Aimless Wanderings

Maybe it's just me, but I kind of thought there for a little while that life would somehow get easier or less complicated the longer I adulted.  As if the more I practiced, the easier it would get, or the longer I waited, the clearer the answers would become.

All I've learned, and especially this year, is that instead of answers, we only face more questions.  We all have our own battles that we're facing, and for the most part, we all just go around living like everything is fine. Is that because we feel we're supposed to be adults and just suck up our feelings and deal with our problems?  We hear screaming children from various corners of the store at work and we always sort of look at each other sadly and say, "That's how I feel inside."  It hurts my ears, but I admire the honesty of children, and I wish I could be that vocally honest about my own feelings sometimes.

Courtesy of my brother, from Fawnly Prints

Those brave souls who speak out about their struggles and insecurities--I admire their ability to be vulnerable, to bare their souls, to speak up so that others who are experiencing similar battles can know that they are not alone and can find comfort or perspective or fuel for their own fight.  But sometimes our battles are so deeply personal, or we are so deep in the thick of it that speaking up is not in the cards for us right now.  

So what do we do?  Keep plastering on our brave faces and plugging along like everything's fine?  

Some other alternatives are to 1) scream in the middle of the grocery store (tempting, I know) or 2) offer enough vague complaints that people have pity on us and begin to pry in well-meaning attempts to offer support, but then we remember that we actually don't want to talk about it because it's so personal and complicated that a general explanation will never do and neither will giving this person access to our deepest, darkest secrets.

Or, we can choose to continue to wander aimlessly as we strive to fight our battles with brave faces and find balance in our awkward, complicated lives.  We can learn to appreciate the present and enjoy life where we are while we wait for life where we want to be.  And we can take comfort knowing that God is with us in our wanderings.  He sees each (mis)step we take, and His hand guides us gently along the way.  

When we have a bad day--one where we're so physically, emotionally, and mentally exhausted that we actually feel like this might be it, this is where we lose it completely--He gives us a new day full of new mercies.

That's right, as we finish our Head and Heart Reset yoga flow with Adriene in the early morning before work, the final twist turns our head to the window so that we see the first glimmer of morning light through the trees, the beginning of the gentle fade from black night to blue day.  And as we sit outside for morning prayer, the cool fresh air fills our lungs and the chattering of the birds soothes our souls and we are reminded that He loves us, that He is working in us even when we are filled with pain--or confusion, or disgust at our own sin, or anxiety, or depression, or anger, or questions, or all of these things and more-- that the cross must come before the glory.

When we remember that He is there with us through it all, we learn how to accept these unpleasant things as they come, even if we don't always accept them happily or patiently.  And we learn, as Rainier Marie Rilke wrote in Letters to a Young Poet, to 

". . . be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms and like books that are written in a very foreign tongue.  Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them.  And the point is, to live everything.  Live the questions now.  Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.  Perhaps you do carry within yourself the possibility of shaping and forming as a particularly happy and pure way of living; train yourself to it--but take whatever comes with great trust. . .take it upon yourself and hate nothing. . ."

You can find Alanna's music on iTunes and Bandcamp!

As I've been learning this all the hard way in the last several weeks, I've been wandering aimlessly to the soundtrack of the lovely young poet Alanna Boudreau's album Goodbye Stranger.  Her music (especially this album and her previous album, Champion) helped me to the realization of what I've written here.  By providing a lovely sound to listen to along with intricately beautiful images and poetry, her music presents and reflects great mysteries that sweetly linger and haunt my thoughts. They leave me questioning and pondering, but in such a way that I find myself able to enjoy the uncertainty, that I'm now able to sit more comfortably with my constant questions, and to explore beauty from different perspectives.

Having realized that, I find myself here, telling you, dear reader, that you are not alone in your aimless wandering, in your questions answered with more questions, in your pain, in your fight.  We are all in this together, and the great God who loves us more than we know, has us all in His capable hands.

Lately (i.e. Winter is Dumb, but God is Good)

"The Spirit is willing but the flesh is weak." (Matthew 26:41)

But I've been wondering. . .is the spirit willing?  Lately, I think not.

Deep down, the commitment is there, but in the day to day, I'm just plain tired.

Tired of the way things are.  Tired of trying to figure out what the next step is.  Tired of trying to change things when all my efforts are met with failure.

Disappointment and frustration cloud my view of all that I should be grateful for and all the ways I can live more fully where I am.

My sins suck me down, and others around me are beginning to feel my anger and frustration since I no longer have the energy to hide it--or am I even trying anymore?

People notice, and their humbling comments bring me to my knees, and once again, Mercy intervenes.

*           *           *

"I am dead to sin and now living in Christ Jesus."

The preacher let the words sink in, then repeated them, "We must remember and live that truth:  I am dead to sin and now living in Christ Jesus."

I want to remember.  I want to live like this, to believe it in my heart, to let it pulse through my veins.

But I get in my own way.  I let the darkness of my sin, of my fear consume me--fear of my self, of who I think I should be, of who I actually am, of who I want to be, of my constant state of failure at trying to be a woman of Love.

But if I am truly dead to sin, I need not fear my weaknesses or my failings.  I will still fall, because I'm human.  But I am now living in Christ Jesus, and He will make up for all I lack, in His mercy, His grace, His goodness, His love.

*           *           *

I always have such high hopes when the New Year rolls around.  This year was no different, and even though the first week was as boring as a pile of dirt and colder and more miserable than I can really handle without turning into a monster, I still have hope.  

