FAITHFULNESS

As I pondered the holy scripture in our service today, I was struck by the theme of faithfulness. Especially what Psalm 85 says:

“Let me hear what God the Lord will speak, for he will speak peace to his people, to his faithful, to those who turn to him in their hearts.” So beautiful.

And in First Kings, Elijah found God in the sound of sheer silence, telling him that he had been very zealous for the Lord, but that the Israelites had forsaken their covenant, thrown down the altars and killed the prophets. God told Elijah how the wrath of death would be meted out on these unfaithful Israelites, but that seven thousand whose knees had not bowed to Baal would be spared. In other words, the faithful would not perish.

And then in Romans 10 Paul tells us that “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.” Again, it is our faithfulness that will make us whole and bring us peace.

In Matthew’s well-known story of Jesus walking on the water, it is when Peter loses his faith and becomes frightened that he sinks. Jesus says to his friend, “You of little faith, why did you doubt?” Maybe if Peter had not been distracted by the wind he might have stayed on top of the water. It is so darn easy for the world to get in the way of our faith.

In 2004 I went to a monastery in Massachusetts and fell in love with the life of monastics. I found there a pattern of living that focused on loving God first above all else. Soon after I sold all my belongings and moved to California.

Miraculously, in 2008 I met Dennis who was also praying the daily prayers of a monastic and serving God through his chaplaincy in prisons. We became best friends and he opened the door for me to walk into prison.

It did not take us long to see that we could establish a monastery focused on our ministry and prayer life. Which of course you all know, is our Community of Divine Love. These last eighteen years have been the best years of my life, but not always easy. I have found far greater compassion by walking with our incarcerated community. I had no idea of the degree of suffering that men and women behind bars have endured.  There is of course a cost to walking with hurt people.

Recently, I have found myself overwhelmed by the weight of hearing so many stories of suffering. The program I facilitate in the California Men’s Colony prison now delves into the back story of the men, offering them an opportunity to share the conditions of their childhoods. They are, for the most part, utterly unacceptable, deeply unjust, filled with the cruelty of racism and poverty. It is not surprising that these men made terrible choices.

I found myself mad at God. Not only mad at God, but mad at our supposedly Christian nation that celebrates power and money and leaves so many hungry and uncared for.

In my duress, I turned to one of my favorite books, An Interrupted Life, by Etty Hillesum. It is the journal of a young Jewish woman who along with her family were killed in a concentration camp. Etty never lost her faith in God while witnessing the extreme cruelty humans are capable of. Her unshakable love of God helps me find my way back from despair.

Etty said many memorable things such as this:

“Ultimately, we have just one moral duty: to reclaim large areas of peace in ourselves, more and more peace, and to reflect it towards others. And the more peace there is in us, the more peace there will also be in our troubled world.”

Etty maintained her faith as she went through the horror of that time. She never stopped loving God even as she realized that God would not save her or any of her loved ones. She wrote, “You cannot help us, but we must help You and defend Your dwelling place inside us to the last.”

I know from my work of eighteen years in prisons that deep faith will not save anyone from harm, but that it can sustain us, nurture us in the most terrible times.

Sister Greta