Priest Charmer

I wasn't going to write this one yet...or ever...but I cannot get it out of my mind. Part of me believes I am somewhat flighty, unfocused, driven by my emotions and acting on impulse. Okay, I admit I am half Irish.  That half, my father...I have never met. I want to because I want to find out if there is a priest in the family. I want to know why this is happening to me. I want to know why I am so driven...
which is the other half of me: focused, warrior, intent on getting a job done...even if I do not know what the job might be. 

I throw words out on the page like I knew what I was doing. And I am angry with myself because I have lost a week in Lent.  By now, I should be completely turned inward...and quiet...and I would be feeling God inside me more. Right?

I feel like I have gone well beyond the reason stage of my faith. Yet that is not accurate. Reason plays a part, but not in the part of asking why.  Yet it is clear, as I write, or as I pray...forming anything into a sentence...or a thought...tends to block the experience of God. Part of me desires to abandon all writing, all touching of people, all outside noise...and just "be" in God. It's a really good thing to be there. Nothing is better.
But I am still flesh and blood.I am still connected in time to time.  I have friends and family and people who require things of me...and this Lent, I have made deliberate attempts to allow people into my heart...which is much harder than you might think. I dislike letting people love me. Not because their love is somehow unpleasant or imperfect, but because, as a living being in time, I know that eventually I'm going to have to let it go...or it will let go of me. That I will have a memory of it, and it will make me sad.  It will hurt. And I want to avoid the hurt. I don't want to be present to the pain of what it really means to be loved.

I am a rock. I am an island. A rock feels no pain.  An island never cries.
Mr. Spock only feels once every seven years. Logic rules all things. Reason trumps love. Love is messy and unpredictable. And hard to clean up.

I am in a discussion with my priest friend and another priest arrives. I immediately switch gears and move into an agenda, a task that needs completing. I register in my friend's movements that he is aware of how driven I am. I ask the entering priest for a favor. He laughs. He checks his calendar. Yes, he will do it. I joke, 'no one tells me no.' He says, "Cindy, you are a priest-charmer." I laugh. But I reflect. Am I?  Is that a good or a bad thing? Why?

And the answer is long and complicated...and because I love you, I won't write it here. I was told I am pragmatic. I see a problem, I figure out a solution. I work to get the problem fixed. I suppose I got bored with the easy problems, like building a bridge or space travel.  I don't waste time on problems I know I cannot solve. 

Yet something has seduced me, has always been seducing me: love.  It is the most curious thing. It cannot be weighed or measured. It seems to transcend all time and all logic. It does not seem to follow any earthly rules. It chooses its victims at random. It works without reason or pattern.  It never stops. But it never began. It changes everything it touches. It is deeply misunderstood. Better: it is never completely misunderstood.  Yet we all know it. We all seek it. We all experience a bliss and calmness when we find it. When we lose it, we hurt. It makes us remember. It makes us learn. It seems to being both good and bad, but it desires...if I can call it desire, the good...if anyone really knows what that means. 
It is the driving force behind our existence and our survival. And somehow, that is connected to my Lent this year, and these priests, who matter so much to me. Why do they matter?  I still don't know exactly.  I am just aware that I feel safe with them. I believe that they have learned how to be with people and not have an agenda, or a personal motive. I like that just fine.

My challenge is to take that trust and place it into the secular world. At least, I think that's what I am supposed to do.  It is easy to love someone who you know won't hurt you...or at least, the odds are good they won't hurt you.  But what about loving those who might hurt you?  What does that look like?  What about loving those who can't or won't love you back?  Loving those who have betrayed you. abandoned you, abused you?  What does that kind of love look like? 

I seem to be stuck with these ideas.  I can't suggest to you to go out and love someone who might not be safe. And you must be so careful with that word "love." So easily misunderstood. You must go back into I Corinthians 13...and read is carefully and slowly. I suppose it could take years to understand...perhaps a lifetime. And even then, the mirror is still dim.  So I offere a dangerous challenge.  To you. To me.

That love given while being nailed to a cross. This is a most interesting example of love. Perverse and repulsive to many people, I suppose. Morbid to others.  Yet, I am forever embedded in its fruit.

I am lost in God's love. It is thick and sweet...and when I get really still...way too wonderful to write about. But even dripping in it, I am aware, very aware, that there are parts of me not yet totally consumed by His love.  That's why I go often to what I perceive as "the best of the best of the best."  Even if the priest does not yet know God's love as I know it, I know it is inside them somewhere.  They are the ones, more than others (at least in my thinking right now) who are more open to the possibility of the outrageous love of God. They have willfully chosen to give their lives to it. To teach it, to share it, to live it.  Somewhere inside them, (I believe) is the answer I am looking for. And even if it is not, I suppose I charm them...or challenge them...

See your gift. See how beautiful you are, recognize your power, given to you. Respect it. Cherish it. Protect it. But do not try to own it. It does not belong to you. You are its caretaker for a time. You have been given a great gift, an opportunity oppose death, that which comes too early to people whose hearts still beat. I will dig it out of you, if I am able, and bring it into the light. I don't care what you might think of me...but I am a kind of gardener, turning the soil over and over, so that the most beautiful flowers can grow. I will annoy you. I will charm you. I will do whatever it takes to get you to see your own beauty.

Oh, and I'll let you know here and now...that's nothing so special really...and almost selfish, because if I am able to bring out your best, then I am counting on you to bring out my best.

That's how love works.  One way anyway.

Okay, I'm done for now.

Love, Cindy