Of late I have been wondering, in the substrata of my soul, about the purpose desire serves. Oh, I never think in neat words (hmmmm, I wonder what purpose desire serves....), but I guess what I mean to say is that my heart has been rumbling a lot lately, and this is the best way, in hindsight, that I can put that rumble into words.
Why, indeed, would a heart surrendered to God fittingly have seasons of longing, of finding no deep fulfillment, of wanting, of craving, of a nagging emptiness? Is not the One I adore enough to satisfy?
Well, yes, but there must be more than this... (as this song begins)
Our hearts intuit that we are made for the infinite. We intuit that there must be more, and so we are filled with longing.
I think longing becomes frightening and dangerous only when we have no faith, no hope. With faith and hope we know we are not only made for the infinite, but the Infinite reaches to us and draws us onward to Him, into His embrace. Even when we lose all sense of this truth, if we retain this truth with our minds, our memories, we can take another step forward and long in safety, because we know the cry of our hearts is not going to bounce out into an empty universe and merely echo back into our own ears and no other.
How do we long for something we already have? We can't.
Every desire is a desire for God. Not every desiring heart realizes it. God is always bigger than we are. That's sorta the definition of The Infinite. So those feelings of longing, of wanting, of craving, of dissatisfaction... what do we do with them? Let them drive us to what numbs us? Stuff them and try really hard to ignore them? Beat ourselves up over how surely holy people don't crave something else? Wallow around in some thing at hand that seems to come close to what we desire? Cry out with a passion we don't really understand?
Yes, that seems about it.
And today, I read this: "The entire life of a good Christian is in fact an exercise of holy desire. You do not yet see what you long for, but the very act of desiring prepares you, so that when he comes you may see and be utterly satisfied." St. Augustine.
Desire is fitting for this time in the liturgical year when we are heading toward Advent and desiring the Returning King. Desire now allows us to be fully satisfied when He who is our life appears to us. Both now, and in the final coming.
Desire is never something to be shut down, only brought into the light, purified, and intensified.
Sunday, November 14, 2010
Saturday, November 13, 2010
Friday, November 12, 2010
Church Door Phobia
So, here's an interesting blog post idea: strange phobias. I don't have many of them, really. I'm working through my issues with the telephone, at least in my head. But I did once have a sort of anxious catch in my heart about church doors. This goes back to the time of my conversion to Catholicism as well.
Some Catholic churches have so many doors, no doubt owing to the evolution of how people arrive at church. Doors off sidewalks accommodate walkers. Side doors accommodate parking lots and handicap accessibility. But sometimes there are just so dang many of them that it is hard to know which is the best door to use. Then there are the round churches. Who knows where those doors will lead! Back in my early days of trepidation my chief worry was that I would open a door that would lead me smack into the front of a church -- right on the altar how about -- when a Mass was going on. I could picture a crowd of 500 Catholics going pin-drop silent as the poor wayfaring stranger stepped in. Everyone would realize I was deeply clueless. (I was just a tad self-conscious.)
One of my favorite memories of God's care for me amidst my now seemingly silly insecurities involved church doors. The Lord had given me the instruction to "be going to Mass," which I knew meant daily Mass. I tried to obey. Since I had overheard a volunteer at work mention that she went to daily Mass in the morning, I figured I had to go in the morning as well. I had to be at work by 8:30, but I knew a nearby parish had a 7:00 morning Mass, so one morning I mustered myself up to go. As I walked, I fretted, because this was one of those big, old churches with six different banks of doors at three levels. I had never been in this church before, and I had no idea what I'd find once I walked in. So I prayed, begging the Lord to send someone ahead of me whom I could follow in. As I approached the church, sure enough, a man crossed the street and my path in front of me, and went in. The door he entered was two inches from closing when at a natural gait I approached it, took it in hand, and went in. I followed him down the steps, right into the rear of the lower church where people were gathered for Mass. What a relief that was!
Now, I had gotten used to services that were nearly three hours long, so when the entire Mass was finished in 20 minutes, I hardly knew what hit me. I had barely gotten comfortable in the pew, and it was all over! Bewildered, I never went back to that early morning Mass. In fact, it took me almost an entire year before I started daily Mass in earnest -- in the late afternoon after work!
Some Catholic churches have so many doors, no doubt owing to the evolution of how people arrive at church. Doors off sidewalks accommodate walkers. Side doors accommodate parking lots and handicap accessibility. But sometimes there are just so dang many of them that it is hard to know which is the best door to use. Then there are the round churches. Who knows where those doors will lead! Back in my early days of trepidation my chief worry was that I would open a door that would lead me smack into the front of a church -- right on the altar how about -- when a Mass was going on. I could picture a crowd of 500 Catholics going pin-drop silent as the poor wayfaring stranger stepped in. Everyone would realize I was deeply clueless. (I was just a tad self-conscious.)
One of my favorite memories of God's care for me amidst my now seemingly silly insecurities involved church doors. The Lord had given me the instruction to "be going to Mass," which I knew meant daily Mass. I tried to obey. Since I had overheard a volunteer at work mention that she went to daily Mass in the morning, I figured I had to go in the morning as well. I had to be at work by 8:30, but I knew a nearby parish had a 7:00 morning Mass, so one morning I mustered myself up to go. As I walked, I fretted, because this was one of those big, old churches with six different banks of doors at three levels. I had never been in this church before, and I had no idea what I'd find once I walked in. So I prayed, begging the Lord to send someone ahead of me whom I could follow in. As I approached the church, sure enough, a man crossed the street and my path in front of me, and went in. The door he entered was two inches from closing when at a natural gait I approached it, took it in hand, and went in. I followed him down the steps, right into the rear of the lower church where people were gathered for Mass. What a relief that was!
Now, I had gotten used to services that were nearly three hours long, so when the entire Mass was finished in 20 minutes, I hardly knew what hit me. I had barely gotten comfortable in the pew, and it was all over! Bewildered, I never went back to that early morning Mass. In fact, it took me almost an entire year before I started daily Mass in earnest -- in the late afternoon after work!
