Second Snow of the Season

Oddly beautiful, how the poetry of God works. Christmas Eve brought the blessings of family and friends, laughter, joy, sadness, bliss, remembering people who aren't here anymore and looking around the room and knowing perhaps at least one person I with will not be here next Christmas...and wondering how that will feel.
I've been told that the greatest weeping at funerals come from people who feel regret about the death of someone. Words that should have been said did not get said. Hugs that should have been given were held back. Praise for a job well done was denied because of personal pride. Other things. The calmer deaths are with those who have some sort of peace with God. Even in great suffering, you have an inner knowledge that the person you love is going to a good place...or when it's your moment, you can rest easy in that belief.
At Midnight Mass, I believe I was taken up into heaven, or towards heaven, or near to heaven. IT felt like heaven. I felt a great peace and happiness, I felt perfect joy, I felt I was traveling very fast and beautiful white lights were racing by, not stars but souls. And they were happy. And as soon as I realized I had "left" the church, I was driven back into my body and I felt sad for just a second. And then I was awed by the gift given. A Christmas present from God.
You don't have to believe me. Just believe in Him.

So I am trying to sort out what I might be able to do for God. He doesn't need anything, you know. So what can you give God? Faith, obedience, love, will...why not just give Him all of me? Makes sense. But how? And there is my problem. Mother Teresa says "Do something beautiful for God." And that's exactly what I intend to do. One could argue that if an idea is sanctioned by God, it should all go smoothly, all the pieces should fall into place without challenge. But that is not always the way God works. Sometimes part of 'seasoning' comes from persevering in the darkness. Believing without any consolation or satisfaction. So it is always a challenge to do the will of God. And our faith takes on new dimensions.

I take some solace in knowing that God can work through my mistakes. In fact, I know some of my mistakes have brought greater blessings to myself an others than if I had done it right the first time. So being humble always helps...perhaps more than being right.

Last night, after a deep conversation with someone who matters to me, who is helping me find my way, I felt a bit full of new thoughts. I needed to pray more and allow myself to be open to how God wanted me to take my next step. I felt a bit like I had hit a roadblock and I wanted to go back to my old laments which included a refrain of "Just what the hell do you want from me, anyway?" But it didn't feel like tantrum time. I needed to remain calm. I needed to hear what He wants me to do.
So I drove to Bob Woodruff Park. Only one car was there. A truck. A man took his dogs for a walk in the snow. I could tell they were loving it. Do I really want to do this? Yes. The Divine Mercy Chaplet was playing on my CD. Should have put that on my iPod, too late now. I bundled up and stepped out. Clicked on the iPod. Beatles:
Who knows how long I've loved you?
You know I love you still.
Will I wait a lonely lifetime?
If you want me to I will.

I don't consider anything that happens to me as chance. I believe in signs. I believe in God's providence. Was I singing to Him or was He singing to me? Maybe both.
I walked around for awhile. Didn't wander too far, I'm old now, and not as brave as I was at 20. But I wasn't "finished." What needed to happen didn't happen yet.

And then it did.

I stood under a lamplight by the pond. I looked up, and there is was again. Not quite the resplendent beauty of Christmas at midnight, but there it was above me, swirling white lights against a dark sky. A reminder of Midnight Mass. Thousands upon thousands of souls dancing above me, swirling and laughing and falling into God. It almost made me dizzy, but not enough to look away. It was beautiful. Each different, each dancing its own dance, but each one seemed to be laughing as it surrendered to the place it wanted most to go.

A reminder that we all have a place to go. And it's a good place. It's a great place!

Even if we don't smooth out all the edges in our relationship with others, God takes care of it. We have to remember that. God wins. Every time. Enjoy the now, but the next place is even better!

Love,
Cindy

Count the Cost Part 2

Fast-forward to today. Or this last year. Today. I visited a woman in an assisted living center. She calls me Cathy now. She used to call me Teresa. Whatever she calls me, it doesn't matter. What matters is that she has gone from being very angry about a lot of things to sharing a few tears and telling me how good God is. Now that's a miracle. Physical healing changes our perspective a bit, being heard by someone heals our emotional perspective and God's grace heals our wounded souls.

Someone asked me this morning about how I pray for people. I don't know. I step out of the way and let the Holy Spirit run the show. But I do usually ask a question that I hope is important to that person and then listen carefully to the answer. In my heart, I begin to imagine what I am actually being told. What is the fear? What is the need? What is the feeling associated with sound/pitch of the voice? What is pulling on my heart as I listen? How can I help?

My prayer always encounters the 'system' of people that are involved with the person I am praying for. Is there family? Are their friends? Is reconciliation needed? How can I restate what I think I heard? Are their doctors, caregivers involved? Does the room have something of value to share in this prayer? I speak slowly and deliberately. I am aware of my wrong notes, my missteps, but I do not let them interfere with the direct action of the prayer I am trying to pray. The music of the prayer has its own life and while I participate in it, it does not belong to me. It is through me for another.

"Count the cost."

Another wonderful Methodist preacher told me that my greatest problem in ministry would be liability. I almost laughed. But he was right. You do something for God and someone else thinks what you are doing is wrong, you will pay for it. Sometimes in little ways, sometimes in big ways. But you will pay. The goal is to get past the negative feelings that you naturally encounter when you take any risk. It's part of the package. Sometimes you get shot at and you deserve it. Sometimes you get shot at and you don't deserve it. Sometimes you get shot at for just showing up. It's all part of the package.

John the Baptist stood up for what he knew to be the truth. Paul, Stephen, John, Peter...they knew the cost, but they stood up anyway. Because the first cost, that gift of Jesus, was worth it.

I still have a hard time getting my head around it. I can't explain it anymore than I can explain perfect love. But I know it is true. I can't pay God back for cleaning up my life. I can't pay God back for the peace I know in my heart. I can't pay God back for the "cloud of witnesses" that surround me everyday and build me up when I am too weak to stand up for myself.

That silly Andrew Lloyd Weber song is true, "I don't know how to love Him." But I try. Every single day. I try in my own prayer life, which allows me to sit with people who are very, very afraid of living or dying and not get caught up in my own fears about living and dying. I can sit without judgment of others because He has dealt with me so mercifully. I don't have to know anyone's story to love them, but if they want to tell it, I am willing to listen. I am willing to remember and I am willing to forget. All because He has already done the same for me.

Maybe those first apostles knew something about this love. Peter knew about this abundance of forgiveness. He was the one who let Jesus down the most and the hardest, because he dared to proclaim that he would never abandon Him. Peter knew about the sin of pride better than any of us. He could have hung himself as Judas did, not believing that God could forgive such a sin, but Peter chose the better road. Own it, tell the truth and get on with the work. Peter knew the cost.

So now, 13 years later, I receive a message on the ACTS retreat: Count the Cost. Everyone else loved their messages. I just stared at mine. I don't get it. What has this got to do with anything?
And it just haunted me:
Count the cost, Cindy
Count the cost, Cindy
Count the cost, Cindy

The time arrives again when I realize what was given to me. The wound that I believe would never heal has been healed. My hunger for empty things is nearly gone. Maybe it is gone, but I don't want to own it yet.

But I am ready to count the cost and give back. Completely and totally. All that I have. To sit again with another man or woman, and be a midwife, holding their hands as they are born again into Christ Jesus.

Too totally cool...I am blessed.

Love,
Cindy

Counting the Cost Part 1

Perhaps 13 years ago, when Keith, a Methodist minister who companioned me down the dark road of my divorce, heard me tell him that I intended to become a Methodist minister, the first words he said to me were "Count the cost." He didn't explain himself much. He looked me in the eye, saw my determination and in his eyes I saw both joy and sadness. What he had taught me, shown me over a year or so was so exciting and life-changing that I was sold on it. I had to be part of the solution, not part of the problem.
Of course, I really didn't tell him about "my call," as they say in the Methodist Church. I chose to not tell him some things because I decided that he could not appreciate or understand them. I love Methodists. They are practical people. I wanted to be more like them for many good reasons. Yet part of my make up is very contemplative, very charismatic (dare I use such a term?) and deeply spiritual. When I read John Wesley, I see a man slain in the spirit. I see a man who finally 'got it' and then tried to make it work in the Anglican Church. They thought he was a bit looney.
I have no desire to be thought of as looney.

