Do it anyway

Today, simple observations.

Most Sacred Heart of Jesus today. A few thoughts about the week. Hospital visits completed, always something new, always surprise, always grace. Tuesday night, ACTS team meeting. Many responses to some small moves, this is often surprising...but at this point in my life, little should surprise me. I simply mean, if you don't expect anything anymore, you really can't be surprised. And yet, you can. I wonder, and very much hope that each day, you reflect on your life. What happened, what was the grace of it, in it, for it?  How have you changed? What do you know now that you did not know yesterday?  Where was the pain? How did you accept it?  Did you let someone down? Did you let yourself down? Did you forgive yourself today? Did you forgive others? Where was the joy?  What was the magic? Where, when and how often, were you grateful?

That's how I survive. Reflection. Growing more honest and real each day.  The illusions, I have found, only bring pain. But it is always important to check out your own perceptions.  Is what you think you see really true?  Is it what you want to see?  Is it what you think you deserve to see?  This is a way to separate illusion from reality. 

How you see often depends on how gentle you are with yourself. I am trying to learn to be gentle with myself. It is exhausting. Old tapes, false realities still haunt me...places I have yet to surrender to God.  But  I improve, each day I grow closer to God.

Pay attention to your life, but do not take yourself too seriously. Yet respect yourself...and respect others. Sounds like old news. But it only took an old friend, who I hadn't seen in years...to nudge me on.  We spent two hours together. The cool thing is that this was an unspoken reconciliation...what we didn't speak of was how we parted years ago.  Time has allowed us to forgive each other. It was a kind of sparkly time. We each had gone off into new directions and we saw the beauty in each other. Only I had to honor the magic of our moments. "Thank you for forgiving me," I told her.  She smiled and hugged me. Neither of us spoke of what was right or wrong, we simply spoke of now. And now was good. A little miracle. One less task for purgatory.

She told me, after a couple of hours, that I needed to write. Even if I did it poorly. She said that was her first feeling when we first made eye contact. My first thought of her was "She has found her beauty." 

What has this to do with the Sacred Heart of Jesus? Last night, I went to Mass at St Jude's.  As soon as I walked into the chapel, I was taken into a bliss...I seemed to be very pleased that they had relocated the crucifix against the wall.  But that was just a noticing thing...what I was feeling...was that it had been too long since I had been to St Jude's.  At least three weeks, with all of my traveling. You know that feeling you get when you are finally home?  That you can breathe again?  That's how it feels when I enter a church. I return to the womb of God and I am bathed in love...the kind that lasts...and is perfect.

That's how I see this Sacred Heart thing.  The Catholic Church has these pictures of Jesus with his heart exposed...and in some ways, especially to non-Catholics, the photo is creepy.  Generally it is surrounded by a crown of thorns.  What I see is a heart exposed. And a heart exposed is easily wounded.

Just like mine. I put my heart out there. I tell the truth as best I am able...and I risk love. Every day.  But not like contemporary "married love," which has a nice little contract in place that says you're going to stay and I'm going to stay...so we are bound by the Law to be faithful to each other. No, this love I throw out is non-contractual. It doesn't expect "benefits." It is just there...and it can be used and rejected and wounded by the risks it takes. That's how I try to model Him.

Think of the first time you fell in love.  Remember the bliss of it, the fantasy of it, the innocence of it.  And how much it hurt when it perhaps didn't work out as you thought it might.  Bit by bit, we protect our hearts with armor...so that 'the next time" we'll know better...we'll be more careful. And nothing will ever compare to that first perfect love.

That's the way Jesus loves us, with a first perfect love...with complete vulnerability and trust. He bares His Heart for us...He loves us so much...that whatever wounds we might have and still hold, His love is so great it breaks through the even hardest of armors. And it is a patient love.  It can wait forever for us to let Him in.

That's how it is for me, walking into a church.  It is as if I am stripped naked and thrown into the pool of pureness of His existence in this world. All my weapons to keep myself 'safe' fall at my side.

There is a scene in the TV show "Saving Grace," where she is arguing with her angel, Earl.  She is making good argument, and Earl just opens his wings and touches her with them, and she falls to the floor in bliss...that is about the best I can do to describe how good it feels to open my heart to God as closely as I can in the manner in which He opens His Heart to me.

I could list off so many moments of love this week...each one a risk...but I won't bore you anymore with the details of my love life...go out and live in your own....

He loved us. We must love others.

I know it's scary.
Do it anyway.

Love, Cindy