This week for Spirituality Night, our community sat down to watch Jesus Camp, a 2006 documentary about an evangelical Christian summer camp and the children who attend it. It has been described by many progressives (a demographic somewhat overrepresented in our community) as one of the most terrifying films they have ever seen, so we knew that we were in for an interesting night.

Today was a day on which I felt myself sinking into the sin of despair, that mire of hopelessness that sucks all light and goodness out of life. Being in the shelter had started to get to me. The long histories of abuse, the endless stories of relationships broken by violence, the perpetual state of crisis so many of our clients seem to exist in - coupled with my own inability to do anything that seemed remotely helpful in so many situations - were enough to make me wonder if any of us humans were worth saving, if we could do the sort of things to one another that landed some of us in domestic violence shelters.

It was precisely the kind of spiritual crisis that I did not want to have - it seemed trite, almost, to have my faith shaken by confrontations with suffering. But I was having it anyway. The God who was incarnated in the expansively compassionate Christ seemed so very far away from this shelter filled with beaten-down women, fatherless children, and frazzled staff. Where was that Love who healed the crippled with a single touch, who raised the dead with a single word? Where was that Love who, as today's Gospel recounts, sat upon hilltops and welcomed all the weary and the weak? I started to wonder if maybe we were just too far gone down here on Earth for that Love to reach us anymore.

Towards the end of the day, I was walking through the hallway when I spotted a small form walking ahead of me. It's never a good thing to find kids roaming around the shelter unsupervised, but this particular child was notorious for wandering into open offices and causing all manner of trouble. He'd been, in fact, the subject of several unsettling conversations I'd had with behavioral health specialists recently.

Somewhat warily, I asked him where he was headed.

"To find the lady," he said.

Hm, the lady. Not the most helpful descriptor in a battered women's shelter with a 100-bed capacity.

"What lady?" I asked.

"The new lady with the glasses and the stick," he replied. "I think she's in the TV room."

Glasses and stick - he could only be talking about the blind woman who had recently entered the shelter. And sure enough, when we turned into the TV room, there she was, sitting alone on the couch, her face turned towards the glowing television she could not see.

"Santa's here," the boy said as he walked up to her, referring to the Christmas party that was happening on the second floor. "You said to come get you when they started so you could come and listen to the music."

She smiled, clearly recognizing his voice. Unfolding her slim walking stick, she allowed him to accompany her out of the room and into the hallway. I followed along with them, touched by the polite directions and gentle guidance he offered her as they made their way to the elevator.

While we were standing in the elevator, riding up to the second floor, she smiled again and said to the boy, "Thank you for coming to get me. Thank you for not forgetting about me."

The elevator doors opened up to the second floor, and I let them get off together, the slow pace of his little-boy steps matching the rhythmic tapping of her stick against the linoleum floor. As I rode back down to the first floor alone, I suddenly realized how deeply I'd sunk into my despair that God had to send a 9-year old boy to remind me of His presence. I had to laugh, imaging Christ's answering chuckle as He lovingly admonished me, I'm right HERE, silly. I've ALWAYS been here and I'm always GOING to be here.

I'm grateful to have been reminded, during this first week of Advent, that Christ truly is Emmanuel, God-With-Us, even when I'm too stuck in my own despair to realize it. And I'm equally grateful to have been reminded that God abandons none of us - not a blind woman without a home, not an emotionally troubled boy who's spent his entire life in the system - not even a social work newbie like myself, who is struggling to reconcile the immense needs of her clients with the uncomfortable reality of her own limitations.

Human love grows weak, it's true. Human compassion has its limits. But God's love is eternally strong, and God's compassion is boundless. And just because God came down once in human flesh does not mean that God's presence does not come down into our lives each and every day, even if it's only in the tiniest of moments that we might just as soon have missed.

This week for Spirituality Night, our community spent some time in Lectio Divina, an ancient form of prayer that involves reading and reflecting on passages from scripture. Simply put, in Lectio Divina, one first reads a passage from scripture; then reflects upon that passage; then responds by opening oneself up to whatever interior changes God wishes to work through that passage; then finally rests in the peace of God's presence.

We chose as our passage today's Gospel reading, Luke 17: 20-25:

Asked by the Pharisees when the Kingdom of God would come,
Jesus said in reply, “The coming of the Kingdom of God cannot be observed,
and no one will announce, ‘Look, here it is,’ or, ‘There it is.’
For behold, the Kingdom of God is among you.”

Then he said to his disciples,
“The days will come when you will long to see
one of the days of the Son of Man,
but you will not see it.
There will be those who will say to you,
‘Look, there he is,’ or ‘Look, here he is.’
Do not go off, do not run in pursuit.
For just as lightning flashes
and lights up the sky from one side to the
other, so will the Son of Man be in his day.
But first he must suffer greatly and be rejected by this generation.”

This passage holds great meaning for me at this time in my life, when I am unsure of what path I am called to take, or what work I am meant to do. I am like those first disciples, longing to see Christ, but finding myself blind to his presence. And in my longing, I am vulnerable to all sorts of voices, most coming from within myself, saying "Look, there he is" - telling me that surely God is to be found in that place, or in this line of work, or in that way of life.

