God Does Not Explain Himself, But He Promises to Stay With Us

"I will lead the blind on a way they do not know;
by paths they do not know I will guide them.
I will turn darkness into light before them,
and make crooked ways straight.

These are the things I will do,
and I will not forsake them." (Isaiah 42:16).

I love this verse. It's probably one of the sources of the well known saying, "God writes straight with crooked lines." As a person who makes so many crooked lines, I am much consoled and encouraged by God's promises and by His presence.

O Lord, I have so little vision of the mystery of my own life that we might as well call me blind. I am blind. I do not see or feel or understand the deepest works of healing that You are carrying out within my person.

You are leading me, especially and most profoundly, in those 'ways I do not know," the 'places of darkness' and all the crookedness of the wounds of my sins. You are leading me through so many secret sufferings, through the pain of my truest prayer that so often cries out for You, trembling with hunger. 

There is always this hunger, this longing for You, Lord, that seems overwhelming. Temptations pretend that there are other ways to fill this hunger, and they come from all directions. Ultimately, they pretend to offer something of You that I can grasp and make my own. But what they offer is not You (as I have learned by bitter experience). I want You. 

Where are You, O Lord? 

Baptism has made me Your adopted son, and has enabled me to live with You in the midst of Your People, my brothers and sisters in Jesus the eternal Son, "gathered" (ekklesia) throughout history and today in Your Church. The Church and the sacraments have brought me forgiveness and reconciliation, healing, growth and strength in so many ways. 

But the crushing human weight of the effects of original sin and the scars of my own broken life remain in me in ways I don't understand. I am still so blind. 

Yet You do not forsake me. You are leading me through the anguish and loneliness that come from being a broken human being who lives in broken relationships, who remains a sinner even with all he has been given, who suffers disappointment and fears death. 

Father, I am Your child in eternal life, but I am like a newborn baby even after these many years: small, helpless, crying out, and not yet able to see.... 

I am blind... perhaps in part because of Your mercy. You shield my eyes from the things You know I could not bear to see. Or You let me have a very small glimpse: just enough to know that the pain is there so that I can abandon myself to Your loving hands, and just enough to see that Jesus is here with me. 

Father, I believe that Jesus is here in the suffering, in the places that seem senseless, in the wounds that never fully heal.

God makes a way here, a way that I do not know. He does not explain these hidden ways to me, but simply asks me to trust in Him, to persevere on the path and share in the darkness and suffering that remain in me but no longer belong to me.

He has made them His sufferings. They no longer belong to me, and no longer define me, because He has taken them through love.

Therefore, I must not try to hold onto them, as if the incomprehensible depths of suffering somehow might give me a claim against God, a pretext to turn away from Him, to doubt His promise that He "will never forsake" me. I must not hold them up in God's face and say, "I accept that You exist, but I don't accept Your world" (as Ivan Karamazov says in Dostoevsky's greatest book).

My very bones cry out, "Why?" And yet as our dear late Lorenzo Albacete put it, "God doesn't give you an answer. He just shows up."

The "answer" cannot be a solution or a formula or anything that I can grasp with my mind. My mind cannot turn this darkness into light.

The "answer" is a fact that I must adhere to with my mind, with trust. This adherence is called faith. Even in the deepest darkness, I must have faith that He is here, that He has not forsaken me, that He is leading me on paths unknown.

God's answer is not a "solution" in the sense we think we want. It's not the ultimate "self-improvement" manual. Nor is it a social or political or psychological or intellectual solution.

God's answer is Love. His Love. God's answer to my anguish and loneliness is the gift of Himself.

Infinite Love doesn't "answer the question" of my pain; it is a response that is beyond all the terms I use to try to ask the question, and all the loneliness and anguish that drive the question. Still, it corresponds to all my human questions; it even intensifies those questions while inviting me to live them within this Love. Love transforms my longing, my emptiness, my wounds.

Love turns darkness into light.

