The Delight of Using Things Up

Sometimes I need to discipline myself to not hang on my computer, but oddly enough right now, due to household circumstances, it's one of those moments where sitting at the computer is one of my only options at the moment. So I wanted to pull out this thought I've been mulling over lately, which is about a certain spiritual fruit.

I am realizing that even I know about my own spiritual journey in mere bits and pieces. I get a piece here, and piece there, and often these don't seem to make any sense in the moment. It is a bit like a jigsaw puzzle though, because then something else will come along that fits with this bit and that bit, and eventually a picture takes shape. Instead of seeing it as frustrating (to not have one certain piece at any given time that I want, in order to see better what I'm looking at), I've come to accept this as fun. It means that every day there is something to discover, and I never know just want is around the next corner.

I read yesterday (somewhere in the Interior Castle) that the only proof of real prayer is fruit in real life. I have noticed something within the last several weeks that is a definite change for me, and I think this counts as real fruit. I am no longer afraid to use things up. In fact, I rather delight in using things up.

What is that supposed to mean? I've long had a tendency to get towards the end of something, like a food product, and just not use that last bit. Like the last parsley in the bag, the last green tea in the container, the last ounce of soy sauce. The parsley would go off, and eventually I'd throw it out, but the non-perishables would just sit there for months or maybe even years.

I even had a strange relationship with the ends of songs that I would write. If it was a song I just wrote for my own purposes (which was almost all of the time before I did Unleashed) I often would leave an  unpolished ending, and just think to myself "and then it ends, somehow."

But now I have a strong and happy sense that the things that I have at my disposal are to be used to their utmost. Perhaps I subconsciously thought in the past that it was too sad to come to the end of that parsley or that green tea, because when it was gone, I would no longer have its goodness. But the truth of the matter was that I didn't have its goodness when it sat in my fridge forever, either. I had its potential goodness, but nothing in actuality.

My mind keeps going back to this woman I called my "material heretic" friend. This was a long time ago; she had some significant issues with the Church, and at the time I didn't get it that she was on a mission to infect me with the same issues. But one of the more valuable things she told me, after she drove me several miles to a grocery store to get stamps, which I ended up not buying because I didn't want to use two first-class stamps instead of an airmail stamp and waste the extra few pennies, was that atheists do things like hold on to pennies.

There is something of a lack of faith inherent in the unwillingness to go all out, to use up everything, to enjoy something until it is gone, and when it is gone to rejoice in how good it was. I think this is what one might call an expectant faith. This is a faith that knows all blessings, even little ones like fresh parsley, are gifts from God. There are always more. Even if they are not more of the same type, and even if from all outward appearances blessings fail, God knows how to bring good into my life. He has always done it in the past, so why should I let the end of something make me fear that God will change. "Although the fig tree shall not blossom and there be no fruit on the vine; though the yield of the olive should fail, and the fields produce no food; though the flock should be torn from the fold and there be no cattle in the stall, yet will I rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in my God." (Hab. 3:17-18)

As I type this, I realize this is about far more than parsley, and I recognize that this is not springing up out of my willpower or my decision to "think positively."

But this is one of those things that I find present in my life. I could say I don't even know where it came from, but I do. It came from God.

And it is funny how some of God's choicest graces can make a tear come to my eye and cause the thought to run through my head, "I'm not sure I want this...."

But I know that's just because I can't see how it connects to everything else, just yet.

What is this Detachment Thing?

Pondering this detachment thing.

For years I have come to Scripture passages about denying oneself, and I've always gotten a bit muddied. Today I realize that when I start to think about detachment, the first thing that comes to mind is a sort of doing violence to oneself. I think there comes a moment when something that might be described as a violent effort is necessary in relationship to oneself, but generally it seems that detachment is not about doing violence to oneself.

I think often of that trip I made to Germany in high school. For part of the time I stayed with a host family. When I arrived, they offered me food, but I declined simply because I thought it was polite to not need anything. Actually, it was more than that. I thought I would be committing some kind of eternal offense, revealing myself as a hateful being, if I needed anything. So I declined food the first day, and pretty much any time they offered food to me, as opposed to simply telling me, "It's meal time now. We are all sitting down and eating." Since that was obligatory, I could accept feeding myself then, since by following the obligation I would certainly be pleasing.

I got pretty hungry.

That is not detachment. That is not denying oneself. That is doing violence to myself by refusing to admit I am a human being with human needs.

It seems that detachment has to entail deeply knowing one's need, and accepting it -- not so much as my need (all about muah) as it is about my participation in creaturely status. I need what all people need. I have this need; it is what makes me the same as everyone else. It is pride to think either that I am above needing or that my need puts me in a different class of folk from everyone else.

And after I accept that need, I then bring it to my Maker. I submit myself in my need to the One I know loves me. I also accept the instruments He puts in my life -- people, or other means like my labor, my work against injustice -- to find the provision God has already supplied for my need.

And since I know that my need makes me the same as everyone else, when I find my need supplied I do not forget that others need what I do. I do not keep taking or searching for moremoremore. I remember that I am also an instrument for others.

But mostly, I am given into the hand of God like a little loaf or a little fish. He directs my paths, He establishes both my provision and what flows from me. Detachment means to want nothing more than this.

At least, that's how I see it.

Defeating Craving with Gratitude

So, it seems to me today that a key antidote to craving is gratitude.

Makes sense, right? Craving says That is so good that I want more! Gratitude says That is so good! Thank you!

Gratitude believes, accepting the good thing as a reality: Wow. You love me. That makes me come alive. Thank you.
Craving doubts: You love me? Impossible! Tell me 500 more times and in 500 more ways and maybe then I'll finally believe it. But if I don't, you'd better keep performing for me!

Gratitude comes to rest in a humble simplicity: I needed that, and you gave it to me. Thank you! That need is met.
In craving, there is no rest: It's here now, so I'll take all I can get while I can. Who knows if I'll have it tomorrow.

