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!

A No Drama 2012

I think that the New Year as a whole kind of dupes us. It is at the tail end of Christmas time, and not so far away from Thanksgiving as to separate it from the same holiday season. So the holidays are full of merriment, good food, family time, and most importantly, more free time. People get time off work, they spend hours on a plane or in a car where they can read or knit or do something they enjoy, they get a chance to sit back and watch a sports game. So after all of that hype, we get to December 31st and we think, "Of course I've got the time to ... pray more/eat less/hit the gym three times a week!" But now it is 14 days into the new year. We are back to school and work. Things need to be done and paid and finished.

On New Year's Day, I went to mass (It was a Sunday and it was the first day of the new year, how serendipitous!).  I was visiting a friend out of town so it was in a church I was not familiar with presided by a priest I did not know, but it was one of the most inspirational sermons that I have ever heard.  The priest, Fr. Patrick, challenged us to live a 2012 free of drama. I wanted to let him know that this idea was nice, but easier said than done.  Our society loves drama.  Last night Lily and I had some friends over, and her boyfriend told all of us about this commercial he saw for the TV show "The Bachelor" and it was just a seven second clip of a girl crying. All of the girls in the room agreed that the clip was a great way to get an audience because we were wondering: why was she crying, who made her cry, did she lose the game of love? I have often wondered why there aren't any television reality shows about Christians, and I think it's because when you trust the true love of God in your life, it's really hard to lose your cool or get melodramatic about things, because with trusting God comes the awesome peace of knowing that He will provide for you.  But that is not the case in mainstream society, because it thrives on drama.

Anyone who has ever been involved with a play or production of any type involving the dramatics knows that drama and attention go hand-in-hand. The world would be a different place if we recognized a plea for love and attention and responded in-turn with love instead of a cat fight, gossip, or anything else you could see on daytime TV.

When I woke up this morning, I had an idea for what I wanted this "No Drama" message to be about. But then I signed online and saw this story about a girl in a public school who wanted a banner of prayer to be taken down, and the follow-up story listing many, many comments from disgruntled people, labeled as Christians, who were saying awful things to and about her and using horrendously vulgar language to make their points known.  They were representing God by condemning this young girl and suggesting horrible things to her.  It's no secret that there is a chasm between church and state which at many times causes a chasm between citizens, but we have to remember that we are human and we are all doing the best we can.  The way to stand up for our religion or our faith is by showing people what it's about - love. I fear for myself and for my brothers and sisters in faith (who we are called to keep accountable) that we get caught up in the dramatics and forget what we're "fighting" for.

I want to issue the same challenge to you that Fr. Patrick issued to me; the challenge that I remind myself of every day, and a challenge that I think God calls us to in prayer: Live a No-Drama 2012.  Love above all else, and if you are going to call yourself a Christian, act like Christ. Don't get me wrong,  I definitely think it's really important to know what and who we are up against, but whenever we need to, let's take a serious look at our savior Jesus on the cross, freeing us from our sins, and remind ourselves that real love can truly conquer all.


I recommend all of the first book of Peter, chapter 4 to help guide you in this goal, but especially this verse:
1 Peter 4:8 Above all, keep fervent in your love for one another, because love covers a multitude of sins.

The Here & Now

I have fallen into that all-too-familiar trap again of trying to read God's mind. There are things that I want, things that I think need, and I find myself wondering why God doesn't think I need them too, or if He does, why isn't He giving them to me yet? At evening mass on Wednesday, we discussed during the homily being ready for what God has in store and being willing to answer His call. But we also talked about being where we are, when we are and not living in the past or the future. The priest said, "Our God is a God of the living; of the now." Just because He always was and always will be, doesn't really mean the same applies to us. Our call is to live and love exactly where it is that He has put us. It's an inspirational, though oftentimes daunting, thought when we realize that not only did God design us with a purpose in mind, but also a time. There are things He wants of all of us that wouldn't be possible one hundred years into the past or one million years into the future.

I can identify with and accept half of this "here & now" idea. I completely understand the not dwelling in the past, because there is no changing it, so that is easy for me to grasp. It shapes us and then it is finished. But trying not to focus on the future? That's definitely new to me and I am not sure how I feel about it yet, but I'm pretty sure I don't like it. First off, I am in college and every day here is another day closer to a world I have never been in before. A hefty majority of what I think about is the future; my next step is not guaranteed.  No one's next step is, but here I am at the verge of the "real world" and I have no clue where it will take me.  Even more than that, the future is this blank canvas; it isn't tainted or decorated yet and it is at my very fingertips.  Why wouldn't I want to think and pray about the possibility that lies there?  Try as I may have in the days since that homily to be very in the present, I still find my mind drifting to those prayers of things I would love to have or do in the future.

At work today, I had to make some campus deliveries, which is mostly just a lot of walking around campus in the 10 degree weather. All that time with myself, without iPod or cell phone, makes me think (sometimes more than I should).  I was thinking and praying, nearly pleading with God to reveal Himself or His plan to me. I walked into the science building to make a delivery and I was totally lost. I have not spent a lot of time in the building, but that which I have has been spent in the basement, where the labs are, and the first floor, where the lecture halls are.  The top floor, full of the offices, is somewhere I had never before ventured. I was disappointed to find that, despite the clean layout of the basement and first floor, the second floor was a labyrinth of hidden classrooms and offices, twisting every which way with a room number pattern that I could not follow at all.