So how to you actually reveal a truth given to you when you know the world will think you are just full of crap? How do you gain respect, if respect is the goal at all...rather, how do you give credence to an idea or thought that lacks proper substantiation by authoritative figures?
I always like to blame Aquinas for all of our problems that involve faith. He tried to make belief into a science. Or so I thought. Turn God into a mathematical statement and everyone will accept it. Ah, yes, God exists. God is worthy of our attention. I have a paper here that tells me it's all true. It's OK to believe...
sigh.
We want proof that a miracle happened. Something that supercedes (sp?) science. We want proof that we do not have a scientific explanation for what happened. Then we call it a miracle. Huh?
How about breathing? Yes, we know more about how the plumbing works. We can repair parts and we can even define what caused 'death.' Yes, it stopped working. Or it kept working. We can even take parts of one person and put them into another and make some people live longer. Big whoop. We even have an evolutionary line of thought that says one event caused another. BTW, the Catholic Church accepts the idea of evolution...if you want to read about it...don't ask me where, but I read it. (As if that mattered, anyway...sometimes we argue over the silliest things. God smiles and knows we will grow up eventually...and the devil rubs his hands together and thrills in knowing that the more time we argue about who's right and wrong, the less time we spend actually loving one another...which is what I think God wants us to do most...ALL of the time)

So how do you go about sharing something "out there" when anything even near to out there gets taken to the cleaners...literally. Literally, we take the gospel and water it down and wash it and make it all pretty and easy to accept...when the demands of it are clear enough on their own merit. I personally think women got a real washing in Paul's interpretation of Jesus' words, but I've grown to accept things as they are now and I know that the Kingdom Jesus talks about doesn't place women in a lower position. I don't think Paul even intended things to be so interpreted. He was politically savvy enough to get the message out so that it could be heard. That was his genius. But sometimes I think people place Paul above Jesus in authority. I'm not sure that is a good thing.

That being said, I have no war with the Roman Catholic Church. In the beginning when I was young, I wanted justice. I wanted the Church to recognize my value, my worth. That was my pride talking. I have learned that it just doesn't matter. My being recognized or even acknowledged for what I might do or not do is completely irrelevant to creating Kingdom Living. It's kind of like the Jews clamoring for a Judge...and then saying...no that's not what we want. We want a king. And God gives them a king...and they say no, that's not what we want. So God gives them Jesus, and they say again...no, that's not what we want.

If a person is speaking the truth, the heart will know its true. It doesn't have to come to us like a Steven Spielberg movie, or from Charlton Heston...we will know it is true because it will feel old inside us, like something we knew once, before we got lost...and it feels like we are finding it all over again and there is a kind of joy and grieving that comes with it. Like Josiah finding the scroll. The truth will cut us, but it will heal us.

Have I wandered to a place that makes no sense to you at all? What I am finding is that all the things I thought I wanted, I don't want anymore. I can bend without sadness or regret to the Church that raised me. Here is the place where I love God best. That's what God told me. That was an old truth I always knew was true, but I couldn't see it because I got lost. God can use me right here. God is using me right here. And when He is done using me, He can throw me away if He wishes. I have finally grown into a space where everything He chooses for me, I celebrate...even if I don't want it or it hurts.

I must stop here. I haven't told you much of anything yet, have I? Again, I keep thinking about it. How do I share what I have learned? How can I tell you that it's all going to work out? How can I tell you that you must be involved? How can I tell He wins?

Yet, He does. He wins. And that's all that matters, really.

Love,
Cindy

Christmas reflections

The men are starting to arrive here at Corner Bakery. They meet in little groups these days. Most of them know each other by now. I have met many of them, but I see new faces. I don't come here as often as I did last year. It encourages me to see groups of men gather together. Most of them gather to talk about God. There is a man with a collar, but I don't recognize him. Might be a Lutheran priest.

Larry just stopped by my table. He says the forecast for tonight is 'whiteout' which means it will be dangerous. I've agreed to read for Midnight Mass. I must pray now for all those of us who will pray in the birth of the Christ tonight. Maybe Bobby is right and this is not the year to take my grandchildren to Mass. Sigh. The girls would be fine, but the boys are very active. This morning as I left, I saw the bedspread/comforter from the boys' room in the washing machine. I'm not going to ask...

I wonder what God has in store for us. For me, too. Without question, it has been the most amazing year of my life. I made a joke last November while riding back on the bus from Chichen Itza, when I learned that 52 years is the Mayan idea of one life cycle. So I turned 52 a month later and thought, thus begins my new life, my next life.

And what a ride it has been! Old hungers have been replaced by new hungers, better hungers. I told my sweet RCIA candidate a saying that keeps making more sense the older I get:

When you are 20, you worry about what the world thinks of you,
When you are 40, you don't care what the world thinks about you,
When you are 60, you realize that the world wasn't thinking about you at all

There is great freedom in the paradox that we matter and yet we don't matter. We should always strive to do good and 'be perfect as Our Father in Heaven is perfect,' but not for some recognition for what we do...just for the simple fact that we are part of God's great creation and that He loves us unceasingly. Yes, what we do matters...but what EVERYONE does matters. And if we screw it up, there are enough people out there, who can fix it, if they desire to fix it.

We are perfect, and we are imperfect. We love and we hate. We reach out and we ignore. We hold on and we let go. We promise and we fail. We fall down and we get up again. We touch and we withdraw. We forgive and we are forgiven. It just all kind of works itself out. That doesn't relieve us of responsibility. When we create a hole in the universe, someone else must step in and fill it.

I suppose that's what Jesus did. There was a big hole in creation. We stopped caring, we got afraid and we wanted to control everything because that was the only way to feel safe. We hoarded our extravagances, we indulged in cravings, we ignored all things unpleasant. We no longer believed in right or wrong, we just believed in power.
Maybe it wasn't as bad for them back then...maybe that's because I see so much suffering right now. I can't think of what it might have been like back then. I only know what I see.

And if we ever needed "God with us," it is right now. So let it be, Lord. Let it be that the Christ Child comes to us and fills that deep empty well in our hearts with living water. Let Him fill us so much that it pours out and spills everywhere we stand or walk, leaving footprints of grace and mercy in our wake. Let it wet down the people we encounter through their hands and hearts and heads.

I brought Holy Communion to many people this week. And they brought Holy Communion to me. A man lying on his back and afraid...by the third day, his face was calmer, he was sitting up and smiling. Still possible bad news loomed in his future, but he was ready...more ready anyway.

Another person told me he had bought his family 'plot' preparing for the what might happen. I marveled at God's grace. He had the courage to say it out loud. Another step, another drink of water.

A mother's love and a daughter's love. Getting used to the new place. Would you like communion, too? I asked. Oh, but I didn't make it to Mass last Sunday. Why? I asked. "I was settling my mother in here. I could have gone, but I was exhausted." I explained my understanding of what it means to miss Mass on Sunday. She cried and received with her mother. And her tears poured over my heart and drew me closer to God.

Another visit, a woman asked me, "Do you believe there is a heaven?" She didn't want to ask a priest, because she thought the priest might judge her on her faith. I get that. I recall during an intense conversation with a Methodist minister, I remarked, "You mean I can ask that [question] and not go to hell for asking it?" And that opened wide my door for prayer life that took on new and wonderful dimensions.

Two things: any priest worth his salt is not going to judge anyone else. Oh he might have a passing thought in his head, but he knows about the battle between doubt and faith and he should own that truth every time he enters into the sacred God space with another human being. That being said, God pointed out to me that I have a place in this Catholic Church that I love so much. I think some people find me a comfortable place in which to wonder about God and not feel judged. I can hear, when I am willing to hear, when I am allowed to hear...and I can walk along and help others see the good and bad and let God into both places.

Now here's the kicker: You can do it, too. In fact, I believe you are called to do it, too. Not one of us is worthy to walk next to Him, not one of us is worthy of His attention, not one of us deserves His Love...but if we want it, if we ask for it, He gives it to us and so very much more.

His awesome, mind-blowing love...and for me at least, I wonder how my heart can hold onto so much love...and then it dawns on me...I'm not supposed to hold onto it. I'm supposed to give it away.

My little boy, lying on fresh straw, born to be food for the whole world...do you know how much I cherish you? Do you know that now is the right time? How much you are needed? How much you fill my heart with good things? How all the empty places are full?