It has been a life saver for me to begin each day by praying Psalm 95. I never get tired of using it as the invitatory (in the Liturgy of the Hours) and I never switch to one of the other options. I need to remind myself every day that God is God, and that we are his flock. I need to hear "Today, listen to the voice of the Lord: do not grow stubborn, as your fathers did in the wilderness, when at Meriba and Massah they challenged me and provoked me, although they had seen all of my works." Craving, I think, is a form of stubbornness. It is the insistence with which one says over and over, "Are you really sure you're God enough for me?" We're stuck, repetitively hurling this insult at a God into Whose eyes we are never bothering to gaze deeply. We do it despite the fact that God has shown us His loving faithfulness not only in the crucifixion of His Son, but in a zillion small, personal ways that one can so easily forget ten minutes after they happen.

Remembering takes gratitude. Gratitude requires faith. Faith requires humility. Humility requires, well, humiliation. It requires a response to humiliation that doesn't involve our hearts growing more stubborn and proud. It requires that we turn toward His voice when we hear it, instead of away.

Love (that God Whom we insult with our doubt) is stronger than human craving. Being satisfied requires one to calm the obsession long enough to meet His gaze and let it fill our hearts.

Detachment vs. Connection

We keep a garbage can right next to our mail slot, because a lot of what comes in the mail goes straight in there. Some of it sits on our mail table for days, weeks, or (ahem) months, until I get around to either pitching it or looking at it, and then pitching it.

But I picked up something today and read it, and two quotes contained therein hit me right between the eyes. First:

In the Child Jesus, God made Himself dependent, in need of human love. He put Himself in the position of asking for human love -- our love.  (from Pope Benedict's Christmas homily of 2011)

Then this from Edith Stein (St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross) -- words to a philosopher who had asked her advice:

You cannot be helped with arguments. If one could liberate you from all argumentation, that might indeed help you. And as for advice, I have already given you my advice: to become like a little child and lay your life, with all its pondering and probing, in the Father's hands. If you cannot manage to do this, then ask the unknown God, in whom you doubt, to help you to do so. Now you are staring at me in great astonishment, for daring to respond to you with such simple childish wisdom. It is wisdom, because it is simple, and all mysteries are contained within it. And it is a way that leads quite surely to its goal.

Today is the feast of St. Anthony of the Desert. He was a guy who simply gave up everything and went to the desert and sought God for the rest of his very long life. He's the origin of the Desert Fathers and pretty much the first monastic in the history of the Church.

So, I was praying early this morning with St. Anthony on my mind and really feeling this theme of detachment. Sometimes my most profound inspirations toward prayer come literally the instant I first wake up in the morning. (God has been on my case about rising early and giving that time to Him. For good reason. That's for another post.) And I say when I "first" wake up in the morning, because I often wake up more than once. ;) (Where do you put the punctuation mark when using an emoticon, anyway?) Anyway, when I first woke up this morning, my first thought was: What if right now is as good as God ever intends External Difficulty in Spiritual Trial to get? What would be my response to that?

I have a pretty standard knee-jerk reaction to questions like this. And it is, "Ok, Lord. If that's the way you wish it, then OK." That sounds great, I suppose. But time and experience has taught me that it is actually a problem for me. Because in giving this response, I am, in a way, hardening my heart. Steeling myself is perhaps a better way to say it. I steel myself a lot. Two things happen with this. First, I toss my heart out the door like a kitty that's being annoying and I try to relate to God without my heart, as if He is all about my productivity and not my person. So on the one hand, I get a modicum of emotional relief, because pain is not there to annoy me. But I simultaneously get spiritual confusion, because there is no honest prayer without one's heart in play. All the knee-jerk reaction is about is pain avoidance.

A while back I was discussing detachment with my confessor, and I stated that other than the inconvenience of it all, I don't get upset with the idea of losing things. But as soon as God puts His finger on the people in my life, I start losing it. I know that the generation that grew up in the Great Depression in the US, or in war in other countries, tended to horde and worry about material essentials, or be weirdly frugal, etc. Well, I'm a Gen-Xer. I came home from school in 2nd grade to an empty house, experienced the divorce of my parents and the diaspora of my siblings. We had no family friends, unless you count my mother's couple of boyfriends. (That never turned out well.) I had one best friend up through adulthood. I remember one day we were discussing the problems "normal" teenagers had (not like drug addiction and things like that that "they" wanted to tell us our problems were). I was shocked at her honest revelation when she said, immediately, "loneliness." Yes. That was the pain of our generation. Or, is.

So, my non-knee jerk reaction to that early morning question. At communion this morning and afterwards, I was meditating on connection. Yes, God wants this deep connection with me. And yet, He established this Church, this ecclesia, this people called out to be together, and this is where He meets us. Connection between Christians is His idea. I often commented that I don't like people. While I know why I've said it, it is actually because the opposite is true. I don't like people because I love them too much. I crave them. I crave connection, and maybe it is like the woman who keeps 150 cans of green beans in the pantry because she's afraid of starving to death. It boils down to a simple reality: I'm scared. Do I need 150 cans of beans (proverbially speaking)? No, of course not. But to be honest, I don't always know how to dial back my heart from those 150 cans of beans to anything but completely empty shelves and starvation. The two things I know how to know are: I love these people so much that they mean absolutely everything to me, or, I am an alone, forsaken wretch, dying inside.

But at least with this painful realization of the truth of my interior life, I can actually pray. I have my heart, mess that it is. And no pain avoidance. But the only prayer I can really offer, which I did this morning in so many words, was what Edith Stein counseled her friend: "like a little child ... lay your life, with all its pondering and probing, in the Father's hands." Man, am I good at pondering and probing. This morning I spent a good long time gathering myself up and telling God I couldn't make sense of any of it. I want His will, I choose His way over my own, I trust His power, but I have no idea how to even begin thinking about how to "not love people so much." Believe me, I've been through every nuance of good and evil that's buried in that phrase a million times. There is nothing left for me but laying my life in the Father's hands, and letting Him make of it His thing.

And then there was that quote from Ben XVI. In Jesus, God made Himself dependent on human love, needing and asking for our love. Oh, man. And I know the response He most frequently gets. I know it first hand. I've been the giver and the getter of it.

Detachment. Connection. The pain inherent in dependence and need. The dysfunction guaranteed by pain avoidance. All four of these press me like some kind of a mega-vise.

