I am jealous of the innocent faith of my friends. I wish I could just believe that if I do things in a certain way, in a certain order, then my salvation could be guaranteed. I've always seen the entry into heaven as a friendly one: Jesus or God or St Peter will stand there and say with exasperation "Well, do you want to come in or not?!" Because I still stand there, even then wondering if I am good enough to get in. ow
I can't dismiss all my reservations with, "I went to Mass everyday, I helped out at church, I proclaimed the word, I held the hands of the sick, I cleaned the dirty, I fed the poor, I gave them my cloak, I listened, I was just there for everyone you asked me to see. I loved the ones you told me to love. So I should get it, right?"
But the hardest thing I had to do, was one of the first things, and I didn't do it. I couldn't love myself. I could still see and feel all my mistakes, my sins against God and neighbor and self. I knew my heart was not perfect, I kn...
And I suddenly hear a knock at the door to my bedroom...littlest grandson, Jordan, is there.
"Hi, Na na!" he says distinctly.
"You want to crawl in bed with Nana?"
"Yes," with an emphasis on the "s."
I give him a pillow and he covers himself up. I put my hand on his tummy and he grabs it.
I think that's how you get into heaven.
Last Sunday's reading was about the 'narrow gate.' I don't recall what Fr. Kelly spoke about it a month or so ago, but I remember what I thought of when he said it. I thought about the camel passing through the eye of a needle. I thought about what that meant in Jesus' time.
A camel came through a narrow gate to get into the city. It was a beast of burden. It carried many things for its travelers. All their stuff. To get into the city, all that stuff had to be taken off the camel's back.
To get into heaven, we've got to discard all the stuff, all the crap (I'm thinking here George Carlin's "A Place for my Stuff" routine---he says we always think: Your stuff is crap and my crap is stuff," only he used a stronger expletive. I'm trying to be polite without being too vulgar.
The point is that we can see all the garbage other people are carrying but we cannot see our own. Yet all of us cannot get into heaven without letting all of it, and I do mean ALL of it go. Every single attachment. Every one. Even the love between mother and son, or grandmother and grandson.
We hear Jesus harshly proclaim, when he hears the woman, "Blessed be the mother who raised you!" "Blessed more is the one who is fed by the Word of God." and later "Who is my mother?" Jesus loves completely and fully, yet understands detachment. He knows what John of the Cross learned after much suffering: to have everything one must desire nothing. Not my will but Yours Almighty Father.
The narrow gate sounds harsh and cruel. God made us creatures that need to connect to things and each other and yet He did not. The curse for Adam was the desire of possessions, he must til the land, and work FOR HIS FOOD. The harder he works, the more food and things he will acquire. The woman suffers for her husband and her children. She suffers in her relationship...there is a price always for love...and often what we think is love is not really love at all. It is the desire to possess someone or something. That looks like love, but it is not love. Real love is always engaged, but never attached. It can't leave you because it is not a person, place or thing. Real love is not baggage we carry around. It is not a possession. It is a way of being...
So I guess we take love through the narrow gate. But we can't take anything else.
Imagine a place where only love exists. Imagine what is might be like to feel 'in love' all the time and yet never compare it to another, never desire another, never feel abandoned by another, and whatever your personal fear might be...to have the fear completely gone from your spirit...For fear casts out love as quickly as love casts out fear.
Maybe that's why it is so easy to love our grandchildren. They are ours to love, but they have parents of their own. Our children carry the burden of that kind of love, they are closer, more attached, more responsible to these beautiful little beings of light. We as grandparents, get to love them unconditionally and yet, they are not really ours...and so it is so much easier to love.
As simple as that. Now if I could just do that with all the parts of my life. So that when the time comes, and it will probably be sooner than later, and Jesus asks me at the Gate of Heaven, "Well, do you want to come in or not?" I can just smile at Him a great big hug, and walk on through.
Love, Cindy
Sunday, August 29, 2010
Saturday, August 28, 2010
Sex, Lies and Videotape
No, not thinking about the 80s movie with James Spader and Andie MacDowell. Well, maybe. It was a movie about turning in on the self, because everything else had failed. Dissatisfaction with jobs, personal lives, spouses, children, whatever "flavor of the day" you might choose. Emptiness. Lacking. Not measuring up. Missing the mark. Where's the joy, man? Where's the joy? Risky Business, Wall Street, Pretty Woman...everything and everyone is objectified. And the money...so much disposable money! And so much dissatisfaction with living. Oh, yes, and all the suicides in Plano. How can a 15 year old brain get its head around the glaring contradictions of what it saw every day? Excess, so many choices, at the price of a family that never shared a meal together. Maybe worse than Viet Nam...maybe not worse, but definitely more personal.
I'm stuck in the illusion theme for now. I've got Billie Holiday playing on the CD player: "Love is like a faucet, it turns off and on...sometime when you think its on, baby, it has turned off and gone."
This August month, I've been encountering so many disillusioned people. So much dissatisfaction, so much pain, that often manifests in a suicide attempt. I recall a woman at a church, so dissatisfied and angry about her husband leaving. She left a email note for her pastor. It indicated her plans. The pastor called the police and together they went over to her apt. He knocked on the door and called out to her. They then heard the gunshot, broke down the door and discovered she had shot off half of her face, but was not dead. She lived about 6 hours longer. I sat with the woman who sat with her until she died. The woman was strong enough to sit with her friend, who had become so angry about what she was losing, she forgot that she still had a 10 year old son to care for, and who loved her. The survivor, her friend, had wounds to heal as well. Being present for our life changing events, both good and bad, need honoring and quite often ritual to heal us.
That was one of many times that I have sat with men and women who tell me their tragedies, their pain, their helplessness in being a witness to the suffering of a loved one or even a stranger. I recall one of my sixth graders in a confirmation class, telling me about how he and his mom happened on an accident (his mom was a nurse) and how he kept talking with the little girl lying on the road, badly burned from the wreck. He was so glad to be there with her. We never know another's story, we shouldn't assume, but we need to be awake to the clues and the bread crumbs people leave for us. I'm good at listening to stories of violence, well because, I've been around it a lot. It makes me a good listener, at least about those things. We each have some kind of charism that makes us a unique member of the Body of Christ. We need to name it and then use it to help ourselves and others.
I was reminded of that last night, retelling the story to someone I didn't know too well. It shows up every now and then. It's August. Something I heard or felt must have needed the story. Or perhaps its personal. It's hot. The things I've encountered this week: Sex, lies and Videotape.
Of the three, lying has always been the most deadly for me. Lying was the first overt sin committed in the Garden. It was perhaps the reason we were thrown out of the Garden, not that we had done something wrong, but that we were unwilling to admit it, to own it.
If I catch someone in a lie, when it is a lie not directed toward an idea or an event, and possibly toward another person, I can be present with it, hold it and kind of ride with them until they get to the next place. But if the lie is directed at me, I take it personally. Not a misunderstanding, mind you, but a bold face lie, all my compassion goes out the window. I have to work hard to come back into the room. It is a reminder to me of how really big my ego is.
And when I become brutally aware that I am angry about what was said and perhaps why, I have to ask myself...do I have the heart of a nun? Can I stand and take the abuse of someone lying to my face and still love them? Can I not get hot under my collar because I disagree with what I have just seen or experienced? Can I think it through before it unsettles my soul? And I sigh and realize how far I am from being the perfect priest. (Yes, I deliberately put that here)
I have to remember that most of our lives are spent in an illusion. That Corinthians 13 passage on love is 100% correct: For now I see in a mirror dimly, then I will see face to face. Nothing I can see or say will be the Truth, all I can share is my journey, my perspective. I can only know what I see and even that is filled with clouds and dirt.
Everyone I know that has committed suicide has done it because he/she was suffering from believing an illusion. Most of our pain and suffering comes from living inside the illusion. This truth should being nihilism or even the dark passage in Ecclesiastes "All things are vanity (nothing)." I mean, of course it is true...but it's like Viktor Frankl wrote: Suffering, once it has a name ceases to be suffering.
We need to name what torments us. If we can name the devil we are already halfway to defeating him. But it is all so treacherous...the path is filled with rocks and critters to distract us from what we seek. Then we get the answer and the pendulum swings the other way.
When we think we know, when we think we have it figured out, when we rest contentedly in the knowledge that we have discovered the proof to the theorem, the solution to the equation, or the infallible dogma of the Doctrines of God, we are in the greatest danger of pulling the trigger on our own lives.
Looking at things from a human point of view, there is very little to be happy about. There is little or no joy. We have to reach out for the transcendent. We have to divorce ourselves from our egos without losing the self. The more humility was can embrace, the more that life becomes beautiful.
Humility is that thin space where we know that we are always less but still enough to be present to ourselves and each other.
And that is so hard to do. Especially for people in great pain. How to be humble in pain, that is the true character of a saint. Maybe we can't really discard our illusions, but we might be able to at least acknowledge that they are illusions. That we really can't see clearly and maybe a bold face lie, was the best that person could offer in the situation.
Love them where they are.
Love, Cindy
I'm stuck in the illusion theme for now. I've got Billie Holiday playing on the CD player: "Love is like a faucet, it turns off and on...sometime when you think its on, baby, it has turned off and gone."
This August month, I've been encountering so many disillusioned people. So much dissatisfaction, so much pain, that often manifests in a suicide attempt. I recall a woman at a church, so dissatisfied and angry about her husband leaving. She left a email note for her pastor. It indicated her plans. The pastor called the police and together they went over to her apt. He knocked on the door and called out to her. They then heard the gunshot, broke down the door and discovered she had shot off half of her face, but was not dead. She lived about 6 hours longer. I sat with the woman who sat with her until she died. The woman was strong enough to sit with her friend, who had become so angry about what she was losing, she forgot that she still had a 10 year old son to care for, and who loved her. The survivor, her friend, had wounds to heal as well. Being present for our life changing events, both good and bad, need honoring and quite often ritual to heal us.
That was one of many times that I have sat with men and women who tell me their tragedies, their pain, their helplessness in being a witness to the suffering of a loved one or even a stranger. I recall one of my sixth graders in a confirmation class, telling me about how he and his mom happened on an accident (his mom was a nurse) and how he kept talking with the little girl lying on the road, badly burned from the wreck. He was so glad to be there with her. We never know another's story, we shouldn't assume, but we need to be awake to the clues and the bread crumbs people leave for us. I'm good at listening to stories of violence, well because, I've been around it a lot. It makes me a good listener, at least about those things. We each have some kind of charism that makes us a unique member of the Body of Christ. We need to name it and then use it to help ourselves and others.
I was reminded of that last night, retelling the story to someone I didn't know too well. It shows up every now and then. It's August. Something I heard or felt must have needed the story. Or perhaps its personal. It's hot. The things I've encountered this week: Sex, lies and Videotape.
Of the three, lying has always been the most deadly for me. Lying was the first overt sin committed in the Garden. It was perhaps the reason we were thrown out of the Garden, not that we had done something wrong, but that we were unwilling to admit it, to own it.
If I catch someone in a lie, when it is a lie not directed toward an idea or an event, and possibly toward another person, I can be present with it, hold it and kind of ride with them until they get to the next place. But if the lie is directed at me, I take it personally. Not a misunderstanding, mind you, but a bold face lie, all my compassion goes out the window. I have to work hard to come back into the room. It is a reminder to me of how really big my ego is.
And when I become brutally aware that I am angry about what was said and perhaps why, I have to ask myself...do I have the heart of a nun? Can I stand and take the abuse of someone lying to my face and still love them? Can I not get hot under my collar because I disagree with what I have just seen or experienced? Can I think it through before it unsettles my soul? And I sigh and realize how far I am from being the perfect priest. (Yes, I deliberately put that here)
I have to remember that most of our lives are spent in an illusion. That Corinthians 13 passage on love is 100% correct: For now I see in a mirror dimly, then I will see face to face. Nothing I can see or say will be the Truth, all I can share is my journey, my perspective. I can only know what I see and even that is filled with clouds and dirt.
