The Communities of New Skete

Scripture Reading: 1Jn 4:7-14; Ac 4:23-35; Jn 4:3-30; 39-42

Reflections from a Monk

Christ is Risen!
Its springtime, the quintessential time for falling in love. I would guess that virtually everyone here has had some experience of falling in love. The first love of your life may have turned out to be your partner for life, or maybe just a special memory. God intends human beings to fall in love, if for no other reason than to perpetuate the human race. But love is more than just that. The first letter of St John tells us that “everyone who loves is a child of God and knows God, because God is love.” (4:7b-8) St. John’s telling of the story of the Samaritan Woman may also be seen as a story about falling in love. Falling in love with God. It may not seem so at first glance, but the unfolding of this story has a lot in common with the beginning of any love story.

How often do we hear about or experience that first meeting as a chance encounter rather than a planned engagement. Just as with the chance meeting at Jacob’s well between Jesus and the Samaritan woman, we might meet at the market, at a concert or a movie, at a gathering of friends, at school or work or just accidentally bump into someone. That first conversation will be tentative, checking out the territory if you will. One side opens the exchange, Jesus in the case of the Samaritan story. The response may be careful and guarded. We may wonder who this person is, what do they REALLY want and why are they talking to me?

If we are at all open to learning the answer to those questions then the deepening of the encounter begins and the path to some type of relationship may at least be possible to discover. One side may reveal a little bit more personal information, as when Jesus said – “If you only knew who was asking you for water.” This sparks in the Samaritan woman, interest in Jesus. She then begins to wonder what Jesus means which leads to a conversation around the reality as well as the symbolic meaning of water. They begin to talk about shared experiences or knowledge – the origins of Jacob’s well, for example, and later the proper place of prayer. We may talk about shared experiences too, from family experiences, a favorite movie or singer, a place visited or restaurant meal enjoyed. These are ultimately small issues but they are part of what begins to knit together the fabric of a relationship which at its heart is about something much deeper. Something that leads to that mystery of love which is what God is all about.

But of course, early in a relationship, guarded conversation is intended to conceal aspects of our past that we would rather not reveal for fear that the relationship will die before it ever has a chance to blossom. In the Gospel, Jesus reveals to the Samaritan woman that he knows all about her even before she says anything, and he does not judge her for it. He does not say, “I know all about you and I want nothing to do with you.” In fact, this gospel story is about breaking those very barriers that are all too often the hallmark of human relationships, but never the hallmark of God’s love for us. Indeed, Jesus’ compassion for and interest in this woman becomes so obvious to her that she is able to drop her defenses and indeed even puts down her water jar, her original reason for going to the well, and in her joy returns to her town to tell the good news to the townspeople who then come out to see for themselves who this Jesus is. Once the fear of being open is overcome, joy takes its place. A joy that cannot be contained but must be shared with all. Once that “love” is real, the urge to share that news is soon overwhelming.

One difference between a human love story and falling in love with God is, first of all, that God opens the exchange – or Jesus as in the Gospel story: God calls us to come closer. A call we may not recognize since it may very likely come in a form that seems so ordinary. It may come during work when your mind drifts away from the task at hand to ask why am I doing this? Or it may come as you walk in the woods or in a park and you see the wonder of nature and ponder why it all exists. It may come as you hold a new born babe in your arms and marvel at the gift of life and ask what does it all mean? It may come during a quiet moment of reflection late in life when you look back and ask why was I given this life to live? It may be an inner yearning to want to know why am I alive, why am I here, why, as the Psalmist wonders, would God even notice me? But God does notice, and that inner yearning is the pull, the invitation, that God has initiated. Whether it develops, depends on our response, just as Jesus’ invitation to the Samaritan woman needed her response to develop. She said that she knew that the one she yearned for, the messiah, was coming. In Jesus she found him.

The guarded conversation of human relationships also may be mirrored in our emerging relationship with God. Yet, concealment of our reality from God is a hopeless task, just as the Samaritan woman was known by Jesus even before she revealed anything to him about herself. God knows us. Love emerges when we are able to accept that and know that the God who is love will never turn away from us, no matter what kind of story our life is.

So getting to know “God as love” as St John describes God, is a logical consequence of our falling in love with God. And falling in love with God is most likely not going to happen in a flash but over time as one spends time in God’s presence and listens and responds to the openings God offers us. And we need not go to Jerusalem or Samaria to be in God’s presence, but simply be drawn by the spirit to live in truth. The story of the Samaritan Woman illustrates the sequence of events that initiates the relationship with God. But to develop and nurture that relationship takes time and effort. And most importantly it requires our commitment to pursue it. Falling in love is the first step; living in love is the vocation of a lifetime. God is always willing, and calls us to be willing too.

Christ is risen!

