Tradition

I am 28 years old, yet I can still be a little kid at times. One of those times is on Christmas Eve when I make my parents read The Polar Express with me. (They happily oblige, and we all relish the chance to do this each year.) We have a wooden train whistle to blow when the locomotive arrives in front of the house and some bells we ring as Santa presents the first gift of Christmas. (Or when my nieces and nephews read the story with us, they sporadically blow the whistle and ring the bells as they see fit.) The story is timeless, and the tradition of reading it is a throwback to simpler times. No matter my age, I am always my parents' child.

Doodling

I probably distract those around me slightly, but when I sit to listen to a long theological or academic conference, I find that my attention is best kept if I bring a journal and pen to doodle notes based on what the speaker is saying. If a neighbor didn't know better, they would probably think I'm disengaged, but for some reason, my brain processes the information more attentively and effectively by transferring it from head to hand to pen to page. Last week as we entered our silent retreat to begin the semester, Bishop Emeritus Gordon Bennett delivered 13 conferences over four and a half days based on the questions asked by Jesus in the Gospel of John. He spoke poignant truths and challenged us to think and pray over our relationship with the Lord and with the Church as we continue this path to priesthood. I listened. I doodled. And I pondered.

I journaled 14 pages by Friday, some of it notes from the conferences but some of it personal reflection too. When silence is ample, reflection is inevitable. Before ordination, bishops and priests are often expected to make a silent retreat. This is a purposeful time of discernment rather like Jesus going into the desert before his public ministry or to places of solitude before he met people to perform healings and to preach. Since I've written about silence many times before, I do not need to recycle the theme, but I want to share the single insight that meant the most to me during the retreat.

The insight came near the end as Bishop Bennett closed his conferences by speaking to us about the individual responsibility of relationship and fidelity. He put to us the question Jesus asks Peter in John 21:22. This question comes just after Jesus finishes asking Peter three times, "Do you love me?" Following each answer from Peter, Jesus tells the apostle to tend his sheep and feed his lambs, which Peter rightly understands as Christ asking him to assume a position of leadership carrying forward the Lord's ministry. Then Peter asks Jesus about the Apostle John, the Beloved Disciple. What about him, Peter asks. Shouldn't he be the one to lead us after you are gone? Jesus replies with the question that Bishop Bennett used as the basis for the conference: "If it is my will that he remain until I come, what is that to you? You, follow me."

You, follow me. Cease looking around you at others. Possess yourself. Own the feelings, choices, and actions you make. Your call is unique. Listen carefully, and listen individually. I will speak to you, Jesus says.

Then Bishop Bennett spoke a thought I needed to hear: God will not likely tell you what to do. God does not make decisions for you. God does not invade on your freedom. The choice is yours.

This idea is simple, but for me it was new. I subconsciously understood discernment as a passive process--ask God for the answers, and eventually the direction will come. Directions at times may very well be obvious, but God's revelation is not usually that cheap. If discerning direction were easy, everyone wouldn't struggle through the many significant choices we make throughout life. The crucible of change, formation, and decision shapes and molds us; it shapes and molds me. I am called to take an active role in my discernment. This is what I wrote in my journal as I responded to Bishop's Bennett's (and the Holy Spirit's) message:

God will not make a decision for you. The Lord gave you freedom to do that for yourself. Stop passively waiting for a divine answer. PURSUE your vocation FERVENTLY. List the dreams you have. Take a spiritual gifts inventory. Make your liturgical and devotional prayers regular and joyful. Receive God's love. Rest in God's peace. But do not cease to give back what you can, what you are able, what your circumstances will allow. Discernment is not passive. Go.

Later at lunch when the silence was broken, I thanked Bishop Bennett for the retreat and for this thought in particular. He told me that our lives are like pieces of glass God fits together into a mosaic. God may be the one forming the masterpiece, but we provide the pieces. The Lord can make beauty from our messy, scattered, at times even ugly humanity. We are His. And for that reason, our mosaics are transformed into stories worth telling. What story are you and I writing?