First Profession of Peter James Rostron - Jul 18, 2014

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY
Brother James Michael Dowd
First Profession of Peter James Rostron - Friday, July 18, 2014

Proverbs 8:1-11
Philippians 3:4b-14
John 21:4-19

Wisdom Journey

From left to right, Br. Peter James Rostron making his First Profession of the Benedictine vow, his last Novice Master, Br. Robert James Magliula and OHC's Superior, Br. Robert Sevensky (in the background, Br. James Michael Dowd, Peter's first Novice Master)

Good Morning. It is nothing less than a great honor and a tot
al joy to be standing before you today having the opportunity to share a few thoughts with you on the occasion of the First Profession of the Monastic Vow by our brother, James Rostron.  In a few minutes we will all witness the taking of this vow by James, who will become known as Peter – more on that a bit later – in a ritual that is both incredibly simple and wondrously mystical all at the same time.

Brother Robert James and I have had the great gift of sharing the shepherding of James through the postulancy and the novitiate, my having done it for James' first year and a half, and Rob having led James in this last year. I know that this is a special day for both of us – and for the entire community, for James' family and friends and for all of those gathered here today to pray with us and to celebrate this special day. 

But, in fact, I believe this is a special day for the entire Church, both that aspect of the Church which continues to labor here on earth for the Reign of God, and the Church Triumphant in heaven. Indeed, if I may be so bold, I believe this is a day in which all of Creation sings out with joy at the profession of this brother of ours into a vowed monastic life. 

Now I will admit that what I have just said is a bold statement, even a grandiose one, but I also believe it is true. And there it is, once again, the combination of a simple vow meant, at this time, for only a year, and the incredibly mystical re- framing of an entire life. A re-framing of a life, James' life, into a whole new way of approaching every minute of every day. 

And that is one of the reasons I love the first reading that James chose for this morning's Eucharist. The passage we read from Proverbs opens with: “Does not wisdom call, and does not understanding raise her voice?” Well, as a matter of fact, James did hear the call of Wisdom and her voice led him to our doorsteps and throughout these last two and a half years,  James has gained in understanding as he deepened his commitment to the monastic way. Listening to the voice of Wisdom all about him – in the liturgy, in his personal prayer, in his classes, in his work, in the experience of community, James, has demonstrated that he is willing and able to live out the first aspect of our vowed life, that of obedience. 

To know James is to know that perhaps his most profound experience of God is to be wandering about God's Creation – hiking on a trail, kayaking on the river, climbing a mountain,  camping at the latest “perfect spot” that he has found somewhere here in this beautiful river valley or in the surrounding mountains we call home. 

And he does this even right outside our back door as when I once witnessed James practically give his life to save a spider. You think I'm kidding. But one day, I stepped outside for a breath of fresh air and looked down our driveway where I saw James wildly waving down a delivery truck – no – not any ordinary truck, but rather an eighteen wheeler - and practically throwing himself in front of it. After all the commotion I inquired what he was doing and James told me that he was attempting to stop the truck from running over this “really beautiful spider”. I was, which I'm often not, speechless and I'm quite sure, I was staring rather incredulously at him, when he simply said: “it was beautiful, it was really beautiful.”  I realized very early on that to separate James from Creation would be to separate him from God, which would be the last thing a Novice Master should do. 

You see, within Christianity, the monastic tradition is equated with the wisdom tradition and for that, we have many tools to help us grow in that wisdom. These tools include the vows themselves, the Divine Office, the Eucharist, lectio divina, the community, learning from the people we serve. All of these tools are meant to help us grow in the Wisdom that leads us to living more fully into the monastic way of life. And James has thrown himself into listening with the ear of his heart, as St. Benedict would have it, with all of these tools. The English word obedience is taken from the Latin root which means “to listen”. 

But for James, it seems to me, it is God's Creation that is at the center of this Wisdom journey that he traverses,  and I pray that he will continue to listen ever more deeply to her call. James' experience of listening to God is what ultimately helps him to understand that a spider is in fact, beautiful, really beautiful. It helps him to understand that a being that is so often rejected or even killed by most of us because we think it is gross or icky or just plain scary is a beautiful creature of God. This experience of creation is, though delightful for James, the labor of searching for God. It is important to note here, that the laboring to know God  is at the center of the monastic experience. To be a monk is to fully engage in the search for God in all beings. And this is as much a part of our tradition as searching for God in lectio or in the Office.  For example, in a letter to Henry Murdock, one of the early Cistercian abbots, St. Bernard of Clairvaux wrote: “Believe me who has experience, you will find more laboring amongst the woods than you ever will amongst books. Woods and stones will teach you what you can never hear from any master.”

So here we have the towering figure of Bernard of Clairvaux, one of the most learned men of the High Middle Ages, recommending, even urging, an influential abbot to get out of the library and to get into nature.  A little less than a thousand years before Bernard wrote that letter, the Desert Fathers used to teach a three-fold approach to growing in Wisdom in the search for God, which they simply put as “flee, be still, be quiet”. These first monastics were fleeing the noise and the pollution and the overpopulation, and the craziness of the city to allow themselves the opportunity to be still and be quiet. And in doing that, they would begin working on searching for God within themselves by first observing how God was present in the Creation all about them in the desert. 

To be clear here, this fleeing was not an escape from the world, rather it was a way of embracing the world which, as the ancients knew, began with Creation. To experience yourself as a part of that Creation, to listen to your own breathing, to the birds, the crickets, the breeze, the rain, is to take the first step of that Wisdom journey that James has been traveling. 

That journey for you, James, began long before you ever heard of Holy Cross Monastery or even thought about monasticism. But it did lead you to our door. And what has been so exciting is to watch you take the second and third steps and many steps beyond that in your growth in Wisdom. 

That growth lead you to choose the name Peter as the name in which you will be called in your monastic life. Now in our Order, it is our tradition that a novice is allowed to choose a name at the point of First Profession, but may keep his own name – whichever he prefers. For James, he preferred to take a name and that name, Peter, is very telling,  particularly in the light of the Gospel passage that we heard just a few minutes ago. 
When I asked James why he had chosen Peter, he said, in his characteristically humble way, “St. Peter just seemed to bumble along into faith, and that seemed a fitting model for me.” And, it is certainly true that many people over the centuries have viewed St. Peter in this way. 

But for me, St. Peter is so much more than that – as are you James - and it is this passage from John's Gospel that best demonstrates this for me. The meeting between the Apostles and Christ that John is describing takes place, of course, after the Resurrection. St. Peter, we know, had denied Christ three times the night before his crucifixion, and now Jesus, asking Peter three times whether he loves him is, for me, one of the most poignant passages in all of Scripture. 

First of all, it speaks to me of Christ, even though raised from the dead, in the fullness of his humanity. Clearly, the relationship between Jesus and Peter was intense from the very beginning. And for that to have been denied, could cut deeper, I would think, than the nails of the cross. It was a deep friendship and one in which Jesus saw in Peter things that Peter could not see in himself. 