____________________________________

P.S. -- God gives Himself in Jesus. He is Gift. He who is Love and Freedom can only be freely received. My human reason and freedom are respected by the God who created me in His image, as a person. Infinite Love gives Himself totally as a free gift. He wants to raise me up in this gift, giving me the capacity to receive Him and share His life.

This raises a new "question" for my reason, a profoundly practical question that I cannot escape. Should I accept this Infinite Gift? 

I can choose to say, "No."

A gift by nature is offered freely. True love by nature is the opposite of coercion; when we love someone we seek a free response of love. Clearly this must be super-eminently true for the Infinite Gift who is Love Himself.

He wants me to say, "Yes!" He will even empower me to say a "Yes" that shares forever in His life. But He will not force me to accept Him.

Therefore, I can reject Him. There is a great mystery here, because His creative love sustains me in my very being, which means that "I" can never "totally" reject Him because then I would cease to exist. I cannot exist, I cannot be "me," without depending totally on His Love that gives me my very being, and remains always the Source of "me."

Still, He makes me free. I do not have to accept His gift of Himself, His Love and His "way of love" that He has crafted to bring me to my fulfillment. I can resist Infinite Love. I can remain blind forever, because I do not want to let go of my limitations, my nothingness, my way of measuring reality which ultimately comes down to my misery and dissatisfaction. And I can spin endless rationalizations for why refuse to let go.

I can refuse to let go of my sufferings.

But why would I resist the Infinite Gift (who gives me my being) freely offering Himself to me forever? Such a resistance is not only the ultimate misuse of freedom. It is also the ultimate failure of reason. It is the victory of fear.

I cry out in the darkness, "Where am I? Who am I? Why all this pain?" and the answer is "I am with you. I will lead you. No matter how hard, I am with you!"

I am not given "explanations" about the mysterious depths of my own life. I am given Someone who is worthy of my trust. I need to let Him pick me up and carry me. He will never forsake me.

And He will open my eyes, when the time is right.

You Don't Have to be a Freak About Anything

I have so many thoughts running around my head. I can't focus on a topic to write about. Themes and ideas pass through my mind; images and impressions, memories and hopes and fears.

Stop!

Go out and play ball.

That is pathetic. That's not a batting stance. That's a slouch! Where are your feet supposed to be? And what are you wearing???

That's not a slouch. That's just curvature of the spine.

Oh don't start whining. Move that creaky body and pay no attention to its complaints. Well...don't overdo it. But do it!

Human beings need a variety of activities: we need to read and study and think. We need to talk and to listen. We also need to eat, play, dance, make music, breathe deeply, walk, run, plant things in the ground, explore, and laugh. We need to look at beautiful things. And, of course, we need to sleep.

We need to lift up our minds and hearts and bodies to the One who gives us life, the One who loves us and draws us to Himself. We need to pray. We need to love, and to let ourselves be loved.

We move our bodies and we also move our minds. A healthy human life encompasses this variety in an organic way. You don't have to be a freak about anything. You simply have to live.

Children have a natural sense of how to live. Its one of the many reasons why its good to have them around.

Sadly, in our culture, we don't "live" well. We vacillate between distraction and obsession. This is what's killing us. We think we're all alone with this crazy life and we don't know what to do with it!

But we are not alone. We are never alone.

So give yourself a break.

Learning New Things, and Finding New Places

Another October is passing by. It brought the bursting color to our leaves and now is taking them away. The mornings are dark, and the days are shorter.

College students are back from their Fall break, and it is time to begin to get serious about thinking about those term papers that are due at the end of next month. Of course, you'll wait till the very last possible moment to write them, and they'll arrive in your professors' boxes at 11:59.9 PM on the due date.

Then the next day in class, we shall have the sleepy, and the scruffy, and those who are begging for extensions and trying to lose as few of those precious *POINTS* as possible.

Please, write a good paper.

Seek the truth. Try to understand something. Yes, I know, the professor is obtuse and you don't know what the class is supposed to be about...but just look at what's there and find something real and grab hold of it.