Thursday, November 11, 2010
How Making Phone Calls Changed my Life
Ok, when I started this blog-every-day-for-a-month challenge I stated that my theme was going to be "stories I never get tired of telling." I haven't really done that yet. But today I will pick one such story, brought to mind by my post yesterday.
And this story is all about a little work assignment I was given back when I worked at Wisconsin Right to Life. This was a very providential little task that had a pretty significant impact on me, and it shows how God has a very keen sense of humor.
This was "back in the day" when technology was not very developed. Internet and email were things barely heard of even by our computer guy, and all of the contacts we generated had to be done the old fashioned way. So we did a lot of networking with groups and churches.
In one particular networking blitz, all of the churches in the local area were broken down and a few of us were assigned to help get some information out to them. This is how I was assigned the task to call every Catholic parish in the Archdiocese of Milwaukee. I even asked "Couldn't I call the Protestant churches?" No, I was told, we need you to do the Catholic ones. Ugh.
I always loathed the jobs where I had to call hundreds of anybody, but I was especially fuming at this point over calling the Catholic churches, because I had just had three friends announce to me that they were becoming Catholics, and I was extremely upset about it. I really was not in the mood for having my face rubbed in it any further.
Called I did. Call after call after call. Sometimes I got a grumpy response, and I felt justified in disliking these odd people. I felt my know-it-all pride poked and prodded as I looked at parish name after parish name and realized I had no idea who most of these saints were. (There were parishes named after women, for heaven's sake. Wasn't that scandalous?) Oh, then there was the time I came across a parish named "Mary, Queen of the Universe." I had to get up and take a short walk after coming across that one. What kind of heathens name a church that?
But something happened as I talked with all these... people. I started to realize they were people! At one point I sheepishly asked a Catholic co-worker, "Do I call them Father John or Father Smith? What about Sister Mary or Sister Jones? What's a "Monseigneur"? I slowly felt the inconsistency bubble out of my heart: I was supposedly (in my mind) this loving, Spirit-filled super-Christian, but I was firmly entrenched behind a bigoted hatred for people simply based on their religious affiliation, and it was excruciatingly painful for me to acknowledge any good coming from them. Even though I had acquaintances and co-workers whom I knew to be Catholic, I'd never really spoken to any Catholics as such in my life, really acknowledging them as representatives of this group I disliked. Catholics as such in my mind were worthy of contempt, because they were so wrong about so much. They were essentially a theoretical group of people whom I hated, and now I was talking with them and discovering they were human beings.
It was in the course of the weeks that I made these hundreds of phone calls that I realized that one cannot hate a group, or an idea, without being unjust to individual human beings. The discord within my own heart made me realize that something was very wrong with how I was discerning truth.
Up until that time, my logic went "Catholics are idiots; it's reasonable for idiots to believe lies." When I came to grips with how blatantly disrespectful this was, I had to humble myself enough to change that. I realized that Catholics had a completely different paradigm than I did for discerning truth. My paradigm was "The Bible says this, the Holy Spirit says this." And, I knew that whatever the Catholic paradigm was, was wrong. But I had to admit I had no idea what the Catholic paradigm was. I had no idea what their starting point was that enabled them to end up with churches named "Mary, Queen of the Universe" or to believe in a Pope or sacraments and all the rest. I had no idea what the paradigm was because I had never learned anything about Catholicism except from a Lutheran (or other Protestant) perspective.
I realized that to understand why Catholics were so goofy, I'd have to read Catholic sources and authors.
So I did. And within a few short months, I was telling the Lord I would follow Him and become a Catholic.
And this story is all about a little work assignment I was given back when I worked at Wisconsin Right to Life. This was a very providential little task that had a pretty significant impact on me, and it shows how God has a very keen sense of humor.
This was "back in the day" when technology was not very developed. Internet and email were things barely heard of even by our computer guy, and all of the contacts we generated had to be done the old fashioned way. So we did a lot of networking with groups and churches.
In one particular networking blitz, all of the churches in the local area were broken down and a few of us were assigned to help get some information out to them. This is how I was assigned the task to call every Catholic parish in the Archdiocese of Milwaukee. I even asked "Couldn't I call the Protestant churches?" No, I was told, we need you to do the Catholic ones. Ugh.
I always loathed the jobs where I had to call hundreds of anybody, but I was especially fuming at this point over calling the Catholic churches, because I had just had three friends announce to me that they were becoming Catholics, and I was extremely upset about it. I really was not in the mood for having my face rubbed in it any further.
Called I did. Call after call after call. Sometimes I got a grumpy response, and I felt justified in disliking these odd people. I felt my know-it-all pride poked and prodded as I looked at parish name after parish name and realized I had no idea who most of these saints were. (There were parishes named after women, for heaven's sake. Wasn't that scandalous?) Oh, then there was the time I came across a parish named "Mary, Queen of the Universe." I had to get up and take a short walk after coming across that one. What kind of heathens name a church that?
But something happened as I talked with all these... people. I started to realize they were people! At one point I sheepishly asked a Catholic co-worker, "Do I call them Father John or Father Smith? What about Sister Mary or Sister Jones? What's a "Monseigneur"? I slowly felt the inconsistency bubble out of my heart: I was supposedly (in my mind) this loving, Spirit-filled super-Christian, but I was firmly entrenched behind a bigoted hatred for people simply based on their religious affiliation, and it was excruciatingly painful for me to acknowledge any good coming from them. Even though I had acquaintances and co-workers whom I knew to be Catholic, I'd never really spoken to any Catholics as such in my life, really acknowledging them as representatives of this group I disliked. Catholics as such in my mind were worthy of contempt, because they were so wrong about so much. They were essentially a theoretical group of people whom I hated, and now I was talking with them and discovering they were human beings.
It was in the course of the weeks that I made these hundreds of phone calls that I realized that one cannot hate a group, or an idea, without being unjust to individual human beings. The discord within my own heart made me realize that something was very wrong with how I was discerning truth.