So, on the one hand, this asking of “do you love me?” is one friend seeking reconciliation with another. But on a deeper level it is doing what Christ always does with each of us – which is to call us more fully into our own conversion – a deepening of the faith experience – of the wisdom experience – that is another aspect of our vow – conversion to the monastic way of life. 

When Peter answers in the affirmative three times that he does, indeed, love Jesus, Christ invites him once again to “follow me.” But with that invitation comes the forewarning that St. Peter will be martyred. And while Christ does not offer the crown of martyrdom to all of us, a life vowed to conversion is a form of martyrdom. At the moment you take this vow, Peter, you will be committing yourself to dying to yourself, dying to your will, dying to your needs, and in its place, you will be dedicating your life to living into putting others first, living into the Wisdom Journey, living into the deepening of your love for Christ, just as St. Peter did. Your way of acting, as St. Benedict teaches us in the Rule, will be different from the world's way; the love of Christ will come before all else. You will not act in anger, you will not nurse a grudge. You will rid your heart of all deceit. You will never give a hollow greeting of peace and you will never turn away when someone needs your love. And when you fail in one or more of these areas, you will pick yourself up and try again. Now try doing all that for even one day and you'll get a taste of martyrdom!

All this obedience and all this conversion leads, I sometimes think, to the third aspect of our vow, stability. Now over the centuries, stability may be the aspect of the vow that has received the most debate. Did Benedict mean stability to one monastery, one Order, one way of life? In the end, that question remains open. But what I think we can be sure of is that all that obedience and all that conversion can lead us to the kind of stability that St. Paul was talking about in his letter to the Philippians, which we also read this morning. In it, Paul suffered for the sake of Jesus, the loss of all things, meaning that he died to self regarding the surety, his righteousness as to the Law so that he could be found in Christ, through faith in Christ. And it is that foundation of faith in Christ that is our stability. 

Peter, any one of our brothers who have lived the vowed life can tell you that so much happens over the course of your vowed life, so many changes, so many unexpected joys and sufferings, that it would be impossible to predict today what even tomorrow will bring. But know that your stability in Christ, your willingness to allow the Father by his grace to convert you day after day, and your openness to the Holy Spirit to listen and listen, and then listen some more is exactly why all of Creation – the entire universe - is singing with joy this day. You see, all of God's Creation and especially this community, know that you, Peter, like the spider, are beautiful, you are really beautiful and the Wisdom Journey that you are on is beautiful, really beautiful. And so, I don't think it is too grandiose to say that all Creation is singing out with joy this day, because one of their own is further committing themselves to Christ.  Thank you, Brother Peter, for walking this Wisdom Journey with us. May God continue to bless you on this road of Wisdom, this road of Creation. Amen.

Holy Saturday - Apr 19, 2014

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY 
Br. James Michael Dowd, OHC
Holy Saturday - April 19, 2014


Lamentations 3:1-9, 19-24
1 Peter 4:1-8 
Matthew 27:57-66

The harrowing of hades

He Descended to the Dead

Every morning at Matins, when we pray the Apostle's Creed, we pray the phrase, “He descended to the dead” as in “He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried. He descended to the dead.” And for such a bold but unexplained statement I find the way our Eastern Christian brothers and sisters understand theology a much more comfortable way to approach such a mystery.  For the Orthodox, theology is, well, an art form. It is as much about icons, poetry, hymnody, liturgy and prayer, as it is about intellect and study. It's not that they don't engage in lots of study, they certainly do. But that's not the only thing they do to seek Christ, as we might say in our Benedictine tradition. And make no mistake, theology for the Orthodox is not so much an academic pursuit, but rather the very seeking of Christ.

Now many people have told me over the years that Holy Saturday is, for them, a day of emptiness. A few will say, a day of waiting or anticipation, but most of those who have spoken to me about it say that they experience  Holy Saturday as a day that is empty. Akin, perhaps, to the day after a funeral of a loved one. And while I am not going to tell you how or what to feel today, I would like to suggest that there is another approach to Holy Saturday, an approach that is artful, prayerful, even mystical. But one that I think is available to all of us.

Within the Eastern tradition there are many approaches to the descent of Christ to the dead, or into hell as it is often termed. But it is the approach that Cyril of Alexandria takes, that most appeals to me. Cyril takes the view that Christ, after his death, descended to hell to preach to all those who were present there. And in so doing, as he says in his Paschal Homilies, Christ “destroyed hell and opened the impassable gates for the departed spirits. He left the devil there abandoned and lonely.” 

Now per-Christian hell, for the Fathers of the Church, is not how we sometimes think of it as a place where unrepentant sinners go. Rather, it is a place for the dead. For anyone who has died. In their thinking, the Fathers are divided on what the spiritual consequences of being dead before the time of Christ were, but it is clear for them that all humanity descends to this nether world of captivity.

Now let's just take that it in for a moment. Christ, having just been murdered in a gruesome way, continues to experience what all humanity experiences by descending to the dead. He descends to hell to preach to the dead. Christ's plan for salvation is not only for those who were living during his earthly life or for those who would come in the future. No, Christ's plan for salvation is for all of humanity for all time. That includes, according to Cyril, not only the Righteous Jews, but also all pagans. Those two groups, for him, represented all of humanity at the time of Christ. 

If we extrapolate out the modern understanding of what the totality of humanity consists of, that means that Christ was preaching to people who had been dead, in some cases, for millions of years. And the theological point that I think is important here is that Christ's plan for salvation is for all the living, all the dead, all those yet to be born. And Christ will stop at nothing to preach, reach, touch, save, love all of us. All of humanity. Every member of every religion, every race, every culture, every language group. Every captive. 

The Russian Orthodox monk and theologian Bishop Hilarion Alfeyev, says that “Clearly, Cyril perceived the victory of Christ over hell and death as complete and definitive. According to Cyril, hell loses authority both over those who were in its power and those who are to become its prey in the future. Thus, the descent into Hades, a single and unique action, is perceived as a timeless event. The raised body of Christ becomes the guarantee of universal salvation, the beginning of leading human nature to ultimate deification.” 

What humanity experiences on Holy Saturday is something outside of chronos, chronological human time, and is better understood as being experienced in kairos, that is, a season for God to act in a time that humanity may not fully grasp. That experience of Holy Saturday is nothing less than the emptying of hell because Christ desires for humanity to turn from worshiping death toward worshiping Him, the very fountain of life. 

However, though Christ has led captivity captive and brought salvation even to the nether world, the lure of  death and hell are powerful. Even though Christ has emptied hell, he still searches among the dead, the lost, because so often we human beings seem to have some kind of proclivity to choose death rather than life, to make our own hells on earth.  Just think about the last hundred years and the way in which humanity has created its own hell by continuing to turn from worshiping God in order to worship  death: Death in the form of mustard gas, concentration camps, killing fields, lynch mobs, napalm, drones, nuclear weapons. 