Between classes, building are pretty much devoid of any students, save those who are students who are absorbed in their studies, so I was alone in my quest. But all of a sudden, my chemistry professor from last semester appeared and showed me the way.  It was such a small act of convenient kindness for him - he was passing by anyway and we were able to catch up about the new semester for a brief moment.  But in my state of prayer, I understood it to be more than that. For me it was a moment of God saying, "Look. I will get you exactly where you need to go, exactly when you need to be there, in ways you may or may not expect. So trust me, because I know that I am doing." 

I know myself, and come next month or next week, or even tomorrow, I will get restless again and think about the future and where I get to go next. But for today, and today is all I can promise, I will let guide God me through until tomorrow.

Believe

I love everything about the Christmas season; family time, cookies, giving gifts, snow, being home, and all of the delicious food, but I especially love Christmas movies. No matter how often I watch these movies, I always learn something new every year when they make their way back to the forefront of my viewing list.  This year, the message that struck me from every movie that I watched was: "Seeing isn't believing, believing is seeing."  Try as society might to separate Christ and Christmas, it just is not possible, because Christmas is all about faith.  It is about believing in something that no one can see or understand and relying on our hearts to believe something far beyond ourselves. The way that we all relate to God and His Presence in the world follows this "Believing is seeing" principle pretty well, I think.  It's all got to do with giving credit where it is due.  By believing in God and all of the blessings He showers me with, I can see that every good thing in my life is a direct gift from Him because of His Love for me.  Once, someone tried to argue my faith with me and said, "Of course you see God in things, you are looking for Him there." But that makes the most sense, doesn't it? Sure, it would be nice to stumble upon money on the side of the road, and I do believe that God works in sporadic, surprising ways, but more often than not, if someone is hoping to get money, they need to be proactive about it - buy a lottery ticket or work an extra shift somewhere. If you are searching for something, open eyes to find it are a necessity.

If you have not seen the movie The Polar Express, I definitely recommend it because it beautifully represents what it means to believe.  There is a scene when Santa Claus is right in front of the young, doubting boy, but because the boy has not owned up to his faith, he cannot actually see Santa; there are too many obstacles. These obstacles work against us, too, because overcome with obstacles only makes it harder to believe there is anything worth working towards, but God is there on the other side, arms wide open.  When we chose to believe in God and all that He has the power to do in our lives, our eyes are opened to His glory and we can see far beyond our obstacles and what our Earthly eyes are capable of seeing.

Have a blessed and merry Christmas!

Compassion

Tonight, I am longing to feel God's Presence.  I connect really well to spiritual music, so I am watching all of these music videos of Christian songs. Almost every single one shows tons of faces of people just like me, who all look like they are searching. Most of these videos incorporate, in some way or another, the messages on the hearts of these people. They reveal their secrets, their struggles, and their crosses.  As I watch these faces on the screen of my computer tonight, I cannot help but wonder how everyone got this idea that everyone around them is so different, or so tough.  It seems to me that for a world that so obviously has so much hurt within it, the problem is so often other people not showing the necessary love.  As in, I look at the face of this girl I have never seen before and do not know personally on a music video that I like.  The words next to her teary-eyed face say: Broken Relationships, and I am moved with compassion for her.  But the person in front of me while I am trying to get to class is walking slow and all I can focus on is how much of an inconvenience that is. Who knows what they are dealing with on their heart, how their day is going, or who they are at all - all they mean to me is the speed at which they are walking in that one moment of my entire life.

We seem to live in a world where unless you wear your heart on your sleeve, you will not get much sympathy; and sadly, even then, compassion may not come.  Something that I try really hard to do all the time is to assume I know nothing about anyone or anything.  To give everyone the benefit of the doubt from the get-go and really live out the Golden Rule of treating others how I would want to be treated, which, when you put a word to that (or two, because I am a word-person) it would be love and compassion.  God doesn't call us to be compassionate to those who are hurting; He calls us to so much more.  I guess what all of these rambling thoughts boil down to is that the amount of care that we are meant to show one another should not vary based on what we can or cannot see - it should solely be based on the fact that God shows us infinite and unconditional compassion, and it is our privilege and call to show that to the people around us.

This song really captures this message, as well as is one of the songs I was talking about:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IwtcwQwgdsA&feature=related

Courage

I love the word "courage".  It is so rarely used and I wonder if that is because it is a pretty rare virtue.  Right now, I am working on a paper for a class.  The guidelines are relatively lax, so I have decided to write my paper on the emotional benefits of living a chaste life before and after marriage, which includes abstaining from sex outside the bonds of marriage.  I am finding it easy to talk about the Catholic faith and the love that we as humans are called to live out, as well as the respect and dignity we each have just because God made it so.  But as I come closer to the end, my own passion frightens me. Tomorrow we will peer edit and I find myself wondering, "What if someone who doesn't practice chastity reads this paper?" or worse, what if someone thinks me to be judgmental and completely misses the point of the paper - that all life is to be respected, at every stage, in every way.  Then a small voice of courage says in my heart: what if someone needs to hear this? What if by writing about something that I believe in and putting it in God's hands, someone will read something they have never heard before and it will touch their heart in the tiniest way?  Perhaps what this means is that courage is not taking what God has given us and doing what we can with it, but giving back to God what we cannot do alone and standing up right next to Him when the moment comes, instead of cowering behind Him.  I have to think that God could definitely change the world on His own - He did create it, after all - but there must be some unknown reason that He chooses to work through us in the virtues. A reason he calls us to courage.

Have no anxiety about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.- Philippians 4:6