Thank you for my life.

Love, Cindy

Reflections on the First Year of my New Life

From Seven Sacred Pauses on Facebook:
"Today is the dark New Moon, after which she begins to fill up again with light, starting tomorrow. This time of new beginnings, and, combined with the birth of the light of the sun (and length of the day) on December 21, both offer powerful celestial energy to renew, heal, and refresh your lives. Something to invite into your lives... ~ Velma"

I am constantly surprised and amazed at how God has blessed me. Broken me. Poor me. Flawed me. Proud me. Scared me. Confused me. He seems to love me anyway.

I have always felt like I have let God down.
I have been blessed with so many talents, but I have never used them enough for building up his Kingdom here on earth. I have hidden them, terrified of what might be expected of me if I was to share them, that I could not live up to what people thought I could do. And I never wanted to disappoint anyone. And that worry, I have discovered, is rooted in pride.

This summer, Fr. Jason suggested that I begin to pray the prayer of humility, which I have posted on Facebook perhaps in August. I began to pray that prayer in July. In the beginning, just the weight of the prayer almost did me in. And I do mean physical weight...of my sins, of which I was just becoming aware...I would pray the prayer three times. By the third earnest reading of it, I felt the need to lie down. It was just too hard to sit with the truth of my life. Always feeling inadequate and less than other 'normal' people, I discovered that at the root of it was pride. I did not want to look bad. I feared not being the best in the room.

(That's a real problem, I think, in parenting: We tell our children to do their best, and we put signs on the backs of our cars: honor student, quarterback, rah-rah-rah--and then we expect our kids to live up to ideal, our kids think they have to live up to that ideal and eventually everyone is disappointed) If you don't try, then you can't fail, right?

Nobody ever teaches us how to lose. Nobody ever shows us how to lose with grace.
I am thinking of that great poem by Carl Sandburg:
"We are the greatest city, the greatest nation! Nothing like us ever was!...
The woman named Tomorrow sits with a hairpin clenched tight in her teeth and turns and drawls, "My grandmother Yesterday is dead. Well, what of it? Let the dead be dead." Or something like that. (I can't seem to find the poem on line yet.)
It is about the sin of pride. We think we are so good. We think we are gods. I truly believe that if we hear God's word and say no to it, we are thinking we are gods, we are equal to God and we place ourselves in great danger of falling out of His Grace.

Saying Yes is no picnic though. Saying Yes implies the necessity of being humble. It says, "not my will but yours be done." At least I have always thought that meant letting go of something I think I want. But it can also mean taking on something I would rather not do.

Yesterday is a good example, for me, anyway. I wrote that morning about loving without strings. Or something like that. And then God called me on it. And I was pissed.(I know that is not a nice word...but I was not is a good place for some time yesterday) Then I realized I wasn't angry. I was hurt. And then I realized the consequences of being hurt. And I was convicted by my own words that I wrote in the morning. How do I love perfectly and without strings?

I sat with my feelings in prayer last night, proclaimed my lament, dropped open my Bible and it was Proverbs: Do not waste words on a fool. And I had to pray about what that really meant and not take it on just the surface value. I thought I understood what God required of me, but maybe I didn't, for the immediate desolation hurt so much and I felt lost and afraid. But not discouraged.

The desolation made me stronger. In the desolation, my Sweet Lord healed me. I was not to question Him any longer about it. What I needed would be provided. I did not have to worry. Like Jacob, I told the angel: I will not let go until you bless me. What arrogance, I thought. I have never 'demanded' anything from God before. It felt odd.

Yet, I was blessed. I arose from my prayer and the pain wan gone. And then I went to hug my sweet Lord and I felt our hearts joining together. Mine melted into His and the joy that embrace was, for me, another tiny glimpse of heaven. No words can describe it well. I can only say "it was good."

Today is the new moon. It is also my birthday. I went on my first cruise a year ago and I learned in the Mayan calendar that 52 years is a complete cycle. So at 53, I am one year old today. One year old in my new life. I can say without question, I am not the woman I was a year ago. Soon I will make my New Year's resolution. I pray that God will fill me with new light. I will take a new risk and see what God might show me through it. It may mean becoming less, but it will also mean becoming more. Fr. Henry brought the first light to me this morning during Mass. I am grateful for his blessing and for the kindnesses of so many others.

I offer these words to encourage you in your prayer life. Be bold with God, but always in humility, as you are able. Take it all to Him in prayer...and stay still long enough to get your answer. You will not be disappointed.

Love always in Christ,
Cindy

Kind Words

This morning, I showed up at Starbucks just about the time they opened. I walked in and asked, "What's that burning smell?" To which one of the sweet baristas relied,"It's my burning love for you!" I smiled at him and told him he just made my day. And he did.
Last night, as it was very cold, I began missing having a man lie beside me and keep me warm. (Summer it was always, "Stay on your own side already!") But as I snuggled under the down quilt I finally remembered I had in the closet, I missed that kind of touch.
I think that was the hardest thing to adjust to after the divorce, the gentle pleasure of just being held. I'm told men don't get that. They think an embrace is foreplay or something. That's not true, men probably enjoy a bit of tenderness just as much as a woman.
But I am in a different place in my life now. I am learning how to loved and be loved in new and wonderfully satisfying ways. You think I'm crazy? Perhaps. Not everyone is wired for or even desires this. I don't know if I really am, either. But I have come to realize the truth of John of the Cross's words (paraphrased...summed up, whatever): "to have everything, one must desire nothing."

In a different place of my life, I needed so very much. I was so hungry for so much. I actually found myself competing for a man once (OK maybe twice)...that was a humiliating truth to own, but it helped me to realize that 'curse' on Eve: your desire will be for your husband. In an unjust relationship, that is a form of enslavement. Let me say that twice so it is not misunderstood: IN AN UNJUST RELATIONSHIP, that is enslavement. I am not talking about a just one.
It is the curse of being 15 perhaps. We absolutely must have a boyfriend! The world will end if he doesn't look at me in the hall. And then some really destructive things can happen too, to get the object of one's affections attention. Oh how very much we need to love our adolescents properly so they won't go looking for the wrong things!

But in this new life, I have somewhat detached myself of certain needs that get in the way of my ability to love and be present for whomever I meet during the day. I truly get to 'love the one I wtih' and never feel empty when he/she walks away. I am not hungry for a phone call, a reassurance of love...and that makes me a much better lover.

Let me assure you, I have not mastered this charism...can one really master a charism? But I know that, if I stay true to my prayer, my personal desires will not overshadow the good work of loving my neighbor. I'm a work in process. I will fall down many more times. But I get up a bit faster these days, and the wounds are not so big anymore. It is a good life and I am happy in it.

So the sweet comment from a friend (who is my daughter's age) is received with great joy. I thank him for it. I thank God for it. And I thank God for you, who bothers to read my ramblings.

Love, Cindy

Putting it back again....sigh....

I hate the fact that I cannot write clearly what forms in my head. I cannot play the piano in front of people on purpose because I have in my head how the music should sound, and what comes from my hands is never quite what I intend to give to others. I get angry and depressed and then I realize it is all about pride.
My parents wanted me to be Miss America. My dad used to sing that song as I walked out of the bedroom, dressed for a date or something. He made me laugh. And then my Mom would point out all the things that were wrong: make-up (need a little more blue eye shadow) hair (the curl didn't hold on the left side) clothes (that shirt really doesn't go with those pants)
Small things, we think don't mean much, little criticisms and they cut as deep as "You're fat, you're ugly, and I don't like you."
This ruler thing is still haunting me. Enough conversations since I deleted this one below tell me how critical we are of ourselves and each other. Left unchecked, this demon does more damage to us than we are willing to admit. When we give it out, when we receive it...we kill ourselves and each other slowly and sometimes deliberately. So it needs to stop now. Right now.
So here it is again, flawed and broken and incomplete. But if one person stops hurting themselves or someone else, I will gladly take on the humiliation of being a lousy writer.
In Christ's Love always,
Cindy

THE RULER

Mostly I remember fourth grade in Catholic school. Sister Mary Esther and her ruler. I didn't get hit too often with the ruler, she saved that for the boys. For me, it was digging her fingernails into my head, lifting my desk off the ground and dumping its contents all over the floor (because my books were not properly stacked), various punishments or humiliations in the front of the room and finally tying me to my desk with ropes because I would not sit still.
And you still wonder why I couldn't be a nun. I suppose I will go to my grave wanting to be a priest. Actually confessing that desire in this pseudo-public way really doesn't help me get past it much either. And no, I have no desire to be a priestess. That would be ridiculous. Any power I might have comes from God, not from manipulations of the earthly elements, which is how we tend to define priestess, I think. I can't weave magic and I don't want to.

