Wave Watching

I vacationed in St. Augustine Florida last week.  I dedicated one day to sit on the beach and set up my umbrella and chairs.   The beach is a place where I feel the greatness of God.  Standing on the beach, I become a tiny grain of sand.  I feel that God is in control and I am like the flower that neither toils nor spins (Luke 12:24).   I need to be reminded of this because I so often sorrow over the things that are out of my control.  I wade out, over waist deep and watch for the waves — catching them before they crest — jumping — safely floating over and watching for the next one.  Sometimes, I was watching the shore and the wave slapped me in the back of the head — salty water finding its way behind my sunglasses and stinging my eyes.  So much like life — the things I sorrow over with bitter salty tears.  I give up and walk back to shore.  The umbrella oasis is abandoned for lunch.  God will still be here when I get back.

I return later and cower under the umbrella oasis — journal in hand — alone — intending to write the wonders of spiritual wave watching.  My eyes wander.  ‘Why do people wear what they wear on the beach?’, I wonder to myself.  I open my journal and feel the coolness of the paper.  My pen to the paper and… I am distracted — four ladies chattering on their blankets near by — smoking and sipping margaritas from the poolside Tiki Bar.  They tell each other their stories — I try not to listen.  They get up for another swim in the ocean.  My pen to the paper again and…. I think the family to my left is French.  They call out to their little daughter who wants to run to the ocean and is half way there.  I studied French years ago and I try to hear what they are saying.  The daughter is scooped up and brought back to their blanket.  My pen to the paper again and…. There is this woman covered head to toe in fabric — long sleeved shirt, leggings, hat, scarf, and sneakers — obviously sensitive to the sun but unable to resist the beach.  She walks to the life guard stand and gestures out to the ocean.  The life guard speaks into his phone and a truck arrives with two more life guards.  Two helicopters make sweeps up and down the coast two or three times.  I never find out exactly what happened.  My pen to the paper again and ….. The four ladies come back from the water and stretch out once more — chattering.  One is extolling the benefits of the diet meal delivery plan she is on — it cost less per month than the grocery store.  I don’t know her so I don’t know if it is working but she is enthusiastic.  They get up and begin packing their things.  My pen to the paper again and.… One of the ladies walks near to me and says, “You are writing in a journal.  I write in one too, now, ever since I had a near death experience in January.”  Curious now and to encourage more, I respond, “Yes, and this is a wonderful place to write.”  She continued moving to keep up with her friends, saying to me, “Oh, I will be back out here tomorrow.”  The assumption that perhaps she would tell me more tomorrow.  I didn’t have a chance to tell her I was leaving in the morning to go home.

I noticed then that many more people had left.  Just as the solitude I’d sought was at hand — I heard thunder and saw the threatening clouds.  I closed my journal and began to pack away my umbrella oasis.  I was no longer thinking about what people were wearing on the beach, or, diets.  A bit miffed at myself for my earlier superficiality; I was wondering about the rest of that story.

St. Augustine Beach July 09

I See You

I guess I am making this a Rich Mullins trilogy.   This is another favorite song.  Whenever I hear this music, I am taken immediately to adoration of the Eucharist.  My mind can travel right to the monstrance, or, I can bring to mind the procession of the monstrance at our Eucharistic Congress.   The video below is a live version from a concert.  In fact, it follows the other live video that I posted in I Belive What I Believe.  This version is a little ‘unplugged’ compared to the CD — begins a little out of sync — comes together and builds.   The version I listen to in my car — well — I turn it up loud with slightly more bass.  The bass brings out the drums and this is why I also think of the Eucharistic procession.

The lyrics begin by talking about the way God made himself present in the Old Testament — “a cloud by day, and in the night, the glow of a burning flame and everywhere I go, I see you.”  Lyrics

Love Has Come

I’ve still been thinking about Rich Mullins and the quote that I used in my last article.

