Good morning…
I felt so encouraged by this inspirational email. “I am reading this, thinking of you,” wrote a friend. “Very wonderful!”
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Friday, December 9, 2022 – Richard Rohr’s Daily Meditation – Faith in Divine Presence
Contemplative activist and Episcopal priest Adam Bucko gained deeper faith and trust in God’s presence after facing limits of what he could do alone:
When I think of this Gospel passage [John 6:1–14, Jesus feeds 5,000], I often think of my time of working with homeless youth. I spent years building skills and . . . felt that I would become a capable professional armed with therapeutic skills and techniques that could fix people’s lives. Deep down, I really believed that I was there among the homeless fixing their lives. Until one day I realized that what I was doing was not really working. Kids were going through our programs and still ending up on the street. . . . They were still just one step from being hurt or even killed by a drug dealer or pimp. That is when I was forced to change. I started feeling helpless, and my confidence was shattered. All that I was left with was faith . . . [and] trust that I was where God was calling me to be.
As a result of the crisis I underwent, my work evolved from a highly praised, solution-oriented, and evidence-based practice into something much more intuitive. It really moved into prayer. And when I say prayer, I don’t necessarily mean that I was saying prayers with people. Instead, I started showing up for every person who needed my help in the same way that I was showing up for prayer. Gathering all my knowledge and tools and entrusting them to God. Saying to God, “I think you’re calling me to do something here. This is what I come with. I offer it to you. Take it. Change it. Make it useful. Because I feel so small and useless here.” I would just be there with homeless youth in a state of not knowing and trust. Paying attention to what was, bearing witness to their pain, helping them to hold their pain, and often breaking with them as a result of what I was witnessing.
What I began discovering is that every time I allowed myself to feel at a loss in the face of the pain I witnessed, every time I touched my own irrelevance, there was this energy of God that would begin to emerge in our midst. All I had to do was say yes to it. The presence of God was there, always ready to pick up the broken pieces from the floor and re-assemble them into something good. . . . When that happened, I realized that my skills were not useless. I just needed to first surrender them to God, so God could use them however God wished. So right words could come. So right ways of being present could manifest. . . . It was often not clear who was helping whom. Because in each of those sacred moments I received just as much as I was giving, if not more.
Adam Bucko, Let Your Heartbreak Be Your Guide: Lessons in Engaged Contemplation (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2022), 116–117.
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This meditation puts words to something we are discovering as we invest time downtown with the most vulnerable in our community. Our work has evolved into something more intuitive, more like a living, breathing form of prayer. Entrusting ourselves to God, we say, “I think you’re calling me to do something here. Myself is what I come with. I offer me to you. Take me. Change me. Make me useful. Because I feel small and useless here, please show up in strength.”
Every time we feel at a loss, each time we are touched by our own irrelevance, there is this energy of God that begins to emerge in our midst. The presence of God is already living in our margins, always ready to pick up our broken pieces, re-assembling them into something good. We just need to first surrender ourselves to God, so God can use us however God wishes. So right words come. So right ways of being present are manifest.
Who is helping whom? It’s never quite clear. In each sacred moment spent with those suffering from poverty, we receive just as much as we give, if not abundantly more.
I was hungry and you fed me,
I was thirsty and you gave me a drink,
I was homeless and you gave me a room,
I was shivering and you gave me clothes,
I was sick and you stopped to visit,
I was in prison and you came to me.
Then the King will say, “I’m telling the solemn truth: Whenever you did one of these things to someone overlooked or ignored, that was me—you did it to me” (Matthew 25:35, 36, 40).
As we face the limits of what we can do alone, we gain deeper trust in God’s life-giving presence at work among us.
…Sue…