Up until that time, my logic went "Catholics are idiots; it's reasonable for idiots to believe lies." When I came to grips with how blatantly disrespectful this was, I had to humble myself enough to change that. I realized that Catholics had a completely different paradigm than I did for discerning truth. My paradigm was "The Bible says this, the Holy Spirit says this." And, I knew that whatever the Catholic paradigm was, was wrong. But I had to admit I had no idea what the Catholic paradigm was. I had no idea what their starting point was that enabled them to end up with churches named "Mary, Queen of the Universe" or to believe in a Pope or sacraments and all the rest. I had no idea what the paradigm was because I had never learned anything about Catholicism except from a Lutheran (or other Protestant) perspective.
I realized that to understand why Catholics were so goofy, I'd have to read Catholic sources and authors.
So I did. And within a few short months, I was telling the Lord I would follow Him and become a Catholic.
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
The Lord Is My Shepherd, There is Nothing I Shall Want
Today at Mass the responsorial psalm was Psalm 23, probably the best-known Psalm in the world. It seems to me that it is easy for best-known Scriptures to lose their punch from familiarity, if this familiarity comes simply from rote memorization or the "oh yeah, I know this one" check-out procedure upon hearing it. But there's a different kind of familiarity, as of that between lovers. That is when words or images trigger memories of a path walked together, a path where pain and understanding, where anxiety and gentle reassurance have once met. Then, familiar words bring all these experiences that have shaped a relationship, a history, to life all over again.
That was what hit me when I heard those familiar words today: "The Lord is my Shepherd, there is nothing I shall want. He makes me lie down in green pastures... He leads me in paths of righteousness for His name's sake."
The memory triggered for me today was a spot where I sometimes spent my lunch breaks in Milwaukee. Just a few blocks from the office where I worked was the beginning of a city park, where a river was helped along towards Lake Michigan by a concrete embankment. There was a bridge where a road went overhead, and I often climbed down onto the concrete and sat under the bridge to ponder and get away from the noisy office phones I was responsible for answering.
As I look back now, it seems the whole point in my having the job I did at the time was that it gave me an excellent backdrop for my conversion to Catholicism. All the details about that belong to another post, I suppose, but my time there bookended my journey very nicely, predating its advent by several months and ending as I headed out to "missionary life" in Japan as not much more than a neophyte. But I digress.
It was somewhere in the middle of this time, when I was committed to becoming Catholic but still in the process, that I was sitting in my favorite park spot one day with a real worry in my heart. The process of conversion cost me a lot, internally. I was leaving everything I knew; I left a church fellowship where I felt secure for a faceless crowd of Catholics, among whom I had not a single spiritual friend. (Those who had been instrumental in my conversion lived an average of 1,355 miles away.)
The Lord took excellent care of me, though. The immediacy of His presence to me, the evidences He showed me of answered prayer and His special attentiveness to me, I now can see, were extremely abundant. It was one of these moments when I felt I was walking into a desert alone that He brought to my heart and my mind this psalm. Even though it felt ridiculously impossible and 180 degrees away from what I was then experiencing, the Lord gave me this image of walking with Him through deep, verdant, rich pasture, being richly fed with everything I could desire. He challenged me to trust Him.
In the time that has passed since then I've known His promise fulfilled. There have been so many times that I have knelt at Mass and my heart has felt like bursting with gratitude and fullness, not only because of the abundance He gives, but because it reminds me He promised, and He fulfilled.
So when I hear "The Lord is my Shepherd, there is nothing I shall want," I want to tell people "It's true! He is my Shepherd, He has led me, and even though it didn't always feel this way, I now know that He gives freely, richly, and He satisfies. It's true!"
That was what hit me when I heard those familiar words today: "The Lord is my Shepherd, there is nothing I shall want. He makes me lie down in green pastures... He leads me in paths of righteousness for His name's sake."
The memory triggered for me today was a spot where I sometimes spent my lunch breaks in Milwaukee. Just a few blocks from the office where I worked was the beginning of a city park, where a river was helped along towards Lake Michigan by a concrete embankment. There was a bridge where a road went overhead, and I often climbed down onto the concrete and sat under the bridge to ponder and get away from the noisy office phones I was responsible for answering.
As I look back now, it seems the whole point in my having the job I did at the time was that it gave me an excellent backdrop for my conversion to Catholicism. All the details about that belong to another post, I suppose, but my time there bookended my journey very nicely, predating its advent by several months and ending as I headed out to "missionary life" in Japan as not much more than a neophyte. But I digress.
It was somewhere in the middle of this time, when I was committed to becoming Catholic but still in the process, that I was sitting in my favorite park spot one day with a real worry in my heart. The process of conversion cost me a lot, internally. I was leaving everything I knew; I left a church fellowship where I felt secure for a faceless crowd of Catholics, among whom I had not a single spiritual friend. (Those who had been instrumental in my conversion lived an average of 1,355 miles away.)
The Lord took excellent care of me, though. The immediacy of His presence to me, the evidences He showed me of answered prayer and His special attentiveness to me, I now can see, were extremely abundant. It was one of these moments when I felt I was walking into a desert alone that He brought to my heart and my mind this psalm. Even though it felt ridiculously impossible and 180 degrees away from what I was then experiencing, the Lord gave me this image of walking with Him through deep, verdant, rich pasture, being richly fed with everything I could desire. He challenged me to trust Him.
In the time that has passed since then I've known His promise fulfilled. There have been so many times that I have knelt at Mass and my heart has felt like bursting with gratitude and fullness, not only because of the abundance He gives, but because it reminds me He promised, and He fulfilled.
So when I hear "The Lord is my Shepherd, there is nothing I shall want," I want to tell people "It's true! He is my Shepherd, He has led me, and even though it didn't always feel this way, I now know that He gives freely, richly, and He satisfies. It's true!"
Tuesday, November 09, 2010
In Right Relationship With Glory
Today at Mass, I was reminded of this quote from Pope John Paul II:
At one point in my life, this would have shocked me, scandalized me even, to a degree. "Natural greatness" just seemed too deep a contrast to my understanding of sin and its effect on the soul.