My reflections and ponderings of last year (and my attitude this past week) provided me with some ugly truths about myself, leading me to think that quite possibly the changes I need to make are not so much in my external circumstances, but in my soul.  I can't just keep holding on to a superficial optimism that if I endure the difficulties with a glued-on smile, that's doing God's will for my life, and everything will turn out okay.  

I need to actually open my heart and soul and life up wide to His promised Grace and Mercy and let Him do something new in me.  And I think part of opening myself up to that is letting go of my old self, the comfortable self that likes to be cozy and comfortable and watch lots of cheesy wholesome movies.  Last year I developed better habits, one being a routine of reading the Bible and praying in the morning before I go to work.  This prayer life is a good foundation, but I find myself now at a crossroads--it's time to actually live.  That means that I need to do things that scare me, but that are good for me (like doing more yoga and exercising to get into shape, like cooking healthy meals, like finding friends nearby who share my faith).

Because as I've written before, in order to love others as we love ourselves, we have to first love ourselves, to take care of ourselves, to allow ourselves to be loved by God and formed into new creations by His merciful touch.  

I want to believe with every fiber of my being that I am dead to sin and now living in Christ Jesus, and to let His Love transform me from the inside out so that with every breath I take, I am living life to the full in His Love.

I believe, Lord.  Help my unbelief!

To Believe or Not To Believe

On a cloudless autumn day, under the sky so peacefully blue, the sun shines down like rain.  The tops of the trees catch the light like fire and begin to flicker like flames in the soft breeze.

And in the midst of the warm, bright plans we make, doubt creeps in and darkness grips the soul of it all.

Sweet gray pots etched with silver words and holding baby flowers catch my eye and speak to me: Love, they say.  Joy.  Believe.  Words that remind me, words that call forth beauty, hope, peace, words that call me on to live these things in my life.

We don't need any more plants in our tiny apartment, but the words and the sweet baby orchid blossoms of white and purple beckon me.  On closer inspection, I see the pots are cracked--hence the reason they are sitting in the break room marked down for associates.   

I don't need a broken pot with another orchid in it, I tell my husband.

No, you don't, he says, but you're going to get one anyway.

He knows me well.

I find it difficult to choose only one, because I need all of these reminders!  I know that the greatest of these is Love and that in the humdrum routine of the daily grind I struggle often to be Joy, but I choose the healthiest looking plant with promising baby white blooms and it tells me Believe. 

Life goes on and continues to resist our efforts to move forward.  As darkness and doubt creep in, it would be easy to let them consume us, to crush our hope.  But there in the corner of our living room is a little broken pot that reminds us:  Believe. 

Believe.  And I know that this imperfect pot is a grace, a simple moment of beauty that God is using to show me my imperfect self and a deeper truth.

While we make our plans, we trust in God and His perfect plan.   We know that when the outcome is not what we would prefer it to be, ultimately it is what God wants, and therefore, it is perfect.  This is not always easy to grasp, but then, the cross never is.  And we know that without the cross, there would be no glory.

Without our cracks, our brokenness, our wounds, our weaknesses, our darkness, we would not need His Mercy. 

We are all imperfect, cracked and broken, but no matter how beaten and bruised we are, we always have a home with God.  He heals our wounds and uses them to make us more beautiful than we were before.  We learn to trust in Him.  And life happens and we get hurt again and again, but we continue to trust and believe in His Mercy, His Healing Love, His Goodness. 

Sometimes the wounds cut deep and take time to heal, and sometimes the darkness seems never-ending, and as we wait to feel healed, we wonder what the point is of continuing to believe, to hope.  But in the darkness and in our pain, we are closest to Him on the cross.  He holds us in His Heart so that our thirst is His thirst, and I have found that the surest way to quench this thirst for both of us is to choose to believe, to pray over and over, "I believe; help my unbelief!" (Mark 9:24).

And He will.  He will absolutely help your unbelief.  And it probably won't be at all in the way you think, but He will fix your broken pot, and in the meantime, He'll give you grace, which might look like precious baby orchids.  Or something else entirely.  Or something that you can't even see.  No matter how the grace falls--like petals, like snow, like an invisible strength deep inside you--never forget that He loves you, He loves you, He loves you!

HE LOVES YOU.

P.S.  If you're looking for a more book-length encouragement on how to keep hoping in the darkest darkness, check out Daring to Hope by Katie Davis Majors.  I highly recommend it! #goodreads
 

The Way I Am

As I sit here letting my fingers glide over the keyboard, I know that it has been too long since I've really written on here regularly.  Ingrid Michaelson is playing, and I am reminded of that time her song "The Way I Am" was an incredible grace for me.

The song was new to me, but I loved it.  I was on a retreat with the Little Flowers (my household, which is like a spiritual sisterhood) my sophomore year of college.  In a moment of prayer, little introverted me received an immense grace.  I felt for the first time really and truly unconditionally loved for me.  I felt I had lived my life up until then content to hide in the shadows of my older siblings, lost in my own little introverted head.  God whispered to me that day that I am unique, that I have my own light to shine, and I don't have to compare myself or try to live up to someone else's expectations:  I have only to be me, and God will take me the way I am.

With the words of Ingrid's quirky song in my head, I felt really and truly loved and alive.

It's funny how over the years we change, and yet we stay so much the same. 

I couldn't resist!

At a workshop I recently attended, I heard it put this way:  Change is inevitable; growth is optional.

I love that.  Change will always come with time, and often without our having any control over it--seasons, age, sickness, outward obstacles that prevent us from going where we want to go.  Growth, however, is an option.  Growth is born out of our reaction to whatever life throws our way.

