Reckless!

“Incompleteness is a blessing, a human blessing, a reality that allows us to reach beyond what we have to the Giver.” -Larry Gillick, sj

Tonight was our parish Lenten mission, led by my friend Sr. Bernadette O’Reilly and her friend, Fr. Larry Gillick who is a blind Jesuit working out of Creighton College and does amazing work with the Spiritual Exercises. I have been looking forward to this like a person in a desert waits to stumble upon a spring of water. I was not disappointed.

Larry opened up after a bit of humour with the desire to have “give-ups” or “want-to-dos” during Lent. He suggested that maybe we should give up picking on ourselves. The theme developed a little into thinking about entitlement and independence. The North America culture values independence to the point that we forget we depend on God. We believe that we can become so independent and strong that we no longer understand we need and have a Saviour.

Bernadette told a story of how when she was going on a retreat that a friend suggested that she pray about how she had been so reckless with her spirit and then her director told her during the retreat that she had squandered her inheritance. Ouch!! That rang true for me. I am pretty much exhausted right now and have told my friend in Singapore that I will probably spend the first two days sleeping by her pool so not to worry about entertaining me. I am tired physically and emotionally.

She said most of us in the Prodigal Son story are not that son (most of us do not have the courage to be that bad) or the father (we are not capable of that much generosity); we are the older son who has a sense of entitlement. Entitlement is the sin of our North American culture. We lose sight of the sense that our life is a gift and gratitude fights against entitlement. We must live gratefully. Larry says that we become reckless when we develop a sense of entitlement.

I am feeling reckless right now. I had jokingly said that I was giving up going to bed late during Lent but if you look at the hour of this posting you will see I am failing miserably at that tonight. I am going to return to the mission tomorrow and see what other precious information I can glean.

I had a couple of profound moments at the end of the retreat. We closed with a ritual of clenching our fists and then opening them during a song, Be Still and Know. I could not open my hands—I did not want to let go of what I am clinging to. Very telling! It actually surprised me greatly. The other incident was a conversation with someone I have been meaning to have since Christmas Eve. I found that too very revealing. I pry open my hands and promise myself I will return tomorrow.


Peace,

Suzanne