Ok, now I will say it: whatever you want, Lord. I cannot make my own way, because I don't know how. I'll choose to be the little child. You make it work the way you want it.

Something. A Beginning

Something has happened.

I've been writing about this trial, this ordeal that I've been experiencing, and I've got to say it: something has happened.

It seems that what I have been able to be sure of in this last year, even though my certainty was a lot more fluttery and insecure several months ago, is that something is happening, even though I can't say what it is. I have learned to say with Kierkegaard that life can only be understood backwards but must be lived forwards.

Awhile back I kept having this sense that was different from my usual sense of "I feel like I'm just starting, again." It was a sense that I was preparing to start. Now, I think, I'm starting, again.

And I've been meditating on this. I know the sense where you think, "Gee, this has been a good day." It's not like that. Something is done. A chapter is done. I've said that before because I wanted it to be done, and I wanted "it" to be this tangible thing that I could measure that had to do with how I decided this external thing no longer bothered me, and it was going to change now. It was my sense of control saying "it" was done because I wanted "it" to be done.

The external thing is still there. I still have the sense that God is not done with that, but it is His doing, and not mine. At least a few times a week the Lord reminds me to leave it in His hands, and that He will prove His faithfulness. Today I realized that the stab of pain that has been there for nearly a year, is gone. This isn't a matter of "time heals all wounds." This is a spiritual development. This is the work of God.

Here's what I do know (because there's so much I can't explain and don't at all understand): I remember two other times in my life when suddenly, powerfully, God and His Word seemed more real to me. The first was in 1987 when I was "baptized in the Holy Spirit." The Bible and worship began to come alive to me. The second was in 1993 (or was it 92) when I officially only worshipped at Catholic Mass, had left the charismatic fellowship I loved, but had not yet entered the Church. (I think it was 1992.) There was a particular day that it hit me hard: I looked at everything God had created, especially people, and it was like I could see with heightened vision the glory of God present. I remember seeing this particular sort of slovenly dressed woman in a Taco Bell and feeling flooded with the sense of her human dignity being such an amazing, awesome thing. The love and the joy of God gushed into (through? around?) my soul. Not every day was like that, but I had many such experiences of the overwhelming presence of God, also at Mass.

And right now, in a much less emotional way but in a way no less real, deeper, Scripture speaks to me on a new level. I know, deeply, in a way that it would be a completely different sin than a sin of weakness for me to doubt, that God knows my concerns. When something stirs in me, I no longer have huge mental debates about when I should heed it as a directive from God or when it isn't that. God is a personal being who is interactive in my life. I know that. It is real.

Something has happened. I am still seeing things exposed in my heart, but it is no longer so horrific. It is with a much more gentle sense of God no longer wishing me to hug certain rotting things but to walk in strength. It's like I just want to sit still and silent with it and let it wash me over.

Dear God, I do not understand you at all. But I love you, and all I want to want is you.

Simple Meditation for Ordinary Time

This morning, my pastor preached a homily that presented three themes from the gospel that he proposed we meditate on during Ordinary Time. Perhaps I am too easily moved, but this made me shed a few tears:

1. We can do anything in Jesus Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit.
2. We should never feel shame or guilt over past (and confessed) sins, because of God's cleansing forgiveness.
3. After the trials and tribulations of life, what awaits us is the glory of eternal life.

These are very simple, and very basic points of meditation. But really, is there anything that is true that can't completely blow your mind if you simply allow the truth of it to soak you through and through?

Love, Pain, Refusal, and Change

The other day I posted and wrote about the January 1st message from Anne, a Lay Apostle. My heart has been drawn back to it again and again. This morning, I wrote the following as a response, a personal echo to the message:

Most Holy Father, you are the best of Fathers. You know when my heart is grieving, and you always know why. When that grief touches and fills me, I will come to you. I come to you now. You will heal me and restore my heart to me. You give me courage and strength so I can proceed with my earthly journey. You care about my earthly journey! I ask you, Father, to be united with me in it. I ask you to remain with me through every moment, as you so desire to do. In this fellowship, I will come to walk on the path you have marked out for me -- that which not only is your best, but for my highest good as well. But it is also for the good of the world. I will help you in your deepest desire: loving the world. By faith, I hear the souls crying out to you in pain. I will bring these souls to you. I will bring them to you.

I immediately thought of 2 Corinthians 1:3-4: "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and God of all comfort,who comforts us in our every affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort which we ourselves received from God." That is exactly what this message is communicating.

Then I realized that the question I need to ask myself when I am in grief and pain is whether I want my heart restored or not. I need to realize the purpose of my heart, and therefore what it means to have my heart restored. The purpose of my heart -- the purpose of my life -- is not (listen, it's a newsflash) I say, not to be all comfy-cozy. The purpose of my heart is to love.

To love and to be loved -- that's all life is for.

That's where we find fulfillment, but it is also where we find all our pain.

When love is not there for us, or we can't find it, or in our confusion we turn our back to it, we grieve. And when the love we offer is rejected or slighted, we grieve. When we refuse to be part of giving or receiving love, buried under our gruffness or cynicism or pride or aloofness is grief.

And grief starts the cycle again where we need to go back to the Father. There we find an eternal, never-ceasing fountain of love. But the Way to this love -- the way of this love -- is the cross. Jesus. He emptied Himself. If the cycle is to keep flowing through me, I empty myself, too. Regardless of rejection. Instead of refusing pain, we must refuse gruffness and pride. The power is there, in the supernatural love I have received. I must allow it to change me. I must allow it to change me.

Daily life with God the Father is all about growing in grace, beauty, and strength for this love active to be in and through us.

Personal Epiphany

Faith seeking understanding: that, I learned early on, is the Catholic definition of theology. I realize it is also pretty much how I approach my life. I have a nearly bothersome need to make sense of my life and to understand where I am and where I am going. The longer I do this, the more I realize that Wisdom, that Love, is a real person Who desires to make Himself known. Wisdom is not the result of my cleverly balancing all the spinning plates in the air and having none crash down. Wisdom is seeing that life is about being called by God, and the adventure of the response I give.

