I think I kind of went to the dark side yesterday. Most people prefer the lighter stories, I think. I was not happy about a certain series of events over the past few days. This is how I fight back: with words. I sometimes think people look at other people and just decide about them, with a single glance and then dismiss them. I know I have done it...and I work very hard to stop doing it.
You don't know me at all! That is usually the cry that comes from a teenager during a 'correction' or 'discipline.' You don't know me at all! And often that is true. But we do have patterns to our behaviors. We have patterns as individuals and as a collective group. In fact, we love those patterns so much, we give each other dozens of multiple choice tests to determine what our particular "pattern" might be.
In seminary, I had to take an endless array of multiple choice tests to see if I was cut out for ministry. The tests often made me laugh.
Statement: "I enjoy funerals." 5-very much, 1-not at all
What the hell does that mean? I giggle. I circle 3. Just to be safe.
At TAMU, I took those tests. I remember what it said I should be: #2 Lawyer, #3 Priest. Guess they weren't thinking about gender back then. And since I was not attending church, it seemed like a joke.
You don't know me at all.
Teaching school at the college, one of my jobs was to help at risk students pass the TASP test. I have never hated such a task more, but it was a paying job and I needed money to feed my son and myself. What a joke! And not a joke. I had to teach children how to work the system. I did not get to teach them how to think or reason, but I taught them how to pick one multiple choice answer over another.
It so disturbed me that I began reading Augustine, Thomas A Kempis, and a whole lot of Henri Nouwen. And so many others, perhaps not so famous. In the midst of hypocrisy, I found living water. And it was so good, I began to share it with my students.
I didn't want to teach them how to pass a test. They are human beings. Real living persons with souls. I did what I always did, what I was not supposed to do. I began to teach them to think. Especially about God.
You don't know me at all.
I gave them a task: Read Edwin Friedman's "The Bridge." Then come back to my office and tell me the story. No one ever told me the story back in the same way.
Some focused on the rope, some on the man walking, some on the man who jumped off the bridge. Some were furious with me for asking them to read it. Some couldn't wait for another story. Everyone saw themselves. And each time they told it back to me, I changed.
In the telling, I began to learn who they were, what was important to them, how they viewed the world, how they saw themselves. What lies they told, what truths they told.
It's all about encounter. It's all about connection. It's all about listening.
I think Robin Williams in Dead Poet's Society spoke of Thoreau or was it...who wrote "O Captain my Captain!"? I got a copy of it from Donna Blevins, my roommate at Baylor one summer...ah, a potential rabbit trail derailed!
I sound my gigantic "yalp!" He told them, Carpe Diem. Gather ye rosebuds while ye may. Tomorrow you will be dust.
You don't know me at all.
Oh but we want so much to know and be known! And that is the true essence of life. Even those of us who don't read, want to be known.
A man said to the universe, "Sir, I exist!"
"That," replied the universe,"does not create in me a sense of obligation."
But God listens. And the God that lives in us listens.
I'm out of time.
He listens. Tell Him what you want Him to know. Then listen to what He tells you.
Receive it. Believe it. Do it.
Love, Cindy
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
God and Shakespeare
Yesterday:
The house is reasonably clean. Floors mopped. Things put away. Not really reflective of my life in the past few months. For me, everything is drama. Put me into a Catholic classroom with a nun in charge and watch me stir the pot. I live to make waves. But let me be very clear, my goal is always to make good waves, good ripples in the pond of life.
An unexamined life is no life an all.
Back in my high school days, even then and perhaps especially then, I knew my job was to make people think something new. I refused to live within the status quo. Life is just too precious to remain docile and much too short to wait for someone else to do it.
Carpe Diem. Carpe Dios. ;-)
I will not let go until you bless me.
I have had enough interesting things happen in my life to know that I will never be an ordinary person. But exactly what does that mean?
I've tried to write for three days. Then Stacy puts up the song about little children and the violence done to them, and I think back to last summer, when the scripture read on Saturday morning was about the dance of Salome and the head of John the Baptist.
And how I wept uncontrollably for what seemed like hours...until every available drop of water had left my body. Because of the way the child was used by her parents for their own personal pleasure.
Abuse doesn't always look like abuse. I recall videotaping one of my son's soccer games and when I got it home to watch it...oh my, the things that tape caught! Private conversations between unhappy women...all sorts of human sounds...and then the constant shouting by one father to his son: "Twenty dollars, Mikey! Twenty dollars if you knock him out!"
I never cared too much for any sport where you have to make someone else not win. Example: tennis: you hit the ball so that the other person cannot hit it back. Golf: you play your best, they play their best...and the one with the lowest score wins...you don't have to "make" someone else lose.
I prefer golf. I'm just not that kind of competitive. I don't arm wrestle for power.
I simply accept the power that God has given me. And He has given me a lot.
Maybe that is because I was powerless to stop all the evil that surrounded me as a child. I am strong because God made me strong. I am willful and I question authority because, as a child, authority was not reliable or trustworthy.
I learned to be clever. I learned to be creative. I learned to be rebellious and never accept anything unless I saw that the fruit of it was good. And I learned to pray to God all day long.
God was the only reliable thing in my life. And that was often shown in the priests in my life. I was lucky in that respect. The nuns, well, they tried to beat me or humiliate me into submission...or so it felt. I was way too smart for the classes I was in, so they looked a bit foolish trying to teach me something I had already taught myself. They were all about rules and order. They didn't realize that in my house, while things looked really good and ordered, nothing there was safe or comforting. And they seemed to be just like my parents. When the priest showed up, they became very friendly and kind. I saw them as hypocrites, though I didn't know what the word meant then. But I was keenly aware that the presence of a priest changed the climate, at home or at school. Man, I wanted a part of that deal!
God had walked into the room. When I was a minister in the Methodist church, I went to a party at one of my parishioners homes. She opened the door of her very beautiful Richardson home and proclaimed loudly to the people in the other room "God has arrived!" Heavens, I wanted to crawl under a rock. People took me out, fed me, wanted my company...and I was not wanting a part of that at all. I wanted to remain in the confessional, sitting quietly, until someone really needed help. All this other stuff was just too much.
And then, being a single woman in a Protestant church, and a minister...some people had designs on who I should date and marry...that was a nightmare! The Catholic Church has the right idea about celibacy. There is simply too much work to do that would make it impossible to be fair to a husband or wife. It is the price to pay for being a healer. But at least the rules are clear in the Catholic Church. How could I tell anyone in the Protestant Church that I just didn't want a man and no, I was not gay, either.
But those are old issues, they just got stirred up because of the video about the children that I saw this morning.
We can't undo the violence that occurs in our childhoods, but we don't have to let it rule our lives. For me, God seemed to fill me with His graces to live well. I feel a strength that I cannot explain. I know a truth that I cannot put into words. When I am consumed in His Spirit, I don't feel any fear or worry. I know in my heart that, even if I am doing the wrong thing, He will make it the right thing. I have metaphorically walked in front of a truck to stop a disaster, knowing that I would be judged and dragged down the street...but knowing that the greater evil would have been to do nothing.
And I suppose that is a problem for some people. And it may be the stumbling block for me to do the ministry I feel called to do. But God wins. Even if I am cast aside, it really doesn't matter. God wins.
I think I'll stop here and listen to the rain...
He wins: John 16:33 "In this world you will have hardship, but take care, I have conquered the world!"
Love, Cindy
The house is reasonably clean. Floors mopped. Things put away. Not really reflective of my life in the past few months. For me, everything is drama. Put me into a Catholic classroom with a nun in charge and watch me stir the pot. I live to make waves. But let me be very clear, my goal is always to make good waves, good ripples in the pond of life.
An unexamined life is no life an all.
Back in my high school days, even then and perhaps especially then, I knew my job was to make people think something new. I refused to live within the status quo. Life is just too precious to remain docile and much too short to wait for someone else to do it.
Carpe Diem. Carpe Dios. ;-)
I will not let go until you bless me.
I have had enough interesting things happen in my life to know that I will never be an ordinary person. But exactly what does that mean?
I've tried to write for three days. Then Stacy puts up the song about little children and the violence done to them, and I think back to last summer, when the scripture read on Saturday morning was about the dance of Salome and the head of John the Baptist.
And how I wept uncontrollably for what seemed like hours...until every available drop of water had left my body. Because of the way the child was used by her parents for their own personal pleasure.
Abuse doesn't always look like abuse. I recall videotaping one of my son's soccer games and when I got it home to watch it...oh my, the things that tape caught! Private conversations between unhappy women...all sorts of human sounds...and then the constant shouting by one father to his son: "Twenty dollars, Mikey! Twenty dollars if you knock him out!"
I never cared too much for any sport where you have to make someone else not win. Example: tennis: you hit the ball so that the other person cannot hit it back. Golf: you play your best, they play their best...and the one with the lowest score wins...you don't have to "make" someone else lose.
I prefer golf. I'm just not that kind of competitive. I don't arm wrestle for power.
I simply accept the power that God has given me. And He has given me a lot.
Maybe that is because I was powerless to stop all the evil that surrounded me as a child. I am strong because God made me strong. I am willful and I question authority because, as a child, authority was not reliable or trustworthy.
I learned to be clever. I learned to be creative. I learned to be rebellious and never accept anything unless I saw that the fruit of it was good. And I learned to pray to God all day long.
God was the only reliable thing in my life. And that was often shown in the priests in my life. I was lucky in that respect. The nuns, well, they tried to beat me or humiliate me into submission...or so it felt. I was way too smart for the classes I was in, so they looked a bit foolish trying to teach me something I had already taught myself. They were all about rules and order. They didn't realize that in my house, while things looked really good and ordered, nothing there was safe or comforting. And they seemed to be just like my parents. When the priest showed up, they became very friendly and kind. I saw them as hypocrites, though I didn't know what the word meant then. But I was keenly aware that the presence of a priest changed the climate, at home or at school. Man, I wanted a part of that deal!
God had walked into the room. When I was a minister in the Methodist church, I went to a party at one of my parishioners homes. She opened the door of her very beautiful Richardson home and proclaimed loudly to the people in the other room "God has arrived!" Heavens, I wanted to crawl under a rock. People took me out, fed me, wanted my company...and I was not wanting a part of that at all. I wanted to remain in the confessional, sitting quietly, until someone really needed help. All this other stuff was just too much.
And then, being a single woman in a Protestant church, and a minister...some people had designs on who I should date and marry...that was a nightmare! The Catholic Church has the right idea about celibacy. There is simply too much work to do that would make it impossible to be fair to a husband or wife. It is the price to pay for being a healer. But at least the rules are clear in the Catholic Church. How could I tell anyone in the Protestant Church that I just didn't want a man and no, I was not gay, either.
