Saints and Souls

 Today we celebrate All Saints and All Souls despite them occurring on two different days. In combining them we perhaps come to the realisation that both of them are integrally linked in that our Saints are or where the lived life of someone's past "soul", so to speak. So why do we make an effort to separate them out in our calendar of events within the church. For those of a greater Catholic persuasion All Souls is a day for not only remembering those that have died but is also part of the theology around the concept of purgatory. Thus for many this is a day when the souls of those who have died are prayed for so that they may move through the fires of purgatory to life in Christ. In thinking about it in this manner we are, I feel, denigrating our life in Christ and suggesting that we are not accepted into the presence of Christ. This is perhaps a difficult concept to believe or even attempt to celebrate.

Both days are part of Allhallowtide, which includes All Hallows Eve, now commercially celebrated as Halloween. We can perhaps be better of conceptualising this time as part of our yearly cycle that celebrates life and death, rather than any one specific aspect. By beginning on the eve of All Saints we begin the process of making holy, hallowing, ourselves for the days to come. This understanding has been overtaken by a misconception of the Samhain festival and the turning of the seasons. The beginning of winter was a time when the barrier between the dead and living was believed to be thinned thus allowing for a crossover. It was a time of great reverence and fear so preparations where made to hallow the days ahead. Death is part of life and we celebrate those that are deemed to be celebrated in the Christian life on All Saints day. The traditional Catholic understanding is that these were those that went straight to God's presence. For us today we celebrate these as the many that stand before the throne of God singing praises. Many of them known and of particular regard for us, here in Cairns, is St Margaret of Scotland. For others it is saints who have been recognised by the church universal in one way or another. 

A celebration of life and death

Whilst we remember the famous in All Saints we must not forget that we all will come face to face with our God. In knowing our closeness to God's presence through Christ's presence in our hearts we need to set time aside to focus our prayers and hallowing of those who have died in God's presence even if they are not well known. The saints of our lives and who are known to us in the commonality of life. In remembering them we need also to remember those whom we have excluded in some form or another. In doing this we are actually bringing to the fore all those who are part and parcel of the body of Christ. We cannot just lay claim to those who have died who are family and friends but also those who have died who are part of the body of Christ. In hallowing them we are hallowing the whole body. We are preparing ourselves for the Christic presence in our lives as we acknowledged the presence of Christ in those who have died.

The twenty third psalm tells us of the presence of God in our lives leading us onward even in the face of our mortality and death. It is in the acceptance of this presence that we find the comfort of the Spirit in our hearts and minds during the greatest trials of our lives. In remembering those who have died before us we remember that we are in the constant presence of God leading us in the world should we allow that presence into our hearts even in the presence of our own mortality and death. Let us than Hallow the season and make ourselves holy to God by giving thanks for the Saints and those souls who have died before us as they show us the way forward and that we are not forgotten in God's eyes.

Blind to love

 Blindness is often associated in the Gospels with the inability to perceive Christ and when the blindness is alleviated the person often either praises God or follows Christ (Mark 10.46-52). It is quite useful to use this category, without being detrimental to those with poor vision, as we look at ourselves and our lives in Christ. The very first thing that we actually need to do is admit our blindness. What! I am not blind. Well as soon as we open our mouths and state this it is obvious that we are. We are all well aware that for many things the first response is denial and once we have denied we have actually admitted that we have the issue, challenge, etc. It is only when we are honest with ourselves about our own perceptions and our own knowledge can we begin to fashion a comprehensive plan of action that enables ourselves and those around us to come into the light and see for the first time. Our challenge then is to freely admit that we are blind and need God's grace to heal our blindness and lead us into a new world; a world that God has deemed ours.

At the beginning of Job's trials we can see that he was blind to the truth and yet held on to his faith. At the end Job's eyes are opened to the truth and sees how his faith has assisted him in his trials (Job 42.1-6). It is only when Job confronts and is confronted by God's presence does he realise the truth of his faith. It is only when we allow ourselves to confront God and come into Christ's presence are we able to understand the truth and how this affects our faith. We can so easily give up; we can so easily give in; we can so easily rest in the lies that surround our everyday lives. These are the friends that console us on our journey, these are the friends that lead us away from our journey, these are the friends that lend their worldly wisdom to our trials with God. We bitch and moan at every turn of our lives because things are not how they should be. Yet, if we hold to the path that God has set we are able to overcome so much, just like Job, and we are able to forgive so much just like Job (42.9-10). In doing so we are given so much by God's grace who has asked so little of ourselves.

Are we ourselves blind to love?