From the assassination of the Archduke Ferdinand in 1914, to the latest drone attack that occurred in Yemen this morning, humanity has chosen, time and again,  in an unprecedented way over these last hundred years, to worship death and to create our own hells on earth, even though Christ left the devil “abandoned and lonely”. It has been a century of darkness and death.

This proclivity for darkness and death is almost beyond the explainable, yet even now, Christ will never give up on us. Just as he searched the darkest corners of hell to save every member of the human family, Christ still searches for us even as we modern humans have embraced an unprecedented worship of death. And that embrace is sadly shared by all of us. For most of us in this church, that embrace is shared primarily through ambivalence or complacency.  But that complacency allows the purveyors of death to rule our lives whether we want to admit that or not. 

And so my invitation to all of you this Holy Saturday is to listen for Christ's preaching in those areas of your life in which you might have died. Has your zeal for peace died within you? Has the virtue of love for the least brother or sister died within you? Has your greatest patience with prayer or service to the poor died within you? Listen my sisters and brothers with the ear of your heart and know that Christ preaches to that which may have died within you this day. Christ never gives up on you! Not on any of you!

And knowing that – believing that – will then give us the strength we need to accompany Christ into all the darkest places that we human beings have created on earth. Those places where we as a people have died: in the slums we have established in order to neglect the poor; in the camps we've filled with refugees we'd rather fence in than liberate; in the limousines of gun manufacturers who are laughing all the way to the bank as our children are slaughtered in their classrooms; in the factories of death that our government calls nuclear weapons laboratories. 

Let us go to those places and preach like Christ to the dead. Let us announce this Holy Saturday, that a new and different century is about to begin - a Century of Light and Life. A century in which we preach, reach, touch, save, love all of humanity.  Let us proclaim that Christ suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried. That he descended to the dead. That on the third day he rose again and that he ascended to heaven. From where, this Holy Saturday, he sends us forth to preach to the dead.  Holy Saturday empty? I'd ask you to consider a different approach in your prayer today. AMEN.

Epiphany 3 A - Jan 26, 2014

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY
Br. James Michael Dowd, OHC
Year A - Epiphany 3 - Sunday, January 26, 2014

Isaiah 9:1-4
1 Corinthians 1:10-18
Matthew 4:12-23

Jesus Calling Peter - Duccio di Buoninsegna, d. 1319
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

The Call: Fishers of People
I'd like to begin this morning by talking about Peter and Andrew, James and John for just a little bit. We tend to divide our discussion of the apostles into a “before they went to heaven” and an “after they went to heaven” kind of dichotomy that I am increasingly uncomfortable with. I don't think it is fair to their memory or to us, who have to live with that memory.

The “after they went to heaven” approach to the apostles is that they are these glorious saints, who are the holders of the Truth of the Gospel, who each have a gate of heaven, and hold the very keys to heaven. It's a little much, really.

On the other hand, we have the “before they went to heaven” discussion of the apostles, heard in many a sermon, as complete dullards, men who didn't have a clue about their faith, were egotistical, self-centered and more interested in their own glory than in the glory of Christ.

And I think both of these extreme views of the apostles does them a disservice. For me, the reality of the apostles was that they were, quite simply, faithful human beings. People like you and me who got it right a bunch of the time and occasionally really messed up.

Now I think this because of these two verses, regarding Peter and Andrew:

“ 'Follow me, and I will make you fish for people.' Immediately they left their nets and followed him.”

And these two verses: ...[Jesus] saw two other brothers, James, son of Zebedee and his brother John, in the boat with their father Zebedee, mending their nets, and he called them. Immediately, they left the boat and their father, and followed him.”

Now I don't care how charismatic Jesus was, or how attractive his message and very being were, the very short sentence “come follow me” is really not enough to give up your whole life – to leave your family, your livelihood, your home, everything, to follow an itinerant preacher doing who knows what. No, something else is at work here and that something else is, I think, the faithfulness of Peter, Andrew, James and John.

You see, the nature of a call is not that you have heard some voice of God that gives you brand new information that you've never heard before or that you have never even thought of before. The nature of a call is that God brings to light the truth that already lives within you. That's what Matthew is trying to communicate to us when he quotes the great Prophet Isaiah “the people who walk in darkness have seen a great light, and for those who sat in the region and shadow of death light has dawned.”

The first four apostles had been sitting in the darkness for a long time. Indeed, all Israel, whom the apostles are a stand in for, had been waiting. And faithful Jews throughout the land had been waiting for the light; praying for the light; hoping, always hoping for the light for hundreds and hundreds of years. For generation after generation, the people – or at least some of them – did their best to stay awake enough to be ready for that light. And when the light dawned, the faithful were awake enough to recognize it. That's how Peter, Andrew, James and John knew to follow immediately. They were awake – perhaps just enough – to see the great light that was shining before them.

Yes, they would be temporarily blinded, now and again, in later parts of the story. And toward the end of Jesus life they would not live up to all they might have, but these men had prepared all their lives to meet the light and when Jesus walked by, they were ready. In the end, though sometimes having to be awakened as from a nap, that would be the case throughout their whole lives.

I would argue that even the feast we commemorated yesterday, the Conversion of St. Paul the Apostle, teaches us the same thing. Even though Paul, then known as Saul, was persecuting the Church – quite viciously actually – he had been faithful to the Law, to reading Scripture, to worship of God. The problem for him was that he was allowing his furious rage to rule his soul and interpreted these new followers of the Christ to be apostates who were actually threatening the very survival of the Jewish people.

But when the light appeared to Paul, in the form of what seemed like a blinding sun, Paul was able to dig much deeper within himself. Now, it took him three days of a simulated blindness to dig as deep as he needed and to wake up. Note, his taking to following Christ was not immediate as was the case with the first four apostles, but nonetheless, Paul, too, had lived and hoped for the coming of the light. And in those three days of no doubt great repentance for all that he had done persecuting Jesus, and what must have been very painful searching for the truth within, Paul was slowly beginning to perceive the light that Christ bore within him.

What do I mean by that? Well, these great saints, just as surely as you and I, were created in the image and likeness of God, and so, from the beginning of our lives, we already bear the light within. The likeness of God is that part of us which is the image of God, an image of a light so great that we are not only called into the mission of God, but called to become the christs – that is, the anointed ones – as we follow Jesus, the Christ.

And so, how do we prepare ourselves to recognize the light when it shines on us and to hear the call when it emanates from us? It doesn't matter who we are, we might be fishermen types, doing our duty, working for a living, faithful, but ordinary people. Or, we might even be notorious sinners, persecuting God's people, supporting the oppression of innocents and the use of violence against people who believe differently from ourselves. In either case, the light still longs to shine on us, and the call still resides within us and God finds different and compelling ways to help us to see that great light and to hear that call. But it does take cooperation from us. We must be willingly placing ourselves into a position of “here I am Lord”, making ourselves available to God on a regular basis. That is what prayer is.

