I am a child, not a contract.

Last fall we had wandered to one of our favorite little places for Mass, not so hidden or remote anymore, it has become a bustling hub for pilgrims and visitors. The homilist at first piqued my interest, but as he neared the twenty minute mark I knew I was nearing the end of my resources to be sandwiched between so many people with heavy perfume. I had the warning signs of a migraine from the chemicals and creeping anxiety from the crowds. People who like to crow about the Mass being just like heaven and that if we fret in Mass we will be miserable in heaven need to stop talking. You really aren’t encouraging those of us who struggle with very real challenges. Anyway, he had veered off from his original topic and I was losing focus, until he said that God’s love for us was like a contract. A contract? Doug didn’t even look at me. As soon as the homily ended, I bolted for the exit. Made it through the crowd of pilgrims to a bench in the sun, it was so cold that day. I slowed my breathing from the gulping of fresh air into my lungs, to long gentle breaths. Contract. I wanted to open the doors to the chapel and shout that I was a child, not a contract, that I thought I was in a covenant relationship, not a contractual one with God. All of my reality is based on the truth of being God’s child.

Doug came out of the chapel thirty minutes later and found me, still in the sun. We went and touched Justin’s name on the wall and left quickly. I spared Doug the diatribe that was going on in my head starting with the covenant with Adam and ending with the eternal covenant of Christ. I have a particular love for the language of the covenants. How God kept loving His people, how a covenant made me a child of not just His Heart, but of His blood. According to the covenant, God could never stop loving me.

I have thought of that every day, have been deeply troubled by it. Wondered why it troubled me, not just made me angry and cranky, but troubled, wounded, my little boat was already full of leaks, this only made the water deeper and colder.  Then two weeks ago I was reading a meditation in my Magnificat, and yes, I was reading in the middle of Mass — it is my equivalent of a bag of Cheerios and a picture book.  This is what I read:

“A rhythm of divine approach and disappearance repeats continually….When God is drawing closer, it is not uncommon that darkness encloses the soul for a time. ….When he shows himself, it will be in camouflage and shadow, the glimpse of his face often not recognized until later…” Fr. Donald Haggerty

Camo and shadow? Two things I understand. And his face unrecognizable. Yes, yes, a stranger to me. And if I am grasping this at all, when He shows Himself again, I will not recognize Him at first.

“…no one grows in faith without finding signs of God’s help…small favors that could be dismissed as chance until we begin to notice their frequency. Fragmentary, perhaps, seemingly unlinked, these quiet signs reveal a personality of great kindness in God”

Kindness. The great Kindness of God. I read that line over and over again. A kind God does not love contractually.

“But even more, they may reinforce the pain of those time when his concealment seems to be again steady and enduring.” Fr. Donald Haggerty

Someone who understands the pain, who confirms that God will again hide Himself. Camouflage and shadow.  The thought came to me that perhaps this darkness is not my fault, I didn’t do anything wrong, it wasn’t that I prayed wrong, this is the journey. Me and the Grinch are puzzlers. We puzzle and puzz until our puzzlers are sore.  Then it clicked, a week later, in Mass reading the same meditation again. I understood why I can’t do this if I am only a contract to God. Contracts can be broken, it is an exchange of goods or services, one party can dismiss another once a contractual agreement has been completed, or a contract can be broken if breached. I can only be fully myself, fully, authentically human in this darkness if I am a child, a loved child, a child by blood and covenant. Not to presume God’s love for me, but a security in that no matter how far I go in darkness, how long it lasts, how unfeeling my heart is for God, how senseless and tasteless all that once had savor become, He will be in the darkness, in fact the darkness is His choosing for me. There is a moment when the darkness is no longer frightening, but peace filled. Perhaps I need to work on my night vision, to see what is in the darkness. Camo and shadow, hide and seek with the Divine. Is playfulness another of the Divine personality to be shown in darkness?

Play binds a parent and child like nothing else, you can contract someone else to play with your child, to entertain them, but it is not bonding, it is temporary. But play between child and parent is a love language that needs no words. So perhaps this is my shout inside the chapel door, I am a child, conceived in the mind of God before time, not a contract. Even in the darkness, when play seems absent, I am not a contract.

PS: I looked for books by Fr. Haggerty and now hold in my hands “Contemplative Provocations”, it was only published last year. Just breezing through it, I think Fr. Haggerty and I could be good friends.  I have met some of my best friends through the Magnificat.