Scripture Reading: Mk 15:42–16:8

Reflections from a Nun

Some years ago I listened to the pastor of a Protestant church speaking to a class of adult inquirers. People were asking questions about the resurrection, and he said that the most compelling depiction he had ever seen of the resurrection was the Orthodox icon that we honor today. He spoke of how the empty shroud evokes a sense of mystery, and helps us to understand that earthly matter can no longer contain the God-made-human. The body that God took on has mysteriously vanished.

Myrrhbearing Women At The Tomb

Just as earthly matter can no longer contain God, so also there is no need, it turns out, for the ointments the women have brought. As we sing on Holy Saturday, and again today: “An angel greeted the myrrh-bearing women as they neared the tomb: Mortal death deserves the soothing balm of precious spices, but death’s corruption can never defile Christ!” Christ has left that state of being behind.

A closer look at the icon may give us a hint of where he has gone. In many versions of this icon, including the one here in our Holy Wisdom Temple, the angel has one wing pointing up, one down. Now, I am no iconographer, but this suggests to me an ambiguity, a duality: a space that is neither heaven above nor earth below.

Jesus is no longer in the tomb, nor has he yet re-appeared to anyone on earth, nor is he sitting in glory. Jesus is in an in-between space. There’s a word for it, liminal space. From the Latin “limen”, or threshold, it is the transition from one space to the next. The first time I encountered this concept, or indeed the very word, was in reading about the spirituality of monastic life. Monks and nuns have sought out liminal spaces for centuries. The Desert is the ultimate liminal space – between the worldly space of the city and the truly un-worldly space of Heaven. Monks and nuns seek out liminal spaces because they are seeking transformation, and any transformation includes a passage through liminal space, a stepping over a threshold.

Both the icon and our hymns seem to be drawn from Matthew’s version of the story; Mark’s version, which we read today, has a different emphasis. In reading Mark, we are left hanging at the edge of the abyss, peering into liminal space. Ironically, after so many admonishments throughout the Gospel, to “Go, tell no one what you have seen”, for once the women are told this time to “Go quickly and tell the disciples”, but they cannot. Instead, they flee in terror.

The edge of liminal space is a scary place to be. It represents the end of the world as we know it. Years ago – many years ago – I was sitting at breakfast with several of my classmates in the college dining hall. One young man started talking about a strange, terrifying dream he had just had, in which it suddenly became clear that he was going to die in two years. It was a very convincing dream, and he was clearly scared. Suddenly I thought a bit about what was really likely to happen to him in two years, and I said “Jeff, that wasn’t death, that was graduation”.

College graduation is a quintessential liminal experience, a rite of passage, a coming of age. Suddenly, everything changes in terms of what a person can expect and what is expected of him or her. No wonder it’s terrifying, and no wonder so many young people take time off to travel or engage in some very different sort of endeavor, for a limited time, to “find themselves” before moving on to adulthood. For most, it is a time in which all expectations are suspended, when one is expected to drift a bit. Properly used, this in-between time can be a wonderful gift; it can make all the difference in terms of helping a young person make a smooth transition into a successful career.

A year ago, I was taken to the edge of the abyss, to peer into liminal space, with the new diagnosis of pancreatic cancer. Short of a total miracle, there is no hope of a cure (“cure” being defined as five-year survival). At first it was scary, to be sure. It took a few weeks – a few months, really – to sort out what it meant. There was sadness. Lilacs were in bloom, and I remember thinking it might very well be the last time I enjoyed the sight and fragrance of them. I had been looking forward to raising a puppy, the next time Brother John had one he wanted to keep for the breeding program, and I realized I would not be able to do that. Yes, there are lots of things I will not be able to continue enjoying or doing.

But gradually I realized I was in a new sort of liminal space. And this space has been filled with a number of remarkable gifts. First, and most important, has been the gift of appreciating each day for what it is. Once I realized there was no clear answer to the question of how much time I have left on earth, I began to visualize the time I have left as an unfurling scroll, like the scrolls used for scripture in antiquity. Fastened at each end to a stick of wood, that which has already been read is rolled up on one stick, that which is yet to be unfurled is still wound on the other, and in between is the present reading. What I have is the now, the part that is unrolled before me at the moment. Rolled up on one side is the past, rolled up on the other is – who knows? But for now, I have what is before me.

Another major gift I have found in this space has been the gift of re-connecting with old friends, and building closer relationships with family and others who have been around me all along. When you realize that all you have is the “now”, you pick up that pen and paper, or put fingers to keyboard, and make the connection. You speak the words that you have not quite spoken before. A third gift – and this is also part of building those closer relationships – has been learning to accept the help and support I need, that is here for the asking; to become Mary, to leave the Martha in me behind.

So here I am, a year later. The lilacs are coming out again. This time, almost certainly, is the last time I will see them. But what an amazingly rich and remarkable year it has been.

Thanks to the greater message of this entire Paschal season, thanks to the angel’s wing pointing toward heaven in the icon, I have faith that I will come out of this liminal space into something new and better. Like other major transition points in our lives, this is the threshold into the next great adventure.