But note well, the very minute you get a glimpse of that morning sun, even as it is just peeking over the horizon, you are called into mission. A mission to become fishers of people. You see, Christ's mission – and ours – is to ever expand the kingdom. By calling more and more people into the kingdom we become God's instruments to help each individual to recognize the light and to hear the call within themselves. For within that recognition lies great healing, great repentance, great, great love. That is what Jesus is talking about when he proclaims “the kingdom of heaven has come near.” In fact, it is so near, it is within and among us, right here, in this church, this morning.

And so, my sisters and brothers, to pray is a faithful search to find the light. To find the light is a faithful way to hear the call. To hear the call is to take on the mission of the kingdom, which is, as we know, to feed the hungry, to heal the sick, to welcome the stranger, to comfort the mourning, to be Christ to one another. Look around you, look within you, the kingdom of heaven has drawn hear! AMEN.

Advent 1 A - Dec 1, 2013

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY
Br. James Michael Dowd, OHC
Year A - Advent 1 - Sunday, December 1, 2013

Isaiah 2:1-5
Romans 13:11-14
Matthew 24:36-44


Swords into Food

A modern plough at work in the field
Kuhn plough at Werktuigendagen 2007

St. Benedict, in his Rule for monks, is famous for telling us that the life of a monk should be a perpetual Lent. I would like to hold out to you the possibility that if Advent had been a fully developed liturgical season at the time that Benedict wrote his Rule, he might have taught us that the life of a monk should be a perpetual Advent.

And here's why: Advent is that season in which we are called to slow down and quiet ourselves in order to awaken ourselves to a new way of life, a new and renewed hope in the God of hope, the God with us. This is, I think, what monastics and those who are inspired by monastic spirituality do. They wait, they watch, they hope. Most of all, they hope.

All of this waiting, watching and hoping is actually quite counter-cultural which, again, a way of being that is, I believe, the mark of a healthy monastic community. Quiet down in December? Yes. Wait, when I've got a million things to do before the holidays? Yes. Believe that in the days to come there will be peace on earth? Yes. Salvation is nearer now more than ever? Yes.

Yes. Yes. Yes. Believing those things is counter-cultural and to be a Christian, in our country at this current moment in history, demands of us, that we be counter-cultural. So here, at the beginning of this blessed season, let us make a commitment to living the life of a perpetual Advent. As St. Paul calls to us from so many years ago, this Advent, let us wake from our sleep; and as Jesus calls to us once awake, we must keep awake. I believe these calls are invitations to waken ourselves to the hope that Isaiah promises in the days to come. And that's what I'd like to talk to you about this morning - that prophesy/hope that Isaiah made in our first reading, one of the most famous of the season of Advent.

In particular, I'd like us to focus on what is perhaps the most well-known verse in the prophesy, verse 4, part of which reads:

...they shall beat their swords into plowshares,and their spears into pruning hooks;nation shall not lift up sword against nation,neither shall they learn war any more.

When I have asked people what they think about this particular verse, I have usually gotten one of three responses. One response is a kind of “that would be nice, but not going to happen in our life times”; another is “yes, but what about the Muslims? Or the Soviets? Or whomever the perceived enemy was at the moment. But the most common response I have heard over the years, and the most dangerous and least hope-filled is the cynical response. The one in which the person says: “Isaiah is a pipe-dream, a naïve and silly approach to world affairs.” This kind of cynicism leads to some realities on the ground that make for an especially un-Advent like approach to our lives.

Because that kind of cynicism is exactly the kind of cynicism that the hope of Isaiah, the hope of Advent, the hope of Christ, should make us reject out of hand. That cynicism is about darkness. And Advent is nothing, if not about light. The light of hope, the light of Christ having come among us, the light of Christ coming again, the light of Christ being right here, right now.

And each week, as we light one more candle on the Advent wreath, slowly, but surely, building the light – it is my prayer, my hope, my expectation, that we will learn what it means to beat swords into plowshares and spears into pruning hooks. That is what it means, I think, to wake up and to stay awake. It is to learn how to accept the invitation from Christ, to be a partner in the building of Christ's light, Christ's reign.

And so what does Isaiah's poetic language mean in real life? Well, to understand that, I think we must start with with text. Isaiah was calling to the people to beat swords into plowshares and spears into pruning hooks not for poetry's sake, but for the sake of food. Plain and simple.
The constant preparation for war was extremely expensive as it is today. Swords and spears were among the most expensive weapons of war at the time and the money that was raised in order to make these weapons came directly from the people and out of their food budgets. The people were starving to death so that enough weapons of war could be made to defend them from being killed by the enemy. This kind of thinking is what passes for being “realistic” and as a “sophisticated” understanding of world politics. It is nonsense.

Isaiah knew that a sword could be reconfigured into a plowshare by a blacksmith. This is actually something that could be done by any ordinary blacksmith. A plowshare is that part of a plow that is sharpened and actually digs the soil in order to create a space where seeds can be sown. Spears could easily be changed by a blacksmith into pruning hooks, which could then be used to prune fruit and nut trees which would provide healthier trees, which would provide more food. Isaiah knew that a hungry people are a desperate people. Feed people, grow peace.
So a less poetic, but perhaps more direct way to relay Isaiah's real meaning might be: “they shall beat their swords and spears into food.” Food that nourishes, food that gives life, food that allows us to continue to build the light. Food for peace. And remember, this wasn't one-sided. Isaiah says that the nations, plural, will be part of this movement.

One other note about the text. The phrase at the beginning of our reading “in the days to come” is not referring to some magical, mystical, time in the future when the Messiah brings all this great stuff about.  Rather “in the days to come” refers to real time, something that will happen in the course of human history, brought about by the peoples of the earth who seek God.

And that got me thinking. And so, to continue my own awakening, I did a little research in the preparation of this sermon. I looked into hunger in our world today. I'd like to do a little visual experiment with you today {count off in sixes, the sixth person raises their hand and keep it in the air}.
Now, please look all around the church. Every person who has their hand in the air represents a hungry person in the United States. One in six persons in the United States, the United States...is hungry.1 They do not have enough food to feed themselves or their families. These people are not only in the poorest neighborhoods in some forgotten inner city, though they are there. They are also in nice neighborhoods in glamorous cities, they are in suburbs, they are in rural areas, they are, perhaps, right in this church. They are us – and we are hungry. They are us, but we are at war. Just last year, in 2012, that meant that 49,000,000 people in the United States, 49,000,000 of our fellow citizens were hungry.