Everyone I know that has committed suicide has done it because he/she was suffering from believing an illusion. Most of our pain and suffering comes from living inside the illusion. This truth should being nihilism or even the dark passage in Ecclesiastes "All things are vanity (nothing)." I mean, of course it is true...but it's like Viktor Frankl wrote: Suffering, once it has a name ceases to be suffering.
We need to name what torments us. If we can name the devil we are already halfway to defeating him. But it is all so treacherous...the path is filled with rocks and critters to distract us from what we seek. Then we get the answer and the pendulum swings the other way.
When we think we know, when we think we have it figured out, when we rest contentedly in the knowledge that we have discovered the proof to the theorem, the solution to the equation, or the infallible dogma of the Doctrines of God, we are in the greatest danger of pulling the trigger on our own lives.
Looking at things from a human point of view, there is very little to be happy about. There is little or no joy. We have to reach out for the transcendent. We have to divorce ourselves from our egos without losing the self. The more humility was can embrace, the more that life becomes beautiful.
Humility is that thin space where we know that we are always less but still enough to be present to ourselves and each other.
And that is so hard to do. Especially for people in great pain. How to be humble in pain, that is the true character of a saint. Maybe we can't really discard our illusions, but we might be able to at least acknowledge that they are illusions. That we really can't see clearly and maybe a bold face lie, was the best that person could offer in the situation.
Love them where they are.
Love, Cindy
Friday, August 27, 2010
From Illusion to Prayer
Sometimes I wonder if I think God is magic. I wonder if I can change the mind of God with my prayer. I had a friend write her PhD thesis on how to argue with God using primarily the Burning Bush passage in Exodus. Then there is Abraham's argument about finding 'ten good people' in Sodom. I got published in a journal on whether or not God listens to us when we pray using the Book of Job. With God it is always a dialogue, never a monologue, in either direction. God is not talking at us, we are not talking at God. Yet, why do we bother at all, if we cannot change anything...that is, if we cannot change God's mind?
These are not new themes for me. C.S. Lewis says, in Shadowlands, that his prayer does not change God, it changes him. And that, without question, is a certain thing. Prayer changes us.
I am in absolute physical pain when I do not take the time, or have the time, to pray. I hate how I feel, I hate who I become...I am lost and afraid and everything everyone says around me seems distant and foreign and confusing. As soon as I enter prayer, I don't really need to understand anything. I simply need to be...to be present with my Creator. And all my worries seem so trivial and empty...but as soon as I 'return' from prayer, I get lost again. So the only solution is to pray unceasingly. To be in a state of continual awareness of the presence of God. That's how to make it work. Love without ceasing. Pray without ceasing. And it is not easy.
I have in my mind the wheelchair rolling away from me, the person in it choosing to not look at me. I was allowed to bring communion in the morning. My hands shook with fear...in this strange place, where man's law is carried out, knowing that things would probably be grim in a few hours...and wondering how God might use me to help. My usual 'calming presence' that the nurses often speak of was gone from me this particular morning. I looked around and thought, who in this room has not sinned, which of us is clean? And then, that here, those things are not the dominant force. Other things must happen. There will be a pound of flesh given. But that can't erase the past.
I heard people talking about their pain. Their understanding of a life changing event. Everyone had a story. Each side told their story with the intent of persuasion, to convince someone else that their story was the right story. I didn't want to think about that. I just thought about the flesh in the room. All of it. The blood and bones and lungs and hearts of all the people who were hurting. They needed some kind of salve for their wounds. They needed to be comforted with justice.
But what is justice? We can't ever go back to the Garden. Not in this life anyway. We know. We have a consciousness that remembers what we had, what we lost, and what we desire...and in human form, it is all so flawed, so temporal, so hungry.
I hurt so bad inside because I think I know what is right, that justice has been served somehow, but I still hurt...because I see all the pain around me...and healthy or not, I receive that pain to a degree, wishing I could be that Empath from a 1960s Star Trek episode, a woman, who took on the work of Jesus Christ on the cross, dare I say...she took on the suffering of those in front of her, literally, into her body, healed the one she was with, and then the wounds were healed in her. I remember that episode well as a child, aware so much of all the suffering around me and wanting to make it all go away...and I realize I am still that little girl. Forty years later, I see the pain in front of me and I want to take it away from them, so they will be alright.
Yet I was given wise words from a Chaplain at Children's Hospital ten years ago: Cindy, remember, their suffering is their gift from God. You have no right to take it away from them. It belongs to them. Be present with them, hold their hands, pray with them, but do not try to steal what is rightfully theirs.
But they are living in an illusion, I tell God. How do I help them go from illusion to prayer? Can I help them see their own truth? How can I help them when I cannot see my own truth, when I am unwilling to look at my own wounds?
And God says, "Ah, Cindy, now you are finally praying the prayer you need to pray!"
"What?" I angrily respond to Him.
"You have found your truth."
"I have found no truth, I have found only questions, only pain."
"And there is your gift. Be it. Live it. See it."
"Go to hell."
"Oh, Cindy, where do you think you are right now?"
"But I want to fix it."
"That's not your job."
"Then use me to fix it."
"Perhaps, but right now, let it go."
"What do you mean?"
"You are not in charge. I am. Let it go."
Maybe I really don't talk to God. Maybe this is all illusion. Maybe I just need to follow the rules and give up on this love affair I cherish so much. Maybe. But not today.
I need Him too much. I love Him too much. If it's wrong, when the time is right, He'll tell me. Until then, I continue on this bizarre journey...if I am the lemming you are to avoid, so be it...but risk loving Him with all that you have. Risk telling Him your truth. It's the only way to find out if it is the truth, you know. Name it. Then learn. And always, always love.
Love, Cindy
These are not new themes for me. C.S. Lewis says, in Shadowlands, that his prayer does not change God, it changes him. And that, without question, is a certain thing. Prayer changes us.
I am in absolute physical pain when I do not take the time, or have the time, to pray. I hate how I feel, I hate who I become...I am lost and afraid and everything everyone says around me seems distant and foreign and confusing. As soon as I enter prayer, I don't really need to understand anything. I simply need to be...to be present with my Creator. And all my worries seem so trivial and empty...but as soon as I 'return' from prayer, I get lost again. So the only solution is to pray unceasingly. To be in a state of continual awareness of the presence of God. That's how to make it work. Love without ceasing. Pray without ceasing. And it is not easy.
I have in my mind the wheelchair rolling away from me, the person in it choosing to not look at me. I was allowed to bring communion in the morning. My hands shook with fear...in this strange place, where man's law is carried out, knowing that things would probably be grim in a few hours...and wondering how God might use me to help. My usual 'calming presence' that the nurses often speak of was gone from me this particular morning. I looked around and thought, who in this room has not sinned, which of us is clean? And then, that here, those things are not the dominant force. Other things must happen. There will be a pound of flesh given. But that can't erase the past.
I heard people talking about their pain. Their understanding of a life changing event. Everyone had a story. Each side told their story with the intent of persuasion, to convince someone else that their story was the right story. I didn't want to think about that. I just thought about the flesh in the room. All of it. The blood and bones and lungs and hearts of all the people who were hurting. They needed some kind of salve for their wounds. They needed to be comforted with justice.
But what is justice? We can't ever go back to the Garden. Not in this life anyway. We know. We have a consciousness that remembers what we had, what we lost, and what we desire...and in human form, it is all so flawed, so temporal, so hungry.
I hurt so bad inside because I think I know what is right, that justice has been served somehow, but I still hurt...because I see all the pain around me...and healthy or not, I receive that pain to a degree, wishing I could be that Empath from a 1960s Star Trek episode, a woman, who took on the work of Jesus Christ on the cross, dare I say...she took on the suffering of those in front of her, literally, into her body, healed the one she was with, and then the wounds were healed in her. I remember that episode well as a child, aware so much of all the suffering around me and wanting to make it all go away...and I realize I am still that little girl. Forty years later, I see the pain in front of me and I want to take it away from them, so they will be alright.
Yet I was given wise words from a Chaplain at Children's Hospital ten years ago: Cindy, remember, their suffering is their gift from God. You have no right to take it away from them. It belongs to them. Be present with them, hold their hands, pray with them, but do not try to steal what is rightfully theirs.
But they are living in an illusion, I tell God. How do I help them go from illusion to prayer? Can I help them see their own truth? How can I help them when I cannot see my own truth, when I am unwilling to look at my own wounds?
And God says, "Ah, Cindy, now you are finally praying the prayer you need to pray!"
"What?" I angrily respond to Him.
"You have found your truth."
"I have found no truth, I have found only questions, only pain."
"And there is your gift. Be it. Live it. See it."
"Go to hell."
"Oh, Cindy, where do you think you are right now?"
"But I want to fix it."
"That's not your job."
"Then use me to fix it."
"Perhaps, but right now, let it go."
"What do you mean?"
"You are not in charge. I am. Let it go."
Maybe I really don't talk to God. Maybe this is all illusion. Maybe I just need to follow the rules and give up on this love affair I cherish so much. Maybe. But not today.
I need Him too much. I love Him too much. If it's wrong, when the time is right, He'll tell me. Until then, I continue on this bizarre journey...if I am the lemming you are to avoid, so be it...but risk loving Him with all that you have. Risk telling Him your truth. It's the only way to find out if it is the truth, you know. Name it. Then learn. And always, always love.
Love, Cindy
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
The Hard Way
I've been deleting all of the non-published entries of the last month and storing them away for future reference if I ever get a clear picture of what happened in the last month, why it happened and maybe later, I'll understand what it is I am truly called to be...that is, if there really is a name for it. But this entry was a draft of something I put together just before the Dark Night arrived. It's kind of nice. A bit refreshing over the Jacobian wrestling with God that I have been doing lately.
Last night, when I went out walking under the moon, I realized I was experiencing a bit of double vision. I called my nurse-friend and she said I was probably dehydrated. This morning, the problem seemed pretty much gone.
From sometime around July 24th:
A year ago, I went on my first ACTS Retreat: July 16th- 19th. I am still kind of numb when I try to get my head around everything that has happened in the last year, actually two years. How can I even begin to explain when I am continually sitting in the midst of His Grace? How can I write about redemption while I am standing on holy ground? How can I tell you that, after 53 years of living, I understand what love is, what it means, what we are supposed to do with it, and that life really is worth living...even when so very much of it is about pain and letting go.
Sounds a bit bonkers.
I think back on the only week I had with my real mother, what that must have felt like, and what it was like to lose that so quickly. Then to spend the rest of my life looking for that love and at age 52, really finding it again. I write 52, because the Mayans believe that life cycles are 52 years long. I heard that on a bus on the way to Chichen Itza. Since I was going to be 52 a couple of months later, I decided that I would die on that day and that my new life would begin. A real tabular rasa. And it did.
It was time to throw out the old ways and try something new. I'm not talking about mid-life crisis here, although some people will probably be more comfortable dismissing my dramatic ascent to Mount Carmel in that manner. Go ahead. Tell yourself what you need to so that you can feel safe. Nothing about what I am doing is safe anymore.
I am talking about radical love. Love of God, self and neighbor. In ways I have never imagined. All the fantasies I thought I knew I wanted have been blown out of the water by the real thing.
He really loves us. And He really wants us to love one another.
Things are moving through my life so quickly these days. Or it feels that way. Sometimes I feel like I am on roller blades coasting down a rocky slope that appears to lead to a cliff from which I can see no real ground. Part of me is thrilled with the ride, another part is thinking about all those rocks, which seem to be there in my way, but are not stopping me from reaching the edge of the cliff. The cliff looks clear and beautiful and I can see clouds, but I cannot see any ground...does it lead to death or heaven...or both? Will I somehow sprout wings or will the Hand of God reach out and carry me to His Home?
Lots of metaphors to describe what seems to be happening now. Step by step, bit by bit, people are telling me their stories. They are telling me their truths. And they cannot seem to help themselves. I am watching, I am present, I am a witness to the greatest healings of all times. I am awake to the past, the present and the future.
