Francis.03

The real St. Francis was an outspoken evangelist
              for a radical brand of Christianity

                               –– radically committed,

                               but spiritually subtle.
The subtle point of his spirituality is profound,

              but not complicated.
It turns on the meaning of the word “mine.”

Francis was committed to poverty.
He wanted to own nothing.
And that sounds like a gnostic heresy.
Gnosticism says material things are evil,

              the body is evil, the earth is evil.
We should set our sights on heaven instead,

              be spiritual, abstract, ethereal.
So from the gnostic perspective, owning nothing

              seems pure, uncontaminated by filthy material life.

But Francis was not a gnostic.
A gnostic could never have written:

             “Dear mother earth you day by day

              Unfold your blessings on our way, . . .

             All flowers and fruits that in you grow,

              let them his glory also show . . .”

Francis loved the world, loved it in its earthiness

              its fleshiness, its warm, sensual materiality.
And yet he chose to own none of it, possess none of it.

Franciscan spirituality consists of cultivating

              the capacity to appreciate, but not possess.
In fact, Franciscan spirituality understands

              that we can only appreciate what we do not possess.

Franciscan spirituality turns in the subtlety of the word “mine”

              in our hymn Bunnesan, when it says,

              “Mine is the sunlight! Mine is the morning

              born of the one light Eden saw play . . .”
In what sense can the sunlight be “mine”?
Can I keep it to myself? Can I control it? Turn it on and off?
No. It isn’t mine to control, manipulate, dominate, or possess.

It’s mine to appreciate, to cherish, and to enjoy.
It’s mine in that its God’’s gift to me,

              not for me to use, misuse, and abuse.
Purely mine to love.

Rumi wrote,

              “Subtle degrees of domination and servitude

               are what you know as love.

               But love is different.

               It arrives complete, just there

               like the moon in the window,

               like the sun of neither east nor west

               nor of any place. . .”

So what does it mean to say something is “mine”?
It is one thing to say “my” brother, “my” sister, “my” friend

               –– and an entirely different thing to say

                            “my” car, “my” house, or “my” portfolio.

One is a term of intimate connection;

                the other, a term of possession, control, domination.

The urge to control is born of fear,

             the capacity to appreciate is a gift of God.

St. Augustine taught us that each human being

             has an in-born capax dei,

             a capacity for God, an inclination toward God.

St. Thomas Aquinas brought that doctrine to earth,

             teaching that each of us has a capax universi,

                           a capacity for the universe,

             a capacity to appreciate and even to understand the world.

In Baptism, we pray for new Christians to receive

            “the gift of joy and wonder in all (God’’s) works.”

That joy and wonder is the capax universi.

Poet John Muir expresses that joy and wonder when he says,

             “I used to envy the father of our race, dwelling as he did

              in contact with the new-made field and plants of Eden;

              but I do so no more, because I have discovered

              that I also live in ‘‘creation’’s dawn.’’

              The morning stars still sing together, and the world

              not yet half made becomes more beautiful every day.”

Muir is referring to the hard scientific fact

              that the universe is still unfolding, still in process,

              and that process is a cosmic light show.

Think for a moment of a few facts about this light

              that is ““ours”” according to the hymn.

At the origin of the universe, all light was compressed

              in a volume smaller than the point of a needle.

The afterglow from the Big Bang is so great

              that for every atom of matter

              there exist one billion particles of light.

Matter itself is nothing but gravitationally trapped light.

A single human body stores 10 photons of light,

              enough to illuminate a baseball field for three hours

              with one million watts of floodlights.

God’’s creation, comprised mostly of light,

              is already beyond our imagination,

                            and it is still being created, still unfolding.

Philosopher Mary Midgley says,

             “We need a vast world, and it must be a world

                            that does not need us;

               a world constantly capable of surprising us,

               a world we did not program,

               since only such a world is the proper object of wonder.”

That is the world in which God has placed us.

               Ours is to live in it rightly,

                              not trying vainly to possess it and control it,

                                              but rather to participate in it,

                                                             join in the flow of light.

That is Franciscan spirituality ––

               a discipline of not possessing, not controlling,

               but risking the vulnerability of participating

               in that which will unfold in ways we cannot foresee.

Think of how that spirituality might play

               in all aspects of our life

                            –– family life, church life, work life.

Life so lived may not be smooth.
It will not be predictable.
But it promises to be interesting.

                                                                      

                                                                Amen.