For me personally the readings were incredibly moving, especially since they combined some of my favorite texts and images all on the same day. I was able to lector for the reading from Isaiah 55: God's Word will not return to him void, but then came Paul writing to the Romans about adoption in Christ and how it is God causes all things to work for good in those that love him (that is, in those who allow him to be God for and with them!); I immediately thought of a quote I have used here and used just recently with some new friends, [[ Not everything that happens is the will of God, but inevitably, of all that happens, nothing happens outside the will of God! (Dietrich Bonhoeffer). And then finally, the parable of the soils (sometimes less accurately, I think, called the parable of the seeds)! Our homilist did a terrific job and really did break this word open powerfully and effectively which added to the abundance God showered on us all --- the seeds God broadcast. And so, after today's liturgy, I was left excited --- so much seed, so many possibilities for prayer, reflection, study, and writing! So much goodness and such abundant promise of LIFE! I tried to describe my experience in an email and here is what I wrote:
13 July 2020
"Beyond Imagining:"Broadcasting the Seed of God's Word
For me personally the readings were incredibly moving, especially since they combined some of my favorite texts and images all on the same day. I was able to lector for the reading from Isaiah 55: God's Word will not return to him void, but then came Paul writing to the Romans about adoption in Christ and how it is God causes all things to work for good in those that love him (that is, in those who allow him to be God for and with them!); I immediately thought of a quote I have used here and used just recently with some new friends, [[ Not everything that happens is the will of God, but inevitably, of all that happens, nothing happens outside the will of God! (Dietrich Bonhoeffer). And then finally, the parable of the soils (sometimes less accurately, I think, called the parable of the seeds)! Our homilist did a terrific job and really did break this word open powerfully and effectively which added to the abundance God showered on us all --- the seeds God broadcast. And so, after today's liturgy, I was left excited --- so much seed, so many possibilities for prayer, reflection, study, and writing! So much goodness and such abundant promise of LIFE! I tried to describe my experience in an email and here is what I wrote:
Posted by Sr. Laurel M. O'Neal, Er. Dio. at 2:41 AM
Labels: Beyond Imagining, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Isaiah 55, Power of the Word of God, suffering and the will of God
09 April 2020
Nothing Can Make Up for the Absence of Those We Love
Today I am grateful for the bonds of love which so enrich my life --- even when these bonds are experienced as painful absence and emptiness. I think this is a critical witness of eremitical life with its emphasis on "the silence of solitude" --- just as it is in monastic (or some forms of religious) life more generally. I also believe it is the terrible paradox of relatedness-in-separation Jesus' almost-inarticulate cry of abandonment expressed from the Cross. Thanks be to God.
Posted by Sr. Laurel M. O'Neal, Er. Dio. at 6:00 PM
Labels: Cry of Abandonment, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Good Friday, Holy Spirit, Holy Thursday, Pandemic, Theology of the Cross
27 September 2019
Followup on Vocations and the Will of God
[[Dear Sister Laurel, many thanks for answering my questions on canon 603 and vocations generally. Did you mean that your sense of a deeper call (to authentic humanity) made it easier to handle the loss of concrete pathways? For example, what happens to women who feel called to preach or minister as an ordained priest but have to settle for something else? Would the theology you outlined in your last post ease their pain at being barred from the priesthood?]]
Great questions, thank you again! Yes, my sense that vocation first of all means a call to authentic humanity does make it possible to deal well with the loss of specific pathways. However, that does not mean it does away with the pain of loss, and especially not with the pain of being deprived of a vocational pathway that one desired deeply even to the point of knowing it as a call from God. It is more the case, at least in my own experience, that deep joy combines with pain; the pain adds a kind of poignancy to the joy one feels and the awe that comes from the sense of God's will being done in spite of difficulties and obstacles.
I suppose this is one of the places I am caused to reflect on the passion narratives and Jesus' prayer in Gethsemane; it is also one of the places this narrative is most consoling to me. I hear Jesus praying that he wishes the will of God could be realized in some other way, that surely it could shape itself differently than the events that stand in front of him now, and even (perhaps) that the events overtaking him are unjust and ensure the failure of his ministry as well as causing terrible pain to those who love him. Jesus proclaimed the Kingdom with his life and he did that unceasingly. During the years of active ministry he had to reappropriate Israel's sense of who God's Messiah would be, how that messiahship would be shaped and what it would look like in the face of historical circumstances and oppression. Again and again the reshaping, both in Jesus' understanding and as he embodied this call himself, took the form of weakness and self-emptying; now in these final hours this weakness and self-emptying would reach its climax in abject helplessness, pain, shame, and an even deeper degree of openness to God's will.
