Gotta Wrestle this Specter to the Ground

It's late, and I should be in bed, but it is also quiet in my house now, something that seems to never happen these days when I'm awake. So, I'm going to write. Write first, think about it later.

Awhile back I wrote this post about a song I was going to play on guitar with my church choir. The last comment dangling there in my combox was left unanswered, at least publicly: How did it go? That question in my own mind has been eating a hole in me ever since, and I think it is time I wrestle it to the ground. Isn't that what this blog is for, anyway?

Last Saturday evening after Mass my friend who does the cantor scheduling nabbed me and told me what a wonderful job I did with the song the week before. I don't hang on compliments as a rule, but I wanted to take that one and mentally frame it and look at it several times. It didn't really make that much of a difference, but at least it gave someone else's perception of reality to think about.

There was something very deeply strange about this experience of playing my guitar that Sunday. I was shaking, but it wasn't from nervousness. I've played in church, at Masses, in front of people, on stages, at concerts, in all sorts of settings -- for years. Like 30 of them. I started playing guitar when I was 11. No, the strange thing was how I brought that guitar into this context that has been so strangely powerful and meaningful in my life this year. When I showed up for choir practice the Tuesday before that Sunday (the day I wrote the aforementioned blog post) I actually left my guitar in the car at first, until Joe (the director) pointed out that it seemed I'd forgotten something. I joked about how, upon my arrival, I was only able to remember how badly I needed to use the restroom, so I'd left the guitar behind. But I knew that wasn't actually true. I needed the reassurance that he was serious about this proposition, and in fact I had almost left it at home out of disbelief. It was only a conversation, a casual request, after all. There was no, you know, blood pact or anything.

So, after rehearsal I stammered out to Joe something to the effect of "So, I assume I brought this thing here for some reason?" He invited me to let him hear it. The song, that is. Images flash through my mind: me and Gail, me and Marcia, me and Lothair, me and Joe Glatzel.... about 20 years worth of "listen to this song." But this is not "listen to this song," it is "let me hear it." This is not a cowardly demand from me, it is an invitation from him. My mind was fluttering like a butterfly trying to get outside through a solid pane of glass. Joe was fine with my honestly pitiful attempt at the picking of this song. I'm guessing he doesn't play guitar and therefore doesn't realize what it sounds like to me. We spend most of the time debating what key to play it in, all because I'm assuming he plans to play it the way he talked about hearing it -- with piano.

In a day or two I calm down and realize I don't know how to do the introduction, nor do I know exactly how to follow a piano. I realize I need to call Joe and ask him about this, but my strange case of phone phobia overtakes me. I put it off as long as I can, until Saturday morning. At which time I learn he expects me to do it alone, leading the choir and the congregation. I hang up the phone, and the more I think about it, the more I think he is nuts. I had arranged to meet him briefly after the Saturday Mass, and I try to suggest a change of plans. Does not fly. At all.

So Sunday arrives, and I can see my heart beating through my dress. My other choir pals assure me it will be fine. We never run through the introduction, and I'm cringing inside. Joe sits down to his prelude and assures me "you'll be just fine." Generally I believe him, but this time I knew he just had no idea what he was saying. At least, not to me.

The offertory came, and I played what I knew to be the introduction. I was the only one who knew that's what it was, just as I knew would happen. Oh, and I did completely fumble several chords, like fingers on the wrong fret fumble. When the choir was not cued in, I repeated the same chord for a couple of measures while seeing if I could taser Joe with my eyeballs. For some reason he didn't fall to the ground writhing in pain. He cued, we sang the song, and that was it.

But that was just what was visible and audible on the outside. What was going on inside me was screaming so loudly and rumbling so violently, and yet it took me several days to grasp it.

I can use this metaphor for how God has brought about healing and transformation in my life by the vehicle of this choir this year: It is like going through a photo album. I'm going about my business, and then God picks out a snapshot of my past, of my heart and holds it up for me to see. He asks me to look at it, and then to look at the reality around me. Then He asks me "Marie, is the reality you see now anything like this snapshot of the past?" And I eventually have to say, "No, Lord, it isn't." And I come to know and realize more deeply that the Lord is my Redeemer. This whole process doesn't happen in moments. It's more like weeks or months.

But that Sunday, it wasn't just a photo I was being shown. There was a real live artifact right there with me, AND I was singing a song I had learned back when I was a teenager. Double blast-from-the-past whammy. Somehow that experience dredged up not the image of me in music ministry at Franciscan University or at Risen Savior Fellowship, and not the memory of me with my friends, but the memory of a much more difficult reality. For many years, my guitar was my primary escape from emotional misery, sadness, depression, despair, isolation. I poured out my heart in songs that I wrote when I did not know how to speak to people. I wrote prayers when I did not know how to make any connection between Jesus and the Body of Christ, His Church, real people. For far longer than I care to think about I was very much like Simon and Garfunkel's I am a Rock: I've built walls/A fortress deep and mighty/That none may penetrate/I have no need of friendship; friendship causes pain/Its laughter and its loving I disdain.

