Godric: Of the family of Godric, his youth, and a sign from the sea

After nearly drowning in the surf, Godric speaks of three lessons learned. The first was that the sea is mighty and one must always keep a wary eye on it. The second was the love of his sister. And the third, well that is the lesson we all of us must learn.
"He learned that it was Jesu saved him from the sea, though saved him why or saved for what deep end he did not learn, nor has he ever learned it to this day."
Of all the mysteries of life, even the mystery of God's existence, I find most puzzling the mystery of why. From the very beginning, God sets into motion a series of questionable choices. He chooses Jacob, the deceiver. David, the murderer and adulterer. Noah, the drunkard. Peter, the liar and quick-tempered. He picks out of the mulititude not the holy, but the weak, the spiteful, the arrogant.
Even greater to me than the question of God, only, I suppose, because I believe in God, is the crazy and bewildering question of why me, why any of us in this sick and ugly world? Peculiar choices we are, if we get right down to it.
And yet, over and over, without hesitation, unlike us, God chooses to dwell among us in the form of compassion, truth, beauty, or even an unexpected tear or burst of laughter. Perhaps we should stop with that chorus of "What a mighty God we serve," and begin anew with "What a perplexing God we serve."
The porpoise in that drowning surf that nearly took Godric's life said, "Take and eat me, Godric, to thy soul's delight." And God himself said to us, that final night, the same healing thing.

Godric: Of Godric, his friends, and Reginald

It is that time of the year when I pull Frederick Buechner's Godric off the shelf, dust it off and dive in to the most profoundly poetic novel Buechner wrote.
"Five friends I had, and two of them snakes," he begins. And quite literally he means snakes. Friendship is, of course, that element of humanity that has the power to stir in us a great depth of loneliness. For at last, even after the most raucous of gatherings, friends must leave. They come and they go, not just in the way we leave a party only to return again another night, but friends are often a backdrop to a particular season in our life.
And what friends they are, when we find ourselves immersed in that season. The truest of friends will linger a bit longer, just like they might at that party; but in the end, eventually, they leave. It is a rare happening to maintain a friendship, an honest, open, friendship much beyond any particular season. It takes a remarkable human being to uplift us in our trials, celebrate in our victories, and finally to forgive us our mistakes.
Very few of us have that capability ourselves, let alone the ability to find that in someone else. But when we do, we must fasten ourselves quickly and tightly, for without it, the world would feel all the more empty.

Beyond Time

The final section of Buechner's The Sacred Journey is titled "Beyond Time." Mostly, he considers the happenings of life, in their infinite reality, as they happen to us in our finite reality.
He says:
The question is not whether the things that happen to you are chance things or God's things because, of course, they are both at once. There is no chance thing through which God cannot speak--even the walk from the house to the garage that you have walked ten thousand times before, even the moments you cannot believe there is a God who speaks at all anywhere. He speaks, I believe, and the words he speaks are incarnate in the flesh and blood of our own footsore and sacred journeys. (77)
I have often struggled to understand how God speaks to us today. There is the Bible, of course, in which we can read the sayings of Jesus and the stories of men. It certainly speaks to us, I believe, though not so much differently than the common everyday experiences we have.
In years past, I have relied heavily on the words of that great book to fortress myself against the sorrow of life or to chastise myself for the many errors in judgement I have made. But at sometime, and I certainly cannot recall when or why, the words of that great book became trite cliches tossed around without any concern for the magnitude of truth they spoke. Fascinating, isn't it, that even the great masterpieces of music and art, if played or viewed too often, lose something of their depth.
It wasn't until I read this memoir by Buechner that I began to look for those words incarnate. It wasn't until I read from his Holiness the Dalai Lama much of the same teachings of Jesus that I began to hear afresh the words of Jesus. Compassion. Humility. Service. And then to listen to my life, to catch myself by surprise at the many ways I did hear Jesus. No, not audibly as I had so long hoped for, and perhaps feared, but I heard him in the hello of a stranger; I saw him in the tears and laughter of a child.
And that, that is the greatest of all the moments of our journeys. That moment when for the first time we recognize God in us, in the world around us.

Once upon a time

Getting back to my reflections on Buechner's The Sacred Journey, I respond to chapter two, "Once Upon A Time."

But when it comes to putting broken lives back together--when it comes, in religious terms, to the saving of souls--the human best tends to be at odds with the holy best. To do for yourself the best that you have it in you to do--to grit your teeth and clench you fists in order to survive the world at its harshest and worst--is, by that very act, to be unable to let something be done for you and in you that is more wonderful still. The trouble with steeling yourself against the harshness of reality is that same steel that secures your life agianst being destroyed secures your life also against being opened up and transformed by the holy power that life itself comes from (46).

I wonder if those words would be of any value to the desperate families who now suffer in Lousianna, Alabama, or Mississippi? Difficult, isn't it? To realize that in the face of obscene tragedy our need for resilience and steeled determination may in fact do more damage to the heart of who we are. And yet in the midst, with chaos all around, desperate pleas of "Why God?" shotputted into the clouds, grace somehow appears.

Who can ever foresee the crazy how and when and where of a grace that wells up out of the lostness and pain of the world and of our own inner worlds? And holy because these moments of grace come ultimately from farther away than Oz and deeper down than doom, holy because they heal and hallow (57).

Come, God of Mercy, into that hell.

Cal Ripken Jr.

I'm looking at a poster, one of those inspirational ones you might find in an office. Perseverance--to continue a course of action in spite of difficulty. Cal Ripken Jr. is pictured, waving his hand at an adoring crowd. Ten year ago today, my boyhood hero, Cal Ripken Jr., broke the unbreakable record of consecutive games played in baseball. To this day, Ripken remains a part of my fascination with baseball. His love of the game and his dedication have influenced the way I live my life. Thank you Cal!
It started one afternoon while I perused my baseball card collection. I was eight years old and not very bright yet. I realized that in my collection, I had three Cal Ripken Jr. 1983 Topps cards. It was a sign, though I had not heard of Cal Ripken Jr. at the time, that he was good. Surely there wouldn't be so many of his cards if he weren't. From that day on Ripken was my favorite player. In Little League, I had to play shortstop--just like Cal. I threw like Cal. I batted like Cal. My room was filled with Cal posters. I collected whatever I could get my poor hands on.
I suppose my fascination with Cal is fueled by the way he presented himself on the field. I have no idea if he is as classy as he has always been called. But it does not matter. What matters is that a baseball player, one of the last of a different generation, showed this man how to be a professional. So, everyday in my classroom, my students who are struggling to master 9th grade English, can look at that poster and have the chance to learn from Cal.