Lately I've been focusing on that whole, "Bloom where you're planted" idea.  Part of that blooming means first rediscovering myself.  For too long I've played the victim of circumstance.  I can't seem to get ahead making any big changes, so I'm starting small.  These small steps are creating momentum, and I find that I'm accomplishing more, but more importantly, I'm remembering who I am.  That helps me remember to do the things I love. 

By making a priority to write, I am remembering that writing is a part of who I am.  It's how I express myself, how I best communicate with others.  I have stories in me that I need to tell, and I'm letting myself tell them now.  As I allow this part of me to bloom, as I accept my need to be this person, I am being more true to myself, and that will help me not only move forward but also live more fully where I am.

In many ways, though I've changed and grown a lot over the years, I am still that immature, romantic college sophomore who made the song from an Old Navy sweater commercial her anthem.  She's a part of me, a part of who I have become, a part of who I am becoming.  The darkness that has fallen over my life these days is similar to the darkness I experienced before that revelation, but I've placed my hope once again in God and in His particular care for me.  

In my time of need, He is reminding me how much He cares for me.  He is telling me that He won't take away all the pain, because the pain brings me closer to His own suffering heart.  He wants to hold me close to His heart, to let His blood cover me and purify me.  He takes me the way I am.  He wants more for me than I want for myself, and when I give Him full reign over my life, He teaches me how to love myself better, and in turn, love others better.    

He takes me the way I am.

He takes you the way you are.

He loves us unconditionally.  Even if we keep making mistakes and falling and failing miserably and ignoring Him completely, He is still there to pick us up.  And He wants us to do this for each other.

I aspire.

The Fear

These days have been bored and restless.  The silhouette of the next thing is on the horizon, creeping closer.  It's not close enough yet that we can make it out, but it's coming.

The waiting leaves me restless, itching for something substantial to hold onto, wasting my summer watching Netflix because it's easier to get caught up in a silly TV show about beautiful people and their fake lives than to get caught up in my own.

Fear keeps me from opening up my heart to fully love and live right where I am.  I fear that there is something more that I should be doing.  I fear what that might be.  I fear, perhaps most of all, that it will keep us here.  I fear stepping out of the comfortable (even if the comfortable is slightly miserable).

Recently I re-read Kisses from Katie, the story of an ordinary young woman who stepped out of the comfortable to follow God's will for her life and is accomplishing truly amazing things in Uganda.  (I read it a few years ago, and wrote about my thoughts on it here.)  I am a different person than I was three years ago when I first read it, but I was no less convicted.  If anything, this time when I read it, my perspective was less sentimental and more realistic.  I saw how ordinary and imperfect Katie is, how all she accomplished was simply a result of her openness to God and letting Him work through her to reach other people.  I want to be that open, that trusting.

The funny thing is that I think I would be willing to drop everything and follow Him, but I can't for the life of me figure out where He wants me to go.  Which is why I have the sinking feeling that perhaps, at least for awhile longer, He wants me to stay right where I am.  Which scares me more than a disease-ridden Third World country.  The fear paralyzes me so that all I can do is click "Watch Next Episode" on Netflix.

Praise the Lord for the priest at Mass this past week.  He reinforced the message I received reading Katie's story by encouraging us to make Christ the center of our lives and let God interrupt our plans.  He reminded us that in our dark world, we the Christ-followers must be the light--of love, patience, peace. When he led us in song at the end of his homily, I felt the Spirit moving in me.

My heart knew the answers I was looking for:  that the restlessness comes from not being present in the moment.  Yes, maybe God wants me to go on and do great things, but how can I trust in the big things if I can't trust in the little things?

A big lesson Katie learned in Uganda faced with seemingly unending poverty, hunger, and sickness was that all she could do was help the one in front of her, and trust that God would take care of the rest until she or someone else came to help them too.  Her actions created a ripple effect that inspired many more people to reach out and help those in need in Uganda.  God is using her as a voice to cry out in the wilderness, to open the eyes of the body of Christ to the need, to call those of us who make up Christ's hands and feet to action.  All she did was help the person in front of her.

I can do that at work.  I can keep my focus on the customer in front of me and patiently serve them to the best of my ability without being overwhelmed by the long line of caffeine-hungry people behind them.  I can be positive at work and let the little annoyances go (even if in the last five minutes of a long shift I have to deal with a difficult customer who continues to test my patience and ask a lot more of me than I have the energy to give).  I can listen to people even when I have less than zero interest in what they are saying--sometimes people just need to talk.  I can bite my tongue against complaints and decisions I disagree with.  I can love one person at a time.  I can be a light.

Over the years, this blog has carried this theme, of how to love God while being a barista.  You would think that the message would have sunk in by now, but I tend to need constant reminders.

When I stepped down from management nine months ago, I experienced great relief and necessary detox from the stress of the previous two and a half years.  I rediscovered my love for both coffee and people, but eventually, when the people became too difficult to handle, I turned my focus to the coffee.  However, I found that if I wanted to pursue coffee as a career and succeed, it would have to become in some ways a god.  But I already have a God, and I love Him.  A lot.

I never imagined that I would still be here after so long, that I would still need these reminders, but here I am.  Imperfect.  Afraid.  I let the fear in, and it began to consume me, but by His grace I have been saved once again from myself.

Maybe God wants me to go out into the world and do great things, but I will never have the strength if I haven't fully abandoned myself to Him, if I don't fully trust Him in everything.  I will never be able to follow Him along great distances in the future if I can't follow Him right now.

Here I am, Lord.

Snow Glow

It's as if my life has been made up of a whole bunch of different compartments of sh. . .stuff I have to deal with.  Like time was moving me neatly from one compartment to the next, and I dealt with each one the best I could then moved on.