Specifically, with regard to reflections on vocation what strikes me most about the Gethsemane situation and prayer is the profoundness of the apparent conflict between what Jesus dreamt of and deeply desired and what he commits himself to in spite of not seeing clearly what God is doing in it all. I wonder that Jesus did not see historical circumstances preventing God's will from being done -- but clearly he did not see things that way. I wonder that Jesus did not say, "Abba, how can any of this be your will??!!" but again, he did not say this. Instead, he placed himself in God's hands and walked resolutely into the future trusting that ultimately even abandonment by God and godless death could, in fact, be (or at least serve) the will of God and the way God does justice. For me one lesson of all this is God works at levels deeper, more profound than what we can ordinarily see. Moreover God reveals Godself in the unexpected and even the "unacceptable" place -- something we all should hold fast to when we see our lives going "askew" in this way and that.
Regarding women who feel a call to the priesthood, for instance, but are frustrated in this for the whole of their lives, no I don't think this theology takes away the pain of this; it may even sharpen it in some ways. However, I do think it provides the means to move forward with real hope in spite of the fact that historical circumstances can actually thwart God's will in some ways while we hold onto the fact that simultaneously God can and does operate in even more profound ways to achieve his will. As I was reminded last night during a class on Galatians, that freedom can be expressed in negative and in positive terms: we can be free from things and free for them. Sometimes these two forms of freedom co-exist on the same level: we must be free from certain things if we are to be free for other things. But sometimes they exist on different levels so that despite certain unfreedoms we can yet be free for deeper and more fundamental freedoms.
Here too I am reminded of the Bonhoeffer quote I have used here a number of times: [[ Not everything that happens is the will of God, but inevitably nothing that occurs happens outside the will of God.]] This may not ease pain, but it does create hope and opens us to experiences of fulfillment, joy, and awe which can co-exist with and even contextualize the pain.
Posted by Sr. Laurel M. O'Neal, Er. Dio. at 6:29 PM
Labels: Dietrich Bonhoeffer, discerning vocations, permissive will, vocations v vocational paths
05 March 2019
Once Again on Right-handed vs Left-handed Power: Mark 4 and the Stilling of the Storm
[[Dear Sister, in two of your recent posts you are saying that the kind of Messiah Jesus becomes depends on how he discerns the will of God, am I right? And that means that the kind of disciples he calls us to be depends on the kind of Messiah he will be and we will accept. If Mark is saying Jesus wants his disciples to accept a Messiah who needs to suffer and die to do the will of God why does he still the storm at the end of Chapter 4? I read the chapter and that seems to conflict with the rest of it. By the way, thanks for sharing more of that prayer experience. Has it caused you to conclude that God did not want you to be well or that He wanted you to be sick? I think that could be very difficult to hear!]]
Great questions! Thank you! As I read the piece about stilling the storm I hear it in two or three ways: First, it serves as a kind of second bookend pairing the one in the section preceding the chapter of the seed parables with the statements about Jesus as the strong man who will destroy the kingdom of Satan, or being recognized as one who speaks/teaches with a hitherto unknown authority (exousia, power). That first section (Mark 1-3) is full of healings and exorcisms --- right-handed acts of power. Jesus is affirmed as "Son of God" ---and "beloved Son" which means he is a hearer of the Word; in Judaism he would have been understood to embody the foundational Shema: "Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God is One. . ." and thus, be the human being uniquely empowered by the creative Word of God. All of this is followed by parables which point away from a Kingdom of God as commonly understood --- a Kingdom establishing Israel as preeminent amongst the kingdoms of this world with a militaristic Messiah. But Jesus is still the "Strong Man", the One who represents and reveals (makes known and real in space and time) the Creator God. If he embraces a Messiahship that is worked out in weakness, suffering, and even in death, it must be seen as a choice rooted in his discernment of the will of God and a paradoxical act of power.