And the truth was, when this "photo" was held before me to examine, it frightened me more than all the others I'd seen combined. That question: "Marie, is the reality you see now anything like this snapshot of the past?" frightened me. I did not see... I almost feel I should say I do not see, or am just seeing, that walls are something I build, or something I render flat. I determine admission to my fortress. Maybe friendship does cause pain, but living like a Rock causes all feeling to cease. It causes numbness. It causes walking death. I have tremendous need of friendship. I have tremendous friends. Like Joe often tells us in choir: you have the notes, you just need to believe that you have them! But at that moment, and in the aftermath of playing that song that Sunday, I could not believe. The question arose before me like the most frightening specter. And all I could see was my former self, holding that guitar, being alone. Like it was the only possibility for my life.

But the only way that specter could be true is if I could simultaneously deny how I came to be standing there that day with that $*#&! guitar in the first place! Sometimes I just cannot process reality that quickly. And sometimes it is simply very hard for me to accept happy things. I'm pretty good at gritting my teeth and weathering the icy wind ripping into me, but to simply feel the sunshine on my face and smile can cause me to get weepy.

So, my friends, do me this little favor. Help this recovering Rock and Island. Laugh with me for the joy of friendship.

But don't laugh at mistakes I make on the guitar or I shall hit you with it.

Giving an A

I am currently reading the book The Art of Possibility by Rosamund Stone Zander and Benjamin Zander. Rosamund Zander is a counselor, and Benjamin Zander is the conductor of the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra and is featured in the video below. Together they are a remarkable couple, determined to face life as a conversation of possibilities rather than as a set of fixed (and negative) circumstances with a predetermined outcome.




I have not yet completely worked through the philosophical underpinnings of Zanders' approach, but I must say that from a pragmatic point of view, it is tremendously effective and freeing. One of practices this book discusses is that of "giving an A." This means that one first gives up living with a mindset of facing the behaviors of others (and oneself) with an eye to judging efforts and output, measuring against my infinite desire how much I am pleased by the results before me. Instead, I decide to bring to the relationship before me an attitude, a decision, a desire, to see "an A," the best, and to share the excitement of living that brings forth the best from both people in the relationship. Both persons are focused not on making the grade (and therefore on themselves) but on the greater possibilities open to them, of becoming something greater, of inspiring others.

This sort of thing works well in the context of musical and business leadership, which is the intended audience of the book. But there is also a striking passage in the book where Rosamund tells the story of coming to a new understanding of the relationship she had with her father after he had passed away. She tells how her parents divorced shortly after her birth, and how she had but intermittent contact with him through her childhood and into her early adulthood. After his death (at his own hand), she realized she had given him a grade of about a B- or a C. Why? Clearly, he didn't love her. And how could he, when he hardly knew her? Then suddenly it struck her that she had settled on her harsh judgment as truth: "He didn't love me." She saw how this evaluation had colored all of her intimate relationships. She realized that this just might not be fair at all, based on what she could objectively recount of her father. She decided to start with "giving him an A," with the thought "He did love me," and what could be concluded from that: "He knew me, to a degree at least." Starting from that brand new perspective, she thought about what could have brought about the type of relationship he had with her, and indeed with everyone in his life. She saw that he did not feel he had anything of value to offer her or others. This paradigm shift enabled her to see their relationship in a completely different light. She recalled that the day after this thought exercise she found a letter from him that not only expressed his love, but expressed his hope that she would pursue a career in helping others because of her giftedness in this area. It was as if she had never seen that letter before; at least she never had been able to take in what he tried to offer her. She could now see that her father knew her in just the way her heart desired, but it had been her judgment that stood in the way of receiving it.

This account really resonates with me and my own experiences with my father, and other relationships. It is impossible that any human being fill the abyss of our needs. It seems we can either go around being disappointed in others and in what life offers, or we can reckon our needs met -- in Christ -- and really see Christ making things new in our lives. The Zanders don't speak of Christ, though I can't help but see that he stands in the direction they point, even though they might believe that the beautiful reality they decide to create really is only a product of their creativity, nothing more.

Here is a passage Benjamin quotes from a letter written to him in response to one of his presentations.

We keep looking so hard in life for the "specific message," and yet we are blinded to the fact that the message is all around us, and within us all the time. We just have to stop demanding that it be on OUR terms or conditions, and instead open ourselves to the possibility that what we seek may be in front of us all the time.