The voice through which God calls is the liturgy. The liturgy is Scripture, it is sacrament, it is the Holy Spirit active in real time, and it is one continuous action handed down from Jesus to the present day through the Church. It is the Mass; it is the Liturgy of the Hours. It is miraculous.

The way I respond to the liturgy is varied. It has varied wildly throughout my life, and yet there has always been something absolutely magnetic that has drawn me. Even as a child going to a Lutheran church, I always felt a tremendous sense of anticipation every time we pulled in the driveway. I had extremely high expectations, even though I didn't understand this at all. I think it was a craving for the glory of God. When I was very new in my journey into the Catholic Church, like less than one month, the Lord told me clearly, "I want the glorious to become common-place in your life." And I dare say this is true now. We are surrounded by God's presence always, and God constantly calls everyone. But the key is in a consistent response. The glory is there; we but need new eyes to see it.

What I'm driving at is this: I understand something today. And I'm kind of shaking my head as I write this, because I know that "understand" really means "don't understand."

My conversion to Catholicism took place during the Midnight Mass of Christmas in 1991. It took me a few days to catch my breath and come into agreement, all of me, on that, but that was the moment where God made Himself known to me. At first I thought it was nice, and then I thought it was kind of interesting, but finally I realized it was absolutely sign-value, intentional-on-God's-part meaning-filled that it happened that day. I have literally spent decades meditating on the truth of the Incarnation and its meaning for my life.

But today is the Epiphany. Four years ago today, something else happened at a Mass. It too has profoundly changed me. Stepping into my parish choir seemed innocuous enough, but from the very beginning I knew it wasn't. I knew that God was up to something. I knew He was calling. But it has only been with time that I have come to "understand" that one doesn't say "God calls me" without awe, fear, and trembling.

I look at what this feast day is. Epiphany essentially fulfills Christmas in its universal, missionary dimension. Jesus is here: heaven and earth start to shake and move in response. "All kings see His glory."

There is something in this for my life, too. The last four years have shifted the orientation of my life from pretty much minding my own business and living in my own private family hobbit-hole, to stretching my heart out and constantly pleading for the conversion of the world.

I understand very little, but I know that this is the work of God in me. I know that He has an intention with this Epiphany calling. I see His hand, and I trust His purposes. And at the same time there are so many, many things I don't understand that require me to walk by faith through the dark.

Yeah, that's it. Epiphany this year is like a light, shining out through what has become very dark. The light is Christ. I go towards Him. It matters not where I exit, what I leave behind, or where I go. I see the Light, and again, He calls.

And I tremble.

Slaves, Saints, and Colossians

This morning as I was praying the Office of Readings, the following Scripture leapt out at me:

To slaves I say, obey your human masters perfectly, not with the purpose of attracting attention and pleasing men but in all sincerity and out of reverence for the Lord. Whatever you do, work at it with your whole being. Do it for the Lord rather than for men, since you know full well you will receive an inheritance from him as your reward. Be slaves of Christ the Lord. Whoever acts unjustly will be repaid for the wrong he has done. No favoritism will be shown. (Colossians 3:22-25)

Now, I'll leave off for the moment the interesting point a friend recently made, namely that we need to consider St. Paul's social admonitions in their historical social context, both when the subject matter is slavery and when it is marriage. (I think she made a valid point, but that's not my point here.) I am not a slave, and I have no human "master," but I have other relationships in which St. Paul's point resonates with me deeply. In my understanding then, the word "obey" is translated "love," and the term "human masters" becomes "all." Now I can proceed with how this struck me.

Each sentence represents something of which the Lord has been teaching me and coaching me lately.

There is this thing of the risk of the motives for one's actions being misinterpreted, and of course of simply being impure in the first place. I am sometimes tempted to simply not show love, go passive, fuggedaboutit, because someone might think I'm trying to suck up. Actually, it is usually more the case that I do something and only then realize that someone has gotten suspicious of my motives. I'm getting to the point where I can foresee a difficulty, but then still have to decide: do I shut down, or do I love anyway. This first line affirms my decision to love anyway.

The next line was one of those "stop and ponder" words. Whatever you do, work at it with your whole being. It seems to me this requires freedom, self-mastery, a joy, a simplicity, a focus, an ability to be in the moment. All of these things come only from Christ. This is the type of stuff that really spells "living in Christ." It reminds me of a quote I've heard, from one of the Teresa's. Something like, if you are praying, really pray; if you are eating pheasant, really pheasant.

Then there's this matter of inheritance from the Lord. He is the one before whom we live. He is the only one that matters, not our success or the reaction of those around us. We live for His eyes and for His merciful approval alone. He will be most generous in appraising what we do in love for Him.

Skipping just now the slaves of Christ thing... much could be said there, though.

Whoever acts unjustly will be repaid for the wrong he has done. Wow. This is one that sits like a weird warm steaming loaf of bread on the table before me. It is hard to describe the consolation this gives me, because it doesn't seem a very consoling word. I've never been much of a "justice" person. I don't go around wishing for people to get their comeuppance. I'm always about looking from all the possible perspectives, understanding, all that. I'm not claiming that as a virtue; it is just my natural bent. It is possible for this bent to lend itself towards insecurity, though. As I've written before, I have gotten myself into absurd corners where I start to justify to myself that which no one should. I can't call people to account for their wrongs. I try; it generally goes nowhere. I'm not very good at being the Holy Spirit (chuckle). But this line about unjust actions being repaid simply states God's truth. There is a fixed absolute truth. It also makes me pray to the Lord for His mercy for all of us. His mercy is that He shines His light into our darkness to draw us into repentance and a changed life, and we do penance for our sins against others, and healing prevails. We will all be called to account. If we refuse God's mercy, we are stupid. But all are given the choice. God does not ignore it when I am treated unjustly, nor when I treat others unjustly. No favoritism, either. It doesn't matter who is doing the wrong. Everyone needs to learn to call on God's mercy and to welcome every sign of it that comes to us.