Day by day I am running down so many different roads, when what God asks of me is exactly the opposite - simply to be still, to be present, for the Kingdom of God can be found right here where I am, in this place, with these people.

In my prayer tonight, I felt God chiding me gently, saying slow down. Be present to me HERE. The last line of the passage struck me particularly hard - "But first he must suffer greatly and be rejected by this generation". Jesus suffered at the hands of those who did not recognize him for who he truly was. So often in my daily life, I am guilty of that same blindness. I am so consumed by searching for signs pointing to my life's purpose that I fail to recognize Christ in those around me - the members of my community, the women who pass through my office in the shelter, the people I see standing on street corners on my way to work. And when I do so, I miss altogether the true signs of my life's purpose.

Towards the end of our prayer time, I was greatly consoled by these words: "For just as lightening flashes and lights up the sky from one side to the other, so will the Son of Man be in his day". They seemed to embody the great hope that one day, all will be made clear. One day, the presence of God will burst forth in our lives with such power that we will not be able to miss it. One day, I will know the path that I am to take, the work I am to do, the life I am to lead.

And until the day, when lightening flashes within all corners of my soul, I will try to be still, to stay in the moment, to revere the presence of God in the people and places I find myself each day. Perhaps that is the paradoxical way to the Kingdom of God - a Kingdom whose coming cannot be observed, yet which ignites the sky with lightening bolts; a Kingdom whose all-consuming power is brought to birth in the quiet.

For the past few days, the steady stream of clients filing into my office to ask for SEPTA tokens has ceased - because SEPTA, the only source of public transportation in Philadelphia, is on strike. It's crazy how losing something as basic as the subway and the bus affects everyone's lives in this city.

My housemates have little option but to walk to work - although this morning I did drive one over to West Philly so that she could avoid the hour-long trek that she made yesterday. Having a car is a true blessing at this moment in time! Even the extra traffic on the road during rush hour is a small sacrifice compared to the challenges that many others are facing. I can't help thinking about the fact that this strike, while inconvenient for me, is likely to be seriously detrimental to those Philadelphia who are, as my roommate who works at a non-profit law agency said this morning, "one paycheck away from bankrupcy" - people who really can't afford to miss a day of work, but who are utterly dependent on public transportation to get there.

Yesterday was the Feast of All Saints. Concerns regarding H1N1 have prompted the Archbishop of Philadelphia to decree that, for the time being, parishioners are to celebrate Mass without any physical contact with one another - no shaking of hands at the sign of peace, no sharing of the cup at communion. You'd think that these restrictions would make for a less intimate service; yet last night, I experienced an incredible sense of joy and unity at the celebration of the Eucharist that no fear of flu could diminish.

I'd been struggling a bit that day with the news that the Vatican is designing special protocols by which to allow parishes on the more traditional end of the Anglican spectrum to enter into the Roman Catholic Church. The remnants of the liberal feminist in me is screaming that these people are leaving the Anglican communion because of women's ordination and openly gay priests, and only want in to Catholicism because of the Vatican's stalwart opposition to both. I couldn't help but wonder, if Rome is welcoming them with open arms, what does that say about the definition of the Catholic faith in the modern world? Are we nothing more than a bastion of patriarchy and heteronormativity? I'd said as much to a friend that very morning.

Yet just as I was exiting the pew to join the communion procession, I felt a sense of peace and joy come over me at the thought of those sisters and brothers of mine being invited to the same table I was about to approach. It was as if I heard Christ saying to them, as He was saying to me, Come, eat and be filled with the bread of eternal life. Come, struggle with one another and see that all your differences melt away in Me. And that is the beauty and the truth of the Feast of All Saints. It is the hope and the promise that one day, we shall all stand together in the presence of the greatest love any of us has ever known. We shall all join that multitude "from every nation, race, people, and tongue" and realize that everything that divided us on earth has been reconciled in the glory of heaven.

I walked up towards the altar with a ridiculous grin on my face, unable to conceal my joy and gratitude at the fact that with each step I was saying yes to the struggle that will lead us to that promise, and yes to every person - gay, straight, old, young, liberal, conservative, traditional, revisionist, faithful, skeptical - who is struggling with me.

Living in community is teaching me that true commitment goes deeper than personal affinity or political alignment. The radical truth of community life is that even when we disagree, even when we argue, even when we can't stand to be in the same room, we still rely on one another. We still get up each morning and recommit ourselves to sharing the same house, the same table, the same resources.

The Church, with its billions of members spread out across the globe, is as much a community as my six housemates and I. And as a member of that global community, I have just as much a responsibility towards my sisters and brothers in faith as I do towards my JVC companions. I owe them the same respect that places openness, listening, and acceptance before judgment, condemnation, and fear.

And in truth, the challenge of Christian discipleship goes even further - beyond the walls of the Church and out into the entire world. We are called to love even those who hate us, to do good even to those who harm us. I am called to love even the politician whose views I abhor, the client whose personality grates against mine, the driver who cuts me off in rush hour traffic.

On the scale of human suffering, these are minuscule examples - but even these are easier said than done. That is why I am so grateful for experiences like the one I had at Mass last night - spiritual consolations that still the workings of my petty human mind with the hand of grace, that remind me of what the struggles of faith and community are all about.