Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time, October 27, 2024JT_Where the Wild Things Are
(click here to listen to or read today’s scriptures)
Chaplain in the fall
Every priest is taken from men. He is able to deal patiently with the ignorant and erring, for he himself is beset by weakness.
In this story – an October story – God wins. (So do we.)
The tree has come to a place of mind
To release its leaves, all of them.
You are hanging on to something.
I asked my friend how he had been a “spiritual” man this week. He spoke at first of what he’d done, that he read his bible, sang his songs, prayed his prayers, early in the morning and all day long.
I realized that isn’t what I meant.
“What I mean is, how has God interrupted your life? How have you felt God’s presence?”
In other words, not what have I done, but what has God done that turned my head and opened my soul?
My friend is a prison chaplain, pastor, spiritual director, aspiring school board member and occasional hospital chaplain. He and his family, ours too …very busy.  I wonder if we will ever take time to notice God’s presence, but then I remember that isn’t up to us. I am the be-ing when it comes to God, not the do-ing, as is true in most everything else.
No one takes this honor upon himself but only when called by God.
The chaplain, like all others in Illinois prisons, is obligated to host any religious group that wants to meet within the prison walls, scheduling time and space. He helps them if they ask for help putting their services together.
On one end of the long-ish chapel room, a group of Muslims were meeting. At the other end, my friend found himself helping a Satanist find a good satanist prayer on YouTube. His good Christian self didn’t want to be doing this. The evangelist inside him clamored to be let out. But a decade of time in prison every day from 7 till 3 has given him non-judgmental edges and nuanced his conversation. Especially his inner conversation.
While the chaplain talked with the ambitious inmate, he talked with God. “Why am I doing this? Is this something you want me to do? Give me words to stop this, God. How can I help this guy find you?”
The tree has come to a place of mind
To release its leaves, all of them.
You are hanging on to something.
Firefly larvae burrow underground,
carrying their light off into the darkness.
Frogs have given up their breath,
awfully complacent in the deepening mud.
They know what to keep, what to give away.
Clouds have laid themselves out on the ground,
all their belongings set to the curb, without grief.
Like the maples we flourish toward our graves.
God didn’t say a word. Not that my friend heard, anyway.
“OK, God. The heck with you. I’ll just keep on helping this guy, and I guess you’ll do what you’re going to do.
“Thanks for sharing.”
He felt a little angry, shut out, helpless, and as usual on his endless trail of 7-3 days in prison, resigned.
Patient. Learning to love.
The inmate left. The Muslims stopped frowning and returned to their meeting. The chaplain sat quiet in his chair, finishing his fume with God.
“Feel better?” God said.
As we sat together the chaplain laughed his wonderful laugh. He had moved along through the place where the wild things are, roaring their terrible roars and gnashing their terrible teeth, and now when he heard God again, he was still loved, even as his own love of God got all mixed up. His meal was still hot. God’s love never winked, neither at the inmate nor at Chris, both of them always and forever … children. Begotten, not made. Spiritual man. Always.
“Feel better now?”
They departed in tears, but I will console them and guide them; I will lead them to brooks of water, on a level road, so that none shall stumble.
Here’s the rest of that poem, called “FALL” by Steve Garnaas-Holmes.
Mother bears will lumber down into their dens,
wrap their arms around a death of sleep,
ready for birthing.
The ferns have put their copper coins
into the temple box, all they had.
The milkweed have opened their purses,
throwing their savings to the wind,
holding back nothing.
The geese and herons give up their place,
the grasses have taken account
and now reduce themselves to their roots.
A little feathered seed floats by.
Those fleeing Egypt, what did they take,
what did they leave? How did they know?
Mendicants with their begging bowls,
what have they left out of their little bags?
Leaning against the prodigal birch
you listen for what you might shed,
and what can’t be taken from you,
and what will be held for you for another time.
The brook, autumnal trickle,
small in its channel, gives itself to the sea,
awaiting snow.
God’s blessings be upon us all on this sweet autumn Sunday.
(Jeremiah 31, Psalm 126, Hebrews 5, 2 Timothy 1, Mark 10)
(posted at www.davesandel.net)
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