It seems to me that this possibility in our lives indeed bears the name Emmanuel.

What Experiences do you Want?

My son often comes out with questions or comments that tip me off-balance for a moment, in a good way, I mean. This morning on the way home from Mass he asked me, "Mom, what experience would you most like to have?" I knew what he was driving at, and I knew that an answer like "the salvation of the world" wouldn't cut it for him. It would have to be a real experience; something he would be able to see. I really had to think about this, and allow myself into that part of my heart that holds my desires. It's not until he asks me something like this that I'm able to realize how little I live within my desires. So I told him I'd like to gather my friends together to sing, at my friend Suzanne's house. (That's so I wouldn't have to clean my own! Just kidding.)

I was still meditating on that when he told me what his for top desired experiences are: to get married, to own his own computer, to play with his friends, and to sing.

And he's been singing all day about a sweetheart named Cotton Candy: "When I kiss you, you just melt! And if I lick you, you turn into sugar -- my sugar!" (We recently won a candy gift basket at a Chinese Auction, in case you are wondering.)

How many fewer smiles I would have without my son.

Random Political Thoughts: Views

So in my last post in this series I rambled on about my personal history as it pertains to the formation of my political thought. Now I'm going to try to wade into how things have evolved for me in the last year or so, leading me to certain current positions and working views.

Where I've been in the last year is in reading a lot about economics and the role of the Constitution in the vision of America's founders. I've been in the midst of the Tea Party movement and the Campaign for Liberty movement, both of which pull in people from a variety of backgrounds, politically and otherwise. I've been talking with strangers while collecting signatures and holding meetings and attending events. I've been following what my Congressional Reps are doing, reading lots of websites and processing different views on the many issues that have rushed on this nation. Most of the time I feel like it is all swirling in my head.

This political learning has grown up in me at the very same time as a sort of new awakening or conversion in my life as pertains to my interactions with other people and reality in general. (I can't possibly recap all that here, but just read through a bunch of posts in the last year and you'll get a sense of what I mean, if you are outside the realm of the two or three people who devotedly hang on my every blogged word). For me personally, although I do not enjoy politics as a "sport" and there is much about the discussion of it that I have a strong aversion to, I feel that if I try to avoid the political reality in which we live, it is a serious breech of charity towards the world at large. Oh, there is no person called "the world at large," but I cannot lose the sense that at some point, specific details of the lives of individuals become impacted by political trends and decisions. To only express concern at the point when an individual need arises in front of me is like when a person crosses the threshold from seriously overweight to obese. The time for concern and action is long before that moment, and the concern has to focus on far more than trimming back that decisive pound. I am being convicted and convinced that political awareness is an integral part of charity, just like health awareness in my example is an integral part of self-care.

I have a driving need to pursue the root causes of things. My brain works by seeing the broad picture and making connections, and not so much by making black and white judgments about rightness and wrongness. So I am not particularly interested in taking up sides, condemning bad policy or bad politicians, or in championing individuals or a party with whom I agree. These attributes of mine also make the supposed "impracticality" of political approaches of little concern to me. Some political views are judged "too idealistic" to work in the real world. Some candidates are judged to have "low electability" as well, and so party hacks gravitate towards popular people with whom they don't entirely agree. This is not my style. My goal is not to fix humanity's problems with politics, because this is impossible. My goal is to understand humanity's problems, because somehow for me understanding is a necessary precursor to charity.

I was really encouraged to come across this from Pope Benedict recently: "...normally those who determine the future are the creative minority." He spoke this in the context of visiting the Czech Republic, where Catholics are clearly a minority, and he was calling them to live their faith in such a way as to become leaven in society.

Ok, so here are some random thoughts:

• I feel many who are concerned with social justice often look to the government to be the catalyst, moderator, and governor of said social justice. True social justice, however, is a work of grace, and the government is not a means of grace, the Church is. Without grace, "social justice" quickly devolves into power and domination games. What the world cries out for cannot be contained in a government program. The truth is, though, that the local churches are far too anemic to do the job they are commissioned by the Lord to do. So perhaps the first political responsibility of the Christian is to repent of how we treat others.
  

• Totalitarianism is to me the most sinister political enemy. However I feel we in the United States have come to accept and even welcome it. I believe that many act out the false belief that rights are derived by citizens from the State, rather than the belief that rights are given by God to the individual, and the individual entrusts some of these to governing structures which exist only at the behest and service of the citizenry. You never see Totalitarianism 101 taught anywhere, but I do believe that our culture has been formed by government schooling with the belief that we exist not for God but for the state, or for some power that is extraneous to us.
  