Also, a quick note on the reading for the feast of St. Basil & St. Gregory. (Read it here; scroll down to the sermon entitled "Two Bodies, but a Single Spirit.") It reminded me so much of an article called "A Requiem for Friendship" by Anthony Esolen. (Long, but worth the read.) Basically, a modern is likely to read this account of the deep friendship between Basil and Gregory and think, They must have been gay. That is a sign of the deep impoverishment of our lives when it comes to friendship and spiritual fellowship in the Lord. When a deep unity and love has to become sexualized for it to make any sense -- that is a sign that we have lost something of what it means to be human.

Time to run; these are my morning ruminations.

January 1 Message from Anne, A Lay Apostle

It often happens this way, but today it happened again. I read this message and its impact on me was huge. Actually, what impacted me was that I did what it said. I asked God the Father to be united with me today, to remain with me in every moment.


In the last two days, I had been going through some bucking-bronco type interior stuff, and I also shed quite a few tears. There was no particular reason that today should have been any different, except for that I placed my trust and faith in God the Father exactly as this word directed, and acted on it. Peace, courage and strength have followed in abundance. Palpably. And once again I am freed to focus on intercession and praying for the salvation and conversion of souls, which is my heart's one true desire.

This is the way these messages often impact me: graces that bring help that is so timely it is uncanny.

January 1, 2005*

God the Father

Dear children of the world, I will never leave you. Please consider Me the very best of fathers. Does a loving father know when his child's heart is grieving? Of course he does. If your heart is grieving, you must come to Me. I will heal your hurts and restore your heart to you. I will give you courage and strength so that you can proceed with your earthly journey. I am asking you today, though, to proceed differently. Ask Me to be united to you. Ask Me to remain with you through every moment. I want to do that for you. In this way, you will come to walk on the path that I, through Jesus Christ, have marked out for you. Dearest children of the world, please walk with Me. I need your help. I, the Almighty God, ask you now to walk with Me. There are many souls crying out to Me in pain. You must bring Me to them. Please, My dear ones, bring Me to them.

*Please note: The message of January 1, 2005 was from God the Father.  

(The cycle of messages has ended, and so last fall the DFOT groups began meditating on them all over again, starting with the first from 2004. For more on this apostolate, check out www.directionforourtimes.org.)

The Year I'd Rather Forget... Maybe

This has been a year that, simply put, I never wish to repeat. In reality it has probably been one of the most important years of my life in recent memory. It has brought me to a very good place. But it has hurt. A lot. More than life has hurt in two decades.

And even though this isn't the perspective I've had going through this year, I suddenly feel rather sure that I will look back on 2012 as "the year I started towards Carmel."

I wrote about this almost a year ago, after I finished recording my CD. I had an inkling then. I get inklings of what God intends with me. In fact, He pretty much let me know ahead of time exactly what was going to transpire, the pain and all. Only thing was, having even God say "I want this and this, and that and the other is necessary to get there," and assenting to it with my will, is absolutely nothing like walking through the actual process of the this and this and that and the other. Oy vey. I think God wants to teach me to take seriously the inklings He sends my way.

And speaking of inklings, I've been thinking of late how I could tell the story of my walk with God in a way I haven't before: all of the inklings I've had about the Carmelites. You see, on December 16 I was officially accepted as an aspirant in the OCDS, the Secular Order of Discalced Carmelites. (The initials don't seem to go in the right order because the acronym is based on the Latin title.) That is my very first step towards becoming a full member of the Carmelite religious order.

The Carmelites, and the saints and places associated with them, have held an attraction for me since before I was a Catholic. In my single-digits, before going to church was a regular part of my life, I remember glomming onto one story from my Sunday School attendance: Elijah and the prophets of Baal. This involved Elijah summoning these pagan prophets to Mount Carmel (ding!) and challenging them to a sacrifice-off, so to speak. They were to set up an offering, and Elijah would, and whoever's god answered by fire would be declared the victor. It's a very entertaining story. Go read it in 1 Kings 18 if you haven't in a while.

But you see, the way I glommed on to this story reflected my quite sorry state at that point in my life. I basically took to threatening God, Whom I wasn't at all sure was paying the slightest bit of attention to me at all, that if He didn't show me He was answering me, that I would become a Satan-worshipper instead. I had the whole audacity thing going for me like Elijah, only I had a) no clue and b) no faith. But Elijah has always stayed with me as someone I feel very drawn to. He is considered the first founder of the Carmelites.

Ok, fast forward to when I was in college. I've written about this elsewhere too, but I'll just summarize the story. My Junior year I was taking Medieval and Renaissance Philosophy, which was very difficult. I had to write a paper which would comprise 50% of my grade, and I had no clue which direction to take for my topic, so I prayed. Walking the library stacks I heard distinctly this answer: Mysticism. "OK, Lord," I responded. "Great! Mysticism. But, what's that?"

As I started researching I stumbled for the very first time into the world of Catholicism, at least in an academic way. I read St. Bernard of Clairvaux, Hugh of St. Victor, and St. John of the Cross and St. Teresa of Avila (the latter two being the modern reformers/founders of the Carmelite order). I was Completely. Blown. Away. I vividly remember sitting in a certain seat in the library and dropping the book I was reading onto the table, my heart burning inside me, and praying, "Lord, if there are any people at all left on the face of this earth who know you and love you like what I reading here, those are the people I want to be with."

I was especially struck by reading of St. Teresa's notion of the seven mansions, or stages of spiritual growth through which the Christian life passes. As a young woman already obsessed with finding a husband and distressed that the search was going nowhere, I remember being especially disheartened when I read in the Catholic Encyclopedia that the final mansion, known as the "spiritual marriage" was experienced by very few people. I thought, Geez, I have a hard enough time finding a human husband, and now you're telling me that reaching this spiritual marriage is even less likely. It was depressing.

Some years later, when I was confronted with the fact of the Catholic Church by my friend Keith, this desire, and the name St. Teresa of Avila popped up as a tiny flicker of hope. I asked him if there was anyone who lived that kind of faith, and he assured me there were, and mentioned these people called the Carmelites, who operated a huge shrine called Holy Hill, near where we lived. He gave me a little book called "The Teresian Way of Prayer" which enthralled me to no end. In the months that followed, as I wrestled with the claims of the Catholic Church, I often went to Holy Hill to walk around and try to find peace.