What began for me as a grin on my face during a staff meeting in 1997, after my first overt union with God, has somehow blossomed into an unceasing awareness of His Presence in every single activity of my life. It is so perfect and wonderful that I want everyone I know to know it also.
With You in me and me in You and Us in them...am I making any sense at all?
We are so much more than flesh and blood. We are covenant people.
My son and I began a conversation this morning. I did not raise him Catholic, but we were discussing marriage. He talked about marriage as a covenantal relationship with your spouse and God. I just smiled at him. Of course, I said. Catholics believe that marriage is a sacrament. It is a means of grace, not to be entered into lightly. It is a covenant.
Protestants do not view marriage as a sacrament. For them (or some of them, I stress SOME) it is a legal contract between two people who decide to form a business in which children and other products of that business are protected by law. So it is easier to undo. It is easier to disrespect...I feel strange about writing it that way, but I think it is correct. Divorce is acceptable because one party can list a set of reasons why the contract becomes mo longer profitable and thus can be dissolved with dishonor. It is entered into with a desired blessing from God, but it is not sacramental in nature.
Bobby was impressed. I took the Catechism and put it on the coffee table. You want to know how the Catholic Church understands marriage, it is in there. He holds his very worn Bible. He quotes I Peter,I think. And I am stunned...I am aware that much more is happening than a Sunday morning conversation here.
And then, a few days later, all hell broke loose. The light is returning to me in slow movements. I'm not wanting to trust much of anything right now. I find it interesting to look at this entry, and feel again that I was very close to something very good...and then to have it snatched suddenly away. And by a "man of the cloth," at that.
On my first ACTS retreat, I received the message "Count the Cost." I thought, what in the world does that mean? And then I remembered that when I told Keith I wanted to become a Methodist minister, he said to me, "count the cost." And he wasn't speaking of money. Knowledge and truth always have a price. Telling the truth has a price, just as much as lying. The cost, the sacrifice I planned to make...is so small when compared to the sacrifice He made for me. So very small. On the next ACTS retreat, I received the message "Betrayal." I was told I would go into the garden with Jesus and I would be betrayed.
Jesus had more than one Dark Night of the Soul, but even in the midst of it, he stayed faithful to His purpose. He fasted '40 days' in the desert and THEN the devil came to Him to tempt Him. The devil is smart enough to wait until we are tired and hungry to whisper in our ear. He knows where the cracks are. And is timing is impeccable.
My dark night seems to have a loud voice that cries out to be heard. I have felt a bit betrayed by some people, but when I think about it, they are just being who they are. Not a lot of right and wrong in the scenarios, just a kind of loneliness that aches the heart a bit too much. But while I have spent time grieving that I will never be priest (although I have been given several options in the last couple of weeks) and that I might never be a nun (that one hurts a bit more right now), I can never doubt that God loves me, even if my journey has been less than orthodox.
I am convinced that what has occurred is real and the next time a "man of the cloth" questions the validity of my spiritual experience, I have to remember that he is first a man, a human. He might be tired or hungry or just have to go to the bathroom. Or maybe I rang a bell in him that he thought had been silenced. What I need to hang on to is that I have made a promise to God, to let Him have all of my life. Not just the pretty parts, and not just when it is convenient. I made a promise that encompasses all of who I am, who I was and who I will be. No human being has the right to sever that covenant. He/she can be a part of it,perhaps, but what I have promised cannot and will not be taken away.
It's August. It's hot. Most of us are not getting enough water and are dehydrated. When our brains don't get enough water, we can't think clearly. When we are in real pain, we will agree to almost anything to make the pain go away. Lately, I've been with people who are suffering terrible and frightening trials right now. Makes my whining seem like...whining. When it comes to pain, I don't really think we can heal ourselves, or at least we cannot heal our hearts. We need someone else to help. Shutting people out when we hurt is the first wrong thing we do. Love happens when "two or more are gathered in His Name," and love heals everything.
I think that's part of what the passage in Hebrews is speaking about. People were suffering and dying for God. Things looked bleak. We are supposed to lean on one another, and remember what we hold in our hands...the tears of our friends...
From Hebrews 10:
Remember the days past when, after you had been enlightened, you endured a great contest of suffering. At times you were publicly exposed to abuse and affliction; at other times you associated yourselves with those so treated. You even joined in the sufferings of those in prison and joyfully accepted the confiscation of your property, knowing that you had a better and lasting possession.
Therefore, do not throw away your confidence; it will have great recompense. You need endurance to do the will of God and receive what he has promised. "For, after just a brief moment, he who is to come shall come; he shall not delay. But my just one shall live by faith, and if he draws back I take no pleasure in him." We are not among those who draw back and perish, but among those who have faith and will possess life.
Drink water. Love one another. Trust God. He knows everything you need and will give it to you. I promise.
Hang on to what you know is real. Do not trade is away for something less. What you have is perfect. Cherish it.
Love, Cindy
Last night, when I went out walking under the moon, I realized I was experiencing a bit of double vision. I called my nurse-friend and she said I was probably dehydrated. This morning, the problem seemed pretty much gone.
From sometime around July 24th:
A year ago, I went on my first ACTS Retreat: July 16th- 19th. I am still kind of numb when I try to get my head around everything that has happened in the last year, actually two years. How can I even begin to explain when I am continually sitting in the midst of His Grace? How can I write about redemption while I am standing on holy ground? How can I tell you that, after 53 years of living, I understand what love is, what it means, what we are supposed to do with it, and that life really is worth living...even when so very much of it is about pain and letting go.
Sounds a bit bonkers.
I think back on the only week I had with my real mother, what that must have felt like, and what it was like to lose that so quickly. Then to spend the rest of my life looking for that love and at age 52, really finding it again. I write 52, because the Mayans believe that life cycles are 52 years long. I heard that on a bus on the way to Chichen Itza. Since I was going to be 52 a couple of months later, I decided that I would die on that day and that my new life would begin. A real tabular rasa. And it did.
It was time to throw out the old ways and try something new. I'm not talking about mid-life crisis here, although some people will probably be more comfortable dismissing my dramatic ascent to Mount Carmel in that manner. Go ahead. Tell yourself what you need to so that you can feel safe. Nothing about what I am doing is safe anymore.
I am talking about radical love. Love of God, self and neighbor. In ways I have never imagined. All the fantasies I thought I knew I wanted have been blown out of the water by the real thing.
He really loves us. And He really wants us to love one another.
Things are moving through my life so quickly these days. Or it feels that way. Sometimes I feel like I am on roller blades coasting down a rocky slope that appears to lead to a cliff from which I can see no real ground. Part of me is thrilled with the ride, another part is thinking about all those rocks, which seem to be there in my way, but are not stopping me from reaching the edge of the cliff. The cliff looks clear and beautiful and I can see clouds, but I cannot see any ground...does it lead to death or heaven...or both? Will I somehow sprout wings or will the Hand of God reach out and carry me to His Home?
Lots of metaphors to describe what seems to be happening now. Step by step, bit by bit, people are telling me their stories. They are telling me their truths. And they cannot seem to help themselves. I am watching, I am present, I am a witness to the greatest healings of all times. I am awake to the past, the present and the future.
What began for me as a grin on my face during a staff meeting in 1997, after my first overt union with God, has somehow blossomed into an unceasing awareness of His Presence in every single activity of my life. It is so perfect and wonderful that I want everyone I know to know it also.
With You in me and me in You and Us in them...am I making any sense at all?
We are so much more than flesh and blood. We are covenant people.
My son and I began a conversation this morning. I did not raise him Catholic, but we were discussing marriage. He talked about marriage as a covenantal relationship with your spouse and God. I just smiled at him. Of course, I said. Catholics believe that marriage is a sacrament. It is a means of grace, not to be entered into lightly. It is a covenant.
Protestants do not view marriage as a sacrament. For them (or some of them, I stress SOME) it is a legal contract between two people who decide to form a business in which children and other products of that business are protected by law. So it is easier to undo. It is easier to disrespect...I feel strange about writing it that way, but I think it is correct. Divorce is acceptable because one party can list a set of reasons why the contract becomes mo longer profitable and thus can be dissolved with dishonor. It is entered into with a desired blessing from God, but it is not sacramental in nature.
Bobby was impressed. I took the Catechism and put it on the coffee table. You want to know how the Catholic Church understands marriage, it is in there. He holds his very worn Bible. He quotes I Peter,I think. And I am stunned...I am aware that much more is happening than a Sunday morning conversation here.
And then, a few days later, all hell broke loose. The light is returning to me in slow movements. I'm not wanting to trust much of anything right now. I find it interesting to look at this entry, and feel again that I was very close to something very good...and then to have it snatched suddenly away. And by a "man of the cloth," at that.
On my first ACTS retreat, I received the message "Count the Cost." I thought, what in the world does that mean? And then I remembered that when I told Keith I wanted to become a Methodist minister, he said to me, "count the cost." And he wasn't speaking of money. Knowledge and truth always have a price. Telling the truth has a price, just as much as lying. The cost, the sacrifice I planned to make...is so small when compared to the sacrifice He made for me. So very small. On the next ACTS retreat, I received the message "Betrayal." I was told I would go into the garden with Jesus and I would be betrayed.
Jesus had more than one Dark Night of the Soul, but even in the midst of it, he stayed faithful to His purpose. He fasted '40 days' in the desert and THEN the devil came to Him to tempt Him. The devil is smart enough to wait until we are tired and hungry to whisper in our ear. He knows where the cracks are. And is timing is impeccable.
My dark night seems to have a loud voice that cries out to be heard. I have felt a bit betrayed by some people, but when I think about it, they are just being who they are. Not a lot of right and wrong in the scenarios, just a kind of loneliness that aches the heart a bit too much. But while I have spent time grieving that I will never be priest (although I have been given several options in the last couple of weeks) and that I might never be a nun (that one hurts a bit more right now), I can never doubt that God loves me, even if my journey has been less than orthodox.
I am convinced that what has occurred is real and the next time a "man of the cloth" questions the validity of my spiritual experience, I have to remember that he is first a man, a human. He might be tired or hungry or just have to go to the bathroom. Or maybe I rang a bell in him that he thought had been silenced. What I need to hang on to is that I have made a promise to God, to let Him have all of my life. Not just the pretty parts, and not just when it is convenient. I made a promise that encompasses all of who I am, who I was and who I will be. No human being has the right to sever that covenant. He/she can be a part of it,perhaps, but what I have promised cannot and will not be taken away.
It's August. It's hot. Most of us are not getting enough water and are dehydrated. When our brains don't get enough water, we can't think clearly. When we are in real pain, we will agree to almost anything to make the pain go away. Lately, I've been with people who are suffering terrible and frightening trials right now. Makes my whining seem like...whining. When it comes to pain, I don't really think we can heal ourselves, or at least we cannot heal our hearts. We need someone else to help. Shutting people out when we hurt is the first wrong thing we do. Love happens when "two or more are gathered in His Name," and love heals everything.
I think that's part of what the passage in Hebrews is speaking about. People were suffering and dying for God. Things looked bleak. We are supposed to lean on one another, and remember what we hold in our hands...the tears of our friends...
From Hebrews 10:
Remember the days past when, after you had been enlightened, you endured a great contest of suffering. At times you were publicly exposed to abuse and affliction; at other times you associated yourselves with those so treated. You even joined in the sufferings of those in prison and joyfully accepted the confiscation of your property, knowing that you had a better and lasting possession.
Therefore, do not throw away your confidence; it will have great recompense. You need endurance to do the will of God and receive what he has promised. "For, after just a brief moment, he who is to come shall come; he shall not delay. But my just one shall live by faith, and if he draws back I take no pleasure in him." We are not among those who draw back and perish, but among those who have faith and will possess life.
Drink water. Love one another. Trust God. He knows everything you need and will give it to you. I promise.