But today's homily, on the occasion of the feast of St. John Lateran, focused on the glory of God coming to rest on this earth (Ezekiel 47) and then, in particular, in the person of Jesus Christ in the miracle of the Incarnation. Fr. David spoke of a modern painting of Mary at the moment of the Incarnation, with her abdomen surrounded in an orb of light which she embraced, kneeling, awestruck and humble.
I was struck by this realization because everything about the Incarnation really stops me in my tracks and makes me catch my breath. The Incarnation has been the theme of my journey with the Lord for the last 19 years. It seems that I have come to be able to accept finding the glory of God revealed through another human person. But what struck me today is the awkwardness I have at accepting the glory of God revealed through myself to others. This, I believe, is the key to humility and the antidote to pride: to know that the source my good is the Lord, to really and truly acknowledge this, and then live in right relationship with this fact. To the extent that I mistake the glory of God for my own efforts, or vice versa, I am not in right relationship with this fact.
And this too is a work of God's grace. But Mary shows us the pattern for us: to look intently for and at the glory of God, to be lost in adoration, praise, and worship as we gaze deeply into the reality before us, including the work of grace within ourselves, as one aspect of God's vast design.
Man must reconcile himself to his natural greatness.... he must not forget that he is a person.
At one point in my life, this would have shocked me, scandalized me even, to a degree. "Natural greatness" just seemed too deep a contrast to my understanding of sin and its effect on the soul.
But today's homily, on the occasion of the feast of St. John Lateran, focused on the glory of God coming to rest on this earth (Ezekiel 47) and then, in particular, in the person of Jesus Christ in the miracle of the Incarnation. Fr. David spoke of a modern painting of Mary at the moment of the Incarnation, with her abdomen surrounded in an orb of light which she embraced, kneeling, awestruck and humble.
I was struck by this realization because everything about the Incarnation really stops me in my tracks and makes me catch my breath. The Incarnation has been the theme of my journey with the Lord for the last 19 years. It seems that I have come to be able to accept finding the glory of God revealed through another human person. But what struck me today is the awkwardness I have at accepting the glory of God revealed through myself to others. This, I believe, is the key to humility and the antidote to pride: to know that the source my good is the Lord, to really and truly acknowledge this, and then live in right relationship with this fact. To the extent that I mistake the glory of God for my own efforts, or vice versa, I am not in right relationship with this fact.
And this too is a work of God's grace. But Mary shows us the pattern for us: to look intently for and at the glory of God, to be lost in adoration, praise, and worship as we gaze deeply into the reality before us, including the work of grace within ourselves, as one aspect of God's vast design.
Monday, November 08, 2010
Partners
Wow... I'm hitting that "it's almost time for bed and I haven't written my daily blog post" point. I think this is why NaBloPoMo hasn't always worked well for me. Ah well, soldier through!
What is on my mind today is this matter of partnering. I find that this is a deeply important paradigm for me to keep in front of my awareness in terms of both my relationship with my Lord and my relationship with my husband. It keeps me focused on who I am and who I am with.
This is what I mean: The reality of my day (on a Monday, at least) is that my husband goes off to work and I am home with my children, doing domestic living and learning. Then he comes home for dinner, some portion of the family goes out to activities, and finally we all call it a night. I can live this with the awareness that my husband and I are partners in making our home and raising our family, that we each have the well-being of all in mind and heart and purpose, though each is involved in different aspects of the effort. Or, I can live this with a sense that I am doing "my thing" while my husband is off doing something completely different, and that because we are doing different things we are each detached, even alienated from the rest. It is completely possible that the exact same set of circumstances could be lived either way. The difference is attitude, or perspective. Where is my heart?
The reality of my life is similar. I can live my life filled with activities, thoughts, plans, sufferings, joys, prayers. I can operate as if I have an agenda to fulfill, a standard to meet. I can regularly evaluate how I measure up against myself. I can even nod my head towards God as the supposed Author of my agenda and my standard, but really hold the whole management of my life in my own hands. Or, I can begin each day (as I do, in reality) with a Morning Offering, entrusting everything that happens that day and everything I do, as a prayer and offering to the Father in union with Jesus. In this way, I am acknowledging that nothing will touch me that is not also touching my Lord. He is with me closer than I can know, experiencing everything as I do. And with my prayer of allegiance, I ask for the grace to obey every direction the Lord might give throughout that day. It is a very quick prayer, but it sets the stage of my day to be open at every turn to the Lord present with me. In this way, God Almighty becomes a partner with me, and I with Him, throughout my life. This is incredible! But what else can it mean that my relationship with the Lord is personal?
For me, the key to love is "personal." As soon as I get abstract, theoretical, figure-headish, role playing, in any relationship, I know something has gone astray. The concept of partnership reminds me constantly that I have what is mine to give, but I am not alone in that. In the case with my husband, as with other people, I give in faith, trusting him to do the same, and being helped by his giving when I get lost and give up. With my Lord, it is all the Lord who gives in faith ("while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us") and enables me to respond to Him. It's in this way, I suppose, that those who partner with us mirror to us God's faithfulness.
What is on my mind today is this matter of partnering. I find that this is a deeply important paradigm for me to keep in front of my awareness in terms of both my relationship with my Lord and my relationship with my husband. It keeps me focused on who I am and who I am with.
This is what I mean: The reality of my day (on a Monday, at least) is that my husband goes off to work and I am home with my children, doing domestic living and learning. Then he comes home for dinner, some portion of the family goes out to activities, and finally we all call it a night. I can live this with the awareness that my husband and I are partners in making our home and raising our family, that we each have the well-being of all in mind and heart and purpose, though each is involved in different aspects of the effort. Or, I can live this with a sense that I am doing "my thing" while my husband is off doing something completely different, and that because we are doing different things we are each detached, even alienated from the rest. It is completely possible that the exact same set of circumstances could be lived either way. The difference is attitude, or perspective. Where is my heart?
