Retreat Notes

Here's a transcription of my notes from the retreat, with a bit of embellishment from me to render it back into English. Compare with Suzanne's notes from the same event. It's a bit cryptic as notes go, even more cryptic if you have no context. Sorry. Normal communicative posting to return shortly.

We are called [in Advent] to recognize the depths.

What is faith? A way of knowing, a method.

In childhood we are all about belonging. Later, separation. We don't use reason the best way possible. We start to sense a distance between us and God. We try to "fix" the distance with liturgy, with prayer. But something else is needed.

If we love someone, we desire unity with that person. The prophets tell us "unity will come", and also speak of separation, because this is reality.

So what fixes the separation? God intervenes. "You want to be one with Me." It is not in our hands. God's answer is the Incarnation. Not a thought, an idea. The Incarnation meets our freedom, our reason, our affection.

Incarnation: the encounter with Christ becomes Life for me. There is more than what my eyes can see going on with Him. Think of the 10th cured leper. He uses his reason to see what happened. There is a profound connection between his healing and "That Man". Being healed is not enough; there is something in "That Man" that is vital for the leper's life.

Do you understand the link between current reality and your happiness, your destiny? We want more than this life. Who wants to live forever on this earth? No one. We want the truth of this life. Happiness comes through, not from.

Resurrection - linked to Incarnation. the body.

God is proposing something great right now.
If you see it, tell about it.
If you don't see what He proposes, say the Memorare to see it.

"I want to see" -- search. See what God proposes through somebody. Without recognizing somebody, we become slaves. We must use freedom and affection properly.

If there is a separation between reason and reality, the answer is the Incarnation. What enables us to see God in this Incarnational way? Purity of heart (Mt. 5:8).

Being human means that we have needs and desires. All desires come from God and they are the beginning of His answer to us. But we cannot stop too soon and think we have discovered what our desires point us toward. Thirst, when we have water, is paradise. We are continual desire which God meets with continual fulfillment.

When we don't recognize Christ, we complain. Or not even that, we just have no happiness. If I'm not happy it's because I"m not seeing the love of my life.

The gospels speak of the "Messianic secret," when Jesus tells the people "don't say it is me." He's not playing mind games; He is emphasizing that He bears witness to the Father. That is His mission, to reveal the Father and point us to Him.

Boredom is a problem of faith.
Getting the person out of the way to see Christ is the way of Martin Luther.

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More Thoughts on that Advent Retreat

Saturday's retreat has helped me in so many ways. Here are just a few more of them. Some of them are more specific to following CL, but all of them also serve to simply make great sense out of life.

First, I understand what an abstraction is. And I see the difference between holding "God" as an abstraction on the one hand, and the acts of thinking, reasoning, pondering, and contemplating truths about God as I meet Him in my experience on the other hand. Big, huge difference. For some reason, I felt that what was being proposed was constant activity as the way to meet God, or at least constant social interaction. However, the use of my reason (because I am me and not someone else) requires a lot of time spent scrubbing floors, washing dishes and folding laundry. My mind generally requires this kind of activity of me for good thinking to kick in. But that has nothing to do with ignoring God who is in my reality and preferring instead abstract thoughts about Him with no connection to my lived reality at all.

Second, I understand the nature of how and why I have recoiled from the idea of meeting Christ in other people. I think this is big, because this goes way beyond my contact with CL and Fr. Giussani to my earliest days of contact with the Catholic Church. The Scripture where Jesus says "Inasmuch as you have done it to the least of these my brethren, you have done it unto me" started to be a very big problem for me when I started attending Mass. I saw that Catholics took this very seriously, and I most certainly did not. I see that my Lord has been gently trying to coax forward my trust in Him on this point. I had no problem, after awhile, with the concept of seeing Christ in someone who is overwhelmingly holy, or innocent. But without being fully conscious of it, I have taken this idea of seeing Christ in others very literally. Too literally. Actually, I took it most literally before entering the Church, even though I would not have used these words to think about what I was doing. Here's my mistaken concept: If Jesus is my Lord and Master, and I meet Christ in others, then every person becomes my Lord and Master and my will, my freedom must be subjugated to them. Ouch. Really, the first mistake there is believing that God makes slaves out of us, rather than our ultimate freedom being found in pursuing complete unity with Him.

