Wednesday, September 17, 2025
(click here to listen to or read today’s scriptures)
Sticky
Most days I invite a space,
a hole in my day,
in my life
to listen,
to be with God,
to be with myself,
to ask God
“What is it you wish for this day,
for this life you have created,
that you sustain,
that you love?”
And sometimes a clear answer comes,
a direct answer I mean,
but most often the answer is silent accommodating
and loving and of freedom
(perhaps more than I wish)
the answer is a question,
a mutuality,
a kiss,
a presence,
a gentleness and quietness.
“Well, what are you hoping for?” God asks.
And I wonder why God trusts me so much
when I feel sticky with self interest
and ego and unfreedom,
holding an incredibly small view of existence
and what is important –
Oh God I beg you,
make the hole in my day,
my heart and my life
bigger,
that it may be filled,
that all of me may be filled
with you. – Clarence Heller
We were talking about our need for a plan – for today, this week or longer when we’re planning a trip. The plan involves a schedule – for each hour, each day, and sometimes each week or longer. These plans prevent me, at least at times, from settling in with God and listening to instructions. Clarence prays, “Make the hole in my day bigger that it may be filled with you.”
How can I do that more often when I’m such a sticky hot mess spiritually? Not only do I sin, but I forget that I sin and then I forget to ask forgiveness. I would like to have the habit of reviewing my day each night, but I forget that too.
(I promise I will have that habit in place by this time next year. But my promises are not particularly trustworthy.)
Clarence gives me a break. Rather, God gives me a break, according to Clarence. He touches me with “a kiss, a presence, a gentleness and quietness.” And I notice God is looking at me with a touch of humor. “Well, what are you hoping for?”
I shrug my shoulders. I’m just happy that at this moment I’m listening to you, Lord, rather than filling up my mind with “ego and unfreedom.” When I’m happiest, I hear the Holy Spirit whispering sweet nothings in my ear, and then a feeling of purpose and value rises inside my chest. “There’s no hurry, you have everything you need.”
You should know how to behave in the household of God,
which is the Church of the living God,
the pillar and foundation of truth …
He has given food to those who fear him.
So often my apple cart is upset by events – even events I hear about hundredth-hand through the national “news.” I wouldn’t want to turn off all those radios. I don’t want to live alone unaware of what is happening out there. But I want to respond with neither resentment nor glee, especially when I’m merely a watcher. Monks take on the task of prayer within and beyond the crises. In this way they transform rather than transmit tension. And I don’t need to be in a walled monastery to follow their example.
Ron Rolheiser invites us to follow the Way of Jesus and turn exactly away from the vicarious unpersonal emotion and opinions that feel so righteous but separate us from others and especially from deeper parts of ourselves.
Jesus took away tension by transforming it rather than by transmitting it. Jesus, as the Lamb of God, took away our sins and purified us in his blood not by some divine magic but, precisely, by absorbing and transforming our sin. He took in hatred, held it, transformed it, and gave back love; he took in jealousy, held it, transformed it, and gave back affirmation; he took in resentment, held it, transformed it, and gave back compassion; and ultimately, he took in murder, held it, transformed it, and gave back forgiveness.
(1 Timothy 3, Psalm 111, John 6, Luke 7)
(posted at www.davesandel.net)
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