The captions started me thinking about which human needs can rightfully be withheld if they are are not earned.

Is food, for example, something that one must deserve in order to receive?

What about housing?

Or health care?

And these questions inevitably bring up others.

Does having money make a person more worthy of food, housing, and medical care than someone who has none?

Does having millions of dollars that you have earned by the sweat of your brow make you more worthy than someone who has earned only a few thousand, or a few hundred thousand?

Does having millions of dollars that you have not earned, but inherited, make you more worthy than a struggling school teacher with a burdensome debt – or a homeless person with nothing?

Is a person who is unable to work for one reason or another less worthy than someone who holds down two jobs to make ends meet – or than someone who with one relatively unburdensome job earns more than enough to pay for the necessities and the superfluities of life?

When you get right down to it, no one is worthy of God or of God’s gifts. We are all unworthy, but we are all of infinite worth.

Our value lies not in what we possess, or how much we earn, or whether or not we have a job, or whether we are even capable of holding a job. Our worth is not calculated according to whether we are sober or blind drunk, illiterate or highly educated, fortunate or unfortunate in our genetic makeup. The truth is that our value resides in the fact that we are beloved of God, infinitely treasured, infinitely cherished.

Rejoicing in the love of God, we must also be humble, for as Saint Paul says,

What do you have that you did not receive? And if you received it, why do you boast as if it were not a gift?
(1 Corinthians 4:7)

I thank you for the blessings I recognize
and also for the ones that don’t look much like blessings.
I thank you for your promise to work in everything for good.

I thank you for your constant love
to me, a sinner,
who will never be perfect, no matter how hard I try –
and for your faithfulness during the wretched times
when, feeling I must earn your love,
I despair of your transforming grace.

I thank you that you make my life and my home
the gate of heaven,
opening to you through work and play, sleeping and rising,
family and friends, pots and pans, lawn mowers and mops,
dust, laundry, books, and computer.

Most of all, I am grateful that no matter how often I fall,
I can never fall out of you.
You wrap me about whether I am sad or jubilant or sinful,
and even when I am pulling away from you.
When I grope in darkness, with no sense of your presence,
you grip me by the hand.
When fear constricts my mind,
you lure me into the broad plains of your peace.
When I thirst in my heart’s desert,
Your living water sustains me, though I may not know it.

Whenever I raise my eyes toward heaven,
it is because I am already found in you.
And whenever I fall,
I fall into your everlasting arms.

The eternal God is your dwelling place,
and underneath are the everlasting arms.
(Deuteronomy 33:27 RSV)

If the only prayer you said in your whole life was, “thank you,” that would suffice. (Meister Eckhart)

For happiness is not what makes us grateful. It is gratefulness that makes us happy. (David Steindl-Rast, A Listening Heart)

I’ve gotten to the point in life where I am even grateful for my sins, because I have seen the good God has brought out of them. (Sister Catherine Roberts, rc [Cenacle Sister, now deceased])

… where sin increased, grace abounded all the more… (Romans 5:20)

Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all others. (Cicero)

As God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. Bear with one another and, if anyone has a complaint against another, forgive each other; just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in the one body. And be thankful. (Colossians 3: 12-15)

On my bookcase sit the following treasures picked up during a walk along the beach not far from our Cenacle in Lantana, Florida:

• a piece of shell edged in burgundy
• something white, curly, and lovely that I don’t recognize
• a U.S. quarter that has been tossed about by waves for so long it is almost unrecognizable
• and two pieces of bleached coral (is it a bad sign for the environment, I wonder, that coral is washing ashore?)

Spiritual gifts are as abundant as seashells, begging us to pause for a moment, stoop down, and gather them as we walk through the day. But we must not expect choirs of angels hovering above to point them out to us. If we are not attentive, we risk overlooking them. According to Annie Dillard in Pilgrim at Tinker Creek:

There are lots of things to see, unwrapped gifts and free surprises. The world is fairly studded and strewn with pennies cast broadside from a generous hand.

The world is indeed strewn with pennies (and wave-tumbled quarters) for those who have eyes to see.

But then I recall another quotation from Annie Dillard — a caution to those of us inclined to spend our lives combing the spiritual sands. Using the image of the ocean, she asks:

Have we rowed out to the thick darkness, or are we all playing pinochle in the bottom of the boat?” (Pilgrim at Tinker Creek)

From the gifts to the Giver
God’s gifts are good and to be received with gratitude. Nevertheless, we are not made for the gifts, but for God. The shells and pennies, literal or spiritual, are cozy gifts, more or less comprehensible to our limited minds. God the Giver of gifts, however, is beyond our human grasp, dwelling “in unapproachable light” (1 Timothy 6:16) — and the divine light, anything but cozy, can appear to us as darkness.

Are we just “playing pinochle in the bottom of the boat”? Or are we perhaps out of the boat, but gazing at our own feet in the sand of the beach? According to an oft-quoted expression, “We become what we contemplate.” Are the eyes of our heart so focused on God’s gifts that we overlook God? Are we satisfied with becoming the shells and quarters, or do we recognize the deep longing implanted in us for union with the Divine?

