While I was on vacation recently, some of our very dear friends took their children and went to visit my mother. While there, they “face-timed” us and we actually got to see and speak with Mom, who was delighted by both the visit from my friends and the opportunity to see and talk with us briefly. The many physical miles between us could not diminish the magnitude of the love and appreciation by all of us for this very special gift. It was a beautiful experience of the love of friendship and family that will remain forever with me! Shortly after I returned from the trip, this wonderful experience blossomed into an even more gracious moment. Our friends conveyed to us that their young son, who had visited with Mom, during his night prayers specifically prayed:
“Dear God we ask you to please make Thomas’ mom feel better and get stronger, now that she is going to sleep and make her wake up feeling better. Amen!”
As I reflect on this unadulterated display of authentic compassion, James’ questions in today’s scriptures (JAS 4: 1-10) become even more urgent:
“Where do the wars and where do the conflicts among you come from? Is it not from your passions that make war within your members? You covet but do not possess. You kill and envy but you cannot obtain; you fight and wage war. You do not possess because you do not ask. You ask but do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions.”
These “passions” to which James is referring I believe are centered on our egos. Wars and conflicts result from our covetousness about what we THINK we need for ourSELVES! Misguided requests bring disappointment, resentment, envy, and we make war upon each other and ourSELVES, because they can never satisfy – they will always come up short. So what is the answer to this indictment? What can we do differently so that we don’t ask wrongly, so that we can receive what God wants to give us, i.e., what we really need? Where can we look to see how we should behave, or just how we should BE? James says, “Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you.” It can be like looking in a mirror. What do you see?
Richard Rohr has talked about prayer as presenting yourself before what he calls the “gaze of God,” as a type of mirroring. Children seem to learn in exactly this way, as if looking into a mirror, i.e., the gaze of their parents, they become acquainted for the first time with some type of identity – of being loved and cared for, or the destructive opposite of this. God’s gaze upon us is always love and mercy – Compassion. As Rohr refers to it, this is the “ultimate” gaze. So how do we discover this “ultimate” gaze in this world of war all about us? It will have to take a different pair of eyes it would seem. In a sense, God is always near to us, it is just our lack of awareness of this tremendous Wonder that prevents us from seeing. There are clues all around all the time…
The Gospel of Mark tells us this today (MK 9: 30-37)
“Taking a child, he placed it in their midst, and putting his arms around it, he said to them, ‘Whoever receives one child such as this in my name, receives me; and whoever receives me, receives not me but the One who sent me.’ ”
The presence of a child can bring a spaciousness of wonderment that can help us to see differently. I’m not talking about the childishness of ego that children display as they move through their necessary development, but rather I am referring to the child-likeness or wonderment that children present with such extraordinary even divine authenticity! It’s the openness of a child to receive the gaze of the parent that we miss sometimes as adults. It’s the lack of awareness that we live and move and have our being always within the gaze of God. When we allow ourselves to realize this, even if just for a split second, it can change everything. We then receive “the child” in our midst, and in so doing receive the Original Goodness and Compassion from which we all have been born! Quite simply, we receive God!
The horrific reality of child trafficking is the terrible symbol of how far we have strayed from and disavowed the original and beautiful true innocence of our status as children of God. The Child is always the gift we have yet to receive that is not given for our “own” selfish projects, but for the goodness that flows from the Source of all Goodness, as Jesus says, “the One who sent me.” This is the gift of the “Child” that when placed in our midst becomes the embrace of God “putting his arms around it” and loving the one receiving the Child/Gift in a way that can do nothing else but move outward and forward touching all with open eyes, ears, and hands to receive! It is wonderfully contagious! As one of the many ambiguous characters in the HBO series Game of Thrones said in a recent episode, “There is so much good in all of us. The best we can do is to help each other bring it out.”
This is what little Nico’s prayer is doing – this is the child in our midst, the invisible gifts waiting to be received all around us. May we have the courage to pray this way – to live this way, i.e., to always embrace and encourage compassionate love!
Peace
Thomas