IN EXILE
By Father Ron Rolheiser, OMI

A sound theology and a sound science will both recognize that the law of gravity and the Holy Spirit are one in the same principle. There isn’t a different spirit undergirding the physical than the spiritual. There’s one spirit that’s speaking through both the law of gravity and the Sermon on the Mount.

If we recognized that same Spirit is present in everything, in physical creation, in love, in beauty, in human creativity and in human morality; we could hold more things together in a fruitful tension rather than putting them in opposition and having the different gifts of the God’s Spirit fight each other. What does this mean?

We have too many unhealthy dichotomies in our lives. Too often we find ourselves choosing between things that should not be in opposition to each other and are in the unhappy position of having to pick between two things which are both, in themselves, good. We live in a world in which, too often, the spiritual is set against the physical, morality is set against creativity, wisdom is set against education, commitment is set against sex, conscience is set against pleasure, and personal fidelity is set against creative and professional success.

Obviously there’s something wrong here. If one force, God’s Spirit, is the single source that animates all these things then clearly we should not be in a position of having to choose between them. Ideally we should be choosing both because the one, same Spirit undergirds both.

Is this true? Is the Holy Spirit both the source of gravity and the source of love? Yes. At least if the Scriptures are to be believed. They tell us that the Holy Spirit is both a physical and a spiritual force, the source of all physicality and of all spirituality all at the same time.

We first meet the person of the Holy Spirit in the opening line of the Bible: In the beginning there was a formless void and the Spirit of God hovered over the chaos. In the early chapters of the Scriptures, the Holy Spirit is presented as a physical force, a wind that comes from the very mouth of God and not only shapes and orders physical creation but is also the energy that lies at the base of everything, animate and inanimate alike: Take away your breath, and everything returns to dust.

The ancients believed there was a soul in everything and that soul, God’s breath, held everything together and gave it meaning. They believed this even though they did not understand, as we do today, the workings of the infra-atomic world: how the tiniest particles and energy waves already possess erotic electrical charges, how hydrogen seeks out oxygen, and how at the most elemental level of physical reality energies are already attracting and repelling each other just as people do. They could not explain these things scientifically as we can, but they recognized, just as we do, that there is already some form of “love” inside all things, however inanimate. They attributed all of this to God’s breath, a wind that comes from God’s mouth and ultimately animates rocks, water, animals and human beings.

They understood that the same breath that animates and orders physical creation is also the source of all wisdom, harmony, peace, creativity, morality and fidelity. God’s breath was understood to be as moral as it is physical, as unifying as it is creative, and as wise as it is daring. For them, the breath of God was one force and it did not contradict itself. The physical and the spiritual world were not set against each other. One Spirit was understood to be the source of both.

We need to understand things in the same way. We need to let the Holy Spirit, in all its fullness, animate our lives. What this means concretely is that we must not let ourselves be energized and driven too much by one part of the Spirit to the detriment of other parts of that same Spirit.

Thus, there shouldn’t be creativity in the absence of morality, education in the absence of wisdom, sex in the absence of commitment, pleasure in the absence of conscience, and artistic or professional achievement in the absence of personal fidelity. Not least, there shouldn’t be a good life for some in the absence of justice for everyone. Conversely, however, we need to be suspicious of ourselves when we are moral but not creative, when our wisdom fears critical education, when our spirituality has a problem with pleasure, and when our personal fidelity is over-defensive in the face of art and achievement. One Spirit is the author of all of these. Hence, we must be equally sensitive to each of them.

Someone once quipped that a heresy is something that is nine-tenths true. That’s our problem with the Holy Spirit. We’re forever into partial truth when we don’t allow for a connection between the law of gravity and the Sermon on the Mount.

(Oblate Father Ron Rolheiser is a theologian, teacher and award-winning author. He can be contacted through his website www.ronrolheiser.com.)

On Ordinary Times
By Lucia A. Silecchia

Perhaps this is a luxury I can enjoy because I am not a pilot, a seafarer or a driver on winding country roads. For those such as these, the inability to see in the distance is not a welcome treat.

But, when I wake up in the morning, look out my seventh story window and see a milky dew fill the air, it brings a special peace. This peace lasts even when I leave home if the streets and sidewalks are still shrouded with early morning mist.

I think my fondness for fog comes in the way it hides all that lies in the distance and forces me to pay attention, willingly or not, only to those things that are close at hand.

Perhaps I appreciate this because, sometimes there is a wisdom to living life inspired by foggy mornings.
Typically, when someone describes feeling “in a fog” this is meant in the pejorative, as something to be avoided. Yet, there is also a beauty in taking time to gaze only on that which is nearby. So often, it is tempting to spend the day looking into the distance and into the future, rather than focusing on that which is up front and close by.

