As I muse about why I am a deacon, I try to remember when I wanted to become a deacon. What was I thinking?
How was I called? When? I don’t remember lying in bed and hearing, “Mark, Mark,” the way Samuel was called. So how did it happen? If you are like me, maybe you are asking yourself, “Why me?”
These thoughts were always in the back of my mind until I read Fr. Richard Rohr’s thoughts “On being grounded in reality.” He states, “The genius of the Bible does not let us resolve all our questions in a theological classroom–in fact, nothing about the bible appears to be written out of or for academic settings. We can only achieve wisdom through living to experience suffering, birth, death, and rebirth. This cannot be learned in books.” There are certain thoughts that can only be known if we are sufficiently emptied, sufficiently ready, sufficiently confused, or sufficiently destabilized. Read Romans 12:1-3.
Unlike Samuel, I reflect on nights of lying in bed and having a calm fill my being, a feeling of peace and restfulness easing me back to sleep. I can remember sitting quietly and just knowing that this is what I feel called to do.
Funny how some things are better seen in the dark. We spend so much time in the light of the day, and when that light goes out, we try to recreate the light artificially with light bulbs. We are called children of the light and learn throughout our lives that darkness and evil are one in the same.
Jesus was never afraid of the dark. That is when He would go out to talk to His Father. I feel that Jesus used the night to help eliminate the distractions that occur when our senses are looking for life-threatening situations (our natural instinct for survival).
Should we be afraid of the dark? Deacons work in the darkness of people’s lives; when we talk to the homeless person who is waiting for a hot coffee and a sandwich, when we sit with a friend from the parish in the hospital as they wait for test results, and then with the family who has to deal with those results. It is sitting with an inmate as they tell their story and just being there. In all these, it can be dark times for all involved.
We were not called to be flashy and to tell those who are hurting that it’s God’s way. We are called to listen, to hold their hands, and let the love we have for God flow through us, to let the peace and love of God that we receive each night as we pray to the Father to rest on those who are momentarily lost. How? You may ask? Malachi 2:5-7 God’s covenant with Levi; God bestows a special blessing of “life and peace” upon those he calls.
Do you remember when you were called? Was it like Samuel, or was it a quiet voice that helped you sit quietly in the dark, only to give you the daylight of the new day and a new beginning?
Our greatest calling is when we sit with those who are anxious, hurt, hungry, and afraid. That is when we can be the new dawn for them, just by sitting and listening, giving God time to expand his love for us into a feeling of peace to those we are with.
Jesus’ great commandment was to go out and share the love of God with those who are in a darkened place. Let us be the Deacons of light needed for all to see.
Now, I know why I am a Deacon.
A Calling in the Quiet of the Night
As I muse about why I am a deacon, I try to remember when I wanted to become a deacon. What was I thinking?
How was I called? When? I don’t remember lying in bed and hearing, “Mark, Mark,” the way Samuel was called. So how did it happen? If you are like me, maybe you are asking yourself, “Why me?”
These thoughts were always in the back of my mind until I read Fr. Richard Rohr’s thoughts “On being grounded in reality.” He states, “The genius of the Bible does not let us resolve all our questions in a theological classroom–in fact, nothing about the bible appears to be written out of or for academic settings. We can only achieve wisdom through living to experience suffering, birth, death, and rebirth. This cannot be learned in books.” There are certain thoughts that can only be known if we are sufficiently emptied, sufficiently ready, sufficiently confused, or sufficiently destabilized. Read Romans 12:1-3.
Unlike Samuel, I reflect on nights of lying in bed and having a calm fill my being, a feeling of peace and restfulness easing me back to sleep. I can remember sitting quietly and just knowing that this is what I feel called to do.
Funny how some things are better seen in the dark. We spend so much time in the light of the day, and when that light goes out, we try to recreate the light artificially with light bulbs. We are called children of the light and learn throughout our lives that darkness and evil are one in the same.
Jesus was never afraid of the dark. That is when He would go out to talk to His Father. I feel that Jesus used the night to help eliminate the distractions that occur when our senses are looking for life-threatening situations (our natural instinct for survival).
Should we be afraid of the dark? Deacons work in the darkness of people’s lives; when we talk to the homeless person who is waiting for a hot coffee and a sandwich, when we sit with a friend from the parish in the hospital as they wait for test results, and then with the family who has to deal with those results. It is sitting with an inmate as they tell their story and just being there. In all these, it can be dark times for all involved.
We were not called to be flashy and to tell those who are hurting that it’s God’s way. We are called to listen, to hold their hands, and let the love we have for God flow through us, to let the peace and love of God that we receive each night as we pray to the Father to rest on those who are momentarily lost. How? You may ask? Malachi 2:5-7 God’s covenant with Levi; God bestows a special blessing of “life and peace” upon those he calls.
Do you remember when you were called? Was it like Samuel, or was it a quiet voice that helped you sit quietly in the dark, only to give you the daylight of the new day and a new beginning?
Our greatest calling is when we sit with those who are anxious, hurt, hungry, and afraid. That is when we can be the new dawn for them, just by sitting and listening, giving God time to expand his love for us into a feeling of peace to those we are with.
Jesus’ great commandment was to go out and share the love of God with those who are in a darkened place. Let us be the Deacons of light needed for all to see.
Now, I know why I am a Deacon.
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