In Afghanistan, the World Food Program says the number of hungry is approximately 7,400,000 people who are classified as starving, and another 8,500,000 people who are classified as facing borderline starvation.3 This is out of a population of 31,000,000 people.
Around the world, in the latest figures we have which date back to 2010, the number of hungry is 870,000,000 people I know these are a lot of numbers, and I'm not really a numbers guy, but I must wake up. We must wake up. Jesus makes it very clear – wake up.

Please be patient with me, just one more set of numbers: Since the war in Afghanistan began in 2001, the United States has spent, as of 5:02 this morning, 677,723,625,603 dollars.5 The website for National Priorities keeps a running ticker as to how many dollars we are spending on this war. It moves so fast, that it is difficult to capture any particular dollar amount, but there it is, as of 5:02 AM – over 677 Billion dollars.
In those same twelve years, we have spent a little more than 24 Billion dollars on food aid for the entire planet. So, 677 Billion dollars for war in Afghanistan alone, and 24 Billion dollars for food all over the world. That is a lot of swords and spears, and not much food.

Now what would it look like if we took a percentage of that money – let's say even just 10% of it – over 67 Billion dollars – and spent some of it on emergency food relief and most of it on teaching people how to grow their own food, how to deal with particular realities like droughts and floods over the long term, and how to build infrastructures to make local agricultural efforts more effective. What would that look like? It would look like we were building the light of the Advent wreath. What if we used 50% - 339 Billion dollars? The light would be shining so brightly we need sunglasses. Peace would be breaking out all over the dinner tables of the world.

Yes, Isaiah, and Paul, and Jesus are all about hope. And so am I – at least on my best days. So here's my hope for myself, my community, and all of you. My hope is that:

In the days to comethe treasury of our countrywill be used to feed our own people;to beat our drones into food for Afghanistan,and our nuclear submarines into food for North Korea.In the days to come,the relative wealth of our monasterywill be used to feed the peopleto turn our treasure into food for Newburgh, Highland, West Park;and to continue to turn our bread into Eucharist for the spiritually hungry.

If you came to the monastery, whether as a guest or as a monk to escape the world, you came to the wrong place. The monastery and monastic spirituality is not an escape from the world, it is a gateway to the world. These beautiful sisters and brothers that God has given to us – sisters and brothers in this church, back home, in Afghanistan, in North Korea, El Salvador and all around the world, are sisters and brothers to be fed and to feed us. They are not to be targets of our swords or spears, our drones or nuclear weapons.
So, in these Advent days to come, I invite you to hope and hope and hope. To watch and to wait by learning what it might mean for you to feed a hungry person, for your community to feed a hungry community, for our nation to feed another nation. In learning those things, we might just not have time to learn war anymore.  Spend these next several weeks being quiet enough to learn what it means to build the light in these days that have come.

AMEN.

Epiphany 2 C - Jan 20, 2013

HolyCross Monastery, West Park, NY

Br. James Michael Dowd, OHC

Epiphany 2 C – Sunday, January 20, 2013

Isaiah 62:1-5 
1 Corinthians 12:1-11 
John 2:1-11

The wedding at Cana

Do Whatever He Tells You To Do

Having been raised in the Roman Catholic tradition, it would be fair to say that I have a devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Mother of God. At least in my public persona, that would be true. But deep down, in the privacy and reality of my own spiritual life, I don't think of this so much as devotion to the Mother of God, but more like a relationship with Mary, the Mother of Jesus. This relationship was certainly fostered by my Catholicism, but perhaps even more importantly by the relationship that my mother and her mother, my grandmother, had with Mary, the Mother of Jesus.

Both Mom and Grandma have a great relationship with Mary, the Mother of Jesus. Their approach to the faith is, or was in my grandmother's case, a practical one. For sake of ease here, I will just speak in the present tense, though Grandma went to meet Mary and Jesus many years ago. The more contemplative or ethereal aspects of our faith are not for them, but what they understand to their core is the Christian faith as an act of love. In their cases, as an act of love of a mother for her children or grandchildren. And the fact that love is mostly about action – about what you are going to do to serve God, and serve each other. Love is a hot and delicious meal on the table, night after night after night. Love is staying up all night when one kid after another comes down with chicken pox. Love is teaching your kids to love other people, to be honest, and live in peace with one another.

And I cannot help but to think of Mom and Grandma when I read this Gospel passage from John. In this reading, we find ourselves at a wedding in Cana with Mary, Jesus, and some of his newly gathered disciples. The party is going on, everyone seems to be having a great time, perhaps getting a little sloshed, and we're probably at the point in which the wedding reception has degenerated into everyone doing the Chicken Dance, when Mary notices and alerts Jesus, that the bridegroom has run out of wine.

With Jesus' response of “what concern is that to you and me?” I can't help but wonder if Mary didn't just lose it with her son. I can just imagine her thinking to herself “you've been hanging around the house for thirty years now, always with the praying, the going off to secluded places. When are you going to do something!” And I wonder if she wasn't thinking to herself about the first verse from the reading from Isaiah we just heard: “For Zion's sake I will not keep silent, and for Jerusalem's sake I will not rest...” It was time to help get these folks out of an embarrassing situation, and, more importantly, time for her son to step forward and shine forth God's glory. And so she moves on to the servants and quietly, but very firmly says, “do whatever he tells you to do.” Done.

And that seems like good advice for us, today's servants of God, to just do “whatever he tells you to do.” I know that sounds dimplier said than done, but sometimes today we make having a faith life seem so complicated, with all kinds of caveats and relativity, that we often forget the simplicity of so much of what our faith is about: love, peace, caring for each other. Do whatever he tells you to do. Go love somebody. Go make peace with somebody. Go take care of somebody who needs help.


There are moments in a lifetime of faith when I think we, as individuals, or we, as the Body of Christ, are faced with the stark reality of one of these simple choices. Moments when we must choose for love and for peace and when, in fact, it is quite simple, though not necessarily easy, to know what it is to “do whatever he tells you to do.” I believe that the Christian community in this country has arrived at one of those moments – a kind of crossroads in time in which we must make a choice to take the road toward non-violence – in which we more fully discover the kingdom of God; or to choose the road of idol worship in which we continue to worship weapons of mass destruction, whether these weapons be held by the government or by individuals. Newtown, CT is that crossroad. We are there and we have paused momentarily as we individually and collectively make the choice.

My brothers and sisters, the crossroad looms and we must make the choice for non-violence. The Firearm and Injury Center at Penn State, which has been studying firearm fatalities and injuries in this country for many years, reports that between 1980 and 2007, the average number of deaths in this country from firearms has been 32,300.1 32,300 of our sisters and brothers dead from gunfire. The number of injuries each year is more than twice that number. 32,300 dead people every year so that we can retain our precious right to collect guns. Are you kidding me? We have passed the point of absurdity and now must make a choice. A choice that is actually quite simple, though not easy. We must remove automatic weapons from our society and work very hard and long on the many other types of guns that people “collect.”