Then I flew across the country, to the side I'd never been to.  The grass was definitely much greener there, the trees taller, the mountains higher (obviously, since we don't exactly have any here), the people nicer, the coffee better, the food tastier, life slower. 

Out of my comfort zone I stretched and reached and dreamed for things I never dared consider from my bubble.  The world was bigger, brighter.  The light shone differently so that things that were once in shadows were now in the light.

Sunday morning sunshine in Portland.

The best thing I brought home was not, in fact, the t-shirt with the pine tree on the front (although that is pretty fantastic) but a new perspective and a renewed mind.  I am so thankful for the opportunity and the experiences I had!

Especially considering the fact that shortly after I arrived home, all of the compartments of stuff I had to deal with decided to collide.

I suppose it's just another side-effect of Adulthood, that the to-do lists only become longer and more detailed, that for every item you check off, three take its place.  Or perhaps it's simply the fact that practically everything in my life has been in the process of changing since this past April when I moved out of my parents house and my dear work friends told me they were moving away, followed by my engagement in May, followed by the decision in June that I would keep my position at work but switch companies, followed by all of the changes and absurdities that go along with keeping your same job but switching companies, management, and teammates in July, followed by painful goodbyes in August, followed by a month of mourning and adjusting in September, followed by my first ever business trip in October, and now here we are, knee-deep in marriage prep and snow, just in time for the holidays.

It's been a busy year, busier than I realized.  And I don't see it slowing down in the near future.  But at least I have a slightly better grasp on my sanity than I did even a week ago.  I'm learning to roll with the punches, to not over-think things too much, to leave work at work, to enjoy the little things about these crazy days of my entrance into Adulthood.

It's so the little things.  Like my car battery dying on my day off instead of on a morning when I had to be at work at 5:45 in the morning.  Like the sun sneaking its light through the crack in my curtains to form a perfectly golden exclamation point on my wall.  Like the ridiculous beauty of this early onset of winter in the Ohio Valley.  

Yes, I think I am just going to surrender everything and let this glorious sunlight melt the cold bitterness in my soul.  

Divine Romance

I love Jesus, but I don't always act like it.  No that's not true.  I usually act like it, but I rarely live it like I mean it.

In every moment I am faced with the choice to embrace or deny Him.  Unfortunately, I don't usually think about how the many little decisions I make each day will make Him feel, but how they will make me feel. It's so easy to deny Him, but loving Him hurts and requires more than merely going through the motions.

We are called to see Christ in others, but it's hard.  It's hard to see Christ in someone who hurts us or our pride.  It's hard to see Christ in someone who is being irrational or high maintenance.  It's hard to see Christ in a spoiled brat or in your crazy, dysfunctional family.

I find that when I've ignored Christ in these people for too long, I eventually find myself out of excuses and on my knees in tears, all those ways I failed to love staring me in the face in the form of cuts and bruises and open, bleeding wounds on the cross.

It's hard to see Christ in others, but it's harder still to see what my sins have done to our Savior.  It's hard to get angry about slow drivers when I'm looking at the Cross.  It's hard to justify my lifestyle when I read about starving children in Africa.

Just above all those wounds that I've inflicted, though, I see the face of Christ.  My tears wash a drop of blood off his feet, and He is consoled.  I am consoled.  We are not alone.

It's only when we embrace the Cross and all that comes with it--the pain, the heartache, the humiliation, the loneliness--that we are able to find that sliver of grace that allows us to smile patiently at the person annoying us, or to accept the humbling knowledge that we are the ones in the wrong.  This grace is what opens our heart to true love--love for Christ and love for others.

I wish I was better at remembering that throughout my days.  I wish I could look at every person I encounter and see Christ, but I usually only see myself.  I wish I could live life as it is with a heart full of love and mercy, and not try to make it something it's not.

Whenever I find that I've strayed far from my Love, when I feel the weight of my sins as they catch up to me, when I fall to my knees trying to wade through the mess I've made, I remember how I fell in love with Jesus.  I remember how He held me, how He picked up the pieces of my broken heart and slowly mended them back together.  I remember how He is always faithful, that no matter how many times I fall, whenever I look up, I still see His loving face.

I remember this divine romance, how He lured me away from the darkness and into the light.  I remember that it's as true today as it was when this romance first began.  Some days I don't feel it, but I always know it.

I don't really know what the point of this post is, except that it's a reminder for me to make my religion "less of a theory and more a love affair" (G.K. Chesterton).  It's less about living by strict rules and guidelines of what's right and wrong, and more about living with an open heart full of love and mercy.

Because that's what I've learned--growing in faith requires letting yourself fall in love with God, and Him with you.  It's a good thing to remember as we get closer to Christmas.  The holidays aren't about the things we get each other, the fun and crazy parties, the decorations, or the crazy-good shopping deals.  The holidays are about a baby, a baby whose Mother opened her heart completely to God and He filled her womb with His Life.  I can only imagine how desperately in love the mother of God was when she first held the Savior in her arms.  To have grown the Son of God within her, to look upon his face--there could be no greater beauty, no truer love.

This divine romance is one we are all called to, to embrace Christ in every moment of our lives, to allow Him to grow within us and consume us.  I aspire.

Redeeming Love

It was a scene in Jesus of Nazareth that struck me to the core: when the sinful woman came and washed the feet of Jesus with expensive ointment and her tears.  That woman was me.  That was me on the chapel floor letting my tears fall at the foot of the cross because I am unworthy.

And yet, I am loved.

I am loved to an unimaginable degree.  Loved beyond comprehension.  Though I stumble, though I sin again and again, I am loved.  We all are.