Third, I understand more that "happiness comes through, not from." (This is a quote from my notes from Fr. Roberto's talk. I'll transcribe them in another post for what it's worth.) There is a sacramental, an Incarnational principle at work when we speak of Jesus being present in others, or my meeting Him there. Missing that is a fruit of the misuse of reason. So, if someone tells me "Go jump in a lake," or "Why don't you shut up," I dare not take these commands at face value as the manifest will of God! But, I am called to see what need the speaker has, what desire. As misunderstood or as inappropriately expressed as it may be, there is some desire being expressed that God put there. God desires that this desire be well understood, well discerned, and met in a way that draws that person on to Him, to destiny. I, as God's servant and as one who loves with His love, wants this too. My call is to use my freedom, my intelligence, and my affection to respond to the meaning of that desire -- or at least in some way that acknowledges the truth about that person's unpleasantly-expressed desire.

See, instead I've always thought I was just truly supposed to "shut up" or "go away."

Fr. Roberto spoke of something very concrete for me, and I love this: boredom being a problem of faith, a lack of responding to God who proposes Himself to me. I've been thinking about this a lot. To live, to truly live, is to be one with Christ. And to be one with Him is to see Him active in my life. To see Jesus everyday, present, interacting, proposing, speaking, however you wish to phrase the "active" bit. This is to live in Him and hence in His love and grace. It reminds me of a song we used to sing at Risen Savior: "When you walk with the Lord, you don't get bored!" When, for whatever reason this dynamic stops -- courage fails, doubt overcomes, trust costs -- life, living, can degenerate into merely existing, mere biological operations. (This boredom of course needs to be differentiated from the physiological problem of depression.) As Father told us, when we complain, we are not recognizing Christ. When we are not happy we are not recognizing Christ. "If I'm not happy, it's because I'm not seeing the love of my life." Precisely.

The retreat has given me a grasp of what Advent is: a time when we look closely for the deeper realities in the things around us. A baby. A search for shelter. Visiting shepherds. Angels singing. What does it all mean? Is it all to just give Hallmark nice ideas for cards? What about the things in my life? My son's desire to do everything his own way. My aging eyesight. Wonder at colors. What do these things mean? I have always loved Advent (well, not always, but in recent years at least.) And I love to look for "deeper meanings." I realize this blog is primarily a means for me to carve out and share the deeper meanings I see as I encounter Christ in the every day. The glorious becomes commonplace, thereby requiring the commonplace to be glorious!

There is Much To Do

Are you prepared to allow Me to make you holy? Oh my. Another timely, piercing message...

+++

On the first of every month, Our Lord gives Anne a new message about His
call to service.

December 1, 2008

Jesus

My dear little apostles, there is so much to be done. You see the need to bring Me to others. You see your brothers and sisters struggling in darkness without Me. If the light is to be brought to them, it will be brought by you. When I say there is much to be done, I am telling you that the world needs your service, it is true. But I am also telling you that there are many things to be done in your soul. You must be committed to changing. Are you prepared to allow Me to make you holy? If you are not prepared to let go of those things that prevent you from progressing in holiness, then you will not advance. If you do not advance, you will move away from me. You will begin to resent Me for the crosses I send to you. You will begin to persuade yourself that perhaps there is an easier way for you, a way that calls for less sacrifice and less commitment. This will not be My plan but your plan. This will be your version of holiness, not Mine. I know that some of the services I ask from you are repugnant to you. I know this and yet I call you into these things anyway. If you reject parts of the work, you will be executing an incomplete plan. I have a big plan. I build on it each day. You are part of that. I need you to listen carefully for My directions and then serve exactly as I am asking. My dear friends, if I cannot instruct and direct you, then who will listen to Me? Who will trust Me to protect humanity? Where is the joy that comes from God's children when they trust their Father in heaven? I tell you that where joy is absent, trust is absent. When a person is humble, he will see that he needs greater trust and he will try to become smaller so that I can become bigger in his life and in his work. I am asking you to do that. Be humble. Allow Me, Jesus, to be your King. My kingdom was not of this world. Your Kingdom is not of this world. You will be rewarded in heaven, My beloved. For now, serve Me, your King, in the way I am asking. This will be the best plan for you and for the world.

