Canadian Market Experience: The Prequel

It was only after I posted about my marketing experience last weekend that I remembered a tiny but significant moment that preceded it. To be honest and precise, I remembered it as I read what apparently had struck someone else as key words in my post (as Clarity had out quoted a few words when posting a link to the post on Cahiers Péguy).

I wrote about this little moment during my Wednesday evening holy hour, and then promptly forgot about it again, until reminded by yet another friend at School of Community Thursday morning.

So I think it's time I get around to the rest of the story. Here, more or less, is the prequel I wrote Wednesday night:

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The market experience was Saturday morning. On Friday morning I attended Mass with my family at our parish. I was feeling some physical discomfort and some emotional hesitancy about heading out into the day (ok, it was far earlier than I'm used to being in public!) And I realized as I prayed for help, or thought I was praying for help, that I was really taking intellectual inventory of how well I figured I could do, given the circumstances and the force of a "good, solid try" as best as I could muster it. All at once, several things converged in my thinking, my awareness. I thought of a related struggle a friend had shared. I thought of the miracles of the loaves and fishes. I thought of St. Martin de Porres, of whom miracles were asked (and forthcoming) during his lifetime.

And suddenly I realized that the Lord was right there with me, and that day, like any other, He called me to love. I know myself; the Lord may as well ask me to walk on water, because loving and walking on water both come equally naturally to me. But in that realization was the "of course!" moment. When God asks something of me, expects something of me, I need to turn my eyes to Him, not in false humility whose my gaze stops with myself ("Oh Lord, I could neverst doest that which Thou asketh of meith"), but with expectation of His power. I am an instrument. As such, I can participate in doing all manner of things that are impossible for me alone. If it is asked of me in the course of my vocation, then I should have the expectation of being taken up by the Artist, by the Author, and used to produce the results. And that may be as a direct cause, or as an indirect cause. And all the while I require patience with my instrumental limitations (because brushes get gunky and need to be cleaned, pencils need to be sharpened, pens blotted, keyboards dusted, and every tool has its unique but limited purpose).

So, back to me at that Mass. I asked the Lord, as He was clearly waiting on me to do it, to love through me. And I had forgotten this exchange until I meditated on the experience of Him actually doing so at the market.

***

I have to say, something very unusual is happening with me. I spent a good chunk of this morning at the parish where my husband and son were working a Knights of Columbus breakfast. I can't or don't each much of the food that is served, and in many ways this breakfast ranked up there with the market: go if I have to, and get it over with. But today I initiated conversations with more than a half dozen people, maybe close to a dozen. Friends and readers, I've never done that before in my life. This is a work of grace.

I am currently reading a book called Radical Hospitality. It is all about Benedictine spirituality, which of course (but I didn't fully realize it) hearkens back strongly to Communion and Liberation. I intend to write more about the book once I finish it, presuming I do finish it. What I read this afternoon fit so perfectly with what I experienced this morning.

I find that the Lord's way with me is not at all haphazard, but one of definite purpose. It makes living so much fun!