But I do want to help people with the forgiveness of their sins. In this last week alone, without any deliberate action, I have heard people's sins. I have heard people's pain. And there is a lot out there. We are all the walking wounded to some degree.
The wounds by themselves will not kill us. Not forgiving them, however, will kill us. I met a woman not long ago who wanted to die. In fact I met three people who wanted to die...and those were just the ones who told me of their desire. It must have been another Holy Spirit moment for me because this woman, who was in her early 60s, said she was ready to go and be with God. I said maybe God had more for her to do. I said maybe she needed to forgive some people while she was still here. She told me she had forgiven everyone. I asked her, did you forgive your husband? She told me she would die before she would forgive her husband. I smiled just a little bit, maybe God would like for you to forgive him, I said. Maybe God was keeping her here for exactly that task. And we continued our little visit.

Each day, I meet someone new who tells me something that ultimately wonders a question in their heart: Does God love me at all? And with great confidence, I try to respond, with about as much indirectness...or directness,as I am allowed: Of course God loves you! God loves all of His creation. But that is so hard to hear and so hard to receive sometimes...and especially when we have disappointed ourselves.

A long time ago, when I was a Methodist minister, I preached "It's a Wonderful Life." Do you remember the movie? Really remember? The story about who finally decided he would be better off dead. A man who dreamed of being something great and never got out of Bedford Falls. He thought his life amounted to nothing.

Somewhere in a drawer, I still have that perfect 'thank you' note from a parishioner about that sermon that said, "I am a bit frustrated with you, Cindy. I usually write out my grocery list during the sermon...but you words kept me listening to you!" or something like that. I never got to preach very often, but people remembered the stories I told. (That is one of the dangerous things about preaching: you want them to remember, but when they tell you that they do, you can surely get puffed up about it!)The sermon about George Bailey also included a story about making fudge. (Not my personal story, it was Mary's story and she let me tell it) I got a letter from a woman saying she had been depressed and thinking about suicide...but my sermon got her to think again and differently. Wow! Then once I walked into a hospital room and the woman called out from her bed to her family, 'It's the fudge lady!' (She had to explain what she meant, and I laughed-- it was a very good story) I still have the cassette of it. Maybe once a year I listen to it...and oh, my how Roman Catholic it sounds to me! Perhaps our blindness about ourselves is a gift...maybe.

Could go in ten other directions with this, but this story is about the ruler.

We beat ourselves up daily with that ruler. We think we know who we are supposed to be and we know we are not that person. We think we know what other people are supposed to be for us and they let us down. The closer a person is to us, the greater the pain. Well, if I have learned nothing else, I have learned that all love relationships come with pain. It wouldn't be love if it didn't hurt sometimes.
Let me be clear, I am not talking about the manipulative kind of hurts that some people cause or receive to maintain control over a relationship...the kind that uses and abuses the other...I am speaking of the cost of being vulnerable between two reasonably healthy people. Hurt is just part of the deal. We couldn't love if we weren't willing to risk getting hurt. When God gave us the ability to love, He sent us His Son to give us the ability for forgive ourselves, those we love deeply, and even those we hate deeply. Remember that hate is really love turned inward instead of outward.

That ruler can help us "stay within the lines" when we need to stay within the lines, but it can also create intense despair. We beat ourselves up for who we are and for who we are not. We beat ourselves up for who they are and for who they are not. Only because we have "a ruler" that tells us one thing is right and another thing is wrong.

I wish I was writing this more clearly. (There's my ruler showing itself!)But perhaps poorly is better than not at all. I get little clues from friends that some people I know are actually reading the stuff I write. Thank you. I intend to do good. I am not always successful.

BUT...

How many suicide attempts will I witness this season? How many won't make a mistake and actually die? How many hearts will be broken because we didn't live up to our own expectations? How many people are going to feel empty on Christmas morning? How many are going to dwell on what they didn't get, or that Aunt Grace still thinks you are a size 10 and you are a size 14...shouldn't she know that by now? Doesn't she care about me?

I'm glad God has given me the grace to sit with people who hurt. I am especially glad that God have given me wonderful people who are willing to sit with me when I hurt.

I have a dream that maybe this Christmas, no one will die by his/her own hand. I have a dream that we can each say thank you to each other...not for what we get, but for who we are. And who we are depends on Him who created us. Let all people know we are all children of God. He loves us and He wants us to love His creation.

George Bailey really had a wonderful life. No, it wasn't what he dreamed of, but it was a life that mattered, that touched others...and it was time for George to let his life touch him...and to let in all that love that surrounded him into his heart. It's OK, it is worth the risk. Love and be loved. Don't throw away the gift of life. Really.

I John 4:19 "We must love because He first loved us."

Love,
Cindy
Posted by Teresa's Garden at 7:27 AM

Second and Third Thoughts

Woke too early this morning. Something told me to wake up...or someone. The phone rang, I knew God was being kind and giving me just a little bit gentler rousing. Hospital call. We need you in ER. Now. Ill be there in 20 minutes. Can you hurry, she may not last that long. I should have just gone as soon as I woke up. I just knew before I was told.
Not going to look now, but the is a Scripture verse that says, It is not me who lives, but Christ who lives in me. Not really certain what to say about that right now, other than, I think if I am "doing it right," people should not really see me anymore. I am just the shadow and the light that might shine is not my light but His...or hers...Mary, I mean. If I'm doing it right, I am not there anymore. I'm simply along for the ride. I can't even begin to tell you what or how I feel these days. There are no words. I still walk, I still talk, but I truly feel something bigger and better is going on inside me, or through me, or whatever. God's carrying me to someplace new...I think to a place where I can do good work for Him. I hope I can do good work for Him. It is my only desire.
It feels so strange. And it feels so peaceful.

I deleted my little argument against suicide. Thought I was being too dark for the holidays. But, the truth is, that is when the devil (if you can buy into that, call it a dark force. It is a dark force, without question) talks us into giving up, surrendering to despair. For the spiritually strong, we can see the exposure of our weaknesses as grace, a change to grow spiritually stronger. (I've been listening to Frances de Sales on a Devout Life the last 24 hours) We should try to celebrate our challenges as a chance to grow closer to God.
For the spiritually weak, though, this time of year...well, we must force ourselves to rely on the kindness of others, to gird us up and help us remember we matter to God. Even just a smile can turn a person away from despair, but I think you've actually got to breathe a least one full breath with your friend or a stranger before you dismiss him/her. If you can't do it naturally, pretend like you care, then want to care and trust God to make you care. I mean take the time. Listen, really listen. We all need His love. All the time.
This morning, I don't know if the woman lived. I have a strong inner feeling that she did not. The baby is struggling to survive. The husband is distraught. I prayed in an operating room today, I whispered words into her ear. I hope they were not my words, but God's words. Oh please, God let that be so.
I came out and found the husband's pastor sitting with him. Another woman. We women, we stay, even when it gets messy. Especially when it gets messy. But this time, it was a woman I knew. And there was a little baggage. Why would God bring this today? What am I supposed to learn from it? I don't know yet. But I am completely convinced that if we are living out a life of prayer, nothing is left to chance. God is present in every event, refining us, teaching us and loving us.

I left the hospital knowing the family was in good hands. Surprise, I find myself going to church. Gotta pray through every encounter God places before me. That's how it works for me. Give it over to God before it gets to me. Three candles, father, mother and baby. Mary will know what to do. She'll tell her Son.

Mass was a gift. Mass is always a gift. My priest spoke about devotion to Mary. I'm just learning what that means. Only he says that some of the seminarians wear a chain around their wrist to proclaim there devotion to Mary. Oh. So maybe that's why I bought the James Avery bracelet of roses some ten years ago. I gave it to my daughter to wear in her wedding. When I fainted in August, the Icthus bracelet broke off my wrist, beyond repair. The ACTS bracelet was in pieces on the floor.But my Mary bracelet was undamaged and still attached to me. If only God was more clear sometimes, and I knew better exactly what he wants from me.
I can hear Him now in my head: "Cindy, I have been very clear...every time we speak...it is you who choose not to hear me." Argh!

