Throwing Staplers at Jesus

I love to read. I always have. I can remember very clearly, as a teenager, reading This Present Darkness and Piercing the Darkness by Frank Peretti, and the chills it gave me as he wrote about spiritual warfare. However, unlike my wife and daughter, I've never been one to re-read books. Kari and my oldest daughter have been known to re-read their favorite books a half dozen times, or more. There are quite a few books that I have enjoyed reading over the years, but I've never re-read any of them. So, when I told my wife that I was going to re-read The Seven Storey Mountain by Thomas Merton, she was quite surprised. It's been a number of years since I've read it, but I remember it having a profound impact on my life. I'm at a point in my life where I need something that will have a profound impact on it and my spirituality, so I return to the book that launched a new chapter in my life several years ago.

I'm not that far into it, still in the first chapter actually, but it is already having an impact. Thomas tells us of a story about him and his younger brother, John Paul. John Paul was a number of years younger than Thomas, and always wanted to be included in the things that Thomas and his friends did, yet Thomas wouldn't let him. Thomas tells a story of a time where he and a friend were building a hunt in a field near their home. John Paul wanted to be included, but Thomas and his friend wouldn't let him. They yelled at him to go away and even threw rocks at him. Yet he wouldn't leave. He just stood there about a hundred yards away from Thomas, "not sobbing, not crying, but angry and unhappy and offended and tremendously sad." John Paul loved his brother and wanted to be near him and included in his life, yet Thomas rejected him and his love.

 What struck me about this was not the story itself. I remember being the one rejected by my siblings, so this was not new and groundbreaking news to me. What struck me is what Merton wrote next:

In a sense, this terrible situation is the pattern and prototype of all sin; the deliberate and formal will to reject disinterested love for us for the purely arbitrary reason that we simply do not want it. We will to separate ourselves from that love. We reject it entirely and absolutely, and will not acknowledge it, simply because it does not please us to be loved.

As any good Ignatian would do, I put myself in the scene before me and reflected on it. The scene that presented itself to me was one of me going about my daily activities. I imagined myself at work, working on my laptop; at home, playing with my kids, talking to my wife. All the while, Jesus is standing there about a hundred yards away. I'm completely ignoring Him. From time to time He tries to come closer, but I yell at Him. I tell Him to go away. I throw staplers at Him. I throw my kids toys at Him. So He stands there, a hundred yards away, looking sad; and yet there is also a look of love on His face. He wants to come closer. He wants to embrace me with His love. He asks for nothing in return for His love. But I reject it completely and totally. I won't let Him in.

Why do we keep Jesus at a distance in our lives? Why do we force Him and His love away from us? Maybe it's because the love of Jesus, as Merton states, "reminds us that we all need love from others, and depend on the charity of others to carry on our own lives. And we refuse love, and reject society, in so far as it seems, in our own perverse imagination, to imply some obscure kind of humiliation." Perhaps we reject the love of Jesus out of a sense of pride. We want to live our lives on our own, without any help. We don't want to be seen as being dependent on others out a fear of humiliation.

In reality, we do need the love of God. It is His love that brought us into this world. It is His love that keeps us in this world. And, when the time comes, it is His love that will bring us out of this world. The love of God has given us all of our talents, all of our treasure. We need to put down our staplers. We need to stop yelling. We need to allow Jesus to come closer to us and embrace us in His love.