It is a redeeming love that pursues each of us.  A knocking at our hearts to be opened.

Jesus came for the sinners, not the righteous.  To the would-be killers of the adulteress he says,"Let he who is sinless cast the first stone."

 

No stones were thrown that day.  Why?  Because no one is perfect.  We are full of weaknesses, struggles, fears.  We make mistakes and bad decisions. Therefore, Jesus came for all of us.  He died for all of us.  As he hung on the cross, in the last breaths before his death, he forgave all of us.  By his blood, we are forgiven, and redeemed, no matter how grave our sins.

I've learned that this redemption is not exactly passive on our end.  God has done all the work, yes, but it comes down to a movement of the will to believe.  Often this is the hardest part--getting over ourselves enough to be humbled to the point of of accepting that we need Him.

Sometimes we believe that we are righteous enough, that our sins are not so great that we really need him.  I really am a good person, and that's enough.  It's not enough.  Heaven isn't earned--it is desired with the whole will, with all heart and soul.  You have to really want it.

When we want it, we find ourselves confessing our sins regularly.  I find that I confess the same sins over and over, and Jesus says "Go and sin no more," and I wonder how that's possible.  I wonder if I've really even been set free.  If I were truly set free, wouldn't I be able to stop doing the same stupid things?  Why can't I make it out of the church parking lot before sinning again?

"Forgiveness is only real for those who have discovered the weakness of their friends and the sins of their enemies in their own hearts, and are willing to call each human being their sister and brother." (Henri J. M. Nouwen)

I'll be honest--I'm generally not willing to call the angry, hateful customer my brother.  I'm not willing to call the obnoxious woman in line in front of me my sister.  I'm not willing to acknowledge that I have neglected to use my turn signal before too.  I'm not willing to let other people have their bad days.  I am not willing to forgive, but I expect to be forgiven.

"To be a Christian means to forgive the inexcusable because God has forgiven the inexcusable in you." (C.S. Lewis)

It all comes down to a movement of the will to believe.  And maybe the truth is that I don't want to believe.  Maybe there's a part of me resisting, because I know that to go and sin no more is going to be extremely painful--the death of my pride and my self.  Maybe I believe the fact that I am forgiven just as much as I believe the fact that I will sin again.  That is where the problem lies--when I focus too much on my own faults (or even too much on the faults of others), and weaknesses, and sins, and not nearly enough on Jesus.

His grace is enough.

He does not condemn us.  Neither should we condemn each other, or judge each other, or even criticize each other.  We need to try to understand each other, because "To understand all is to forgive all."  (Evelyn Waugh, Brideshead Revisited) 

I believe that this is key to learning how to love our neighbors as Christ loves us.  To try to understand where they are coming from, and to meet them where they are at is what we are called to do.  It's what Jesus does for us.  It requires patience, and the constant swallowing of our pride, and often we fail, but that's what confession is for--to receive that kiss from Jesus on the forehead, to hear him say, "Neither do I condemn you.  Go and sin no more."

I aspire.

And I'm finding that the best way to do all of this, is to come to know Jesus better, through the gospels, the sacraments, the liturgy, prayer.  The more I seek him, the more I find him.  He's often in the most unlikely places, but he's always there, waiting with open arms for us to come to him.

I want to believe, Lord; help my unbelief!

Convicted

In her book Kisses from Katie, Katie Davis states that Jesus wrecked her life.  I would have to say that in wrecking Katie's life, Jesus has also wrecked mine.

I have grown up in a faith-filled home, but I convinced myself that it was enough to stand firm in my beliefs in a culture that doesn't understand them.  It was as if I didn't need to go out and do what Jesus said like feeding and clothing and loving the poor.  I loved Him and He loved me and I lived in a bubble.

If I hadn't read her story, I might have continued on in this ignorance, but I read it.  And Katie's story pulled at heartstrings that were buried by protective walls of fear.  She went to volunteer for a year teaching orphans in Uganda, then ended up founding a non-profit ministry to sponsor children who couldn't afford school.  She obtained a house for her office and opened the doors to the children for studying, learning about Jesus, bathing in clean running water, and eating healthy meals.  Then a few of the girls started calling her mommy, and she began the process of adoption.  She didn't plan on any of those things happening, but she opened her heart to God's will--to His people in need--and carried it out.

The way Katie is led by her faith and her love for God is beautiful, inspiring, and convicting. I was constantly bursting into tears and wondering at how far off from truth I've been living.  Here is this young woman, practically my age, mother to fourteen, doctor, founder of an organization, mentor, feeder of the hungry--someone who has given up her previous life and the comforts of this world to not only proclaim the word of God, but also to live it.

I aspire.  But I am not Katie. I am not Mother Teresa.  I am me.  And God does not want me to pack up my suitcase and move to Africa or India.  At least, not today.

Katie often described how loving the children are that she ministers too.  She is rewarded for her work with kisses and love every day.  I look at the life I lead here in the first world and though I don't have to stitch wounds or de-worm kids or clean up dead rats, I don't have that kind of level of fulfillment from the work I do.  My attempts to be a cheerful giver in the service industry are often met with indifference or straight-up rudeness.  I can pour my heart into a mocha, serve it with a smile, and then receive a huffy, "I didn't want whipped cream on this."

Our society has become so wrapped up in this comfortable lifestyle, in getting everything we want, in living life for me.  We forget that there are people out there who don't have the basics.  They don't have food to eat, or running water to bathe in, or toilets, or roofs that keep the rain out.  They have so much more, though.  They have faith, and hearts brimming over with thanksgiving, and praise for God.

