Currently I have the luxury of quite a bit of time which I can give to reflective writing. So I am cashing in on it. I spent the morning meditating on several things that lept out at me during this morning's Mass: a prayer and several scriptures, which then, during that meditation, all fell within an analogy which St. Therese mentions in Story of a Soul. It was actually among the very last lines that she ever wrote -- in pencil because she could no longer wield a pen. The reference is this:
A scholar has said: "Give me a lever and a fulcrum and I will lift the world." What Archimedes was not able to obtain...the saints have obtained in all its fullness. The Almighty as given them as fulcrum: HIMSELF ALONE; as lever: PRAYER which burns with a fire of love. And it is in this way that they have lifted the world; it is in this way that the saints still militant life it, and that, until the end of time, the saints to come will lift it. (Story of a Soul, chapter XI, 36r-36v, italics and caps in original)
This is so important to me right now that I am going to edit what I have already written elsewhere and have another go-over of it all.
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This morning I woke early with the sensible feeling of a certain kind of sweet weight to offer up to the Lord. In other words, I can receive the heaviness of late as a grace and a gift to turn into powerful prayer. It reminds me of what Therese wrote about God being the fulcrum and our prayer being the lever that can lift the world. I'm watching this video which states "without a fulcrum, a lever has nothing to support or balance it, so no work can be done." This deserves a moment of meditation. To allow God to be God is to allow Him to be that which supports my movement, my work, and our point of contact is the only thing that gives my freedom power. Otherwise, it isn't so much freedom that I have as total disconnection from reality. Within God I can rise up, within God I can bear down. Within God I have my full range of motion, my total potential, even though I might see potential beyond my potential -- if that makes sense. The oar can "see" up into the sky, where the rocket can launch, but if the oar is launched into the sky, it is not free, it is disconnected. To use a literally more human analogy, towards the end of the video there's a person lifting weights, and the question is, what part of the body is acting as the fulcrum. It seems the answer is the shoulders. And in this analogy, there is a different, less mechanical relationship between the fulcrum and the lever -- and I wonder now if this is connected to why St. Paul talks about the Body of Christ. Because as the arms rise up and the shoulder fulcrum strengthens, more potential is being created for both the arms and the shoulders. In this analogy, God's potential in us increases as we exercise that lever. He builds up strength within us. And this strength also builds grace, stamina, flexibility, beauty, potential for movement, dance, expression, inspiration, health -- everything. This really gives me an insight and a motivation for bodily movement, making it actual prayer.
But now on to those Scriptures and phrases that popped out to me at Mass this morning. The first thing was from the collect: "Enable us, we pray, almighty God, to proclaim the power of the risen Lord, that we, who have received the pledge of his gift, may come to possess all he gives when it is fully revealed." The italicized part is what stood out to me in the moment. But as I look now at the opening phrase, I see it connected to the power to proclaim Jesus risen. It seems a bit like a wheel. We pray for the power to proclaim the power of the risen Lord so that we can move from having received a pledge to full possession of all he gives, when "it" is fully revealed. Again the fulcrum idea. The fulcrum being the center of a wheel, and the wheel turning around the fulcrum gives the movement. That's the power. We have received the power in our sacraments. That's the pledge (Eph. 1:13-14). Then comes the enabling to proclaim the risen Lord, which is the gospel preached by faith. As we speak forth in faith, we exercise our connection, we exercise our pledge, we turn that wheel around the fulcrum. And in doing that, God gives -- He gives abundantly. What He gives flows over, spilling everywhere. I have sensed this in the past. Gems and jewels way more than I am capable of carrying in my arms, dropping them left and right, but still having more than I can handle. We then pray for possessing all he gives. Not just stumbling with full arms, but making all of this mine. Taking it all in. Like Joseph in Egypt, managing, stewarding it all very well, not just so that I can be well taken care of, but so that many others will be safe and saved from famine. Then we have the full revelation. So this is an ongoing wheel turning. We travel farther and wider. The power of God will be fully revealed, and this is for the praise and glory of God. This is eternity, and this is the culmination and full purpose of our earthly lives. My earthly life. It is to be found in the praise and glory of God. This is the focus on union. It is going to look different for each person. For St. Elizabeth of the Trinity and St. Therese, this was manifested in death at an early age and terrible physical suffering, which then rocketed them into an eternity of sainthood, ministry, and intercession, personal glory of the sort that belongs to the canonized saint. This is not my path. But my path will be mine just as much as their paths were theirs. And I come to it the same way. I have received the sacraments, I proclaim faith in the risen Lord -- for me, it's what it means to believe and trust despite my human obstacles involving trauma. I receive what God pours out, and I steward it. The orientation of my life shifts away from the initial struggle to get the wheels to work together, and onto the terrain I traverse because of the movement God gives. This reminds me of the little girl I saw last night when I was out walking -- her father was helping her master riding her bike. I cheered her on every time we crossed paths. I have known certain people in my life to be my support, like training wheels are supports. We need this support from others, this witness, to get over the initial struggle of getting the wheels to work. And we need those who cheer us on when they do. And we need those who ride beside us, delighting in the mastery of movement together. Is there anything more beautiful than delighting in the unfolding of the glory of God with another person? This is the communion of saints for which we were created.