Blood is running in our streets, blood is running down our school hallways, in movie theaters, in our houses of worship, in our workplaces, in our homes. Carnage is all around us, and we do have the means to stop a considerable amount of it. And as Christians, we have an obligation to work toward the elimination of such suffering and the healing of this sickness.

For that is what violence is. A sickness. An addiction. And we Americans have become rabidly addicted to violence. On a global scale we see terrorists around every corner and so we allow a multi-front war to drag on in perpetuity, raining down bombs on innocent people all over the world. Here at home, folks convince themselves that the big bad government is coming for them and so they must arm themselves like paranoid petty dictators. This is insanity. This is a group of people living in a state of panic in a way that has nothing to do with doing “whatever he tells you to do.”

The addiction of violence has to be treated like an addiction to alcohol. In order to get to the underlying issue for the alcoholic, you must get the alcohol out of their hands. It is only then that they can begin that climb to recovery. So to with violence. Yes, violence is more complicated than guns. But in order to really be able to work our recovery, we have to get the guns out of our hands.

I stand before you today, speaking of non-violence, not because I am non-violent, but because I am working my recovery. I have never fired a gun, or used any weapon, I've never even been in a fist fight. But that doesn't mean I don't have violence within me. I hear Mary saying to me now, “when are you going to do something?” and “do whatever he tells you to do.”

The tragedy in Newtown has finally awakened not only me, but many people in this country from the kind of stupor of denial that we have lived in regarding gun violence. I urge you, I beg you, in the name of Mary and in the name of Jesus, do “whatever he tells you to do.” Pray everyday to work your own recovery from violence. Pray that our country will learn to work the program. Then, do something: Write your elected officials, demonstrate, use any kind of non-violent means to communicate to those in power that we insist on putting an end to this insanity which can only result in such evil. Insist, that it is much dimplier than people are making it out to be. Stop the carnage. Stop the bloodshed. Stop the weapons of mass destruction. When we do this we will, like Jesus, shine forth God's glory to all the world. 32,300 people are waiting for us to act this year. God help us if we don't. AMEN.


1 Firearm and Injury Center at Penn, p. 5.

Christmas Eve - Dec 24, 2012

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY
Brother James Michael Dowd, ohc
Christmas Eve – Tuesday, December 24, 2012

Isaiah 9:2-7
Titus 2:11-14
Luke 2:1-20

Rage with Hope

Our Christmas tree on December 23,
before being trimmed by our guests on  Christmas Eve
Picture by George Reiner, AHC

Merry Christmas!

Again, I say to you, Merry Christmas!

It is nothing less than essential that we say Merry Christmas and that we greet this night with great joy, loud praises, and exuberant glorias. And so, I say to you again, Merry Christmas!

This greeting of joy is so urgent, my sisters and brothers, for we are a people who walk in darkness and yet we have seen a great light. We live in a land of deep darkness, and yet, on our land has shone a great light.

Our nation has been reeling these last ten days from the unspeakable violence unleashed in Newtown. We have, I believe, finally, awakened to the violence that plagues our suburban communities, infects our countryside, and handicaps our urban centers, only to realize that it was not a nightmare that we had been having, but a real experience of the slavery of violence that grips our people and seems to capture us in an endless loop of hopelessness and submission to that same violence. The violence that grips our nation – both in our foreign misadventures and in our own hometowns - is a darkness so pervasive that many have convinced themselves that to be an American is to have no choice but to bear the weapons most murderous. Weapons that can destroy as many people as possible whether that be in Pakistan or Afghanistan, Newtown or Aurora.

But again, I say to you, Merry Christmas.

I say, Merry Christmas, because we have a God who who has taught us that:

I have come into the world as light,
to prevent anyone who believes in me
from staying in the dark anymore.

1 John 12:46 NJB

And so I must tell you, my brothers and sisters, that the Incarnation demands that we rage in hope. The Emmanuel, the “God with Us” calls us to let every candle we light this season and every string of lights we hang these holidays, to be a symbol of our resistance to the darkness. The darkness cast by drones over Pakistan and a war fought in Iraq for fabricated reasons; the gloom befalling our land because of death in the darkness of a movie theater, or in the darkness of a corner closet in a kindergarten classroom. Rage with hope against this darkness because so much of this can be prevented. And the Incarnation demands that we prevent it.

But this darkness must not only be prevented, rather our lives must be illuminated, indeed our entire beings must glow with the glory of God. Because if we believe in Christ we do not have to stay in the darkness anymore. We can be freed from the dark shadow of hopelessness in the face of this gruesome violence; a violence that has become the American religion: a pagan belief system that worships weapons of mass destruction held in the hands of our government and our citizens.

So, I think, the questions to ask ourselves are: Do we believe that the darkness is so pervasive that we must arm ourselves into oblivion? Or do we believe, as the Prophet Isaiah did, that the light of the Prince of Peace is growing continuously and that there will be endless peace for his kingdom? These are not choices that others can make for you. This is a choice you can only make for yourself. Do you believe in the darkness or in the light?

And again, I say to you Merry Christmas! Because you see, there was another time in history in which a republic had descended into empire and wreaked a violent havoc on the poor of the world. They, or their minions, slaughtered men, women and children in unprecedented numbers in the name of the Pax Romana. They took what was not there's, they desecrated sacred sites, they imposed their will on innocent people. And it was into that world, that Christ came to “prevent anyone who believed in him from staying in the dark anymore.”

Into the darkness of the Roman Empire's occupation of Israel and into the darkness of Herod's vicious puppet kingdom, shone the glory of the Lord because the angel had come to the poorest of the poor – those shepherds living in the fields around Bethlehem – to tell the stunning news that God was no longer a distant un-nameable figure in a heaven far away, but a Savior, a Messiah, the Light that was good news and great joy for all the people. A God of this earth, this realm, these people. A God who loved us so much that God would make Godself one with us. Yes, even in our very broken humanity, God was desperate to show us a way to worship the God of Life, not a god of death. To bring us a light so bright that it would banish the darkness forever. And God would show us that way by teaching us to lay down our swords, our glocks and our drones and instead, focus our resources on the poor and the sick.

And so, like the shepherds, let us go to Bethlehem, but let us go to the Bethlehem of our hearts and, like Mary, let us ponder these things there, in our heart. Grotesque violence is not new. It is not particularly American. It is an aspect of humanity throughout recorded history and no doubt before that as well. We are broken to some degree, though we were created as good, indeed very good. But the American obsession with violence is centered on what amounts to the worship of weapons of mass destruction. And so we must bring the light of Christ to all those who fall victim to this profane worship. And we must be the light to the rest of us who have buckled to the “powers that be” in fear of their alleged control of the political process.

