My mind is still spinning along. What do I write? Too much? Too little? What can I do that will actually please God? How can I possibly know? I have my friends who are so safely bound by all the rules, and I know I have so much more to learn about rules. But...and there is always a but...I have the gift (or curse) of knowing when someone is lying to me. And I know when they are not telling me the whole truth, which is perhaps an aspect of lying, but only to 'legally-oriented' people, of which I am not. But of course, I am legally oriented! Because if I wasn't, I would trust more, in authority.
If you place a law in front of me and tell me that is true. You better be following it. Literally. Otherwise the door for mercy and grace is opened and just because you don't like my deviation from the law doesn't mean you can accuse me because you think your deviation from the law is acceptable. Did you follow that?
The whole big fight in government these days pretty much turns back on the Judicial Branch. The Court interprets the Law. This is done by human beings, flesh and blood, often with agendas and always with baggage.
Jesus always asked, "What does the Law say?"
And He takes your answer and turns it on you. The Law is death. No question. Necessary for us humans, but nevertheless, it is death.
Oh, how joyous it would be if we could just love one another! Oh how wonderful it would be if we really knew how to share our blessings and burdens with each other! Oh. how joyous is would be to have the law of God in our hearts and not just in our heads!
I was listening a moment to Guadalupe Radio this morning. Sometimes it is good and sometimes it is awful. I heard a priest after Mass once say, when a congregant said he listed to Guadalupe Radio, "That is NOT Catholic!" And I too a couple of steps back, thinking the explosion would hit me, too. But the congregant went on his merry way, I don't think he heard the priest because I didn't feel any conflict energy in front of me...but he could have...We all have opinions about the Law. Catholic Law. What it is, what it isn't.
Like I could write here: How can someone claim to be a Roman Catholic and call himself a Republican? Outrage ensues! Why would I make such a statement? What some people hear is that "Oh she is pro-abortion!" which I am not. But if we are supposed to love one another, give each other from our excess (at least!)...then how does the Republican agenda, which supports deep protection of excesses amounts of money for the people who "earned it," how is that Catholic or even Christian? Everything is from God. We are commissioned to care for each other.
Ah, but you tell me that the government doesn't need to tell you how to give your money away. You have the right to decide where is goes, to which health programs or food or schooling, because you want to support your brand of Christianity!
Really. You get to play God about who lives and who dies. And be assured, the argument I offer goes both ways. The sword that cuts your point of view also cuts mine. I am not more in the right than you are...and all of us are very far away from what God views as right. Only grace and mercy will save us. The need to be right, as I have said before, is a ticket straight to hell.
I know that you may argue this as well, but whatever we take in this life, we are always taking it from someone else. That's a kind of liberation theology. But think about it, just in terms of physics. Matter is neither created nor destroyed. (I am talking basic physics here...not making a theological statement. Only God creates. But within this system, matter is neither created nor destroyed. If I take from one place,that place from which I have taken now has less. It is mathematical. If I am rich, someone else is necessarily poor. Gluttony is ugly, now matter how you look at it.
So the idea should be that we only take what we need. Daily bread. Not tomorrow's bread, but daily bread.
I've been reading Joyce Rupp's book "Walking in a Relaxed Manner" about walking, at the age of 60, the Camino in Spain. She talks about food. She prides herself in eating healthy. On the Camino, you eat what is given to you, you sleep where you find space, you carry toilet paper with you because...well, just because.
I told my priest yesterday about my dreams, not the ones in my sleep, but my day dreams...of creating a place for women to feel safe and protected, valued and loved, without having to "settle" for a bad marriage or living with some guy just to make ends meet. I want to create a place of community where people expect you to participate in the spiritual, physical, and emotional health of others. A place where you share financial burdens, where you are expected to take turns in the physical labor of the place...but where not all property is community. A place where you have your 'day job' but you come home to pray. And of course, you are expected to create a way to love your neighbor...in a way that has been discerned with the help of others. Each would work a certain number of hours in the church...but each would have a personal private life that is in alignment with JPII's "Theology of the Body."
It's all about respect. It's all about sharing. It's all about loving.
I have met so many older women (say 35 and above)who feel the call to religious life, but there is no place for them... and I want to create a home. A place of safety and reasonable commitment. A place where people expect you to behave with dignity within the body God has given you, a place that holds you accountable to what you believe God has called you to do.
I'm not talking Third Orders here, no exclusive club...no special handshakes or collar...this work is to be done in complete humility, no identifying marks but the work you do for one another, for yourself.
But how? We are all so caught up in the Law! We have to have rules to keep order, which is fine, but when we use the rules to condemn each other, we die.
How can I create a community of love?
"Let me help." I will steal from a great Star Trek episode. "Captain Kirk, my alter-ego, will respond, "Let me help. A century from now, someone will write a book using those words...a famous book, and he will say those words are more important than "I love you." "
I'm tired of seeing so much suffering around me. I'm tired of all the complaining. I'm tired of the bitching about who is and isn't right.
It just doesn't matter. A thousand years from now, no one will care who was right. But if we don't love one another, if we don't take care of our brothers and sisters, enemies and friends...
we just won't be here in a thousand years...we will scorch the earth and if something resembling human is left, it won't be us.
The love must not die. He commands us to love one another. When we do, we are standing on holy ground.
Love, Cindy
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