Doors

Once, when I was a little kid, my mom took me to the public library. I had to run inside and return a book, so she waited in the car. When I approached the automatic door, the door did not open. I'm not sure if I didn't weigh enough, wasn't tall enough, or just wasn't in the exact right spot, but I stood on that mat and nothing happened. I jumped up and down, hoping to get it to work, and it finally did.

This story popped into my head this morning as I was meditating on all of the opportunities God has blessed me with. I can't speak for everyone, but I have a feeling I'm not alone in picking one door I want Him to open and sticking to it.  Left and right, God in His infinite wisdom is swinging doors open to all sorts of new things that I would love if I tried, but none of them are the door I have in mind. So I stay there, on the mat in front of the door I have chosen, and I do whatever it takes to get it open. I jump, I flail, I bargain, and I pout. To no avail.

I think what I forget is that I am exactly like my little kid self. If I had had my mother with me at that entrance, the door would've swung open instantly, permitting me to go inside. But she wasn't. Trying to embark on something new alone is the exact opposite of what the Lord wants for us. For a long time, I never considered that image of God opening doors as the beginning of something, or, rather, for what it is: an invitation. I just assumed that image stopped there. That God nonchalantly strolls down this long hallway that looks like dressing rooms and picks and chooses doors, and my job is to chase Him and try out doors if I so desire. But the more I reflect on it, the more it seems that God is a gentleman, holding the correct door open for me and waiting for me to get there so that he can join me inside and continue guiding me after I'm committed.

The Meaning of Freedom

I was blessed to spend five days at the end of January on a trip to Washington, D.C.

On the Friday I was there, I marched for Life.

On the Saturday, I went to the museums and the memorials in the city.

As I was looking at all of these amazing people, men and women, who gave their lives to creating this country, I couldn't help but wonder if they'd be disappointed with it today.  These people, whom we as a country honor in memorials and statues and museums dedicated their entire lives to a fight for freedom. But that's not really what we're living.  I like to believe that the country and the freedom that they envisioned was one of possibility and dreaming. They wanted the people of this fantastic nation to be able to be free to do whatever they could possibly imagine; to reach their highest potential. But what we've become is the opposite. Largely, we are treating liberty as freedom from responsibility. We are using the freedom to choose to live our lives as we please as an excuse to eat whatever we want, complain about whatever we want, and have sex without consequences. There is no liberty, nor justice, in the killing of an unborn child. When our forefathers spoke of "Liberty and justice for all" there was no footnote that said "Unless they aren't born" or "Unless they were conceived in rape".  The right to protest was meant to change things for the better - not to give women the right to murder their own children within their own wombs completely free of any (legal) remorse or recoil. 

Free will has become something that makes people feel that they are somehow entitled to treat one another however they please without recompense. Free will isn't meant to allow us to be forgiven of our mistakes, it is meant to give us the brain power and will power to stand up and correct them.  We have to own up to the things we are doing wrong, as individuals and as a functioning nation. The minute we start looking out for only ourselves is the moment when we as a country will unravel.

We should fight for what we believe in. We should stand up for things and peacefully protest. But we need to do it for what it right. Can we really afford to have on our consciences living in a country where our leader says:

"Can we honestly say that we're doing enough to keep our children - all of them - safe from harm? I've been reflecting on this the past few days and if we're honest with ourselves, the answer is no.  . . . If there’s even one step we can take to save a child, then surely we have an obligation to try. . . Are we really prepared to say that we’re powerless in the face of such carnage, that the politics are too hard? Are we prepared to say that such violence visited on our children year after year after year is somehow the price of our freedom?”*

but does nothing about the 55 million babies killed in the last 40 years since Roe v. Wade passed, and do nothing about it ourselves?

Please don't misread this as anything less than a total respect and love for this country. The United States is such a beautiful place, and it really is full of possibility. I thank God every day that I live here and have the opportunities that are offered to all of us here, but that doesn't change the fact that I truly believe that being a United States citizen means more than what we're living it out to be.  And the fantastic thing is, because of our liberty, we can change this. We can make it so that every life is protected at every stage.

These are just some starting reflections and musings, but my heart has been shaken, moved, and inspired to be more active in the preservation of life from conception to natural death.

*http://www.npr.org/2012/12/16/167412995/transcript-president-obama-at-sandy-hook-prayer-vigil

The Beauty & Certainty of Always & Never

Being the writing/reading/language enthusiast that I am, word choice means a lot to me. As I was praying this morning, I was listening to a playlist of some worships songs that I really love. I was trying to pay attention to the words, today, instead of getting swept away in the music.  The overwhelming theme I found was that God is sure of Himself, and that means we as His children, can be comfortably sure of Him. 