Yet, our attitude is one of the age, the miracle of the secular age is ours to play with and to re-invent our lives forgetting the miracle that is God's grace promised to us forever. Ours is not the attitude of thanksgiving it is the attitude that it belongs to us; the attitude of the age. If you cannot pay your way in today's society you are nobody. Well, this is where we are asked for our sacrifice, if we want what we have, to continue. Only when we begin to understand the sacrifice that God has given will we begin to appreciate our need to sacrifice ourselves fully and totally to God's purposes. We find it excessively hard to speak of God in our lives just as Job does; we find it excessively hard to make a sacrifice of time, talent and tarnished gold to fulfil God's purposes in today's world.

What does it take to change our hearts from stone to flesh that holds love of the other above all? What does it do to remove our own parochial blindness to see Christ in our neighbour and enable ourselves to sacrifice our lives to God? It takes the one thing that we control ourselves. The one thing that nobody can take from us no matter what they do to us. We need to approach life with one thing knowing that it cannot be changed irrespective of what is thrown our way. It takes us acknowledging and owning the attitude that says that God is in my heart and I find joy in God's presence. It takes us changing our hard attitudes to each other and to the other from the blankness of granite to an attitude that encompasses everyone with the softness of a lovers embrace. It is ours to undertake, it is ours to do, it ours to control. Once we have changed our attitude we have begun the process of removing the blindness that we all suffer from, the blindness that allows us to say "we are not blind."

Seeking joy over happiness

 How do we determine the difference between happiness and joy in our lives? This is perhaps a difficult question for us to ask, especially in the midst of angst and sorrow. What can be suggested is that one is permanent and is found even in the depths of despair. The other is fleeting and is found wherever one can for a moment. God responds to Job by asking him questions not through levity and laughter but questions that are fundamental to our understanding of God's presence and joy in our lives (Job 38.1-7). Even when we are in our deepest depression, when all the world around us abounds in horror we can and do experience the joy that is God's presence in our hearts. It overcomes our deepest dread and our inability to give of ourselves to God in the most meaningful and sacrificial way that we can. Whilst it is an emotion that is deeper even than happiness it is without doubt an emotion that is linked to our attitudes and our hearts.

Happiness is an emotion that is available to us at the most trivial level. It is levity and laughter that is generated by others around us. We chase happiness the same way we chase our standing in society. We want only the best so that we can be happy. We want our friends around us so that we can enjoy the moment and be happy. All of these things are ephemeral and fleeting in our lives. We will find this feeling and often we are so obsessed with our need for happiness in our lives that we forget that it comes from outside not from inside. Just like a drug that gives us a momentary high. I am not saying that there is anything wrong with being happy, of course we should achieve happiness in our lives. We do however need to realise that happiness is fleeting and can easily be destroyed. It is something that others can assist ourselves in achieving or destroying through their attitudes and actions. Whilst happiness will lead us into joy, joy is much more than the fleeting insubstantialness of happiness.

Only when we accept ourselves at the deepest level do we find joy

Joy does not come through the antics of others. Joy is generated in the heart that is willing to sacrifice itself for others so that others may come to find joy in their hearts no matter the circumstances of their lives. It is a much deeper emotion and one that is understood through our own attitudes rather than through the attitudes of others. It is a fundamental change in our hearts so that we too may experience the suffering others feel to bring joy and love into the hearts of the other. Christ understands this when he his requested by the Sons of Zebedee to bring them happiness by elevating their status (Mk 10.35-37). The sons of Zebedee are looking for temporal happiness they are not looking for the deep joy that comes with the presence of Christ in our hearts.

This deep joy is also alluded to in the Hebrew scriptures and in the epistle to the Hebrews (Heb. 1.1-10). The greatest joy to be found is in the sacrifice of the Priest Melchizedek, thought to be the son of Moses. It is not a simple sacrifice but a sacrifice of dedication to God beyond everything. It is our sacrifice when we allow ourselves to go the extra mile and not hold back our hearts and our efforts. It is Christ's sacrifice for us on the cross to grant us the grace of God's presence and salvation. If we are to find joy we need to adjust our attitude towards the other and not towards ourselves. If we are looking for Joy because we have lost it we are looking for the ephemeral happiness of the everyday rather than the deep joy of God's presence. It is our attitude towards each and every person who build up the community of Christ that expresses joy in the midst of disaster or destroys its presence. God asks us at our baptism and confirmation to sacrifice ourselves totally. It is only when we do this on a daily basis that we begin to experience the true joy which is God's presence in our lives.