Hang on to what you know is real. Do not trade is away for something less. What you have is perfect. Cherish it.
Love, Cindy
Monday, August 23, 2010
The Test2
I failed the test. Good thing it won't be the last one.
I have failed so many math tests, taken Calculus II about three times. But my first degree is in mathematics. Riemann Sums is pure evil! I was actually so angry about it that I took my silver Thomas' Calculus book and ripped out the 30 or so pages on the topic: Infinite rectangles added together to determine the area under a curve...is pure insanity! An idea impossible to grasp...nearly as hard as an inductive proof in topology...back then, my head could not handle the infinite. But oh, how I loved to show off my knowledge of mathematical symbols and shorthand to write out theorems and axioms that I had memorized...I was such a math snob!
Anyone read Landau?:
"This course is dedicated to the bifurcation diagrams in the framework of the Ginzberg-Landau theory. The aim is to characterize the properties of solutions according to the different free parameters: existence of non-trival solutions, number of solutions, stability and symmetry..."
Hey, I was married to a man who talked like this ALL the TIME! And boy did I feel cool when I understood him...and almost cool when I created an illusion that I understood what he was talking about...
But even being able to pretend that I knew what was going on took work. Being way too smart for my britches in high school and being a classic under-achiever, I never had to work to make A's, and besides, boys were not interested in smart girls. I had to dumb myself down to get dates. It was the way of the world.
Some part of me still wanted to learn. Especially at TAMU, where I fell absolutely in love with the library there. Drowning in books on every subject imaginable made me a whole lot more excited than the cute guy walking in the quad in tight jeans...Ah, I was a nerd and didn't know it...but actually having to WORK for knowledge was a totally new and unexplored concept!
Once I realized that I needed to do the homework, read the books and show up to class, I started to make nothing but A's. But it took me a long time and a whole lot of pain to learn that lesson. To tell you that I tend to do things the hard way shouldn't be a surprise to anyone. Some part of me believes that the most beautiful artwork is often the result of multiple failures. But then, of course I would think that way.
How many wrong notes did it take for me to learn the Ave Maria? Too many to count!
Heavens, consider the art of singing. I remember the first time I decided to sing the Alleluia before the gospel during daily Mass. It was quite awful. In fact, it was so awful that one woman came up to me after Mass and gently asked me to not sing again. I sheepishly went up to the priest and said I had been asked to not sing anymore. He told me, with a small smile, that I should keep trying. And you know what, I learned how to not be afraid and then, to accept the wrong notes and once I relaxed, many right notes came along and I learned to not worry about all the wrong ones.
How can we learn anything if not by a long series of wrong notes? That's a big deal for me. I grew up Catholic. The nuns stressed neatness and perfection. Many rewards for the 'perfect kids.' Lots of homework for the rest of us. I grew up with parents who considered the grade 97 to be unimpressive. My ex-father-in-law told me once, after I told him how I bowled a 197, "Come back and tell me when you bowl 200." There was the idea that the house had to be spotless, clothes neat and ironed, teeth straight, weight...ah, well...
Set high expectations and the student will rise to the occasion. I suppose that works most of the time. But sometimes, it really tears a person down. Expecting the perfect from ourselves is a guarantee for failure. Doing the best we can is good, providing that we accept the best we can and not dwell too much or perhaps not at all, on how we could have done better.
Pride is the most horrible sin of all...at least it is for me because it pops up everywhere in my life. Everything I have done that has turned out badly I can trace back to the sin of pride.
I want to be right. I want to be good. I want to be the best. I want to be the favorite. But that animal pride is not even satisfied with those accomplishments if you manage to get them. There is always a next level. There is never satisfaction. It is a monster that keeps eating up everything in sight and never stops being hungry.
It is like a "tribble" (cf. Star Trek) only it isn't funny or cute.
Perfection is found only in God. The rest of us have to settle for 'close.' But exactly where in any of our lifestyles do we cut ourselves a break and learn to be happy with the less than perfect of anything?
Who wants a bumper sticker that says, "Happy with with what I have" on it? We are supposed to "strive for the narrow gate," and yet we are told at the same time that only by God's grace alone will we enter the Kingdom of Heaven.
We are told that we are supposed to forgive "seventy times seven" and we are told that there will be a time when the door will close and He will say to us "I don't know you."
So exactly which answer is right? Which statement is true?
And the answer, after a math degree and a theology degree, I can say is "yes."
Aquinas and Aristotle are only partly right here. Maybe Plato is more right, but I'm not going to say for sure. Linear thinking will only lead us into a two-dimensional heaven. That means flat to those of you who don't want to think about it. It means a piece of paper, only even a piece of paper has depth to it. Heaven is infinite. Heaven is perfect. Heaven is pure. Nothing about us humans can even begin to grasp what that might be like. And defining God? Well, I think He kind of smiles at our "crayon pictures" like a proud father and puts it on the fridge, knowing that we did our best.
And that of course is the answer. Doing out best. That doesn't mean over-doing or under-doing. It doesn't come with a scale, a grade, a gold star. It isn't being compared to the kid sitting next to us. There isn't a curve and there are no A's.
But loving one another matters. Love is not:
I Corinthians 13:
If I speak in human and angelic tongues 2 but do not have love, I am a resounding gong or a clashing cymbal. And if I have the gift of prophecy and comprehend all mysteries and all knowledge; if I have all faith so as to move mountains but do not have love, I am nothing.If I give away everything I own, and if I hand my body over so that I may boast but do not have love, I gain nothing. Love is patient, love is kind. It is not jealous, (love) is not pompous, it is not inflated,it is not rude, it does not seek its own interests, it is not quick-tempered, it does not brood over injury,it does not rejoice over wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth.It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails. If there are prophecies, they will be brought to nothing; if tongues, they will cease; if knowledge, it will be brought to nothing. For we know partially and we prophesy partially,but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. When I was a child, I used to talk as a child, think as a child, reason as a child; when I became a man, I put aside childish things. At present we see indistinctly, as in a mirror, but then face to face. At present I know partially; then I shall know fully, as I am fully known. So faith, hope, love remain, these three; but the greatest of these is love.
From the movie "Contact:"
"Did you love your your father?"
"Of course I loved my father."
"Prove it."
Take the test. Fail the test. Take it again.
Love, Cindy
I have failed so many math tests, taken Calculus II about three times. But my first degree is in mathematics. Riemann Sums is pure evil! I was actually so angry about it that I took my silver Thomas' Calculus book and ripped out the 30 or so pages on the topic: Infinite rectangles added together to determine the area under a curve...is pure insanity! An idea impossible to grasp...nearly as hard as an inductive proof in topology...back then, my head could not handle the infinite. But oh, how I loved to show off my knowledge of mathematical symbols and shorthand to write out theorems and axioms that I had memorized...I was such a math snob!
Anyone read Landau?:
"This course is dedicated to the bifurcation diagrams in the framework of the Ginzberg-Landau theory. The aim is to characterize the properties of solutions according to the different free parameters: existence of non-trival solutions, number of solutions, stability and symmetry..."
Hey, I was married to a man who talked like this ALL the TIME! And boy did I feel cool when I understood him...and almost cool when I created an illusion that I understood what he was talking about...
But even being able to pretend that I knew what was going on took work. Being way too smart for my britches in high school and being a classic under-achiever, I never had to work to make A's, and besides, boys were not interested in smart girls. I had to dumb myself down to get dates. It was the way of the world.
Some part of me still wanted to learn. Especially at TAMU, where I fell absolutely in love with the library there. Drowning in books on every subject imaginable made me a whole lot more excited than the cute guy walking in the quad in tight jeans...Ah, I was a nerd and didn't know it...but actually having to WORK for knowledge was a totally new and unexplored concept!
Once I realized that I needed to do the homework, read the books and show up to class, I started to make nothing but A's. But it took me a long time and a whole lot of pain to learn that lesson. To tell you that I tend to do things the hard way shouldn't be a surprise to anyone. Some part of me believes that the most beautiful artwork is often the result of multiple failures. But then, of course I would think that way.
How many wrong notes did it take for me to learn the Ave Maria? Too many to count!
Heavens, consider the art of singing. I remember the first time I decided to sing the Alleluia before the gospel during daily Mass. It was quite awful. In fact, it was so awful that one woman came up to me after Mass and gently asked me to not sing again. I sheepishly went up to the priest and said I had been asked to not sing anymore. He told me, with a small smile, that I should keep trying. And you know what, I learned how to not be afraid and then, to accept the wrong notes and once I relaxed, many right notes came along and I learned to not worry about all the wrong ones.
How can we learn anything if not by a long series of wrong notes? That's a big deal for me. I grew up Catholic. The nuns stressed neatness and perfection. Many rewards for the 'perfect kids.' Lots of homework for the rest of us. I grew up with parents who considered the grade 97 to be unimpressive. My ex-father-in-law told me once, after I told him how I bowled a 197, "Come back and tell me when you bowl 200." There was the idea that the house had to be spotless, clothes neat and ironed, teeth straight, weight...ah, well...
Set high expectations and the student will rise to the occasion. I suppose that works most of the time. But sometimes, it really tears a person down. Expecting the perfect from ourselves is a guarantee for failure. Doing the best we can is good, providing that we accept the best we can and not dwell too much or perhaps not at all, on how we could have done better.
Pride is the most horrible sin of all...at least it is for me because it pops up everywhere in my life. Everything I have done that has turned out badly I can trace back to the sin of pride.
I want to be right. I want to be good. I want to be the best. I want to be the favorite. But that animal pride is not even satisfied with those accomplishments if you manage to get them. There is always a next level. There is never satisfaction. It is a monster that keeps eating up everything in sight and never stops being hungry.
It is like a "tribble" (cf. Star Trek) only it isn't funny or cute.
Perfection is found only in God. The rest of us have to settle for 'close.' But exactly where in any of our lifestyles do we cut ourselves a break and learn to be happy with the less than perfect of anything?
Who wants a bumper sticker that says, "Happy with with what I have" on it? We are supposed to "strive for the narrow gate," and yet we are told at the same time that only by God's grace alone will we enter the Kingdom of Heaven.
We are told that we are supposed to forgive "seventy times seven" and we are told that there will be a time when the door will close and He will say to us "I don't know you."
So exactly which answer is right? Which statement is true?
And the answer, after a math degree and a theology degree, I can say is "yes."
Aquinas and Aristotle are only partly right here. Maybe Plato is more right, but I'm not going to say for sure. Linear thinking will only lead us into a two-dimensional heaven. That means flat to those of you who don't want to think about it. It means a piece of paper, only even a piece of paper has depth to it. Heaven is infinite. Heaven is perfect. Heaven is pure. Nothing about us humans can even begin to grasp what that might be like. And defining God? Well, I think He kind of smiles at our "crayon pictures" like a proud father and puts it on the fridge, knowing that we did our best.
And that of course is the answer. Doing out best. That doesn't mean over-doing or under-doing. It doesn't come with a scale, a grade, a gold star. It isn't being compared to the kid sitting next to us. There isn't a curve and there are no A's.
But loving one another matters. Love is not:
I Corinthians 13:
If I speak in human and angelic tongues 2 but do not have love, I am a resounding gong or a clashing cymbal. And if I have the gift of prophecy and comprehend all mysteries and all knowledge; if I have all faith so as to move mountains but do not have love, I am nothing.If I give away everything I own, and if I hand my body over so that I may boast but do not have love, I gain nothing. Love is patient, love is kind. It is not jealous, (love) is not pompous, it is not inflated,it is not rude, it does not seek its own interests, it is not quick-tempered, it does not brood over injury,it does not rejoice over wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth.It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails. If there are prophecies, they will be brought to nothing; if tongues, they will cease; if knowledge, it will be brought to nothing. For we know partially and we prophesy partially,but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. When I was a child, I used to talk as a child, think as a child, reason as a child; when I became a man, I put aside childish things. At present we see indistinctly, as in a mirror, but then face to face. At present I know partially; then I shall know fully, as I am fully known. So faith, hope, love remain, these three; but the greatest of these is love.