Off to St Joseph's Home in Oak Cliff to help with Bingo. All those nuns about. How much I wanted to hold them and have them hold me. The residents were a delight and oh so human! We went to Mass together after Bingo. Another great blessing.

Then lunch at La Calle Doce. Superb Mexican food. Five women. They want to hear my story. I don't want to tell it. It is easier to write. Then I know I'm not really boring anyone with it. And if I don't tell it exactly right, it all sounds so sad. But really, I've had a very good life. You just have to get to place where you can count it all as joy.

You can count it all joy when you die to yourself. I get that now. I wish I could have gotten it at age 20, when I might have been more useful to God for a longer time, but as it is, better late than never.

And I have so many mistakes to share. So many weaknesses. So many wrong turns. The fact that I have made it to here is a true testimony that God doesn't give up on anyone. He waits. He walks so close to us that if we turn our face so gently left or right, we can feel his breath upon us. We can feel him taking our hand and offering compassion and life.

It is no longer me but Christ who lives in me. I could say more here, but I think I should go slowly. It is so hard to hold back. God has been good to me. God has received me exactly as I am...and is transforming me into something much better.

And Mary, well, I'll continue to ponder her in my heart until I can find the right way to share what I am learning there. I can't tell you about Mary. This is all so new to me...and healing for me. The feminine connection to God. Her heart. Her love. Very, very new.

God is so very good. If this makes no sense at all, it is because I am still at the beginning stages of very good things.

Love, Cindy

And the greatest of these is Love...

I wrote this one sometime last week. I'm still not happy with it, but I thought I would throw it out there anyway. As I learned this morning at Mass and earlier this week over lunch with a new friend, some of our journeys are long and winding roads...not always the best plan, but we learn from the winding roads, too. Then our sweet Jesus straightens them out.

If you read ahead, may the Lord create clarity in all my cloudy thinkings.

"Draw me into your footsteps, let us run.
The king has brought me into his rooms;
you will be our joy and our gladness.
We shall praise your love more than wine;
How right it is to love you." Song of Songs 1:4

Three times in my life, I have experienced perfect love. Or at least recognized it when it was given. The first time was on a Saturday night during my first Emmaus Walk back in 1997. I stared down at my placemat, which was covered in tiny, penny-a-piece trinkets, each holding a little piece of paper that had some scripture verse and the names of women and men who wanted me to know that I was loved by God and by them. I stared at these little gestures of affection and my stone cold heart began to crack. Wait a minute, I thought, they don't know me...how can they dare say such a thing? I know me and I am definitely NOT love-able.
Rather than make a scene, I ran off into the bathroom and locked myself in a stall. Sweet Rev. Char Cowan, with whom I already had several interesting conversations, stood on the other side of the locked door, calling my name.

From my little hiding place, I called out, "I want to go home. NOW!" And she listened gently to my request. "Please stay Cindy. At least for a few more hours. I promise it will all be alright."

But she didn't realize how painful it is for a human being, for whom love was nonexistent or misunderstood, to have something like real love given to her. For this love is one that cuts deep. It demands vulnerability to receive. It is both attractive and terrifying. It is free but it has a price. The price is that is changes who you thought you were into something new. And there is no going back from it.

I've been told that when we are young, our brains are so creative that they protect us from some kinds of truths so that we can survive...war...or a death...or other things. Then, when our brains think it is safe, it lets us feel stuff we were once too young to feel. We now had enough gray cells to understand and adapt differently. Only it still has to be a conscious choice. We decide if we want to grow out of childish things or into something something completely new.

So I stood locked in a bathroom stall, crying like a baby and begging to go home. I did not want to change. I did not want to accept love on any level. My brain told me that people used the word in unkind ways. Love was dangerous. I didn't want to entertain the possibility that it could also be something very, very good.

But sweet Char talked me into staying. And the shortest version of that story is that, if love can transform a robot like me into a human being, it must be pretty good stuff and I wanted to help others who may have been as wounded by life as me to live a better life in Christ. So I went to seminary. (One thread of a very nonlinear story)

I thought I was done. I thought I'd gotten a full dose. What I had received was beyond my dreams and I felt so very blessed. I was high on God.

Then came one of my first Dark Nights. If it is all about love, well then, why aren't people being loving. Seminary was great and scary and challenging, but church work was...something different. Not bad, perhaps, but because of the transformation in my own life, I expected that church work would be like that...every day a Saturday night locked in a bathroom stall that ended up in a kind of resurrection. And of course, it wasn't. I got lost, very lost.

Then, after a few years of weeping, love found its way into my heart again. Fr. Henry told me (in his sermon) to come down off the mountain. The theory of love is a great thing, but now that you have knowledge, Cindy, you must learn to live it. In the mess of creation is great beauty; you must now move what is in your head into your heart.

And God told me, one dark night, as I sat on the floor of the chapel (at St. Mark's)weeping tears against a brick wall, and begging God to explain to me why I continued this struggle to live in two worlds: the Methodist Church and the Catholic Church...and I sat on the floor, exhausted from crying, thinking I had no tears in me left to cry, I demanded of God why I always seemed to end up here. "Why do I always end up here? Why are my tears saved for here?" Then I heard God's voice telling me "Cindy, here is where you love me best." And my shoulders relaxed and my salty tears became suddenly sweet. "Oh..." He was right.

I found my second dose of pure love on/in preparation for the ACTS retreat. At least, I was aware of being loved there. This was a different love. Just as beautiful as the first but different. This love was a reconciling love. This love was the kind of love that healed. My first dose of real love broke my heart. This second dose began to heal it. My proud nature was being tamed by women and men who understood the nature of a wild animal who had to learn to fend for herself in all things that mattered. I begged for forgiveness from my great pride, which had protected me from certain death in years past but was now killing me. And God forgave my sins.

Now I am in such a different place. I took a lot of words to get here, but yesterday made me aware again of how far I still have to go. As great as the love of God is growing inside me, I still have so many broken places. Still bits of stone shield things that I think I cannot survive without keeping. But it became clear again to me yesterday, that I do not need these things anymore. They are in the way of a greater love that God has made available to me....and quite truthfully, to us all.

Some of you have gotten here ahead of me. I am glad you found your way home. Some of you are walking by my side, just as scared and excited about what might happen next. But there are too many people I know, who are still protecting their hearts of stone.

I have finally learned that love is a good thing. I have learned that love is much greater than loving our husbands or wives or our children or our friends. Those loves are good loves, but they still have strings attached to them. Those are great things that we will eventually have to let go of. They are transitory, and sometimes so unpredictable. Good but not perfect.

And there is perfect love. With God. The glorious irrational. Faithful: steadfast, predictable Compassionate:mercy and grace-filled Selfless: giving Unceasing: without bounds Also relentless: pursuing us to the end of time Demanding: requires that we give ALL of ourselves over to it Jealous: will not share our love for God with the love of any other thing.

So, perhaps poorly written, but perhaps a beginning of something that could make sense someday, I offer to you this day the prayer/declaration of the Beloved to her Great One True Love that is God:
Draw me into your footsteps, let me run!
For God has brought me into His rooms
He will be my joy and gladness
I will praise Your Love more than wine,
How right it is to love You.

I pray now that God will clear the cobwebs that might still be in the words I have written. I am on a tremendous journey. A great adventure. Today, this is my Captain's Log. It might make sense, it might now. It is all still such a blur in my head...but it is a very good blur...of something so good and perfect, if I can just get you to think about going there too, well then it was worth writing.

To those of you with brave hearts, take the risk, let Him in...

Love, Cindy

Fundamentalists and other things that go bump in the night...

If you can't stand the heat...get out of the kitchen.

Too late. I'm in it for the long haul. I trust God. All others will have to prove themselves to me. God is setting me up for another Dark Night. I thought I'd get a bit more time. I thought maybe He'd be nice and wait until after Christmas. But he knows best.
No this is not a punishment. It is not God testing me. It is God's gift to help me see who I really am, what I need to be, and where I need to go next. It is a gift of discernment. It is a gift of illumination. And right now, it hurts...
But all great healing begins with the acknowledgment of pain. OK God, I am hurting. Do your work. I'll breath deeply.