2+2 = Infinity

I've been thinking about what I've been thinking about. Do you think it is because it recalls baptism that things always seem to "click" in the shower? Or is it just a meditative moment where thoughts can line up side by side. For whatever reason, I said to myself this morning, "Of course! Naru hodo!" The reason why I am so overwhelmed with beauty and joy at the reality of the lives of the saints is that it is a truth that Lutheranism says is impossible. Luther's understanding of salvation is of something that covers us. Jesus substitutes His holiness for our sin. His famous illustration is that we are the dung hill covered by snow. This is not the Catholic understanding of grace at all. The Church teaches that grace elevates nature, so that the participation we have with the life of God is real, lived, actual, and not merely positional or legal.

To be unable to be truly freed from sin in this life is to accept a life of misery. It is to accept a life that can merely be endured if one has a sense that the things of this world are fleeting and do not hold ultimate meaning. It is to accept that we are not made for anything great. It is to behold a God who is either impotent or uncaring. It is grossly irrational.

To "meet" a saint who all generations are calling blessed because of what God has done for her or him is to be hold a real, powerful, loving God. He knows me. He made me, He knows me, I have purpose, I have dignity that has been seriously messed with but which He restores. It isn't about brownie points or some silly earth-bound idea like that. God saves us to be His sons, His heirs, to participate in His very life. That is the promise, and that is the reality.

I still have some questions about the journey. The big one I have is about Reconciliation and its relationship to sanctity. If I bring my Lutheran mindset to the confessional, I end up needing to "confess" that I exist, basically, since "all our righteous acts are like filthy rags." I have even thought about the advice Luther was said to have received from his confessor: "Martin, don't come here with all these peccadillos. Go out and sin some great sin, and then come back and tell me about it." (And all you cradle Catholics thought you received lousy catechesis!)

As I have the chance, I have a small handful of other nuggets from the retreat I want to cook up and serve here. Good thing my daughter woke me extra early this morning.

Advent Retreat

As if yesterday morning's experience wasn't enough, yesterday afternoon was our CL Advent retreat.

I've had "moments" when this charism I've been following has made no sense to me or my experience of it simply left me feeling confused. This retreat was very much the opposite kind of experience. I was able to see this current moment in my life in a wider context of what I have been able to see God doing in course of my whole life. And it all fits. Even if I can't get all the meaning of all the nooks and crannies, I see that it is the same God, the same Love that has been calling me at every turn. It is the Lord. What else do I really need to know?

There was one particular moment in which I was struck in a way that is beyond putting into words. But I'll try. Fr. Roberto spoke of how the Church is a sacrament, the first sacrament. He spoke of how it is through the Church, therefore through Somebody (one of those great precise/imprecise CL words) that God reaches us. That is His methodology, the Incarnation. Fr. added, almost as an aside, that one cannot set aside the person (Somebody) to seek Christ. No, he said, "That is Martin Luther."

Now, realize that I was raised "at the breast" of Martin Luther. Realize that I have spent the last ten years grappling with my now adult understandings of where Martin Luther, and I following him, went very wrong. Understand that when someone speaks of an error of Luther's, my own soul goes on high alert.

I went off to the silent reflection time quickly finding a need to pace rather than kneel silently. As I paced, I formulated the question I wanted to ask Fr. Roberto about this during the assembly. And (I wonder, does anyone else do this?) I formulated what I thought his response would be. Which was, of course, my own response to my own question. I think I have the habit of this because I'm not accustomed to actually finding someone who can speak to the meanings of things. Regardless, it is a useful exercise for me. As I pondered over things Fr. had said about the Incarnation, about the Church, about knowing what God wants through this Somebody, I suddenly remembered a burning question I once put to my friend's friend who had been at Mass with me on that Christmas Eve in 1991 that was the climax of my conversion.

The question was about the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist. I had always believed in the doctrine of the real presence, along the lines of how I had been taught it as a Lutheran. Consubstantiation is the technical theological term used; essentially Jesus is believed to be present in, with, and under the bread and wine. Various Scriptures told me that a merely symbolic belief about holy communion was incorrect. This was so important a tenet of faith to me that one of the tests of the charismatic fellowship I attended before becoming Catholic was that no one ever insisted on a symbolic belief, but rather just read the Scriptures about the Lord's Supper and left it at that.

But at that Christmas Eve Midnight Mass, I encountered something extremely different. This was not an idea, a doctrine, of the real presence, this was Jesus (pardon my familiarity) saying "Howdy!" from the altar, and from the people in whom He had tabernacled during the communion procession. This was not an idea of Jesus being present, I encountered Jesus. Present.

