Amy Welborn is a contributor - five devotions per issue - to the Living Faith daily devotional quarterly.
Seeing it from ground level offers one view. But to get the full impact, you must take a vigorous hike uphill. The fruit of that challenging journey? A gorgeous, more complete perspective.
We had, indeed, all gone astray, each following our own way. I, with my temptations and sins, and you with yours. But during these past few weeks, we have tried something different. Joined by prayer, fasting and almsgiving, we’ve followed, not our own way, but his. Together.
December 29 (written a year ago, before the Covid pandemic)
Another calendar year is drawing to an end. When I look back, what do I see? What emotions do the events of this year’s journey around the sun bring? Perhaps the year has been dominated by sadness or discord, and we won’t be sorry at all to see it go.
Advent approaches, and as we draw near to that season, the Scripture readings are all about the last things: death, judgment and eternity. These can be frightening to contemplate, subjects we might rather avoid. But we can’t. Here they are, presented to us in God’s Word. And, if we are honest, here they are in the ebb and flow of our lives.
In all circumstances, hold faith as a shield, to quench all the flaming arrows of the Evil One.
- Ephesians 6:16
On our last day in South Florida, we headed out to Biscayne National Park, hoping to see the Miami skyline and, if we were lucky, some manatees. We were surprised by a different sight: loads of well-dressed people waiting in line and then gathering under a large tent. We had happened upon a citizenship ceremony. It was quite moving. What struck me was that these people had such intentional pursuit and acceptance of rights and responsibilities with which I'd been born, things that I had hardly ever thought about.
What to do? I called a neighbor and asked him to come help me change the tire. I called a friend and asked her to bring my son to where I was. I wasn't crazy about bothering folks at that time of night, but if I'd been called on the same kind of mission, I wouldn't have minded helping. We're all in this together. We need help, we give help. Paul didn't travel the known world inviting people to solitary relationships with God. He called them into community: into the body of Christ, called by him, there for each other.
Vanity of vanities, says Qoheleth,
vanity of vanities! All things are vanity!
What profit has man from all the labor
which he toils at under the sun?
One generation passes and another comes,
but the world forever stays.
- Ecclesiastes 1:2-4
For a week, Copan Ruinas, Honduras, was home. We walked everywhere. And on our daily route, we passed her. Ancient and tiny, neatly dressed, she sat motionless in the doorway of the ice cream shop. If we caught her eye, she would smile slightly and return her gaze to the ground. Hundreds of years ago, kings and priests looked down at their subjects here from the heights of Mayan palaces, sure of their importance, confident in their legacy. Now, children scramble over the crumbling stones.
My wallet was old and bulkier than I needed. It was also patterned in a hideous pinkish paisley. But it had been a gift from my son, who, as he proudly told me on that Christmas morning years ago, had picked it out all by himself.
So, not wanting to hurt his feelings, I kept it. I recently mentioned the situation in passing and that same son said, "Well, why don't you just get a new one?"
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April 3:
I love you, O LORD, my strength,
O LORD, my rock, my fortress, my deliverer.
- Psalm 18:2-3
My youngest son and I recently headed to the Badlands of South Dakota. I had seen photographs of the layered, varicolored, almost lunar landscape, but the reality of what I encountered surprised me. I had assumed the formations we'd be walking among were solid rock--but they're not! They're sediment. Essentially huge piles of crumbly, dried mud. No wonder I'd not been able to find any rock-climbing activities for my son. You'd tumble right down if you tried. And no wonder this park, unlike any other national park, permits open, off-trail hiking. It's all going to erode anyway, and fairly soon in geological time.
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March 12 -
Last year, we spent a couple of weeks in Seville, Spain. Around the corner from our apartment was a church with a forecourt. In the rear of this courtyard stood a statue of St. Jude Thaddeus. Any time I walked past, day or evening, I saw the same sight: a steady stream of people coming in from the street--passing by on the sidewalk bearing briefcases, shopping bags and backpacks, young and old--stopping in to light a candle, offer flowers (there was always a bank of bouquets in front of the statue) and stand for a moment and pray.
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For example, today - February 9.
We live, it seems, in a time in which political talk never, ever ends. And about this time in the four-year election cycle in the U.S., it's reaching a peak. Sometimes the intense emotions and judgments that characterize these conversations lead me to wonder if people are looking for a competent government leader or something more profound in a spiritually barren time.
Place Uriah up front, where the fighting is fierce. Then pull back and leave him to be struck down dead.- 2 Samuel 11:15What a terrible, wretched incident this is: David, the Lord's anointed and King of Israel, has an innocent man killed so he can have his wife to himself.
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In the midst of one of these situations, of course I was moved to pray. First, for a resolution to the situation that involved no loss, either of material goods or my pride. "Please fix it," I asked God. "Thanks." But then a different prayer came to me, a simpler one: "Help me bring good out of this."
I would have just driven on by. But my son, always alert to the mysteries that nature holds, had been paying attention, so he was able to see. And so Magi, wise and observant of God's ways in the world, were led by the light to his son.
During Advent, in these days leading to Christmas, my days and evenings are marked by familiar rituals of all kinds.
I pray at Mass, of course. And in the Scriptures, prayers and music, I am eased into the journey of waiting and hope. Candles glimmer from my mother's Advent wreath. We hang the wooden "O Antiphon" crafts my sons made years ago. The lights, the recipes, the scents of these days create a place that I know.
Last Thanksgiving, a local restaurant offered a free meal. If you could pay, fine, and any money would go to a shelter. If you were unable to pay, that didn't matter. The doors were open, the table was set, and you were welcome to the feast.
I am surrounded by people just trying to do the right thing. Sometimes we make the right decisions, sometimes the wrong ones. We correct our mistakes, try to do better and bear it all patiently, never forgetting our own limitations and our own missed calls.
He was called Il Poverello--the little poor one--and we very strongly and rightly associate St. Francis of Assisi with poverty. We love him because in him we see that it is, indeed, possible to live the call of Jesus, to follow in a radical way, with nowhere to rest our head, trusting in God alone on the journey.
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