The reality of my life is similar. I can live my life filled with activities, thoughts, plans, sufferings, joys, prayers. I can operate as if I have an agenda to fulfill, a standard to meet. I can regularly evaluate how I measure up against myself. I can even nod my head towards God as the supposed Author of my agenda and my standard, but really hold the whole management of my life in my own hands. Or, I can begin each day (as I do, in reality) with a Morning Offering, entrusting everything that happens that day and everything I do, as a prayer and offering to the Father in union with Jesus. In this way, I am acknowledging that nothing will touch me that is not also touching my Lord. He is with me closer than I can know, experiencing everything as I do. And with my prayer of allegiance, I ask for the grace to obey every direction the Lord might give throughout that day. It is a very quick prayer, but it sets the stage of my day to be open at every turn to the Lord present with me. In this way, God Almighty becomes a partner with me, and I with Him, throughout my life. This is incredible! But what else can it mean that my relationship with the Lord is personal?
For me, the key to love is "personal." As soon as I get abstract, theoretical, figure-headish, role playing, in any relationship, I know something has gone astray. The concept of partnership reminds me constantly that I have what is mine to give, but I am not alone in that. In the case with my husband, as with other people, I give in faith, trusting him to do the same, and being helped by his giving when I get lost and give up. With my Lord, it is all the Lord who gives in faith ("while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us") and enables me to respond to Him. It's in this way, I suppose, that those who partner with us mirror to us God's faithfulness.
I thank my God every time I remember you. In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.(Philippians 1:3-6)
Sunday, November 07, 2010
Saturday, November 06, 2010
Friday, November 05, 2010
Lazarus, Come Out!
The Lord can reach through time and space
And touch a wound, heal a pain
Fill a gap, leave a grace
Leaving a soul richer than the day of its creation
If only we will but see
The many ways in which we are not God
See and believe how much bigger is He
Than our efforts, our worries, our self-bandaging
Be still, little girl, He spoke to my soul
Be still and know I am God
I am Love; I heal where you cannot
In your heart, I come to stay
And from you, I go out; Bring love to a world
Which wounds in its wounding and pain
I heal you to heal; I love you to love
Gaze on Me: together always.
Thursday, November 04, 2010
Vengeance: Who's Going to Pay for This?
This afternoon I heard a homily on forgiveness. Because my children were with me and there were noses to wipe and pieces of paper to retrieve and little chats to put a stop to, I was not completely glued to every word that came forth from Father's mouth. But my attention was caught by his last point, which concerned how to differentiate forgiveness from emotional or feeling-based responses. At times, people think that if they have any negative feelings toward a person, they must not have forgiven. Or, they think that forgiveness requires one to like an individual that one finds unpleasant. Father's point was that you can know you have forgiven when a) you do not seek revenge and b) you pray for the person.
I'm not sure why that struck me so, but it did. I don't resonate much with the word vengeance. (Though it reminds me of a video by Rich Mullins where he says "I know the Bible says 'Vengeance is mine,' saith the Lord, but I just want to be about the Lord's business!") What I resonate with -- no, resonate is not the right word here. Resonate has too positive a quality to it. What I equate with vengeance is the feeling that somebody has to pay for this. And that somebody, somewhere in my gut, always seems to be me. There's something very wrong with that. And I think at heart, fixing it has a root in the need to properly forgive.
Really, not being vengeful is a matter of allowing justice to be carried out by the Lord. Entrusting injustices to Him. What is vengeance, after all? Is it not the idea that I will do something to replace what has been stolen from me, or from someone? And that someone that is done is generally another violation, another violence. Blame, a grudge, a punishment, a torment. A price. It is me declaring that I have the superior oversight of objective reality, and I know what a sin costs, and I know how to extract what it takes to heal.
In other words, I'm God; I'll handle it.
But in my heart, my own personal version of this, has never been really to unleash purposefully hateful or violent acts toward another, to get even. It has been to inflict them on myself. Maybe this shows an intuition of reparation or intercession, but it still really boils down to I'm God; I'll handle it.
And then there's when I see someone who can do this better than I can. Someone who feels the need to say "excuse me" when another person burps. The first person to stop to pick up things others have dropped. I'm sure it is possible for someone to do that because their heart is full of generosity. But I see an ability to say You've just made a mess in my life. This is really an injustice. Someone has to pay, and it has to be me. I have to absorb your fault. Not "allow me to help you" but "I have to."
In other words: God is not doing His job. I have to.
Nuances, nuances! There is such a difference between being motivated by the love to say "I would do anything to make you happy," and "I hate how this pain has disrupted my life, but I want to avoid the complication of blaming or wanting to destroy another (maybe because it doesn't make me look so good), so I'll take the vengeance inside myself, do the violence to myself, and try to make myself happy by letting you avoid pain."
Or, it could just be a child's magical thinking inside an adult psyche: if I pinch myself until I hurt, I can take away the hurt I see going on around me. The mind has habits, and this is why St. Paul admonishes us to be transformed by the renewal of our minds (Rom. 12:2).
God alone is my Savior, and God alone is the Savior of the hurting person next to me. If I am to give anything at all to the hurting person next to me, it must come from God. Or perhaps better yet, if that hurting person next to me is to receive something that will heal her, it must come from God. I could heap all sorts of things on all sorts of people, and it might only clog them off or confuse them from receiving from God. It's not that I need fear about giving from out of my heart, but I do need love to motivate me in all things, never a twisted sense that I have to pay for this.
I'm not sure why that struck me so, but it did. I don't resonate much with the word vengeance. (Though it reminds me of a video by Rich Mullins where he says "I know the Bible says 'Vengeance is mine,' saith the Lord, but I just want to be about the Lord's business!") What I resonate with -- no, resonate is not the right word here. Resonate has too positive a quality to it. What I equate with vengeance is the feeling that somebody has to pay for this. And that somebody, somewhere in my gut, always seems to be me. There's something very wrong with that. And I think at heart, fixing it has a root in the need to properly forgive.
Really, not being vengeful is a matter of allowing justice to be carried out by the Lord. Entrusting injustices to Him. What is vengeance, after all? Is it not the idea that I will do something to replace what has been stolen from me, or from someone? And that someone that is done is generally another violation, another violence. Blame, a grudge, a punishment, a torment. A price. It is me declaring that I have the superior oversight of objective reality, and I know what a sin costs, and I know how to extract what it takes to heal.