An upside down world

 Conventional wisdom and the norms of he world suggest that being rich, powerful and selfish creates the perfect living arrangement. In being rich we have no worry about what we buy or eat; being powerful means that others do not come between us and what we desire; being selfish suggests that others are of no consequence. In light of the Gospel, the Good news, this convention is meaningless as all the categories that we thought of as being true are turned in a topsy turvey manner so that we no longer recognise what is true and what is false. We are not used to seeing things from this point of view as we struggle with perspective and understanding what it means to be a person of faith when our traditional views are turned upside down. This appears as if we have to look at modalities in the same manner we would look at Escher prints and the fantastical art from the Surrealists.

Are we prepared to see things from a different perspective

Christ states the opposites of what we expect when in Mark's gospel and in the others when he states "But many who are first will be last and the last first" (10:31). So how do we practically change our view point especially in a world that does not engender the best of faith. Christ's statement in Mark comes after the question from the rich man as to how to gain eternal life. This is followed by the disciples talking about how difficult this is if the rich are unable to enter and the story of the camel going through the eye of the needle. Our difficulty is in thinking that our talents and our riches pave the way into the presence of God. It is almost harking back to the question of works and faith. It is not quite the same however as here we are talking about the difference between our worldly wealth and the wealth we have in terms of faith and the spirit. It is not our worldly abilities that assist us in this case but rather our connection to God and our ability to see things from the perspective of God.

We take account of things only from our own build in worldly experiences but we are being asked to put that to one side. We cannot get rid of it. It is similar to us having a seat in the wings of the theatre and being offered the ability to see from the centre of the front row. Our seat is in the wings but we are being asked to take the perspective of the front row. The change can become a permanent one but for the moment it is just a temporary change until we can actually manage the swap and make it permanent. In enabling our ability to see from a different perspective we begin to see as Christ and discard our own view. The Hebrew's passage reminds us quite clearly with regards to the power of  God's word, perhaps as revealed in scripture (Heb. 4:12). In context to what we are referring to it is obvious that turning the perspective around reveals more to us then we would normally guess. So in this case let us just suspend our normal thought processes and try to see the world in a different light.

Let us take a look at how we see being rich and successful. Most would suggest that this is what we all strive for in some form or another. It is our way of getting the world to look at us for once. Instead of looking at it from that point of view let us look at it from God's point of view. Each time we look at the rich and famous we need to ask ourselves what would God want us to do if we were rich and famous? If we are truly servants of God and have left everything behind then riches mean nothing to us unless they are serving God's purposes. This is, perhaps, what Christ is attempting to get across. Not that it is a problem being rich but if we are not doing God's work with our riches then it does not matter. In today's world what God wants us to do with our riches is irrespective so long as we accrue fame and fortune. This is not giving away everything to follow God it is retaining everything to follow ourselves. By seeing the use that riches can be put to and changing our perspective we can begin truly to follow God.

Faith in the face of disaster

 Have we learnt anything over the past 2000 years or more? Probably not, even if we are meant to learn from history. Job was and is held up as a person of supreme faith within his community (Job 2.1-10) and yet as a result of that faith appears to have everything go wrong. On the face of it, like Job, we are always confronted with some form of disaster or another and are asked to overcome it in some way through our faith. The disaster may be a natural one such as the recent hurricane Helene or the various floods around the world including Europe, Africa and the Americas. On top of the natural ones we have the violence of wars perpetrated against innocents in Middle East and elsewhere. It may on the other hand be a change in our lives that has upset our equilibrium or it may be that our faith community is in the throes of struggle in an unending series of setbacks. Consider our response in each of these cases and any other that we may confront. We actually have a series of decisions that we personally have to make and these decisions impact on our lives and the lives of the community that we belong to.

What do you see? Despair, hope or picture

Response: Positive energy. In the midst of doubt when disaster strikes it is possible to find a path which consumes us with positive energy. Such a path is one that is generated by God's presence encouraging us to not only give of ourselves in time and expertise but also to give of ourselves to the greatest possible sense. This is the path of Job; the path of integrity to our faith and to our baptismal vows. It is a remembrance that irrespective of the good and the bad we are committed to the presence of God in our lives. We give thanks to this presence by in turn, dedicating our lives to the presence of Christ. This means that we give fully of ourselves in everything to our faith our work, our time, our finances, our lives, etc. It is not a part time commitment that is only as deep as our interest in the present time. It means that if we have committed to giving 100% of ourselves to God then we can not and should not fall away from that commitment. Often when we financially or time commit ourselves we often vary our commitment depending on our own circumstances in the world. Yet, God commits 100% of God to ourselves irrespective of the circumstances. Can we not do the same in our own faith commitments? If we say we will commit time to our faith can we not continue this no matter the circumstances or is our commitment to our faith journey but a move towards the supermarket? This is the hope seen in Job's response; the hope that is embedded in the shema. If we lose this, we just trash that which we do not use and move on to some other thing that becomes important to us allowing our faith to slowly become beached in the narrow shallows of some forgotten creek.