But those are old issues, they just got stirred up because of the video about the children that I saw this morning.
We can't undo the violence that occurs in our childhoods, but we don't have to let it rule our lives. For me, God seemed to fill me with His graces to live well. I feel a strength that I cannot explain. I know a truth that I cannot put into words. When I am consumed in His Spirit, I don't feel any fear or worry. I know in my heart that, even if I am doing the wrong thing, He will make it the right thing. I have metaphorically walked in front of a truck to stop a disaster, knowing that I would be judged and dragged down the street...but knowing that the greater evil would have been to do nothing.
And I suppose that is a problem for some people. And it may be the stumbling block for me to do the ministry I feel called to do. But God wins. Even if I am cast aside, it really doesn't matter. God wins.
I think I'll stop here and listen to the rain...
He wins: John 16:33 "In this world you will have hardship, but take care, I have conquered the world!"
Love, Cindy
Thursday, June 24, 2010
If the Shoe Fits...
Last evening, a I was asked to be lector. I was in scrappy pants and a t-shirt with a hole it in. And sandals. I asked her, "Are you sure?" She said, "It's evening Mass, you look just fine." Twice again, I said, "These other people can read." She had made up her mind. And then I looked at the Scripture: Vigil for the Birth of John the Baptist.
First reading: Jeremiah 1:4-10
To whomever I send you, you shall go
whatever I command you, you shall speak.
Have no fear before them,
because I am with you to deliver you, says the LORD.
Psalm 71:
Since my mother’s womb, you have been my strength.
And I am a bit embarrassed about my appearance while I am reading, my hair keeps falling in my face and I finally give up on it and my breath kind of makes it bounce while I am reading. Horrors! But oh my sweet Lord, how I love the passages You are allowing me to read! And I begin to float a bit in my head as I return to my seat.
Deacon Jack speaks about John the Baptist...how he lived in the desert and ate locusts and wild honey. Frankly, that is very healthy food for our bodies. And then I start to think, John looked more than a little bit wild out there in the desert...so maybe it wasn't so inappropriate to read last night.
It is not up to me to question God's requests of me. It is my obligation and my promise to do what He tells me to do. And if I am humiliated by my own actions, then that was what was supposed to be. I suppose I have a right to question God, but He has no obligation to answer me. Yet, it seems He usually does. He sometimes explains it all to me...and other times, I just have to let go and trust. Sometimes once I let go and trust, then He explains it to me.
When we hold on too tight, we can lose everything. All things must be held gently and lovingly, for they are all little treasures given by God to us for a time...eventually we must give them back to Him. Like reading aloud...or husbands or wives...or best friends...or maybe our ability to play tennis or golf. They eventually all go back to Him who made us.
But if they do, then we should know that they never really leave us. Because we go back to God, too. Everything that is taken away from us will be returned to us someday. At least every good thing...the other things...ah, well, those are the things we need to discard anyway. Make sense?
Yesterday, I worked a funeral for a woman who, on Tuesday we had a great talk and she received Holy Communion. The next day, we talked about the times we shared over the months while I was doing this ministry. She said, I'm not feeling too well today and I asked, do you want Communion? and she said yes. The next day she was in ICU and we did not speak again.
This life and death thing. It is wonderful and terrible. Before we were formed in the womb, God knew us. And then, in a day, the flower fades and his place no longer knows him. Really life is a gift. It has a beginning and an ending. And what we do in the middle matters.
The funeral was so beautiful, perhaps touched me deeply because the music, the musicians, were exquisite. I was caught up in the sounds that remembered her life. I heard my own father's voice in the cowboy who sang the Our Father, and I remembered better times with my Dad. And the woman who sang, something about her...I haven't made the connection yet, but she also touched my soul.
It allowed the rest of the day to be better. I attended a Social Justice meeting in the evening and we talked about the fear of not knowing or understanding people who are different from us. Sometimes I think we would be better served if we threw out the term "social justice" and replace it with "hospitality." No one can argue with hospitality. The hospitality that Abram showed the strangers allowed him to be the father of the nation of Israel. Go figure.
This morning's Mass, I listened again and I heard about how on the 8th day, John the Baptist was circumcised. I was struck with the thought about how my biological mother held me and rocked me and fed me for the first seven days of my life. And on the eighth day, she was gone, circumcised from my life. And maybe that was what had to happen, so that I could be the woman I am today.
Kind of sucks. But there is a blessing in it. I knew perfect love, and it was suddenly gone...and that has made me who I am.
So, when you are willing to observe your own life, look for the connections. Look for the grace. Name the suffering. Then name the blessing. And say thank you. It is your gift. It is your Camino. And it only belongs to you. You'll need to protect your feet while you walk it, otherwise, you might have to stop or give up.
If the shoe fits, wear it.
Love, Cindy
First reading: Jeremiah 1:4-10
To whomever I send you, you shall go
whatever I command you, you shall speak.
Have no fear before them,
because I am with you to deliver you, says the LORD.
Psalm 71:
Since my mother’s womb, you have been my strength.
And I am a bit embarrassed about my appearance while I am reading, my hair keeps falling in my face and I finally give up on it and my breath kind of makes it bounce while I am reading. Horrors! But oh my sweet Lord, how I love the passages You are allowing me to read! And I begin to float a bit in my head as I return to my seat.
Deacon Jack speaks about John the Baptist...how he lived in the desert and ate locusts and wild honey. Frankly, that is very healthy food for our bodies. And then I start to think, John looked more than a little bit wild out there in the desert...so maybe it wasn't so inappropriate to read last night.
It is not up to me to question God's requests of me. It is my obligation and my promise to do what He tells me to do. And if I am humiliated by my own actions, then that was what was supposed to be. I suppose I have a right to question God, but He has no obligation to answer me. Yet, it seems He usually does. He sometimes explains it all to me...and other times, I just have to let go and trust. Sometimes once I let go and trust, then He explains it to me.
When we hold on too tight, we can lose everything. All things must be held gently and lovingly, for they are all little treasures given by God to us for a time...eventually we must give them back to Him. Like reading aloud...or husbands or wives...or best friends...or maybe our ability to play tennis or golf. They eventually all go back to Him who made us.
But if they do, then we should know that they never really leave us. Because we go back to God, too. Everything that is taken away from us will be returned to us someday. At least every good thing...the other things...ah, well, those are the things we need to discard anyway. Make sense?
Yesterday, I worked a funeral for a woman who, on Tuesday we had a great talk and she received Holy Communion. The next day, we talked about the times we shared over the months while I was doing this ministry. She said, I'm not feeling too well today and I asked, do you want Communion? and she said yes. The next day she was in ICU and we did not speak again.
This life and death thing. It is wonderful and terrible. Before we were formed in the womb, God knew us. And then, in a day, the flower fades and his place no longer knows him. Really life is a gift. It has a beginning and an ending. And what we do in the middle matters.
The funeral was so beautiful, perhaps touched me deeply because the music, the musicians, were exquisite. I was caught up in the sounds that remembered her life. I heard my own father's voice in the cowboy who sang the Our Father, and I remembered better times with my Dad. And the woman who sang, something about her...I haven't made the connection yet, but she also touched my soul.
It allowed the rest of the day to be better. I attended a Social Justice meeting in the evening and we talked about the fear of not knowing or understanding people who are different from us. Sometimes I think we would be better served if we threw out the term "social justice" and replace it with "hospitality." No one can argue with hospitality. The hospitality that Abram showed the strangers allowed him to be the father of the nation of Israel. Go figure.
This morning's Mass, I listened again and I heard about how on the 8th day, John the Baptist was circumcised. I was struck with the thought about how my biological mother held me and rocked me and fed me for the first seven days of my life. And on the eighth day, she was gone, circumcised from my life. And maybe that was what had to happen, so that I could be the woman I am today.
Kind of sucks. But there is a blessing in it. I knew perfect love, and it was suddenly gone...and that has made me who I am.
So, when you are willing to observe your own life, look for the connections. Look for the grace. Name the suffering. Then name the blessing. And say thank you. It is your gift. It is your Camino. And it only belongs to you. You'll need to protect your feet while you walk it, otherwise, you might have to stop or give up.
If the shoe fits, wear it.
Love, Cindy
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
You Didn't Drink and Dial, Did You?
A great line from a rather risque movie: Sideways. I loved the movie because it was about the wine country in California. I love the Sonoma Valley. I always said that when I got my masters degree, I wanted to fly upside down in a biplane over the Sonoma Valley. Never did do that...but I've had my share of dare-devil stunts in single engine planes over TAMU while I was there...usually after a night of beer and dancing at Lakeview or The Peanut Gallery...usually with a guy I just met, for I can't remember a single pilot's name from those days, but oh how I loved night flying!
And this woman wants to live the religious life.
I suppose whatever I have done, I have always done it intensely. I have done it truly, madly, and deeply. My female heroes have always been women who live on the edge, who don't take no for an answer, who are willing to die for a good cause.
Maybe God was planning to make us men and then thought, just for fun, I'll give them a womb and see what happens...
I don't apologize for my intensity. I know for a fact it brings people together. Just yesterday, while I was playing the piano in a church not my own, but used to be my own, a woman came in and turned the lights on. I don't like lights. I like it au natural...I like the shadows on the walls and the casting of the sun in the sanctuary.
She turns the lights on! Argh! So I lean over the railing and say, "Hey, I'm Cindy. Is there a service going to start?" She says "no," but she can't read without the lights...I look up and see the 50-plus big bulbs burning overhead. I do not say what I am thinking.
OK, I think, gotta check this one out.
Two hours later I have a new friend. Somewhere along the way, she says, something like, I was just so mad at God...he's helps all the people I pray for but He won't help me! I asked what she prayed for. She says something like, someone to come into my life and listen to me.
I try not to smile.
I tell her that I am looking for exactly the same thing.
We have a lot in common. She speaks her mind. She yells at God. She hurts and longs for things and wants to know the truth and wants to love God truly, madly and deeply. I'm thinking...whoa...
And then a church employee comes in and she tells her to turn out the overhead lights. And she does....
And the yellow stained glass in the head of Aslan (the Lion which represents St Mark)is absolutely stunning...crackled of yellow flood the church and make our faces glow yellow. Oh yes, another God moment.
So today, a less pleasant task: calling my ex-husband. I didn't even recognize his voice. But after a minute, I could hear Bob somewhere in there. And the old pain rose to the surface a fleeting moment: this man loved me once and then changed his mind.
And I have to remember to get my head around the entire picture. You loved once and then you wanted something else. You wanted God in the equation and he definitely did not. You wanted relationship, he wanted success. You wanted someone to look you in the eye and not at a computer screen.