So, the pressing question I had for my friend's friend, Jeff. I needed to know just what they believed about how Jesus was present. A couple weeks later I asked him "if someone needed a blood transfusion, could I take the consecrated wine and give it to that person as a blood transfusion?" Immediately he answered, "No, of course not." I was relieved. "Ok," I said. "Then I can believe what you believe about the Real Presence."

I realized this has been parallel to something that I've rubbed up against in CL that has been likewise burning. If Jesus makes His appeal to me through the Church, through Somebody, then is that person sitting next to me in my pew literally Jesus? You see, when I hear "you cannot set aside the person to seek Christ," part of me starts to panic. Part of me thinks, ok, this person, any person, literally has claim to my life in such a way that I must lay down my life for that person's will, regardless of what it is or what it means for me. I have gotten over believing that God is arbitrary, capricious and selfish, and at the same time I have come to realize just how arbitrary, capricious and selfish people in general (self included) actually are! So please! Tell me that Jesus is not literally made manifest in any arbitrary, capricious or selfish desire expressed by any person who crosses my path!

The way I was thinking of it, I realize the answer is no. The Father is made known in the face of Jesus Christ. Jesus calls to me through Somebody, but He does not morph into somebody. I think some of my difficulty comes from imprecise Trinitarian thinking, to tell the truth.

I said this was hard to put into words, did not I.

So I actually asked Fr. Roberto in the Assembly to elaborate on this point. Not surprisingly, his response was nothing at all like my response to myself. He spoke of the history of the Reformation, and how Luther saw real moral violations. There were real problems, but Luther did not complain as a son, Fr. said. Instead, he broke off from the Someone who was causing him real problems, even committing real sin. This also spoke to me, from a different but just as vital angle. Fr. asked me to think about what happens when my children do something against me. Do I kill them? Of course not. I correct them. (And it really takes a lot of effort, creativity, patience, and energy to do so.) And what happens as a result? There is a greater bond that forms between us. I can verify from my experience that this is true. So when someone sins against me, it is necessary to speak a correction. This is a hard truth for me to hear. It is even harder to live, because correcting a child is hard enough. How does one correct a peer, perhaps where the relationship is not healthy to begin with, perhaps where there has been longstanding separation or pain or numbness?

I do know that love is always in season, and I can begin with my attitude. I can go further with my openness. And I can be honest that this is hard and painful work. I can be realistic in my expectations. I can trust God with results.

When I am actually able to meditate on the Incarnation I become weepy and weak-kneed. I have tasted the reality of the truth that the Incarnation means I am loved, I, in all my I-ness, in all my humanity, in all my createdness, all my limitation: I am loved. If ever I were able to grasp this love beyond a taste and make it my constant reality, and therefore be able to love another this way, another sinner just as annoying as myself... I wonder if I should be able to do this and still be alive on this earth. I would be so vastly different than I am today. To love another the way I am loved. Is it possible?

The Communion of Saints

Saturday morning I was able to experience so clearly why I love to worship at Franciscan University's Christ the King chapel, and particularly why I love Fr. Michael Scanlon.

The Mass that was celebrated was in memory of the various saints of the Franciscan order. Fr. Mike preached simply but with passion about the reality of our family in the Church, our ancestors, the saints. It is perhaps hard to convey how profoundly and how simply this truth completely changes, completely fulfills my heart.

Others can recount better than I the story Fr. Mike has told in his book Let the Fire Fall and in countless homilies, talks and conversations about his own biological family experience. What it boils down to for me is that there was pain, and an experience of failure of this basic human unit to bring blessing to life. His experience reminds me a bit of Pope John Paul II's youth, which was also a crucible of suffering during the Nazi era. The beauty, the glory, is that through their respective crucibles of suffering, God brought forth gold, meant to give hope and life to vast multitudes. Both men seem to me like forerunners, who were destined to understand the sufferings of those they were called to serve by experiencing it first hand.

