Epiphany Season Epiphany

I feel sad that the Christmas season is almost over.  It's a sense of letting go. The perennial question is, "How do I keep the sense of joy, connection and wonderment going through the year?" (Although it's very good the feasting has come to an end!)

When I dig a little deeper into that sadness, that reluctance, I think of a few things I love about our celebration of Christmas this year:

• I love the way the house looks decorated for Christmas
• I like the sense of celebration
• I enjoy my own renewed dedication to the sacraments and my faith practices
• I enjoy the break from so much running around to appointments and "kid stuff"
• I treasure hearing from people with whom I am rarely in touch
• I relish (tee-hee) preparing special meals (and feasts!)
• I love the candles and theme of "light in the darkness" 
• I focus more on altruism

The question then becomes, how can I create this at other times?  Thinking aloud, here is my short list of ideas:

• Do something decorative in the house each month.  For example, this month I'm going to put some plants on the shelf behind where the Christmas tree now stands.
• Have dinner in the dining room with the china every weekend
• Continue attending daily mass and my morning practices which include meditation, scripture reading and journaling.  (I have actually already spent time with the calendar and three different parish bulletins to make this a reality.  I'm so blessed to live where I have 5 parishes within 15 miles of me!)
• Consider what "running around" I can let go of; re-institute weekly "no driving" days.
• Weekly, write a note (or last resort, an email) to someone who matters to me.
• Keep the candles around and light them. Light the fireplace. Gather the family.  Enjoy! Savor!
• Do a better job of keeping the holy water full. The kids love it!
• Like at Christmas, making a family effort, at least monthly to give a gift of time, talent or treasure to someone in need.  Right now, in fact, I know a family who could use some meals.

My task now -- right now, in fact -- is to calendar these items so that they actually occur.  Even if I need to reschedule them, they will remain in mind.  

It can't be Christmas every day but I can keep the spirit alive in our home and in me. I want the feast days to stand out -- to be a contrast to every day life -- but they don't have to be as much of a contrast as they have been.  I remember as a child, things of faith -- primarily sitting in church -- seemed like work to me. I want to bring more of the joy of our faith into our home; I want the kids to have the "fun" of it, so to speak.  

If you have any ideas on keeping the spirit of Christmas alive in your home, please share!

The Woman at the Well

"Like the woman at the well I was seeking
For things that could not satisfy;
But then I heard my Savior speaking:
"Draw from the well that never shall run dry".

Fill my cup Lord, I lift it up, Lord!
Come and quench this thirsting of my soul;
Bread of heaven, Feed me till I want no more--
Fill my cup, fill it up and make me whole!"

Wanda Jackson

I am that woman, thirsty and seeking, but the irony is that the well -- the fount of every blessing -- is here within my reach  and always has been.  And yet, I'm too stubborn to dip my cup in and fill it.

Today's Old Testament reading was about the immense love and longing my Savior has for me.  For me!  He is there, waiting for me as the bridegroom waits for the bride.  Father Jonathan reminded us that God's love for us is evermore than our love for him -- so very much more.  He longs for us. 

And yet, so very often, I sit by the well dying of thirst and refusing to lift up my cup.  Lift it up!  Raise your arms! Here He waits.

Like the adulterous woman, I lie at his feet, bereft, broken, unworthy.  "Rise up," he says, "Has no one condemned thee?  Neither do I condemn thee.  Go and sin no more."

I can have my hunger satisfied and my thirst slaked.  Only a fool sits at the well and thirsts.  Drink up!  Live, love, serve!  I have but this one life.  What will I make of me?

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Why I Confess

I'm not a theologian.  I'm just a woman striving to live my life in such a way that I am more often than not a force for good.  Nonetheless, as a Catholic, I do have to think about these things at least a little.

It seems to me that in Matthew 9 when Jesus forgives the paralytic, the crowd recognizes that human beings (as Jesus was in a human form) have the power to forgive sins.  [Of course, in the Gospel of John (chapter 20), the risen Christ explicitly empowers the Disciples with the responsibility to forgive sins (or to not forgive them).] This recognition by the witnesses sets the foundation for the Rite of Reconciliation. The precedent was set.

I so value the rite.  I think there is great richness in sitting before another human and saying aloud the ways in which I have fallen short.  It re-humanizes me.  I need that opportunity to examine my own shortcomings; I am so quick to see them in others.

The added value then, is absolution.  Without it, it would still be a valuable exercise --has not many a person confessed her sins to her friend?--but the true value is the priest's role.