But the voice was hard to deal with. All that pain entered the room again, but you know, it didn't have the power over me that it once had. Because I could see the bigger picture. Because I somewhat understood that it's all just a part of living out our lives. Some things work, some things just don't.
It is not always so easy to accept that part of our lives. I think most of us want the fairy tale ending. Prince Charming...Princess Leia...whatever.
The secret of life it to live it. But we really shouldn't and do not have to live it alone.
I've heard that too, over the past couple of weeks. "I don't want to be alone." No one is alone. When my divorce first happened, I recall that one of my first thoughts was "I'm going to be buried alone." What an odd thing to think about. As if my dead body would have some kind of feelings about where I would be. Yet, I don't think it is an uncommon thought.
I think usually, when we get depressed, we really do get depressed. We start thinking small...and then smaller and smaller and smaller...until we think so small that only one thing matters...and often it is the one thing we cannot have.
We can't see the millions of things that we can have. Like the Buddhist story about the man in the cell, holding on to the bars and staring out at the light...not realizing that the door behind him is wide open, all he has to do is walk out.
But we stay in our prisons until we want to leave them. That is truth. We hang on to our sins like they were precious jewels, so precious that we think we will disappear if we let them go.
That is the gift and curse of free will.
So I talk with my ex-husband today. I need his help. I make the call in the presence of a friend. And then I hang up. Physically. Then mentally. And finally spiritually.
Phone just rang. My ex-sister-in-law said that her husband would be glad to help me finish an important project. Okay, my annulment. Part of the plan. Actually a pretty decent way to walk through hell, if you have to walk through hell. And I'm talking with people who I shut out of my life because...I didn't want to think about the past. But that's what it is: the past. Part of who I was, and who I am. But it's not in charge of me anymore.
Now, that's reconciliation...
Love, Cindy
And this woman wants to live the religious life.
I suppose whatever I have done, I have always done it intensely. I have done it truly, madly, and deeply. My female heroes have always been women who live on the edge, who don't take no for an answer, who are willing to die for a good cause.
Maybe God was planning to make us men and then thought, just for fun, I'll give them a womb and see what happens...
I don't apologize for my intensity. I know for a fact it brings people together. Just yesterday, while I was playing the piano in a church not my own, but used to be my own, a woman came in and turned the lights on. I don't like lights. I like it au natural...I like the shadows on the walls and the casting of the sun in the sanctuary.
She turns the lights on! Argh! So I lean over the railing and say, "Hey, I'm Cindy. Is there a service going to start?" She says "no," but she can't read without the lights...I look up and see the 50-plus big bulbs burning overhead. I do not say what I am thinking.
OK, I think, gotta check this one out.
Two hours later I have a new friend. Somewhere along the way, she says, something like, I was just so mad at God...he's helps all the people I pray for but He won't help me! I asked what she prayed for. She says something like, someone to come into my life and listen to me.
I try not to smile.
I tell her that I am looking for exactly the same thing.
We have a lot in common. She speaks her mind. She yells at God. She hurts and longs for things and wants to know the truth and wants to love God truly, madly and deeply. I'm thinking...whoa...
And then a church employee comes in and she tells her to turn out the overhead lights. And she does....
And the yellow stained glass in the head of Aslan (the Lion which represents St Mark)is absolutely stunning...crackled of yellow flood the church and make our faces glow yellow. Oh yes, another God moment.
So today, a less pleasant task: calling my ex-husband. I didn't even recognize his voice. But after a minute, I could hear Bob somewhere in there. And the old pain rose to the surface a fleeting moment: this man loved me once and then changed his mind.
And I have to remember to get my head around the entire picture. You loved once and then you wanted something else. You wanted God in the equation and he definitely did not. You wanted relationship, he wanted success. You wanted someone to look you in the eye and not at a computer screen.
But the voice was hard to deal with. All that pain entered the room again, but you know, it didn't have the power over me that it once had. Because I could see the bigger picture. Because I somewhat understood that it's all just a part of living out our lives. Some things work, some things just don't.
It is not always so easy to accept that part of our lives. I think most of us want the fairy tale ending. Prince Charming...Princess Leia...whatever.
The secret of life it to live it. But we really shouldn't and do not have to live it alone.
I've heard that too, over the past couple of weeks. "I don't want to be alone." No one is alone. When my divorce first happened, I recall that one of my first thoughts was "I'm going to be buried alone." What an odd thing to think about. As if my dead body would have some kind of feelings about where I would be. Yet, I don't think it is an uncommon thought.
I think usually, when we get depressed, we really do get depressed. We start thinking small...and then smaller and smaller and smaller...until we think so small that only one thing matters...and often it is the one thing we cannot have.
We can't see the millions of things that we can have. Like the Buddhist story about the man in the cell, holding on to the bars and staring out at the light...not realizing that the door behind him is wide open, all he has to do is walk out.
But we stay in our prisons until we want to leave them. That is truth. We hang on to our sins like they were precious jewels, so precious that we think we will disappear if we let them go.
That is the gift and curse of free will.
So I talk with my ex-husband today. I need his help. I make the call in the presence of a friend. And then I hang up. Physically. Then mentally. And finally spiritually.
Phone just rang. My ex-sister-in-law said that her husband would be glad to help me finish an important project. Okay, my annulment. Part of the plan. Actually a pretty decent way to walk through hell, if you have to walk through hell. And I'm talking with people who I shut out of my life because...I didn't want to think about the past. But that's what it is: the past. Part of who I was, and who I am. But it's not in charge of me anymore.
Now, that's reconciliation...
Love, Cindy
Monday, June 21, 2010
What is truth? A mind just wandering around...
In the Passion of Jesus, Pilate (I think it is Pilate) asks Jesus the question, "What is truth?" Seems like a rhetorical question coming from a politician. Truth is what will get you elected, off the hook, burned at the stake...truth will build relationships and destroy them. It is a powerful force, almost as powerful as love...and we throw around ideas of truth all day long without thinking too much about it.
I have an obsession with truth. I suppose that is because I got so little of it when I was growing up. But if you really think about it, what is truth anyway? Most of the time, it seems to be an opinion that you hold for maybe more than five seconds.
Most of the time, I think I misuse the word. I think an opinion that I hear from someone is the truth. Their truth. But really it is an opinion, it is a judgment of a certain situation, sitting in the box of our own perceptions.
I haven't read any great philosophers lately, so I really can't speak to who I am stealing from right now, but I do know I favored Kant before I decided to admit I believed in God again. Kierkegaard and Descartes were also in my popular library...but I haven't looked at them in ages. I preferred Plato to Aristotle.
I recall sitting with my daughter in the emergency room perhaps 13 years ago. She had a terrible kidney infection and was in a lot of pain. The doctor said she could have died and while they were treating her, she and I were discussing Plato. I remember thinking how odd that was to be talking about...but given our little family, I really can't think they we would discuss much else. I suppose that's why I get such a kick out of the movie, "Smart People." And the beginning of "A Beautiful Mind." Heavens, how I miss such conversations!
My ex-husband did not believe in God, but oh how much I miss our conversations! The man remembered everything. I was never allowed to get away with any off hand remark about a topic that I had only read partly. He was always a man after the truth. And he told the truth, especially to the government, which is why they always gave him so much money, because he would do the job right and on time...of course it was his idea of right and he never promised anything beyond his capabilities. I really respected that. I never had to deal with games with him. It was refreshing.
Of course, he kept a lot to himself, many times for practical reasons. "I could tell you, but then I'd have to kill you," was one of his favorite lines. Second to that would be "You can't handle the truth!"
What is truth? What is a lie? I'm thinking about it a lot because I am struggling to be more truthful with God.
"Search me O God and know my heart, test me and know my thoughts, see if there is any wicked way in me and lead me in the way everlasting." Show me, O Lord, my truth and then deal with me mercifully.
The truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off.
In one of my favorite comic strips from a while ago, One Big Happy, the little girl is kneeling by her bed saying her prayers. In one frame, she is telling God she is sorry about hitting her little brother, says she is very, very sorry for what she did and then offers to God her very good reasons for hitting him." In the last frame she prays, "And Lord, when I come to you tomorrow night, I'll tell you I'm sorry about the lie I am telling you tonight."
Truth. I suppose someone more educated than me could speak more clearly on the topic.
I suppose the sidebar question would be "When should you tell the truth and when should you hold back?"
"That dress looks awful on you."
"You've gained weight."
"Sure I'd love to help you move."
I have a book "Life's Little Destruction Book" that I glance at now and then. It discusses white lies and really shows how to go to the dark side and never know you are doing it.
"Call me anytime."
"Let's do this again."
"How about if we split a dessert?"
Oh what tangled webs we weave!
With people, I'm thinking there are many times to tell the truth and many times to hold back. And there are even times for 'white lies,' but concerning God...who knows the truth anyway...who are we kidding? We are not kidding God.
He knows our inmost being. And guess what? He loves us anyway.
But without question, the truth will set you free.
You do realize I'm writing about confession again, right?
I seek to find my own truth about me. I have a desire to understand my motivations and not try to talk myself into a particular point of view to justify my own behavior.
One could call this part of the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius, reflection and discernment...or the review of the day. What did I do right? What did I do wrong? How can I do it better?
When you allow yourself to receive your own truth, that is consolation. While the truth can hurt in the beginning, it will eventually lead to great consolation.
"Oh Lord, you have searched me and you know me...and you will never leave me."
Imagine that! A God who loves us anyway.
Last night, I had a conversation with a friend. I felt an energy over the conversation because we were actually communicating and it felt really good. Certain illusions were kept in their boxes and we had a good talk. It felt positively heavenly. It feels like I've waited a long time for that to happen. The real met the real last night. And when I heard "I love you," I believed it and I received it exactly as it was given to me.
Damn cool.
Will it ever happen again? Who knows? It's kind of like fishing...if you are a real fisherman. You can sit out of the water for hours, being silent, when the only sound is the water lapping up against the boat and things are more still than you ever imagined could happen...and you feel that little nibble on your line...and the adrenaline begins to flow in your veins...
the truth is trying to come to you...
stay calm, reel it in slowly...or it will escape you again...be patient, He will come to you and He will set you free.
Love, Cindy
I have an obsession with truth. I suppose that is because I got so little of it when I was growing up. But if you really think about it, what is truth anyway? Most of the time, it seems to be an opinion that you hold for maybe more than five seconds.
Most of the time, I think I misuse the word. I think an opinion that I hear from someone is the truth. Their truth. But really it is an opinion, it is a judgment of a certain situation, sitting in the box of our own perceptions.
I haven't read any great philosophers lately, so I really can't speak to who I am stealing from right now, but I do know I favored Kant before I decided to admit I believed in God again. Kierkegaard and Descartes were also in my popular library...but I haven't looked at them in ages. I preferred Plato to Aristotle.