Therefore, Fr. Mike is deeply aware, deeply conscious, of the pain many FUS students have experienced in their families. He speaks as one who knows the glorious antidote to the familiar pain. Parusia. Heaven. Sanctity. Resurrection. In Fr. Mike I see a tremendous witness to the reality of these things -- so much so that I really hardly see him at all. I just behold the fact that these realities are, well, real. I see St. Francis, St. Maximilian Kolbe, St. Cecelia, St. John, St. Francis Xavier, St. John of the Cross, St. Theresa of Avila, St. Bernard of Clairvaux -- all these folks who have touched my life. I think of December 27, 1991 when I stood in the Catholic bookstore, having just committed myself to following the Lord into the Catholic Church, and "meeting" St. Cecelia, patroness of music whose feast is my birthday. I remember the sense, more real than if I'd entered a room of flesh and blood people at the time (I have a tendency to "shut off" in groups of people, and this tendency was even stronger then) of welcome and meaning and fellowship and life, coming from the whole court of heaven. It was as if St. Cecelia had the job of introducing the whole extended family to me. And I finally knew I had a true home, and that my life had not been a mistake. Glory.

This is what I experienced yesterday morning with Fr. Mike. This is my family, the Church. This is my profound love.

My Thought for the Day

Not surprisingly, my thoughts are set to music. I'm blogging on the technologically-inept fly, so you have to click the title to hear the tune! But here's the main thought:

When through fiery trials thy pathway shall lie,
my grace, all sufficient, shall be thy supply;
the flame shall not hurt thee; I only design
thy dross to consume, and thy gold to refine.

The Tale of the Amazing Glasses Lens (Or, Remember to Check Your Facts)

Here's a funny story, since I was just speaking of trust.

The other day I was at Mass with my children. During the homily, my son handed me his glasses, asking me to clean them. I saw the left lens was heavily fingerprinted, so I did the ol' breath-shine routine. The other one looked clean enough, so I handed them back to him.

He is not of the age to have made his first Holy Communion yet, so he stayed in the pew as my (even younger) daughter and I went forward. (Her constitution is rather heavy on the Velcro right now.) During the closing hymn my son, who had been laying under the pew (what, your kids never did that??) looked up at me with alarm and pointed out that one of the lenses was missing from his glasses.

Oh no. Not again.

Well, this will be easy, since you didn't move from this spot, and I just cleaned your glasses not 20 minutes ago. It must be right here.

We looked. The woman next to us looked. A neighbor who just happened to say hi stopped to look. We scoured under pews up to four rows behind us. We checked the office in case someone was hyper vigilant in turning it in to lost and found. I dug through my purse. I even persuaded my son to go into the bathroom and make sure it hadn't fallen in his clothing.

Missing.

This was completely impossible. I was mystified. This defied reason.

We came home.

Imagine my surprise when I swept the floor yesterday and found the lens under the dinner table. My first thought? This lens has powers of bi-location!

But my son, apparently far more rational than myself, pointed out the obvious. "Mama, the reason you thought the other lens was clean was that it wasn't there!"

Come to think of it, I cleaned his glasses with my own glasses on, and my own glasses really only serve to completely mess up my vision right now. I can see perfectly without them as long as I don't need to see farther than five feet. With them on, I may as well be wearing two miniature opaque glass blocks.

The humorous thing is that I never once thought to mistrust my own senses, even knowing what I know about my vision, and even -- for a moment -- after finding the lens! It just goes to show that when reality appears irrational, there is some further testing of evidence that needs to happen.

A song, and a bit about my day

meee meee meee....

test, check. Can you hear me back there?

Ok, this is a sing-along. Here are the words. The tune is "If You're Happy and You Know It." Ready?

I'm a happy, happy backwater hick
I'm a happy, happy backwater hick
I'm a happy, happy, happy
I'm a happy, happy, happy
I'm a happy, happy backwater hick

Great! I really liked the swaying from side to side bit and the little extra twang I know you added to your voice.

Now, you'll want to know the source of my inspiration, I'm sure. If you must know, I spent the majority of today driving in and around Pittsburgh, which is the big city nearest my home. First, we survived with relative ease the Herculean task of finding a parking place downtown. It was relatively easy because it took us less than 30 minutes. However to get through this particular parking structure one needed to get one's vehicle through spaces leaving about 3 inches leeway on either side (and no, I'm not exaggerating).

Part of the fun was that I was driving using Google directions to places I'd never been. On the third major leg of the trip, imagine my delight when I met the actual locations described in the directions without a hitch. The only problem was that the supposed destination Google found for me ended up being a storage facility instead of the museum I hoped it would be. A kind and clear-speaking gentleman in a gas station gave me perfect directions to the real location I needed. (I, for the record, am rarely clear-speaking when giving anyone else directions. It takes a certain type of brain to do that well.) I was then able to wed those directions to the next set of directions my husband had given me some hours before, and we picked him up from work.

