What is humility?

 What draws our attention in our relationships with others? I feel that our relationships are formed at many different levels of familiarity, acquaintance, friendship, and accompaniment. We know that these bonds that are formed affect how we are present to the other and how much their life impacts our own. This relates to how close we feel to that person and how we share our lives with them. It may be good to explore this more fully because it will impact how we relate to them and how we can truly become ourselves.

In a familiar relationship, we see the other person as the person who may be useful to us and we may be useful to them. Thus we enter into a sense of interaction that shares something which seeks an external good that is important to our life. Thus we may know the name of the person in the supermarket, we are conscious of the person we meet on the way to work and we can share a smile with a person who is our neighbor. This is the first entry door to the relationship but it can often seem transitory.

Then there is the acquaintance who we start to know about their lives and what they do has an impact on our own. We notice how what they do has a deeper impact on how we seek to live. This may be because their story resonates with our own. We see this in dramas on television or which we seek in movies that touch on important issues in life. We join with the person to the depth that they help us to see more clearly what we are called to engage with in life. They help us to see our lives differently.

Yet it is the face-to-face encounters with a person that their story interweaves with our own. We start to notice that they help us to know ourselves more clearly. They are willing to share time with us and they help us to notice what is important for us to become who we are called to become. The experience of friendship helps us to drop the mask and become real. We no longer pretend to be somebody we are not.

This helps us to know the person who accompanies us in our life not because we are perfect but because we share more deeply of ourselves. We do not see our greatness in what we own, do or achieve. The first point is that we are met as we are and this shapes who we are called to become. This allows us to be the touchstone of our lives and it does not put on airs and graces. We unfold into the fulness of our humanity in giving glory to God with our lives.

In the same way that we draw into friendship with each other so we draw into a relationship with God. The dimensions draws us closer to being who we are called to be. This is at the heart of being a person who is open to a graced relationship that integrates all that makes us who we are. We do not need to pretend to know God but discover a God who knows us at the most intimate and profound level. We shed the masks of pretending to discover that we are called to be real not an artificial self. We become a person who is loved into being.

More than familiarity

 I must admit that I have always been disturbed by this weekend's reading. The image of knocking at the door and the voice coming from inside saying I do not know where you are coming from echoes in my mind. This is a reminder that the spiritual journey is not just about our own efforts or accomplishments. We are not called to attend Church just to earn frequent flyer points on our way to heaven. Rather I believe it is to discover who we are and how we are called to live.

Thus in the reading from Isaiah, we discover a God who issues an invitation to enter into a relationship with all people. The voice of God is called to help the person discover that their whole life only finds meaning in this inner voice. So often we believe that meaning is found in what we own, what we do and the knowledge we possess. There is always the temptation to believe that if we are in control, well presented, and up to date, we have substance. Yet it is the deeper discovery that it is the inner voice that speaks of a relationship that sustains us in being. 

Hence our seeking to meet God in our everyday experiences. Our prayer no longer becomes a litany of wants or a soliloquy of sorrows. Rather it is an encounter with a God whose heart invites us to beat in rhythm with the mystery of the Holy Spirit. This allows our life to be formed in the compassionate heart of Jesus who seeks for us to know him and for him to know us. This transforming presence means that we are called just to know about him or even work for him. Rather it allows us to encounter him our whole lives. It is this encounter that shapes us from the inside out. 

A fire burning deep inside

 There is a sculpture on the grounds of Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska close to a residence where I was staying which portrays a flame constructed in steel with a burning flame inside. The quote echoes the vision of St Ignatius where he says, te, inflammate omnia—“go, set the world on fire" (https://www.ignatianspirituality.com/go-set-the-world-on-fire/). There is a sense that this is an illuminating fire that captures hearts and passes quickly from one to another. 

We can sense this in the world where ideas and images are quickly transmitted from one end of the world to another. The concerns of one become the concerns of all. Our imagination can be sparked which engages us to make instant choices about how we respond. When people suffer we are called to reflect and respond. With the availability of response, we are moved beyond mere observation to creative action. What affects one affects all.

Yet we are also conscious that what is a priority for us may not be a priority for another. We can sense that we can be pulled in many directions at once. This is never more present than within our own homes. One person sees one thing while somebody sees another. We can find ourselves disagreeing about what is the mission we have in common. The peace we seek is not an absence of these tensions but rather a place where the tensions can be held in common. Where we can be aware of strong voices that arise within us promoting one response or another. The discerning the Holy Spirit allows us to live in this creative tension that seeks the common good.

This calls us to be people who are trained in faith to keep our eyes on the person of Jesus. This is not just a sense of pious inaction that sees our lives as a consequence of the activity of others. Rather it is a life that seeks to tend the inner flame within us. This allows us to notice what is the touchstone of our life which directs our attention to reflect and study our own environment. This mature reflection allows us to be people who burn with faith and zeal for the love of God and the love of others. No longer is our faith just something that is a brand we wear but rather a person we are called to become. We are called to be people who are enflamed and enamored with the person of Jesus. Our lives are transformed from the inside out. We become people who like Jesus live our faith in this world so that heaven may touch the earth!

Standing ready

What moves us into action? On a daily basis, we can be informed about many things and have to make simple decisions that shape the outcome of the day. While they may seem insignificant they follow a pattern of what we consider important in each moment. Yet in the midst of this activity, we are called to see what is fundamentally important in making those decisions.

This can be reflected in a particular word or a phrase from scripture that we live out in each of the actions. It can be a word that centres us when our moorings become loosened away from our main purpose. They help us to not only consider what is important but they seek to become intentional in the person we are seeking to become. The word helps us to be awake and aware of how we are being present.

In this, we do not become caught up with the driftwood which seems to clutter the surface of our lives. This invitation to go deeper allows us to notice what brings meaning to our lives. Time is not stolen from us but rather we become a person who is confident that we use our time well. We start to notice that each of the activities we are engaged in is not an end in themselves but a living expression of who we are.

In this way, the interruptions which we will naturally encounter are not unwelcome distractions. They become invitations to be faithful to that word placed on our hearts. At the end of the day, we start to notice that the word is not just something muttered under our breath but rather it has taken flesh in how we live. We start to notice how God is present in our day and how we are present to God in all that we do.