I recall sitting with my daughter in the emergency room perhaps 13 years ago. She had a terrible kidney infection and was in a lot of pain. The doctor said she could have died and while they were treating her, she and I were discussing Plato. I remember thinking how odd that was to be talking about...but given our little family, I really can't think they we would discuss much else. I suppose that's why I get such a kick out of the movie, "Smart People." And the beginning of "A Beautiful Mind." Heavens, how I miss such conversations!
My ex-husband did not believe in God, but oh how much I miss our conversations! The man remembered everything. I was never allowed to get away with any off hand remark about a topic that I had only read partly. He was always a man after the truth. And he told the truth, especially to the government, which is why they always gave him so much money, because he would do the job right and on time...of course it was his idea of right and he never promised anything beyond his capabilities. I really respected that. I never had to deal with games with him. It was refreshing.
Of course, he kept a lot to himself, many times for practical reasons. "I could tell you, but then I'd have to kill you," was one of his favorite lines. Second to that would be "You can't handle the truth!"
What is truth? What is a lie? I'm thinking about it a lot because I am struggling to be more truthful with God.
"Search me O God and know my heart, test me and know my thoughts, see if there is any wicked way in me and lead me in the way everlasting." Show me, O Lord, my truth and then deal with me mercifully.
The truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off.
In one of my favorite comic strips from a while ago, One Big Happy, the little girl is kneeling by her bed saying her prayers. In one frame, she is telling God she is sorry about hitting her little brother, says she is very, very sorry for what she did and then offers to God her very good reasons for hitting him." In the last frame she prays, "And Lord, when I come to you tomorrow night, I'll tell you I'm sorry about the lie I am telling you tonight."
Truth. I suppose someone more educated than me could speak more clearly on the topic.
I suppose the sidebar question would be "When should you tell the truth and when should you hold back?"
"That dress looks awful on you."
"You've gained weight."
"Sure I'd love to help you move."
I have a book "Life's Little Destruction Book" that I glance at now and then. It discusses white lies and really shows how to go to the dark side and never know you are doing it.
"Call me anytime."
"Let's do this again."
"How about if we split a dessert?"
Oh what tangled webs we weave!
With people, I'm thinking there are many times to tell the truth and many times to hold back. And there are even times for 'white lies,' but concerning God...who knows the truth anyway...who are we kidding? We are not kidding God.
He knows our inmost being. And guess what? He loves us anyway.
But without question, the truth will set you free.
You do realize I'm writing about confession again, right?
I seek to find my own truth about me. I have a desire to understand my motivations and not try to talk myself into a particular point of view to justify my own behavior.
One could call this part of the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius, reflection and discernment...or the review of the day. What did I do right? What did I do wrong? How can I do it better?
When you allow yourself to receive your own truth, that is consolation. While the truth can hurt in the beginning, it will eventually lead to great consolation.
"Oh Lord, you have searched me and you know me...and you will never leave me."
Imagine that! A God who loves us anyway.
Last night, I had a conversation with a friend. I felt an energy over the conversation because we were actually communicating and it felt really good. Certain illusions were kept in their boxes and we had a good talk. It felt positively heavenly. It feels like I've waited a long time for that to happen. The real met the real last night. And when I heard "I love you," I believed it and I received it exactly as it was given to me.
Damn cool.
Will it ever happen again? Who knows? It's kind of like fishing...if you are a real fisherman. You can sit out of the water for hours, being silent, when the only sound is the water lapping up against the boat and things are more still than you ever imagined could happen...and you feel that little nibble on your line...and the adrenaline begins to flow in your veins...
the truth is trying to come to you...
stay calm, reel it in slowly...or it will escape you again...be patient, He will come to you and He will set you free.
Love, Cindy
Friday, June 18, 2010
Blowing Bubbles
The bumper sticker on my freezer in the garage: "The secret of life is to live it." The plaque as I walk out the door to the garage: "Be Happy." The Valentine stapled to the wall as I walk into the house, a picture of Han Solo saying "You need more scoundrels in your life!" By the phone: "Don't worry about tomorrow, God is already there!" And above it are two framed drawings from my Girl Scout troop, one of Brownies and one of Juniors, proclaiming "Thanks, Mrs. Johnson!" with a long list of all the things we did together over the years.
Such are the important messages I have received to remind me to stay grounded in God, that "this present darkness," when it arrives, is temporary. Last night, God gave me an exceptional gift. He reminded me that my work was not in vain. That all things would be provided in the proper time. I have to trust that. Even when I can't see any farther than the tip of my own nose.
He also reminded me of my humanity. I spoke at length with a man about my spiritual journey, which he seemed to be interested in, and he told me a bit about his. He said he thought it was time to visit his spiritual director, who lives out of state, this summer. He said she was an older nun who never minced words and made him feel so alive again.
O, Lord, teach me your ways and I will proclaim them to your children!
But I am not a nun right now. But I am thinking about it a lot these days. I am thinking I need to accept the mantle of an Order and proclaim obedience to it so that I am truly a safe haven for people to share their concerns without fear. Right now, I think sometimes my passion for God can get lost or confused with certain human feelings and that are good but can distract us from our most important goal: to be with Him. It is something I will have to contemplate on and then see what God and God's servants can do to help me. I understand what I am saying and doing, but not everyone else does.
I haven't mentioned the bubbles yet.
Surrendering to God's will for our lives is a long process. I suppose we can never completely surrender ourselves, but we can try. I always ask God:
Search me and know my heart
Test me and know my thoughts
See if there is any wicked way in me
And lead me in the way everlasting.
(That's the NRSV version of the end of the 139th psalm. I read this one every night and day during my divorce, not having a clue why, until much later. It was a drop open moment...and God dropped it in my lap)
So a while back, I'm visiting two women in a very nice rehab facility. One was a Catholic that I was assigned to visit...and who I loved to visit and the other one wandered into the room at the very moment we had decided to do Holy Communion. Of course, she wanted to share with us! And she did and we talked some more.
The woman I was visiting said, "Let me tell you about her (our unexpected guest): last week, she brought me a bottle of bubbles from Walmart! We went outside together and blew bubbles!"
They both glowed with the memory of those moments. And then we all laughed. The thought of two white-haired women, sitting outside in wheelchairs and blowing bubbles made me feel so happy inside.
We grow older, and it seems like there is less and less that we can do that we would still like to do. Our bodies stop us from climbing mountains sometimes, but our hearts and souls still desire to go there. Our physical form is always dying off and rebuilding itself...but eventually, the dying part wins...but our souls never grow old, they just find another place and way to dance. I know for certain. I have seen it.
But, while we are still here, we need not be sad that we are losing power and control of our bodies, because we are destined for something greater. In the interim, we need to do what we can and celebrate it all.
We need to blow bubbles.
I can spend a hundred dollars on a video game for my grandchildren, but I promise you that a 99 cent bottle of bubbles will make them just as happy. In fact, happier.
And even "when I am old with gray hair" (Psalm 71), blowing bubbles is something to celebrate and be delighted by. God's air, God's wind, God's fresh clean soap and God's healing waters...in the bubbles.
Now that I think of it, one of the women, while laughing, told me that she did not have enough breath to blow the bubbles...but that out in the north Texas wind...the bubbles were there...and she still laughed.
Now these women are the bravest women I know. They have their eyes on the real Prize.
Him.
Love,
Cindy
Such are the important messages I have received to remind me to stay grounded in God, that "this present darkness," when it arrives, is temporary. Last night, God gave me an exceptional gift. He reminded me that my work was not in vain. That all things would be provided in the proper time. I have to trust that. Even when I can't see any farther than the tip of my own nose.
He also reminded me of my humanity. I spoke at length with a man about my spiritual journey, which he seemed to be interested in, and he told me a bit about his. He said he thought it was time to visit his spiritual director, who lives out of state, this summer. He said she was an older nun who never minced words and made him feel so alive again.
O, Lord, teach me your ways and I will proclaim them to your children!
But I am not a nun right now. But I am thinking about it a lot these days. I am thinking I need to accept the mantle of an Order and proclaim obedience to it so that I am truly a safe haven for people to share their concerns without fear. Right now, I think sometimes my passion for God can get lost or confused with certain human feelings and that are good but can distract us from our most important goal: to be with Him. It is something I will have to contemplate on and then see what God and God's servants can do to help me. I understand what I am saying and doing, but not everyone else does.
I haven't mentioned the bubbles yet.
Surrendering to God's will for our lives is a long process. I suppose we can never completely surrender ourselves, but we can try. I always ask God:
Search me and know my heart
Test me and know my thoughts
See if there is any wicked way in me
And lead me in the way everlasting.
(That's the NRSV version of the end of the 139th psalm. I read this one every night and day during my divorce, not having a clue why, until much later. It was a drop open moment...and God dropped it in my lap)
So a while back, I'm visiting two women in a very nice rehab facility. One was a Catholic that I was assigned to visit...and who I loved to visit and the other one wandered into the room at the very moment we had decided to do Holy Communion. Of course, she wanted to share with us! And she did and we talked some more.
The woman I was visiting said, "Let me tell you about her (our unexpected guest): last week, she brought me a bottle of bubbles from Walmart! We went outside together and blew bubbles!"
They both glowed with the memory of those moments. And then we all laughed. The thought of two white-haired women, sitting outside in wheelchairs and blowing bubbles made me feel so happy inside.
We grow older, and it seems like there is less and less that we can do that we would still like to do. Our bodies stop us from climbing mountains sometimes, but our hearts and souls still desire to go there. Our physical form is always dying off and rebuilding itself...but eventually, the dying part wins...but our souls never grow old, they just find another place and way to dance. I know for certain. I have seen it.
But, while we are still here, we need not be sad that we are losing power and control of our bodies, because we are destined for something greater. In the interim, we need to do what we can and celebrate it all.
We need to blow bubbles.
I can spend a hundred dollars on a video game for my grandchildren, but I promise you that a 99 cent bottle of bubbles will make them just as happy. In fact, happier.
And even "when I am old with gray hair" (Psalm 71), blowing bubbles is something to celebrate and be delighted by. God's air, God's wind, God's fresh clean soap and God's healing waters...in the bubbles.
Now that I think of it, one of the women, while laughing, told me that she did not have enough breath to blow the bubbles...but that out in the north Texas wind...the bubbles were there...and she still laughed.
Now these women are the bravest women I know. They have their eyes on the real Prize.
Him.
Love,
Cindy
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
The Theology of Waiting
I had a meeting with someone today. In fact, I had two meetings today. One went very well, better than I anticipated. Who knows? I may be moving to Arkansas someday soon. I like the water there. It tastes like water.