Life and Death

Yesterday, during hospital visits, I got a taste of the hardest questions we place before God. At least, I think they are the hardest questions?
Why are we here, if all life ever shows us is suffering and death? Why are we so alone? Why God, if you love us so much, do you let bad things happen?

One young man tried to kill himself by swallowing 11 tacks. My first comment was, "Oh, so you like prime numbers, too!" I don't know why he opened up to me. I have written often that people tend to tell me the truth. Their truth. I wonder if it is because I expect it. I wonder if it is because I will never judge it. Maybe it's because there is very little out there that can shock me anymore. But there is still a lot out there that makes me want to throw up. Yesterday, I wept on the floor, under the cross, with my Bible as my pillow. Then I placed my wet Bible on the altar. My offering to God yesterday...and everyday...are my tears.

He told me a lot of things. I asked a lot of questions. If I had been a paid employee, I would not have asked the questions. As it was, it seemed like I was only the shadow and God was the person talking...or asking. And maybe that is why the young man answered me, with his truth. I don't know if I helped. There was a nurse in the room with him also. I was glad of her presence, but I treated her as if she wasn't there. My eyes never left the young man's eyes. She was the witness. I made the sounds, but I pray that God was doing the talking...and the boy, the young man, maybe he finally felt he was being heard. I hope so.

What do you do when the pain inside your heart is so intense that you want to throw away God's greatest gift? What can hurt so bad that injuring yourself makes you feel better? What truth has to be told so that the devil inside you, which wants to destroy you, finally leaps into the pig that runs over the cliff? Saying out truth aloud, I think, is the hardest thing we can ever do. Our mind (our ego) makes us think we are alone in our thoughts, but we are not alone. There is no secret thought we may have that God does not know.

And no matter how ugly it might be, or seem to be, God loves us anyway. Nothing can separate us from God's love. Nothing. Even though the devil (who sometimes takes the form of a well-meaning friend) tries to convince us differently. We can rely on the truth that God never abandons us. Evil happens, yes. But God never leaves.

So I suppose that is why I had such a terrible desolation the other night. Even there, in my emptiness, I clung to that which gives me strength. His cross.

Then I moved to another great sadness: a person survived an auto accident, but some people died. The car hydroplaned into another car. Someone asked me this morning if that person had been drinking. I put that here because that is our human nature, to try to explain away evil in terms we can handle. We look for an excuse, a reason, why evil happened. Sometimes, evil just happens. More importantly, it is really not necessary to know why (Me the champion 'asker' of whys is writing that!). I would never have asked anything. My job was to listen to whatever this person wanted to say. And then pray. And oh Jesus, how I needed His help with that prayer! This was a prayer that had to be wide enough for all the hurt inside that room and outside of that room. This sin, this evil...would last a lifetime. Peace will take awhile. Reconciliation...perhaps. God alone can make this better. God alone can heal the hearts of all the people involved. And God allowed me to be a witness to the beginning of the possibility for healing.

Now, tell what you think. I studied Ecclesiastes with my Disciple group last Monday night and this week we start the Book of Job. I've actually bee published on Job. God weaves all things together for His purpose. I'm just along for the ride.

Love, Cindy

Moments without God...

Last night, I woke up feeling more empty than I have ever felt in my life.

At Mass that morning, Fr. Henry reminded us to pray. More than that, he reminded us to pray in the sanctuary. Come to this holy place and stay with God awhile. I thought about it. I had been negligent this week in my prayer life. Oh, yes, on Wednesday I was as high as a kite, especially seeing Fr. Duffy on the video talking about Vatican II. It made me remember all of our long conversations while I was going through seminary. He kept my spirits up. He held me up when I was ready to crash. Once, I think we talked for three or four hours, and it felt like only minutes. He always made me feel safe. And as I observed him with others, every person he ever spoke with always felt like they were the only person in the room. To me, he is a true pastor. Remembering all his kindness to me, how he believed in me, well...that was a very good thing. Far from the perfect priest, he was more like Jesus, who understood the heart of the Law. But I digress.

Prior to that, I spent time in stillness with God. Such a heavenly experience, to be still with God. And yet, since I do not know heaven, it might seem a foolish thing to say. But it was a place of peace and perfectness. Words are beginning to disappear from my prayers. Thoughts still come, but they are only thoughts of God. Daily challenges, I suppose, are there, but they do not dominate the experience.

Even after visitations, I am not urged to reflect on them as I once have. They have already become a part of me and when I walk into the sanctuary, I bring them to the table as well. Part of my offering. I don't have to explain it anymore.

So yesterday in spiritual direction, I went off into an odd place. (This happens more often than I would like, but I do not feel compelled to restrain it anymore) I made the suggestion of an image of Jesus resting his head on the pillow next to mine. Opening my eyes, and just seeing him there, protecting me from all the things that go bump in the night. This image was not well-received by the person I was sharing it with. The idea of God being forever present with us was acceptable, but the idea of the Incarnation of God, say, watching us brush our teeth or cook, or even sleep, felt too strange. Still, it was in my head...and like a good French-Irish Catholic...I spewed it out before I thought about it twice.

So early this morning, I wake at 1:30 a.m. and I open my eyes...and He's not there. Jesus is not lying on the pillow next to me and the emptiness hurts my heart, my head, my soul...my soul is so hungry and doesn't know what to do.

I didn't talk to you yesterday, Jesus. I didn't give even one hour of total attention to you and now you are not here. I can't bear having you so far away. Should I get in my car and drive to the church? Do I need that holy place right now? I know all I have to do is ask, and you will come to me, but my place is such a mess...so many distractions here. If I go over there, I'll have to sleep there. What if someone saw me? What would people say?

I need to be strong. I need to trust that you will be here with me, right in this very minute. I crawl out of bed and take a crucifix off the wall. The one that was placed on my mother's coffin...or my dad's coffin...they both look the same. I hold tightly to it, like a child with her favorite stuffed animal. Come to me now, Jesus. I think of the statue of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton in the daily chapel. She holds a crucifix. I never got that. I get it now.
Calm my restless heart. I am sorry I wasn't there earlier. I miss you so much. Be with me now, please. Don't make me face this night alone.

The morning comes and I know what I will do with my day. In a few minutes Mass, then possible the hospital ministry breakfast at church, then I will pray. Then I will go to the hospital and pray with those who will receive me. I will smile at the nurses and tell them they do goo work. Then I will go back to the chapel, maybe confession if the timing is right, and I will pray again. That's the plan anyway. God may have another plan in mind.

I suspect that few people will get this, but that is OK. Maybe someone might want to pray a little extra today. That, I think, would make God smile. What an odd and wonderful journey this is!

Love,
Cindy

The Stuff that Dreams are Made of

The day before yesterday, I deleted several entries from FB. Worse yet (for me), I did not save what I wrote. I have a large tub in my closet filled to the top with journals from past years. I have thrown a few away, but not many. Some of the pain I had to work through back in my 30s was just too raw. Probably would have been good fodder for Jerry Springer, but sensationalism was never my goal. Making sense of life has always been my goal.

The other day, God seemed to put on my heart the need to say some things that were less than pleasant to a specific individual. Urgings like this can never be good. They never turn out well. But, I also know, from past experience, if I speak out and am body slammed into the floor, it really doesn't matter. I don't really need to know if what was spoken (I don't like to say 'I said' because if I was saying it, well...I wouldn't have said it at all!) worked or was helpful. Pride is what makes us want to know if we succeed or fail. The request from God is to be obedient. Rewards and punishments, well...are part of that gravy thing. (Have I written about the gravy thing yet?)

My thought is, that if we do it to get some reward, even then our obedience to God becomes motivated by the wrong thing. This may really annoy some people. But the question has to be asked: Why do you (I) love God? It is for reward? Is it to feel good? Is it to feel better about ourselves? Is it because we fear God's wrath or going to hell? Why do we love?

