The Freedom of the Children of God

With the solemn feast of Pentecost we come to the end of the Easter season which we have been celebrating for 50 days commemorating the Resurrection of Christ. On Monday after Pentecost we have again Old Testament texts at the Office of Readings starting with the beginning of the Book of Job.
The story is familiar, a fictional conversation between God and Satan which turns Job's life upside down and inside out. In one day the rich man looses all his possessions, his herds, his sons and daughters, his servants ... As Job receives one piece of news after another he is broken down in distress and has only one thing to say:

"Naked I came forth from my mother's womb,

and naked shall I go back again.

The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away;

blessed be the name of the Lord!" Job 1:21

It strikes me the freedom of such statement, the total, complete TRUST of accepting the worst of the worst with peace.

Job was a very wealthy man owning all the riches that a successful man could gather, and enjoyed feasting with his large family. But the riches and the celebrations didn't take in his heart the place of the Absolute. What an incredible freedom!

This deep sense of Job's freedom has remained with me for several days with almost a feeling of envy. At this point of the story Job is not yet in rags, he is the master of many servants, the respected elder, the faithful worshiper of the Almighty. But above all he is used to looking at the Real in the eyes and can surrender from the bottom of his being. This is the freedom of having all without any attachment. This, I think, is a true "blessed" poor in spirit - and a contemplative.

This reminds me of the freedom of Mary, the Mother of Jesus, at the Annunciation, when in an instant, she risked everything in response to the unexpected, to the "intrusion" of Mystery in her life. With her humble Yes she risked being stoned to death. 

Thomas Merton says somewhere that a contemplative is the person with whom God can do whatever God desires. This is the person totally available to God and to God's Plan. 

We live in times where as a society we are trying hard to grow into human maturity and freedom for everyone, we are trying hard to decide what is best and often the louder voices telling us the direction of our blessings and fulfillment are themselves totally out of touch with their own deepest soul values.

It is good and necessary to work for our betterment and development of our skills, that's the purpose of our gifts and abilities! The paradox of it is that we need to reach that place of maturity and independence where we are liberated from abuse, poverty, ignorance etc., and yet this is only half of the journey. Even if/when we get there a whole new and intense journey has still to take place. This is the journey of transformation, the divinization of the Christian spiritual journey. It is an ascension into minority. It is about growing smaller and true, real. It is about discovering our utter dependence on God once we have reached all the goals of human development. When we have all that can be achieved, when we have lived and been productive and successful we can discover that it is not enough and that more of the same will never be enough.

This is the time to respond to life with heart and soul, with the faith of an infant who is carried in her mother's arms, small and free to welcome life as it really is coming from the Womb of our Destiny, even if that destiny brings -as it does for all of us- aging, sickness, and diminishment.
We have a Christian name for this, we call it the Paschal Mystery, a mystery of suffering, death, and burial which culminates in an unforeseen fullness of Life. In God.