There is this realization I keep coming to lately in prayer, and that is that God did not make things tough for us. Life can be tough, but God didn't make it that way.  (In fact, He made it perfect for us, in Eden.) Recently, I had the pleasure of speaking with a priest about this quandary on my heart of why life is difficult if God wants us to be happy.  I'd had a really bad day, and I was trying to see God's hand working in it.  For most of the things in the day - an unexpected 2 hour car ride, people flying into the wrong airport in the wrong city, a broken washing machine, and the like - I could come up with my own reason and tie it back to some lesson God wanted me to learn, like patience or flexibility. But there was one thing bugging me.  I had broken my toenails. An unfortunate meeting of my flip flops with a very heavy door was to blame, and I asked the priest in frustration, "I get the other stuff, the real trials with real lessons...but honestly, why break my toenails? What lesson was there? It just made me mad." The priest smiled and explained to me that there is a big difference between what God does and what God allows. God doesn't strike people down, but He allows them to fall. I think there could be many reasons for that, but the one I am reflecting on today is that God wants us to let Him care for us.

Life can be really difficult and trying at times, and it makes me wonder how I'm ever supposed to find God in the midst of all this noise, but what I'm finding more and more as I explore scripture, is that there is an answer for my questions.  The Bible really is a guide to life.

There is a verse in Corinthians that says this:
^" No temptation has overtaken you but such as is common to man; and God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will provide the way of escape also, so that you will be able to endure it."  (1 Cor 10:13)

Basically, God understands that we're going to have it rough, but He will lovingly provide answers whenever we're willing to listen. It reminds me of my relationship with my mother. She's been my age, she's grown up and learned life lessons.  She knows, to an extent, what lies ahead of me as I enter into what it means to be an adult.  But she wants me to grow on my own, so she'll let me figure things out and we both know that when I come across a problem I just can't handle, she'll be there with the answer, waiting to help me with open arms.

And here's the best part, which is what the music was speaking to me today.  God's way is absolute; there are no ifs, ands, or buts. And that's what I was hearing in these songs - just one absolute after another. God will provide always. God never lets go. He always comes through. Nothing can separate us from His love (Romans 8:38-39). There is no "sometimes" or an addendum that says, "...if you do such-and-such thing for Him."  My friend Luke recently spoke at a retreat I was on staff for, and he said, of prayer, that we fall into a trap of thinking we need to earn God's love, so we try to make our prayers something great and wonderful and wordy, when in actuality, we do not have to qualify ourselves to get His love.  We've already got it and nothing in the world will ever change that.

The Upper Room

Last weekend at mass, the reading was the story of Jesus coming into the upper room, where the disciples are hiding, to give them peace.  (John 20:19-23, for reference's sake).  My immediate thought, and the one I have been mulling over ever since is what is my Upper Room?  What walls in my heart, or in my life, really, am I hiding behind?  As far as the disciples knew, they were safe hiding there - no one knew they were there and no one could get through their locked door.  And that's exactly how I feel sometimes; I have this feeling or this pain that I keep to myself and I think, 'No one can see this. I can definitely lock this away and no one will even know it's here.'  I think for me, it is my fear. I am afraid a lot of the time of a lot of different things, but I make an effort to lock that door and keep anyone, and any peace, out.  So there were two conclusions I came to, thinking about this so much: 1) That I do hide things; sometimes without realizing it.  I keep myself busy from task to task and doing all of the things I think God wants of me, that I so often forget that there are things in the depths of my heart that need to be cared for.  Which brings me to conclusion  number 2, the more wonderful of the two: That God can defeat any obstacles I have (it says so, John 16:33), and He can and will bring peace into my heart, even in the deepest rooms where I hide things like my fear.

This idea isn't much yet, I am just sharing some musings 'aloud'.  It's just a work in progress - much like we are.

Live Like You're Dying

This particular idea has been on my heart for a few weeks but I haven't had a chance to sit down and write it!  Mostly, it started in my fantastic & absurd literature course.  We were reading this book called Death With Interruptions by Jose Saramago (it's a terrific read).  The premise is that death (a woman who spells her name with a lowercase 'd') decides she wants to take Death (the actual event of dying) away so that people learn to appreciate what it means to die and not fear or detest her for taking their lives.  In the novel, a society of people has to learn how to deal with people who are injured, sick, or dying - none of whom can actually pass to the next life.  When death returns from her experiment, she apologizes for the uproar she causes, and as repayment, vows that she will send everyone a letter one week before their death so that they may have time to get their affairs in order.