After I decided to enter the Church, I read the book The Way of a Pilgrim, by an anonymous Russian Orthodox believer. I was struck by his desire to go to Mount Carmel in the Holy Land. I was struck so hard, and stirred so hard in my heart that I promised the Lord that if I ever got the chance to go to Mount Carmel, I would. I said that thinking it might be when I was 80 or something. Just a few days later I went to a John Michael Talbot concert, and he mentioned that he would be leading a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. He mentioned that one place they would stop would be Mount Carmel. I interiorly looked at the Lord with a very raised eyebrow, and realized I should book that pilgrimage.

As it turned out, I went about two weeks after coming into the Church. The whole trip was wonderful, but I recall arriving in Carmel with a great sense of anticipation. Of what, I wasn't sure. It was a rushed visit, but the Lord deeply impressed this Scripture on me when I was there: "... the fullness of him who fills everything in every way." (Eph. 1:23). I didn't get it, but it was clear that Jesus was identifying Himself strongly with His body, the Church, and impressing this on me. I still can't say that I get it, but I remember it in the kind of way that I couldn't forget.

After that, the Carmelites always were floating around in my peripheral vision so to speak. My husband and I even attended one meeting of the seculars some 13 years ago, but at the time the commitment to prayer seemed like too much.

But a few years ago, a Facebook friend posted a quote from the book The Impact of God, about the life and writings of St. John of the Cross. I've written about that elsewhere, too. Again, whatever it was that was quoted hit me so hard that I bought the book, read it, and immediately re-read it with great excitement. It was as if St. John of the Cross was sitting me down and explaining my life to me. The sort of strange-to-me path that God had been leading me on at the time not only began to make great sense, but it was as if the Lord Himself became "visible" to me through it as plain as day. From that point on I began again in earnest to pursue the wisdom of the Carmelite saints.

And then there came this year. Then it got super personal. There was the "this and that" conversation I mentioned above, and in theory I was all-in. But when it came to what needed to happen, well, things got ugly inside me.

And glorious, at the same time. It is hard to convey since it is still all rather fresh. But an image that comes to mind is of gathering up long hair into a pony tail, making sure every last bit is tucked in, and then *snip* cutting it all off. Then undoing the pony tail, and cutting some more. Two emotional images come to mind here. One is St. Claire, presenting herself to St. Francis, founding the Franciscan Sisters. She consents to having her hair cut very short, and accepts the veil. This was a loving act of self-surrender, an embrace of love and the beginning of a new life. The other image is from a movie about concentration camps in WWII. This scene was seared into my memory: Huge groups of women were herded into a room where their eyeglasses were thrown in a pile and their hair was all cut off. All you could hear was the snipping of dozens of pairs of scissors. Chilling. Dehumanizing. Demonic.

The test of my faith has been to trust in the call and the loving purpose of God during a time of internal, spiritual stripping, and to learn the immense difference between a humility that comes from God and  humiliation that comes from people. Not every hard thing, not every painful thing, is an evil to be fought against. Sometimes one needs to turn full face into the sting and say yes, and smile. Even when it means having the things I leaned on that are not God broken away from me, including my abilities -- to sense God's direction, His presence, His favor -- and my joys. Yes. Yes. Yes.

Every time now I read texts for my Carmelite formation, I see over and over that precisely these things make up the path on which God leads souls close to Him. I realize God has given me a tremendously precious gift, all because He wants me to be His. He wants to give me the gift of Himself in a deeper way. How could I possible balk or say no? Hundreds of ways, that's how! God is so very patient with me, and has waited so very long for me to hear His call and He waits longer for my response.

I see now that everything is about Jesus and me. I don't mean that in a theologically distorted way. I mean that my actions, my choices, my everything is about following the Way to union with God, Who is Jesus. He gives me a path, and I will run in it. As He gives me the grace, I will run. I will not plod or saunter or dilly-dally, or hang back over-cautiously. I will run. The path is but a path, and even my guides, Holy Father St. John and Holy Mother St. Teresa, are but guides. My goal is the Blessed Trinity, which is also my starting gate, and my everything along the way. And I will run in the Church, the Body of Christ, the fullness of Him who fills everything in every way. That can't help but mean it's not isolationist, as "Jesus and me" can sound. Like Elijah, maybe I'll piss off some people along the way. I don't care where the path leads or what it entails or what it costs. If the Lord directs, I will run.

This year has been worth it, even if I am primarily declaring that in faith and not feeling it yet. I know it, more than feel it.

God is good.

Thoughts on Responding to Suffering

Sitting down to the keyboard to see if I can't sort through some thoughts.

I'm thinking about how I respond to the suffering of friends, particularly suffering that gets verbalized in conversation. I suppose my primary response is to listen. I do this because I tend to be a quieter person, and because I find consolation in someone listening to me. It seems the first right thing to do. However, even within that there might be a time where the listener intuits that, while the person could go on and on with the details of suffering, more talk might not be leading the speaker towards the light.

There is also the point of wanting to share something to help the person. For decades I have told God that I want to have the power to bring healing to people whose hearts are crushed with pain. Isn't that a normal reaction? You see someone in pain, and you wish for it to stop so that they will not suffer, because suffering is evil. Eliminate evil. Simple.

What isn't simple is the connection between desiring their peace and wanting to say or do something. I am faced with the fact that my best-intentioned words or actions might go far wide of the point of need. They might be rejected for a variety of valid reasons.

At this point, I realize that God calls me to share in His humility. I can't be so caught up in the rightness of my idea, the power of my own experience, my good intention that I miss honoring the person present to me and her pain. When Jesus healed someone, He focused on that someone. He didn't sit them down to a theological lecture about His divinity or about the pascal mystery. He said "Go in peace and be freed of your suffering," or "Go in peace, your faith has saved you," or "Go show yourselves to the priest." He saw and addressed their deepest need. He did not use the healing as a platform for meeting His own needs.

I also find myself, in conversation, how shall I say... being a little embarrassed for God. This is a call to share in His humility also. If I have no magic words to say, if I can't produce a bottle with the right fix-it stuff in it, and I am still faced with a person suffering, I have to say "It isn't in our power, but it is in God's. Ask Him, and He will come to you with what you need." Saying this to someone who has been praying the best they know how for years, and suffering only all the more does feel a bit like standing in front of an army tank that barrels down on you with only a daisy as your defense.

