with others and reconciliation with God.
Thursday, March 10, 2011
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
Ordinary Silence
The priest making the case for Mother Teresa’s sainthood has called her “an apostle of the ordinary.” What an inviting title! To be an apostle is literally to be “sent,” but what made Teresa of Calcutta ordinary was what she was sent to do: one-on-one, she practiced love.
From her journals we have learned other things about her. Perhaps the most intriguing is that after her mystical experiences in the 1940s, she knew a lifetime of darkness and silence, things we never knew while she was engaged in the ministry to which she had been sent. The silence she bore inspired her to serve. Yet she spoke of it only in private. We now know she lived most of her life feeling “bewildering rejection and even complete abandonment,” experiences most of us confess knowing well. Still, she was sent out to change the world, and she did so, one single heart at a time. The business card she handed out to enquiring visitors did not have her name on it. It contained instead the core principles of her spirituality. It began, “The fruit of silence is prayer.” She used to talk about five silences: of the ears, eyes, mouth, mind, and heart.
What silences do you experience? Are there times your ears hear no voice from God, your eyes see no vision, and your mouth does not taste that the Lord is good? Have you known a silent mind, or a heart unable to feel? We tend to mistrust silence. Silence sounds like guilt, ignorance or, worse, rudeness. But silence can be the instrument of our calling. In the absence of God’s voice, not knowing when or even if the Master will return, we love one-on-one. How ordinary!
May you find God’s silence today in ordinary, one-on-one relationships, and in that quiet place discover the strength to carry on. Amen.
From her journals we have learned other things about her. Perhaps the most intriguing is that after her mystical experiences in the 1940s, she knew a lifetime of darkness and silence, things we never knew while she was engaged in the ministry to which she had been sent. The silence she bore inspired her to serve. Yet she spoke of it only in private. We now know she lived most of her life feeling “bewildering rejection and even complete abandonment,” experiences most of us confess knowing well. Still, she was sent out to change the world, and she did so, one single heart at a time. The business card she handed out to enquiring visitors did not have her name on it. It contained instead the core principles of her spirituality. It began, “The fruit of silence is prayer.” She used to talk about five silences: of the ears, eyes, mouth, mind, and heart.
What silences do you experience? Are there times your ears hear no voice from God, your eyes see no vision, and your mouth does not taste that the Lord is good? Have you known a silent mind, or a heart unable to feel? We tend to mistrust silence. Silence sounds like guilt, ignorance or, worse, rudeness. But silence can be the instrument of our calling. In the absence of God’s voice, not knowing when or even if the Master will return, we love one-on-one. How ordinary!
May you find God’s silence today in ordinary, one-on-one relationships, and in that quiet place discover the strength to carry on. Amen.
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