I often struggle with finding a balance.  Don't these people who think they have it all need to know God as much as those who have nothing?  Don't we all need to know God?  So how do we live this life and minister to the spiritually impoverished while also serving the poor?  Do we just ignore the high society and in doing so hope that we are leading by example?

I struggle.  I want to do more to help those in need, but stepping out of my comfort zone scares me.  Because everything scares me.  But after being convicted by Katie's story and seeing in it how much the love of God can transform us when we let it, when we suck up our fears and trust in Him, I know I can do it.  I just need to first focus my heart, soul, and mind on God.

Summer Reading

Pages worn and weathered, yellowed on the edges, spine crinkled in half and splitting at the ends--a book well loved and well read:  my copy of Ella Enchanted* by Gail Carson Levine.

It's my favorite book of all time, even now in my mid-twenties.  I read it every year, at least once, usually in the summer when I feel like going on an adventure with an old friend.

You may find it strange that of all the books this English major has read, a children's book is her favorite, but this book changed me.  It tells the classic tale of Cinderella, but with depth, believable and likable characters, humor, seriousness, and charm.  It transported me in the sixth grade to an enchanted place where even I, shy and awkward as I was, could rise up to become a heroine.

I'm sure feminists everywhere love that this heroine isn't just a timid good girl waiting for her prince to come along and save her.  She is brave, clever, and determined and takes her destiny into her own hands.  She doesn't win the prince over simply by her beauty, but by being her spunky self.  Their love grows naturally, and in the end, she sacrifices everything to save him.

Reading it now, I recognize how the simple but rich telling is similar to Ernest Hemingway's "less is more" style that I love so much.  I notice how and why the author's choice of descriptors enchanted me so much.  I pay attention to the mechanics, and wonder at the brilliant simplicity of it all.

Ella's narration heavily influenced my own voice in writing.  I realized early on that I would never conquer ogres, or amaze anyone with my quick wit.  But I could use my words in my writing to say what was in my heart, to use my power of the pen to fight the good fight.

I aspire.

*I know what you may be thinking:  "Isn't that a movie with Anne Hathaway?"  The answer is yes, and at the same time an emphatic NO.  There is a movie starring Anne Hathaway with the same title and same basic concept, but an entirely different story, different characters and blatant disregard for the brilliance of the book.  I saw the movie once in theaters when it first came out, and I was traumatized.  I had such high hopes that here, finally, people who hadn't had a chance to read the book might be able to have at least a glimpse at one of my favorite stories ever.  But it was not to be.

I realize now that this comes to mind (I try to block out the movie and pretend that it doesn't exist most of the time), that this is the real reason I never liked Anne Hathaway as an actress.  Because in my heart, as a young impressionable woman, she destroyed my favorite character on the big screen. It wasn't exactly her fault, since she didn't write the script, but she completely misrepresented my favorite literary character--something I was unable to forgive her for until she played the desperate prostitute in Les Miserables.  (I couldn't not respect her after that.)

If you have seen the movie Ella Enchanted but never read the book, whether or not you liked the movie, please do yourself a favor and read the book.*

Endurance

I have a bad habit of thinking that I can save the world.  It's not so much that I think I have what it takes as it is that I have these desires to do more with my life than make coffee, to go out and actually help people, to see the suffering in the world come to an end.

This idea first manifested in college when I thought I could save a person close to me. That my love was big enough to change a heart turned out to be a silly dream. As I wondered at the mess I'd made, I asked God why this had to be.  After three nights of crying myself to sleep, He told me, there in the deepest part of my heart that hurt so much: "You didn't trust me."


He didn't just leave me with that somewhat cryptic message.  He guided me along the way of healing through discovering a devotion to the Divine Mercy of Jesus.  It was a journey I'd already been on unknowingly, but the pieces began to fit together and I began to see more clearly every day that I can't save anyone--not even myself--because God has already saved the world.  By His Passion on the Cross, His death and His resurrection, Christ has already set us free.

I began to reflect on the Passion, and to unite my sufferings to Christ's on the cross.  Finally, after many months of prayer and novenas (the 54 day rosary novena is a personal favorite) I reached a point in my personal life of being able to say to my friend:

I have trusted in the Eternal God for your welfare, and joy has come to me from the Holy One because of the mercy that will swiftly reach you from your eternal savior. With mourning and lament I sent you forth, but God will give you back to me with enduring gladness and joy. (Baruch 4:22-23)

My heart was finally at a point of peace knowing that when I see my friend in heaven (and I will see him in heaven), our earthly drama and suffering will be perfected in "enduring gladness and joy."

Still, I had a nagging thought that I was supposed to do more. I graduated college during a recession with a degree in English and no career goals, so while I went back to work at my high school job at the family business, I began reading about the problems of the world.

I was inspired to go to third world countries and kick down doors of brothels and save the innocent women forced to work in them.  I wanted to track down not the pimps but the men who paid for such services and so created a market for the business of selling people and objectified women everywhere. I wanted to teach children whose only chance at freedom from poverty was education.  I wanted to provide a safe haven for women who are victims of abuse, or who want to choose life but can't do it on their own.  I wanted to be Dorothy Day and Mother Teresa.

But I am most definitely not either of these women.  And from the looks of things, going off to foreign countries to fight perverts and love the poor and abused is not what God has planned for me.

Like Saint Therese, I wanted to choose all vocations, so I chose love, which encompasses all other vocations.  I began to realize that, like Therese, as much as I desired to be a missionary, I was destined to stay close to home.  I found myself making coffee (lots of coffee) and I realized that God was teaching me (slowly and patiently because the selfish brat in me won't go down without a fight) how to love.

