Theology of a Sunset

This is an idea that came to me while I was working on the farm last summer. However it most definitely has its roots in the awesomeness and beauty that we were surrounded by while in Italy last semester (Watching the sun set into the Tyrrhenian Sea from the Alban hills just south of Rome is pretty cool, as is the Umbrian sunset from the top of a castle in Assisi, as is seeing the sun go down into the Adriatic while sailing to Greece, etc. etc.) Like I said though, this idea didn’t come to me until the hottest, driest three weeks of the summer. I’ve held off typing it out because I felt like it wasn’t quite time yet; the ideas hadn’t worked themselves all the way out. After talking it through with my good friend Sara Gudde, who came down to visit me here at UD last weekend, I feel ready. In addition, after Sara and I had visited, the sunset Sunday evening was perhaps the most amazing I have seen thus far in TX. I felt like that was God’s little way of saying it was time. Anyways enough prologue, here it goes; I may revise or add to it later but I think the time is right.

I’ve realized after coming to school here in Texas (where we have some small hills and trees and stuff), that one of the beauties of growing up in a place so flat as the flood plain of the Big Arkansas River is that you can watch the sunset. Here at UD the last 20 min of the sunset the sun is behind this big hill and a bunch of trees, but back home, if you stand in the right spot, you can watch the sun go all the way to the horizon. This makes for a different type of sunset. This summer it got really hot and dry for three weeks straight. Something about that weather consistently produced the most amazing sunsets. My friend Sarah Brenner and I had been texting each other whenever we saw a really good one and it seemed like we ended up texting each other each night for several weeks. Since I was working on the farm I got to watch them every evening and after a while an idea started to take hold. It started to sink in how much each individual sunset was an absolute masterpiece, no less than the Bernini’s or Michelangelo’s we studied in Rome. And yet these sunsets lasted at their most brilliant for only about 30 seconds before they began to fade down to dusk. If that’s how it worked with human masterpieces, that they only lasted for a few moments before fading; if Caravaggio’s only lasted for a split second, people would never cease lamenting such a tragedy. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard the story of the Prodigal Son called instead the story of the Prodigal Father, the idea being that the father is so generous and forgiving with his love that it is almost wasteful, prodigal. I feel like God is that way with sunsets. Each one is a masterpiece, a treasure perfected by God’s own hand and yet we only have a split second to appreciate them before they are gone forever. As much as we may want to capture them and hang on to the beauty, we can’t. Even the best picture can’t capture the shear creative splendor and the power of experiencing an awesome sunset firsthand. All that we can do is thank God for the love He makes manifest so presently to us, and move on knowing that each evening He repeats this breathtaking spectacle of His love for us.

This idea applies to more than just sunsets or even the beauty of the natural world though. Sarah Gudde said she felt like her life was full of “sunset moments.” Whether they are the awesome view from a mountain top, the friendly smile of a stranger, or a sweet, brief friendship, these moments all pass, they are not ours to keep. We should not despair at the transitory state we live in, but rather thank God for the new gifts He is constantly giving us. Imagine if the sky was always the flaming red of a brilliant sunset, would we be able to appreciate its beauty? No; it is because it lasts only for a split second that the sunset is so remarkable to us. If we spend our time wishing we still had those gifts that have already passed we will miss all the ones God is surrounding us with in the present. In one of my favorite prayers from St. Augustine, he addresses God as “Beauty ever ancient, ever new.” I think Augustine is hitting at the same idea, God is forever (eternally) making present His love for us in new, creative ways. If each sunset was the same beauty or if life was a perpetual sunset we would not have the opportunity to realize constantly God’s love in new and completely unique ways.

This is not to say that this transitory life is perfectly satisfying. It’s not. There is some part of us that longs for permanence, for stability. I think that this is by design though, His design specifically. Without this longing we might be satisfied merely by created things rather than longing for a relationship with the creator himself. This inner longing cannot be satisfied by anything in this world but only by our God who is “ever-ancient, ever-new.”

I want to finish with a quote given to me by a friend.
Every wonderful sight will vanish; every sweet word
will fade, but do not be disheartened.

The source they come from is eternal…
growing, branching out, giving new life and new joy.

Why do you weep?
That source is within you as well…
-Jelaluddin Rumi

Take a second to appreciate the “sunset moments” in your life today, or better yet make an effort to be one for someone else. God Bless!