In other words, I'm God; I'll handle it.
But in my heart, my own personal version of this, has never been really to unleash purposefully hateful or violent acts toward another, to get even. It has been to inflict them on myself. Maybe this shows an intuition of reparation or intercession, but it still really boils down to I'm God; I'll handle it.
And then there's when I see someone who can do this better than I can. Someone who feels the need to say "excuse me" when another person burps. The first person to stop to pick up things others have dropped. I'm sure it is possible for someone to do that because their heart is full of generosity. But I see an ability to say You've just made a mess in my life. This is really an injustice. Someone has to pay, and it has to be me. I have to absorb your fault. Not "allow me to help you" but "I have to."
In other words: God is not doing His job. I have to.
Nuances, nuances! There is such a difference between being motivated by the love to say "I would do anything to make you happy," and "I hate how this pain has disrupted my life, but I want to avoid the complication of blaming or wanting to destroy another (maybe because it doesn't make me look so good), so I'll take the vengeance inside myself, do the violence to myself, and try to make myself happy by letting you avoid pain."
Or, it could just be a child's magical thinking inside an adult psyche: if I pinch myself until I hurt, I can take away the hurt I see going on around me. The mind has habits, and this is why St. Paul admonishes us to be transformed by the renewal of our minds (Rom. 12:2).
God alone is my Savior, and God alone is the Savior of the hurting person next to me. If I am to give anything at all to the hurting person next to me, it must come from God. Or perhaps better yet, if that hurting person next to me is to receive something that will heal her, it must come from God. I could heap all sorts of things on all sorts of people, and it might only clog them off or confuse them from receiving from God. It's not that I need fear about giving from out of my heart, but I do need love to motivate me in all things, never a twisted sense that I have to pay for this.
Wednesday, November 03, 2010
Citizen of a Political No-Man's Land
The more involved I am in the political scene, the less I identify with partisan politics.
So it was a strange feeling today when I ran into a friend who was giddy-excited over the results of yesterday's elections. She gushed her sense of relief that nearly all of "her" candidates won, and the key candidate we had mutually hoped to lose actually did. I wasn't quite sure how to emotionally process what was coming across to me. I wasn't sad about the election results. But I couldn't get that excited over them, either. I suppose it is because elections don't change the direction of the country. Oh, elections have consequences, I do know that old saying is true. But the truth is, we won't know what those consequences are until those who have been elected start acting in office. Will my new Congressman respond personally to my letters? Will we see him in the district more than the outgoing one? Will he introduce legislation that I want to see introduced? Toward whom will he gravitate? Will he turn out to be power hungry and forget that his role is to represent, not engineer?
I don't know. I'll have to wait and see.
A few days ago I read a blog post by DownsizeDC.org that I appreciated quite a bit, entitled What Will The Election Change? It included this gem:
So, keep your excitement over the Republicans taking over. I would like common sense to take over. When I see that happening, I'll throw a party.
So it was a strange feeling today when I ran into a friend who was giddy-excited over the results of yesterday's elections. She gushed her sense of relief that nearly all of "her" candidates won, and the key candidate we had mutually hoped to lose actually did. I wasn't quite sure how to emotionally process what was coming across to me. I wasn't sad about the election results. But I couldn't get that excited over them, either. I suppose it is because elections don't change the direction of the country. Oh, elections have consequences, I do know that old saying is true. But the truth is, we won't know what those consequences are until those who have been elected start acting in office. Will my new Congressman respond personally to my letters? Will we see him in the district more than the outgoing one? Will he introduce legislation that I want to see introduced? Toward whom will he gravitate? Will he turn out to be power hungry and forget that his role is to represent, not engineer?
I don't know. I'll have to wait and see.
A few days ago I read a blog post by DownsizeDC.org that I appreciated quite a bit, entitled What Will The Election Change? It included this gem:
We don't like talking about political personalities. They pretty much all stink.I'll admit that until just before the election, I was getting ready to throw in the towel on my "public" political involvement, to the extent that I lead a local Tea Party offshoot group. But DownsizeDC once again has re-encouraged me to consider that the important part of the political process is not who gets elected, but moving enough citizens to exert enough pressure on those who are elected -- whoever they are-- to consider the issues, to put forth the legislation, to open the dialogue and debate, so that laws can be passed that change the way things happen in Washington. Simple, common sense measures that would drastically change the way politics works, like the One Subject at a Time Act (where bills about health care can't change the statutes covering education loans) and the Read the Bills Act (so we don't have to pass bills to find out what is in them).
And we think partisan politics is even worse. Parties are palliative to thought. They're toxic to discourse. They provide social proof that cognitive dissonance is just dandy, while logic and consistency are dangerously radical.
So, keep your excitement over the Republicans taking over. I would like common sense to take over. When I see that happening, I'll throw a party.
Tuesday, November 02, 2010
Pachinko, Garbage, and Peeping Water Buffalos
So, here I am on the second whopping day of the write-every day challenge, and already I realize why I don't write every day. Forget simply not having the time, sometimes I'm just too dang hormonally challenged uncreative to come up with anything I feel like saying.
But since my theme is stories I never get tired of telling, I'll pick a silly story today. This happened to me in Japan. I often felt that Japan was booby-trapped for foreigners, there were that many occasions for me to make a complete idiot out of myself in the two-and-a-half years that I lived there.
One of these occasions happened on an evening when I was taking out my garbage. We had lots of different garbage pick-ups per month, with different types of garbage collected each time. This was probably plastic pick up day, because I had stuffed my junk into a plastic shopping bag. I dutifully took it to the "corner" (well, the little alley ways were hardly in a grid pattern, so it was no corner, but it was the neighborhood trash spot at least). The spot was just near a pachinko parlor. Pachinko, if you are not familiar, is the Japanese equivalent of a combination between a loud, obnoxious computer game with the social factor (sort of) of bingo. Oh, wait. A picture is worth a thousand words:
Except you really need the audio. These places loudly blare animated-type pinball sounds and music constantly.