From the movie "Contact:"
"Did you love your your father?"
"Of course I loved my father."
"Prove it."
Take the test. Fail the test. Take it again.
Love, Cindy
Friday, August 20, 2010
Hope for the Hopeless
Finally bought the movie, "Henry Poole is Here." It is not particularly a good movie, and not particularly written or edited well, but it holds enough truth for me to watch over and over without tiring of its message. I had it on DVR when I still had cable in the house. I am glad to have it with me again.
The story is about a man, Henry Poole, who has been told he will die soon. He is a man who lived as a island, very successful, very rich and very alone. The death sentence draws him back to his childhood home, which he tries to buy and is unsuccessful. So he buys a house nearby it and puts inside it things he will need before he dies. A bed, a chair, a television, a plastic chair for out on the lawn. And lots of vodka and frozen pizza. The Hispanic Catholic neighbor, Esperanza, welcomes him with a plate of tamales. He is somewhat polite, takes the plate and shuts the door. The woman who lives on the other side of his house has a child, about 8 years old, who has been so traumatized that she does not speak. She carries around a tape recorder and tapes people's conversations and listens to them in the backyard.
The Hispanic woman does not stop hanging around. We learn that the man who lived there before was her "boyfriend," the first and only love of her life. He died in the house. She can't help but hang around. She is seeking closure. She looks at a stain on the stucco wall in the backyard of the house and sees the face of Christ. She calls Mr. Poole out, "Can you not see Him?" she asks. He says no. "Don't you believe in God, Mr. Poole?" and he asks her to leave. She is relentless, she brings in a priest. He is a good priest and does not "take sides" in the discussion. Mr. Poole makes the comment, "It doesn't matter. I'm not going to live here very long." And the priest follows up. "What do you mean by that?" Mr. Poole tell him to leave him alone.
Esperanza then watches the house and when Mr. Poole leaves to buy more alcohol...at the grocery store from a young woman with bottle thick glasses named Patience...brings in her friends and they begin to venerate the stain. Mr Poole comes home. They run off, but leaving their candles and flowers, which Mr. Poole returns to them with the admonition to stay out of his yard. He complains about the 'painting' of red on the stain...showing them a stick with the red paint on it.
"That's His blood, Mr Poole. His Holy Blood." And Mr Poole throws the stick on the ground and tells them they are crazy.
I am retelling the story poorly. Just watch it.
Then the miracles begin to occur. The little girl touches the picture and she starts to talk again. Patience comes from the grocery store and her sight is restored. Esperanza's unceasing presence eventually moves Mr. Poole to allow for one day only, the people of the church to come and touch the face of God. Of course, it gets out of hand and he comes out of the house with a sledge hammer and beats the wall down, destroying the picture...the side of the house falls on him and he ends up in the hospital.
He wakes to Esperanza's face. "Why are you here?" he asks. "I've been waiting for you," she says, "Why didn't you tell us you were sick?"
And of course, his illness had gone. He became so sad then. "I destroyed it. It is gone now." And she tells him, "The miracle was only for awhile. It did what it needed to do. It is okay that it is gone."
And I just love this movie.
It is about faith and real love, about woundedness. It is about how the wounded heal each other, poorly yet enough, through faith in God. It is what we choose to believe is real. It is about hiding out and giving up and still God's grace finds a way. And it is about the temporariness of miracles.
They come to us for as long as they are needed. And then they go away. They didn't have to go away, but if they do...well, then what they brought was enough. We are transformed. We are not who we once were.
Love, Cindy
The story is about a man, Henry Poole, who has been told he will die soon. He is a man who lived as a island, very successful, very rich and very alone. The death sentence draws him back to his childhood home, which he tries to buy and is unsuccessful. So he buys a house nearby it and puts inside it things he will need before he dies. A bed, a chair, a television, a plastic chair for out on the lawn. And lots of vodka and frozen pizza. The Hispanic Catholic neighbor, Esperanza, welcomes him with a plate of tamales. He is somewhat polite, takes the plate and shuts the door. The woman who lives on the other side of his house has a child, about 8 years old, who has been so traumatized that she does not speak. She carries around a tape recorder and tapes people's conversations and listens to them in the backyard.
The Hispanic woman does not stop hanging around. We learn that the man who lived there before was her "boyfriend," the first and only love of her life. He died in the house. She can't help but hang around. She is seeking closure. She looks at a stain on the stucco wall in the backyard of the house and sees the face of Christ. She calls Mr. Poole out, "Can you not see Him?" she asks. He says no. "Don't you believe in God, Mr. Poole?" and he asks her to leave. She is relentless, she brings in a priest. He is a good priest and does not "take sides" in the discussion. Mr. Poole makes the comment, "It doesn't matter. I'm not going to live here very long." And the priest follows up. "What do you mean by that?" Mr. Poole tell him to leave him alone.
Esperanza then watches the house and when Mr. Poole leaves to buy more alcohol...at the grocery store from a young woman with bottle thick glasses named Patience...brings in her friends and they begin to venerate the stain. Mr Poole comes home. They run off, but leaving their candles and flowers, which Mr. Poole returns to them with the admonition to stay out of his yard. He complains about the 'painting' of red on the stain...showing them a stick with the red paint on it.
"That's His blood, Mr Poole. His Holy Blood." And Mr Poole throws the stick on the ground and tells them they are crazy.
I am retelling the story poorly. Just watch it.
Then the miracles begin to occur. The little girl touches the picture and she starts to talk again. Patience comes from the grocery store and her sight is restored. Esperanza's unceasing presence eventually moves Mr. Poole to allow for one day only, the people of the church to come and touch the face of God. Of course, it gets out of hand and he comes out of the house with a sledge hammer and beats the wall down, destroying the picture...the side of the house falls on him and he ends up in the hospital.
He wakes to Esperanza's face. "Why are you here?" he asks. "I've been waiting for you," she says, "Why didn't you tell us you were sick?"
And of course, his illness had gone. He became so sad then. "I destroyed it. It is gone now." And she tells him, "The miracle was only for awhile. It did what it needed to do. It is okay that it is gone."
And I just love this movie.
It is about faith and real love, about woundedness. It is about how the wounded heal each other, poorly yet enough, through faith in God. It is what we choose to believe is real. It is about hiding out and giving up and still God's grace finds a way. And it is about the temporariness of miracles.
They come to us for as long as they are needed. And then they go away. They didn't have to go away, but if they do...well, then what they brought was enough. We are transformed. We are not who we once were.
Love, Cindy
Thursday, August 19, 2010
Balance of Terror
Growing up as I did, nothing was safe or predictable. The only thing I could rely on was my church and it was there that I found sanity, if only for a few hours, in an insane world. I often wondered why God "allowed" such things to happen, but I realize very well now that generally any evil that enters our lives is a direct result of our own choices. And I think, perhaps, the evil that survives is really of our own creation, a consequence of the choices we make. I recall a Phil Donahue episode on racism and a three year old boy dressed in a KKK hooded white gown and how it turned my stomach. I recall the man I met at TAMU that I really thought I wanted to marry and he walked into my apt one morning and told me about how he had a flat tire and some nice n*gg*r helped him fix it. All my love for him seemed to disappear with that word. I met a man just a few years ago, seemed nice enough, even had a masters degree in theology and told me "we were destined for each other" and then took me out on his boat and proceeded to make fun of all the "poor slobs" on the lake in boats that were less impressive.
Many of our ways, and our sins are so deeply embedded in us we don't even know they are sins. They are the way we were raised, they are how we were conditioned to live. So it is very hard to know what is right and what is wrong sometimes.
In the mess of contradictions in which I was required to live, I went to church as often as I could. I celebrate the fact that I get the privilege to go to Mass everyday now. It is one of the greatest blessings I have received. But before that, I relied on Star Trek as my moral compass. I happened onto the show one night and was hooked.
During my last year in Catholic school, I would write on the chalkboard before our teacher arrived, "Star Trek tonight, 7:30 p.m. Channel 4" and the class would laugh. Even then, I was evangelizing. My best friend, Ellen, a Jew, would call me at the end of every show and we would discuss at length the theological and political aspects of what we had just seen. She was a genius and I was lucky enough to ride along for awhile.
I've learned enough to know I don't know much. I have also lived long enough to know that no one else has all the answers either. I'm struggling right now with my wonderful friends who are much better at following the rules than I am. Sometimes the wounds are so deep, trusting "authority" is impossible. Or at best, a very slow process. Such are the consequences of sin. It would be very hard for me to not love the people who are in prison or have committed heinous crimes. I know that they did not get there on their own. Someone trained them to think the way they do. Sin is everywhere. We are our brother's keeper and we are commanded to love everyone, not just the ones who agree with us.
So having people not able to hear me in my own struggles is difficult. Yet I am immediately reminded that I walked out of a Bible study last Saturday because there was a long drawn out discussion on a woman who murdered her children. Since I don't have 'television' I was not aware of the story, or all the opinions being floated out there. I thought the discussion of why she did it was fruitless. I don't care why she did it. The point, to me, is to love her now...to give her a way out of hell. And since I don't have the chance to speak to her personally, I didn't see any purpose for the discussion at all.
I don't see the purpose for talking about things so that we can feel superior or righteous or satisfied that we know what's right and someone else does not. That's why television bores me so much. All these vicarious feelings about something for which we cannot change. Platitudes are of no help to me. And rarely do they help others. "Just say no." Yeah, right. If it was that easy, no one would sin.
So quoting "what the Magisterium" says brings me absolutely no solace at all. My faith, for better or worse, is defined by my constant wrestling with God. Oh, it would be nice to just take comfort that the Church is thinking for me, trying to make my life easier...but I was born in strife and abandoned at a early age. Trusting authority is just not that easy and damn near impossible.
But now and then, God sends me a priest who understands that struggle. I met one this morning. A beautiful, retired priest, who knew "my priest," the one from my childhood that kept me from turning myself completely over to the dark side. One or two of those in our lives and it is just about enough to make it through this life in some light. I needed to see that light again today. Only a month ago, I was told pretty much that everything I believed was a lie. It is good to know that his word is not the final word, at least, for me and my struggle.
We have so many wounds, all of us, and we so very much want to be healed. These healings must occur in fear and trembling...for the patterns of force continue to haunt us. The Balance of Terror is always present. Our fear keeps us from loving one another. The risk is always before us, the risk to love and thus be wounded by that love. Fear is always ready and willing to stop us, to kill love and maintain the balance of terror that consumes us.
That's why Jesus' death on the cross was so necessary. We took His love and tried to kill it because we were afraid of it. We thought He was attempting to gain power over us, some kind of political victory, in which only a few people would benefit. Only the 'chosen race' would be blessed. He preached love and forgiveness...what an outrage and insult...to forgive people who have wronged us...when we are legally entitled to a blood-letting for our benefit...that pound of flesh that Shylock speaks of in Merchant of Venice. We must get what we deserve. We have earned it. We are right and the whole world needs to know we are right.
So we killed love. We put thorns on its head and nailed its hands and feet to a tree. And that scandal, that consequence of our own sin, finally horrifies us enough to say, "Enough!" Either we love now or we will all die in our sins, the righteous and the unrighteous alike...that's how it really works. It is scandalous to receive an infidel into our heart, but that is what is required for us to live eternally with God.
At the end of the Balance of Terror, Capt. Kirk offers the Klingon refuge, but the Klingon capt. refuses. He says, "I regret we had to meet this way. You and I are a kind, in a different reality I could have called you friend."
"Why must you die?"
"We are creatures of Duty Captain, we must live by it. Just one more duty to perform..."
Star Trek got away with a lot back in the '60s, when the world was in a nightmare state of change. It was fiction, Rodenberry placed it 200 years in the future, so that no one would think he was making a political statement about the current crises of the time. It was a place to speak of things no one else would discuss.
Excerpt from I John 4, but read the whole thing...aloud.
