Thursday, September 3, 2020 Memorial of St Gregory the Great, Pope & Doctor of the Church (today’s lectionary)
Palace of nowhere
Amy and her kids Sadie and Sam paid us a short visit yesterday. We sat outside and ate goldfish crackers, fed bananas and pretzels to the chickens, and in general lived with them for an hour or so. Rosie and Riveter (no, I just made those names up, didn’t I?) were quiet enough to let me hold them, and the kids petted them, so soft!, and everyone was very happy. The resident rabbit, groundhog, chipmunk, squirrels, cardinals, sparrows and woodpeckers took advantage and ate anything they could get their hands on.
Let no one boast about human beings, for everything belongs to you.
All belongs to you, and you to Christ, and Christ to God.
Our backyard is not well groomed, but it is well lived in. The back of the house faces east, so every morning with sunrise, light pours in and life there begins again.
The earth is the Lord’s and everything in it.
He founded it on the seas
And established it on the waters.
Who may ascend, who may stand?
In the evening the backyard grows quiet as the sun sets in the west. Darkness falls, earlier each day now as autumn approaches, and then either Margaret or I put our headlamps on and close up the chickens for the night. All eight chickens in the coop? Yep. They have settled on their roosting bar. I whisper-sing “Good night, ladies,” and close the Dutch doors. I have not yet spent the night in there with them. I don’t think I will. I would rather close my eyes in my own bed and imagine life in their night kitchen, in their dreams, waiting for morning with the watchman, sleeping tight together.
Lift up your heads, you ancient gates
Let the King of glory in,
Let the Lord Almighty enter.
Our chickens have been safe in this situation for two and a half years. Only once was a raccoon and her babies about to enter, only twice has a possum been inside when we went out to close the doors … never have the chickens seemed perturbed by their visitors, and never have they themselves been eaten or killed. They lay five or six eggs each day. I expect they will lay eggs another year or two.
They do not trust in idols.
They do not swear by a false god.
Today I should be getting grill improvements from SNS Grills, $270 worth of accessories for my $109 Weber charcoal grill. Is that a good purchase? Not sure yet, but I might have spent hundreds on a smoker, which I didn’t. We have gas and charcoal grills, and now $250 worth of improvements! Pork butt is on sale for Labor Day at Schnuck’s for 99 cents a pound. I’ve made four of those so far, without improvements. Each took fifteen hours to cook, all tasted delicious. More coming, new and improved.
We slowly groom our backyard with new patio blocks and landscaping timbers, a John Deere corner, and a garden area under our redbud tree. There is no hurry. The basic wilderness motif, which requires only that we do nothing, is in place.
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Marc says these days that he is no longer bored. At times when he would have been bored in the past, now he just sits there. Nothing goes through his mind, and he sees no need to change that. I’m not sure if he sees that as an improvement, but I was happy for him and wanted some of it myself. God seems to be allowing him access to silence as a gift. I’ll have what he’s having, Lord.
Infused contemplation is theological jargon for what HAPPENS to you sometimes when you meditate. The point is that you do nothing (NO THING) to make it happen, and you can predict nothing. God does what he does when he does it.
Active contemplation is another story; you set yourself up with a place, a position, a time, a plan, and then you just sit there. You hope that your hard work will pay off with real mental stillness. Everyone says that in time, that’s what will happen. One kind of contemplation is not better than the other, although Jesus does sometimes intervene. Just ask Peter.
Master we have worked hard all night and caught nothing,
But at your command I will lower the nets.
When Peter did this, they caught a great number of fish,
So many that the fish were tearing their nets!
Pope Gregory was a strong pope. Before becoming pope he had been a strong priest, bishop and abbo, and a strong deacon for the pope. But before any of this, he established six monasteries on his estate. Why would he do that?
Active contemplation, that’s why. Gregory wanted to quiet his active, entrepreneurial mind and come close to God. He tried six times.
But God would have none of it. Successful monasteries, sure, but this did not soothe Gregory’s fevered soul. Peter, too, fishing like a crazy man, accomplished nothing in his frenzy. So now, confronted at dawn by the peace of Jesus, Peter noticed something new. As Job said about the God they all worshipped, “I had heard of You, but now I have seen You.”
Oh depart from me, my Lord, for I am a sinful man!
Jesus did not depart. Instead he, and not for the last time by any count, comforted Peter.
Do not be afraid, Peter. I have new work for you. From now on you,yes, all of you will be fishers of men.
Without a backward glance, those former fishermen left everything.
Walking with a steady, forward pace, they followed Jesus.
Our backyard is my palace of nowhere. I do things to establish it and as I work, my mind quiets. At other times I do no work and just sit. This is better. I might not experience the unsolicited stillness Marc described, but I get a moment or two, now and then. As I have thought often in the last few days, this is my spiritual act of worship.
I credit the chickens, and their carefree approach to life. I need to credit God, and I do, but the chickens carry the physical weight of God in heaven, for me, these days, sitting still, in my backyard.
Do not be afraid, David. I have new work for you to do. Read, write, listen, pray, and follow me.
(1 Corinthians 3, Psalm 24, Matthew 4, Luke 5)
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