Bethlehem, Scripture tells us, was a village of great life as represented by the birth of Christ; and of terrible death, as represented by the murder of the Holy Innocents. I believe this is true of the Bethlehem of our hearts as well. When we go to the Bethlehem of our hearts and really, honestly, ponder these things, we know that we each have violence within us, whether we've ever touched a gun or not. But we also should know that we have Christ within us and that we have the same call as Mary did: to birth Christ in the form of a life lived in non-violence. We know that we have the same call as the shepherds did: to proclaim the Good News by sharing the hope of a loving, non-violent God, with others.

I believe in the Bethlehem of Life. I believe in Christ. And I believe in the Christ within each of you. And I believe in the Christ within me. And I believe that the Christ within you and within me can overcome the darkness and can shine so brightly that our prayer and our work will lead to a community led by the Prince of Peace. And that this community will share in that peace. And that we will sing with great gusto, all the while raging with hope: Glory to God in the highest heaven and on earth: peace, peace, peace. And because I believe that, I say to you again: Merry Christmas!

Christ the King - Nov 25, 2012

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY
Brother James Michael Dowd, OHC
Christ the King - Year B- Sunday, November 25, 2012

Daniel 7:9-10,13-14
Revelation 1:4b-8
John 18:33-37

Listen to my Voice

My paternal ancestors, who came to be known as the O'Dowd clan, ruled one-fifth of Ireland, that area then known as Connaught, from the early-300's in the Common Era and for the next, approximately 1,300 years.  These same ancestors were often elected the High King and crowned at Tara, and wielded great power throughout the land and especially in the western part of that country.  King Laoghaire, of this same line, having been converted by St. Patrick himself, united the power of the clan with the true faith and thus, they were unstoppable.

Now in the early middle ages, the O'Dowd's were challenged by the O'Donnell's and the Burke's and to hold them off, the O'Dowd's erected a circle of twenty-four castles known as the O'Dowd Castles, in their seat of power, which is, today, known as the Counties Mayo and Sligo.  The ruins of twenty of these castles can still be visited today in some of the most beautiful scenery in all Ireland.

This ring of castles held off invaders from both land and sea and those O'Donnell's and Burke's were handily defeated – pushed out of Mayo and Sligo, the Holy Land of Ireland, and allowed an O'Dowd reign for several hundred more years before that nasty Cromwell, and later, that even worse potato famine either killed off or drove off into the Irish Diaspora so many of the O'Dowd clan.

And inherent in that wee tale of my ancestors is the struggle that I have with this feast, the feast of Christ the King.  My struggle is perhaps semantic, but I really do wonder about putting so much emphasis on the idea of Christ the King because I believe that there are not one, but two dangers, in a spirituality that is centered on what is, lets face it, a human understanding of kingship.

O'Dowd Castle at Easkey Pier, County Sligo, Ireland
Picture by Stefan Schnebelt

The O'Dowd tale is ultimately the story of power lost, of crumbling castles left in ruins, of a people fleeing a hideous foreign dictator and the scourge of potato blight.  You see Kingdoms collapse – always.  Kings lose their power – sooner or later – and the people are left to fend for themselves, often unable to escape brutality, torture, starvation and death.  And so that is the first problem I see with celebrating the Kingship of Christ.  As I said, it might just be a matter of semantics - though I think it is something more – but kingdoms collapse in on themselves or fall at the hand of others.  It just does not seem enough to me to say that Christ's Kingdom is different from all the rest.

The second problem for me with the Kingship analogy is not when the king has lost power, but when he has it.  Go back to that ring of O'Dowd castles.  In order to hold on to power, a king must build a ring of castles, or an iron dome, or a missile defense system, in order to keep the O'Donnell's and the Burke's, or whomever, out.  The goal of such fortification is to keep others – lots of others – out.

And then we have Jesus before Pilate.  One who will not even claim kingship, though his disciples begged him to do so, though Jewish leadership accused him of doing so, though a Roman governor inquired of him whether it was so, he just stood there and told Pilate – and us – that it is we who need to think of him as a king, but that his kingdom is not something of this world, that it is not something we will easily understand, if at all.  Jesus tells us that he just did not come to be crowned king.  He did come, he makes quite clear, for truth.  And I sometimes wonder if this feast would better serve if entitled Christ the Truth.

You see, the Incarnation turns everything, even the truth, on its head.  And the first thing it turned on its head was the nature of revelation.  The people had long been expecting a Messiah that was a warrior-king.  Generation after generation, century after century, the Jews had longed for a king that would lead them into a battle that would ultimately defeat their enemies and act as a kind of war to end all wars.  The prophets told them that this was so, at least, that's what they believed the prophets told them; and the people interpreted these revelations as just what they needed to have peace, prosperity and to live in God's presence forever.

But when God decided to incarnate Godself and to become, in the being of Christ, both God and human, the very nature of revelation – and the particular revelations of what it means to have a God who is king is thrust upside down, shaken up and then turned inside out.  In fact, most all revelations before and since the Incarnation simply have to be interpreted in a different way, because God has called us to something very different: God has called us to become part of Godself.  And to become part of God, is to at least attempt to leave behind our human ways of understanding things, and to begin looking at a new reality.  A reality – the only actual reality – from the point of view of God.

And the first thing that this new reality teaches us, I think, as I struggle with this, is that we must strip ourselves of worldly power by not calling on our army of followers, whoever they may be, to defend our little kingdoms, our little ideas, our little selves, and simply listen to Christ's voice.

As a benedictine monk, it is that last verse of today's Gospel that so grabbed my attention: “Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.”  Benedictine spirituality is centered on the practice of listening.  Every time we pray the Office, or worship at the Eucharist, or practice Lectio Divina, or engage in meditative prayer, we are attempting to listen to Christ's voice, to belong to the truth.  It is that, and that alone, which enables us to stand before our own Pilate and reject the lure of power, of armies, of kingship – and to accept the idea of selfless love, a love that is willing to lay down our lives for our friends.

This practice of listening enables us to open the ear of our heart, in that famous Benedictine phrase, showing us that the revelation to Daniel was correct.  Listen again to part of that first reading:

I saw one like a human being
coming with the clouds of heaven.
And he came to the Ancient One
and was presented before him.
To give him dominion
and glory and kingship,
that all people, nations, and languages
should serve him.

This revelation was correct, that is, if interpreted through the lens of the Incarnation.  In many places throughout the Gospels, Christ tells us where we could find him.  He told us to find him in the poor, the sick, the lonely, the mourning, in those who seek peace, in those who are imprisoned, in those who are lost.  What he never told us was to find him on a throne, sitting up there in heaven.  Now, go ahead, look around this church – please, look around at each other.

Do not look up to the sky, waiting for some glory to be revealed.  Find that glory, find Christ, find your King; find him in the person in this room who is most broken, sickest, poorest, loneliest, the one who is so broken-hearted over the loss of a loved one.  Find Christ your King and understand that no army, no loyal band of followers, will come rescue that person unless you do it.  Tear down your ring of castles and welcome the stranger, love the enemy, forgive the sinner.