I confess. My confidant then carefully considers and weighs my transgressions as an  un-involved arbitrator.  He then counsels me to right recourse; this too is of immense value.  Someone -- a wise and compassionate someone -- has carefully considered my sin and has offered advice as to appropriate next steps. (It is a rare and precious friend who can do the same.) Then, standing in for Jesus, so as a to offer me a human face, my confessor absolves me of my sin and offers the opportunity to accept the full forgiveness of God. What a rare and amazing gift this is!  The whole process works together to invite me forward as a new creation.  And once I have done my penance and made my recompense, that is how I go emerge.

Is it possible to go forth as a new creation without confession and reconciliation?  Perhaps . . . but this process was so beautifully crafted as to make the transformation as streamlined and as simple as possible.  I love it.  I thought, prior to conversion, that it was an unnecessary act.  I did not believe I needed that "intermediary."  Now after years of experience, I can see that I get a big benefit form not only the process itself, but also from the "forced" necessity of the rite. As with so many things in life that I do not want to do, what began for me as a necessary (and somewhat dreaded) act --a requirement of my conversion--has become a gift.

Someday I will be able to go to confession more often, but for now I relish my quarterly act and look forward to my next opportunity. Advent is a season of preparation.  As I am in the act of creation, Reconciliation has a major role to play and I am very grateful for the privilege.

Happy Advent.


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The Gospel of Servant-hood

Sunday's readings are still resonating with me:  If you want to be great in God's kingdom, learn to be the servant of all.  It sounds so straightforward and so simple.  Yet it's challenging to fully live out the gospel of servant-hood.

I heard a brief radio snippet of a Catholic speaker -- I believe it was Matthew Kelly -- and he was talking about our journeys.  We are all on a journey that begins in infancy and ends (at least the earthly part) when we die.  Each person we meet is somewhere on that journey; we don't know where when we encounter them; it's not for us to know.  So we need to have patience with them.  Isn't that just golden?

There isn't a lot of patience in the world today.  There's a lot of arrogance. We are swift to judge another as callus, ignorant, uncaring, selfish, stuck-up, petty . . . you name it! It is so hard to remember that we're on a journey; I'm on a journey, you're on a journey, our politicians are, our employers, our noisy neighbors, our homeless, our drug addicted, our children, our enemies, our "frienemies."

The choir did a communion anthem of a beautiful but not well-known hymn, "The Servant Song."  It begins thus,
Will you let me be your servant?
Let me be as Christ to you.
Pray that I may have the grace
To let you be my servant too.

We are pilgrims on a journey
We are travelers on a road
We are here to help each other
Walk the mile and bear the load.

I was convicted by how I unconsciously held that the "pilgrims" were people on the same journey as my own. That's not it, folks, not at all!  In fact, we are all "travelers on a road" and "we are here to help each other."  And that takes love.  It takes self sacrificing, non-judgmental, agape love.  Not the kind of mutual love where you are sweet to me and so then I am sweet to you, but the kind of love it takes to touch a leper; love that is born of sacrifice and respect.

In my daily life, I do not encounter lepers, but I have my own "untouchables."  Just yesterday, I called someone a "jackass," and worse, not to his face!  He's a pilgrim.  He's on a journey.  I might try a little patience and compassion.  I got sucked into the politics of it all.  I forgot I was a servant.  I was grabbing for some power.  There was a little "how dare he?" in my words.  Who's the jackass, by the way?

Home is where the Gospel of Servant-hood really comes into play, though.  Being a servant means loving each of my teens the best I can right where she is in their journey and not thinking she should be farther along. Serving my husband means listening to him and really caring what kind of day he had. It means seeing the cute in the 3-year-old's tears, the 4-year-old's sass and the 5-year-old's temper. It means supporting them, not ruling them. It means intimacy and that takes respect. It means taking time for each and every one of my people. Being a servant means remembering that relationships have seasons -- and being willing to stay on the boat when the sea is stormy.  As C. S. Lewis said in The Four Loves, "There is no safe investment. To love at all is to be vulnerable."

Judging is easy. And by the way, I've noticed that when I judge someone, I'm usually wrong. If I get to know them better -- that intimacy again -- I see them differently. I can't see their journey when I'm judging them.  It takes compassionate eyes to see it. Only when I truly see them can I truly support them.

I'm not suggesting that we just say "she's perfect in God's eyes" and let it go; quite the opposite. Serving is active. If I see you have dog-doo on your shoe, I'm not letting you track it all over town. Agape love -- self sacrificing, non-judgmental, intimate love -- is active. Once we're in an intimate relationship, we can help each other. You can help me reach my goals and I can help you. I can ask you what would support you and then hold up my end of the deal. "I see you are fixing a ham sandwich and I remember you said you weren't eating meat today."  "I am committed to two hours of exercise each day. Will you ask me about my exercise if you see me sitting in front of the TV?" That sort of thing.