If we can say yes to those reasons, then for me, I still believe I am using God as a means to an end. I just can't bear to do that. My love for God is a choice, yes. But my love for God is unconditional. It is a love for what has already been given, not for what I might get later down the road. It is now a love that is not dependent whether or not my life turns out well. My love is not given to God because I want some special seat in heaven. Even the existence of heaven almost seems insignificant when I think about my love for God. Even if all there is is what I have right now, then even that would be enough reason to love God. I have found such peace in keeping that idea in my heart. What I have is enough gift. Anything else is gravy.

So last night, I took my Sacramentary, which I found at Half-Price Books for about five dollars, and stood before my crucifix that is nailed at the end of the hallway to my bedroom.
(I hung it there about 13 years ago and laughed, because I thought then, any man who wants to sleep with me is going to have to walk to that crucifix first before he enters my bedroom. OK, I have a bizarre sense of humor!)
I opened the book and read Eucharistic Prayer I aloud. But I read it in first person (since I was the only one there). And then I added all my personal details, about what I had done, about what I wanted to do for God, about all the people I loved and how I wanted to be a blessing to them. I remembered all the people who have loved me who died and thanked God for them. It was a wonderful prayer time!

Then later, I slept. But I have to write here that I cannot tell the entire story correctly in this moment. There were many blessings of the day. A person that I did speak a "truth" with actually understood and loved me for trying. That moved my heart to a new level of love, too. Then I delivered Holy Communion to two delightful older women. Each one tells me new stories. One told me her truth, and her eyes welled up with tears in the belief that she was no longer useful to anyone. I told her she was useful to me. She let me visit her. We shared stories together. She shared her life with me for a few moments. That is very useful.

Then there was the Cennacle luncheon, in a pinkish house with statues of Mary everywhere you turned. And the women prayed, aloud and together, for priests. And then a priest came and prayed with us. The hostess gasped as she saw the priest walk up her sidewalk. Her joy, in that moment was complete. He shared food with us.
Everyone had good stories and love was abounding.

So I prayed in my hallway, before the Crucifix that I have known all my life, was always by the front door of the house where I grew up. This Crucifix was there my entire life. And I prayed the perfect prayer (the Eucharistic Prayer) before it. And I went to sleep.

I wish I could remember more of the dream. I believe I was standing with my mother in a busy city. I remember city buses and cars on the street. I remember oak trees that grew is grassy areas, not too old, but I remember the green leaves. I'm pretty sure they were live oak trees.

Much happened in the dream before what I can recall now, but I remember turning to my mother and saying, "I have to leave you now." And I flew. It took a little work to not hit the oak trees as I left the ground. I remember having to change direction a bit to dodge the branches. And then I was flying off into the night sky, filled with stars that sparkled like diamonds. The black was a perfect black as much as the stars truly carried every color of creation. I went so high, so fast, it even surprised me, to be flying above the earth and crossing over waters, I think.

I looked just below me and saw an airplane. I heard its sounds, which were not too loud for some reason, and I decided to float down and touch it, to see if it was really real. It was, and I held on for a bit and rode with it as perhaps someone rides a dolphin or a whale. The wind picked up against my face. It was nice.

Then suddenly I thought, how foolish to be holding onto a plane (jet, actually) I could get sucked into the engine like birds sometimes do. I looked behind me and the fuselage was covered. I knew I was safe. But I decided to let go and travel alone again.

I looked below and saw the lights of a small city. Like stars on the ground and there in front of me was a beautiful glistening lake. I thought I wanted to go there, but something in my heart was telling me, "Time to go home." I flew away from the lake and toward the city I had left. For a fleeting moment, I thought, usually I could have never flown this high, usually the wires always stopped me. But today, there were no wires...and I soared.

Then I woke up. My heart felt more alive that I have known it to be, perhaps since before I ever married. It felt like the muscle itself had grown firm and vibrant as if it were a child's heart. It pumped strongly and seemed to send the blood properly through my body again. This is hard to describe, but I woke completely convinced that God had given me a new heart.

It was a miracle.

"Create in me a new heart, O God
And renew in me a right spirit."
Psalm 51:10-11

There is more to say, but this will have to do. I'm still sorting it all out.

May you be blessed with the dreams of your desires.
Love,
Cindy

Dark Night

My spiritual director says I will probably never get over wanting to be a priest. She also says she firmly believes I am called to be one. That pain will be like Paul's thorn perhaps. I will never have what I want. Never be what I want. And I don't know how to stop wanting...no wait, that is a line from The Thorn Birds...and that priest was talking about his inability to release his ambitious desires. Oh wait, maybe that is about me after all.

Yet, I truly can see the problems of having a woman as priest. First of all, is the problem of how we have treated the word "Priestess." You hear that and you think cheesy Italian movies about Jason and the Argonauts or something. You don't really think about God. In fact, you think about sex. Women are still treated as objects in many areas. It seems to me that religion is one of them. Put a woman at the altar...and what do the people look at? The Holy Eucharist or her? And that is the real problem.
Now I am certain that many women are looking at the male priests, especially those of the "Fr. What-a-waste" variety. But their inner thoughts are innocuous. Most of the time. But for women in the role of priest, it might be different. Men are hard wired to the visual. The church may have an "boxed" answer for why women can't be priests (we've always done it that way...Tradition with a capital T, and the people say,'yes!') but I can find greater peace in the answer that society just won't accept a woman at face value. She's always got something else on her mind. Ulterior motives. We seem to expect them from women and are oh-so-shocked when they come from men. These are the things that have to be overcome and I don't expect that to happen anytime soon. And I freely admit to being caught in the trap of assumptions as well. If I wasn't caught, I'd be back to fighting the system.

So I accept the system as it is. I ask then, why, Lord, are such hungers placed on my heart? The Old School priest might tell me it was the work of the devil himself, women are just not supposed to be priests...or ambitious. New school priests are sympathetic but not helpful. For this problem has no solution. At least I cannot see one.

So 'nearly a nun' for me also means 'never a priest.' I live vicariously around those men get the privilege to enter than path and not be trampled on by the first line of human expectation. I do all I can for them, and with humility, learning and praying to not be envious of their Holy Orders. But my brain is just not wired for much of anything else.

And yet, if I truly explore my own hunger, I realize what I am called to do has very little to do with being a priest...or a nun really. What it is for me is a call to holiness (and oh how I do not want to use that word!). For me, holiness is being set apart. I do the work placed before me with joy. I am constantly troubled though, by the fact that for what I am doing there are no rules. Well, I don't know the rules until I break one. Then I go, OK Lord. I'll let that desire go. Move me somewhere else. Quickly.

On more than one occasion, I have requested a priest without following protocol. When I do that, I know in my heart...at least in that moment...that I am doing the right thing, a holy thing and no I am not going to wait until someone thinks about it and decides that maybe it is OK. When I feel God pressing on me to act, I act. I don't question it. And if I get bruised in the process, so what? If I am acting out of some word from God, I will be protected. If my action is revealed as selfishness or ego, I know I will be corrected. I should fear neither.

The other day I was frustrated. I told someone that a priest was needed. I was then cross-examined and then informed on proper protocol. I lost my temper a little bit. "Joe needs a priest." "Did he ask for one?" Sigh,"No he didn't. I made a judgment call. He needs a priest." "Well we don't want Father to get there and be asked to leave. That would waste his time." I hang my head. "But that's his job!" I say emphatically, thinking I should shut up now, but my clever little brain is spinning. There are at least two kinds of healing. One you ask for. The other is an opportunity to say yes. Part of our faith journey has to do with saying yes or no to God. If the priest knocks, and Joe says 'Go away!" then Joe has to hold in heart that he told the priest to go away. That is as much of God's grace working on him as it is for Joe to say, "welcome and sit down."

So the list begins of my "confession." How could I possibly being a nun with such a mouth? How could I possibly be priest, when even a glance gets thirty different interpretations? Probably best that I remain who I am. I lover of God,who walks and falls down a lot, but everyday gets closer to knowing completely the greatest love of my life.