We have come to know and to believe in the love God has for us. God is love, and whoever remains in love remains in God and God in him. In this is love brought to perfection among us, that we have confidence on the day of judgment because as he is, so are we in this world.There is no fear in love, but perfect love drives out fear because fear has to do with punishment, and so one who fears is not yet perfect in love. We love because he first loved us. If anyone says, "I love God," but hates his brother, he is a liar; for whoever does not love a brother whom he has seen cannot love God 5 whom he has not seen.This is the commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother.
At the beginning of the episode, Kirk performs a marriage of a young couple. The show concludes with the new wife in the chapel, crying because her husband was killed in the battle. "Never makes any sense," he tells her, "You have to know that there was a reason."
Yes, there is a reason. We forgot to love.
I guess I'll stop here.
Love, Cindy
Many of our ways, and our sins are so deeply embedded in us we don't even know they are sins. They are the way we were raised, they are how we were conditioned to live. So it is very hard to know what is right and what is wrong sometimes.
In the mess of contradictions in which I was required to live, I went to church as often as I could. I celebrate the fact that I get the privilege to go to Mass everyday now. It is one of the greatest blessings I have received. But before that, I relied on Star Trek as my moral compass. I happened onto the show one night and was hooked.
During my last year in Catholic school, I would write on the chalkboard before our teacher arrived, "Star Trek tonight, 7:30 p.m. Channel 4" and the class would laugh. Even then, I was evangelizing. My best friend, Ellen, a Jew, would call me at the end of every show and we would discuss at length the theological and political aspects of what we had just seen. She was a genius and I was lucky enough to ride along for awhile.
I've learned enough to know I don't know much. I have also lived long enough to know that no one else has all the answers either. I'm struggling right now with my wonderful friends who are much better at following the rules than I am. Sometimes the wounds are so deep, trusting "authority" is impossible. Or at best, a very slow process. Such are the consequences of sin. It would be very hard for me to not love the people who are in prison or have committed heinous crimes. I know that they did not get there on their own. Someone trained them to think the way they do. Sin is everywhere. We are our brother's keeper and we are commanded to love everyone, not just the ones who agree with us.
So having people not able to hear me in my own struggles is difficult. Yet I am immediately reminded that I walked out of a Bible study last Saturday because there was a long drawn out discussion on a woman who murdered her children. Since I don't have 'television' I was not aware of the story, or all the opinions being floated out there. I thought the discussion of why she did it was fruitless. I don't care why she did it. The point, to me, is to love her now...to give her a way out of hell. And since I don't have the chance to speak to her personally, I didn't see any purpose for the discussion at all.
I don't see the purpose for talking about things so that we can feel superior or righteous or satisfied that we know what's right and someone else does not. That's why television bores me so much. All these vicarious feelings about something for which we cannot change. Platitudes are of no help to me. And rarely do they help others. "Just say no." Yeah, right. If it was that easy, no one would sin.
So quoting "what the Magisterium" says brings me absolutely no solace at all. My faith, for better or worse, is defined by my constant wrestling with God. Oh, it would be nice to just take comfort that the Church is thinking for me, trying to make my life easier...but I was born in strife and abandoned at a early age. Trusting authority is just not that easy and damn near impossible.
But now and then, God sends me a priest who understands that struggle. I met one this morning. A beautiful, retired priest, who knew "my priest," the one from my childhood that kept me from turning myself completely over to the dark side. One or two of those in our lives and it is just about enough to make it through this life in some light. I needed to see that light again today. Only a month ago, I was told pretty much that everything I believed was a lie. It is good to know that his word is not the final word, at least, for me and my struggle.
We have so many wounds, all of us, and we so very much want to be healed. These healings must occur in fear and trembling...for the patterns of force continue to haunt us. The Balance of Terror is always present. Our fear keeps us from loving one another. The risk is always before us, the risk to love and thus be wounded by that love. Fear is always ready and willing to stop us, to kill love and maintain the balance of terror that consumes us.
That's why Jesus' death on the cross was so necessary. We took His love and tried to kill it because we were afraid of it. We thought He was attempting to gain power over us, some kind of political victory, in which only a few people would benefit. Only the 'chosen race' would be blessed. He preached love and forgiveness...what an outrage and insult...to forgive people who have wronged us...when we are legally entitled to a blood-letting for our benefit...that pound of flesh that Shylock speaks of in Merchant of Venice. We must get what we deserve. We have earned it. We are right and the whole world needs to know we are right.
So we killed love. We put thorns on its head and nailed its hands and feet to a tree. And that scandal, that consequence of our own sin, finally horrifies us enough to say, "Enough!" Either we love now or we will all die in our sins, the righteous and the unrighteous alike...that's how it really works. It is scandalous to receive an infidel into our heart, but that is what is required for us to live eternally with God.
At the end of the Balance of Terror, Capt. Kirk offers the Klingon refuge, but the Klingon capt. refuses. He says, "I regret we had to meet this way. You and I are a kind, in a different reality I could have called you friend."
"Why must you die?"
"We are creatures of Duty Captain, we must live by it. Just one more duty to perform..."
Star Trek got away with a lot back in the '60s, when the world was in a nightmare state of change. It was fiction, Rodenberry placed it 200 years in the future, so that no one would think he was making a political statement about the current crises of the time. It was a place to speak of things no one else would discuss.
Excerpt from I John 4, but read the whole thing...aloud.
We have come to know and to believe in the love God has for us. God is love, and whoever remains in love remains in God and God in him. In this is love brought to perfection among us, that we have confidence on the day of judgment because as he is, so are we in this world.There is no fear in love, but perfect love drives out fear because fear has to do with punishment, and so one who fears is not yet perfect in love. We love because he first loved us. If anyone says, "I love God," but hates his brother, he is a liar; for whoever does not love a brother whom he has seen cannot love God 5 whom he has not seen.This is the commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother.
At the beginning of the episode, Kirk performs a marriage of a young couple. The show concludes with the new wife in the chapel, crying because her husband was killed in the battle. "Never makes any sense," he tells her, "You have to know that there was a reason."
Yes, there is a reason. We forgot to love.
I guess I'll stop here.
Love, Cindy
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
Being and Nothingness
I've written so much, very little of it would serve anyone any purpose right now. I take comfort in knowing most of the mystics suffered these periods, sometimes for years....and I pray mine will not be like theirs. Still the work gets done, and the people, they still believe in you even when you don't believe in yourself anymore. Friends tell me that I will soon be blessed with something wonderful, if I can withstand these challenging days. Body of Christ still seems to work, even when I think I am the weak link.
I enclose here an email sent to me by the lay Carmelites, worthy of your perusal and appropriate for me. Hope it brings you some solace.
"It was a deliberate choice, I chose, consciously and willingly, to abandon myself to God's will, to let go completely of every last reservation...Across that threshold I had been afraid to cross, things suddenly seemed so very simple. There was but a single vision, God, who was all in all; there was but one will that directed all things, God's will. I had only to see it, to discern it in every circumstance in which I found myself, and let myself be ruled by it. God is in all things, sustains all things, directs all things. To discern this in every situation and circumstance, to see his will in all things, was to accept each circumstance and situation and let oneself be borne along in perfect confidence and trust. Nothing could shake me, except the fear of losing sight of him. The future, hidden as it was, was hidden in his will and therefore acceptable to me no matter what it might bring. The past, with all its failures, was not forgotten; it remained to remind me of the weakness of human nature and the folly of putting any faith in self. But it no longer depressed me. I looked no longer to self to guide me, relied on it no longer in any way, so it could not again fail me. By renouncing, finally and completely, all control of my life and future destiny...I was freed thereby from anxiety and worry, from every tension, and could float serenely upon the tide of God's sustaining providence in perfect peace of soul."
--Father Walter J. Ciszek.
And because I am so very much Cindy, I'll include today's reading from Ezekiel:
The word of the Lord came to me:
Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel,
in these words prophesy to them to the shepherds:
Thus says the Lord GOD: Woe to the shepherds of Israel
who have been pasturing themselves!
Should not shepherds, rather, pasture sheep?
You have fed off their milk, worn their wool,
and slaughtered the fatlings,
but the sheep you have not pastured.
You did not strengthen the weak nor heal the sick
nor bind up the injured.
You did not bring back the strayed nor seek the lost,
but you lorded it over them harshly and brutally.
So they were scattered for the lack of a shepherd,
and became food for all the wild beasts.
My sheep were scattered
and wandered over all the mountains and high hills;
my sheep were scattered over the whole earth,
with no one to look after them or to search for them.
Therefore, shepherds, hear the word of the LORD:
As I live, says the Lord GOD,
because my sheep have been given over to pillage,
and because my sheep have become food for every wild beast,
for lack of a shepherd;
because my shepherds did not look after my sheep,
but pastured themselves and did not pasture my sheep;
because of this, shepherds, hear the word of the LORD:
Thus says the Lord GOD:
I swear I am coming against these shepherds.
I will claim my sheep from them
and put a stop to their shepherding my sheep
so that they may no longer pasture themselves.
I will save my sheep,
that they may no longer be food for their mouths.
For thus says the Lord GOD:
I myself will look after and tend my sheep.
The LORD is my shepherd. It seems pretty obvious that Ezekiel is talking about the priests. First Ezekiel went after the people, then the kings and now the priests. We need to be very careful, if we don't do the job God calls us to do, He will find someone else to do it. The laborers who begin their work at the end of the day will receive the same wage as those who began the day in work. God's justice is not like ours. If I've learned nothing else, I know He can and will do whatever He chooses...and right now He is riding my back and will continue to "lay His hand heavy upon me" until I learn what I am supposed to learn.
And I know from experience, I am a slow learner....
Love, Cindy
I enclose here an email sent to me by the lay Carmelites, worthy of your perusal and appropriate for me. Hope it brings you some solace.
"It was a deliberate choice, I chose, consciously and willingly, to abandon myself to God's will, to let go completely of every last reservation...Across that threshold I had been afraid to cross, things suddenly seemed so very simple. There was but a single vision, God, who was all in all; there was but one will that directed all things, God's will. I had only to see it, to discern it in every circumstance in which I found myself, and let myself be ruled by it. God is in all things, sustains all things, directs all things. To discern this in every situation and circumstance, to see his will in all things, was to accept each circumstance and situation and let oneself be borne along in perfect confidence and trust. Nothing could shake me, except the fear of losing sight of him. The future, hidden as it was, was hidden in his will and therefore acceptable to me no matter what it might bring. The past, with all its failures, was not forgotten; it remained to remind me of the weakness of human nature and the folly of putting any faith in self. But it no longer depressed me. I looked no longer to self to guide me, relied on it no longer in any way, so it could not again fail me. By renouncing, finally and completely, all control of my life and future destiny...I was freed thereby from anxiety and worry, from every tension, and could float serenely upon the tide of God's sustaining providence in perfect peace of soul."
--Father Walter J. Ciszek.
And because I am so very much Cindy, I'll include today's reading from Ezekiel:
The word of the Lord came to me:
Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel,
in these words prophesy to them to the shepherds:
Thus says the Lord GOD: Woe to the shepherds of Israel
who have been pasturing themselves!
Should not shepherds, rather, pasture sheep?
You have fed off their milk, worn their wool,
and slaughtered the fatlings,
but the sheep you have not pastured.
You did not strengthen the weak nor heal the sick
nor bind up the injured.
You did not bring back the strayed nor seek the lost,
but you lorded it over them harshly and brutally.
So they were scattered for the lack of a shepherd,
and became food for all the wild beasts.
My sheep were scattered
and wandered over all the mountains and high hills;
my sheep were scattered over the whole earth,
with no one to look after them or to search for them.
Therefore, shepherds, hear the word of the LORD:
As I live, says the Lord GOD,
because my sheep have been given over to pillage,
and because my sheep have become food for every wild beast,
for lack of a shepherd;
because my shepherds did not look after my sheep,
but pastured themselves and did not pasture my sheep;
because of this, shepherds, hear the word of the LORD:
Thus says the Lord GOD:
I swear I am coming against these shepherds.
