Friday, May 25, 2007

Our grandmother.

Tonight, we were given a sweet gift. Sister Therese, a catholic nun of the St. Benedectine came over for a spaghetti meal, and teaching. She will be taking the guys through silent/contemplative prayer during this summer once a week.

She has been a teacher to me in this way of prayer that God had led me too a few years ago.

I have come to love her, and respect both her walk with Christ, and how she has helped me see another side of the catholic faith. For most, it seems easy to write catholics off, for various doctrinal differences, but to sit with her, and to hear her wisdom, and her words of life, and scripture, are quite life changing, and eye opening. And I saw that happening with the young men.

It is late, and I am quite tired, so I must be brief, but at the end of our time, she looked at the young men, and admitted she was quite nervous about coming over to spend time with the young men. She explained how usually young people do not take very well to these concepts of sitting in silence, and her teaching. Her vulnerability was a gift. And yet, to see their hungry hearts, turned into her words, and their questions throughout the night, I knew that message had been broken for her seeing the guys, and their desire to sit and commune with Christ through this method, and her teaching.

One of the young men spoke up and thanked her desire to come, and how she is in many ways a grandmother, and especially in the spiritual realm. It was quite a moment. For me, to see the two generations coming together. I keep seeing how the givers of the gift, seem to be the ones receiving more, than the ones supposedly receiving it.

She mentioned that she had told the sisters at Benet Hill what she was doing. And how eager they were about it.

It reminds me again, of the tragedy of this generation. We have somehow forgotten the elders, and those who have gone before us. Including many of the traditions of the church. We have thrown off everything for the new. And as I sat between the world of the young men, and of this beloved women, "grandma," and all that she symbolized, with her faith, her age, and her life, I just felt the gap had been shortened for a moment.

And something was passed between the two. I am excited for more. And to sit, and be still, and receive, from grandma, and from God.

No comments: