I am learning. I'm not exactly sure of the chicken-egg sequence involved, but I am learning that when I have a question for the Lord about how to do what He's asked me to do, the question just might exist because He wants to teach me about it.
In general terms, the thrust of my prayer is always the conversion of souls. For years it has just seemed to me that there really isn't anything else that matters all that much. Yes, that could be argued, but basically it seems now that it is just indicative of personal vocation.
But in these days I have a specific situation for which I am praying for particular people, connected to a particular event at a particular time. And suddenly to simply say, "Lord, grant graces of conversion" just doesn't seem to cut it. Or rather, it stirs a deeper question in me: Lord, how do I pray? What is this, anyway?
And two answers come.
The first was a teaching, a fact, that I had previously taken in my head and heart as information, but struck me with a much more personal force today: "[T]he prayer of the Church is at the same time 'the prayer of Christ and his body to the Father.' We must recognize, therefore, as we celebrate the Office, our own voices echoing in Christ, his voice echoing in ours." (from the Apostolic Constitution on The Divine Office, 8.)
This refers specifically to praying the Liturgy of the Hours, but it highlights some truths about prayer. When we pray with the Church, and hence when we pray with Scripture, it is not our will or our heart we pray, but God's. And when we voice human misery in this context (as we do so often in the Psalms), we don't do it on our personal behalf, but on behalf of God's people. We are literally praying for the people, saying the words of God confessing human misery for those who may or may not be calling out to God on behalf of their own misery.
Turning that same truth over, there's this facet to highlight: God desperately wants to pour Himself out in mercy over our misery. He wants to enfold His people with His healing love, and He will, in response to His Church calling out to Him. Now I see why it is such an honor to pray the Liturgy of the Hours: to lift the voice of the Church before God calls down, as St. Therese saw it, the love pent up in the heart of God for lack of someone asking for it to be unleashed.
The second answer was a reminder of a truth God has put a lot of energy into my getting: the power of a daily offering scooping up all of our work during the day, offering it to Him for the salvation of souls, with an ever watchful eye on acting with love for God and love for the people in my life that I serve. The fact that this strikes me has a lot to do with how my mind was war turf for years over the doctrine of total depravity and whether human action have any worth before God at all. But it is true: the Holy Spirit does indeed flow through us by grace in our souls through our actions, even our attitudes. And so we can indeed offer that flow as prayer for souls. This is why, for example, saints tell us that for the love of God we occasionally (or more than occasionally, depending on our vocation and circumstances) need to leave our prayer to serve the people who come to us. Moms usually get this. But to be honest, everything about this offering-of-actions facet of spiritual life I've had to learn like a second language due to my early formation.
Pray and work. Offer it up. Pray God's word.
Pithy sayings like this generally do nothing for me to actually teach me. But they encapsulate truth. Naru hodo.
Tuesday, March 17, 2015
Monday, March 16, 2015
Dear Ms. Disappointed Catholic Blogger Woman
I read this post earlier today about a woman's disappointment with belonging to an average parish, and how she found her solace in books. It made me a bit sad. I mean, everyone should do good spiritual reading, and I'm all for the good things it can do for your interior life. But it made me sad that she has not seemed to resolve any of the negative people experiences she has encountered as an ex-Evangelical Protestant.
Them people; we need them.
When our interior life is shaped by other believers, and I don't mean just by having Christian BFFs, but because we have thrown in our lot with people because they were somehow part of the scene when Jesus came among us and did something amazing -- when these people become part of our faith journey, God can use the smallest thing to teach whole lessons in seconds. Because there is joint experience and joint memory. And Jesus is right there in the midst of it, just like He said He would be.
I had one such moment yesterday. And the other person involved is by no means my BFF. That made it all the better lesson.
In this thing called the Church, the mystical Body of Christ, we are all called by Christ to give our all -- everything we've got -- for love of Him and also for the good of our fellows. My giving my all is actually needed by other members of the Body, just as their giving all is needed by me. Even when particular members may not exactly be thrilled with each other, we do actually need each other, and the rest of the Body actually needs both our input to work together. In other words, our love for Christ and the gift we make of ourselves really does have to supersede whatever differences or hard feelings may exist. It's ideal when there's nothing to supersede, but in the meantime we are called to keep rendering the gift.
All that in a one-second glance.
So, Ms. Disappointed Catholic blogger woman (and her tribe), I pray that God will lead you to an experience of grace amidst the people of your average, disappointing parish. Beautiful Christian community, a supernatural experience of Jesus among us in the flesh, doesn't always mean everyone feels good. In fact, woe to you if good feelings are what you have your heart set on. But keep looking for Him in your parish. God might just have a surprise up His sleeve for you.
Them people; we need them.
When our interior life is shaped by other believers, and I don't mean just by having Christian BFFs, but because we have thrown in our lot with people because they were somehow part of the scene when Jesus came among us and did something amazing -- when these people become part of our faith journey, God can use the smallest thing to teach whole lessons in seconds. Because there is joint experience and joint memory. And Jesus is right there in the midst of it, just like He said He would be.
I had one such moment yesterday. And the other person involved is by no means my BFF. That made it all the better lesson.
In this thing called the Church, the mystical Body of Christ, we are all called by Christ to give our all -- everything we've got -- for love of Him and also for the good of our fellows. My giving my all is actually needed by other members of the Body, just as their giving all is needed by me. Even when particular members may not exactly be thrilled with each other, we do actually need each other, and the rest of the Body actually needs both our input to work together. In other words, our love for Christ and the gift we make of ourselves really does have to supersede whatever differences or hard feelings may exist. It's ideal when there's nothing to supersede, but in the meantime we are called to keep rendering the gift.
All that in a one-second glance.
So, Ms. Disappointed Catholic blogger woman (and her tribe), I pray that God will lead you to an experience of grace amidst the people of your average, disappointing parish. Beautiful Christian community, a supernatural experience of Jesus among us in the flesh, doesn't always mean everyone feels good. In fact, woe to you if good feelings are what you have your heart set on. But keep looking for Him in your parish. God might just have a surprise up His sleeve for you.
Thursday, March 12, 2015
The Little Charismatic Way
This is a thinking post, not a thought-out post. I'm writing so that I understand.
Yesterday I posted about having finished the book Everything Is Grace. It helped me grasp not only the spirituality of Therese, but also the spiritual culture that was dominant at the time, for which her spirituality was a corrective. Her Little Way emphasizes simple, empty, confident trust in God's boundless love and mercy with which He longs to embrace sinners in their misery and lift them up. It emphasizes willingness -- God's willingness calling forth our own -- rather than human efforts to go through great labors to be heroic, to embrace harsh ascetic practices, and thereby to attempt spiritual self-perfection. (That was the Jansenistic flavor that religious, even Carmelite, life had in Therese's time.)
Schmidt's book made me see the connection others have pointed out to me between Therese's spirituality and the "nada" of St. John of the Cross. St. Therese went through plenty of dying to self, as she chronicles in Story of a Soul. It had been hard for me to relate to her saintly family and her exceptionally pious and religious formation as a child, but I can relate to her emotional attachments and her need to let go of the dynamism that drove her, which in her case was her need to please other people in order to feel secure. Schmidt recounts that even as she was dying she apologized in advance to her blood sisters with her in Carmel that she would cast her dying glance toward the superior and not one of them (she apologized because she did not wish them to feel hurt). Even to the moment of her death she was aware of the feelings of others, but free of the violence of a less-than-genuine love that is more about establishing one's own security than simply giving love.
The "nada" means one renounces everything from which one seeks to establish one's own security. Complete detachment. This is not even something we can produce for ourselves. This kind of deep detachment is something we can only be open to, willing for, and receive from God who gives it in trial. Or rather, maybe it is not so much that we have to be in suffering to receive it as receiving it is a suffering, because it brings light where we have darkness, but it feels like darkness where once was light.
Back to the post title: The Little Charismatic Way. What does Therese have to do with the modern charismatic movement?
I have considered myself a charismatic since 1987. I wrote some of my testimony about that here. I've had different thoughts and anti-thoughts about what that means to me now, as a Catholic. And to be honest, I have not in these 20 Catholic years had much in the way of intimate contact with other charismatics, living out and discussing what this dimension of faith means, although every year or two I have gone through a season of asking questions along these lines either of others or of myself or of Church documents.
And now St. Therese steps into these questions. Maybe it simply is my current moment in Carmelite formation, but I'll be danged if she doesn't seem to simply speak clarity both into my questions and into my experiences.
Here's what's helpful:
There are some issues, of course.
But all of this is religion on a human level, and none of it strikes me as being of worship. There's no death here; there's no abandonment, there's no giving it all away. There's no love affair. It is all very controlled.
But we are designed as humans to worship God.
So being religious in this way can really get in the way of meeting God in the Little Way, and encountering the working of the Holy Spirit in the Church in what I'm calling the Little Charismatic Way. (I'm sorry, Therese. I'm really just turning this around in my mind. Forgive my presumption, here!)
The book of Acts gives lots of fascinating insights into how people react to this experience of the new covenant in Christ as it began to be lived in Jerusalem. We see, for example that the religious leaders were jealous of the apostles. For some, this went well and brought them to seek and enter into faith in the Messiah for themselves. For others, it moved them to violence and sins because they really couldn't overcome the irritation of being less significant than the apostles to the people.
The opposite of our littleness is the vast array of pride that comes with associating with experiences of power. Pride is so insidious and pervasive that one can hardly begin to list all the ways it poisons both the human exercise of religion and the experience of the supernatural. Essentially, pride is connected to "having." And this is why, when we "have" our experiences of God, we are so prone to being obnoxious to others. And this is exactly why God's work in us is to detach us from everything, even, in Therese's case, any consolation of the thought of heaven. He brings us to utter darkness so that we cling to him purely in faith, and not through delight and consolation. It is ironic to say that God wants souls in heaven with Him, starting now, and that the way there is through this bleak, forsaken-feeling darkness. But this is exactly what St. John of the Cross teaches. We need to be thoroughly purged from not only sin, but also attachment to everything that is not God.
God's mission of redemption was fully accomplished in Christ, but His mission for the rescue of souls continues in space and time through the Body of Christ, the Church, and through each one called to join that Body. As we are open, humble, and purified, God accomplishes His purposes through us, through our willingness, through our small actions rendered to Him in worship. I say small actions... certainly Therese's months of gradually suffocating from tuberculosis without pain medication and with so much serenity and sweet concern for others that many of her Sisters in Carmel doubted she was seriously ill, all that in the midst of a dark night that left her with zero feelings of assurance that there was any heaven after death at all -- surely all that is not a small action.
I am reminded of an experience I wrote about here, about a teaching from the mystic Anne to the effect that God can move graces through us even if all we have to offer him is cleaning the house and making peanut butter sandwiches all day. It truly is not the things we offer God as the love with which we offer them. Different actions call us to exercise different virtues, but all these are grace. The worship we offer God is truly God crowning His own gifts in us. God gives to us; we give back to Him. This is to remain constant regardless of how it feels to us.
Yes, this is a long post! But I am seeing how, if we can simply grasp and follow these principles, understanding what God's way is and allowing Him to have it with us, not getting sidetracked by our wounded, unbelieving hearts, our pride, and especially understanding detachment from sin and self, and grasping that Christ's mission continues through faithfulness in His Body, the Church... All of these things put us in the position where God can accomplish His will through us.
Yesterday I posted about having finished the book Everything Is Grace. It helped me grasp not only the spirituality of Therese, but also the spiritual culture that was dominant at the time, for which her spirituality was a corrective. Her Little Way emphasizes simple, empty, confident trust in God's boundless love and mercy with which He longs to embrace sinners in their misery and lift them up. It emphasizes willingness -- God's willingness calling forth our own -- rather than human efforts to go through great labors to be heroic, to embrace harsh ascetic practices, and thereby to attempt spiritual self-perfection. (That was the Jansenistic flavor that religious, even Carmelite, life had in Therese's time.)
Schmidt's book made me see the connection others have pointed out to me between Therese's spirituality and the "nada" of St. John of the Cross. St. Therese went through plenty of dying to self, as she chronicles in Story of a Soul. It had been hard for me to relate to her saintly family and her exceptionally pious and religious formation as a child, but I can relate to her emotional attachments and her need to let go of the dynamism that drove her, which in her case was her need to please other people in order to feel secure. Schmidt recounts that even as she was dying she apologized in advance to her blood sisters with her in Carmel that she would cast her dying glance toward the superior and not one of them (she apologized because she did not wish them to feel hurt). Even to the moment of her death she was aware of the feelings of others, but free of the violence of a less-than-genuine love that is more about establishing one's own security than simply giving love.
The "nada" means one renounces everything from which one seeks to establish one's own security. Complete detachment. This is not even something we can produce for ourselves. This kind of deep detachment is something we can only be open to, willing for, and receive from God who gives it in trial. Or rather, maybe it is not so much that we have to be in suffering to receive it as receiving it is a suffering, because it brings light where we have darkness, but it feels like darkness where once was light.
Back to the post title: The Little Charismatic Way. What does Therese have to do with the modern charismatic movement?
I have considered myself a charismatic since 1987. I wrote some of my testimony about that here. I've had different thoughts and anti-thoughts about what that means to me now, as a Catholic. And to be honest, I have not in these 20 Catholic years had much in the way of intimate contact with other charismatics, living out and discussing what this dimension of faith means, although every year or two I have gone through a season of asking questions along these lines either of others or of myself or of Church documents.
And now St. Therese steps into these questions. Maybe it simply is my current moment in Carmelite formation, but I'll be danged if she doesn't seem to simply speak clarity both into my questions and into my experiences.
Here's what's helpful:
- God is love. Be open, completely open to Him.
- God is big. I am little. I never control or determine what He does. That's not only silly, it's warped.
- God has a mission. He wants souls to be with Him in heaven, but with heaven starting now. He can do that.
- God chooses and graces His children to work with Him. He makes it happen, with our willingness.
There are some issues, of course.
- The charismatic graces of the Holy Spirit as described in the New Testament and lived since that time are not always taught about, and people have difficulty responding to something about which they have no teaching or exposure.
- The way people initially get exposure to operating charismatic graces often stirs up all manner of things we need "nada"ed out of us. And this is true both of the one who receives and operates in these graces as well as those who witness it or hear about it.
But all of this is religion on a human level, and none of it strikes me as being of worship. There's no death here; there's no abandonment, there's no giving it all away. There's no love affair. It is all very controlled.
But we are designed as humans to worship God.
So being religious in this way can really get in the way of meeting God in the Little Way, and encountering the working of the Holy Spirit in the Church in what I'm calling the Little Charismatic Way. (I'm sorry, Therese. I'm really just turning this around in my mind. Forgive my presumption, here!)
The book of Acts gives lots of fascinating insights into how people react to this experience of the new covenant in Christ as it began to be lived in Jerusalem. We see, for example that the religious leaders were jealous of the apostles. For some, this went well and brought them to seek and enter into faith in the Messiah for themselves. For others, it moved them to violence and sins because they really couldn't overcome the irritation of being less significant than the apostles to the people.
The opposite of our littleness is the vast array of pride that comes with associating with experiences of power. Pride is so insidious and pervasive that one can hardly begin to list all the ways it poisons both the human exercise of religion and the experience of the supernatural. Essentially, pride is connected to "having." And this is why, when we "have" our experiences of God, we are so prone to being obnoxious to others. And this is exactly why God's work in us is to detach us from everything, even, in Therese's case, any consolation of the thought of heaven. He brings us to utter darkness so that we cling to him purely in faith, and not through delight and consolation. It is ironic to say that God wants souls in heaven with Him, starting now, and that the way there is through this bleak, forsaken-feeling darkness. But this is exactly what St. John of the Cross teaches. We need to be thoroughly purged from not only sin, but also attachment to everything that is not God.
God's mission of redemption was fully accomplished in Christ, but His mission for the rescue of souls continues in space and time through the Body of Christ, the Church, and through each one called to join that Body. As we are open, humble, and purified, God accomplishes His purposes through us, through our willingness, through our small actions rendered to Him in worship. I say small actions... certainly Therese's months of gradually suffocating from tuberculosis without pain medication and with so much serenity and sweet concern for others that many of her Sisters in Carmel doubted she was seriously ill, all that in the midst of a dark night that left her with zero feelings of assurance that there was any heaven after death at all -- surely all that is not a small action.
I am reminded of an experience I wrote about here, about a teaching from the mystic Anne to the effect that God can move graces through us even if all we have to offer him is cleaning the house and making peanut butter sandwiches all day. It truly is not the things we offer God as the love with which we offer them. Different actions call us to exercise different virtues, but all these are grace. The worship we offer God is truly God crowning His own gifts in us. God gives to us; we give back to Him. This is to remain constant regardless of how it feels to us.