It begged the question, would we want a letter a week before our death - essentially, would we want to know we only had one week left?  Overwhelmingly, my discussion group said "yes".  The reasoning was so that they could say their goodbyes, make amends with enemies, and let bygones be bygones with everyone in their life.  The idea got me thinking about a country song my mom and I used to listen to when I was younger; the lyrics  talk about a man who urges another man to live each day like he were dying - to skydive and climb mountains and do fun things.  The last lyric of the chorus is "I gave forgiveness I'd been denying...someday I hope you get the chance to live like you were dyin'".

To my group, I said, "This all sounds good in theory, but the reality is, we are all dying right now and we know it, but we aren't doing any of these things. Why would a time limit change us?"  I understand why a set number of days would change the hearts, but after a lot of meditation on this, I can't help but wonder why wait until you are dying to make peace with your life and the people in it? I want to be able to lead a life that is the best I can be and do all the time. I want to live in such a way that if someone told me I only had a few months, weeks, or days left, I would not have to, or want to, change to thing. It may be a little cliche that the best I can come up with is to tell the people you love that you love them daily, and to forgive people who have done you wrong because, after all, we all make mistakes, and  to thank God for all days, even the bad ones, because we learn something from all of them and He gave them to us with a purpose.  It may be cliche, but personally, I still find myself forgetting to do those things that seem so simple in theory.  I want to be at peace with the life I am living.

I think that with Lent ending and Easter just a two days away, my goal is going to be that I am aware of Jesus' Resurrection and presence in the world I live in right now, not just the one He rose in 2000 years ago, and to emulate that peace in my life.

Romans 12:18 "If possible, so far as it depends on you, be at peace with all men."

We Will Rise Again From Ashes

Happy Ash Wednesday, all!

Here's why Lent is amazing: Every single day of the year, we should hear and respond to God's call to be closer to Him, but during Lent, we are called to take on His sacrifice in a more personal and devout way.  God says there is a time for everything (It's in Ecclesiastes 3, which is also the same place we find "All came from dust and to dust it shall return") and Lent is the time to put ourselves with Jesus in the desert, to learn, grow, listen, and to gain strength and knowledge for the next thing God calls us too. It seems kind of like school to me.  In life, we are never ever going to stop learning, but we do have a certain number of years set apart specifically for the learning process - which then becomes a foundation for the rest of our lifetime of knowledge.  Lent is like our spiritual school, where God teaches us about who He is and all He has done for us, and why that matters.  Then armed with our new understanding of the Ultimate Sacrifice, we can go out into the world and use it to learn about and understand everything else.


I have been praying for a few days now about what to hand over to God for Lent.  For me personally, this year, I am not feeling called to give anything up unless I am replacing it with something better. I think my goal as a Catholic, as a woman of God, and as a living breathing human being is to be aware.  I want to be aware that God is working, that He is alive and well in the world, but that He also died, and that death was for me and will not be in vain unless I make it that way by dismissing its power.  I'm not really sure, however, how I am going to do this. Fervent prayer and picking one Bible verse to apply to my day each new day is what I am going to try!

So today's verse (since I have already brought up the chapter) will be an awareness of God's infinite wisdom and plan, and the fact that it is not our job to figure it out:

"He has made everything appropriate in its time. He has also set eternity in their heart, yet so that man will not find out the work which God has done from the beginning even to the end." Ecclesiastes 3:11

Amen!

Just Passing the Time

It was unseasonably warm today, beings that it is January and 60 degrees.  Lily and I enjoyed the sunshine and cool breeze by taking a rather long walk around the town, going around campus and looping in and out of neighborhoods with pretty houses and cute families. We passed lots of people sitting on their porches, children playing in their yards, and dogs on leads loving being able to lay in the sun or see all of the people strolling by.

While we walked, we passed the neatest thing I have seen on an adventure in a while - an old mantle clock.  It was spray-painted gold with elaborate decorations, leaning against the trunk of a huge tree and for a minute, I felt like Scout and Jem Finch being given a secret gift by Boo Radley.  There was nothing drastically profound in this find, save the delighted lover of words and life within me that found the simple pleasure in the irony of "passing the time" while passing the time.  We stood for a few minutes just to decide whether or not to take the clock home, but decided to leave it right where it was.  It had made a home nestled into the earth, stuck at four twenty-eight.  I guess maybe you could stretch it and say there was a message of awareness tucked into that quaint little timepiece - our days will each be the same amount of time, so be cautious of the hours and how you want to spend them.  Or something like, "Be sure to love passing the time, and not let the time pass you by instead."
"Be sure to stop and smell the roses - and check the rose-bed for old treasures!"

Or maybe it's just a nice story about a sunny Monday afternoon.

God bless this week!