How often do we listen to someone across the table from us, while thinking about the texts we want to answer? How often do we hear someone speaking while we are busily planning ahead for how we will respond? How often do we greet small children by asking them what they want to be when they grow up rather than enjoying who they are? How often do we watch a play or listen to a concert while our minds wander to what the workday will hold the following morning?

How often do we gaze at the mountain in the distance without seeing the wildflowers that bloom next to us at the side of the road? How often do we pray for the “big” things in life, without seeking God’s sustenance in the daily bread of everyday life? How often do we spend our attention on the important things we plan to do someday, without noticing the little things we can do today? How often is it easier to appreciate the sights we seek a world away than it is to appreciate the highlights of our own hometowns?

I admire those who live with the grace to see the needs of the person before them, know the need to walk with God in the present moment, and do not fail to miss the opportunity to stretch out a hand to help today, not tomorrow.

When a fog rolls in, we have no choice but to live with the distance hidden for a time. Willingly or not, the beautiful and the frightening, the pleasant and the disturbing things that lie beyond are hidden. When those things lie beyond our line of sight, there is nothing to do except to focus on that which is nearby.
Yes, life cannot be lived entirely this way. Planning and keeping an eye to the future have their place and are important parts of responsible adulthood.

Nevertheless, I would still like to live with a lesson from a foggy morning. Sometimes, it is just as important to surrender the future and the far away. Sometimes, it is a gift to gaze only at the blessings and burdens close at hand. Sometimes, it is worth letting the fog roll in to our ordinary time.

(Lucia A. Silecchia is a Professor of Law and Associate Dean for Faculty Research at the Catholic University of America’s Columbus School of Law. Email her at silecchia@cua.edu.)

FOR THE JOURNEY
By Effie Caldarola

Walking through the park on a brisk winter morning, I glance at the parking lot near the playground and notice a colorful van.

I see big letters on its side panel: “Worry First.”

Wait a minute. I look again. Actually, it says “Worry Free,” the slogan of a utility company’s appliance service. I chuckle. I’ve proven something I know about myself all too well. I am a worrier, and I just let my eyes deceive me. Is that my slogan, I wonder, “worry first?”

We all worry. We worry about the future, about all the things that could go wrong. On the one hand, it’s good to be prepared, but worrying is a spiritual problem. A very human one, but a problem nonetheless.
In Wendell Berry’s poem, “The Peace of Wild Things,” he writes of waking in the night “in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be.” How many of us can identify with that?

Nighttime is the perfect incubator of worry.

Berry tells us that he goes into nature when these fears arise, and I believe he’s speaking metaphorically when he writes, “I go and lie down where the wood drake rests in his beauty on the water, and the heron feeds.”

His next line is one I have memorized: “I come into the peace of wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief.”

How much time do we waste taxing our lives with “forethought of grief?” Of all the species in this world, we humans are the only ones who worry about all the “what ifs.” The birds of the air make nests, and they carefully find a spot to protect their eggs from predators. But they are called to this, and they do it naturally and without worry. They live in each present moment.

Once a spiritual director was encouraging me to trust God more. She mentioned Jesus’ admonition (Mt 10:29-31), “Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And yet not one of them will fall to the ground outside your Father’s care.”

I immediately mentioned the birds that would occasionally crash into my plate glass front window. Was God caring for them? My director smiled. They died without worry, she said. No forethought of grief burdened them.

Turning away from worry does not mean our lives will be without struggle, illness, frustration and certain death. Turning away from worry means that in the moment, in each precious and passing moment, we accept the presence of God with us through it all.

In Jesuit Father James Martin’s book, “Come Forth,” about Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead, he talks about what some psychologists call “catastrophizing,” always focusing on the negative. He gives examples: “a bumpy airplane ride meant that we were crashing … a mildly critical remark from a friend meant that he hated me.”

This thinking the worst, expecting the worst or worrying about every possibility can dominate our lives.
“There’s a reason,” writes Martin, “that they call Satan ‘the Prince of Lies.’ If Satan can get you to focus on only the negatives, you are living a lie.”

Anxiety, another spiritual director told me, means a lack of trust. I was taken aback by this comment, because I know that some people are plagued by genuine anxiety for which they may need medical help.
But for the anxiety that taxes my life, the worry that exhorts payment in wasted time, wasted opportunities and lost sleep, I know that God is the answer. Making the choice in each present moment to not “worry first” is a step on the spiritual journey.

(Effie Caldarola is a wife, mom and grandmother who received her master’s degree in pastoral ministry from Seattle University.)