Yes, this is a long post! But I am seeing how, if we can simply grasp and follow these principles, understanding what God's way is and allowing Him to have it with us, not getting sidetracked by our wounded, unbelieving hearts, our pride, and especially understanding detachment from sin and self, and grasping that Christ's mission continues through faithfulness in His Body, the Church... All of these things put us in the position where God can accomplish His will through us.
The glorification of Therese in the life of the church, particularly among the little ones longing for God, as well as among all those seeking enlightenment, peace, and love, is the resounding affirmation of the truth that the measureless desires of the human heart are ultimately from God and for God. That glorification is also but a shadow of Therese's full glory and of what awaits all the poor in spirit who desire God and are willing to reciprocate divine love in their lives through works of peace and charity. The respect and honor extended to Therese from within the church and beyond are a testimony to the truth that union with God is possible to anyone who is open to the Holy Spirit, always available in the ordinary experiences of human life.
-- Everything is Grace, p. 330, italics in the original
Wednesday, March 11, 2015
Read This Book! Everything is Grace:The Life and Way of Therese of Lisieux
I have just finished reading the book Everything Is Grace: The Life and Way of Therese of Lisieux by Joseph F. Schmidt, FSC. I can't recommend it highly enough, especially if you've ever secretly or not-so-secretly wondered what the big deal is about this woman that she was declared a Doctor of the Church and seems loved by everyone.
That was my estimation of her, once, as I've written about over the last couple of years. My first impressions of her were the sweet, cartoony drawings of her, the roses, and then that movie. She just seemed such a (forgive me, Therese!) sappy thing, always breaking down in tears, and despite myself I would always cry too, watching it. For someone of a strong intellectual bent, reading that Therese taught us to be little children and trust in the good Jesus, well, I'm sorry, but she just annoyed me.
I read Story of a Soul, and at first that didn't help. Then I read her letters to Maurice, and the door of my heart's understanding swung open. I began to understand the suffering that she was neglectful of making a huge deal out of in her own writings. I saw that her "sappy" image was a gross misunderstanding on my part.
But this book is simply stunning in the way Schmidt captures the psychological suffering and her path of spiritual maturity from her earliest childhood and shows through them how Therese is absolutely the saint for our age and the Doctor the Church is so much in need of in the 21st century.
I feel like this post is just for me to gush and not give a detailed review or praise for specific points Schmidt makes, although I could pull out many, many, many. In fact, I've already blogged about a few of them, here and here.
See, the thing is, even though St. Therese used to annoy me, I turned to her intercession at two moments in my spiritual life that at the time I had no idea of realizing would be so hugely pivotal for me. So part of my gushing here is simply my growing realization of the communion of saints being so vibrantly real. The love pouring out from the saints in heaven is palpable to me. And amazing! And astounding! Getting to know these saints is a needed boon to our lives.
Do yourself a favor and read this book. It also has me thinking on a post I'll need to write when I'm done exuding and more able to resume more analytical thought: The Little Charismatic Way; How to Cut the Crap and Simply Be Open to the Holy Spirit.
Sunday, March 01, 2015
The Problem with Catholics
This has been rattling around in my heart for a long time but has recently struck me with pristine clarity: American Catholic Christians are deeply confused about who we are because we have lost touch with Christ's mission to save souls.
To some, that might be so baldly obvious that it hardly bears repeating. To others, it might provoke great defensive argument. (And of course others won't care at all.)
The liturgical cycle teaches us everything we need to know, and worship gives us all the sanctity we need. We need to live as saints, and specifically, each of us needs to become the particular saint God intends us to be. It really is that easy, and it certainly is nothing new. We can wring our hands and write books and strategize and give conferences but it really is this basic.
We have lost sight of our liturgical celebrations and liturgical seasons as having a launching dynamism. We have utterly forgotten the dramatic climax of Scripture (hint: it's supposed to be where we still live). We have made of Christ an idol to bow before, to whom we pay reverence while ignoring the mission He died to inaugurate.
How can we claim to love Christ and remain unconcerned with the desires of His heart? Yes, it is true that He desires that we ourselves be saved and grow in virtue. But if we have limited the scope of our spiritual concern to keeping ourselves out of hell, we suffer horrible myopic vision.
