Frying Pan
July 21, 2008
What seem our worst prayers may really be,
in God's eyes, our best. Those, I mean, which
are least supported by devotional feeling.
For these may come from a deeper level than
feeling. God sometimes seems to speak to us
most intimately when he catches us, as it
were, off our guard. C.S.
Lewis
My god, how magnificent life is, precisely
owing to its unforeseeability and to the
often so strangely certain steps of our
blindness. Ranier Maria Rilke
Standing in a pristine Alaskan stream, the
fisherman's first catch, a lovely
eighteen-inch trout. The fisherman and his
friend
admire it. "Most impressive," his friend
says thinking of the delectable evening meal
ahead. And then, unceremoniously, the
fisherman tosses the fish back into the
stream.
A second catch, and then a third, each catch a bit larger than the last. "Amazing," says his friend. But again, each beauty is tossed back into the stream.
The fourth catch, a smaller fish, maybe six inches in length. This one the fisherman keeps for their evening supper. His friend has seen enough. "You catch three prize winning trout and throw them back. You catch a runt and keep it. Why?"
The fisherman is matter of fact, "Because I only have an eight-inch frying pan."
At a recent retreat, one less-than-thrilled participant approached me at the end of the second day. The retreat had us all talking about "embracing the sacred present"-and celebrating Grace in the irreducible uniqueness of daily and ordinary existence. One project included collecting small articles of wonder (a leaf, a bird's feather, a misshapen stone, a piece of green glass, etc.), each a reminder to use in our final liturgy of celebration.
"This is not what I expected," she told me. "I assumed the retreat would be much more spiritual."
Laughing out loud seemed an un-pastoral response, so I bit my tongue. I do know that her comment was more about her expectations than the experience itself.
And truth be told, in my own way, I do the very same thing. I carry a frying pan that precludes my ability to see the many gifts (and surprises and wonders) of life. Our frying pan is the metaphor for the way in which we see, view, determine, make choices, respond, and in the end, foreclose on life.
As a young man I had a finely tuned theology of God.
And I had certainty.
This meant, unfortunately, that I relegated God to certain experiences. You know, the "more spiritual" ones. Every other experience, I "threw back into the stream." As a result, my beliefs (suppositions and assumptions which were unquestioned and unchallenged) excluded the presence of the sacred from so much of my life. I had eyes, but I did not see.
Why? There is an odd sense of control in a one-size frying pan. With two consequences: One, we assume, wrongly, that we can orchestrate a spiritual encounter.
A young man, with plumber-credentials in hand, stands at the railing looking over Niagara Falls. "I think I can fix that," he said.
And two, we're stuck in our certainty.
A man lost his car keys. It was night and he looked frantically near a street lamp. A passerby, asked the matter.
"I've lost my keys," the man answered.
"Where?"
"Over there," he pointed.
"Well if you lost them over there, why are you looking over here?"
"Because," he answered, "there's more light over here."
It turns out that the opposite of faith is not doubt, but assumption of certainty. Or the absence of mystery, questions, confusion and doubt. We are unable to be surprised.
"We may ignore, but we can nowhere evade, the presence of God." CS Lewis reminds us, "The world is crowded with Him. He walks everywhere incognito. And the incognito is not always easy to penetrate. The real labor is to remember to attend. In fact, to come awake. Still more to remain awake."
The alternative to my one size frying pan? Gratitude.
I receive my life as a gift.
This life.
This moment.
Gratitude dances through the open windows of our hearts. We cannot force it. We cannot create it. And we can certainly close our windows to keep it our. But we can also keep them open and be ready for the joy when it comes. Lew Smedes
Be Careful.
This way of living will mess with any finely-tuned-system.
It will mean celebrating the sacred in the ordinary.
Seeing God in the face of the other, the hurt, the angry, the unclean, the enemy.
Embracing the sacred in the midst of the conflict, the upheaval, the pain, the happenstance, the mistakes.
It will mean celebrating a bawdy, unkempt spirit and an untidy misunderstood God. A Spirit of love and transformation present in everyone--doling out the extravagant gifts of that love and grace, in kindness, service, healing, hope and celebration.
Marvelous vision of the hills at 7:45 am. The same hills as always, as in the afternoon, but now catching the light in a totally new way, at once very earthly and very ethereal, with delicate cups of shadow and dark ripples and crinkles where I had never seen them before, the whole slightly veiled in mist so that it seemed to be a tropical shore, a newly discovered continent. A voice in me seemed to be crying, "Look! Look!" For these are the discoveries, and it is for this that I am high on the mast of my ship (have always been) and I know that we are on the right course, for all around is the sea of paradise. Thomas Merton
A second catch, and then a third, each catch a bit larger than the last. "Amazing," says his friend. But again, each beauty is tossed back into the stream.