• This is something I never thought I'd see myself write, but I think Christians have been taken advantage of by primarily the Republican party and the right to life movement. Anyone who knows me knows I am absolutely opposed to abortion, abortion funding, euthanasia, in vitro fertilization, infanticide, cloning, and all of the other direct affronts to human life. But I'm sure I am not the only one who closed my eyes to everything else ever done by a pro-life candidate, as long as we were in agreement on that ideological position. And in the meantime, how often haven't I felt "ah, ok, a good guy won... now we'll all be safe and I don't have to pay attention or worry about those other details". Christians need to be wiser voters. And I'm talking to myself first. We need to wake up en masse and demand a real difference between the totalitarianism lite candidate, who wears a cross pin in the lapel, and the totalitarianism full-flavored candidate, with a UN flag in the lapel.
  

• I am quite persuaded that a sound money policy is very important at this juncture in our history, and that if we had such a policy in effect we would be forced to curtail some of our most dangerous spending. Stated another way, if the government couldn't create all the money it wanted (thereby causing inflation and loss of currency value), it wouldn't be able to spend like the proverbial drunken sailor on war and waste. Government would be bound by the reality that there is only so much money, and once it is gone, it is gone. Like I try to tell my 8-year-old son.

• Health care: Europe has something over the United States, and it isn't socialism. The European first line of defense tends to be a natural, herbal, homeopathic, or "alternative" approach. These approaches are not regulated off to the side-lines or ridiculed by the medical establishment (that I am aware of). We Americans have tremendous innovation in life-saving medicine and surgical procedures, but we also have huge problems that derive largely from how we feed ourselves and use our bodies, and medical management of these problems is very ineffective. Well, no, that's not true. The management is effective, if you don't mind staying on drugs for a lifetime. The paradigm of curing illness has all but vanished from American medicine. Root cause? Who cares, if the pill changes the symptom. The history of the war between the American Medical Association and other approaches such as homeopathics, chiropractic, etc., is very intriguing to me. Until we change our view of how we care for ourselves, and throw the FDA and their good friends the drug companies back to the back of the bus instead of having them lead the whole show, talk about reform of how we will pay for all of this drug peddling is seriously missing the mark.

Well, that certainly doesn't exhaust every thought I could articulate, but it is a start.

Jesus is building a structure of love -- Us!

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

October 1, 2009

Jesus

My dear children, I am with you. I watch closely as you struggle for holiness. Often, you are uncertain of your spiritual condition. You strive to serve but feel conflicted by the times in which you are serving. There are some things that all humanity deals with regardless of where in history they are placed. First, there will always be a difference between the world’s path and heaven’s path. These two paths, while they can run along side each other for increments, will always separate. Ultimately, each man will have to choose. Every man, to a greater or lesser degree, will have to contend with choosing first good over evil and then he will have to make another choice and that is the choice of choosing My plan for his life over his own plan for his life. After that, the choices become even more studied in that the man must choose My plan in each day, in each task and even in each moment. You may say, dear apostle, that this is a difficult call for a man, to study his actions in each day. You may say, this is asking a lot. You are right. I, Jesus, am asking a lot of you. I ask for your full commitment and I do so without apology. Dearest apostles, if you give me your full commitment, there is no limit to what I can do. Look at your life. You have said yes to me on many days. Examine what I have done with your yes answers. Consider what I am building with the commitments of so many children of God who are willing to be directed by the Saviour, their King. I am building a structure of love. I am building a structure through which many are returning. Truly, your hearts, open and filled with My love, call out to others. You provide for Me a welcome to those who feel separated. If they can be taken into your heart for even a brief moment and experience Me, with My love, then they will have the courage to both approach Me directly and to accept Me directly. Please, do not count the sacrifices when you consider your service. Do not count the loss of worldly respect. Count only the souls who are comforted and consoled. Count the repentance and healing of so many who have been restored to unity with heaven. Count the humility that I have bestowed on you, dear apostle, since you began to learn about true holiness. I am your King. I can give you anything. I choose to give you peace and holiness. I choose to make of you a resolute servant. Accept My will in your life and you will then be able to accept all of the graces heaven has stored up for you.

Random Political Thoughts: History

In the last year or so I have come to be known among my local friends and acquaintances as interested in and active in politics. Of course this stems largely from my organizing the Tax Day Tea Party in my town, an endeavor that almost seems surreal to me as I look back on it.

And now recently I've been in a couple of internet conversations where the Catholicity of my political views has been more or less called into question. But I think this primarily has stemmed from the fact that I've not really stated my views, but rather I've been reflecting on my views while commenting on the ideas and actions of others.

So I've entitled this post "Random Political Thoughts" because I want to try to formulate where my mind is right now, and it seems that the only way I can really do this is to think out loud at you.