The second meeting, however, never took place. And the problem is that the person I was waiting for has done this to me twice before, always with very good reasons. But given yesterday's experiences, I am less inclined to think well of it and a strong part of me is thinking that a cloistered life might be just the ticket. I love to pray. I am happiest with God. God is always available, God always listens, God always understands...ah, but then, He's God.
People are less reliable. Yes, I am in a mood. I like it better when things run smoothly. I like it better when I am too busy to think too much about some things. I think the Benedictine discipline will serve me well. It is a life well ordered and predictable. The challenge comes from remaining ordered and calm.
There are attributes that don't exist in me. Capricious is always a word I associate with me, myself and I. I change as quickly as the clouds in the sky. I am a summer thunderstorm. I am the water melting off a mountain and making its own path through the rocks. I am that seagull named Jonathan, who decided to fly higher than any other seagull ever flew...and I am 'Half-pint,' who decided to climb the mountain to get closer to God.
When I think about who I really am, I am less disturbed by the disappointing behaviors of others, who I have somehow decided that they are supposed to fly with me...when flying is absolutely the last thing that is on their minds.
But I have seen God and lived...and I desire others to see God, too.
I spent the two hours waiting for an appointment that never happened, first by dancing in the chapel to music I liked from the 70s. I danced for God. I sang to God. And He laughed. I did my Hours, with Gabriel's Oboe playing in the background. And I wept...what was that about? I kept wangering through Jeremiah, looking for the four servant songs...silly me! Those songs are in Isaiah! Then I think I read the sermon by Cyprian today...it is wonderful to have all those words available to me, it is like being in seminary again.
A man came in to pray the rosary, so I left the chapel for the sanctuary. Found my bag of piano music. "Oh that's where I left it...you know, I would leave my head behind if it wasn't attached..." Continued to read beautiful words of God. Went to John 14 and forward. My eyes could not see the words for the tears in them...always a problem when I read John.
Why don't people get it? It is all right there. Everything you need.
Then Corinthians 13...because someone I spoke with didn't really understand what love is...and I read it and thought...it's right here in black and white. But you have to understand it, and that takes time. Lots of time. And I wept more because I realized how impatient I am with people. If I was truly loving, I'd love them right where they are and not push them to where I think they should be. Sigh...it is so hard to wait for someone to 'get it.'
Ah, but you waited for me Lord...you waiting a long time...for me to get it.
Then off to I John 4...which kind of puts the bow on the package. Here are the terms. Decide what you want to do, who to be, then do it and be it.
Oh Lord, how very long you waited for me!
All the wrong turns
Bad choices
Jealous rages
Neediness
Trying to control others and outcomes
Disappointments
Broken hearts and dreams
And you waited...you waited for me
You waited for your turn in my life of self-destruction
And asked me if I wanted something else
Something better
Something perfect
Something that no one could ever take away
And finally, I fell to my knees and said Yes.
And nothing has ever been the same since.
Thank God!
Thank God indeed!
And that's what waiting does.
But as I end all my prayers these days:
My dear sweet Lord: Don't let go of the rope!
Love,
Cindy
The second meeting, however, never took place. And the problem is that the person I was waiting for has done this to me twice before, always with very good reasons. But given yesterday's experiences, I am less inclined to think well of it and a strong part of me is thinking that a cloistered life might be just the ticket. I love to pray. I am happiest with God. God is always available, God always listens, God always understands...ah, but then, He's God.
People are less reliable. Yes, I am in a mood. I like it better when things run smoothly. I like it better when I am too busy to think too much about some things. I think the Benedictine discipline will serve me well. It is a life well ordered and predictable. The challenge comes from remaining ordered and calm.
There are attributes that don't exist in me. Capricious is always a word I associate with me, myself and I. I change as quickly as the clouds in the sky. I am a summer thunderstorm. I am the water melting off a mountain and making its own path through the rocks. I am that seagull named Jonathan, who decided to fly higher than any other seagull ever flew...and I am 'Half-pint,' who decided to climb the mountain to get closer to God.
When I think about who I really am, I am less disturbed by the disappointing behaviors of others, who I have somehow decided that they are supposed to fly with me...when flying is absolutely the last thing that is on their minds.
But I have seen God and lived...and I desire others to see God, too.
I spent the two hours waiting for an appointment that never happened, first by dancing in the chapel to music I liked from the 70s. I danced for God. I sang to God. And He laughed. I did my Hours, with Gabriel's Oboe playing in the background. And I wept...what was that about? I kept wangering through Jeremiah, looking for the four servant songs...silly me! Those songs are in Isaiah! Then I think I read the sermon by Cyprian today...it is wonderful to have all those words available to me, it is like being in seminary again.
A man came in to pray the rosary, so I left the chapel for the sanctuary. Found my bag of piano music. "Oh that's where I left it...you know, I would leave my head behind if it wasn't attached..." Continued to read beautiful words of God. Went to John 14 and forward. My eyes could not see the words for the tears in them...always a problem when I read John.
Why don't people get it? It is all right there. Everything you need.
Then Corinthians 13...because someone I spoke with didn't really understand what love is...and I read it and thought...it's right here in black and white. But you have to understand it, and that takes time. Lots of time. And I wept more because I realized how impatient I am with people. If I was truly loving, I'd love them right where they are and not push them to where I think they should be. Sigh...it is so hard to wait for someone to 'get it.'
Ah, but you waited for me Lord...you waiting a long time...for me to get it.
Then off to I John 4...which kind of puts the bow on the package. Here are the terms. Decide what you want to do, who to be, then do it and be it.
Oh Lord, how very long you waited for me!
All the wrong turns
Bad choices
Jealous rages
Neediness
Trying to control others and outcomes
Disappointments
Broken hearts and dreams
And you waited...you waited for me
You waited for your turn in my life of self-destruction
And asked me if I wanted something else
Something better
Something perfect
Something that no one could ever take away
And finally, I fell to my knees and said Yes.
And nothing has ever been the same since.
Thank God!
Thank God indeed!
And that's what waiting does.
But as I end all my prayers these days:
My dear sweet Lord: Don't let go of the rope!
Love,
Cindy
The Light in Your Eyes
Up at dawn, at least I went to bed fairly early. Wanted to write yesterday about the light, but then, not once but twice, I have felt that some of my friends let me down. I attribute it to all the big changes that are going on around us, but it is still difficult to bear. I love them. And who knows, perhaps I also am not being as loving as I could be right now. I ask God in prayer, and He will show me when I have failed Him. If I have not, then the right thing to do is just let go.
But I am up this morning to write about the light. Two nights ago now, there was a vigil service for a young boy who died in a tragic accident. From what I gather, he was a kid who was full of good humor and love. I did not know him, I knew his parents. I did not know them at the time of the accident, but when I looked at the pictures in the church (and if you are really curious, I did write about this last year)and I have been praying for the family ever since. Their son's death was the worst, but the first of many for them in that year. I cannot imagine their grief.
What I can speak to is the vigil. About 100 people gathered at a garden near the church after the last evening Sunday Mass with candles. The boy's music teacher played "Imagine" by the Beatles in the background. Fr. Jason led the prayers, with young seminarian Paul assisting. Tireless Mary constructed the service and "kept all the parts together." The boy's father read a Hopi prayer. And the light was passed around from candle to candle in the early evening.
This being north Texas, though...a candlelight service is always a tricky thing to pull off. The space where we were located, between two buildings, made the breeze that much stronger. So as the 100 of us huddled together in prayer and tears, the wind would shoot through us and a light would go out. Quickly someone who had the light offered another light. Sometimes they would get the other candle lit and then their own light would go out. So the favor had to be returned. Over and over and over again. And then more.
Such is the Body of Christ. Not one of us can be a light to this world without the help of another. The winds are always blowing around us and sometimes our light goes out. We try to protect it, we guard it, but still...we lose it and we are sad inside. But then someone comes along and offers us the light again. We struggle to relight out candle, and now and then, we might take too much from that candle and it goes out...but then someone else comes along to help. And if we see a candle not light, well, our job is to go over and offer the light.
Hills and valleys. Heavens and hells. Light and darkness.
"No one lights a lamp to cover it with a bowl or put it under a bed." JB, Luke 8:17
"I am the Light of the world; anyone who follows me will not be walking in the dark; he will have the light of life." JB, John 7:12
"And the night is as bright as the day, for darkness is as light to you." Psalm 139, paraphrased...as I pray it in the garden without a book :-)
I promise you it is not an original idea. We are called to the be the light of the world. His voice, His hands, His Heart.
A couple of important things: to do this, we must be led by the Holy Spirit. Otherwise we are off on some kind of selfish, self-seeking agenda. These things will eventually fail and they will make us feel bad inside.
We know we are doing good, that is, the work of the Spirit, not when we succeed, but when we fail and still have a peace about it. We offered our best...and in front of our eyes, it has been rejected, or laughed at, or scorned...and we still have peace in our hearts. We are calm. That is clearly of His Spirit.
When we succeed, it is harder to discern if we are doing God's work or fluffing our own feathers. Pride is such an annoying animal. He shows up everywhere...any weak spot and he crawls in and makes us miserable. Maybe its vanity he places on our hearts, or selfishness, or (my greatest weakness, perhaps: the sin of perfection)...but he comes in and he makes us dark. Our light cannot shine so bright when he is lurking about...yes, success is definitely harder...we always want to think we somehow did it on our own merit. Exactly what part of who we are did not come from God? So in whom should we have pride? Certainly not ourselves.
But in our failures, when we are 'down and weary,' our spirits are lifted if we know we were trying to do God's will for us. We know that God will make it work out...we are humbled by His power and grace.
So, for the moment, I can take comfort in watching all of those wonderful people who came out to support the grieving family of the little boy who loved dragonflies. I take comfort in that as I have to think about how other things that happened after that didn't work out as nicely. While I have people angry with me just now, I know in my heart what I did and why I did it. They are not able to see that right now. They might never see it. I am sad, but I am at peace.
Its not my job to be a pleaser or to say what other people want to hear from me. Such actions would eventually tear away at my soul. But then, I suppose my work might be in learning to say nothing at all, if it appears clear that someone cannot hear what I have to say anyway.
The Desert Fathers wrote that "simply to open one's mouth is a sin." That's why they stayed silent. I suppose that is a solution, but maybe not the best solution. At least for me.
I talk to God constantly. And I am so frustrated when I cannot talk to Him. And no, I don't mean silently in my heart...I'm talking about "in your face, why is this happening" kind of out loud talks with God. Not quiet, not pretty or "angelic," sometimes when I talk with God it gets down right dirty. Yesterday was an example. I used words to express to God my feelings that I would not use in front of my children.
