I will Awake the Dawn

Rarely has a theology text inspired me so much as Timothy Radcliffe's book has. I did not believe Dr. Clamor when she said that this book would be a companion for life considering things being taught to me at school seemed intermediate in comparisson to what I have already experienced in St. James. 

But this book is really inspiring, especially to the budding faith artists that most of us have started to become. I suggest, if you have the time and the thirst to learn, to get your own copy of "What is the Point of Being Christian" by Timothy Radcliffe, OP and at the end of the last chapter get to answer this reflective question yourself. I dedicated my own copy with the words "...to express faith as a means of hope and a product of love...". the gift of faith, just as a regular gift, must be given first in order to be realized. and i am thankful that at such a young age i have been given this grace to believe inspite and despite the uncertainty of tomorrow. 

allow me then to share my own reflections about passages that mirror who i have become...

0.1 " To be a witness does not consist in engaging in propaganda nor even in stirring people up, but in being a living mystery. It means to live in such a way that one's life would make no sense if God did not exist" -- Cardinal Suhar, Archbishop of Paris

i think with the charismatic environment in SJRM we tend to forget that there still is a God when all the high has faded away. our staying power is proportional to the amoung of visual miracles we get to experience. our attendance is seasonal because of this. for some a definition of a sucessful LSS is when you are able to speak in tongues or when your hands shake in prayer. for some still it is "awe-ful" when we witness travailings or hear about mystefying things like seeing ghosts. but as Cardinal Suhar said to be a witness of our faith, to have a faith that is seeking understanding, is not evident by how stirred or on fire our souls may be but in continuing to live a life that is centered in one person, God. a life that is worthless and insignificant if God doesnt reside in the source.

0.2 "Pilgrimages can be expressive of deep conviction, but also give space for the unsure,, those who travel hoping to find something on the way or the end"

Timothy equates our life of faith to that of a pilgrimage. a journey from point A to point B. a journey from ignorance to knowledge. he continues by saying that our pilgrimage of knowing ourselves and our god is an expression of implicit hope-- in the words of Aquinas bonum futurum aduum possibile [for a difficutl but POSSIBLE future good]

0.3 "Hope is not the convition that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense regardless of how it turns out" -- Vaclav Havel

hope is not a blind thing that is set on a good despite whatever happens. but hope is knowing, a certitude that what will happen is salvation despite the hunger, pain, terminal illness, hate we feel at the moment. our hope of a pradise, timothy continues, is not about the triump of some DUMB force. it is the ULTIMATE and UNIMAGINEABLE vicotry of meaning. whatever we wish paradise will be shall pale in comparisson to the reality of it. our concept of heaven, filled with all the goodness and devoid of bad, is a shallow description of what is ours as a promise by God. 

0.4 "To hope...embraces this supremely darc act, the murder of God's own SOn, and make[s] it fruitful..."

People sometimes think that hoping is just a process of wishing for something better. Hoping is a process of wishing and acting to achieve this something better. it is a convicted and willful act of taking the darkness, challenging it head on, and using whatever bleakness it envokes into something that is light-filled. to be a warrior of the light, as Paolo Coelho says.  so in the face of the horror we DARE to look at the betrayal it represents, with the CONFIDENCE that it will bear fruit.

0.5 "Our dreams are too small, and if God demolishes them it is so that we may venture out into the larger space of his life"

i dont know about you but i fear dreaming big. i have always been a conservative dreamer, only imagining until where i think i can. setting limits even before i can see the horizon. that is one of the greatest things i am grateful for from M., he isnt afraid to dream big. he isnt afraid to reach. i am. i am afraid of falling. of taking a plunge and only to find out i have just jumped into air. but i am reminded that my dreams are simple, in all the complexities i think it holds, in comparisson to the ONE dream that GOD has for me. despite the vastness i think there is, there is still a bigger universe that God is offering me. and when he does demolish the walls that i erect to restrict myself, he does this out of love. like a father, laughing at the childish atempts of toddler to walk. 

0.6 "Deep inside every 'art-act' lies the dream of an absolute leap out of nothingness, of the invention of an enunciatory shape so new, so singular to its begetter, that i would literally leave the world behind" -- George Steiner

George presupposes that artistic creation is the nearest we can get to a sense of God's creativity. i think if anyone who could understand this Ate Kathy would. whenever we write down our thoughts, take a beautiful photo, sing a song, dance to a tune we move closer to what it must have felt like for God when he said "let there be light". in our own human way we become divine in every art form we create. when i see myself write a blog, with so much energy because im bursting with it, how must have it felt like for God when breathed into Adam because he LOVED him? 

I will awake the dawn is the title of Timothy's first chapter. an apt one considering he talks about hope. to awake at a new day, to have the pristine freshness of a new beginning is a miracle.