Response: Leave everything as it is. This is a very Australian way of looking at life. She'll be right mate, just leave it be everything will turn out ok. It has worked in the past it is guaranteed to work in the future. God does not give us the opportunity to grow God just allows us to be. We can keep on repeating and repeating the mistakes of the past and not worry because God will keep it going. Yet, God is the God of change and metamorphoses. God continually draws us forward so that we can willingly follow as children follow their inquisitiveness to discover the next thing in their growth. Just like children we are encouraged to explore the depths and heights not just sit and do nothing whilst surrounded by possibility. Christ blesses the children (Mk 10.13-16), not in indolence but in activity. In exploring the children invest themselves in the future so we to as members of Christ body, as children of God, need to invest ourselves in our faith journey and those instruments that assist us to grow. We cannot just leave things be but rather invest time, money and work into our tools and places that help us to look to God.

Response: Give up. This for some is the natural response. To lie down and roll over so that nothing bad will happen. For us as people of faith to do this means that we give up our response at baptism to Christ. We declare that every single vow or promise that we have made is void. This means even those promises that appear to be secular in nature. We give ourselves up to the void of depression and an endless cycle of grief and sadness. We all know of someone or some structure that has appeared to give up. Job in his response to disaster is also tempted by his wife to just give up (Job 2.9). This can never be our response as people of faith rather like Job we need to respond with an understanding that all things are possible even recovery in the deepest of disasters.

Half truths or half lies - What are we called into?

 In John's gospel Christ states that "I am the way, the truth and the life" and yet we often deny this as Christians in our lives. We often have very little compunction about telling things to people that will benefit ourselves and our friends rather than the truth. This is one of the most difficult things for us to undertake as our whole society is based on the telling of lies. If you do not believe me than listen to this story of an ethics class where telling lies was discussed. A student told the lecturer that she never told lies. The lecturer asked her a couple of questions: do you ever wear shoes that have increased your height in any way? the student replied , "Of course, I wear heels to go out to dinner" The lecturer then asked "Do you ever wear any form of make up?" The answer given was "yes most of the time". The lecturer than asked "how can you say you do not lie? You have said you lie about your height when you go out and each day you lie about who you are when you disguise your features with makeup".  These are minor social lies that we undertake each and every day in some form or another (gentlemen we are the same; just think aftershave, cologne, hair gel, shoes with a higher heel, etc). It becomes increasingly so when we begin to talk about advertising and politics in all of its forms. Our society is built on lies often hidden, often socially accepted and often blindly ignored even when we know the truth.

Half truth half lie - which is which?

Christ in Marks's gospel suggests various body parts to be cut out and put out if they commit sin (Mk 9:43-47) perhaps indicating how we can tell an untruth through our bodies but most importantly not to allow ourselves to become tasteless without the truth salting our body (Mk. 9:49-50). In James' epistle the author is clear about how we must habituate our speech pattern around the truth (James 5:12). In answering questions and delivering our opinions we are often guilty of  waffling our way towards the endpoint rather than stating our feelings or what we wish done. This again is something that society has suggested is the better way as then we will not upset or disrupt relationship. Yet, if we do not truth tell we will eventually cause the same disruption of relationship. Yes, we needs must take care in how we speak the truth but this is about wisdom and understanding rather than not stating the truth. Truth telling is not always about words and how we inform each other. Truth telling goes beyond this to how we actually live our lives to the fullest. In the book of Esther there is a clear understanding of what the cost of truth is not only for those telling it but those who have perpetuated a lie (Esther 7-8).

Just think about our own lives for a moment. The majority of us for whatever reason have a reluctance to share our lives with others, even with our family and friends. Even when we have things like RUOK day and other such ventures the understanding of privacy is so in built into our lives that we are reluctant to divulge and open our hearts. This is about truth telling of our hearts and minds and opening up to the presence of God. In James the writer goes on to speak about praising God if we are cheerful and praying if we are down, informing others of illness, etc (James 5:13-). This is about honesty in our own understanding of ourselves. This is telling the truth of our lives to others. It is not about divulging the secrets of secrets. It is about being honest about ourselves. This takes many of us a long time to understand and often we never come to this understanding of ourselves. We prevaricate and do not let others know our true feelings and were we are at in terms of our own health, spiritual, mental or physical. This has gradually become part of our lives over time and in some sense enshrined in the law of the land regarding privacy. We are reluctant to invite others into our hearts and life simply because we can shut them all out. In doing so we lessen our ties to each other and to the formation of community. It does not matter that we may dislike someone God asks us to love them irrespective of who or what they portray or are.