Its your education. Stop blaming circumstances and other people. Roll up your mental sleeves and work with what you have. You will learn many things, and also you will begin to learn how to live. Wherever you are in life, reality is your teacher, and circumstances are the resources that are given to you so that you may grow as a person.

Circumstances can be strange and painful, but there they are, every day. So we engage them. We often do badly, but we learn from our mistakes too.

Right now, this "retired" professor spends his days in the office at the John XXIII Montessori Children's Center, where his wife directs the elementary program. One might say he's a sort of "writer in residence," although he does his own research and writing at his laptop (and he is working on developing some "new media" platforms for the Center...eventually).

He is also a kind of "resource person," who gives small lessons on religion or history, helps students with research, works with maps (he's always loved maps), reads stories to the primary level kids, answers the phone, fills in wherever an adult is needed, etc.

The most important thing he does is just be there, frequently going out of the office and into the "classroom" (oops, wrong word; the word is environment--and that's exactly what it is). He sits in a chair, reads a book, and lets the children "bother" him. They find ways to learn all sorts of things from him.

These are not the circumstances he expected for himself at this period of his life. But they are good.

The professor is learning about what it means to learn...and to teach.  He sees his own children, and others, in a learning environment, where they look at what's around them, find real things, grab hold of them, and discover paths of understanding--ways of seeking the truth.

If they want to learn about plants, they can read about them. But they can also plant something, tend it, and watch it grow. Math is involved with tangible things. Numbers are strings of beads that they can see and touch and combine. Shapes are...actual shapes! And there are spheres, and cubes, and cones of various sizes.

There are rocks, and there are jars with minerals and all kinds of things to compare and contrast tangibly, visually, engaging the senses. They learn how something smells by actually smelling it! Maps are of every sort: maps that show terrain, maps in puzzle form with pieces corresponding to country borders, and many globes that model various facets of topographic or political geography.

One thing cannot be found here. There are no grades. There are no *points* to be accumulated as external rewards. Progress is monitored according to the interests and capacities of each child. Learning is not about discovering and mastering the tricks necessary to win a prize. Learning is about reality; its about experiencing and understanding reality.

The children grapple with real projects, using their hands and their minds. They make mistakes and learn from them. All of this happens in an exquisitely organized environment in which everything has its proper place. The directress guides individuals and groups of children in the various works, gives lessons, and "keeps order"--not with a stick, but by helping the children to learn what is required of them if they are to work together.

And they also do plenty of reading and writing. They even learn handwriting, with pens and pencils, on real paper.

The Montessori environment is a rich and beautiful place, where children are guided in a learning experience that engages the senses, imagination, mind and heart. The environment is realistic for the child. This method actually works! Discipline is built into the order and the ethos of the place, and that includes a healthy awareness of fallen human nature, but not a morbid preoccupation with it.

It is a beautiful place, and there's room in it for anything interesting...

...even an old, rheumatic, "retired" professor. :)

Surviving a "Nationals" Disaster

Saturday morning was gloomy outside, but especially gloomy inside the Janaro home.

John Paul finally broke the silence: "So, do you think that was the worst sports disaster that I have ever seen in my life?"

John Paul likes to rank things and various aspects of his life, not only according to "best" and "worst" but also in an orderly sequence of preferences. For example, he has a ranking for all 30 baseball teams, from favorite to least favorite.

The St. Louis Cardinals used to be his third favorite. Not any more.

"Well," I began to say, "that was just baseball. Things like that happen in baseball."

Of course they do. I am almost fifty baseball seasons old. I've seen every kind of crazy thing. I know well the truth of those famous words of Yogi Berra: "It ain't over...till its over."

"We were one strike away," John Paul groaned.

"I know," I said miserably. "And he threw strike three and the umpire didn't call it!" Certainly not. No smart umpire is going to decide the outcome of a playoff series on a called third strike at the knees.

It was painful to watch the end. It was terrible! Even Eileen suffered (she's now thoroughly hooked on baseball). We felt that awful pain that the old sports show famously described as "the agony of defeat."