Let everything that lives and breaths praise the Lord -Psalm 150

This week as I was trying to come up with something worth writing a blog entry about, God in his great faithfulness bailed me out yet again and gave me an awesome experience to write on. Last Tuesday, the feast of All Souls Day, the Cistercian Abbey of Our Lady of Dallas had their annual Requiem Mass. Here's a link to the Kyrie of the Anerio Requiem that was sung so you can get an idea: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0NhrUkI3X30&feature=related

The Collegium Cantorum from UD that sang the polyphonic chant for the mass was truly amazing. I once read a reflection of priest about his guardian angel, he said that his guardian angel was always drawing him to the Mass, and was most perfectly in a state of bliss during the celebration of the Eucharist. He said it was almost as if he could hear the flutter of wings when the host was elevated at the consecration. If ever there was a liturgy to evoke the fluttering of wings it was this Requiem. The simply awe-inspiring music was enhanced by the significance of the feast we were celebrating, in offering the mass for all the souls of the dearly departed. The universal church, militant, suffering, and triumphant seemed especially present in the standing room only church that night. It was as if you could feel physically the " so great cloud of witnesses surrounding us" Hebrews 12:1. What an honor and blessing to be part of something so profound.

Finally, I thought it was an awesome testament to the Catholic faith that the last two things to provoke me to post a blog entry have both been music, radically different types of music, and yet radically the same in their praise and honor of God. In our church we bring together centuries old traditions like Anerio's polyphonic chant with the contemporary praise of Matt Maher. How blessed are we that God didn't just give us one way to praise him through music, but an infinite myriad. May he be forever praised in the Kyrie's and the Hold Us Together's.

You're Making My Heart a Garden

First, I must apologize for, as my blogging accountabilty partner has reminded me, I have been doing a deplorable job writing regularly. Lucky for me though the Matt Maher concert at the Univeristy of Dallas Ministry Conference tonight so was amazing that I couldn't help putting up a blog right away.

While the whole concert was wonder-full, (Matt Maher has such an awesome testimony, message and an incredible gift at leading worship) there was one point in particular at which I was just stunned by God's faithfulness. I'll do my best to paraphrase how he introduced the song, or at least how I took it:

You know us humans have it pretty good. We were made; not only that but we were made on the sixth, the last day that He worked. And then He rested on the seventh day, He went on vacation, and we got to go along. We didn't have to do any work and yet still we got to go along to the garden where God walked with us. But we left that garden and ever since then God's been trying to get us back. He sent prophets, judges, and kings but to no avail. Finally, He, God Himself, took on our flesh so that He could also take our sins upon himself to make the situation right again. And because of that sacrafice He made for us we're all able to be here tonight. Because of that sacrafice we can return to the garden and walk with God once again. However, that garden is no longer so much an external thing as it is an internal thing. God cultivates that garden inside, in our hearts...and maybe as that change takes root it changes the way we look at the external world too.

He then proceeded to play "Garden" listen to it -> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9P9RkwLK-0

While he was playing I was thinking about his introduction for the song especially the part about how when that change begins to take root in our heart maybe it will being to change the way we look at the external world and we be'd walking with God. That's when it struck me that I'd had that esperince before. One time on a narrow paved road, on an early summer's night in the middle of nowhere Israel, at the base of Mount Tabor I walked a few miles down to a bus stop just visiting with a good friend. We shared a few two-pence peices of bread between us. The weather could not have been more perfect, there was the gentlest breeze blowing over a field of hay that'd just been cut, and we were heading to Jerusalem the next day to celebrate Our Lord's Passion, Death, and Resurrection. It was probably the most beatiful night I have ever had the privalege of living through. I remember thinking at the time that it was like God had transfigured creation for us that one night, just as His Son had been transfigured upon the mount we had so recently descended.

Standing there among all of those young adults on fire for their faith I realized that on that night at the base of Mount Tabor we had been walking with God. Talk about chills. I also realized that I can walk with God anytime, whenever I realize His hand in all the little creations He has surrounded me with. Whereever He's leading me I am more committed than ever to going becuase I know He'll be walking with me. Quo Vadis? Where are you going? God Bless!

He Married Kansas

It may have been apparent from my "reasons to love Kansas" facebook statuses over the summer, but I am more than a little grateful for having been born and raised in such an blest land. A while back a friend sent me an article that her brother-in-law had written and had published in the Salt Lake City Diocesan newspaper while he lived out there. I feel obliged to pass it along because it is just so dang awesome. Enjoy (and if your not from Kansas I'm sorry if you don't get it, you'll have to come and experience it for yourself sometime):

I Married Kansas

by Kase D. Johnstun

When hills turn to valleys along the flat landscape of the Missouri river, she starts to get excited. Her voice inflections while reading Harry Potter become more exuberant, and she glances more often off the pages at the stringy flapping corn rows and the "Beef, it’s what for dinner" signs that contrast the feeding cows behind them, unknowing of their inevitable fate – they’re for dinner. Once corn becomes drastic slants and curves of rocky-northern, dust bowl shards of land, she knows she is home. Conversation becomes focused. Autumn is playing golf and doing well at it. Chelsea’s back-hand springs are getting better. Kristen and Doug have a new puppy. Mom is threatening to quit her job, because they treat her like crap. Dad has been doing concrete in Kansas City.