I'm finding that all God wants of us is for us to be who He created us to be.  If we let Him love us as we are, if we stop trying so hard to be what we're not, or at least what we're not yet, He will be able to accomplish His mission through us.

As for suffering, it has been my experience that it brings us closer to the heart of Jesus.  I believe that in our sinful world, we cannot be free of it, but we can embrace it as an opportunity to take part in the redemptive work of God.  In the suffering of our neighbor, we can learn to be compassionate and understanding.  SO much easier said than done, but St. Edith Stein says it so well:

The world is in flames. The conflagration can also reach our house. But high above all flames towers the cross. They cannot consume it. It is the path from earth to heaven. It will lift one who embraces it in faith, love, and hope into the bosom of the Trinity.

The world is in flames. Are you impelled to put them out? Look at the cross. From the open heart gushes the blood of the Saviour. This extinguishes the flames of hell. Make your heart free by the faithful fulfilment of your vows; then the flood of divine love will be poured into your heart until it overflows and becomes fruitful to all the ends of the earth. Do you hear the groans of the wounded on the battlefields in the west and the east? You are not a physician and not a nurse and cannot bind up the wounds. You are enclosed in a cell and cannot get to them. Do you hear the anguish of the dying? You would like to be a priest and comfort them. Does the lament of the widows and orphans distress you? You would like to be an angel of mercy and help them. Look at the Crucified. If you are nuptially bound to him by the faithful observance of your holy vows, your being is precious blood. Bound to him, you are omnipresent as he is. You cannot help here or there like the physician, the nurse, the priest. You can be at all fronts, wherever there is grief, in the power of the cross. Your compassionate love takes you everywhere, this love from the divine heart. Its precious blood is poured everywhere soothing, healing, saving.

The eyes of the Crucified look down on you asking, probing. Will you make your covenant with the Crucified anew in all seriousness? What will you answer him? “Lord, where shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.”

The path from earth to heaven. . . the path from suffering to glory. . .the path from self to love. . .the way is by the cross, but we must have faith, we must believe, we must hope.

I aspire.

A Life of Love

Today is the feast of St. Valentine who was not a naked baby with wings and a harp.  He was actually a martyr, beheaded for devoting his life to living his faith without fear, which, if you ask me, is far more romantic than anything Hallmark has to offer.

To be so moved with love for God that you give your entire life to serving Him, and in doing so, dying for Him--it's the truest kind of love.

These days we are not likely to be martyred for living what we believe.  Scorned and scoffed at, sure, but we go on living.  Yet love is risk.  When we take up our crosses, we risk our comfort.  We risk having to go out of our way to follow Jesus and give others what they need.

It's a scary thought when the American lifestyle is so "me" oriented, so about rewarding ourselves for our work:  "I" want someone to buy me flowers.  "I" just want to go home after a long day at work and pamper myself.  "I" want new music so I'll buy myself a new CD--after all, I've earned it.

But have I?

Day to day, do I really give of myself out of love for God?  No, not usually.  I usually do the minimum.  It's like my cross is sitting in the corner of my heart and occasionally I venerate it, but I rarely pick it up and carry it.  Too much risk.  What if God wants me to be a public speaker?  What if he wants me to take care of sick people?  I'm not ready for that.  I need to mentally prepare myself. . .

Preparation becomes procrastination and I sit still for weeks, not moving forward, afraid to take that step.  It's because I've forgotten that God does not give us more than we can handle.  I've forgotten that vital fact of life--I am loved.  Of course I know that my family and friends and boyfriend love me, and their love is invaluable.

But I tend to forget that I--that all of us--are "loved to a supreme, unimaginable degree, unto silent, gratuitous, cruel death, to the point of total immolation by Him whom we do not even know, or if we have known Him, whom we have denied and offended. . ." (Pope Paul VI)

St. Therese of Lisieux understood this love deeply:

If the Church was a body composed of different members, it couldn't lack the noblest of all; it must have a Heart, and a Heart BURNING WITH LOVE. And I realized that this love alone was the true motive force which enabled the other members of the Church to act; if it ceased to function, the Apostles would forget to preach the gospel, the Martyrs would refuse to shed their blood. LOVE, IN FACT, IS THE VOCATION WHICH INCLUDES ALL OTHERS; IT'S A UNIVERSE OF ITS OWN, COMPRISING ALL TIME AND SPACE — IT'S ETERNAL! 

Therese lived her life accordingly.  She humbled herself to be a nun, a lowly, and forgotten sister who volunteered for the most unpleasant tasks as a way to offer up little sacrifices out of love.  She lived in humble confidence and obedience, accepting all that came her way as a gift from God.

In order to do this, she made the Act of Oblation every day (click on the link for the full prayer, below is an excerpt): 

 I OFFER MYSELF AS A VICTIM OF HOLOCAUST TO YOUR MERCIFUL LOVE, asking You to consume me incessantly, allowing the waves of infinite tenderness shut up within You to overflow into my soul, and that thus I may become a martyr of Your Love, O my God!

That's love.  Therese did not die a martyr's death in the common fashion, but she became a martyr, dying to herself every minute of every day to be more open to the waves of God's Merciful Love.

I aspire.

Thankfully

A dare to live fully right where you are.  I took that dare in the form of One Thousand Gifts, a book by Ann Voskamp.  As I read through the book, I was in awe--it was exactly the kind of book that I would want to write.  The rich, poetic style of her writing speaks the longings in my heart and gives a name to that 'thing' I've been grasping at--gratitude.

She takes a challenge to write down one thousand things she's thankful for, and the result is this book.  It is not a list of her gifts, but her spiritual journey laid out in raw honesty as she discovers the beauty in the ordinary (which is what I aim to do with this blog) and never pretends that it's easy.