It's a lot to take in, but I know I can improve on my serving. I received an impetus from the prayers and petitions on Sunday when when we prayed for the strength to "acquire a more conscious and vigorous adherence to the Gospel."  Lord, hear our prayer.

In the Doldrums

I've been in the spiritual doldrums lately.  Have you been there yourself at times?  There is nothing "wrong;" I have no complaints.  I'm just floating in a calm sea of tepid water.  Like Samuel Taylor Coleridge's "Rime of the Ancient Mariner:

Day after day, day after day,

We stuck, nor breath nor motion;

As idle as a painted ship

Upon a painted ocean.

Many years ago --when I was still a United Methodist -- I listened to a taped speech by the Dutch Priest, Henri Nouwen called "The Spirituality of Waiting."  I was in the doldrums then too.  Nouwen considers waiting a spiritual discipline akin to prayer.  He artfully makes the point that although in the modern world we are very accustomed to instant gratification, there is much to be gained in the waiting.  [Note:  I am paraphrasing as it has been many years since I've listened to this tape!]  Many people, Nouwen said,  -- good Christians at that -- dash about from one "spiritual experience" to another trying to "get somewhere" spiritually.  Instead, he suggests, there is great richness in the stillness. Waiting does not have to be a passive experience; it can be a deeply instructive.

This consideration of waiting and the doldrums got me pondering the experience of "being in the doldrums" in a nautical sense.  What must it have been like to be in a wind-powered vessel and stuck in the doldrums?  What did the crew do while they waited?  They couldn't get on a faster ship!  I tried researching the topic but was left eventually to my imagination.

I suspect that when the ship is stuck in the doldrums -- sitting motionless on a glassy sea under a hot, still, suffocating sun -- the crew quite easily falls into the doldrums themselves.  But are they permitted to sit and sulk?  Under a strong and experienced captain, the crew more likely does things they seldom have the time nor opportunity to do.  They may repair the sails, paint the mast, or clean the galley.  Perhaps they take advantage of the slack, lifeless sails to take a rare and refreshing swim in the calm sea. I feel pretty certain they do not spend too much time just staring at the sea or shouting at the sky, thinking the sea or the sky "should be" different.

So what I am I to do in the doldrums?  Maintenance, I guess.  I could fix my video on my computer so I can enjoy my video reflections again, review my training manuals, delve more deeply into the day's readings.  Or, better, enjoy more time in quiet reflection -- which is simply to be still and wait.  The doldrums allows a period of quiet to read God's Word and let it land on me just as the crepe myrtle blossom is lifted by the breeze, settling ever so gently on the pond.  To use Nouwen's phrase, "waiting is active;" I can read the scripture and allow the passage to sit until it soaks into me and is absorbed into my being, becoming part and parcel of who I am and what I have to offer; until It stagnates then ferments then ages and finally effervesces.

In the doldrums there is no where to go and nothing to be done except to listen to the silence.  And that is enough.

What Good Must I Do?

Gospel Mt 19:16-22

A young man approached Jesus and said,
"Teacher, what good must I do to gain eternal life?"
He answered him, "Why do you ask me about the good?
There is only One who is good.
If you wish to enter into life, keep the commandments."
He asked him, "Which ones?"
And Jesus replied, "You shall not kill;
you shall not commit adultery;
you shall not steal;
you shall not bear false witness;
honor your father and your mother;
and you shall love your neighbor as yourself."
The young man said to him,
"All of these I have observed. What do I still lack?"
Jesus said to him, "If you wish to be perfect, go,
sell what you have and give to the poor,
and you will have treasure in heaven.
Then come, follow me."
When the young man heard this statement, he went away sad,
for he had many possessions.

This passage always astounds me.  I'm not so surprised by the part about giving away all our possessions.  I am attracted by a simple lifestyle.

The astounding - yea confounding part -- is earlier in the passage when  the young man says to Jesus, "All of these I have observed . . ."

Really? Some involve mortal sin so it seems quite plausible that one  is not guilty of them right this instant: 

• You shall not kill.  (Check)
• You shall not commit adultery. (Check)
• You shall not steal. (Check) 
• You shall not bear false witness. (Hmmm)
• Honor your father and mother.  (Uhhm, is it open to interpretation?)
• Love your neighbor as yourself. (Clunk)

These are not easy imperatives here, friends. I tend to focus on the end of the passage -- the part about storing up treasure in heaven -- and not notice what is truly being asked of me. It's right here where I live and really, if I just pay attention to that last one -- love your neighbor as yourself -- the others are part and parcel of it, aren't they?