I will claim my sheep from them
and put a stop to their shepherding my sheep
so that they may no longer pasture themselves.
I will save my sheep,
that they may no longer be food for their mouths.
For thus says the Lord GOD:
I myself will look after and tend my sheep.
The LORD is my shepherd. It seems pretty obvious that Ezekiel is talking about the priests. First Ezekiel went after the people, then the kings and now the priests. We need to be very careful, if we don't do the job God calls us to do, He will find someone else to do it. The laborers who begin their work at the end of the day will receive the same wage as those who began the day in work. God's justice is not like ours. If I've learned nothing else, I know He can and will do whatever He chooses...and right now He is riding my back and will continue to "lay His hand heavy upon me" until I learn what I am supposed to learn.
And I know from experience, I am a slow learner....
Love, Cindy
Thursday, August 12, 2010
Nuts
My last post caused an interesting reaction. I think no one really pays any attention to me, but I may be misinformed. We all make a little noise. I make a lot of noise. But somewhere out there, someone is paying attention. Why? Oddly, the people that I most want to pay attention don't hear me at all. Bet it works that way for you, too.
When my father died, I had many people come up to me after the funeral and tell me, Your dad thought you were so beautiful, so smart, so talented so gifted...and he loved your piano playing. I smiled politely. Inside I was thinking: "Then why in the hell didn't he ever tell me?!" I mostly recall being yelled at for how I washed dishes, how I mowed around the pecan trees, how I cut the tomato slice too thick for his sandwich. I don't recall any words of praise or affirmation. I recall once, sitting in that wonderful '64 Plymouth Fury, after a summer of working at Luby's Cafeteria, when he said, "I'm proud of you. That was a hard job. You didn't quit." And once when I was 16 and he had a few drinks, and in the presence of others, he said "I love you."
That's what I remember. And I shudder when I wonder what my children remember about me. Did I say "I love you" to them a way that they could hear me? When I was angry, was I really horrible to them? Did they understand at all how much I loved them when I was so lonely and afraid and insecure? When I disappeared in the hospital for a month, what did they think?
Have I said "I love you" enough? Do I say it to much so that it loses its meaning? Did they hear "I love you" from me in other ways or do all they remember is the criticisms and chastisements? I know parents tell me that they raised their children 'exactly the same' and yet, one child comes out grateful and the other bitter. We just never really know how we are heard.
Today's gospel and Fr. Henry's little homily says a lot to me today. Peter, the 'good student,' teacher's pet, all ready with the 'right' answers...asks the question that he thinks he already has the answer to:
How many times must we forgive someone?
And Peter answers his own question: SEVEN times?
And Jesus, ah my sweet Boy, ever pushing us just a bit farther than we would like to go, tells Peter:
Seventy seven times.
Ten times the perfect number seven.
Think of how very practical that answer is for all of us! How much I wanted to love my children well! How much I wanted my own father's love! But, in both directions, all attempts fell short of what was needed.
We sin against each other the same way we sin against God. We don't try to love. We try, but we fail to give what is needed, that is, we miss the mark. And we willfully deny love to another because...well, 'you didn't love me the way I wanted you to so now I'm getting even.'
Oh heavens, what a motley crew we are!
The ONLY way this is going to work is that we forgive all our yesterdays, todays and tomorrows...all the time. We don't forgive, and we are locked out of the kingdom of heaven...simple as that. We sit in hell because we would rather sit there than let someone else get the upper hand. Our feelings have been hurt: not enough attention, too much attention, too passe, too critical, invading my space or leaving me alone too long. We can't win...either for what we need or what we give.
Forgiveness is the most perfect way to keep love around.
But that wasn't what I wanted to write about today. I wanted to write about trees. In particular pecan trees.
But for the moment, seems my title fits anyway.
Don't forgive, fine. Sit there in your indignation. How good it is to be right! To know you have been slighted and that you are a strong person and will not let the other person get away with...??? Let her come to me and maybe, if I am in the right mood, and the begging for forgiveness looks sincere...maybe I'll forgive her. She first must really know and understand what she did wrong. That's being a good teacher, right? I cannot appear weak or inconsistent. Stand my ground.
Yeah, stand your ground.
It will make you nuts. I know from experience.
Love, Cindy
When my father died, I had many people come up to me after the funeral and tell me, Your dad thought you were so beautiful, so smart, so talented so gifted...and he loved your piano playing. I smiled politely. Inside I was thinking: "Then why in the hell didn't he ever tell me?!" I mostly recall being yelled at for how I washed dishes, how I mowed around the pecan trees, how I cut the tomato slice too thick for his sandwich. I don't recall any words of praise or affirmation. I recall once, sitting in that wonderful '64 Plymouth Fury, after a summer of working at Luby's Cafeteria, when he said, "I'm proud of you. That was a hard job. You didn't quit." And once when I was 16 and he had a few drinks, and in the presence of others, he said "I love you."
That's what I remember. And I shudder when I wonder what my children remember about me. Did I say "I love you" to them a way that they could hear me? When I was angry, was I really horrible to them? Did they understand at all how much I loved them when I was so lonely and afraid and insecure? When I disappeared in the hospital for a month, what did they think?
Have I said "I love you" enough? Do I say it to much so that it loses its meaning? Did they hear "I love you" from me in other ways or do all they remember is the criticisms and chastisements? I know parents tell me that they raised their children 'exactly the same' and yet, one child comes out grateful and the other bitter. We just never really know how we are heard.
Today's gospel and Fr. Henry's little homily says a lot to me today. Peter, the 'good student,' teacher's pet, all ready with the 'right' answers...asks the question that he thinks he already has the answer to:
How many times must we forgive someone?
And Peter answers his own question: SEVEN times?
And Jesus, ah my sweet Boy, ever pushing us just a bit farther than we would like to go, tells Peter:
Seventy seven times.
Ten times the perfect number seven.
Think of how very practical that answer is for all of us! How much I wanted to love my children well! How much I wanted my own father's love! But, in both directions, all attempts fell short of what was needed.
We sin against each other the same way we sin against God. We don't try to love. We try, but we fail to give what is needed, that is, we miss the mark. And we willfully deny love to another because...well, 'you didn't love me the way I wanted you to so now I'm getting even.'
Oh heavens, what a motley crew we are!
The ONLY way this is going to work is that we forgive all our yesterdays, todays and tomorrows...all the time. We don't forgive, and we are locked out of the kingdom of heaven...simple as that. We sit in hell because we would rather sit there than let someone else get the upper hand. Our feelings have been hurt: not enough attention, too much attention, too passe, too critical, invading my space or leaving me alone too long. We can't win...either for what we need or what we give.
Forgiveness is the most perfect way to keep love around.
But that wasn't what I wanted to write about today. I wanted to write about trees. In particular pecan trees.
But for the moment, seems my title fits anyway.
Don't forgive, fine. Sit there in your indignation. How good it is to be right! To know you have been slighted and that you are a strong person and will not let the other person get away with...??? Let her come to me and maybe, if I am in the right mood, and the begging for forgiveness looks sincere...maybe I'll forgive her. She first must really know and understand what she did wrong. That's being a good teacher, right? I cannot appear weak or inconsistent. Stand my ground.
Yeah, stand your ground.
It will make you nuts. I know from experience.
Love, Cindy
Monday, August 9, 2010
More silence
I now have seven drafts on file. I can't publish anything. I have no one to lean on, no one to trust...just well-meaning friends who either want the juicy gossip or to tell me what to do...
This is all so...challenging...
Let us all pray together for each of our lives, that we listen to what He is telling us to do. And then, let us do what He asks of us with joy in our hearts.
Love, Cindy
This is all so...challenging...
Let us all pray together for each of our lives, that we listen to what He is telling us to do. And then, let us do what He asks of us with joy in our hearts.
Love, Cindy
Saturday, August 7, 2010
Waters of Life
I haven't yet decided if I am going to join up with the Custer Road gang on the float down the Guadalupe today. I spoke with one of the gang on Thursday about why I was making a surprise appearance with the group and I thought, these sweet people don't have any way to understand what I am trying to do down here.
John of the Cross tells us that to love everyone, we must have attachments to no one. Yet it is in the divine mess of attachment that we truly encounter God. A line from "The Never-ending Story:" "It has to hurt to heal." So I am out riding my 'Luck Dragon' which looks an awful lot like a really nice inner tube that I got at HEB for $20. In it, I ride down the river and learn how to wait. I'm not as good at it as I once was, I have learned.
Back when I was a pastor, I took a group of about 30 down the river. The water was running fast and there are rules for riding fast water. But there are no rules for riding slow waters. The 'type As' in the group were not happy at all with slow moving water. They wanted to get to where they were going. They were not interested in 'going with the flow.' Being the pastor on the trip, my job was easy. I had to set an example for the others to follow. I really didn't have to think much about myself. My job was to think about them.
This time, on the water, I am responsible to no one. Except to God and to myself. Sometimes that is much harder to do. We are good at taking care of others, we are less skilled at taking care of ourselves. I'm thinking some of us don't want to take care of ourselves. We want someone else to do it.
Which really isn't completely wrong. There is this Chinese idea of heaven, where food is on the table and everyone holds very long chopsticks. Hell is where everyone stares at the food and starves because they cannot feed themselves. Heaven is the same place, only everyone feeds each other. Great image, but all good analogies fall short somewhere down the road.
I've been watching a little TV the last few days and it seems our favorite sport is picking out and laughing at the mistakes other people commit. Look at others, but never ever look at ourselves. That's just...not fun at all.
I've had too many women speak to me about how they "don't want to be alone." Many enter into destructive relationships because that fear is just too great to bear. Anyone is better than no one. "So what if he hits me, at least he's around." Huh?! I look at the young women on the river, preening themselves before men and the men do love it. I recall my bikini days...about 40 years ago. Can't fault the kids. In hormone central, the main goal is to get noticed and to be attached. Everyone's got to belong to someone, right?
And the Christian faith is all about community. That love one another thing makes great sense. Pastors are particularly susceptible to wanting to connect to their parishioners. They need the strokes to do their job. In the Meyers-Briggs tests, most pastors are INFs with P or J on the end. Pastors with the N(Intuitive) F(Feeling) modes want and need approval. It is one of their best qualities and one of their greatest weaknesses. Most pastors are introverts as well.
So why was I, an ENTP, thinking I was supposed to be a pastor? The 'book' says that ENTP are great CEOs. I hate business. Don't bore me with the details. Let's just get the job done, the party rolling, start the engine and move along and see what happens. Maybe my test is a mistake, but I've taken it for about 30 years and it always comes out the same.
But I always want someone to think well of me. It is probably the thing that I am supposed to release here. On the water. Alone.
If I am going to do what God has asked me to do, I realize that I am probably going to upset a lot of people who are very comfortable with the system they have in place for themselves. I'm beginning to realize that the established ways of doing things are going to get rattled. And unless I am strong, I will end up in a ball in the corner and thinking that I would be willing to do ANYTHING to make certain I am not alone. And that, my dear friends, is a road straight to hell.
The waters of the river cool my hurting wounds in my spirit. I smell the green algae and underwater rice grasses. I watch fish dart in and out of the mosses and grasses and I keep moving. The days are burning hot and the water is so very cold and refreshing.
These days, I am rich and old. I have money for an inner tube and a bad for my 'stuff.' I lean back my head and bath my hair in the water. So cold. So delicious. So very perfect. I have a net in the bottom of my tube. It holds my stuff: hat, shirt, sunglasses, car keys, camera, sunscreen, peanuts and Gatorade.