God prepared a people for a few thousand years through promises and covenants, and in the fullness of time sent His Son to establish the lasting covenant, and then prepared a new people in the Upper Room and unleashed them with His own power to go to the highways and byways of the entire world and call everyone to Himself. He provided a huge array of gifts, always changing to meet the need and to face the inevitable human and spiritual backlash.
There has been sin and division, and there has been sanctity and glory. But never has there been another plan announced from heaven about what Christ's Church essentially is: the presence of Jesus Christ in time and space.
And how can we know who we are if we don't know who Christ is?
Christ is the Messiah of Israel: the people God formed through His actions, His laws, His covenants, His prophets, and through their tremendous suffering. Christ opened up God's plan for a universal covenant of salvation for all people, Jew and Gentile. Christ gifted this covenant with human guardians whom He Himself guarantees. In the same way, He empowers with the Holy Spirit all who enter Him through this covenant. These gifts, when activated in and through faith, mutually upbuild the whole structure that is the Church. And the whole purpose of that Church is to continue bearing witness to Christ's resurrection, His life, His reality, His call, His power, His love, His truth.
We exist to announce to the world: come and join us in our mission of announcing and demonstrating the power and love of God, of rescuing souls from self-destruction and despair. It is not ourselves we preach, but Christ, and ourselves your servants for Jesus' sake.
It is time Catholics step out of our confusion by the simple step of daily self-offering, nurtured by liturgical prayer and silence. Give God permission and space to act, expect Him to act, and respond as He speaks. Lather, rinse, repeat.
"Oh Lord, I am yours. Remove from my life those things that hinder me from you. Plant firmly in my life the people with whom you desire to form me. Teach me, guide me, and make me the believer you have created me to be."
To some, that might be so baldly obvious that it hardly bears repeating. To others, it might provoke great defensive argument. (And of course others won't care at all.)
The liturgical cycle teaches us everything we need to know, and worship gives us all the sanctity we need. We need to live as saints, and specifically, each of us needs to become the particular saint God intends us to be. It really is that easy, and it certainly is nothing new. We can wring our hands and write books and strategize and give conferences but it really is this basic.
We have lost sight of our liturgical celebrations and liturgical seasons as having a launching dynamism. We have utterly forgotten the dramatic climax of Scripture (hint: it's supposed to be where we still live). We have made of Christ an idol to bow before, to whom we pay reverence while ignoring the mission He died to inaugurate.
How can we claim to love Christ and remain unconcerned with the desires of His heart? Yes, it is true that He desires that we ourselves be saved and grow in virtue. But if we have limited the scope of our spiritual concern to keeping ourselves out of hell, we suffer horrible myopic vision.
God prepared a people for a few thousand years through promises and covenants, and in the fullness of time sent His Son to establish the lasting covenant, and then prepared a new people in the Upper Room and unleashed them with His own power to go to the highways and byways of the entire world and call everyone to Himself. He provided a huge array of gifts, always changing to meet the need and to face the inevitable human and spiritual backlash.
There has been sin and division, and there has been sanctity and glory. But never has there been another plan announced from heaven about what Christ's Church essentially is: the presence of Jesus Christ in time and space.
And how can we know who we are if we don't know who Christ is?
Christ is the Messiah of Israel: the people God formed through His actions, His laws, His covenants, His prophets, and through their tremendous suffering. Christ opened up God's plan for a universal covenant of salvation for all people, Jew and Gentile. Christ gifted this covenant with human guardians whom He Himself guarantees. In the same way, He empowers with the Holy Spirit all who enter Him through this covenant. These gifts, when activated in and through faith, mutually upbuild the whole structure that is the Church. And the whole purpose of that Church is to continue bearing witness to Christ's resurrection, His life, His reality, His call, His power, His love, His truth.
We exist to announce to the world: come and join us in our mission of announcing and demonstrating the power and love of God, of rescuing souls from self-destruction and despair. It is not ourselves we preach, but Christ, and ourselves your servants for Jesus' sake.
It is time Catholics step out of our confusion by the simple step of daily self-offering, nurtured by liturgical prayer and silence. Give God permission and space to act, expect Him to act, and respond as He speaks. Lather, rinse, repeat.
"Oh Lord, I am yours. Remove from my life those things that hinder me from you. Plant firmly in my life the people with whom you desire to form me. Teach me, guide me, and make me the believer you have created me to be."
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