Ok, so there I am with my garbage, stacking it at the corner of the pachinko parlor. Suddenly I realize the bag has come untied. I bend down to tie up the bag. All fine and dandy. Until I glance up just a bit and see a surprised man's eyes meet mine, as he slams a window shut. It seems that I had been tying my bag just outside the window of pachinko parlor's men's restroom. And I had been bending over at the perfect level to peep in the window and watch this man pee. Except, I wasn't! of course. I was tying my freaking garbage bag. Can I help it if Japan is simply built too compactly?
Lacking the culturally appropriate phrase to use for this kind of misunderstanding (do you really suppose there is one?) I simply slinked back to my apartment, cringing just a bit more than usual and feeling like the stereotypical water buffalo in a tutu.
But since my theme is stories I never get tired of telling, I'll pick a silly story today. This happened to me in Japan. I often felt that Japan was booby-trapped for foreigners, there were that many occasions for me to make a complete idiot out of myself in the two-and-a-half years that I lived there.
One of these occasions happened on an evening when I was taking out my garbage. We had lots of different garbage pick-ups per month, with different types of garbage collected each time. This was probably plastic pick up day, because I had stuffed my junk into a plastic shopping bag. I dutifully took it to the "corner" (well, the little alley ways were hardly in a grid pattern, so it was no corner, but it was the neighborhood trash spot at least). The spot was just near a pachinko parlor. Pachinko, if you are not familiar, is the Japanese equivalent of a combination between a loud, obnoxious computer game with the social factor (sort of) of bingo. Oh, wait. A picture is worth a thousand words:
Except you really need the audio. These places loudly blare animated-type pinball sounds and music constantly.
Ok, so there I am with my garbage, stacking it at the corner of the pachinko parlor. Suddenly I realize the bag has come untied. I bend down to tie up the bag. All fine and dandy. Until I glance up just a bit and see a surprised man's eyes meet mine, as he slams a window shut. It seems that I had been tying my bag just outside the window of pachinko parlor's men's restroom. And I had been bending over at the perfect level to peep in the window and watch this man pee. Except, I wasn't! of course. I was tying my freaking garbage bag. Can I help it if Japan is simply built too compactly?
Lacking the culturally appropriate phrase to use for this kind of misunderstanding (do you really suppose there is one?) I simply slinked back to my apartment, cringing just a bit more than usual and feeling like the stereotypical water buffalo in a tutu.
Monday, November 01, 2010
Jesus Describes His Love For Us
On the first of every month, Our Lord gives Anne a new message about His call to service.
November 1, 2010
Jesus
Dearest apostle, be assured of My good will toward you. At times, I see that you forget that you have a beloved and constant friend. I am a friend who never finds you tiresome or difficult. I am with you during your calm periods and during your storms. I find you a precious companion regardless of your disposition in any moment. Think of someone whose companionship you crave or whose companionship you craved in the past. Just the thought of spending time with that person could bring you consolation. With that person, you felt comfortable, safe and there was joy. You could be yourself and felt that you fit well with this other. Dear apostle, for you, I am that other. For Me, you are that other. We fit together. When you are with Me, you are with the one who completely understands you and completely loves you. My love for you is sympathetic, understanding and unchangeable. My love for you will weather any strain or pain, any mistake or any emotional storm you experience. I will never leave you. I will always love you and welcome you in My heart. Your answers and your clarity will be found with Me. Sometimes, dear apostle, you fear that I am not giving you the answers you require. This is not true. If you need an answer from Me, you will receive it. If a course correction is necessary, I will direct you to it. Your prayers are instantly at home in My heart and I rejoice that you have come to Me with these requests. It is not possible that a beloved apostle will be rejected. Do not think that I ignore your pain or that your pain leaves Me indifferent. You, dear apostle, have shown Me that you are interested in My pain which will always involve the pain of humanity. This moves My heart to the greatest generosity. I answer your prayers in a mystical way. Some day you will see that I answered your prayers in the most beneficial way possible, given the intention. Many unnecessary calamities are avoided because of prayer. The greatest mercy flows down to your loved ones through your prayers, even though you suffer terribly when you see your loved ones hurt or when you must be separated from them, particularly when you do not expect to be separated from them. I am the merciful Christ in all of these situations. Understanding will come, dear friend. Believe in your prayers. Believe in My merciful presence with you. Believe in the impact of your service and believe in the gratitude I have for you, even when you do not feel it.
Here's Why I Love the Feast of All Saints
This morning when I woke up, it struck me clearly why I love the feast of All Saints so much. In days gone by, it seems I could never look at a human being, myself or anyone else, without getting depressed. I am by nature the type of person who sees flaws, failings and weaknesses. I see the problems in a picture. Add to this tendency having been taught the theological notions of the total depravity of man and justification as a legal fiction, and you have a recipe for a mess. I don't know how many times I heard the idea that being justified means that God looks at us with some holy sense of amnesia, "just as if" I'd never sinned. The idea was that, for Jesus' sake, He plays along with the charade and calls us holy, imputing Jesus' righteousness to us legally. Grace meant we were "covered," not changed. We stay rotten, abominable sinners, unable to do anything good. Then we die and get to heaven and finally we are really holy because we've left this world and sin behind.
It could be worse. The basic things are there: Salvation comes through Jesus, heaven is the goal, we sin. But there's this huge, gaping span called the course of human existence that gets left on the dung heap, to use the metaphor Luther was fond of. It occurred to me at one point in my life that if we were doomed to live this sort of dungy type of existence, and bliss and Jesus awaited us in heaven, why not just check out ASAP to get there? Why bother living? Why was suicide not a great option? There was a logical inconsistency here, and my life depended on it.
So, I will say that it was when I became a Catholic that things changed, although in this instance I use the phrase "becoming Catholic" in its ongoing sense of constant conversion. There wasn't one date where I suddenly believed a different doctrine and everything changed. Transformation doesn't work that way.
I learned the theology. I learned that grace as a legal fiction is inadequate, and unbiblical. I learned that grace is about sonship and entering God's covenantal family and being transformed from glory to glory. This not only was Scripturally consistent, it resonated with the deepest needs my soul had always felt: If God cannot transform me, I thought, who needs Him?