Secondly, I think in stilling the storm Jesus essentially says to his disciples, "Remember who I am! Remember whom you are asking whether I care if you perish!!" We can think of it as an enacted parable perhaps, a way of saying, "Will you follow me in my understanding of the will and mission of God or not?" The right-handed use of power serves to ease the disciples' fear, to assure them of Jesus' identity, and remind them that he does indeed participate in the power of God in ways they have never seen before. It underscores that Jesus is compassionate and can work wonders (in the NT, what we call miracles are called works of power) that only God would be expected to do.
Finally and above all, I think this enacted parable asks the disciples yet again if they will trust Jesus and follow him --- even if his choices take them along a path to violent death. Mark writes his story this way to address his community who are being persecuted and are in some real danger of death. Similar questions are put to them when they wonder if God cares that they are in danger of perishing: can you trust the Crucified Messiah is really the "Strong Man", the embodiment of the Wisdom and Word of God?
And as he addresses them so does he address us: Can you trust that the way Jesus brings redemption is the left-handed way of power that will include suffering, that reveals itself in weakness but that accompanies us in every moment and mood of our existence thus transforming our lives with God's presence? Can you trust the paradox of the Cross, that eternal life and the reconciliation of the whole cosmos comes through scandalous (offensive) death revealing that ultimately no one and nothing is abandoned by the God whose Love is stronger than death? Do you believe not just in the death of Jesus but in his resurrection? Do you believe the Messiah who reveals that when all the props are kicked out God accompanies us in an ultimately meaningful way? Can you trust that when patience seems impossible and perseverance may feel meaningless, when the notion of a God whose power is made perfect in weakness seems ridiculous and your own discipleship feels like foolishness in the face of the world's power that the Crucified Messiah is truly Emmanuel, God-With-Us? Can you believe that he makes known and real in human history a God who can be absolutely trusted to be with and for you even to the depths of sin and death and that this God will bring new life forth from these even as he reconciles the whole of creation to (Him)self?
On God Willing Illness:
While I cannot say this is a form of discipleship I would have chosen, especially when I was younger, nor one that I find all that easy to be faithful to sometimes, I am grateful to be called to it. I too have wanted God to act with right-handed power in my life, or to reveal things in ways that short-circuited long periods of waiting and patience (or impatience!!). But the Gospel of Mark inspires me and the parables of the seeds especially remind me that God's power is certain; thus I trust the way Dietrich Bonhoeffer put it: [[Not everything that happens is the will of God, but inevitably, nothing that happens does so outside the will of God!]] The Apostle Paul affirmed a God who could bring life out of death, good out of evil, and meaning out of absurdity. Mark also knew that well and the story (the enacted parable) of the stilling of the storm reminded his disciples just who it was sleeping peacefully in the midst of chaos even as it called them to faith in a sometimes-shocking God.
Posted by Sr. Laurel M. O'Neal, Er. Dio. at 12:01 AM
Labels: Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Gospel of Mark, power made perfect in weakness, Theology of the Cross
13 November 2016
A Light that Shines in the Darkness: On the Play, Prayer, and Resistance of Martyrdom
“Music... will help dissolve your perplexities and purify your character and sensibilities, and in time of care and sorrow, will keep a fountain of joy alive in you.” Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Returning this afternoon from a rare outing to attend a concert of the San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra I was thinking about a drawing I am working on which is a kind of meditation on the way God was present to me in my Junior High and High School years. I too played in a youth orchestra and besides playing violin I spent hours listening to classical music and pretending to conduct the orchestra playing on my record player! (In fact, most of the classical musicians I know did something similar as kids and we almost never talk about it --- unless someone breaks the silence, and then everyone chimes in to share about their own childhood and adolescent play --- a profoundly serious form of play for most of us that prepared us for adult dreams, commitments, discipline and passionate living!)