The fourth catch, a smaller fish, maybe six inches in length. This one the fisherman keeps for their evening supper. His friend has seen enough. "You catch three prize winning trout and throw them back. You catch a runt and keep it. Why?"
The fisherman is matter of fact, "Because I only have an eight-inch frying pan."
At a recent retreat, one less-than-thrilled participant approached me at the end of the second day. The retreat had us all talking about "embracing the sacred present"-and celebrating Grace in the irreducible uniqueness of daily and ordinary existence. One project included collecting small articles of wonder (a leaf, a bird's feather, a misshapen stone, a piece of green glass, etc.), each a reminder to use in our final liturgy of celebration.
"This is not what I expected," she told me. "I assumed the retreat would be much more spiritual."
Laughing out loud seemed an un-pastoral response, so I bit my tongue. I do know that her comment was more about her expectations than the experience itself.
And truth be told, in my own way, I do the very same thing. I carry a frying pan that precludes my ability to see the many gifts (and surprises and wonders) of life. Our frying pan is the metaphor for the way in which we see, view, determine, make choices, respond, and in the end, foreclose on life.
As a young man I had a finely tuned theology of God.
And I had certainty.
This meant, unfortunately, that I relegated God to certain experiences. You know, the "more spiritual" ones. Every other experience, I "threw back into the stream." As a result, my beliefs (suppositions and assumptions which were unquestioned and unchallenged) excluded the presence of the sacred from so much of my life. I had eyes, but I did not see.
Why? There is an odd sense of control in a one-size frying pan. With two consequences: One, we assume, wrongly, that we can orchestrate a spiritual encounter.
A young man, with plumber-credentials in hand, stands at the railing looking over Niagara Falls. "I think I can fix that," he said.
And two, we're stuck in our certainty.
A man lost his car keys. It was night and he looked frantically near a street lamp. A passerby, asked the matter.
"I've lost my keys," the man answered.
"Where?"
"Over there," he pointed.
"Well if you lost them over there, why are you looking over here?"
"Because," he answered, "there's more light over here."
It turns out that the opposite of faith is not doubt, but assumption of certainty. Or the absence of mystery, questions, confusion and doubt. We are unable to be surprised.
"We may ignore, but we can nowhere evade, the presence of God." CS Lewis reminds us, "The world is crowded with Him. He walks everywhere incognito. And the incognito is not always easy to penetrate. The real labor is to remember to attend. In fact, to come awake. Still more to remain awake."
The alternative to my one size frying pan? Gratitude.
I receive my life as a gift.
This life.
This moment.
Gratitude dances through the open windows of our hearts. We cannot force it. We cannot create it. And we can certainly close our windows to keep it our. But we can also keep them open and be ready for the joy when it comes. Lew Smedes
Be Careful.
This way of living will mess with any finely-tuned-system.
It will mean celebrating the sacred in the ordinary.
Seeing God in the face of the other, the hurt, the angry, the unclean, the enemy.
Embracing the sacred in the midst of the conflict, the upheaval, the pain, the happenstance, the mistakes.
It will mean celebrating a bawdy, unkempt spirit and an untidy misunderstood God. A Spirit of love and transformation present in everyone--doling out the extravagant gifts of that love and grace, in kindness, service, healing, hope and celebration.
Marvelous vision of the hills at 7:45 am. The same hills as always, as in the afternoon, but now catching the light in a totally new way, at once very earthly and very ethereal, with delicate cups of shadow and dark ripples and crinkles where I had never seen them before, the whole slightly veiled in mist so that it seemed to be a tropical shore, a newly discovered continent. A voice in me seemed to be crying, "Look! Look!" For these are the discoveries, and it is for this that I am high on the mast of my ship (have always been) and I know that we are on the right course, for all around is the sea of paradise. Thomas Merton
Poems / Prayers
Love After Love
The time will come
When, with elation,
You will greet yourself arriving
At your own door, in your own mirror,
And each will smile at the other's welcome,
And say sit here, Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart.
To itself, to the stranger who has loved you
All your life, whom you ignored
For another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,
The photographs, the desperate notes,
Peel your image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.
Derek Walcott
Let us join our hearts and minds together in the spirit of prayer:
O Holy One, that unites all who are estranged
and challenges all who preach division and exclusion,
We see that unity so often in the eyes of a child,
who sees neither race nor creed in any eyes that look back,
but only whether those are smiling or crying.
Amen.
Loving God we offer you
Every flower that ever grew
Every bird that ever flew
Every wind that ever blew
Every thunder rolling
Every Church bell tolling
Every leaf and sod
Every wave that ever moved
Every heart that ever loved
Every river dashing
Every cloud that swept o'er the skies
Every human joy and woe
Watch over us today as we strive to understand your word of love
We ask this through Christ our Lord
Amen
Peace,
Terry Hershey