All that learning helped me understand, and my constitution requires understanding things. But where my heart is really torn open is in interaction with other people. In some ways, I only became a Catholic a couple of years ago. (In other ways, I suppose I'll only become a Catholic this afternoon or tomorrow or next month!)
How's that, you say? Well, I realized about two years ago that I had always kept a certain reservation in my heart. I think perhaps it comes from having always seen everyone primarily as a package of flaws. Oh, of course as I matured I was well aware of my own flaws and did learn to have mercy on myself, and therefore I would not go around having a cow over everyone's flaws. However, the yearning in me to behold, well, God in all His glory, just always turned me off from getting too familiar with regular ol' people. The contrast was too jarring, too sad. I couldn't stand the constant disappointment.
Then the Lord surprised me and brought me amongst a group of people whom I could trust enough, and be focused elsewhere enough (not on myself -- very important), to completely forget about my reservation. What was this reservation? I think it can be summarized thus: If all this God stuff is real, then He transforms regular Catholics. That is the proof. And I'm afraid I'll never see it. This was no conscious realization. But it seems many people I've talked with, converts at least, have a certain litmus test in their heart that either keeps them cautious or flings wide open the floodgates of their hearts. This was mine. God, if what you say is true, show me in plain ol' garden variety Catholics.
Part of how this litmus test thingy works is, of course, we fear. We hold on to the test, in the package, so to speak, unopened. We fear that we really have been deceived all along, that it is too good to be true. We know it can't be, but dang, that litmus test -- if we actually do it -- is going to show it one way or another. It's going to change things. So for many of us, it takes several years and circumstances out of our own control before heaven is able to slip in and settle (or perhaps stir up!) those fears, and let us actually run the test.
And then one day, when I wasn't concerned about being guarded, without making a big deal out of it, God seemed to pick up my litmus test, rip it open, and dip it into... my parish choir. I remember telling a group of friends at School of Community, in tears, shortly after I joined my parish choir that I knew then that it was all true. All true. All the good things I'd learned in my head over the last 15 years were all true. It was a deep, intuitive ... floodgate opening in my heart. And then I realized there was a weight of glory that had a claim on my life, and that was real, too. This was to change quite a bit.
Why? Because God allowed me to see Him in the faces of plain people who had flaws, failings and weaknesses. He was there. Just like I could perceive Him the in the Eucharist that night of my conversion on Christmas Eve (but that's another story entirely. One story at a time!)
I love the Feast of All Saints, because it gives me a completely new way of looking into the face of every person.
It could be worse. The basic things are there: Salvation comes through Jesus, heaven is the goal, we sin. But there's this huge, gaping span called the course of human existence that gets left on the dung heap, to use the metaphor Luther was fond of. It occurred to me at one point in my life that if we were doomed to live this sort of dungy type of existence, and bliss and Jesus awaited us in heaven, why not just check out ASAP to get there? Why bother living? Why was suicide not a great option? There was a logical inconsistency here, and my life depended on it.
So, I will say that it was when I became a Catholic that things changed, although in this instance I use the phrase "becoming Catholic" in its ongoing sense of constant conversion. There wasn't one date where I suddenly believed a different doctrine and everything changed. Transformation doesn't work that way.
I learned the theology. I learned that grace as a legal fiction is inadequate, and unbiblical. I learned that grace is about sonship and entering God's covenantal family and being transformed from glory to glory. This not only was Scripturally consistent, it resonated with the deepest needs my soul had always felt: If God cannot transform me, I thought, who needs Him?
All that learning helped me understand, and my constitution requires understanding things. But where my heart is really torn open is in interaction with other people. In some ways, I only became a Catholic a couple of years ago. (In other ways, I suppose I'll only become a Catholic this afternoon or tomorrow or next month!)
How's that, you say? Well, I realized about two years ago that I had always kept a certain reservation in my heart. I think perhaps it comes from having always seen everyone primarily as a package of flaws. Oh, of course as I matured I was well aware of my own flaws and did learn to have mercy on myself, and therefore I would not go around having a cow over everyone's flaws. However, the yearning in me to behold, well, God in all His glory, just always turned me off from getting too familiar with regular ol' people. The contrast was too jarring, too sad. I couldn't stand the constant disappointment.
Then the Lord surprised me and brought me amongst a group of people whom I could trust enough, and be focused elsewhere enough (not on myself -- very important), to completely forget about my reservation. What was this reservation? I think it can be summarized thus: If all this God stuff is real, then He transforms regular Catholics. That is the proof. And I'm afraid I'll never see it. This was no conscious realization. But it seems many people I've talked with, converts at least, have a certain litmus test in their heart that either keeps them cautious or flings wide open the floodgates of their hearts. This was mine. God, if what you say is true, show me in plain ol' garden variety Catholics.
Part of how this litmus test thingy works is, of course, we fear. We hold on to the test, in the package, so to speak, unopened. We fear that we really have been deceived all along, that it is too good to be true. We know it can't be, but dang, that litmus test -- if we actually do it -- is going to show it one way or another. It's going to change things. So for many of us, it takes several years and circumstances out of our own control before heaven is able to slip in and settle (or perhaps stir up!) those fears, and let us actually run the test.
And then one day, when I wasn't concerned about being guarded, without making a big deal out of it, God seemed to pick up my litmus test, rip it open, and dip it into... my parish choir. I remember telling a group of friends at School of Community, in tears, shortly after I joined my parish choir that I knew then that it was all true. All true. All the good things I'd learned in my head over the last 15 years were all true. It was a deep, intuitive ... floodgate opening in my heart. And then I realized there was a weight of glory that had a claim on my life, and that was real, too. This was to change quite a bit.
Why? Because God allowed me to see Him in the faces of plain people who had flaws, failings and weaknesses. He was there. Just like I could perceive Him the in the Eucharist that night of my conversion on Christmas Eve (but that's another story entirely. One story at a time!)
I love the Feast of All Saints, because it gives me a completely new way of looking into the face of every person.
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