For me music was an awesome source of light and beauty and joy. It brought order and rationality and introduced me to a language which broke every divisive limitation and boundary; here the Transcendent broke into and pushed away the darkness that was present and which sometimes threatened to stifle the life I was also summoned to embody fully, exhaustively. It poured out of my own heart and mind (through violin) and was also present as I touched into the "music" of the universe (improvising and "conducting"). It was here I really began to learn to pray (without realizing this was the case), and it was here that a large part of the experience of redemption in solitude so crucial to the making of the heart of a hermit was centered during these relatively early years. All of this, along with conversations with a friend who is both a religious and an artist, helps remind me that today it is especially important that somehow we each get in touch with beauty and the presence of the God who IS beauty during this time of increased anxiety and concern caused by the ugliness of institutionalized hatred and bigotry --- and the prospect of these being given real legitimacy by elected leaders and their appointees.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a theologian, pastor, and resistance movement member sought to counter and defeat the bigotry and racism of the fascist movement and agenda whose purpose was to make aliens of neighbors and "the other" of friends and colleagues that was such a central part of the Nazi's self-serving will-to-power. The National Socialists who came to power with Hitler, murdered Bonhoeffer; they hanged him at Flossenbürg Concentration Camp on 09. April.1945 in an execution that may have been prolonged to six hours or more. Like Bonhoeffer we are each and all of us called to be the martyrs of God; we are summoned and in fact made to witness to the love of God, temples who manifest God's glory in the midst of threatening crises and darkness. We are called to be prophets who speak truth to power and do so with a love that does justice.
It is here that serious play, genuine recreation, becomes as critical as the work we also engage in; after all, play can be a significant form of prayer that allows God to work in and through us to quiet, energize, and enlarge our minds and hearts with a life that is "for others", a life that is capable of truly resisting bigotry, racism, and hatred that refuses to see the Divine beauty of each person we call ""alien" or "other."
Sculpture: by Edith Breckwoldt, The ordeal. No man in the whole world can change the truth. One can only look for the truth, find it and serve it. The truth is in all places. (Bonhoeffer)
Posted by Sr. Laurel M. O'Neal, Er. Dio. at 10:47 PM
Labels: Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Fascism, Music, National Socialists, Play, Resistance
20 July 2016
Nothing Can Make up for the Absence of Someone Whom We Love
A couple of years ago or so I wrote about Jesus' cry of abandonment on the cross; I suggested that it was the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of the mutual love of Father and Son that maintained their bond of love while keeping open the space of terrible separation experienced as abandonment and occasioning the suffering of both Father and Son which reached its climax on the cross and Jesus' "descent into hell". Both connection and separation are necessary parts of the love relationships constituting Trinitarian life marked by mission to our world and thus, by kenosis eventuating in the cross.
Similarly, in writing about eremitical life I noted that stricter separation from the world was an essential part of maintaining not only one's love for God but also for God's creation because without very real separation we might instead know only enmeshment in that world rather than a real capacity for love which reconciles and brings to wholeness. In everyday terms we know that the deficiencies and losses we experience throughout our lives are things we often try to avoid or fill in every conceivable way rather than to find creative approaches to genuinely live (and heal) the pain: addictions, deprivations and excesses, denial and distractions, pathological withdrawal or superficial relationships of all kinds attest to the futile and epidemic character of these approaches to the deep and often unmet needs we each experience.
While we may expect our relationship with God to fill these needs and simply take away the pain of loss and grief we are more apt to find God with us IN the pain in a way which, out of a profound love for the whole of who we are and who we are called to become, silently accompanies and consoles without actually diminishing the suffering associated with the loss or unmet needs themselves. In this way God also assures real healing may be sought and achieved. It is a difficult paradox and difficult to state theologically. Today, I found a quote by Dietrich Bonhoeffer written while he was a political prisoner of the Nazis and separated from everyone and everything he loved --- except God; it captures the insight or principle underlying these observations --- and says it so very well!
"Letter to Renate and Eberhard Bethge: Christmas Eve 1943"
Sometimes, however, the two stand together in an intense and paradoxical form of suffering that simply says, "I am made for fullness of love and eschatological union and am still only (but very really!) journeying towards that." This too is a consolation. Today I am grateful for the bonds of love which enrich my life so --- even when these bonds are experienced as painful absence and emptiness. I think this is a critical witness of eremitical life with its emphasis on "the silence of solitude" --- just as it is in monastic (or some forms of religious) life more generally. Thanks be to God.