In order to be honest and pick up the cross to follow Christ we must pick up the burden of truth telling in our lives. It is no use for us to say yes we are OK when we are not for we then do not receive the support that the community can give us in prayer and comfort. As a result of this loss of respect and truth telling we have lost our ability to be empathetic. We no longer have the understanding of another's pain and circumstances since we have privatised our own pain and despair. Only when we can share in truth can we really begin to understand and empathise with others who are equally burdened and in pain.

Communication gets us into trouble

We start our faith journey when we are brought to baptism and those who sponsor children (parents and Godparents) are asked to do one thing and one thing only. This is for us a very difficult thing to do as our secular culture is mightily opposed to us doing it. The one thing they are asked to do is to show the child how to love the other, God and neighbour. This is highly contraindicated for a western culture that is derived from the self being the only thing that matters. Selfishness is inbred in us and can be considered to be a hereditary trait that would be considered evolutionary beneficial for the species as it ensured survival of the weakest from birth. Thus part of the child growing in faith is to be taught how to control their selfish needs and consider others especially when they begin to verbalise. This is because as soon as we begin to utilise our tongues for communication we begin to understand the nuances of deceit and power for ourselves through manipulation whilst using words.

 As we grow older, our self orientated culture primes us, in such a manner,  to achieve our desires to become more prominent in society or increase our popularity by doing and saying things to "win over" the majority. In other words, we do not necessarily tell the truth but only what our constituents wish to hear, so that we can attain our goal rather than the goals of the community. We allow our desires to overrun and manipulate our tongue, guiding our speech and our attitude. We have no control as we cannot control our desires and so we let our tongue run away with a multitude of promises with little truth. However, we need to learn to control our tongues which means we need to control our desires so that they conform with the desires of God rather than human desires. The tongue is the symptom rather than the causal root of the problem. Yes, like any good programme we do need to eradicate the symptoms but the better way is remove the causative agent. This is the difficult task of the Godparent and parent to guide the growing child in this process of control.

In our speech we also tend to forget that we have other ways of communicating and more often than not it is our non-verbal communications that constantly create the challenges that we find in life. How many times have, I wonder, we heard the cliche from an grieved person "I didn't say anything wrong". We scratch our heads and nod wisely when we actually hear the words agreeing that yes they did not say anything wrong. The issue is in how or in what manner that they stated the innocuous words. We can say I love you in so many different ways that some are loving and others convey our utter distaste. Children say what they mean without any form of or degree of attitudinal change as this is a learnt behaviour. Thus, parents and Godparents need to be quick to steer the growing child away from the issues that may begin to grow and foster as they repeat what others demonstrate. Sometimes the learning is unconscious as this is how they obtained what they wanted and were not chastised as a youngster. However, when we begin to acknowledge that we need to be aware of non verbal communication we can begin to correct our own behaviours as well as those around us. We need to mirror the attitude of the young child with their innocence rather than manipulate to obtain what we want through tone, and misplaced attitudes.

Can we control our tongues?

Everything that we do must be focused on the one thing that we profess as Christians. Our profession of belief in Christ and followers of Christ suggest that we should place before us the one single goal of love of God and neighbour. The singularity in this duality is the one word love. No matter what our thoughts, our deeds or our words may be they should be centred on this singular thing called love. The wife held up at in the last chapter of Proverbs displays this wisdom. Christ attempts to pass this understanding on to the disciples by his words and actions. Yet we still fail because our desires are not aligned with Christ or with the wisdom that is imparted. We still look to the symptoms of our loose tongues to remind ourselves of the control that is required rather than looking at our hearts which are the root of the issue. In participating in an act of communication we need to be aware that all our ways of conveying information are open to abuse. We just need to look at the Evangelical Christian voice as they criticise the Graham dynasty to see how easy gaffes create issues. In receiving others as a young child we welcome the unconditional love which is God's and begin to convey it to those in our community, we begin to prove our words by the wisdom and action of our hearts. It is not just the sleight of hand produced by our tongues. In controlling our communication we are more able to convey God's love and the Christ that lives within us.