We live in a world where terrible tragedies are seeming to grow in number by the day.  These “tragedies” include many of the same results – extreme suffering (physical, emotional and psychological), environments are damaged or destroyed, and Life is lost.  The violence of storms within the world’s weather systems and the violence of storms within the human psyche (individually and collectively) wield sometimes the same devastations.  We are left speechless with the inexplicable and often senseless nature of these violent and deadly events.  We so often immediately look for a “blame” or a “cause” for these tragedies.  We react with the natural frustration, sadness and rage that arises within us.  There is a dire urgency that something must be done – something has to be done to prepare better for those things that we feel we have no control over or, in the case of those events that occur that we feel we do have control over, we insist that something be done to prevent the event from happening again.  Sometimes our reaction is to retreat or withdraw because the loss and the inevitability seem so overwhelming.  Sometimes all we want to do is “move” or do something, and for others of us we may feel paralyzed in the overwhelming reality of the situation.

In the first reading today from the Prophet Nehemiah (NEH 2: 1-8), we hear the prophet beg the king to do something in the midst of the great destruction in Judah:

“How could I not look sad when the city where my ancestors are buried lies in ruins,
and its gates have been eaten out by fire?”
The king asked me, “What is it, then, that you wish?”
I prayed to the God of heaven and then answered the king:
“If it please the king, and if your servant is deserving of your favor,
send me to Judah, to the city of my ancestors’ graves, to rebuild it.”

From this passage, it is not clear that Nehemiah had the details on how to rebuild, but it was clear that his heart was calling him to do something.  He did not want to remain in the rubble of the destruction and devastation, no matter the cause of it.  He could not hide from the king the fact of the treacherous state of his heart and the extreme longing he had to “rebuild” that which seemed so ruined.  God, through the king granted his request.  The urgency of the human spirit to address in some way the pains of the people propelled Nehemiah forward!

Mindful of today’s Memorial of St Francis of Assisi, I am reminded of the wonderful story of St. Francis and the Wolf of Gubbio[i].  In this story, the town of Gubbio in Italy was rent with violence in the time of Francis.  This “wolf” of violence tormented the town, killing the animals and even the townspeople.   The townspeople greatly feared the wolf and wanted the treacherous animal to be killed.  The story goes that Francis approached the wolf, despite the violent tendencies of the animal, and through a dialogue of connection with the feared beast managed to “reconcile” with the wolf.  Included in this reconciliation, Francis enjoined the wolf to cease harming and killing the livestock of the town and in exchange Francis declared that he would instruct the townspeople of Gubbio to feed the wolf as long as he lived.  When the townspeople saw Francis and the wolf enter the town and the wolf’s intention of non-violence, all were transformed and the wolf lived peacefully with the people, being fed by them, until he died.

Without attempting to interpret the many levels of truth that could be gleaned from this story, one particular insight strikes me – the wolf killed the townspeople and the townspeople wanted the wolf killed.  Fear and violence seem to walk hand in hand.  At the same time, this curious man, Francis, had some odd way of connecting with animals and nature – and let’s not leave out with people – that allowed a different way of approaching violence, fear, and seemingly uncontrollable forces.  Similar to Nehemiah, Francis, among other interesting characteristics, had an urgent sense of “rebuilding” or “restoring.”  And this chronic longing to address all of the suffering and violence in the world took a very particular and indeed paradoxically different perspective.  Francis would only meet violence with non-violence, or to put it in positive terms, with compassion and restoration.

In order to do something like this, i.e., address the energy of destruction and violence in a manner that can truly be effective, it seems that perhaps we have to let “something” go, or maybe let a lot of “things” go.  And one of those things that we may have to consider letting go of is the reactive energy that we may feel when confronted with violence and suffering, because when we react, we are employing the very same energy that we find so offensive!  This proposal is a move beyond, a setting out to restore, like Nehemiah, or a going out to (or “into”) the “wolf “ in order to – of all things – interact and even connect with the “feared beast.”

Luke describes this “journey” forward beyond familiarity and lived patterns of reactions in today’s gospel (LK 9: 57-62).  When one of his disciples state “I will follow you wherever you go,” Jesus answers, “Foxes have dens and birds of the sky have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to rest his head.”

I am sure that this probably went right over the disciples’ heads, as it does mine.  But it should give pause, if we read it a few times and let it sink in as a question.  Then Jesus invites these disciples to follow him as his response to their declaration that they would.  And the response he gets from them…

“Lord, let me go first and bury my father.”  [to which he answered] “Let the dead bury their dead.”

 “I will follow you, Lord, but first let me say farewell to my family at home.”  [to which he answered]

  “No one who sets a hand to the plow and looks to what was left behind is fit for the Kingdom of God.”

What is it that we have to “let go” in order to move forward in a “new” direction?  Could following Jesus mean that we have to begin to stop looking backwards and reacting in a looping pattern that perpetuates the very things in our lives and world that are killing us?  Can we be the “wolf” and the townspeople of Gubbio, both parties who were confronted with a different way other than rote reactions and complicit attitudes?   Can we follow Francis, or more specifically follow Christ, into a new world where whatever we “do” as a way of addressing the suffering and violence in our world is grounded in a spirit of “restoring” or rebuilding the holiness of a creation that we fail to recognize as holy through and through?  Can we learn to stop looking behind and move forward where the spirit of compassion and forgiveness restores all our actions?  Then the urgent following of Christ would not entail the need to “nest” like a bird or hole up in a “den” like a fox because there would be no one exclusive “way” of following Christ.  It would be constant movement forward, pushing the plow and restoring the world, propelled by the infinitely energetic and creative Love of God that cannot fail because IT is the “rest” for us!

[i] Omer Englebert, St. Francis of Assisi: A Biography (Servant Books: 1979), 136-138.