But that daisy, as I see it, is these truths: God is real, and God is good. There is much I don't know, and much I can't answer, but these things I know for sure. God is real, and God is good. The prayers I repeat a thousand times a day, if necessary, are "Jesus, I trust in You" and "Lord, have mercy."

I guess the other thing I have learned is that being brought to the end of yourself (which I don't believe is a one-time deal, since we are like onions) is a gift. A painful gift. A gift that feels like it should be fought against. A gift that can violate every fiber of religious feeling, every fiber of my estimation of myself as a good person, as a faithful person. Humility in suffering is, I think, powerful. Pride sucks any time. I think pride is essentially a response of the heart that says "There is not enough love to help me, so I won't be open." But pride can become a habit, too. A habitual way of seeing the world. And a habitual way of pushing God away, even when we think we aren't because we think we are as open to God as anyone can be. We need to constantly learn that God's love is always more than we think it is. It's like living at a precipice of trust and presumption, maybe...

Rambling thoughts....

The most exquisite moments of God breaking through my suffering have simply been when someone was there -- I knew I wasn't alone. But the power, the presence was definitely God's orchestration.

For me then, I guess the need is to be surrendered daily to God, and to act in love in the smallest things. My love, flawed as it is by being mine, originates from God, and as such is the connection with Him I can offer to the world. I can't "make" God do anything, heal, or be profoundly present. I can't bring about healing. God can, and most of the time He only needs an instrument. Better to focus on His love flowing through me than on my solutions to people's pain.

As my pastor always tells us, we can always pray. That's like turning from the suffering back to God, rendering the heart wide open, and asking for help. Lord, make my heart a busy highway for your graces and the needs of people to meet up.

Christmas Past, Christmas Present, and Things Yet to Come

Advent has my heart about ready to explode. Truly, I have this spiritual throbbing sense that I imagine is comparable to what kids feel when they really hope for some wish to be fulfilled by a Christmas present on Christmas morning. Except that I know what my heart senses near and longs for is eternal, doesn't break or get boring. But I also have the feeling that the root joy is exactly the same.

What fills me with this throbbing sense of joy is the sense that events in my life converge with meaning. The biggest thing is always that I remember my conversion to the Catholic faith with such wonder. I hear the prayers of Mass and of Liturgy of the Hours these days, and I just know that these same prayers were offered for me, for my conversion, by people I didn't even know. They prayed and sacrificed for me so that I could experience a dramatic and total conversion on that Christmas Eve in 1991. God had led me to that point, but it was such a total surprise and shock, and so powerful. I'm sure it will only be in heaven that I will see the prayers that brought down those graces for me.

And now here I am, praying the same prayers, earnestly entreating God for graces of conversion for other people. Don't ever write off anyone when it comes to praying for their conversion. I had been anti-Catholic and had long wrestled with a kind of animosity towards Christmas that was born of a host of bad theology and sad memories. God instantly and completely changed all that.

I got this little note in a Christmas card from the Camaldolese Hermits today. It hits the nail on the head:

A good thought on Christmas comes down to us from Pope St. Leo the Great in the fifth century, via his successor Pope Benedict XVI. "That day has not passed away in such a way that the power of the work, which was then revealed, has passed away with it... All things therefore that the Son of God did and taught for the world's reconciliation, we not only know as a matter of past history, but appreciate in the power of their present effect."

In the liturgy, we do not just recall past events, we relive them. The spiritual excitement and gratification we feel are not imaginary. Rather, the saving power of the mystery becomes present to us today.

This is true of every experience of the liturgy, but for me it is particularly true of these days of Advent, and especially of the Christmas Mass. I experience not only a reliving of Calvary, but a reliving of that particular moment when Jesus first revealed Himself to me as present and real in the Mass, which prompted my conversion. Spiritually I go back to it, and it blows me away all over again.

It makes me stand in awe at where God has led me. More than that, it makes me stand in awe, realizing that it really has been God that has led me, even when I thought I was just floundering around, alone. It fills me with courage and faith. And I am aware that this is not from me; it is a gift from God. I am surrounded, enveloped, in gifts from God. I am freed, knowing that I'm not alone, that my spiritual excitement is not imaginary. God is real -- my life is proof! It makes me want to tell everyone everything that has ever happened to me.

Like a little child, my eyes keep gazing under the "spiritual Christmas tree" for a special gift I am asking for from the Lord. I've been asking basically the same thing for several Christmases now. This year, my request has special meaning, and a heightened sense of anticipation. Little children, even loaded down with gifts and lavishly provided for, can still have that special place in their heart for that one thing. So do I. Just as I'm writing this I'm wondering to myself how I might respond if Christmas comes and goes without my seeing there what I hope to see. I do see that each year my desire and request has upgraded. But it hasn't gone away. Maybe that's how it has been answered each year so far. What I do know is that my heavenly Father couldn't possibly be unmoved by my desire. And He certainly can move heaven and earth to give me what I desire, if indeed my desire has finally gotten grand enough for Him. Either way you slice it, I am excited. Jesus has told mystics and saints in private revelation all over the place that heaven participates in giving gifts at Christmastime, too. "He who did not spare His own Son, but gave Him up for us all, how will He not also, along with Him, graciously give us all things?" (Rom. 8:32) God certainly is not going to stop being generous with me any time soon. If only my heart can delight with Him in real time as He gives... and see what He is giving. Oooh, I'm happy already!

December 20, 2012
P.S. You know, Lord, I've been thinking about this. I do get excited about what I want. But I've learned something about your gifts. Sometimes their beauty plays to my weakness, and my distractable heart goes off after them. Lord, I'd rather not have your gifts if it could mean my heart moving off from you. What I really want is you, Lord. So, attach my wandery heart to you by whatever means works best. "Being with you, I desire nothing on earth..." If you give me a gift, please draw me up on your lap and hold me close there, first. I don't want to get scared of your gifts, but I'm gonna need a lot of help...

Coming to Peace with my Brain

So, here's something else I've learned lately. I'm learning about how to get along with my brain.