History: I come from a family that is more or less Democrat, and because my mother has been an election judge since I was very small, I imbibed a strong sense of the importance of voting from that time. My brother has also had political jobs and has run for state office. For that matter, one of my jobs fresh out of college was a four-year stint at a state Right to Life office. While before having that job I held the view that I voted for whomever was pro-life, there wasn't really much that I understood about the mechanics of politics and bills and elections and all that. I learned a lot during those years about legislation, politics, pro-life issues, media, and about the passions that fuel political endeavors.

When I met my husband I realized he was really into politics. He didn't like football, but he did get very excited once an election cycle came around. I learned to cringe and wait until it was over. I was still pretty much of the mind that I voted for whomever was pro-life, and if I had the choice, whomever between pro-lifers was strongest on conservative issues like banning pornography, being for prayer in schools, and whoever was "most Christian." I wasn't interested in economic issues nor did I have any understanding of them, and I simply trusted that those who were pro-life were also going to have all the right ideas about the rest of it, whatever that blather was that didn't matter as much anyway.

September 11, 2001 came around, and with the rest of the world I was shocked. I had liked what George Bush said during the debates about staying out of the business of the rest of the world, but then again I did feel very safe when I listened to his speeches in the days following 9/11. I figured he was trustworthy because he was pro-life, and he invoked God, and I felt better trusting him. When he said it was patriotic for us to go out and spend money, we went out and spent money.

When the invasion of Iraq was brewing, I felt really uneasy. I didn't like this idea, and I knew the Pope didn't like this idea either. I told my husband I was willing to trust Bush on this, and I hoped he wasn't making a mistake. I also had trusted that the Patriot Act was necessary to keep us safe, and that those who were complaining about our liberties being curtailed weren't being responsible. I bought the line that we needed to give up freedom to get security, that it was all about the common good.

The Bush/Kerry election was a cake-walk to me: pro-lifer vs. pro-abortion Catholic. No-brainer.

In 2007 a yard sign caught my eye, and I began reading things about Ron Paul. He had my attention with his stand in favor of increased role for natural, or non-allopathic health care and for a sharp curtailment in federal involvement in education (Bush's No Child Left Behind had been a complete boo-hiss in my book from the first time I heard his discuss it in the 2000 debates.) Paul's pro-life commitment was sterling and articulated differently from other candidates. I didn't quite know what to make of his thing about ending the "war on drugs", but as I read I saw what he was saying as at least tenable. And the more I read in general, the more I felt like I was hearing from a person I could actually support.

When I first told my husband that I'd found someone I could support, he said derisively "oh that nut job?" I think my husband's primary cause for dismissal of Ron Paul is that he was against the war in Iraq. And being against the war in Iraq was not something conservatives did.

Ok, so that's where I've come from.

And I can see that I will need to continue in another post on another day, so, please stay tuned.

The Servant Song

Last weekend our choir director told me about this lovely song he'd just heard when he was away. He thought it would be great for me to play the guitar part as he played the piano and the choir led the congregation. And then he tells me the title: The Servant Song.

Oh, man!

This is a song I have known and loved since I was roughly 12 or 13. Once upon a time it had a different meaning to me, a sort of a wishing for real people to whom I could address the song. And now... well, all I can say is that it is a very providential choice, out of all the Christian songs in the history of mankind done with guitar, for him to propose this way.

Here is the author of the song singing it. (Unfortunately, embedding is disabled.) The gendered words have changed a bit: I learned it just as "Brother, let me be your servant," but the version in our hymnals is different yet again. Scroll down on the youtube site to read the lyrics.

Unusual Graces

Since my post about comfort zones, I've been thinking again of my early days as a Catholic. God gave me many, many unusual graces in those days, because He knew what my special needs package had to contain, and I guess because He saw my rather extensive limitations. Like not having a single friend with whom I shared my faith with within 75 miles. Then I had but two, and one more an ocean away. And with all my social limitations, I'd just left behind, or been left behind by, nearly all of my non-Catholic friends.

I was thinking about one of those unusual graces today, and it made me laugh in a sort of comfortable way, so comfortable that I'll even risk sharing it. Sometimes Jesus would sing to me as I prayed. I recorded all these events, like transcribing little love notes, but this one I'd remember even if I hadn't written it down. After I received communion one weekday, I heard the Lord sing to me the refrain of this song. I'm not kidding. And I think it is always true, truer today than ever!

The Philosophy of Liberty

I've watched this video several times recently. It fascinates me on many levels. In the political realm, it sums up my inclinations quite well. But it equally well sums up my parenting inclinations and my educational inclinations. It always seems to me that having a concisely articulated summary of key points allows me to focus and live truth in a way that frees me from getting clogged up by conflicting emotions and rationalizations.