Baseball is a kind of drama: a living stage on which intelligence, human effort, and even a kind of heroism combine with the uncontrollable forces of material contingency. Sometimes the difference in a baseball game is a breeze that blows at a certain moment, or (literally) "the way the ball bounces."

Of course, 24 hour sports talk analyzes every single detail, on and on and on. Fans get angry at players and call them all sorts of names that they don't really mean: "He struck out! What a moron!"

Uh...no. Actually, he's a trained professional athlete with outstanding capabilities who was trying to do something very difficult. He was trying to hit a baseball at 90 miles an hour and he missed three times. There is nothing "moronic" about this at all.

But our emotions are invested in the game, and the players take on roles in a drama of winning and losing, triumph and tragedy. We experience a kind of catharsis. We also affirm civic or regional loyalties, and sometimes even the bond between generations.

We also go way overboard. Sports--like almost everything else in our culture--are bloated beyond proportion. They have become part of the all-absorbing distraction that we call "entertainment." They are a monstrous parody of their natures, and people drug themselves or otherwise do disproportionate damage to their bodies in their efforts to achieve success.

It is difficult for any of us to find our balance in the whirlwind that is everywhere blowing our culture beyond all boundaries. But that does not excuse us from the effort to live the game according to its real nature.

We must learn to play, even in the whirlwind. This requires special personal skill, which the ancients called virtue. Not many people in the world care about virtue, and those who do generally find that its hard to get very far in acquiring the skill to live well. We must try to help one another. We need to learn how to play the game hard, and then let it go.

That's never been easy for me.

When I was a kid, I used to throw the radio across the room (thank goodness it was just a radio back then) when my team blew a lead in the ninth inning.

But I'm much more "mature" now (haha). On Friday night, when the Cardinals rallied with two outs in the bottom of the ninth inning to defeat our beloved Washington Nationals and bring their splendid and surprising season to an end, I didn't smash the television.

I felt like smashing the television.

Nevertheless--although I have hardly developed anything in the way of virtue--I have acquired a veneer of civilization over the years. So I swallowed my frustration at the always-unpredictable tricks of the little white ball. I simply rose from my chair, went to my bedroom, and--putting on Vivaldi's Four Seasons--laid down and closed my eyes, The first of the seasons, of course, is Spring.

Spring. It will be here before we know it. "We'll get 'em next year!"

Ten Years Ago: From An Old Book Of Mine

Ten years ago I began writing The Created Person and the Mystery of God, and it went through editing and finally publication a year later. I was glad to have a book that I could show people and say, "Here, this is the stuff I do." It was my schtick, my "song and dance" routine. "It is a youthful work of Janaro's early period," haha!

In many ways, the "routine" has changed. The words were larger then, and the perspective was, perhaps, smaller. I'm not sure I agree with everything that fellow wrote. Above all I think what I write now comes from a deeper place, and I even think I understand texts like this one better today than when I wrote them.

Perhaps getting knocked around a bit has done me some good after all. Still, many will probably think the writing sounds the same. As my kids say, "blah blah blah, blah blah blah!" But to be fair, there is much value in the truth expressed here. In any case, I hope that I have time to mature as a "thinker," because it appears that I'm going to need a lot of time.

The Mystery who gives man his being has drawn close to him, spoken to him, and become his companion within history. What we want to begin to understand is that this gift, this message, this continued presence of God in man’s history is an affirmation of the value of man himself; it corresponds to all that is most noble and beautiful in man, and it heals what is broken in him.

God addresses man His creature according to the fullness of the dignity of his humanity—God addresses man as man, as a person. Man therefore is not called to adhere to God in a way that contradicts his humanity; he adheres to God with the full richness of his nature and his capacities—that is to say, by a fully personal act—an act that fully engages his reason and his freedom; an act that does justice to his reason and emerges from the depths of his freedom; an act of knowledge and love.

--from The Created Person and the Mystery of God by John Janaro (Click Here)