“… My openness to Catholicism was very scary to me because, when you grow up in a church where they don’t even put up a cross, many things were foreign to me.” — — Rich Mullins:  An Arrow Pointing to Heaven, p. 46

I kept thinking about how I could relate to this observation.  The church I grew up in — where I was baptised — was very simple and unadorned.  The baptismal is behind the choir loft — there is a big mural of a river and trees.   There is the pulpit and the “remembrance table.”  Were it not for the baptismal pool, remembrance table and church pews, it could have been any court house or music hall.  My childhood Bible had a page that showed pictures of all different kinds of Christian symbols.  The crosses — Coptic, Maltese, budded, anchor, Peter, — Peter, wow.  I’m looking at it now.  I do have the cross of Peter — upside down with keys.  There is no cross of crucifixion — the one associated with Catholic churches. When we celebrated the Lord’s Supper and heard the words, “This is my body….. This is my blood,” I imagined being at the crucifixion.

My first encounter with the body of Christ, on the cross, was the first time I entered a Catholic church.  I wrote about that in my reflection on Sacred Heart.   My next encounters were a few years later on my first trip to Italy.  After that, it was in my own parish where I attended my first Mass.  I’ve heard it said that the “empty cross” is the cross of the resurrection.  We celebrate Christ is risen.  I’ve seen the cross of the resurrection in Catholic churches — Jesus is still on it — a resurrected figure of Christ.  I am fully convinced that you cannot celebrate the resurrection without first meditating on the suffering and crucifixion.   Many of the things that once seemed foreign to me are now a source of great comfort — reminders of God’s love for me.

I have posted a Rich Mullins tribute video by Caedmon’s Call.  They perform his song Hope to Carry On. The song begins with “I can see Jesus — hanging on the cross,  I can see Jesus — hanging on the cross, I can see Jesus — hanging on the cross — He came looking for the lost — and Love has come — Love has come — And he’s given me hope to carry on.”  The video is interspersed with images of the band with Rich and concludes with their reflections on how he inspired them.

I Believe What I Believe

I can breathe a sigh a relief — I can finally open my news page and Michael Jackson is no longer in the top six news topics that display.   I’m not going to argue the merits of the media saturation we have endured over the last weeks.  I will only say that I have been launched into my topic of the day — the person in music that I would bring back — a person who I believe we lost before his time — Rich Mullins.  He has been on my mind the last week.  I pulled out a couple of his CDs and put them in rotation in my car.  Rich died September 19, 1997, in a car accident while traveling to a concert.  He was 41.  Who was Rich Mullins?  If you have worked at all in teen ministry — Protestant, or, Catholic — you have been exposed to his music.  Think Awesome God–Sometimes By Step–Praise To The Lord– to only name three of his Christian music hits.  He wrote a lot of Contemporary Christian music.

Not long after coming into the Catholic church, I somehow became aware that Rich had been exploring Catholicism.  He was an ardent lover of St. Francis of Assisi.  Rich was surely worth a lot in terms of his music royalties, but, he chose to live simply — in a trailer on a Navajo Indian reservation.  He taught music to Navajo children.  It is said that he was often unkempt and bare foot.

Rich Mullins had this to say . . .

“Having grown up Protestant, I was unfamiliar altogether with Saint Francis.  Then I watched the movie, ‘Brother Sun, Sister Moon.’  The movie really clobbered me in a way that a really good movie can.  I just became fascinated with the character of Saint Francis.  What I saw in that movie was a man who had fallen in love with God, someone for whom God is everything.  And that was one of those things that propelled me.  I started reading about Francis and the Franciscan movement and asking the question, ‘What would it be like if we took the gospel that seriously?’  Beaker and I started looking at the three traditional monastic vows the Franciscans take:  The vow of poverty, the vow of obedience, and the vow of chastity.  And we started saying, ‘What does that look like if you’re not a monk?’  We began to look at them in a broader sense rather than very specifically.  We came to believe that poverty is being a steward of whatever resources you have, as opposed to being the owner of those resources, that what is important is to recognize that everything belongs to God, and He allows us to be stewards of his gifts.  And so rather than saying ‘OK, so we will just not own anything,’ we tried to look at everything that we own–our talents, our physical possessions–as being God’s, and ourselves as being stewards of them.”