My post a few days ago on forgiveness generated a flurry of side email conversations about just how hard it is to forgive -- and how easy it is to slip back into resentment -- but it is truly all about the Greatest Commandment:  "Love the Lord your god with all your heart and with all your mind and and with all your soul and . . . love your neighbor as yourself."  I am, I admit, quick to forgive myself. Not for the big offenses, necessarily -- I like to carry those around a while -- but the "little" things like laziness, sloth, and envy; I forgive those in myself so quickly.  And yet, it really is asking a lot to forgive them in someone else.  

A couple of days ago I came face to face with my "neighbor."  This is a person with whom I have significant history.  On the face of it, the issues are all on "her" side -- she was the one "in the wrong," so to speak, and you'd have a hard time finding anyone to argue the reverse.  Yet, I am sure that at some point in our long history I sinned against her too; I have to dig for it a bit but it's there just under the surface.  After our falling out, I talked about it more than I should and I did so with bitterness.  I eventually confessed this to her but I needn't have; she had already suffered discrimination because of my words. I did forgive her (and I believe she has forgiven me) and I have to tell you, it sits easy with me. I do get quite nervous around her, but I think -- in all honesty -- that part is my mind-talk.  I am reminded each time too, that forgiveness is a process; it happens over time and requires (in my experience) many conscious acts of choice.

It's a lot to ask of one's self. Yet it is my path to perfection, isn't it?  If I "wish to enter into life," I have to "keep the commandments;" here is the path right here in the Gospel of Matthew. Guess I'd better put down the lap top enter into prayers for forgiveness, right here, right now!  Cheers.

Yelling at the Kids, the Big Oopsie

And do not grieve the holy Spirit of God, with which you were sealed for the day of redemption.

All bitterness, fury, anger, shouting and revling must be removed from you, along with all malice.

[And] be kind to one another, compassionate, forgiving one another as God has forgiven you in Christ.

Ephesians  4:30-32

Every day, this is my testing ground.  Why does it so often seem easier to be cynical, surly, or a sourpuss?  It isn't actually easier of course, but sin often looks easier, doesn't it?  

I am normally nice to strangers -- helpful, friendly, compassionate, even.  It is so much harder at home.  It's hard not to hold resentment, especially the unnoticed little niggling annoyances that simmer and grow just beneath the surface.  You know the ones: the kid who leaves her shoes in the middle of the entryway, again; the well-meaning aunt who calls every day at supper time; the little one who seems to argue every time I open my mouth.  

These little "annoyances", unnoticed and unchecked, grow quickly into animosity and resentment.  One day I wake up and a big, mean monster is on my shoulder, pecking away at my patience and growling at everyone.

Yet today's second reading really speaks to it, doesn't it?  "All bitterness, fury, anger, shouting and reviling must be removed from you, along with all malice" (italics mine).  

Oops.  I have to be compassionate and forgiving, or I am grieving the Holy Spirit.   If I choose to hold resentment, I am choosing to sin. 

Yet we all know it is not as easy as deciding to be compassionate.  In order to forgive, I must first notice and clear the resentment:  

• The first step is letting go of my need to be right and allowing myself to be vulnerable.  
• In order to do that, I have to truly own up to what I am getting out of the resentment, the payoff, as it were.  
• Then before I can finally be free, I also have to take a candid look at what the grudge is costing me in terms of my peace of mind, my integrity, my mental and physical health, even my finances.   
• Then and only then can I fully forgive and finally be free.  
• Lastly, I have to make choices about how I will make amends and how I can avoid falling into the same trap of resentment again.

What is truly amazing to me is that nowhere in this process nor in the directive from Ephesians does it say, "forgive if the other person is right" or "forgive if the kid is not actually annoying you" or "forgive if you are completely to blame."  It simply (and solely) says, "forgiving one another as Christ forgave you,"  which was wholly, completely, unconditionally and undeserved.  So  . . . it's all about me.  It's all on my side; it's my work to do.

If it sounds like a lot of work well, on the face of it, it is.  In the end -- and it is a little hard to admit this -- forgiveness is actually the easier path.  Resentment is like a rock carried on the shoulders; it weighs us down and hunches us over.  It gets us all scrunched up on the inside.  It's a cancer that slowly eats away at that within us that truly lives to love.  In other words, it steals our souls.

Forgiveness is the life-giving water.  It is the stream that courses through the desert and deeply refreshes.  It's the path that looks thorny, rocky and steep at first, but turns out to be the short-cut to paradise.   

But definitely don't take my word for it, taste it for yourself.  You'll be back to drink from the wellspring of forgiveness again!

Post Script (thanks, Aunt Kathy):
The thing I forgot to say is what comes after all of this.  When I notice my resentment, handle it and own it -- then and only then, I get to have gratitude for all that I have.  And you know, I have a lot.  A lot of love, a lot of kids, a beautiful home, a great hubby and family.  As long as I'm thinking my unhappiness is someone else's fault, then I am not getting to be grateful for my many blessings!