Yes, I know...what what good is a marriage if you can't have a good fight now and then? You have to know how to fight together as much as you need to know how to love together.
I am rambling now...but the things I have heard over the past few days have so surprised me...
Love one another...please!
Love, Cindy
But I am up this morning to write about the light. Two nights ago now, there was a vigil service for a young boy who died in a tragic accident. From what I gather, he was a kid who was full of good humor and love. I did not know him, I knew his parents. I did not know them at the time of the accident, but when I looked at the pictures in the church (and if you are really curious, I did write about this last year)and I have been praying for the family ever since. Their son's death was the worst, but the first of many for them in that year. I cannot imagine their grief.
What I can speak to is the vigil. About 100 people gathered at a garden near the church after the last evening Sunday Mass with candles. The boy's music teacher played "Imagine" by the Beatles in the background. Fr. Jason led the prayers, with young seminarian Paul assisting. Tireless Mary constructed the service and "kept all the parts together." The boy's father read a Hopi prayer. And the light was passed around from candle to candle in the early evening.
This being north Texas, though...a candlelight service is always a tricky thing to pull off. The space where we were located, between two buildings, made the breeze that much stronger. So as the 100 of us huddled together in prayer and tears, the wind would shoot through us and a light would go out. Quickly someone who had the light offered another light. Sometimes they would get the other candle lit and then their own light would go out. So the favor had to be returned. Over and over and over again. And then more.
Such is the Body of Christ. Not one of us can be a light to this world without the help of another. The winds are always blowing around us and sometimes our light goes out. We try to protect it, we guard it, but still...we lose it and we are sad inside. But then someone comes along and offers us the light again. We struggle to relight out candle, and now and then, we might take too much from that candle and it goes out...but then someone else comes along to help. And if we see a candle not light, well, our job is to go over and offer the light.
Hills and valleys. Heavens and hells. Light and darkness.
"No one lights a lamp to cover it with a bowl or put it under a bed." JB, Luke 8:17
"I am the Light of the world; anyone who follows me will not be walking in the dark; he will have the light of life." JB, John 7:12
"And the night is as bright as the day, for darkness is as light to you." Psalm 139, paraphrased...as I pray it in the garden without a book :-)
I promise you it is not an original idea. We are called to the be the light of the world. His voice, His hands, His Heart.
A couple of important things: to do this, we must be led by the Holy Spirit. Otherwise we are off on some kind of selfish, self-seeking agenda. These things will eventually fail and they will make us feel bad inside.
We know we are doing good, that is, the work of the Spirit, not when we succeed, but when we fail and still have a peace about it. We offered our best...and in front of our eyes, it has been rejected, or laughed at, or scorned...and we still have peace in our hearts. We are calm. That is clearly of His Spirit.
When we succeed, it is harder to discern if we are doing God's work or fluffing our own feathers. Pride is such an annoying animal. He shows up everywhere...any weak spot and he crawls in and makes us miserable. Maybe its vanity he places on our hearts, or selfishness, or (my greatest weakness, perhaps: the sin of perfection)...but he comes in and he makes us dark. Our light cannot shine so bright when he is lurking about...yes, success is definitely harder...we always want to think we somehow did it on our own merit. Exactly what part of who we are did not come from God? So in whom should we have pride? Certainly not ourselves.
But in our failures, when we are 'down and weary,' our spirits are lifted if we know we were trying to do God's will for us. We know that God will make it work out...we are humbled by His power and grace.
So, for the moment, I can take comfort in watching all of those wonderful people who came out to support the grieving family of the little boy who loved dragonflies. I take comfort in that as I have to think about how other things that happened after that didn't work out as nicely. While I have people angry with me just now, I know in my heart what I did and why I did it. They are not able to see that right now. They might never see it. I am sad, but I am at peace.
Its not my job to be a pleaser or to say what other people want to hear from me. Such actions would eventually tear away at my soul. But then, I suppose my work might be in learning to say nothing at all, if it appears clear that someone cannot hear what I have to say anyway.
The Desert Fathers wrote that "simply to open one's mouth is a sin." That's why they stayed silent. I suppose that is a solution, but maybe not the best solution. At least for me.
I talk to God constantly. And I am so frustrated when I cannot talk to Him. And no, I don't mean silently in my heart...I'm talking about "in your face, why is this happening" kind of out loud talks with God. Not quiet, not pretty or "angelic," sometimes when I talk with God it gets down right dirty. Yesterday was an example. I used words to express to God my feelings that I would not use in front of my children.
Yes, I know...what what good is a marriage if you can't have a good fight now and then? You have to know how to fight together as much as you need to know how to love together.
I am rambling now...but the things I have heard over the past few days have so surprised me...
Love one another...please!
Love, Cindy
Saturday, June 12, 2010
Once More With Feeling
A line often used when when coaching someone in speech competition. Also a title of an old Buffy episode. Yesterday's entry felt more like a first draft of a sermon I was planning to give the following week. Ideas are there, but not really making any sense.
This last week has been a bit intense. I feel a bit like I am in the middle of a great labor. Truthfully we all are in that work, being reborn each day. Some days are harder than others.
My prayer life seems to begin the moment I open my eyes in the morning and generally, I try to say my night prayers around 10 p.m. I am still watching a movie as I fall asleep, I am thinking about cutting that out, if I can. It might be better for me to fall asleep in prayer.
I can fall asleep in prayer, just never in my house. I am most comfortable falling asleep in prayer when I am in the presence of the Eucharist. I suppose some people might find that disrespectful, but for me, it is a sign that "here is the safest place to be, with God," and I feel so safe that I can rest here.
It is such an odd journey. There is so much I think about that I don't post. I see people's lives growing closer to God and think, as time passes, if I can remember, I'll write about her or him...put time must pass. It seems like an invasion of privacy to write about many things just as they are happening. Yet, then is the time when it all seems to make the most sense.
I was in spiritual direction with someone a while back and that person told me that she was going through these things and as she said them aloud and as I heard them, they began to make more sense. And my perspective, that is, how I saw what she was doing, helped to ease the struggle of the work.
This, to me, is the concept of the Trinity. God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. God: Mother, Child, milk. God: husband, wife, child. God: "when ever two or more are gathered in my name, there is love."
God is love. God is why we love. God is how we love. God is what we love.
We confuse that love with so many other emotions. The other emotions can be good or bad...but I am now completely convinced: if it is love than I am feeling, then it is God that I am feeling.
Everything else is secondary. Second is not bad, and is often quite good, but it is always second.
Because I understand this idea now, I can love as I have always wanted to love: truly, madly, deeply.
Since this love requires no specific object, it is free to love without ceasing. It does not use time as a construct. It does not have a scale with which to measure itself or others. It is completely free and enters into a relationship with shame or guilt. It does not try to control or manipulate things for a desired outcome. It does not pine for what it had nor fantasize about what it might get tomorrow. It is completely and totally present in every situation.
If you can't be with the one you love, love the one you're with
That is the beginning of a good idea. At some point, as we learn how to love as God loves, the first condition becomes a non-issue.
You are always with the one you love, so love the one you're with.
That idea is a bit harder to hold. If we believe what Jesus said, "Love one another" then when we are with an 'other' then we are commanded to love that person. If we love that person, then God is present...the Trinity exists in and through the act of loving.
So sometimes we are in the presence of great suffering. Many times we are in the presence of great suffering...at least I am. Being present to the suffering is a deep act of love. Trying to fix it, distract the person who is hurting, lying to them so your discomfort can go away...these are not acts of love.
When I pray with others, I try to be completely honest with myself and to God. Not being part of the suffering, my job is to proclaim the suffering. I can sing the lament to God for the people who are too injured to speak.
And that is what we do for each other...sometimes on a grand scale and sometimes in very quiet, private moments.
Be aware that everything we do is sacred. Everything we do and are is a gift from God to be returned to God with joy and gratitude, even our pain. Pain means we feel. It means we are still alive. It means we can still love. Love! Ah, then God is there!
As I was to be ordained, I wrote my Credo: "Life as Sacrament." The Board of Ordained Ministry in the UMC didn't get it. That's when I knew I had to go somewhere else.
For me life is always a sacrament. My life is an outward sign of an inward grace given to me my God.
Right?
Oh well...
Love, Cindy
This last week has been a bit intense. I feel a bit like I am in the middle of a great labor. Truthfully we all are in that work, being reborn each day. Some days are harder than others.
My prayer life seems to begin the moment I open my eyes in the morning and generally, I try to say my night prayers around 10 p.m. I am still watching a movie as I fall asleep, I am thinking about cutting that out, if I can. It might be better for me to fall asleep in prayer.
I can fall asleep in prayer, just never in my house. I am most comfortable falling asleep in prayer when I am in the presence of the Eucharist. I suppose some people might find that disrespectful, but for me, it is a sign that "here is the safest place to be, with God," and I feel so safe that I can rest here.
It is such an odd journey. There is so much I think about that I don't post. I see people's lives growing closer to God and think, as time passes, if I can remember, I'll write about her or him...put time must pass. It seems like an invasion of privacy to write about many things just as they are happening. Yet, then is the time when it all seems to make the most sense.
I was in spiritual direction with someone a while back and that person told me that she was going through these things and as she said them aloud and as I heard them, they began to make more sense. And my perspective, that is, how I saw what she was doing, helped to ease the struggle of the work.
This, to me, is the concept of the Trinity. God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. God: Mother, Child, milk. God: husband, wife, child. God: "when ever two or more are gathered in my name, there is love."
God is love. God is why we love. God is how we love. God is what we love.
We confuse that love with so many other emotions. The other emotions can be good or bad...but I am now completely convinced: if it is love than I am feeling, then it is God that I am feeling.
Everything else is secondary. Second is not bad, and is often quite good, but it is always second.
Because I understand this idea now, I can love as I have always wanted to love: truly, madly, deeply.
Since this love requires no specific object, it is free to love without ceasing. It does not use time as a construct. It does not have a scale with which to measure itself or others. It is completely free and enters into a relationship with shame or guilt. It does not try to control or manipulate things for a desired outcome. It does not pine for what it had nor fantasize about what it might get tomorrow. It is completely and totally present in every situation.
If you can't be with the one you love, love the one you're with
That is the beginning of a good idea. At some point, as we learn how to love as God loves, the first condition becomes a non-issue.
You are always with the one you love, so love the one you're with.
That idea is a bit harder to hold. If we believe what Jesus said, "Love one another" then when we are with an 'other' then we are commanded to love that person. If we love that person, then God is present...the Trinity exists in and through the act of loving.
So sometimes we are in the presence of great suffering. Many times we are in the presence of great suffering...at least I am. Being present to the suffering is a deep act of love. Trying to fix it, distract the person who is hurting, lying to them so your discomfort can go away...these are not acts of love.