Last week I kept reflecting on a certain section of the book as I ate too much food and thought about how the Amish believe that every day is a day of thanksgiving.  We even sing that every year at Thanksgiving Eve mass, "Every day is a day of thanksgiving," but I struggle to live it.  Most of the time I act like a spoiled brat and complain about everything, but I aspire.  I guess I have this idea that if I remind myself enough, and if I can share these aspirations with even one other person who might read this blog, eventually, I will be able to live fully in true thanksgiving.  Until then, I am going to reread this book, and share a bit of it for you here.

Ann refers to Luke 17: 15-19 when Jesus heals the ten lepers, and only one returns to thank him.  Jesus says, "Your faith has made you whole."  But wait, hasn't Jesus already healed them?  Yes, physically.  But only the grateful man was saved wholly, because he returned to God in thanksgiving.

"We only enter into the full life if our faith gives thanks.
. . .Thanksgiving is the evidence of our acceptance of whatever He gives.  Thanksgiving is the manifestation of our Yes! to His grace.
. . .At the Eucharist, Christ breaks His heart to heal ours..." 

Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life (John 6:54)
We must receive the Eucharist every day, but not just by going through the motions of daily mass.  Yes, we should absolutely receive the actual Eucharist at mass as often as possible, but we must also receive the Eucharist, the grace of salvation, with open hearts all day every day.  True worship is living the mass in our daily lives, receiving all that comes to us and giving it back to God, and in turn, giving it back to others--communion.

"All those years thinking I was saved and had said my yes to God, but was really living the no. . .Because I wasn't taking everything in my life and returning to Jesus, falling at His feet and thanking Him.  I sit still, blinded.  This is why I sat all those years in church but my soul holes had never fully healed.
     Eucharisteo, the Greek word with the hard meaning and the harder meaning to live--this is the only way from empty to full.
     I have just one word.  A word to seize and haul up out of a terminal nightmare, a word for fearless dying, for saved, fully healed living, a word that works the miracle that heals the soul and raises the very dead to life. . .Eucharisteo."

 Still what sticks out most, "Christ breaks His heart to heal ours."  That's selfless love.  I aspire.

Tired

Tired--but "the kind of tired that can't be fixed by any amount of sleep."
Restless--"Our hearts are restless until they rest in You."
And we wander round in circles.

I watched a movie about Mother Teresa
and I am reading a book of letters by her.
I want that kind of tireless faith,
and the key is resting in Him, desiring only Him,
drinking in His will as if it were the water of life.
It is,
and I thirst.

Sometimes I think I have to be the strong one, to keep working, keep moving,
but He says, "Abide in my love. . .without me, you can do nothing."

"Stop struggling and the kingdom of God will be accomplished through you.  
Sit down on the floor, like a baby, and Christ will bend down and lift you up." (Heather King) 

inertia

an object in motion wants to stay in motion

but not me

i fly and flit then come back down

and burrow in my happy.

pass by a gas station late at night
and hear the murmur of souls filling up
to keep on the journey.
there they are but i am gone
and keep moving
in my little red car driving
with the windows down
and i keep moving--where does that mean i am?

opportunities make themselves known,

but we remain faceless friends.

the future about to take shape goes back to what it always has been--
i am tired and oddly relieved

to be out of control and in the familiar.

i would have stopped time watching shooting stars in a boat on a lake,

but then i wouldn't have lived for months in the alps with my second family.
i would have stopped time riding for freedom in the country,
but then i wouldn't have splashed through sprinklers in a moonlight serenade.

these are mere moments--

sprinkles

of grace
in a cup of black coffee
in a heart beating fear.

Coffee for the Soul

(some rambling reflections on The Imitation of Christ, by Thomas à Kempis)

It was just a love-tap, but the kind with enough force to knock down a crooked tree.  My complacency shivers in the aftershock as all that was certain sits in a crumbled mess at my feet.  I see words written on my heart taken for the letter by me, incarnate in Him.  Then the rubble speaks an immeasurable truth to remind me:  "He must increase; I must decrease." 

There's Chicken Soup for the Soul, which inspires and warms the soul, but then there's coffee for the soul.  That's what The Imitation is.  It sparks the soul awake, kicks it into gear, gives a taste of that restlessness "until I rest in You." (Augustine)  And so continues this business of trying to "Let your religion be less of a theory and more of a love affair." (Chesterton)

I aspire to love.

Then come constant reminders that love isn't easy.  It hurts.  It requires giving giving giving of self, which gets really hard, especially when we forget it's for God. But even slaving over everyday work isn't necessary as long as the work is done with love.  As Mother Teresa said, "To work without love is slavery."

I aspire to that kind of freedom.

Speaking of freedom, we are in the midst of a fortnight praying for just that--religious liberty, both in the courts and in our hearts.  The Archbishop of Philadelphia says it well:  

Politics and the courts are important.  But our religious freedom ultimately depends on the vividness of our own Christian faith--in other words, how deeply we believe it, and how honestly we live it.  . . .  The worst enemies of religious freedom aren't 'out there' among the legion of critics who hate Christ or the Gospel or the Church, or all three.  The worst enemies are in here, with us--all of us, clergy, religious, and lay--when we live our faith with tepidness, routine, and hypocrisy.

Oops. . .

Ah, sweet, sweet Mercy!  What Love, that took my sins as thorns in the head, forgave me, and loves me still!  He whispers to me in the pages of this book, in the people around me, that it's time for me to wake up, smell the coffee, and start living life fully for Him, with Him, in Him--He who is Love.

I aspire.