News from Sophia Christi

I’m going to tell you a true story.  A dear friend called one day to tell me her brother Jim had just been diagnosed with brain cancer.  The family was in shock.  Doctors told them the cancer was inoperable but, as expected, recommended a treatment protocol to contain and reduce the size of the tumor.

What followed were weeks and weeks of debilitating chemotherapy and radiation.  After a few months Jim was having trouble with cognitive tasks.  He still went to the office and was determined to run his business, but he started missing details.  His partners worried about his judgment and decisions. My friend began preparing for a call asking her to come home.  Every time the phone rang she froze for a moment before answering.  It had now been several months and Jim was growing weaker and less coherent by the day.  The treatment wasn’t working—and he was barely eating.

What happened next was astounding.  Her sister Annie called.  Jim had gone to see his doctor.  The cancer was gone!!  Completely—gone!  The doctors had no explanation, but Annie—a devout evangelical Christian—was convinced God had heard and answered the prayers she and everyone in her church had been praying!  God had healed Jim.

(more…)

Once upon a time there was a slave with a very common slave name—Onesimus. The name means “useful,” and people “used” slaves to meet their own needs and goals.  Slaves who ran away were sent back to their owners for punishment.  But Roman law also allowed slaves to run away to special temples, or to seek the intervention of an influential friend of the owner, if they anticipated harsh and severe punishment for some reason.  Well, this particular Onesimus ran away from a man named Philemon, and ran to someone he believed would have influence with him.  He ran to Paul.

Now Paul was in prison at the time.  He was there for preaching the Gospel.  So Onesimus was not only exposed to that Gospel through his association with Paul, he became a convert.  And what that meant, in Paul’s view, was that Onesimus was now an equal.  He was not just “equal in the eyes of God” he was equal in practical, concrete terms.  He could no longer be treated as a slave.  He was free.

Under Roman law, however, Onesimus was Philemon’s “property.”  Yet since both were baptized into Christ, they were now brothers.  They were equals.  And as Paul prepared to send Onesimus back to Philemon, which he was bound to do under Roman law, he wrote a letter to Philemon explaining the situation in coaxing terms.

(more…)

As a very little girl I remember standing at the back of our small country church waiting for my parents to finish talking with someone.  As I stood there looking toward the sanctuary, I felt as if my heart and soul were being pulled toward the altar.  In that moment I knew my future.  I knew it clearly, without thought, without doubt—as a child knows, without words or need for explanation.  I knew I was meant to be a priest.  Later I learned girls weren’t allowed, but that didn’t silence the insistent voice within me.  It didn’t re-direct the compass needle.  That needle continued to point toward priesthood as crazy as that began to seem in the years following the deaths of John XXIII and Paul VI.

The author of Hebrews tells us “Faith is the confident assurance of what we hope for, the conviction about things we do not see.”  “Confident assurance” is a “solid rock” experience.  It’s that KNOWING IN YOUR GUT that simply IS.  You just KNOW.  Your mind may then try to explain “why” you know or “what” you know, but the knowing itself isn’t the work of your mind.  It’s the work of the Spirit, deep within.

And so, I just KNEW, and I knew in a way that was rock solid.  As time passed that KNOWING became a HOPE.  I had hope that the internal workings of the Church would change and the doors would open for women.  Hope was born of that “confidant assurance” in a God whose call was to be honored and obeyed.  My task was to follow wherever that invisible road led, trusting that place of inner knowing, and not giving in to disillusionment or despair.

(more…)

I have been thinking about neighbors a lot lately.  My neighbors across the street, for instance, a family of three, now.  I’ve known the parents for nearly 10 years.  We have taken care of each other’s dog or cat when one or the other of us was out of town.  We have keys to each other’s houses.  We visit, have dinner together occasionally, ask for help, offer a hand when needed.  The seven-year-old drops by after school.  Sometimes we talk. Sometimes she brings friends over; sometimes we play.  I trust the bond between us will grow even stronger with time.  I’ve known her all her life.

