Bits of Heaven. Russell J. Levenson Jr.

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      I spent most of the summer prior to my freshman year in college studying at a Sea Lab along the Alabama Gulf Coast. While much of our work was in the classroom and lab, there was also a great deal of work in the field; and the field for budding marine biologists is the sea. On a few occasions, we used our small vessel for less noble causes than collecting specimens, and instead caught our dinner by dropping a large drag net.

      Our maritime grocery cart would be hoisted out of the water, bulging with some of the finest shrimp the Gulf had to offer. A pull of binding and the entire contents would spill out all over the deck. Students were then free to choose their own, but sifted in the rich harvest were some dangerous foes—crabs with sharp pincers, stingrays whipping barbed tails to and fro, the poisonous lionfish and stinging man-of-war. A careless move, choosing poorly, even a careless step could mean a nasty wound, or worse, a trip to the hospital. Everything that fell on the deck was there for the taking, but not everything was good for the takers.

      However you wish to interpret what was going on between God and the first humans in the Garden of Eden, it is clear that part of God’s plan was to give humans freedom to choose—freedom to choose right and freedom to choose wrong. It is also clear that there were far more opportunities to choose right than there were to choose wrong. Our divinely created forebears could eat of all the trees they wanted, but they were warned to stay away from just one.

      For the most part, you and I are free to choose—our friends, our spouses, our habits; what we eat, drink, and how we use our free time. Virtually all of these “freedom of choice” opportunities include both right and wrong offerings. We never regret making the right choice; we almost always regret making the wrong one. St. Frances de Sales wrote, “We have freedom to do good or evil; yet to make choice of evil, is not to use, but to abuse our freedom.”

      God’s gift of freedom tells us a lot about God’s parental policy. God is a loving God, not a controlling God. As loving parents counsel, coach, and guide, but do not “control” their child, God sets before us a myriad of opportunities, tells us where to go, but leaves the freedom to choose up to us. As the church father Origen suggested, “The power of choosing good and evil is within the reach of all.” Hmmm. . . watch your step.

       A Bit of Heaven

      Are you using your gift of freedom wisely? In the myriad of choices before you, right now, have you identified the choice you should not make? How will you live into that decision?

       A Prayer

      Give us, O Lord, a steadfast heart,

      which no unworthy affection may drag

      downwards;

      give us an unconquered heart,

      which no tribulation can wear out;

      give us an upright heart,

      which no unworthy purpose may tempt aside.

      Bestow upon us also, O Lord our God,

      understanding to know You,

      diligence to seek You,

      wisdom to find You

      and a faithfulness that may finally embrace You;

      through Jesus Christ our Lord.

       Amen.

      —Thomas Aquinas, d. 1274

      Meditation 6

The Gift of Shame

      And the man and his wife were both naked, and were not ashamed.

      —Genesis 2:25

       Where do you hunger for righteousness?

      We have all seen it; at the beach, or lake, or perhaps the public pool—a toddler strips down to his or her bare essentials and struts with all the pride of a peacock with its train of feathers in full flare, not a care in the world, not a lick of shame. When I see this, frankly, I get a bit nostalgic, perhaps even a bit jealous. Living over half a century, I have plenty in my life about which I am ashamed. When I see a shame-less child, there is a part of me that wishes I could go back to that season of innocence.

      We are told that God’s original intent was for us to live without shame; to have a footloose and carefree lightness to life that is not burdened by the companions of guilt and regret. Shame became the gift that kept on giving. Its value for us may be as a vehicle to God’s gift of forgiveness in response to our feelings of guilt and regret.

      Without shame, we would not know when we have stepped out of line. Without guilt we would not know when we have hurt ourselves, or our loved ones. Without regret, we would trample all over the gift of life with our perpetual tendency (also known as original sin) to fall, stumble, and sin.

      Mark Twain once quipped, “Man is the only animal that blushes. Or needs to!” The only problem with Twain’s words is that men and women are not animals. They are beings created in the image of God. When we feel that divine “blush” come over us, it may very well be revealing that we have stripped ourselves bare in a way that we should not have. Toward that end, the gift of shame invites us toward one of Jesus’s most beautiful of promises, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled” (Matthew 5:6).

      So when you see that young one toddling away, perhaps diaper in hand, and you get that internal nudge just to go back to a day without shame, take it not so much as condemnation, but as a road sign, pointing you to the One who can fill you when you are hungry to do the right thing.

       A Bit of Heaven

      Where, in your life, do you hunger for righteousness? In what ways are you feeding that hunger? Will you let God do that for you?

       A Prayer

      O good Jesu, word of the Father, the brightness of the Father’s glory, Whom angels desire to behold; teach us to do Your will; that guided by Your good Spirit, we may come to that blessed city where there is everlasting day and all are of one spirit; where there is certain security and secure eternity and eternal tranquility and quiet felicity and happy sweetness and sweet pleasantness; where You, with the Father and the Holy Spirit, are alive and reign, one God for ever and ever. Amen.

      —St. СКАЧАТЬ