When I pray with others, I try to be completely honest with myself and to God. Not being part of the suffering, my job is to proclaim the suffering. I can sing the lament to God for the people who are too injured to speak.
And that is what we do for each other...sometimes on a grand scale and sometimes in very quiet, private moments.
Be aware that everything we do is sacred. Everything we do and are is a gift from God to be returned to God with joy and gratitude, even our pain. Pain means we feel. It means we are still alive. It means we can still love. Love! Ah, then God is there!
As I was to be ordained, I wrote my Credo: "Life as Sacrament." The Board of Ordained Ministry in the UMC didn't get it. That's when I knew I had to go somewhere else.
For me life is always a sacrament. My life is an outward sign of an inward grace given to me my God.
Right?
Oh well...
Love, Cindy
Friday, June 11, 2010
Helplessness
Started this one last night in the chapel...
Whenever God gives me a theme three times in one week, I think I am supposed to write about it. On Monday, I bring communion to people who can’t get to church. One woman has a paralyzed left arm and she is never out of her wheelchair. When we begin to pray, she works very hard using her good hand to reach down and pull up her limp hand so that she can bring her hands together in prayer. Lately, I have been more brave to reach down and bring her weak hand to her so that she can clasp it during our prayers. She doesn’t seem to mind.
I worry about this because I have a friend who is helping his friend who is losing more and more of his abilities to care for himself. He has a degenerative disease in which he will eventually lose his ability to do anything, including breathing. It is inevitable and my friend is working diligently and with great care to be certain to let his friend to all that he can for himself. What love and respect! How I wish I could be that diligent!
John 21:18 “Amen, amen I say to you, when you were younger, you used to dress yourself and go where you wanted; but when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go.”
Ezekiel 34: 11-16
“…I will rescue them from where they are scattered…The lost I will seek out, the strayed I will bring back, the injured I will bind up, the sick I will heal, but the sleek and the strong I will destroy, shepherding them rightly.”
Luke 15:3-7
“…and when he does find [the lost sheep], he sets it on his shoulders with great joy and [carries it home.]...”
Then a beautiful woman both inside and out, I went to see. Her face was bruised and it was obvious she had fallen. My daughters are moving me to an assisted living center. We think it is the best thing to do. Her behavior was reserved. I knew she was scared.
We start off in this world helpless. We are vulnerable. We must depend on others for all of our needs. There is no shame in that for us, because shame is something we learn, after we have grown up and get smart. We learn about what the world expects from us and most of us try to follow the rules, but following the rules is always a choice.
I'm not certain I can follow the rules. Seems my water got turned off again, second time in a year, not because I didn't have enough money to pay the bill, I simply didn't see that as a priority. Priority is praying with a frightened man in the elevator at the hospital today. Priority is praying in the garden. Priority is delivering Communion to people who can't get to church.
Ah, but, like it or not, I still have to live in this world. My dining room table is stacked with papers that claim, immediate attention needed. And I will have to get to them. Eventually.
But not today.
My hands are so hot, I can barely stand them. I want to place them in a bowl of ice. Maybe it's just hormones raging. I just know I witnessed more than one miracle this week. And perhaps so much love that, if it was a physical object, would not fit within the walls of my church. Nor should it.
The encounters I have with people are such holy moments. I pray that you have them too. I see the world changing, one person at a time...and that is how it is done.
One person at a time.
Being vulnerable.
Remaining open.
Saying yes.
Risking love.
Holding hands.
Listening.
Receiving.
Then giving it all away.
That's the gift of helplessness.
For when I am weak, You are strong.
Love,
Cindy
Whenever God gives me a theme three times in one week, I think I am supposed to write about it. On Monday, I bring communion to people who can’t get to church. One woman has a paralyzed left arm and she is never out of her wheelchair. When we begin to pray, she works very hard using her good hand to reach down and pull up her limp hand so that she can bring her hands together in prayer. Lately, I have been more brave to reach down and bring her weak hand to her so that she can clasp it during our prayers. She doesn’t seem to mind.
I worry about this because I have a friend who is helping his friend who is losing more and more of his abilities to care for himself. He has a degenerative disease in which he will eventually lose his ability to do anything, including breathing. It is inevitable and my friend is working diligently and with great care to be certain to let his friend to all that he can for himself. What love and respect! How I wish I could be that diligent!
John 21:18 “Amen, amen I say to you, when you were younger, you used to dress yourself and go where you wanted; but when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go.”
Ezekiel 34: 11-16
“…I will rescue them from where they are scattered…The lost I will seek out, the strayed I will bring back, the injured I will bind up, the sick I will heal, but the sleek and the strong I will destroy, shepherding them rightly.”
Luke 15:3-7
“…and when he does find [the lost sheep], he sets it on his shoulders with great joy and [carries it home.]...”
Then a beautiful woman both inside and out, I went to see. Her face was bruised and it was obvious she had fallen. My daughters are moving me to an assisted living center. We think it is the best thing to do. Her behavior was reserved. I knew she was scared.
We start off in this world helpless. We are vulnerable. We must depend on others for all of our needs. There is no shame in that for us, because shame is something we learn, after we have grown up and get smart. We learn about what the world expects from us and most of us try to follow the rules, but following the rules is always a choice.
I'm not certain I can follow the rules. Seems my water got turned off again, second time in a year, not because I didn't have enough money to pay the bill, I simply didn't see that as a priority. Priority is praying with a frightened man in the elevator at the hospital today. Priority is praying in the garden. Priority is delivering Communion to people who can't get to church.
Ah, but, like it or not, I still have to live in this world. My dining room table is stacked with papers that claim, immediate attention needed. And I will have to get to them. Eventually.
But not today.
My hands are so hot, I can barely stand them. I want to place them in a bowl of ice. Maybe it's just hormones raging. I just know I witnessed more than one miracle this week. And perhaps so much love that, if it was a physical object, would not fit within the walls of my church. Nor should it.
The encounters I have with people are such holy moments. I pray that you have them too. I see the world changing, one person at a time...and that is how it is done.
One person at a time.
Being vulnerable.
Remaining open.
Saying yes.
Risking love.
Holding hands.
Listening.
Receiving.
Then giving it all away.
That's the gift of helplessness.
For when I am weak, You are strong.
Love,
Cindy
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
Never Say Never Again
That only has meaning to me. I have something else I have not yet posted. Tried to work on it, but you know how ideas are. They arrive and they leave. I am surrounded by the strong women of PISD who are celebrating a retirement and it is difficult to focus.
But I had to post something today. Today is another important day in my life. My body is so full of energy right now, perhaps it cannot focus enough to write. Tried to play the Ave Maria at church this morning and could barely do it. Too much energy. Not bad. Good energy.
Prayed on the steps with my face down. I didn't cry, but when I lifted my head, everything below my face was wet. What was it, I wondered. Oh my, it was my breath! The tiles were wet from my breath. In the past I have placed my tears on the altar. Today I put my breath there. Good gift. Good thank you gift for today. My breath.
Letting go and holding on. What to keep, what to release? Which part serves God best? Not always easy to tell. But detachment helps. There are plenty of things I would like to do, plenty of things I want, plenty of dreams sit in my heart right now. But in the midst of that is great calmness.
He holds me so closely today. And I feel Him deep in my heart. In a place where no one has gone, where no one has touched before. I am so deeply grateful. I am so deeply humbled that He would bother with me, that He receives me just as I am...sees what I can be and waits patiently for me to see it too.
Feeling that deep love, I find myself cherishing each encounter with each person I meet. It is as if I am there, but I am not there. Clearly I have perhaps a hint of what Paul meant when he said, "I am a new creation."
I didn't know that I could love this deeply and not be attached. I mean, doesn't love mean wanting to possess something? Doesn't it mean also loss and pain? But this love I feel has no fear in it. How can that be? Kind of a complete acceptance of the way things are. But not passive, not really saying that we keep tolerating things that are not of God, but that we deliberately live on the one side of the coin. We know that things generally run their course, but that doesn't matter.
Mary has chosen the better part. Leave her alone.
Joy comes from making the right choices. And forgiving yourself when you make the wrong ones. What greater joy could a person have than to know that you have been forgiven when you screw up?
There is something going on inside me. I can't quite name it, but it is a kind of burning joy...my brain may not have figured it out, but my heart is secure in His love.
And as the pain of a few days ago seemed to overwhelm my total being and I poured it out to God...today is the same, only I feel love oozing out of my cells to anywhere that it can find a home. Both are the same somehow, but I am learning to receive and let go...nothing ever stays for long. Hopefully as it passes through me, it grows into a gift for God.
I am so very happy. I'm finally learning how to live as He wants us to live.
Suffering will always be here with us, but in His good graces, love will always be with us, too. We will never have to do it alone.
That line at the end of Ghost: "You never lose the Love, you take it with you." I believe that. Of course, love...real love, is God Himself.
Enter into people's lives. Engage each other. As many as possible. Listen to their stories. Tell your story. Don't expect anything. Just be open to whatever God brings you. And don't forget to say Thank you.
Thank you God, for today. And thank you, to each person who touched me today. Who will touch me today. It is a very important day. I want to dance...my heart is already dancing. No, it will not always feel like today.
Then again, maybe it will.
Love, Cindy
But I had to post something today. Today is another important day in my life. My body is so full of energy right now, perhaps it cannot focus enough to write. Tried to play the Ave Maria at church this morning and could barely do it. Too much energy. Not bad. Good energy.
Prayed on the steps with my face down. I didn't cry, but when I lifted my head, everything below my face was wet. What was it, I wondered. Oh my, it was my breath! The tiles were wet from my breath. In the past I have placed my tears on the altar. Today I put my breath there. Good gift. Good thank you gift for today. My breath.
Letting go and holding on. What to keep, what to release? Which part serves God best? Not always easy to tell. But detachment helps. There are plenty of things I would like to do, plenty of things I want, plenty of dreams sit in my heart right now. But in the midst of that is great calmness.
He holds me so closely today. And I feel Him deep in my heart. In a place where no one has gone, where no one has touched before. I am so deeply grateful. I am so deeply humbled that He would bother with me, that He receives me just as I am...sees what I can be and waits patiently for me to see it too.
Feeling that deep love, I find myself cherishing each encounter with each person I meet. It is as if I am there, but I am not there. Clearly I have perhaps a hint of what Paul meant when he said, "I am a new creation."
I didn't know that I could love this deeply and not be attached. I mean, doesn't love mean wanting to possess something? Doesn't it mean also loss and pain? But this love I feel has no fear in it. How can that be? Kind of a complete acceptance of the way things are. But not passive, not really saying that we keep tolerating things that are not of God, but that we deliberately live on the one side of the coin. We know that things generally run their course, but that doesn't matter.