As I was writing yesterday (Friday), I spoke with her dad in the morning as he got ready to leave for the day.  Later in the afternoon, another neighbor dropped by for a chat—someone I don’t see often—and we spent a few delightful moments talking about the yard, the fruit trees and special care needed by some of our neighbors.  The evening before I had gone to the movies with another set of neighbors I’d been wanting to connect with for weeks.  It just so happened they were free and I was free at the same time.  All of these chance encounters were enjoyable and life-giving.  They provided a sense of connection and community that is often lacking in my everyday life.

But as I thought about these neighbors, and other surprising experiences with people throughout the week, the backdrop was always today’s parable.  What was Jesus saying, I wondered, in bringing so many neighbors into my life in such a short span of time?  Not all experiences had been positive.  There was the worker, for instance, who blocked my driveway while concluding 7-hours of heavy machinery work just outside my kitchen window, topped off by a leaf-blowing episode I thought would never end.  It was hard to see him as my neighbor.  It was a Mt. Everest challenge to even remember that God was as present in him as in me, let alone that I was commissioned by the Gospel to live into that truth RIGHT NOW!  Everything in me wanted to scream at him!

(more…)

Two widows.  Two prophets.  Both have lost their sons to death.  Both prophets are focused on the women, and on their plight as widows in a culture where only males have rights.  It’s the women who are important enough to comfort and to save from grief, yes, but also from destitution, cultural invisibility and social oblivion in the long run.

The widow in Jesus’ day had no family to care for her if there was no other man willing or able to take on the role of protector in her life.  She was completely at the mercy of a value system that saw no value in HER.  The traditions and attitudes of the time allowed her no voice, gave her no rights, placed her in the invisible margins of society where she could be easily exploited when not utterly discounted as a human being.  Still she had basic human needs—the need to eat, the need for clothing and shelter, the primal need for care and affection.

Jesus saw all this and his heart was stirred.  He knew, beyond her grief, what losing her son would mean.  It placed her in the margins of society, took her to the very gate of death’s door by annihilating her value and turning a blind eye to her intrinsic dignity.  In restoring the life of her son, Jesus brought HER out of the margins where she would likely have remained invisible and heartlessly neglected. He returned her to a position of worth and underscored her invaluable significance in the eyes of God.  She was seen again as having a rightful place in society.  Once again, she had value.

(more…)

I had the wonderful opportunity of hearing the Dalai Lama at the University of Portland on Thursday!  What a gift!  Though my untrained ear missed many of his words, his presence, his manner and engaging respect, pure interest and acceptance of everyone spoke eloquently of his care and oneness with human beings everywhere.

At one point in the day-long conference, he stopped for a moment and said, “if the Buddha was here I would be asking him what to do about the global issues.  But he isn’t here.  So I have to think about these things myself and trust what comes to me in here (pointing to his heart).”  I thought YES, this is what disciples do.  What other choice do we have if we are sincere and authentic but to ponder our questions then continue walking toward our answers on the path of our own integrity?

This is what the disciples of Jesus faced when he left them gazing into the heavens where he vanished into thin air.  They had depended on him to continue teaching and answering their questions since he was continuing to appear to them.  They expected him to step into the Messiah’s role and free Israel from Rome’s captivity.  It was all different but somehow also the same as before he died. So they had no real thought of taking on the work he’d begun, especially without HIM. They saw themselves as followers, not as healers and teachers with authority of their own.

Jesus and the Buddha had to leave so their disciples could fully live into their own calling, their mission and potential.  All of us must learn to live from that place of integrity within in order to become who we are meant to be, and carry forward God’s intention of a world and a people at one with each other, with all of creation and with the Creator.

(more…)

“Do you love me?” Tevia asks his wife, Goldie in Fiddler on the Roof.  He asks this question never having thought of asking it before.  Now his daughter has refused the arranged marriage he brokered with the local butcher.  She doesn’t love the butcher.  She loves Motl and wants to marry HIM!  It seems Tevia has never thought about love in his marriage before now!  Seems odd to us, but HIS marriage was arranged.  That’s his tradition.  But now that he has though of it, he wants to know—“Goldie,” he says, “I’m asking you a question: do you love me?”

