Doodling Presence

Starter Prayer:  "God of love, you made love so important for our salvation, that you took the risk of us doing it poorly, as we all do.  Keep us free from throwing stones at others, so we can see our own clumsy attempts at divine love."  (From Wondrous Encounters by Richard Rohr)

"If there is one of you who has not sinned, let him be the first to throw the stone.  Then he bent down and began to write on the ground."  John 8: 7-8

For years whenever this text was considered, somebody would ask "What do you think Jesus was writing in the sand?"  And today Fr. Rohr suggests that it doesn't really matter what Jesus wrote.  What matters is that he bent down and began to do something other than probe any farther into the situation.  He left the accusers on their own to grapple with the question:  "Am I free of sin, because only the one free of sin is to throw the first stone."  He also let time pass as the woman "caught in sin" teetered on the edge of judgment.

Jesus never lets anybody skate on the surface of responsibility.  It seems that he loves so completely and so intensely that he wants the truth to go deep, even to the pierced core of self awareness.  Transformation takes deep root in the heart and mind that have collapsed into truth and transparency.  While we assume our responsibility of self awareness,  God stays present, simply being there, not probing, just present (ie, doodling on the ground).

And then, when the pain of knowing (and owning) our darkness is almost more than we can bear he reaches out with the light of God's love and illuminates (even swallows up) all that is broken.