So I continue to pick up treasures God leaves for me in the sand of my day—and when I remember, I give thanks. Occasionally I even let myself be reminded by these gifts (or even by their absence) that there is Mystery behind and beyond them – and that it is this Mystery who is my purpose and my destination.

Do not be deceived, my beloved.
Every generous act of giving,
with every perfect gift, is from above,
coming down from the Father of lights,
with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.
(James 1:16-17)

A few days ago the back doorbell rang. I went to answer it, but no one was there. Then as I stood there it rang again — with no one pushing it. That in itself was no mystery. Sometimes a particularly vigorous finger on the button will make the bell stick, so that it keeps ringing over and over until someone unsticks it. Still, I did hesitate to open the door, in case someone was hiding behind one of the cars or just around the corner of the building, ready to pounce on me as soon as the door was opened.

So I peered around as far as I could see through the little window in the back door. All of a sudden my eye landed on something new in the driveway: a blue and gray concrete block. What was that doing there? Then I thought, oh, just a silly prank. Some kids left the block, rang the doorbell, and ran off.

But I obviously couldn’t leave the block where it was, so out I stomped, heedless of anyone who might be lurking with criminal intent. I bent down to pick up the block—which refused to budge. I tried again, and this time my flabby muscles managed to shift it far enough from the middle of the driveway that it no longer posed a hazard to people or cars. I returned, annoyed, to the house.

Several days later, Carol , the formerly homeless, mentally ill woman (see “Being Scorned” and “Rocking and Bobbing“) came by, and the mystery was solved.

“Did you like the pretty brick I brought you?”

“How did you get it here?” asked Sister Elizabeth.

“On my bike,” she said. “I carried it with one hand and rode with the other.”

The concrete block that I had barely been able to move and that we didn’t know how to dispose of, a worthless hunk of debris just a moment before, had taken on new value. It was a gift!

It is not always apparent at first glance that an object or an event is a gift. And it requires especially sensitive eyes to perceive that a vexation may really be a blessing bestowed on us with love.

‘My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.’(2 Corinthians 12:9)

“All is grace.”
“Tout est grâce.”
(Thérèse of Lisieux)

Carrie was not the ideal guest. In the first place, she had been sunburned and was now pulling off large pieces of skin and dropping them on the furniture and the living room rug. In the second place, she squirreled away bits of food in unlikely spots. I would find a partially drunk Coke on the shelf with the plates and cups, or half a milkshake among the cans of soup.

What I remember most vividly, however, was that she wasn’t satisfied with anything that I prepared for her to eat. “It’s not my favorite food,” was the refrain.

For example —

“Carrie, I’ve made tuna fish salad for lunch.”

“Well, it’s not my favorite food.”

“There’s omelette for supper.”

“It’s not my favorite food.”

— after which she would sit down and eat whatever it was.

In some ways – I’m ashamed to admit it – Carrie’s ingratitude as a guest reminds me of my own ingratitude toward God. Sitting here, surrounded by the blessings that have been poured on me, I still complain.

“I give you the bread of life,” says God.

“But I’m really in the mood for pizza today.”

“My loving mercy is always with you.”

“Actually, I’d rather not be in need of mercy.”

“I have given you life and intellect and good friends and fascinating work – not to mention the promise of resurrection.”

“That’s good of you, but what about adding [or taking away] _______?” [Fill in the blank according to the circumstance.]

So I pray:

Loving God, turn my ungrateful heart to you, so that I may rest in the deep knowledge that you yourself are the greatest gift and the most to be desired. Increase my love for you who are my life, my health, my peace, and my all, through Jesus Christ. Amen.

The Lord is my strength and my shield;
in him my heart trusts;
so I am helped, and my heart exults,
and with my song I give thanks to him.

The Cenacle is making its small beginnings in Gainesville. Two of us arrived a couple of weeks ago, and two others will come the end of August.

For now we are engaged in the ministry of pots and pans, of mop and broom, instead of the ministry of retreats and spiritual direction. Our days revolve more around the holy hours of preparing meals and contacting plumbers, than around the liturgical Hours of the Divine Office. Sometimes we forget what day of the week it is.

Much that we are used to is lacking. Besides the practical matters of lamps, chairs, office equipment, and the adequate space that we take for granted in our larger Cenacles, there is also the lack for now of a regular and comforting rhythm of life — and occasionally even of the confidence that we are equal to the task, or worthy of the gift of this new venture. But these days, so strangely out-of-time for us, carry with them their own blessing:

the challenge of seeing God-with-us in the nitty-gritty of life;

the call not to be “worried and distracted about many things,” as Martha was (Luke 10:41);

and especially the gift of knowing that God is graciously sufficient, even when many things are still lacking.

“For all things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future—all belong to you, and you belong to Christ, and Christ belongs to God.” (1 Corinthians 3: 21)

The heat will be back, of course. It is only the beginning of September in southern Louisiana, so it will be important for me to remember yesterday’s fresh wind in the hot days to come.

We are always enfolded in God’s love, even when we are not aware of it, but sometimes there are privileged moments when we may become mindful, and then the comfort of the divine presence is like the coolness after that day of terrible heat, and all at once it is easy to be grateful.