All of us know that need to be loved.  It helps to hear the words now and then, but words themselves are empty if there’s no action behind them.  We know we are loved when we are respected and receive the needed support from our loved ones and friends, especially at critical times in our lives.  It’s the loving, compassionate and helpful BEHAVIOR that let’s us know we are truly loved.  That’s not what Jesus received from his male disciples, if you remember.  They fled the scene and hid!  Peter denied he even knew him.  So when Jesus asks Peter “do you love me?” he has reason to ask!

Last Sunday’s Gospel focused on Jesus’ appearance in the Upper Room and his return the following week to show Thomas his wounds since Thomas was absent the first time.  Those appearances demonstrated his love for them.  Today’s reading shows Jesus appearing to his disciples in Galilee, which is about 100 miles north of Jerusalem.  They have finally returned home.  So much has happened since Passover.  They are likely still bewildered, unable even yet to take it all in.  How are they to pick up the pieces of their lives—or should they pick up the pieces at all?  What did Jesus tell them to do when he appeared in the Upper Room?  Was that even real?

(more…)

It’s been a fascinating month!  Who could have predicted we would be electing a new pope during Lent?  Or that we would live in a time when a pope would resign from office, actually RETIRE, as any government agent, corporate CEO, or ordinary person might do when age and work pressures became too much to handle?

We’ve clearly entered a new age as Catholics, and the person leading us into this fresh, new time in our history is the same person who has forced us backward toward the medieval trappings of Latin Masses, archaic vestments, and a pre-conciliar theology.

Amazing how the Spirit threads its way through the world and the Church, bringing light into dark corners, inviting us to look at where we are as a people and change course in previously unthinkable ways.  And how fitting we would be doing this in Lent, a season of introspection, when the whole church is focused on repentance, eradicating sinful attitudes and behaviors, asking forgiveness, seeking reconciliation with those we have injured, for hurts we have caused.

(more…)

Watching Isaiah and Peter in today’s readings, and remembering Paul, we see how the human heart responds when standing before the face of God.  Paul fell off his horse.  Peter fell to his knees.  Isaiah cried, “Oy veh! Woe is me! I’m doomed.” It isn’t the good we have done that jumps to mind when standing before God, apparently. It’s those behaviors and attitudes that are un-godlike that become blatantly clear and self-accusing.  Maybe it’s also the failure to act when justice calls, the unwillingness to abandon comfort and reach out a hand—maybe these INACTIONS are also reflected in God’s loving face.

God is Truth.  God is the light of lucid awareness.  One does not see God and fail to see the inner workings of one’s own heart at the same time.  And those inner workings can be self-seeking, uncharitable and insensitive.  Isaiah, Paul and Peter provide a mirror for that common human experience of  “failure to be our best selves.”

But today’s Scripture passages also offer a glimpse of how God responds to human failings.  When Isaiah protests that he is a man of “unclean lips” God’s angel touches those lips with a burning coal, telling Isaiah through word and sign that his sins are removed.  When Peter falls to his knees before Jesus, protesting his unworthiness to be in Jesus’ company, he is told not to be afraid and entrusted with a new job. Failure to live up to our highest values will be an ongoing challenge throughout our lives since personal needs and desires live in constant tension with the needs and desires of others.  As we learn we make mistakes.  Love and compassion, mercy and forgivenessdon’t come easy.  That’s why these qualities are at the forefront of every major religious teaching throughout the world.

(more…)

After a huge rainstorm filled all the potholes in the streets and alleys, a young mother watched her two children playing in a puddle outside her kitchen window. The older of the two, five year old Julie, grabbed her little brother by the back of his head and shoved his face into the water hole. As little Joey recovered and stood laughing and dripping, their mother ran to the yard in a panic.  “Why on earth did you do that to your little brother?!” she asked Julie in a very stern and angry voice. “We were just playing ‘church’ mommy,” said the little girl.  “And I was just baptizing him…..in the name of the Father, the Son and in…the hole-he goes.”

This story got me thinking.  As I look around at what’s happening in the name of religion and God it seems a lot of grown-ups who should know better are really just playing “church.”

(more…)