The nighttime glow of the cities is gone and the stars from my childhood reappear. They’re still out there, vastly spanning and sparkling across the entire sky, and the feeling of minuteness of childhood returns – they are still there and I am still small. In the scope of the universe, I have not grown. She looks up at them too. To her, the stars mean home, a home with stars that have not gone away, stars that are a cradle of comfort in the deep Kansas night that stretches for miles of quiet miles. The quiet, expansive miles surround me as I look for a non-existent horizon and I feel tiny again.

Everything is 15 minutes away by car. How far until we get to Pittsburg? 15 minutes. How far away is your grandma’s? About 15 minutes. How far until Wal-Mart? About 15 minutes. Any idea how long it is going to take to get everyone in the car? Easily 15 minutes.

At nine, at 12, at 18, and at 22, I could have never trekked the trails of my mountainous imagination and seen the mile-by-mile roads of Southeast Kansas, the deep and life-long connection I now have to it, the new family that waits for us to visit, the upstairs bed that creaks, and the random cats the creep outside during the night. I married Kansas – the cold, windy Christmas mornings, the small town festivals, the cake walks, the fried chicken, the hospitality, the friendliness, the eternal optimism of Christian living, the dead silent nights, and the howling coyotes – I married Kansas.

I married Kansas, the stories about eight man football, the large American flag in front of the high cross in front of the VFW, the church where all social events are held, from rowdy wedding receptions to elementary school birthday parties. I married long pauses between words, making sure everything has been said, as to not rudely interrupt, calmly listening until I have made my point, as to make sure I felt I had something important to say.

When I stood at the end of the stretching Cathedral Aisle, Kansas walked to me, clutching her father’s hand, looking as beautiful as a harvest sunset. Kansas took my hand and sat next to me during the service and said, I do. The small creatures that roam the night in the fields and the tornado shelters looked up at me and cried and walked back down the aisle with me holding my hand tightly, waiving to our families. I married Kansas, a love for family that roots in the rich soil of soy beans and wheat and grows strongly with every season, popping out proudly and strong above the dark, clay-like detritus of her mother. The doors of the Cathedral opened and together, the warm love and comforting smile of Kansas and I walked out together. Kansas kissed me, and I said I will love you forever, Kansas.

Pay it forward

Driving back down to UD this Sunday I felt like a had a pretty good idea for a blog entry about my weekend in Kansas. God had different ideas. As we were nearing Blackwell, OK about an hour and a half away from home in Kansas and four hours away from home in Texas, my truck started doing funny things. First the radio quit which was soon followed by the speedometer. At this point I thought maybe a wire had come loose as I'd been having some problems with the dash, that was until I noticed that my dashboard lights were really dim and upon further inspection of my gauges I realized that the voltage was not reading at all. For a gasoline-powered, internal combustion engine this is a problem. So as we passed Blackwell the truck began to stutter and as I pulled up the exit ramp of Hubbard Rd, three miles south of Blackwell, it died completely. Thus David and I were left sitting just off I-35 in the Middle-of-Nowhere OK with a dead battery and burned out alternator. I got out of the truck, popped the hood, poked around a little, called my dad, and we decided that it was most likely that the alternator had gone out (the part that charges the battery so the spark plugs can spark and thus power your engine). My dad got in the truck to come and help us fix it and David and I were about to settle in for a good long wait when a little car pulled up the off ramp. A middle-aged man got out and asked if we needed any help. He must have decided at the very last second to stop because his car was already halfway around the corner onto Hubbard Rd. After I told him the problem he offered to give me a ride back into Blackwell, which had a few parts stores, as he was on his way there to pick up some kids for youth group. I ran the idea by my dad who was still on the phone and then got in the car while David stayed behind to watch the truck and work on homework. He dropped me off at the O'Reilly's in town and they had refurbished alternator that would work.