However, while this video addresses justice in human interrelations, it does not make anything explicit about where our lives come from. And for some, I suppose, this question may not loom hugely obvious in the mind: Did I make myself? My answer to this is an obvious No, of course I did not make myself. The life I have as mine is a gift, just as the life each other person has is a gift. So, this video can say that the first principle of Liberty is that I own my life, and it is true. However, it is also true that my life is a gift, given by my Creator. To me, the lack of this connection being made explicit is not a difficulty. In fact, to me, it makes the fact more plain because it actually causes me to think of the question.

So, this is a very useful tool for me to meditate on how to live in justice, and in charity, (for can you separate them?) with other people. And that's just something I need to spend a lot of time meditating on these days.

In Which I Laugh at the Concept of Having a Comfort Zone

At School of Community on Saturday, we got talking about living in comfort zones. A woman who is new to our gathering asked me if I still experienced today what I had recounted as a past tendency, namely of living in a tiny pin-prick of a comfort zone. "Oh no," I replied. "If anything, this year it has been God's work to completely demolish any comfort zones I've had. I'm never comfortable anymore!"

I've been thinking these last few days just how true my off-hand comment was. I feel like I have been living in the midst of a personal seismic shift this year, and anytime I think it has settled it seems to start up again. Oh, I have comfort all right. It exists in the objective, external order of my life. Husband, family, home, community -- all blessedly stable. We have good health, my husband is employed, and life is good. Perhaps it is precisely because of these things that other aspects of my life have been free to turn over in upheaval.

When I think of the term comfort zone I think of the story of the first meeting of RCIA (Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults) I attended as a catechist in my parish. This would have been in September of 2000. I dearly wanted to be involved in this process, designed for adult converts to the Catholic faith, and in fact it was the reason why we moved to a new parish one year after our marriage. But I sat on our couch, cuddled up in a ball next to my hubby, petrified. I was so nervous about finding the right door to enter (the meetings were held in the pastor's basement, which was like a mini parish hall). I was nervous about meeting all these new people. There I sat with him, probably in tears or close to it. It was all for good reason, too, because I was a lousy catechist that year, if I do say so myself. I was so out of touch with people's needs.

I also think of the first couple School of Community meetings I attended, back in 2006. A couple times I mustered up my courage to actually say something, and once someone sort of talked right over what I said (someone I didn't know then, or now, just to clarify). I felt so flattened that I couldn't bring myself to attend for several months. It was just too hard to try to open myself up at that level to risk my herculean effort going unheard.

And now, there's now.

Something amazing has happened to me. I think it is called Jesus Christ. Oh, I've believed in Jesus and followed Jesus since childhood, truly. But I have come into a completely different experience of His Church, though I've been here a good long time, too. I remember vividly a comment John Michael Talbot made on the pilgrimage I took back in 1993, right after entering the Church. We were at the church of the tomb of Lazarus, where I experienced an incredibly profound grace during Mass. I sobbed so hard I could not contain myself, nor hardly walk. (That's not to say that hard sobbing marks how profound one's experience is, but for me the sobbing was a mark of my heart being penetrated by Something not under my control.) The whole group knew my story of recent conversion. John Michael commented that sometimes an individual enters the Church, but it takes time for the Church to enter the individual. How correct he was. At that moment, I knew that I was going to discover in the Catholic Church that which, until that moment, I had somewhat despaired of finding: true, living Christianity. Truth is one thing. But how does one find the truth being lived?

It doesn't take finding a crowd of already perfect people. Tried finding those. No dice. It takes finding people with hungry hearts, who are willing to live that way, with hunger. People who take the desires of their human heart, longing for God, seriously, and who take the desires of others seriously. It takes knowing that being human means being made for God and being satisfied with nothing but Him.

Communion and Liberation has taught me to see this way. To see everything and everyone this way. And somewhere along the line I have changed. My heart has been thrown open to relationships with people in ways I could not have planned or even wanted a couple of years ago. My vision of reality has taken a huge shift: Reality is God's love! It is Him, His presence here with me. And I know it is reality I must live in and share with others. No more silly dream worlds or Utopian religious ideals. Love is an incredible force which shapes us to be like It by making us more ourselves. The more I become who God made me to be, the more others see not me, but Him.

I don't know if comfort will ever return, or if this is like feeling coming back into an arm that had gone numb, and I've been confusing comfort with numbness all these years. Yeah, I'm guessing that's it. Even if this has been a wild ride, I'm loving every minute of it.

Action and Drama

Sometimes conversations with my son make me stop in my tracks with a moment of wonder. Today something like this happened.

It was a typical unschooling morning; as I cleaned the house and my daughter played a game, my son watched a Star Trek movie. I noticed he turned it off a few times to play outside or otherwise wander away, only to return later to watch some more. When it finished, he came to share his evaluation of it.