Know that a king worth fighting for is a king worth loving for.  Know that a King worth loving for is a king worth listening to.  Listen to the truth of the Incarnation.  When God joined Godself to humanity, God did not so much lower Godself as elevate humanity.  By this elevation, God makes us an intimate part of Godself and that act, changes the nature of humanity forever.  It changes us in such a way that allows us to rise above our own sinfulness, selfishness and narcissistic tendencies so that we can see Christ our King in the O'Donnell's and in the Burke's and stand before our own Pilate, our own Chief Priest, and say to them: “For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. I belong to Christ the King, and I have listened to his voice.”

Proper 20 B - Sep 23, 2012

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY
Brother James Michael Dowd, OHC
Proper 20, Year B - Sunday, September 23, 2012


Wisdom 1:16-2:1, 12-22
James 3:13-4:3, 7-8a
Mark 9:30-37

Who is Wise and Understanding Among You?

I find myself intrigued by the Letter of James, part of which was our second reading this morning, because of the question that reading begins with: Who is wise and understanding among you? As the Novice Master, I have the great joy to study once again so many of the foundational texts of the monastic movement along with our novices as together we grow in our vocations. And the section of James that we read today seems, to me at least, to be filled with monastic wisdom.

The answer to the rhetorical question that James begins with is to show by your good life that your works are done with gentleness born of wisdom. Show by your good life. That says it all, really. It's not what we say we do, “oh, I'm a great pray-er” or “oh, I really identify with the suffering” or “oh, I'm so detached from everything, I can barely feel my own body!” No, Christianity is about showing, doing, being. When I studied for the theater, one of my favorite classes was Introduction to Play writing, in which, on the very first day you learn the most important rule about either play writing or directing: “show them, don't tell them.” And that seems like a good rule of thumb for the monastic life, indeed, the Christian life.

But it is not just about showing them. It is about showing them with gentleness born of wisdom. And James tells us what that gentle wisdom looks like. It is pure, it is peaceable, it is willing to yield, it is full of mercy and it is full of good fruits. It is, in other words, something that other Christians and non-Christians as well, can see in you.

James also tells us what gentleness born of wisdom is not. It is not envious, it is not ambitious, it is not boastful, it is not filled with lies. There is something quite practical and obvious in both of these lists – and sometimes we need that on our Christian journeys.

But it is the next question that James asks that has had me really reflecting on what it means to live a monastic life, a Christian life. I'd like to read again these few verses to you:
Those conflicts and disputes among you, where do they come from? Do they not come from your cravings that are at war within you? You want something and do not have it; so you commit murder. And you covet something and cannot obtain it; so you engage in disputes and conflicts.

If you think of troubles, conflicts, disputes, wars that rage within your own family, in your community, your parish, your workplace, in our nation this election season, or across the world, it seems to me that this could be a highly instructive lesson for any Christian to contemplate.
But it's the word cravings that most stands out to me. Cravings, James tells us, are at war within us. In fact, cravings can and do kill people – and whole groups of people. This past summer I had the great blessing of taking a vacation with my family in Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming. On three different occasions, I heard the same story from three different guides on various hikes. They each told us that now that eagles are protected from being hunted, the most common form of death for an eagle out west is by drowning. It seems the talons of the eagle, which are their main tool for hunting,  are extremely sharp and dig quite deeply into their prey.  When an eagle dives into a river for the purpose of hunting a fish, occasionally the fish is to heavy for them to lift out of the water and, unable to release them, the eagle is dragged under that water and drowned.

And every time I heard that story, I had to think of my own issues with craving. Craving is a theme that is very important to desert monasticism and was in the early days referred to as “the passions” or the “eight principle vices.” In the Middle Ages it would become known as “the seven deadly sins” and very often today they are described as addictions – however many there might be. The first of these cravings, passions, addictions, and the most troublesome for me, is often known as “gluttony,” which in some Twelve Step circles is known as “compulsive eating.”

And ever since my trip to Wyoming, when I think about the eagle drowning because of its own cravings, I can't help but to think of myself and in particular, my own spiritual journey. There have been times, when because of my own cravings, I have been drowning – slowly for sure – but drowning none the less.

This can be agony and it puts me at war within myself. I know that this is not a healthy way to live or a holy way to live, but there are times when the craving  overwhelms and I dive for that food that is just too heavy for me to bear. This craving has been such a consistent theme for me throughout my life that there was a time I believed that I would never be able to breathe fresh air again, that I'd drown.

Food is the weapon I choose that makes war on myself, which ultimately causes war to be waged on others as well. While I have never been physically violent with anyone, I have been known, interestingly enough, to wage that war with my tongue. And as we learned from the Letter of James last week, the tongue can set whole forests ablaze. But folks pick all kinds of poison, all kinds of passions – alcohol, drugs, sex, power, work, gambling, shopping, and any number of other addictive behaviors or deadly sins. Whichever way of looking at it you prefer, the result is the same: war rages within you.

But in fact, we are not helpless. There is a path that both our monastic forebears and the disciples of the Twelve Step movement have put forward to help us. James, in fact, enunciates the basics of these steps: “submit to God and resist the devil. And how do we do that? John Cassian, the great monastic teacher, passes down to us in the fifth book of The Institutes that the great Desert Father,  Abba Macarius, taught that submitting to God and resisting the devil was to “restrain the movements of the mind (in other words, check your emotions), forget slights, reject sadness, and disdain sorrows and setbacks – as if we were going to die daily.”

In other words, live as Jesus taught us to live. Accept the fact that we do not know when the Lord is coming or when we are going. In contemporary parlance, “live in the moment,” but not “for the moment”. When I have lived in the moment, I have never starved to death – I have never been obsessed with eating. When I live for the moment, I can't wait to get my hands on, and my mouth around, a prepackaged cupcake. The passions, those cravings that are deadly to many of us, are so much easier to be liberated from when we live in the moment, as opposed to living in some real or imagined past when we were drowning because we are so hurt, so lost, so guilty, so adrift.

The control of the passions leads us to cease making war on ourselves and on others. It is a contemplative way of being that is a journey toward health, wholeness and holiness. It is our call as disciples of Christ. And I think this goes beyond the personal to the collective. All of this has implications for not only us as individuals, but as a community, as a nation, and as the human race. Which is something to think and pray about as the shouting of the campaign season nearly overwhelms us. The eagle, our national symbol, can drown when its cravings overwhelm it. As a nation, we crave many things. As I ponder this election, I find myself thinking about that very issue for the nation: what is it that we Americans crave that might drown us? The list seems uncomfortably long to me.  As we seek wisdom and understanding, we might want to, as James says, draw near to God, for it is then that God draws near to us.  AMEN.