Over the course of the drive to and from I got to know this good Samaritan named Rex. He grew up on a farm and still did a little farming while he wasn't at his job in sales support for Conoco-Phillips. In fact we stopped by his farm after dropping off the youth group kids to pick up some tools. He had one adopted son who had actually majored in Politics (my major), had gone to law school and was now a staffer for an Oklahoma Senator in DC. He came from a tight-nit farm family and was a devoted Methodist. He had grown up near Nordin, and was watching people slowly move away, off the farm, and the resulting gradual decline of rural Oklahoma. As we got on I-35, headed back to the truck the conversation really got good though. He led off by saying that he didn't want to offend but that he felt he needed to say that it didn't matter what we call ourselves, Methodists, Catholics, etc, it was out belief in Jesus Christ that made us Christians, which I agreed to (religion had come up earlier in the drive due in part to the large white cross in the middle of my shirt which I suspect was part of the reason why he stopped). He went on to tell me how God seemed to give him all kinds of opportunities to help people, us most recently. He had been on his way to Ponca City to pick up a kid for the youth group, when the leader called to say that guy wasn't coming and could he go to Blackwell to pickup a few other kids. He'd just passed the Blackwell exit when he got the call so he drove on up to the Hubbard St exit to turn around and when he exited there David and I sat. We hadn't been there for more than a minute or two when he pulled up; the timing of God never ceases to amaze me. When I tried to thank him for dropping his plans to help us, he told me not to thank him because he was just the instrument and the only plan he was trying to carry out was God's (reminds me of some other friends back home). About that time we got back to the truck. The old alternator came out out surprisingly easily and the new one went in just as well. As Rex was hurriedly collecting his tools so he could get back to the youth group, I thanked him again and tried to give him some money for his time and gas, but he wasn't about to take it. He told me for the second the only person I had to thank was God, and I promised him I'd pay it forward. I also thank God for my dad who dropped everything on a Sunday afternoon to drive an hour just to have us get the truck fixed shortly before he got there.

Since Sunday I've been trying to realize the little opportunities of charity God has given me to carry out that promise, and in a way I hope this post is one of those little acts. I hope the story of our little adventure will bring you the same kind of feeling of awe at the goodness of God's plan that David and I had, and that it will encourage you to look for your own little ways of touching others' lives. Our unexpected breakdown ended up being the highlight of a great weekend and a motivation to grow in charity. How is God working through the unexpected in your own life? God Bless and until next time quo vadis, where are you going?

By the Sweat of Our Brow

The thought that I'm going to try and bring out in this post was prompted by a conversation with a good friend almost a year ago, but most of the ideas came to me while milking cows just before coming to school this summer. I finally decided to sit down and write it firstly, in honor of Labor day yesterday, and secondly because in his homily yesterday Fr. Macguire, OCist., put the capstone on my thoughts. Anyways here goes:

As I was saying this line of thought was started about a year ago by a conversation with a good friend who was trying to figure out what to do with her life. The conversation came around to me and what I thought I might end up doing. I jokingly said that for all I know I might end up farming the rest of my life, God seems to have an ironic sense of humor like that, and because I really didn't have (and pretty much still don't have) any idea what He wants me to end up doing. My friend was a little taken aback (she's the type that wants to cure cancer, or be he first female president, etc). "Farming?" she said "Come on Seiler you're called to something bigger than that." Not that she had any disdain for farming but she was of the opinion that we have been given so much at UD through the Core, the Rome program, and the unbelievable Catholic identity all of which combines into a world class liberal arts education and if we have been given so much it was only because we were expected to make full use of it and do grand things. Change the world so to speak. She was supported in this by scripture too, "Much will be required of the person entrusted with much" Luke 12:48.

I wrestled with this idea for a while because instinctively I felt that there was something not quite right about it, however, I wasn't able to put my finger on just what. After a while the conversation slipped from my mind and I wasn't reminded of it until I was milking cows one afternoon a few weeks ago. (Quick tangent: Over the summer I really developed an appreciation for milking cows. It's a great time to think because the basic actions don't require than much mental engagement but yet you are constantly moving for the full three hours. Thus, your mind is pretty much free to think about whatever you want and you don't get sleepy because you never stop moving long enough to.) Anyways back to the topic, as I was thinking in the barn the Gospel from a few days before came to mind. It was the one in which Jesus is in Nazareth and they try and throw him off a cliff after he says how a prophet is never accepted in his homeland. It has always seemed remarkable to me that we have almost no information about Jesus's life between his birth and baptism. Thirty whole years, the vast majority of His life, and we know practically nothing about them. His life during this time was so unremarkable that even His neighbors and the townspeople of Nazareth in the Gospel story didn't notice anything extraordinarily different about Jesus as is evident when they didn't believe he could be the Messiah. Then out of nowhere the conversation I'd had with my friend came back to me. Here was the Son of God, gifted above all men, full of grace, possessing of everything that was the Father's and for thirty years the best, most perfect thing he could do was learn and practice the simple trade of a carpenter. Here was the most perfect human to ever live and the most perfect thing he could do for the first part of His life was humble, poor, manual labor. As I was trying to make sense of this in light of Luke 12:48 I thought of a quote by Mother Teresa that I had just heard that week: "God does not measure our faithfulness by our success but rather He measures our success by our faithfulness." Thus Luke 12 is right, great things will be expected of us who have been given so much, but that which is expected is not necessarily great deeds in the eyes of the world, but rather great faithfulness.