First, he asked me if I'd liked Star Trek as a child. Not so much, I told him. He informed me that the ending was really exciting, because that's where all the action was, but in the build up there was a lot of drama. I gathered that, because I know him to be a total "action man," that the drama was not so interesting to him. But I told him "the drama is what gives meaning to the action."

Ok wait, back up. This was a typical unschooling morning, and my daughter played a game and my son watched a Star Trek movie, and as I cleaned the house I was praying with just a bit of tension in my heart: "Lord, you've given me these children to raise. Show me, please, what they really need. I need to you reach into my son's heart and awaken him to his purpose." It is not always easy to unschool, because it involves a heck of a lot of trust in one's children as auto-didacts and in our life as a teacher. Parents don't often spend a lot of time worrying that a typical school day is wasting a child's life (though perhaps they should), but at the very least, I'd like some help cleaning from my movie-watching son, you know?

So, I heard these words come out of my mouth, and I saw them go into my son's heart. Later he talked again about "the drama" of something else. And in the meantime I had a realization that put me into wonder. Something very valuable had just transpired.

Being eight is a time when an action man starts to realize there is more to life than doing; there is also the answer to the question "why". There is this quest for meaning. Why bother to do what I am doing? What import does this have? How can I live without getting bored? What is my purpose? This is the drama of life.

We can go through life doing, ignoring our purpose in our activities. This isn't good. We can go through life with grandiose drama, without engaging reality around us. This also isn't good. Or we can live all of our actions, all of our doings, aware that they point to a great purpose, our ultimate destiny, oneness with Christ.

And Star Trek can help us both to understand this connection.

And mothers can have peace and wonder while sorting laundry.

Psalm 116

I will walk before the Lord, in the land of the living.

I love the Lord because he has heard
My voice in supplication
Because he has inclined his ear to me
The day I called

I will walk before the Lord, in the land of the living.

The cords of death encompassed me;
The snares of the netherworld seized upon me;
I fell into distress and sorrow,
And I called upon the name of the Lord, "O LORD, save my life!"

I will walk before the Lord, in the land of the living.

Gracious is the Lord and just;
Yes, our God is merciful.
The LORD keeps the little ones;
I was brought low, and he saved me.

I will walk before the Lord, in the land of the living.

For he has freed my soul from death,
My eyes from tears, my feet from stumbling.
I shall walk before the Lord
in the land of the living.

I will walk before the Lord, in the land of the living.

The Anatomy of Longing

This week I've had a couple of comments land in my heart and provoke quite a stewing. Yes, I know, it doesn't take much to provoke quite a stewing for me, and I do enjoy it so. I'm hoping that in blogging this I will be able to sort of clear up some brain space for other life activities.

The first was a simple observation made by my pal Joe, our choir director, as we listened to three different versions of Palestrina's Sicut Cervus, which we spent no little effort to learn in the Spring. He quoted the Psalm on which the piece is based, "As the deer longs for running streams, so my soul thirsts for You..." and commented on how this lends to a "nice, peaceful feel" to the notes flowing over each other. Immediately inside my head it was as if I heard a needle being yanked off a record. It took me, of course, quite some time to put that immediate sense into words, which is why I've been stewing instead of already having lectured him on this. This much I will grant: the idea of running streams is a nice, peaceful image. But the idea of longing, of thirsting is about as far from peaceful as I can imagine.

Have you ever been thirsty? Like to the point of the thirst hurting you? You say to yourself, and I dare say a deer would say the same, could she form the words, "If I do not find water, I am GOING TO DIE!" I'll faint, the wolves will attack me, I'll be ripped to shreds, I'll die. Finding water becomes a passionate, all-consuming, life-or-death quest. And this is the image to which the Psalmist compares the soul's thirst for God. If I do not find the face of my God, I AM GOING TO DIE! I will become bitter or despondent or arrogant or attach myself to some other sin as a crutch doomed to fail me, and I will die.

The Sicut Cervus is not a violently passionate piece, by any means. And in my humble and uneducated view of this music, I believe this is because Palestrina wrote with faith. This piece is the end of his collection of Lamentations for Holy Saturday, meant to just precede the Easter Vigil. The second part of the motet ends with the words "My tears have been my food day and night as all day long I am taunted 'Where is your God?'" Palestrina knows where his God is. Hence, he is not longing with the desperation of one whose hope has been destroyed. He is longing for the One he knows is present, but not fully. To me, this is the achiest kind of longing. It's the glass of water that is being poured right in front of you, you want it so badly, but it isn't yet in you, recharging your cells. You see God, miraculously He comes to you in His Word, in His Sacraments, but you aren't yet in heaven. The passion of the longing reflects the Beauty of what the longing one desires. I think this is what softens the tone of the piece. I think this is why I have become so incredibly fond of this particular motet.