All glory and honor be to God who made us all. With love from Cindy

What God might require

I've just begun to listen to a recording of St John of the Cross' Dark Night of the Soul. I translation seems to be alright, but the woman reading it is about as bad as the one who reads Teresa of Avila's biography. They both tend to read these great works as if they were reading a Danielle Steele novel. It is frustrating to me because I want people to take the practice on contemplation seriously. I don't want people to see it as a novelty or fad. I don't want anyone to mistake it for some branch of the popularized version of Kabbalah, which has also gotten a bad rap.
There are many ways to connect with God, as many ways as there are people. It is not a game to see who can achieve the highest contemplation or grow closest to God. It is a manner of being in which one becomes detached from things that distract one from thinking about God.
This detachment is a great thing. It is also an addictive thing. I can find no greater pleasure than just sitting with God, which seems to be most of the time these last few weeks. Each day I grow closer. Each day demands from me a new understanding of who I really am. Since I do not yet understand God's purpose for my inner cleansing, I don't know yet if it is an entirely healthy thing to do. I do know it brings eventually joy, which is good. But am I useful to God and others as a result? I don't know.
I do know this week has been exhaustive and wonderful and terrible. I have been made more aware of life and death than I had ever thought possible. Seeing those who have left the earth, so often this October, causes me to reflect on the mystery that is human life. How precious and fragile it is. How each day is a gift. How nothing should be wasted. And how foolishly we expend energy and worry on things that really don't matter.
What matters is relationship. When we reach out to someone and touch them, that is God. When we smile, it is God. When we let raindrops fall on our face, it is God. Every time we wake up to creation, it is God. No I do not mean to imply some 'stoned love' kind of thing...I'm thinking in the Christian sense in its most basic and profound way. Love one another. Loving brings into us the Holy Spirit. But the Holy Spirit is the true giver of Love. We couldn't do it without her. But she doesn't exist unless we love one another. Sound far fetched? No, it is right here.

I keep having these strange imaginings during Mass. A day or two ago, I saw Jesus on the cross in the large host Father held up in Mass. I wept as I watched the priest break it into pieces. And yet, that is what we do with Christ. We break Him into pieces. It feels both cruel and yet necessary. I haven't sorted it out yet. We did in fact, if we buy into the story, kill our living God. He came to us and we tried to destroy Him.
No it wasn't the Jews, and it wasn't a long time ago. When I think of God, time doesn't exist. In the Mass, time does not exist. What happened 2000 years ago, happens again, right before out eyes...and long after I'm gone, it will happen in just the same way as it does today, because today is yesterday and tomorrow...in the manner of being with God. It is so hard to write about. I feel horribly inadequate.
Today in the Eucharist, I saw first a kind of dove that morphed into what I thought was the Holy Family. Just as easily as I saw in the bread the fire, and the face of Jesus and the the crucifix and now the Holy Family. I attribute it to an active imagination...but something definitely is stirring in me, perhaps it is just the birth of some poetry or maybe a good story, but it is happening to me nonetheless.
My constant prayer has gotten me so connected to absolutely everything and everyone I meet. It feels like a different level of consciousness.
I don't feel competitive anymore. I don't seem to care what happens, only that I stay present to what is happening.
Now what I think I want is a miracle to happen. But I don't know what that miracle might be. I don't know if it will be a private thing or possibly exposed, but that doesn't matter. The curious thing is that I feel the miracle I am praying for might happen and I will never know that it did. But I have faith that it will happen, even if I never realize it personally. And yet I am also aware that is has already happened. This is that time thing that seems to disappear when I am praying. I get to a place where then and now merge, what was is again. In fact, it never left. If I think I sound a bit loopy, I cannot imagine anyone who reads this understanding a single word of it.
I just know. God is present. God is thick in our lives. We just don't choose
see Him or feel Him. But when we do...heavens
I'm very tired now and will try again later. With love to God and to all,
Cindy

Think I'll be writing here now

I told a dear friend about what I was trying to do. She laughed. I said I could do everything perhaps a nun might do, except I liked my things. She laughed again. Celibacy? She laughed more. She doesn't understand. How does one give up something that she doesn't have? But given the opportunity to "give it up," would I? I don't know. Perhaps that would be the most difficult question.
I had a priest once speak to me about love. Falling in love is inevitable. It's what you choose to do with it that matters. I think that was one of the most important things I have ever been told. I never really thought about that part of it before. Usually I would think, if God grants in you the desire to love another person, well...you should respond to it with vigor.
The trouble is, or the conflict, or the resistance is that, when you feel claimed by God, no matter how delicious a prospect might appear to be, there exists within you an internal knowing that the experience with another human being is transcendent, while the encounter with God never stops. With God, if you turn to His love, it is always present, always deep, always passionate. With a person, there is timing...the great chain around human existence, that you are either in sync with another person, or you are not.
I have been in love many times in my life, and probably 'in lust' many more. But that kind of bonding with another human being in complete trust, I have never known. Sadly, as I discuss the subject with my friends over my lifetime, I find that most of them have never known 'true love' either. They have 'settled.' The good part about that is that many of them are very content with it.
We foolish romantics seek the ideal, the perfect love...and the only place we can truly find it is in God. It is the only food that satisfies our hearts completely.
If you read all the great poetry about God, you will discover how perfect that love can be and how it manifests itself in the human person.
It allows us to love others without reservations, and of course, without expectations. Perhaps in loving God, we learn how to love others.

But the Body is always a problem. It lusts and hungers and craves immediate satisfaction. Most of our technological is geared to satisfy an immediate hunger. Waiting is not even an art anymore, it is an endangered species. We want, and we want now. The most troubling fact is that, when we get what we want, we are only satisfied for seconds...and then we want something else. I think our entire economy survives my our unsatiable desires. We literally are consumers of anything and everything...and because we seek that which becomes dust in the wind, when we look back all we have is dust and memory.

The memory then plagues us. If it is a good memory, we long for what we used to have. If it is a unpleasant memory, we ruminate over and over about how we could have, should have, done it right. Unbridled memories lead to deep depression, which is a form of living death. We become zombies to the real world, going through the motions, and waiting for what we long for to arrive joyously at our door.

But it doesn't need to be that way. God alone suffices. Those of us who are poets; we must rely on the unprovable existence of God to keep us sane. We search for the higher ground. We dream of a perfect world where people love one another and do not exploit one another and make certain every child has an abundance of love and sufficient food for each day.

I am waxing...a fictional priest in the movie "Stigmata" is asked by a pretty young woman, "Don't you miss it?" [the sex] And he replies most wisely, "Not really. I have simply traded one set of problems for another."

Whenever we make a choice, we pick something up and leave something else behind. It's part of the deal of discernment. There will always be a new set of problems. That's really quite good. It makes us grow.

To not decide, that is the only true Dark Night of the Soul, I think. Always wondering if you did the right thing, or was it the best thing...or was it selfish...what were my motives? What were their motives? Did I consider all the possibilities? Should I change my mind? To me, that is the Dark Night: to wonder if I did the right thing.

The way out, for me, is to surrender it all to God. By myself, I am left in a hell on earth, never knowing if I pulled my weight, made the world better, loved enough, worked enough...but if I can just give it ALL to God, then grace abounds and the peace given me pours like honey onto everyone else I meet.

Why would anyone want anything different?

Nearly a Nun Chapter One

To begin with, I am writing this in response to the present urgings of God that make little or no sense to me at all.  About 12 years ago, I fell on my face in the midst of a prayer that seemed to not belong entirely to me. I woke to the feeling of being deeply loved, with a sense of completion that had existed no where else at any time of my life.

Lying on the floor, I opened my eyes in blissful peace, to a rude and unsolicited thought as a response to this generous gift from God: "I am NOT going to become a nun!"  What followed from there was a long litany of excuses why such a request would be impossible.  I certainly did not "hear" God say "I want you to be a nun." I did seem to realize that I had been marked, claimed, taken...and there was no going back from the experience. It was the most perfect moment of my life...a perfect moment given to a very imperfect person.

As I regained a more normal level of consciousness, I began with to list all of my excuses.  For what I truly felt had happened was that I had quite unexpectedly 'married' God...and just exactly what can you do after you've already said "I do?" Sounds like the beginning of a joke song: you get up one morning, after a little too much to drink, and you find out you are married. Lots of movies share that plot.

It's another thing entirely to have it really happen to you.

So I told God I was certainly not nun material.  I can't do the obedience thing.  I'm way too carnal, too human, too hungry.  I don't want to give up my toys, my friends, the pennies I have in the bank. I don't want to be told what to do,where to go, and I sure as hell don't want to wear wool!

While I may have somehow submitted to God, I certainly was not going to submit to another human being! I was definitely not going to be a nun!

And I think I heard God laughing...