Posted by Sr. Laurel M. O'Neal, Er. Dio. at 5:27 PM
Labels: Charism of the Diocesan Hermit, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers From Prison, Silence of Solitude as Charism, the Silence of Solitude, Theology of the Cross
29 May 2014
Followup Questions: God as Master Storyteller
[[Dear Sister, thank you very much for your post on God as master storyteller. [cf.,God as Master Storyteller:Picking up the pieces of a Broken World] I have struggled with the idea of understanding how it is that bad things are the will of God. When people say it is all the will of God I just can't believe it. Children get cancer or starve to death. Genocide is something that happens all the time in our world. Recently there was a mass shooting in Santa Barbara and a couple of years ago in Newtown. How can anyone say that any of this is the will of God? As you have said yourself, what kind of God would this be? So here is my problem. My mother has a history of being misunderstood and sometimes even treated badly by others in her parish. She has begun to say it is all the will of God. I don't believe it but I don't know what to say to her about this either. She is a devout Catholic and I don't want to shake her faith in God. Your post and the quote from Dietrich Bonhoeffer may help me find the words I need to explain what I believe to her but I wondered if you have any advice for me?]]
First, I will send you a copy of the post you referred to. Perhaps that will help a little. I think the example of the game the parish staff played and which I wrote about in that post can be very helpful in making clear how it is that God is constantly present and always working to bring good out of even the worst circumstances, but also that God is not responsible for the sometimes inadequate way we tell our own stories or the mess we make of these sometimes.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, as you noted, is also a good choice in explaining things because he witnessed the holocaust first hand and was murdered by the Nazi's at Flossenburg concentration camp near the end of the war. As you mention and others will remember it was Bonhoeffer who said, "Not everything that happens is the will of God, but inevitably, nothing that happens happens outside the will of God." He knew full well that what the Nazi's were doing could not be considered the will of God --- not in the least stretch of the cleverest (or most distorted or pathological) imagination but he also believed profoundly in the Gospel --- namely, that with God this would not be the last word, nor the deaths of so many the final silence. In God nothing would be lost, nothing would remain ultimately senseless, etc for God is the creator God and makes all things new and eternal.
One thing I would remind you of is that sometimes people seize on the "it's all the will of God" explanation when they have nothing else to hold onto. They might be profoundly disappointed, emotionally worn out and see no purpose or meaning in anything. Some of these folks will have a very hard time admitting that the problems they have had are at least partly their fault and that they will have to change to really do the will of God in this. In these cases the persons seizing on the "It's all the will of God!" notion are fragile and desperate to affirm that their world makes sense. They also lack the resiliency necessary sometimes to change even when they are their own worst enemies. In situations where it is really not the person's fault, when they may be more amenable to a realistic perspective it may be enough to ask them "what part of the situation was really the will of God?" and then provide an analysis from your own perspective. For instance, you could ask then question and then point out, "What x said to you was certainly not the will of God as I understand it, but your courage in the face of it was." "The way that parishioner acted was unjust and certainly not something a God of love could will, but God's being with you to support you in this is!" You could do this occasionally, and gently. Subtly if possible. The point is to affirm your own faith in God's will and power, but at the same time to allow your mom to see other "powers and principalities" as Paul puts the matter, are also still at work in our world (and sometimes within us!).
At some point it may be helpful to talk about the story of Jesus' trial, torture, and crucifixion. Ask the same question, "What part of this was clearly the will of God?" but also ask, "What part could NOT be the will of an infinitely merciful (just), and loving God?" (Though of course such a God can and will use these things and bring meaning out of them nonetheless!) When you share what you believe on this you could point out, lying witnesses was not the will of God, a cowardly Pontius Pilate was not the will of God, the rabid behavior of the crowd was not the will of God, etc etc, but look what God has brought out of all this anyway!!!" No wonder Paul says, "O happy fault!" Our own inhumanity, not to mention the chance or randomness that really does exist in the world causes things to happen which are not the will of God but God's providence encompasses these and will still bring good out of them. We often need to learn to look for that good and to be realistic without being either cynical or pollyannaish! Or, you could pick stories from the lives of those your mom loves in ways similar to the way God loves her. Do the same kind of question/analysis. Explore how she thinks (or begins to see) God might bring good out of the terrible things that happen and how, with God's grace she and you might help that to happen.
In the end you will be giving your mother a theologically sound alternative she might just adopt more and more. If she does it could also give her the courage to look at her own role in things and change to whatever degree this is needed, or simply to forgive others and not set herself up for continuing "victim" status and collusion with the powers of sin and death at work in our world still --- which is precisely what claiming "It is all the will of God" in a naive sense actually does.
Posted by Sr. Laurel M. O'Neal, Er. Dio. at 3:01 PM