Then a few days later my friends Suzanne and Jeff brought me this lovely virtual church sign:


The quote states: "The foundation of poverty is on the certainty that God fulfills what He makes you desire." I'm guessing that this is from the latest School of Community reading on poverty. This takes my thoughts about longing in a different direction. I posted not too terribly long ago about a conversation with a then-newly-married that has stuck in my mind, regarding whether the delights which God places in our lives are really ours to "keep" or set our hearts on. One could consider it a very realistic thought process to say, No, if I have children whom I love or a spouse whom I love or friends whom I love or a pastor whom I love, etc., these people are not mine to keep. They could at any moment die, or by some awful turn of events we could become alienated, etc. etc. But this kind of realism for some of us is about as cuddly as a steel blade, and makes it almost impossible to bond with anyone, for constant fear of loss. This truth, that, first of all, God puts desires in our hearts, and secondly, He fulfills, is the answer of complete relief to this option of cuddling up with a steel blade of "reality". God is love: that is reality. God is my Father: that is my origin. God made me for Himself: that is my destiny. The desires He places in my heart come from His love, His Fatherhood, and His desire for my destiny. I can trust them, and moreover I should trust them.

Longing, then, becomes safe to the extent that my heart responds to a desire that comes from God. And it's a win-win, because to the extent that my heart's desire is tainted by my impurity, I present this heart constantly to Him and in the process my heart is purified. I've prayed for a pure heart so often from the perspective of being too embarrassed to have an impure heart! So stupid. Basically my prayer was "God, I want to always look good to myself and others, so please purify me." In response, God has at times taken my hand and walked me through things that made me feel quite besmudged! Hello!? It's not about you, remember? Purity don't always look like what you think it does, honey.

So longing is a passionate, but not hopelessly desperate or vain search for God's presence. I see now that this has been a constant striving of my soul, although in the past my search was much less informed by faith. At times I believed that what Palestrina writes of was completely impossible on earth and possible only in heaven. I did not grasp Christ's sacramental presence, nor the power of His Holy Spirit, nor the fellowship of the Body of Christ here on earth.

These are signs, they are like the water being poured, and even the water we drink, though we remain thirsty. We have what we long for, and we long for what we have to be made fuller. And I think if we have ceased to long we have ceased to live, whether we realize it or not.

Unity and Begging

A greater awareness of our unity as Christians stems from begging heaven for everything we need, rather than imagining our good comes from us.

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

September 1, 2009

Jesus

Dear apostles, I remind you to ask heaven for the graces you require. In order to work in My plan, united to My will, you must be in the habit of asking for all that you need. This constant petitioning for help in your service creates in you an awareness of the unity within which you serve. In this way, you will begin to understand that nothing can be attributed to you except your willingness to serve. You will receive the graces you require, of course, and with these graces will come humility because you will acquire an understanding of the relationship between your requests and heaven’s answers. If heaven is supplying you with all that you need to complete the tasks heaven has assigned to you, then you cannot take credit for what is being accomplished. You may say that you are already doing this. I respond that I want you to increase both your dependence on heaven and your awareness of your dependence on heaven. Each day, every day, ask heaven for help throughout the day. My beloved apostles, I am preparing you for a new time which will bring you joy because you will serve peacefully in complete trust. Why would a child fret when his Father sees to his every need? Truly, you are united to heaven. I seek only to instill in you a greater awareness of your unity. I, your Jesus, call on you for dedication and sacrifice, it is true, but not without cause and not without benefit. See to My interests in your day, please. In turn, I will protect your intentions. Spread joy and goodness. Spread unity and peace. Spread trust in God who will never abandon His children.

Why?

This morning after Mass, my pastor told me he'd seen me on TV the day before. Remembering the clip (which you can see here), I reflexively responded to him, "How terribly embarrassing!" To which my pastor simply but pointedly responded, "Why?" There was a lot of hubbub going on around us at the time, and it was stated somewhat rhetorically. But that question, and that little exchange has hung in my mind today. Why, indeed.

Maybe it was the sign I was holding. Someone handed it to me. Because I was supposed to be in the meeting that got canceled, not standing outside with protesters, I didn't have a sign of my own making. The sign said "I am not your ATM machine." And yes, it is true that I believe government should not impose oppressive, and especially unconstitutional, taxes. Truth be told, though, I am not at all good at standing up and saying "What is happening to me is unjust." I don't think this is a virtue, but I am more inclined to accept injustice to myself than protest it. So, perhaps it was the sign that expressed personal indignation at injustice that seemed embarrassing.

Or maybe it is just that I still have this reflex about sharing something out of my heart in public.

Why am I always spilling my guts in my blog then? TV is just a different form of media... Ok, never said this was a logical feeling.