Mary has chosen the better part. Leave her alone.
Joy comes from making the right choices. And forgiving yourself when you make the wrong ones. What greater joy could a person have than to know that you have been forgiven when you screw up?
There is something going on inside me. I can't quite name it, but it is a kind of burning joy...my brain may not have figured it out, but my heart is secure in His love.
And as the pain of a few days ago seemed to overwhelm my total being and I poured it out to God...today is the same, only I feel love oozing out of my cells to anywhere that it can find a home. Both are the same somehow, but I am learning to receive and let go...nothing ever stays for long. Hopefully as it passes through me, it grows into a gift for God.
I am so very happy. I'm finally learning how to live as He wants us to live.
Suffering will always be here with us, but in His good graces, love will always be with us, too. We will never have to do it alone.
That line at the end of Ghost: "You never lose the Love, you take it with you." I believe that. Of course, love...real love, is God Himself.
Enter into people's lives. Engage each other. As many as possible. Listen to their stories. Tell your story. Don't expect anything. Just be open to whatever God brings you. And don't forget to say Thank you.
Thank you God, for today. And thank you, to each person who touched me today. Who will touch me today. It is a very important day. I want to dance...my heart is already dancing. No, it will not always feel like today.
Then again, maybe it will.
Love, Cindy
Friday, June 4, 2010
Love One Another cond...
You know how it is. Mountaintop experiences and deep valleys of darkness. But that's part of my encounter with God. I am just not on the straight and narrow path..or maybe I am...if I am, He is the one making it straight and narrow...often times, I am wandering off the map. The good thing is He loves me anyway.
Talked with someone about something I have not mentioned to anyone before. Seemed like the right time, but being vulnerable is a scary thing. It is also a very freeing thing. The more I can let go of my ego running the show, the better person I am. But the ego always finds a way back in. It looks for the chinks in my armor.
There was a not well know book called "The Knight in Rusty Armor." My Methodist pastor, Keith, asked me to read it about 15 years ago. It's about a man who refused to feel anything from the day of his birth when the nurse looked into the crib and said, "My goodness, what an ugly baby!" He began to create his armor on that very day, until every inch of his body was 'protected' with armor.
I don't remember how it went exactly, and I'm not getting up to look because I have to be at church in less than an hour...but this man began to encounter God's love...and each time he allowed himself to feels God's love, he cried. And the crying began to rust the armor away. That wonderful, heavy, thick armor began to fall off of him and, after many tears, he discovered that the man underneath the armor was a pretty great guy.
Keith asked me to read it because it was a good story, you know. It had nothing to do with MY life...
I used to cry a lot because of what I had lost and what I thought I never had. These days I cry because of what I have found. I spent hundred of hours weeping away my pain in front of therapists, in front of my ex-husband, in front of compassionate friends...but not until I wept before I priest did I suddenly find the real healing I needed.
Why was that different from all the other times? Why did it work when nothing else seemed to have much effect? Why would that experience be different?
I guess some of it depends on faith. Maybe on how I was raised. What I was taught to believe. And of course, it depends on the kind of priest a person encounters. All the parts have to be there.
I thought if I cried with and before therapists and counselors that I was done with my wounds. I certainly spent hours at it.
But this was different. God was there. God held my hand, God saw my tears. I was the woman, stripped of her clothing and dragged in front of Jesus, thrown on the ground with my head down, waiting for the first stone to be thrown. I couldn't hear what was being said around me, I just waited...and then, in the darkness, I heard "Who is there to condemn you?...no one?...well...then, neither do I condemn you." At this point I look up and see the eyes in front of me. They are nice eyes. I think I heard what I thought I heard, but I'm not really sure. Then I hear the words "Go on your way....but don't do that anymore!"
Okay, perhaps it was a bit different than that...but that's how it felt. I cannot say enough good things about the Sacrament of Reconciliation. For some of us, it is more perfect than a mother's milk. I mean it is exactly what we need.
Today was a good day. And its not over. There is still more work to do. I have let people down today, but I have also lifted people up. It was a pretty normal day for me.
The grace of God gets me through it. The grace of God lets me live it. The mercy of God fills in all the broken parts...and
I am
Talked with someone about something I have not mentioned to anyone before. Seemed like the right time, but being vulnerable is a scary thing. It is also a very freeing thing. The more I can let go of my ego running the show, the better person I am. But the ego always finds a way back in. It looks for the chinks in my armor.
There was a not well know book called "The Knight in Rusty Armor." My Methodist pastor, Keith, asked me to read it about 15 years ago. It's about a man who refused to feel anything from the day of his birth when the nurse looked into the crib and said, "My goodness, what an ugly baby!" He began to create his armor on that very day, until every inch of his body was 'protected' with armor.
I don't remember how it went exactly, and I'm not getting up to look because I have to be at church in less than an hour...but this man began to encounter God's love...and each time he allowed himself to feels God's love, he cried. And the crying began to rust the armor away. That wonderful, heavy, thick armor began to fall off of him and, after many tears, he discovered that the man underneath the armor was a pretty great guy.
Keith asked me to read it because it was a good story, you know. It had nothing to do with MY life...
I used to cry a lot because of what I had lost and what I thought I never had. These days I cry because of what I have found. I spent hundred of hours weeping away my pain in front of therapists, in front of my ex-husband, in front of compassionate friends...but not until I wept before I priest did I suddenly find the real healing I needed.
Why was that different from all the other times? Why did it work when nothing else seemed to have much effect? Why would that experience be different?
I guess some of it depends on faith. Maybe on how I was raised. What I was taught to believe. And of course, it depends on the kind of priest a person encounters. All the parts have to be there.
I thought if I cried with and before therapists and counselors that I was done with my wounds. I certainly spent hours at it.
But this was different. God was there. God held my hand, God saw my tears. I was the woman, stripped of her clothing and dragged in front of Jesus, thrown on the ground with my head down, waiting for the first stone to be thrown. I couldn't hear what was being said around me, I just waited...and then, in the darkness, I heard "Who is there to condemn you?...no one?...well...then, neither do I condemn you." At this point I look up and see the eyes in front of me. They are nice eyes. I think I heard what I thought I heard, but I'm not really sure. Then I hear the words "Go on your way....but don't do that anymore!"
Okay, perhaps it was a bit different than that...but that's how it felt. I cannot say enough good things about the Sacrament of Reconciliation. For some of us, it is more perfect than a mother's milk. I mean it is exactly what we need.
Today was a good day. And its not over. There is still more work to do. I have let people down today, but I have also lifted people up. It was a pretty normal day for me.
The grace of God gets me through it. The grace of God lets me live it. The mercy of God fills in all the broken parts...and
I am
Thursday, June 3, 2010
That Love One Another Thing again...
My head is so full. My heart loves so much...and it is breaking.
I wonder if God ever feels like that. It is how I feel today. Already before noon, I encounter great love and great hate...and I know it is the human condition, we are a mixed bag, forever dealing with conflicted feelings.
I reach out to my God and beg Him to show me what to do, how to help. People are finding me everywhere these days. They just arrive and tell me their stories. It is awesome and sacred and scary and exciting. I have begun to encounter human beings on an entirely new and wonderful level...I am stunned by what I see and hear and taste and touch and smell...and what I feel. I am not the woman I was a year ago. I am not the woman I was six months ago.
Dulcinea: You spoke to me. And everything was different.
Don Quixote: Tell me, in words, what did I tell you?
Dulcinea: You spoke of a dream. And of a quest. And it didn't matter if you won or lost, only that you must stay true to the quest. And you called me by another name: Dulcinea.
Or something like that.
I can't really remember right now.
"For I have called you by name and you are mine..."
God is calling me by another name. I have not heard the name yet, but when I do, I will tell you. Maybe it is as simple as Mary. A year ago, a priest I had just met kept calling me Mary. I never corrected him. I liked me called Mary. It made me feel...different.
And this woman I am now, I like her so much. And I like the work she does. I like her bravery. I like her style. And I like very much how she loves people.
It is me that I see in the mirror? I don't know anymore. It's just all so different now. And wonderful. And scary. And exciting.
And that would be me, on the driveway in San Antonio, watering the grass...(an excuse to wait and watch for the boys to drive by in their cars and just stand and talk with them...and not have my father get after me...after all I was watering the grass for him...it was so deep and green right next to the curb!)
But in between the cars that would stop, I would be singing...and most often, I was singing "The Impossible Dream." Oh, how I loved that song! How much I wished to be a knight errant, in search of the good and the beautiful...and to eventually give up my life for God...
...all while waiting for the boys to come by and just talk...
I never claimed to not be complicated...
Panera's is going to kick me off line any minute, so I'm posting...just cause I want to.
Love, Cindy
I wonder if God ever feels like that. It is how I feel today. Already before noon, I encounter great love and great hate...and I know it is the human condition, we are a mixed bag, forever dealing with conflicted feelings.
I reach out to my God and beg Him to show me what to do, how to help. People are finding me everywhere these days. They just arrive and tell me their stories. It is awesome and sacred and scary and exciting. I have begun to encounter human beings on an entirely new and wonderful level...I am stunned by what I see and hear and taste and touch and smell...and what I feel. I am not the woman I was a year ago. I am not the woman I was six months ago.
Dulcinea: You spoke to me. And everything was different.
Don Quixote: Tell me, in words, what did I tell you?
Dulcinea: You spoke of a dream. And of a quest. And it didn't matter if you won or lost, only that you must stay true to the quest. And you called me by another name: Dulcinea.
Or something like that.
I can't really remember right now.
"For I have called you by name and you are mine..."
God is calling me by another name. I have not heard the name yet, but when I do, I will tell you. Maybe it is as simple as Mary. A year ago, a priest I had just met kept calling me Mary. I never corrected him. I liked me called Mary. It made me feel...different.
And this woman I am now, I like her so much. And I like the work she does. I like her bravery. I like her style. And I like very much how she loves people.
It is me that I see in the mirror? I don't know anymore. It's just all so different now. And wonderful. And scary. And exciting.
And that would be me, on the driveway in San Antonio, watering the grass...(an excuse to wait and watch for the boys to drive by in their cars and just stand and talk with them...and not have my father get after me...after all I was watering the grass for him...it was so deep and green right next to the curb!)
But in between the cars that would stop, I would be singing...and most often, I was singing "The Impossible Dream." Oh, how I loved that song! How much I wished to be a knight errant, in search of the good and the beautiful...and to eventually give up my life for God...
...all while waiting for the boys to come by and just talk...
I never claimed to not be complicated...
Panera's is going to kick me off line any minute, so I'm posting...just cause I want to.
Love, Cindy
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