The wind blows where it chooses, and you
hear the sound of it, but you do not know
where it comes from or where it is goes. So
it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.
-- John 3:8.
Nicodemus knew reality in one dimension only, the dimension of the mind, of experience, of the way things work, and the law. In that dimension, one plus one always equals two. The dimension of the Spirit is another Reality. I am hoping in this letter to communicate something very precious to me that is difficult to articulate and that is of the two realities intersecting in a moment of an ordinary day. I hope it will be meaningful in waking us up to moments that otherwise pass by, undetected.
I am going to begin by sharing a recent personal experience, although honestly there have been many of these over the years whereby grace, I became more attentive and more aware. It has been one of the great delights of my journey in Christ on this Highway.
My son Julian and I recently completed a 33-day examination of Joseph, the earth dad of Jesus and husband of Mary, his mother. The study, also called a consecration, included a litany of prayers and consideration of the character and qualities of Joseph venerated by the Church. Every morning, Julian would come to our home, and we would sit side by side at the table in communal exploration and prayer. This discipline mightily encouraged us in our roles as husbands, father/son, Julian's future role as father, and my current one as father also to Julian's four sisters and grandfather to nine grandchildren so far. This time also powerfully emphasized how Julian has drawn fully into Christ during the last two years in answer to years of prayers by Laurie and me and God's love. It is a gift beyond measure.
One morning, as we sat side by side, we needed to refer directly to Scripture. Julian spotted one of those huge family bibles lying flat on the bookcase shelf in our new home. Laurie had evidently brought it over and placed it there. I had not noticed it or, if I did, I did not open it. Julian brought it over and we looked at the inscription. To my utter shock and amazement, it was inscribed by my dad and dedicated to Laurie and me just before our wedding in 1979. I had no memory of ever seeing it. It read: "Laurie and Trip (Frank III), if you always live by this Book your problems will be as air bubbles." Signed Frank J. Sizemore, Jr. Julian and I sat there staring at the page and then at each other. Frank Julian Sizemore III and Frank Julian Sizemore IV being joined and blessed by Frank Julian Sizemore Jr. In the moment and in the midst of a focus on Joseph. Joined also by our Father in heaven by this unmistakable act of revelation. It was enchanting, mystical, and real. We felt the generations, committed to Christ and Scripture, being affirmed by God.
In his book, A SEVERE MERCY, a publication of an exchange of letters with C.S. Lewis concerning the grief over the loss of his wife, Sheldon Vanauken comments on the eternal significance and intervention of the moment Julian and I experienced:
If an event coming about in the ordinary course of nature
becomes to me the occasion of hope and faith and love
or increased efforts after virtue, do we suppose that this
result was unforeseen by, or is indifferent to, God. Obviously
not. What we should have called its fortuitous effects must
have been present to Him for all eternity. (p. 377).
The Scriptures and poets speak of these encounters and how we might respond as we grow in the awareness of their happening. Thus, in Exodus 3 there is this presentation concerning Moses:
There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in flames of
fire from within a bush. Moses saw that though the bush
was on fire it did not burn up. So Moses thought, " I will
go over and see this strange sight-- why the bush does
not burn up."
God says to him, "Do not come any closer. Take off your
shoes, for the place where you are standing is holy ground...
In his Lenten devotional, THE WORD IN THE WILDERNESS, the poet and priest, Malcolm Guite publishes the poem on first Sunday, The Bright Field, by R.S. Thomas:
I have seen the sun break through
to illuminate a small field
for awhile, and gone my way
and forgotten it. But that was the
pearl of great price, the one field that had
treasure in it. I realize now
that I must give all I have
to possess it. Life is not hurrying
on to a receding future, not hankering after
an imagined past. It is the turning
aside like Moses to the miracle
of the lit bush. To a brightness
that seemed as transitory as your youth
once, but is the eternity that awaits you.
In his commentary, Guite turns to another poet who emphasizes the multiples that are possible in awareness. He writes and ends with three verses from the poem:
Elizabeth Barrett Browning in her long poem AURORA LEIGH
also brings us to such a moment; indeed she takes it further
suggesting that these glimpses of glory are not just a wistful
one-off in an otherwise empty desert but are richly available
to us always and everywhere, if we have eyes to see and time
to stop.
Earth's crammed with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God,
But only he who sees, takes off his shoes.
Then, in the book AWE, the author refers to such moments and recognition as "Everyday Epiphanies". Marvelous. Everyday Epiphanies, Glimpses of Glory, Fire-Bushes richly available to us "always and everywhere". YES.
Back to my dad and his re-entry. With this gentle giant of a man a memory pops up as I write, a picture in the present from the past. Remembrance bringing the image into the moment just as Jesus invites us to remember him in the Eucharist. My brother, Don, and I sitting on either side of my dad, in rockers, smoking cigars on the porch of our cabin in the midst of a retreat of several hundred men brought together in the Spirit of Jesus. We did this year after year and it continues, now with Don and I and our sons.
Let's be awake, turn aside and take off our shoes, acknowledging the God who is the Eternal Now.
Blessings, trip and laurie