— Rich Mullins:  An Arrow Pointing to Heaven, p. 139

Rich Mullins went on to write a musical Canticle of the Plains, a life of St. Francis set in the American West.  I went to my Youtube account and pulled up some videos.  I was very surprised to see people still arguing whether or not he was about to join the Catholic church.  I’ve seen it documented in other sources that he attended RCIA [Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults] classes and he did attend Mass.  He had a priest friend and also wrote with Tom Boothe of Life Teen music.  Some of his music — like Faith without Works (is like a screen door on a submarine) certainly hit at doctrinal differences.  It is also documented that he still had reservations.

“A lot of the stuff which I thought was so different between Protestants and Catholics was not, but at the end of going through an RCIA [Right of Christian Initiation for Adults] course, I also realized that there are some real and significant differences.  I’m not sure which side of the issues I came down on.  My openess to Catholicism was very scary to me because, when you grow up in a church where they don’t even put up a cross, many things were foreign to me.”

— Rich Mullins:  An Arrow Pointing to Heaven, p. 46

The comments underneath some of the Youtube videos were not so kind — those still debating his Christian affiliations.  Catholics were thrilled and Protestants thought he would never do such a horrible thing as become Catholic.  Satan wins every time Christians belittle one another — attack and tear down one another.  Rich Mullins’ music did very much to be a unifying musical voice.  I doubt he would be very pleased at many of the comments.

So, at the core of all this self-discovery, is the life of Saint Francis of Assisi.  A man — a saint — a devout Roman Catholic who stood for something that all Christians should agree upon — the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.  Rich also was convinced that we can most imitate Christ by identifying with the poor.

With myself being a convert to the Catholic Church – a former Baptist — I can say it doesn’t happen over night.  It is little by little until there is the one thing you have to have.  For me, it was the Eucharist –the Real Presence– and realizing that I already believed.

***************************

Below is a 9 minute video of Rich talking at his last concert tour before his death.  His speech ends abruptly around 8:40 time mark but the most of what he says it there.  The last couple of minutes, he talks about the poor.

Below is a video of Rich Mullins Creed (the inspiration for my blog title)

Probably my favorite song – Hold Me Jesus (I love it when Life Teen uses this for the meditation after communion)

Hands that Serve

On Saturday, June 27, 2009, I had the privilege to attend the ordination of eight men to the priesthood.  On Sunday, June 28, 2009, I had the joy of attending a friend’s first mass – his Mass of Thanksgiving.   It is such a blessing to have the ordination coincide with the Year for Priests.  There is sure to be extraordinary amounts of prayers going up this year.  Especially remember the newly ordained.

Read the Georgia Bulletin article – Eight New Priests Ordained for North Georgia

Part of the Rite of Ordination to the Priesthood is the anointing of hands with holy chrism.   Later, when receiving a blessing from my newly ordained friend, the fragrance of the holy chrism still lingered like the incense of prayer.  I recalled my Confirmation and chrism that was rubbed on my forehead — the aroma that something mystical took place.  The night of my reception into the church — I didn’t wash it off and slept with the fragrance into the next day.  Witnessing my first Rite of Ordination to the Priesthood — the sights, sounds, and smells — reaffirm that God is in this place.  In the same way that God looked down on his baptized Son, said, “This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased,” God most surely looked down on the men that day and is very well pleased.

On my morning commute, I pray the rosary with the Daughters of St. Paul.  At the conclusion of each set of mysteries, the sisters sing a song.  During the weeks leading up to the ordination, I looked forward to Thursdays — the recitation of the Luminous Mysteries — the ministry of Jesus.  The fifth luminous mystery is the institution of the Eucharist.  Following this, the sisters sing “How Beautiful” by Twila Paris.  It is really for this that I looked forward to Thursdays — as I have prayed for this ordination — this song is a celebration of praise.  I cannot sing this song without thinking of the hands of the priest.  Enjoy and remember to pray for our new priests and for more vocations.