Then from the Psalm: 93:1 "And he has made the world firm, not to be moved." Again with the fulcrum idea. This depiction of the world shows it in the image of God. God is the firm fulcrum. He does not move, but enables movement. Here the world does not move, but enables movement. Terra firma. In other words, God graces nature to reflect Himself, to be solid, trustworthy, predictable. That which enables us to have a solid foundation. We can rely on matter as it images God. In this way, reality is sacramental. He has done this. It is his gift, his reality. It is solid, stable. This is what makes sense out of things like Isaiah 54:10, that though the mountains be shaken -- this solid, trustworthy, God-imaging nature, God's covenant of love with me will never be shaken. With me, not just in general. "My love shall never fall away from you, nor my covenant of peace be shaken, says the Lord, who has mercy on you." Immovable stability is not something I have been able to presume upon psychologically. It is something I receive by faith and have come to trust in.
Next verse was the communion antiphon, which combined Luke 24:46 and 24:26: "The Christ had to suffer and rise from the dead, and so enter into his glory, alleluia." I had been asking the Lord last night, or telling him that I was having a hard time believing that what is happening right now is for my good. This speaks into that. And it also fits with the reflection on the collect. If Christ had not died and been raised, we would still be in our tresspasses and sins (1 Cor. 15:16-17). If he had not died and risen again, we would have no faith in the risen Christ to preach. I would have nothing to say about trust and hope of moving through trauma because release from it would not be a thing. There would be no jewels and gems to gather up; it could only be imaginary effort, only psyching myself out. It is hard to wrap my brain around "the Messiah had to suffer these things." It was prophecied. It was God's plan. It was where the fulcrum located itself, and Jesus as fulcrum and lever moved the impossible thing. Maybe He could have done it differently, but He didn't, for whatever unfathomable reason, something having to do with the human design. Something having to do with Love, with the being-with in suffering that the Incarnation entails, as St. John of the Cross says in the Romances on the Incarnation. So the Christ had to do this to enter into His glory. That is the path. That was the path for Him, so that is the path for me. Or maybe it is because that is the path for me, that was the path for Him. He destroyed death by death. He opened up the path to life for us who lived in the shadow of death. He saw me in my trauma, and entered into trauma to destroy my trauma. To make that lever turn which would have been immovable otherwise. Thus the most holy thing we can do is to encourage someone to faith. To proclaim the wonderful deeds God has done and move someone else to faith so that they too pull the lever on the fulcrum presented before them, God-with-them-in-their-need.Two other verses came to mind as I received holy communion. First: 2 Peter 1:19 "Moreover, we possess the prophetic message that is altogether reliable. You will do well to be attentive to it, as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts" (morning star, an OT reference to the Messiah). This, I believe, was an encouragement to do exactly what I'm doing right now, to sit down and really meditate on these things that struck me. I realize that I have often let things like this slid, thinking "oh, that was nice. yep, I'm sure it's important" but not realizing how much this is exactly what I live on. What I need to survive, more than money, more than food, more than any tangible provision. More than oxytocin. I need to soak in and meditate on these truths, because this is what will give my life the solid foundation that I need and crave. And not just write about it here or think about it for an hour, but come back and review it, open it up and unpack it further. Continue to ask the Lord about it. Continue to reflect on it. And continue to even do the physical fulcrum/lever work to experience this somatically.
Second verse: 1 John 3:2, which I will expand to include verses 1 and 3: "See what love the Father has bestowed on us that we may be called the children of God. Yet so we are. The reason the world does not know us it that it did not know him. Beloved, we are God's children now; what we shall be has not yet been revealed. We do know that when it is revealed, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. Everyone who has this hope based on him makes himself pure, as he is pure." The kernel that struck is me "what we shall be has not yet been revealed." In other words, God is in the midst of a work. He is the fulcrum, and that lever is in motion. My lever may have been both operating and screaming as of late. I can get funny ideas, like maybe the point of this is to shove my hand into the spot where the lever and fulcrum meet, because the goal is to crush myself to death. Maybe the spinning of the wheel is for me to stick my hand in there and get my fingers amputated. Maybe that's the goal here. (These would be lies, coming from one who loves to kill, steal, and destroy.) But no. What we will be, what this is all about, has not yet been revealed, and that verb tense implies that it will be. The revealing is not my work, it is something I will receive. And whatever it is, the work God is about is his fatherly love. His fatherly love is to make himself known, and as we see him and know him, we become like him. Again with the lever and fulcrum. We do our lever work, attached, properly attached to the fulcrum, and there is this strength of God Himself which is built up in us. As He gives to me, I give back to him with my movement of faith, and so He gives himself more, enabling me to give myself more. It is a beautiful progression of love, one that also recognizes and accepts both my limits and my aspirations. Love is eternal, and I can never outgive God. I am freed from the overgiving I am tempted to do when I see myself just an oar, a thing, disconnected from its mount, its fulcrum. I "give myself fully to the water" -- I drown. I "give myself fully to the wall" -- I'm never in the boat, in my potential. But when I am secure within that which holds me in existence, I am ready for developing that skill, that employment of grace and virtue that moves me along. The oar does not row itself. But the body can move itself, as it is given life from the head.