Then the real fun began: a traffic jam causing the 45 minute trip to last close to two hours. And the car in front of me didn't even provide me with any entertaining bumper stickers! But at least my family was all together. (I have to publicly applaud my children who were amazingly good troupers all day long.)

So, I'm happy to live in a place where "bad traffic" means that school has just let out and it takes us 7 minutes to get home from the grocery store instead of 5, or that my biggest frustration is that the driver in front of me is going 15 in a 25. Or that a parking problem means walking an extra 50 yards. I've lived in medium-sized cities and in huge cities, but I have to say if ever I live in one again, I want to do so without ever needing the use of a car. At least, never in Pittsburgh!

The Meaning of Worship

At Mass on Wednesday, a memory was stirred up in me regarding the meaning of worship. During the Communion procession, we sang a song that repeated in the refrain "I worship, I worship You." As I meditated on this I remembered a whole slew of scenes.

In one of these I was an energetic, excited young charismatic, in my dining room listening to and singing (what are now really old) Hosanna! Integrity worship songs. I remember being struck with my own cluelessness about the connection between the resurrection of Christ and our worship of Him, other than that these were two "religious" things. "Worship" had heretofore meant something that happened when I went to church on Sunday. Now that I was "worshipping" at home on a weekday, I really had no idea what I was doing. I had to get out my Bible and figure out what really was so important about Jesus rising from the dead.

Throughout my pre-Catholic charismatic years I came to see worship as involving an intimate encounter with Jesus through prayer, usually done corporately, but not always. Worship meant allowing God's Holy Spirit to move my heart to reach out to God in prayer and praise and to allow God to meet me with His glory. And still, worshipping with my friends left this intense yearning in my heart. In another scene I remember walking from my apartment to my car one summer day with a yearning in my heart so painful that it absolutely could not be ignored. And yet, nothing I could offer God could satisfy it.

Just a few weeks before I finally took leave from Risen Savior Fellowship (my pre-Catholic church, or one of them) I attended a Sunday evening service with a guest preacher. He was an energetic one, a southern black gentleman who more or less sang his message. We had had, of course, the customary praise and worship at the beginning of the service, and in the small congregation it was not hard to pick out my voice, as I tend to sing with a lot of gusto. After his message, he invited those who wished to come forward for prayer. Nearly everyone but myself went forward. At the very last, this preacher called me forward. Now, I imagine that at least someone in the congregation was saying to himself "if you were truly a prophet, you would know what sort of woman this is!" Because you see, everyone knew I was leaving to become a Catholic. The preacher joyfully and loudly blessed my singing voice and told me that God sent me forth to worship Him and to teach others how to worship Him.

At the time I didn't think too much of what the preacher said, and in hindsight I still don't know that it was any inspired utterance. I haven't even thought about it in years. But I realized today that I hope this is one way that God is able to use me.

Today when I think of worship, I think of giving myself. I offer my life with Christ's offering of Himself on the altar to the Father. I make my daily offering of my duty, my joys, my sorrows, my labors, my prayers. I strive to live the Eucharistic giving throughout my day, whether it seems to be going well or not (that part doesn't matter, I think.) And best of all, I am fed. I am no longer left with this aching longing, for whose fulfillment I grope about in the dark. I am assured of Who fulfills this ache -- Jesus Himself, Whom I receive. The Eucharist is the pledge of heaven, the foretaste of the heavenly banquet, where we will gather, sing, fall down, and receive back the lives we have given away here in imitation of Him.

Doesn't it make you want to give your whole self away?!

Love Always, Trust As Possible

This morning while scrubbing a pan I had what I call a "naru hodo" moment. It's a moment when various factors that have long been with me suddenly converge in a way that makes me suddenly say to myself "Oh! Now, I see!"

This morning I was thinking about what Giussani says about verification and trusting witnesses. My mind ran through scenarios where certain individuals really could not, through no real fault of their own, be trusted to give me accurate information. But suddenly I saw something much bigger: People who are not trustworthy witnesses need not be feared or hated.

This may not be an astounding revelation to you, and actually I hope it isn't. I hope that others have not suffered through my difficulties with appropriately judging. However, in my life, I see that I have erroneously lumped love and trust together in a way that mandated they stay together, for good or for ill. Similarly I've lumped mistrust with either fear or hate, or some other expression which is actually a combination of those two, a word for which I can't produce right now. So I've had people I've loved but who have not been worthy of trust, and I've gotten burned by trusting them anyway. I've had other experiences of not even venturing trust and definitely not venturing love. I'm happy to say that both extremes of my experience are far back in my past. And yet, what of the subconscious effect of my previous "lumping" styles? I think this is what snapped into view today.