It is rather rare and unusual for me to get into conflicts with other people, but inside myself, I am very hard to get along with. For me, I mean. They say that self-knowledge is absolutely necessary for making progress in the spiritual path, and I think I'm seeing the truth of this more and more.

I am a cerebral person. I think a lot. If I'm stressed, I can get just a tad obsessive. I'm not necessarily emotionally sensitive; sometimes I'm a bit of a dolt that way. But I'm sensitive to everything I hear, and, as one woman once put it, I have extremely sensitive spiritual antennae.

What this has tended to amount to is that I have a lot of data coming in to me that I don't know how to process. Usually this confusing data comes from other people. I can use my own cerebralness to try to figure it out, but eventually it overwhelms me and causes me so much suffering that I am forced out of myself into the world of someone else in order to get understanding, to try to find peace. And for a once-self-professed misanthrope, that's significant.

I realize the importance of the people with whom I surround myself. I find that when I spend a significant chunk of time with someone, or when I've had a conversation with someone, the next day that experience or those words will replay in my head. If that person or that conversation draws me towards the Lord and His movement in my life, I am edified. If not, I can get drawn instead to anxious thoughts or get easily agitated. I am finding that sometimes movies or idle chit-chat that I needn't have been part of can really act like brain-pollution, like a bad smell I need to then air out of my thinking.

Something that has been a profound help to me is praying the Liturgy of the Hours. Some years ago the Lord started impressing on me, in a way that both respected and required the kicking into gear of my free will, my dire need to meditate more on Scripture. I thought maybe just trying to dwell on the Mass readings or theological thoughts in general would be enough. But it wasn't. Nor was it adequate to start randomly reading the Bible, as I started to do more of. As a Protestant, I thought of meditating on Scripture as reading through it, and stopping when something struck me. But choosing what to read was either an exercise in picking what I wanted to hear or simple dogged determination. Suddenly it started to dawn on me that I should meditate on Scripture the way the Church instructs us to: liturgically. I had prayed the Hours on and off since the first day I decided to become a Catholic. But I've been doing so regularly for the last few years, and lately I have endeavored to pray all seven hours. (Which, for the record, does not mean I pray for 420 minutes a day. It is just seven sessions of prayer sprinkled throughout the day.) This has been spectacular in terms of being a reset button for my thinking. It is not without reason that Scripture itself teaches us to actually pray Scripture out loud. To sing it. Chant it. Mutter it. To rub it into your thoughts like oil into dry skin.

Dipping in to Scripture often throughout the day, not to exercise my intellectualization, but to find my life reflected there, is hugely valuable. God becomes the One I think about all day long. My idle brain noise is His praise instead of my anxieties. I get used to realizing that He always has something to say to me, and that my need for Him is constant, like my need for air and love. It gets my hyper-sensitivity working for me instead of against me. I am focused on truth, on reality. And I refocus throughout the day.

And slowly, I begin to not fret as much about the perplexities of who I am. The more I know who He is, the more I understand and can be at peace with who I am. Because I know I am not the main attraction. Knowing the One who holds everything, who creates everything, who is all powerful and all loving, and has been for all of history, lets me settle in to my life of service with peace. It lets me learn spiritual childhood. I don't have to have it all figured out, because I am beholding right in front of me One who is mighty and can handle it all. Praise God -- it's all right to not understand! It's peaceful to realize I am not in charge of the universe. 

I am freed to be available for service to the One who is in charge, and who knows all.

Some Profound Morning Thoughts about Hair

Yesterday I was on the phone with someone whom I apparently have met but can't quite picture. She told me she knew our neighbors, and added "You're the woman with that beautiful red hair!"

Other than the irony of having just that morning re-hennaed my hair so that it does almost look red again, I was really struck by her exuberance about this hair of mine.

See, there was an earlier time in my life, a long time actually, when I was also as regularly identified with/by my hair as I tend to be now, except in those days I was tormented and taunted about it. Even certain progenitors of mine drilled into my thinking that my hair was a "big, ugly bush" and often bought me gifts like "bad hair day" plaques or dolls with giant straw hair because they reminded of me. Every boy in high school who ever commented about what I looked like teased me about my hair. One older boy nicknamed me "Fuzzy," and to another I was "Brillo Head." Girls teased that they could look like me if they would just rat up their hair.

Those days are long gone, thanks be to God, and I admit that not until I was 40 did I really learn how to take care of my naturally curly hair in such a way that I could actually get it to look the way I wanted. I have never been particularly fashion conscious nor am I a visually-oriented person, so I have never obsessed over my looks. But regardless, I realize now how deeply these words wounded my soul.

I really like my hair, and to be honest I always have. I just haven't known how to get along with it. It strikes me to the heart every time someone comments to me about it, because I realize no one does so in a mocking way any longer. It is to me like a little message of the victory of the anawim every time I get a hair compliment.

Awhile ago, though, there happened in my life a moment that captures why I'm bothering to write about this. This was a little chit-chat conversation with my confessor, after having completed the sacramental part of our exchange. Even though he knew nothing of my hair history, I knew that between the lines he was communicating something deeper than the chit chat, though:

He:  How do you get your hair to look so pretty like that? Is that all natural?
Me:  Yes. It grows like that.
He:  Wow. Well isn't that a gift?

See, the fact of the matter is that, yes, my hair does look the way it does when I allow it to grow and help it to do what it wants to do by nature, which is to curl. When I work against my hair by brushing it, combing it, washing it with shampoo often (instead of conditioner), and not feeding it what it needs to stay in its shape -- in other words, when I treat my hair the way every "normal," straight-haired person does -- it suffers and loses its beauty.

Is this not the way our souls are? How often do we not take as our own identity the lies of the devil, which tell us we are worthless, ugly, useless, irredeemable? How often are we not made to feel guilty because we are unique? How often do we forget that each person is a unique miracle of God, whom God alone has the right to instruct as to our dignity, our beauty, and the right way for us to walk? God has no assembly line where He makes standard-issue souls. We must all be formed by the unique way of the cross that He designs for each of us. We can't copy what someone else is doing or hang our self-worth on their opinion or approval and expect to find our glory. Only God reveals that glory to and in us. We must look to Him and follow Him.