St. John of The Cross

This morning I was on a band that follows a shoreline. No wind. A clear sky and a completely radiant sun. There is a ten foot wide and exposed expanse of ice that is a turquoise blue, spanning the width of the lake. It catches the sun and makes the eyes water with a brillance that is captured from above. Couched in snow, side to side, the view of this blue ice, was blinding and spectacular.
In the big picture, the ice was snow-covered. In the big picture, it was all frozen. But in this big picture, there was something that I could not avoid seeing and responding to. It held me, captured me, gave me pause and explained winter in a way that communicated movement, anomaly, variation, landscape, and synergy. This morning, the sum of the parts was greater than the whole.

Often, in recanting John of the Cross, the first thing stated about him is not the fact that he instigated a complete and total, bull-headed, one person confrontation and restructuring of the monastic system. The first thing often said about him is that he stood in height, at about four feet. And I guess, this says it all. That seems to be why everyone lands on this, and comments on his physical height. Stupified.

In theology, synergism is the doctrine that the human will co-operates with divine grace in effecting regeneration. John of the Cross, in his magnificant personage of four feet, is our perfect example. His own community of monks locked him in a tower to shut him up. He was starved and completely isolated. They kept him there for a year, until he escaped. And what was this little tift all about? John was saying, to the other monks, 'lets get back to where we need to be.' He wore a bare-threaded habit, went barefoot, and incorporated prayer and work as the mainstay of his daily life. This did not go over well in a lifestyle that had become indolent, listless, lavish, and self-gratifying.

His story gives me hope. That in understanding my brokenness, my faults, my failures and shortcomings, something larger than the sum of this can emerge. That was my prayer on the walk:

"Dear God, this morning I humbly ask for turquoise. Amen."