I am still sitting with Jesus at the table of the Last Supper. Or it could be the table at Emmaus where he broke the bread and disappeared. I can understand why Christ disappeared at that moment of recognition. The disciples saw Christ risen, but they were not yet ready to have Christ risen dwell in their own bodies, in their own flesh. Their hearts were burning, yes, but nevertheless it may have been too much for them to have the living God take up room in their very bodies. So the risen Christ disappeared. It would require the gift of the Holy Spirit to embolden the disciples to accept what they could not, would not dare to ask in faith: that through Christ, God would live in every one of us, and would do so now.
It is easier to write these words on my knees as a confession that I still have so many moments when I am not ready to receive a transformation, a visitation, an incarnation like this. Yes, I have brashly dared God to do more and change me, to take all the wonderful signs around me that I have seen in Bolivia and in many places before, to take all the wonderful people in my life and in whose lives I share, and to make it all change me and us. But when the moment arrives, when someone says “Are you ready?” I am not to be found. Change me, but not yet; change me, but when the change is to my liking.
My prayers may not always have been true, but God is still going to make something of them. All I ask now is to be ready for the change for which I have prayed, the change that God is going to bring about sooner or later. However the change comes about—within me, with all my relationships, with the world I inhabit—let me be ready. Make my own home of flesh and blood spiritual, that is, flesh and blood responsive to the light and word of God. In the end, I do want God more than anything else. I may not say this or feel this with much conviction right now, but I will later, once again. What else do I have, for what else can I hope? But for this faith, but for this hope, but for this love, I have nothing, I am nothing.
I’m not sure if this is making sense, or whether reading this inspires or depresses you, or whether this has anything to do with real life in Bolivia or the United States or anywhere. But this is where I am musing, and this is where my soul is wandering this morning, struggling to be at home in God while God is passionately trying to open my locked doors and take up room in me. Meaningful or not, these words fly to God and to you who read them, and Pentecost is still two long weeks away. How I long to sing Veni Sancte Spiritus (“Come Holy Spirit”) again. How I long for the Spirit to sweep down and surge within me once again.
One of my dearest friends, Linda, has also been sitting at the table with the Holy One. Her companionship with Jesus inspires me. Recently, while I was ill, she sent me a short message, the fruit of her contemplative practice. Let me end with her words, which give me another way into Jesus’ words of farewell at the Last Supper. She puts more positively the glory that will come when we just surrender to God and allow the light and word to come to us and make a dwelling with us.
Please don’t feel down even if physically uncomfortable, perhaps even in some pain.
Please remember that you are never alone; first because the source of all is particularly in love with you in more ways than you or I can recognize. I recount this now for my own remembrance as well as hopefully yours.
Today the image of sitting across the kitchen table from God has come to and been with me. We sit facing each other with a “useful object” in the table between us. This is often how I end a day.
The object in the table is the day and its events and we consider it together, me with curiosity (God with appreciation and tender amusement), about what I will see as we share impressions, understandings, wonderings.
Because we are together in this looking, there is a kind of light that bathes the looking and the object being looked at. It’s a little like warm sun. And all kinds of understandings and appreciations appear to us both. Sometimes I laugh out loud at what I see about myself, with the pure joy of child-like discovery and humor. Always I am edified and calmed and satisfied with the companionship.
God’s waiting for you at the kitchen table now.
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