Dai­ly Reflec­tion
August 4, 2013

PRE-PRAYER­ING
 

In our tech­no­log­i­cal-cen­tered world where com­mu­ni­cat­ing has been made so easy, there is the con­stant frus­tra­tion when dial­ing results in get­ting tech­ni­cal voic­es instead of a per­son. Voice-mail, phone options exer­cised by push­ing even more and more but­tons can still land us in the Imper­son­al Bin. It is such a joy when a real per­son says, “Hel­lo, I am actu­al­ly talk­ing to you.”

Prayer can seem sim­i­lar to this kind of imper­son­al relat­ing. We punch our prayer-but­tons desir­ing to hear from, and com­mu­ni­cate with God, but…… no answer, not even a busy sig­nal. We do not equate silence with any­thing except “nobody is home”. Imme­di­a­cy as a way of life ren­ders us less patient and less trust­ing in the mul­ti­me­dia sys­tem God uses. We have our one ear to the prayer-phone while God is mys­te­ri­ous enough to be speak­ing through the oth­er open and avail­able ear, through which we are not attentive.

As we lis­ten our way toward our next litur­gy, we can con­sid­er all the many ways God is pray­ing around us. We might prac­tice patient lis­ten­ing to the real voic­es of our days and try to find the grace-touch­es of our hearts through what we real­ly hear. Try patient lis­ten­ing which might involve patient speak­ing as well. We believe God is call­ing us; it is God’s very nature to do so, so who is too busy, or imper­son­al to pick it up?

REFLEC­TION

Qoheleth seems to be a col­lec­tive name rather than a sin­gle per­son. This fig­ure is a rep­re­sen­ta­tion of the community’s voice express­ing its wis­dom. The book of Eccle­si­astes from which our First Read­ing is tak­en is from the larg­er lit­er­ary form in the Hebrew Scrip­tures known as Wis­dom Lit­er­a­ture from which we get also, Proverbs, Song of Songs and oth­er famil­iar books.

Van­i­ty for the writer is more like mist or smoke rather than the false­ness of glam­our. The voice of the peo­ple is won­der­ing about what life is real­ly all about. The wise and skilled per­son has to leave even­tu­al­ly all that knowl­edge has gained that person.

A per­son labors, frets and sweats and for what? As with mist and smoke, every­thing van­ish­es even­tu­al­ly. Remem­ber, these are words inspired by the com­mu­nal voic­es of the human heart which desires solid­i­ty, per­ma­nence, and secu­ri­ty. For all the labor­ing, hold­ing fast, noth­ing seems to last. It does sound like the famil­iar say­ing, “Don’t sweat the small stuff and every­thing is the small stuff.” These vers­es could encour­age a self­ish pas­siv­i­ty, or a neg­a­tive view of all efforts and rela­tion­ships. Skill­ful plan­ning and hard work will even­tu­al­ly cre­ate some­thing, but because it is a “some-thing” it will not last. 

The Gospel too has words in a sim­i­lar style. This chap­ter from which our vers­es are tak­en, opens with Jesus’ speak­ing to his dis­ci­ples while a large crowd is lis­ten­ing in. Jesus has hard words about their not liv­ing the ways of the Phar­isees. He tells them not to wor­ry about their futures, that the Holy Spir­it will be with them. Right when Jesus is telling them about how they will be mis­treat­ed, a voice from the stand­ing-around crowd pipes up with an absolute­ly self-cen­tered ques­tion, oppo­site to what Jesus is say­ing. The inter­rupter wants the Prophet to adju­di­cate a fam­i­ly sit­u­a­tion of inheritance.

Jesus brings the man up short with a few well-aimed words, but takes the oppor­tu­ni­ty to spin a para­ble for him, the crowd, the dis­ci­ples, and for us.

My father, through hard work and skilled abil­i­ties, had quite a good amount of mon­ey in his advanced years, stocks, and per­son­al pos­ses­sions. He had grown up dur­ing the Great Depres­sion of the ’30’s. His father, who was a doc­tor, had died in the Span­ish Flu epi­dem­ic when my father was four years old. He nev­er for­got his roots and remind­ed us that we all came from those same needy roots.

One evening when my moth­er and we six adult sib­lings were in the liv­ing room he began talk­ing of fam­i­lies who had become divid­ed in rela­tion­ships with each oth­er in the divid­ing of inher­i­tances. We knew that it was his own mother’s fam­i­ly to which he was refer­ring. After much talk, he stood up and went to the end of the room and said he was now ready to make a video record­ing to be played after his death. There was no cam­era of course; he was doing what he loved to do. He was teach­ing us in a para­ble about greed and what’s impor­tant. I wish now there had been a camera.

We all got qui­et as he began. “Thank you all for com­ing to this inher­i­tance pre­sen­ta­tion. I want to thank you all for being a lov­ing fam­i­ly and treat­ing me in the way to which I had become accus­tomed. I want to tell you what I have decid­ed is impor­tant and is the most pre­cious thing I can leave you. My dear fam­i­ly, I came into this world with­out any­thing, and I left it in the exact same way. Thank you and see you all on the oth­er side.” Actu­al­ly, he left the fam­i­ly not only this good advice, but many mate­r­i­al gifts as well. In his real legal Will, he had it stat­ed, that if any of the mon­ey or pos­ses­sions led to any divi­sion with­in the fam­i­ly, the whole inher­i­tance was to be col­lect­ed and giv­en to charity.

Well after his per­for­mance, we all laughed, applaud­ed and learned again some­thing he want­ed us to know and which Jesus is teach­ing in today’s Gospel. 

It is not exact­ly what we pos­sess, but rather what pos­sess­es us. We can express our iden­ti­ties by what we dri­ve or the clothes we wear, but they are an expres­sion of and not our true iden­ti­ties. The fel­low in today’s Gospel says to him­self that now he can take his rest. This is his sec­ond big mis­take. The first is that he con­ve­nient­ly for­got where his har­vest came from. Rest­ing for him means that he will not have to plant again, not have to rely on the lands again, and not have to real­ize his depen­dence on God. Rich in the things of this world depends upon how we look at them. Every­thing has God’s cre­ative fin­ger­prints on them and when we miss that truth we fin­ger­press them as what makes us rich. As has been said, “What we ulti­mate­ly take with us is all that we have shared.

I delight to hear the very young chil­dren defi­ant­ly announce, and often, the sec­ond word they learn, “mine!!!!!” All par­ents know the first defi­ant word which ini­ti­ates their active vocab­u­lary. The “fool” of this para­ble lived those words and appar­ent­ly suf­fered the Consequence. 

“You have giv­en us, O Lord, bread from heav­en, endowed with all delights, and sweet­ness in every taste.”