What is to be my attitude towards the person I cannot trust, or whom I cannot trust readily? Just like everyone else, when I am with them in mind or body, I stay aware of the reality of Christ. I stay aware of the presence of the Holy Spirit within me, allowing me to see Jesus present. Jesus is present in my pity, in my sympathy, for that person's need, and my own. That person has a need for Truth, for Beauty, for Goodness -- for Love -- for God, in other words, just as I have this need for Him.

I think the shock of this realization for me comes from the fact that I presumed, once, that hate was necessary, that making an enemy of the one I could not trust was necessary, out of self-defense. In my experience, particularly in my much younger days, people who proved untrustworthy also proved to usher in tremendous pain into my life. But because I found it impossible to express anything about this pain productively in the direction that I at least perceived it to belong, I instead lashed out against untrustworthy "categories" of people, like Catholics. It's strange, but true. Because I so strongly identified with my Protestant religion as "safe," my biggest target for vitriol was this amorphous entity I knew as "Catholics."

So of course God called me to become one of those, and one I've been for 15 years. And today while scrubbing a pan I saw this mental construct of mine as completely strange and defective. The truth is clear, and something I can now touch. Years ago, this would have hit me like a blast of dynamite: Love is for all people. My trust is not for all people to the same extent.

So how do you instill in a child that we Christians love all and trust as trust is earned? Other than, of course, modeling this behavior in our relationships, especially with our children? I think for me, the beginning of the answer to that lies in constantly beholding Christ, fixing my eyes on Him, and therefore being attracted, allowing the attraction, to everything that resonates with Him. What that is, and is not, becomes part of the joy of each day's discovery.

The Sad, Sad State of College English

Confession: I have fallen off the Nablopomo wagon. I fell asleep with my daughter last night at a shockingly early 8:30 pm (my typical nodding off time is about 4.5 hours later), and though I opened my eyes again before midnight struck and immediately thought of it, the thought obviously was not rousing enough to plunge me into the icy night air to my computer to rescue my Nablopomo streak. Oh well.

I wanted to pass along this interesting article: "The sad, sad state of college English." I do not claim to have immaculate grammar, and yes I was an English major in college. I remember using the improper form of break/brake in an English paper in college and my professor having a minor panic attack in red ink. Apparently grammar errors no longer automatically cause paper grades to plummet. Odd. The article reinforces in my mind the importance of parents reading to kids and kids reading to themselves. When I was in 6th grade (I note from my crate of writing samples I have kept from that age upward) I used British spellings quite frequently. It must have been from all the words displayed in print on Monty Python. And the odd book here and there that I read.

You Know You're at Our House...

... when the reason you are running late is that your coat is in the closet. The problem? The doorknob has fallen off, again, and you have to search the surrounding rooms to find it.

Blacky the Cat

I have been unbelievably delinquent to have not mentioned on this blog that we have a new addition to our household. For shame!

Blacky was a stray little kitten who literally followed my son into our family roughly a month ago. He was outside playing and came in with screams that he was being chased. I ran out to see a tiny black kitten bounding down the driveway after him. I am not particularly a softy when it comes to animals, but when I saw this kitten, my heart melted. How odd, when I had just mentioned to my husband not a week beforehand, after his confession that he did actually enjoy cats, that we should then get one.

Blacky, hours after we met.

I'm guestimating that Blacky was about two months old at that time. To me, it looks like she has already doubled in size. Eating will do that to you. She is extremely people-oriented, which I'm sure is why she sought us out to begin with. She makes a lovely lap blanket, and endures being carried by a doting three-year-old. She is also helpful in getting children to settle in to go to bed, hopping from one bed to the next as everyone nods off to sleep. Even my husband, supposedly allergic to cats, will find holding her a perfectly good excuse to take a nap. But she also serves as an alarm clock even if I don't want this service, as she will mistake a shifting body under blankets as a huge toy to be pounced upon and wrestled with.

We've all enjoyed her company. My daughter changes her name frequently, including: Barn Kitty, Blue and Red, Claire, Donkey and Brownie. She does actually look more and more brown, or slightly calico, with each passing day. And next we'll probably find out she's a he. But we're sure she's a cat.