Body and Soul

I was heading out of the church parking lot this morning, knowing in the back of my head I should go to the columbarium to pray. I drove near the elementary school and saw the police car waiting for people not paying attention to the school zone. Thought I was off the hook. Then I realized I left my coffee back in the church.

So I think, I'm supposed to go pray. Last night's prayers were scattered. I needed to make up for them. Or rather, I'm used to finally arriving at some kind of peace or conclusion in prayer. I hate it when God leaves me hanging.

I am such a child with God. Whatever He gives me, whenever He gives me, I still have the habit of looking around behind the gift and thinking, "Is there more?" In one way, that is good. I don't want to leave a drop of God behind. I don't want to miss out on the whole, entire, beautiful gift. On the other hand, looking around could imply that I am not grateful for what is in front of me. Or it could mean I'm greedy.

Am I over-thinking my prayers again?

A dear friend told me to watch a show on EWTN on Catherine of Sienna. She is a kind of muse for me. I have a female muse, and I think at least for a little while longer, I have a male muse. Actually the muse comes in many forms. I can be with someone and suddenly I feel my soul growing very still inside me. That's when I know I am encountering the divine. The waters around me suddenly stop splashing against my boat, the air gets thick...and then I see Him, I don't see the person before me any more. They are more like shadows, reflecting the God resides in them.

She tells me to watch this show on Catherine. Pay attention to it Cindy. So I figure out how to watch it on my iPhone. And the fire inside me burns a bit brighter. How does she know, Lord?

I think about all the women who have been born who may have inside them the call to "Holy Orders" and because they are born woman, they either ignore the gift or try to make it work in some other way. Or they die...and that is a shame. Wasting God's precious seeds because the puzzle pieces don't fit.

Makes me think about the movie "Contact." Astronomer Ellie was given all the pieces to the puzzle, but it did not make sense...only parts of the puzzle seemed to work together. Make one part 'fit' and then there's a loose end. Make the other parts fit, and you have a different loose end. So Hayden tells her, "Oh but all the pieces fit. You just have to think like a Vegan[planet near star Vega]." And he puts it together by not thinking linearly.

And that is a truth I have preached on before. Life is not linear. Yes, we can identify cause and effect. But nothing is just cause and effect.

Sometimes I get frustrated with the Catholic Church because it seems to remain so two-dimensional. It seems at times it only has one plane of understanding. It sees in length and width but not depth. Or it can see length and width and depth, but it forgets about time.

Let me be perfectly clear here, I am not claiming any superior knowledge here. I am simply observing and thinking out loud. But I believe in my heart, we are more than body. We are more than soul. We are body and soul.

And the Church does a fair job looking at this issue. But its thoughts are not the final thoughts. God is still writing the story. (Have I just committed heresy?)

The epistle reading today was Paul and Barnabas meeting with the elders and presbyters about the issue of circumcision. No, you didn't have to be circumcised to become a Christian. You don't have to become a Jew first. That's good.

But back then, even Paul had women in the positions of leadership within the early church. That eventually went away. I have to ask why. Was it that we were too hormonal to be steadfast leaders? The argument over circumcision was won because it was prudent to the faith to remove that obstacle. But women, whom Jesus honored more than any man in history has ever done, were disposable (the issue of women leaders) because the world would not receive them even if Jesus did.

How much of our beautiful faith has been slowed or lost because of this choice?

So the time has dawned again and then question arises. Why? How does it serve to take these gifted women and put them in a cage...metaphorical as it is?

But I suddenly realize, as I weep and struggle with these ideas...that I am thinking linearly again. I cannot see as God sees. What He wills for us His creation cannot be thwarted by any human powers, male or female. He calls us and puts us to work, if we remain in prayer and steadfast to our complete and total surrender to Him.

And the waters around me calm again. Only God is in charge. On Him alone will I rely. In Him only will I trust.

So I watch the show on Catherine of Sienna. OR most of it. I can feel her in my life. I can feel her life and my life sharing a space in that timeless heaven space with God. And I think, I am in touch with the divine.
She stood up to the Pope. She preached. She was illiterate. She changed lives. She died at 33. Had she been a learned woman, no one might have listened to her. They might have confused grace for cleverness. They might have thought she had a personal agenda. But by being exactly who she was in the time she lived, she changed the world.
And since I was old enough to think, I have wanted to change the world. Too early on, I saw so much suffering. We are such fools, feeding our miseries and demanding to be right, wanting our own form of justice...punishing those who cross us directly or passively, exacting vengeance over such minor things...it has to stop. That's what I decided maybe at age 6. I just know what I saw was wrong and it needed righting.
But I see this bit on Catherine and I think, I have done so little for you God. I have done so little. I have wasted so much time weeping over my own foolish life when there were people to feed and hearts to mend. How can I ever make it up to Him who loved me anyway?

But I am thinking linearly again. I go to the columbarium, I think, to pray. A woman follows me in. I sigh. But not too much. I know her. I like her. I love her.

Show me God, what you want me to know.
And He does.

Got a really nice card from someone in RCIA last night. He wrote words I wanted to hear. He wrote from his heart. The truth always sounds good eventually.

The woman I met yesterday. She gets Meals on Wheels everyday. I think, another ministry I should be doing. She wants to receive Holy Communion every day. I tell her I can come once a week (she receives on Sundays) if she would like. I tell I usually do that on Mondays. She tells me she would like Communion on Wednesdays...before 11 a.m. I smile. She's 90. She was probably 30 years old before she didn't have to use the "coloreds only" bathrooms in public buildings. She can have Communion whenever she wants it...if I am going to serve her.

The columbarium. We women talk. We are so different. And we are so alike. And I feel spiritually blessed in her presence. She tells me that one of her children works with deeply traumatized women in a psych hospital. (I am being vague on purpose) The intake includes hundreds of questions about their lives. One question is missing from the forms:

Did you ever have an abortion?

And I am stunned that the psychiatrists could be so stupid. As a woman, our ability to hold new life within us is probably the most important part of being a woman...in fact, it is why we needed male and female. The most important thing that defines us (and if you disagree, so be it)is ignored when trying to understand a woman's trauma.

So I've gone full circle. Does my having a womb disqualify me from being a healer in God's Church on earth? I'm thinking no.

All of this because I left my coffee cup in the church.
I just have to stop thinking in a line. :-)


Love, Cindy