I go down the river twice. I say hello to the turtles sunning themselves on sticks. I am amused by the crane standing so still, hoping to catch breakfast. I am amazed by all the plant life on the waters' edge. I laugh at the children (and adults!) swinging out over the river on rope swings, the smell of hot dogs and hamburgers on the grills, little children in their floaties calling out,
"Daddy, its so cold." And there is the white poodle in the tube with the mother and daughter. Dog jumps off the tube into the water, but her leash is firmly attached to the tube. Dog wears a harness with a handle on the top. Mother reaches out and literally plucks the dog out of the water by the handle. I laugh again. Boys jump from the rafters under the train tressels, doing flips and cannon balls. Beautiful homes with many signs posted near the water: No Trespassing. I hear a boy shout out,"Look Mom, its the scary forest!" and I see admidst the trees along the bank a sign posted of a ghost with a smile. Under the bridges are graffitti: Don't put your trash in our river, Remember the Children and Support Streaking...
Going down the "baby rapids" there are boys posted on each side of the three tiered challenge. They are ready to help, to rescue items thrown from the tube, to help people who might hit the rocks or get a mouth full of water. They are about 12 and they love their job, the get to be the authority here...when everywhere else, someone is telling them what to do.
Part of the game on the water is dealing with the currents. Nothing is ever really a straight shot in these slower waters. Several times, I would make it past the first 'rapids' only to get sucked into side waters that refused to let me continue down the river. Once, after three tried, a young boy swam out to me, "You want help?" "Yes, please" and she swam out into faster waters and threw me down into the next set of rocks...backwards...and oh, my! I made it. Sometimes to keep going, you gotta go backwards.
There is more to say about these parts, but I wanted to write down my images while I have them...and my hotel rooms do not have internet! Had to shoo a cockroach out of my bed last night...not happy, but I just laughed. Annoying but not life threatening.
What is important is that, after I was exhausted with toobing...I put my 'stuff' in my car and returned to the river. Jean shorts and swimsuit top. I waded in and tried to walk upstream as far as possible. That was hard work. The ground was soft and some of the water grasses were very scratchy. And I found my spot and dunked myself a few times. Oh my sweet Jesus...now that was what I needed. A good dunking. And then, I remembered. I laid on my back and just rode the water, with only my eyes and nose above the water...and I remembered. I looked up at the clouds and the birds and the trees as I passed them. I rolled over and swam a bit, putting my hands out to avert any large rocks and there I was, ears under cold water and without words, the river reminded me of who I really was. It reminded me that people will come and go in my life, but my journey is along this cold water, under this hot sky...and most of the time, it will be alone. Because, when I don't have people to shield me, I find God everywhere. I am not concerned with what I think i have to do for others. I am not concerned with what I think others have to do for me. Just the here and now is the most important thing in my life. Me in the water...and God...and I am assured that whatever and whoever tries to kill my spirit will fail. I have withstood so many evils and wars so far...and if I can return to the river, where He cleans me again...then it will be alright.
It will all make more sense later, perhaps. This body is old, but I feel alive here, on the waters, near the waters.
May your day be blessed with living waters...
Love, Cindy
John of the Cross tells us that to love everyone, we must have attachments to no one. Yet it is in the divine mess of attachment that we truly encounter God. A line from "The Never-ending Story:" "It has to hurt to heal." So I am out riding my 'Luck Dragon' which looks an awful lot like a really nice inner tube that I got at HEB for $20. In it, I ride down the river and learn how to wait. I'm not as good at it as I once was, I have learned.
Back when I was a pastor, I took a group of about 30 down the river. The water was running fast and there are rules for riding fast water. But there are no rules for riding slow waters. The 'type As' in the group were not happy at all with slow moving water. They wanted to get to where they were going. They were not interested in 'going with the flow.' Being the pastor on the trip, my job was easy. I had to set an example for the others to follow. I really didn't have to think much about myself. My job was to think about them.
This time, on the water, I am responsible to no one. Except to God and to myself. Sometimes that is much harder to do. We are good at taking care of others, we are less skilled at taking care of ourselves. I'm thinking some of us don't want to take care of ourselves. We want someone else to do it.
Which really isn't completely wrong. There is this Chinese idea of heaven, where food is on the table and everyone holds very long chopsticks. Hell is where everyone stares at the food and starves because they cannot feed themselves. Heaven is the same place, only everyone feeds each other. Great image, but all good analogies fall short somewhere down the road.
I've been watching a little TV the last few days and it seems our favorite sport is picking out and laughing at the mistakes other people commit. Look at others, but never ever look at ourselves. That's just...not fun at all.
I've had too many women speak to me about how they "don't want to be alone." Many enter into destructive relationships because that fear is just too great to bear. Anyone is better than no one. "So what if he hits me, at least he's around." Huh?! I look at the young women on the river, preening themselves before men and the men do love it. I recall my bikini days...about 40 years ago. Can't fault the kids. In hormone central, the main goal is to get noticed and to be attached. Everyone's got to belong to someone, right?
And the Christian faith is all about community. That love one another thing makes great sense. Pastors are particularly susceptible to wanting to connect to their parishioners. They need the strokes to do their job. In the Meyers-Briggs tests, most pastors are INFs with P or J on the end. Pastors with the N(Intuitive) F(Feeling) modes want and need approval. It is one of their best qualities and one of their greatest weaknesses. Most pastors are introverts as well.
So why was I, an ENTP, thinking I was supposed to be a pastor? The 'book' says that ENTP are great CEOs. I hate business. Don't bore me with the details. Let's just get the job done, the party rolling, start the engine and move along and see what happens. Maybe my test is a mistake, but I've taken it for about 30 years and it always comes out the same.
But I always want someone to think well of me. It is probably the thing that I am supposed to release here. On the water. Alone.
If I am going to do what God has asked me to do, I realize that I am probably going to upset a lot of people who are very comfortable with the system they have in place for themselves. I'm beginning to realize that the established ways of doing things are going to get rattled. And unless I am strong, I will end up in a ball in the corner and thinking that I would be willing to do ANYTHING to make certain I am not alone. And that, my dear friends, is a road straight to hell.
The waters of the river cool my hurting wounds in my spirit. I smell the green algae and underwater rice grasses. I watch fish dart in and out of the mosses and grasses and I keep moving. The days are burning hot and the water is so very cold and refreshing.
These days, I am rich and old. I have money for an inner tube and a bad for my 'stuff.' I lean back my head and bath my hair in the water. So cold. So delicious. So very perfect. I have a net in the bottom of my tube. It holds my stuff: hat, shirt, sunglasses, car keys, camera, sunscreen, peanuts and Gatorade.
I go down the river twice. I say hello to the turtles sunning themselves on sticks. I am amused by the crane standing so still, hoping to catch breakfast. I am amazed by all the plant life on the waters' edge. I laugh at the children (and adults!) swinging out over the river on rope swings, the smell of hot dogs and hamburgers on the grills, little children in their floaties calling out,
"Daddy, its so cold." And there is the white poodle in the tube with the mother and daughter. Dog jumps off the tube into the water, but her leash is firmly attached to the tube. Dog wears a harness with a handle on the top. Mother reaches out and literally plucks the dog out of the water by the handle. I laugh again. Boys jump from the rafters under the train tressels, doing flips and cannon balls. Beautiful homes with many signs posted near the water: No Trespassing. I hear a boy shout out,"Look Mom, its the scary forest!" and I see admidst the trees along the bank a sign posted of a ghost with a smile. Under the bridges are graffitti: Don't put your trash in our river, Remember the Children and Support Streaking...
Going down the "baby rapids" there are boys posted on each side of the three tiered challenge. They are ready to help, to rescue items thrown from the tube, to help people who might hit the rocks or get a mouth full of water. They are about 12 and they love their job, the get to be the authority here...when everywhere else, someone is telling them what to do.
Part of the game on the water is dealing with the currents. Nothing is ever really a straight shot in these slower waters. Several times, I would make it past the first 'rapids' only to get sucked into side waters that refused to let me continue down the river. Once, after three tried, a young boy swam out to me, "You want help?" "Yes, please" and she swam out into faster waters and threw me down into the next set of rocks...backwards...and oh, my! I made it. Sometimes to keep going, you gotta go backwards.
There is more to say about these parts, but I wanted to write down my images while I have them...and my hotel rooms do not have internet! Had to shoo a cockroach out of my bed last night...not happy, but I just laughed. Annoying but not life threatening.
What is important is that, after I was exhausted with toobing...I put my 'stuff' in my car and returned to the river. Jean shorts and swimsuit top. I waded in and tried to walk upstream as far as possible. That was hard work. The ground was soft and some of the water grasses were very scratchy. And I found my spot and dunked myself a few times. Oh my sweet Jesus...now that was what I needed. A good dunking. And then, I remembered. I laid on my back and just rode the water, with only my eyes and nose above the water...and I remembered. I looked up at the clouds and the birds and the trees as I passed them. I rolled over and swam a bit, putting my hands out to avert any large rocks and there I was, ears under cold water and without words, the river reminded me of who I really was. It reminded me that people will come and go in my life, but my journey is along this cold water, under this hot sky...and most of the time, it will be alone. Because, when I don't have people to shield me, I find God everywhere. I am not concerned with what I think i have to do for others. I am not concerned with what I think others have to do for me. Just the here and now is the most important thing in my life. Me in the water...and God...and I am assured that whatever and whoever tries to kill my spirit will fail. I have withstood so many evils and wars so far...and if I can return to the river, where He cleans me again...then it will be alright.
It will all make more sense later, perhaps. This body is old, but I feel alive here, on the waters, near the waters.
May your day be blessed with living waters...
Love, Cindy
Monday, August 2, 2010
Telling the Truth
I've deleted the last three posts. I kind of knew somewhere inside that if I wrote about my wrestlings with God, it might create problems for some people in my life. I thought it might be helpful to others to write out my journey with God. I truly believe that He wants us in constant dialogue with Him, that He wants us in a constant state of prayer. My hope is that you choose to get closer to God in a more real way, that it is alright and good to tell God the truth and let Him help you in new and wonderful ways.
But maybe it is best not to make such discussions with God public. I am beginning to unpack the events of the week and bit by bit, and it seems I am losing or letting go of the support I need to get through it all. Also, I suppose there is a concern that some of the people I talk with, who know that I write, don't want the story to end up here.
In any case, I am going into my cave for awhile. I've been running a marathon and I've hit a wall. One friend told me that as we grow closer to God, the Adversary will do all he can to separate us from God. And by another friend, I was reminded that the nearly all of the mystics, saints included, were rejected by the Church in some way. My sweet Teresa of Avila was almost put in front of the Inquisition, but a kindly priest intervened. Most mystics have been chastized, rejected, denounced and labeled nuts.
I know what God has told me, and what God has given me. One question I will askyou: "Why are you here?"
What do you want from God? What do you think He wants from you?
Do you love Him truly, madly and deeply or are you just trying to stay out of hell? Is it about works or is it about how we live out our lives because He loved us first?
Please keep me in your prayers. You will always be in mine.
The radio DJ just announced that it's going to be 106 degrees today. I have the feeling its going to get a lot hotter.
Love, Cindy
But maybe it is best not to make such discussions with God public. I am beginning to unpack the events of the week and bit by bit, and it seems I am losing or letting go of the support I need to get through it all. Also, I suppose there is a concern that some of the people I talk with, who know that I write, don't want the story to end up here.
In any case, I am going into my cave for awhile. I've been running a marathon and I've hit a wall. One friend told me that as we grow closer to God, the Adversary will do all he can to separate us from God. And by another friend, I was reminded that the nearly all of the mystics, saints included, were rejected by the Church in some way. My sweet Teresa of Avila was almost put in front of the Inquisition, but a kindly priest intervened. Most mystics have been chastized, rejected, denounced and labeled nuts.
I know what God has told me, and what God has given me. One question I will askyou: "Why are you here?"
What do you want from God? What do you think He wants from you?
Do you love Him truly, madly and deeply or are you just trying to stay out of hell? Is it about works or is it about how we live out our lives because He loved us first?
Please keep me in your prayers. You will always be in mine.
The radio DJ just announced that it's going to be 106 degrees today. I have the feeling its going to get a lot hotter.
Love, Cindy
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