This idea of the simplicity of faithfulness in our vocations had been stirring around in my head as we started school and then in an act of pure Providence Fr. Macguire used the readings from the feast of St. Joseph for Mass on Labor day. The first reading for the feast of St. Joseph is the account of the 6th and 7th days of creation and most powerfully for me the Gospel was the story of Jesus in Nazareth telling the people that a prophet is never accepted in his native place. Father then gave a whopper of a homily (it was a 50 min daily mass all together) but it was right on the mark. It centered on the idea that we were called to imitate God and perfect creation. While this sounds a little strange at first, improving upon our perfect God's creation, that is after all the way He designed it to work. He filled creation with all kinds of potential. He gave us fertile ground the be cultivated, useful metals to be mined, wood to be constructed, and our minds to develop along with infinite other gifts in creation just waiting to be perfected by man. When we bring order to creation as He instructed us, we are truly imitating God. What a sublime calling!

To wrap it up then I want to challenge all of you to spend some time in prayer, especially those of us that are in thick of discerning our Vocations. I challenge you to ponder closely Christ's example in His home in Nazareth. As St. Therese of Lisieux is so famous for saying, not all of us are called to be roses, some of us are just created to be simple daisies. It's a challenge for us to humble ourselves and to perform with great love the simple and mundane things God has called us to, but it is only when we surrender ourselves to His will in this way that the truly great thing can begin to happen, heroic faithfulness. As brothers and sisters in Christ we are all on this journey together so please keep me in your prayers as you all are in mine. God Bless, good luck, and until next time: "quo vadis," where are you going?

Tribute

So I'm not sure if this blog will be worth reading now that I'm not traveling to all sorts of exotic places but I figured I ought to give it a shot anyways as there are a few different things that have been stirring around in my head recently.

A few days ago we started chiseling wheat ground and the first field I worked was that of an old friend, Maury Brand. Maury passed away almost two year ago in a farm accident. Although he was around 75, I count him among my good friends. He was a solid Catholic, the head of his family and a true Kansas farmer, even though he only farmed 160 acres in his retirement after working in a meat packing plant his whole life. Maury also had a little Piper Cub that he flew out of a grass runway in his wheat field. I was blessed enough to ride with him on a few beautiful summer evenings the summer before he passed away.

I'm not sure I'm going to be able to explain this to any of my non-farmer friends but I've always known that there is something very spiritual about farming. It probably has something to do with being so closely connected to God's creation for your livelihood, the trust that comes from being able to control so few of the variables that determine your success. Whatever it is, I can see it when I help my Dad deliver a new-born heifer or when I listen to my Grandpa describe his simple and yet invincible belief in God. The other day when I was chiseling up Maury's wheat ground I felt it in an especially personal way. You learn about a piece of ground when you work it (even more so when you don't have autosteer). You learn how the water drains off of it in the ditches and how it doesn't in the mud holes. You learn about the soil; where the sand, alkali, clay and black dirt are. You can tell where the high yielding spots are by the thickness of the stubble and where the low yields are by the amount of weeds left behind. As I was working the Brand ground and observing all these details God gave me the grace to realize that Maury had known all these features like the back of his hand. He had an intimate connection to the piece of ground that I was just being introduced too. In a way it felt as if he was watching on as I was working his ground. In a way I felt that we now shared a special connection.

That week I had been beginning to prepare to head back to school and was thinking a lot about the universality of the church as I would be physically distant from many of my good friends. Through the special bond I felt with Maury from working ground that day I realized in a new way that our faith and the sacraments not only connect us to the entire community of believers on this earth but also to the faithfully departed. Kind of a humbling and comforting thought. Since then when I've been at mass one of my friend's sayings, "no distance between tabernacles," has come to mind several times. Since it is the one and only body, blood, soul, and divinity of Jesus present in the hosts occupying every tabernacle in the world and consumed by all of us in the Most Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist we are connected by a bond which transcends the boundaries of time and space, and even our present mortality. Next time your at mass maybe take the time to realize the awesome mystery that you are participating in and the special closeness you have not only with your distant friends and relatives but also with all those celebrating the same feast in heaven. God bless y'all!