I've seen clouds from both sides now...

Always trying to make sense of things, I made only a list of what happened yesterday in my yellow flower journal.  It began by my sleeping too late and thinking I had missed morning prayer with the deasons at church.  Two voice messages messages and one text were waiting for me when I went into the kitchen to get my phone.  One familiar: "Are you going to church? I'm running late."  And the second unknown.  The first, by it's time stamp, told me I had not missed morning prayer.  Good thing.  The second message, a surprise. A response to a week old call. Both would set me on an unexpected path for the day.

Again, I was reminded how my mistakes might not be mistakes at all.  I was exhausted from the night before. So much happened on Holy Thursday...what can or should I write about?  But then, it was Holy Wednesday (is there a holy Wednesday?)...when things began to get interesting. My annulment has been approved. Sixteen years gone by, I find myself realizing I am totally alone. (now that statement brings up memories of how badly yesterday ended...sigh)  So I cried, I tried to throw up, I shook...and I drove to church with a check to write for the $100 I had to pay to have the case reviewed in an appelate court...(no, I didn't go off the deep end with this one...I am too weak and tired to be angry) which will make the official "break up" or "erasure from my timeline" any proof that I was ever married. With this, I can become a nun...or if the Pope changes his mind, I'll be free to become a priest. (she said jokingly). 



Driving to church, I noticed the clouds again. I always notice the clouds. I'd probably lay on my back for an entire day and watch clouds if I could. You see, on one odd day 16 years ago, while watching the clouds,  I saw Jesus die on the cross.   It was like a little movie...more though, it was like I was there, standing near to him...as near as they would let me.

So when I was driving to church, with my check and a very upset stomach, I noticed the clouds. The light turned red...and I thought, "how odd...what causes those clouds to look like that?" and then I realized, He was there again. Only this time, closer, facing west instead of east. This time, it was not his eyes, his breathing, his chest moving one last time, claiming breath...this time, I was drawn to the crown of thorns.  The detail seemed so odd...it was the crown of thorns that made me realize I was looking at the clouds and that this was for me to see and to know.

And I found myself so ashamed inside. For 16 years, I had whined to God, begged God, to let me see Him again...and He did...and I felt so small as I looked up.

"What will it take, Cindy, for you to realize how much I love you?" 

 That's what the image seemed to telling me.

Like a spoiled child, I hung my head.

"It's so hard for me to believe that I matter to you. You have so many children, so hungry, so much in need...why waste your time with me, a sinner, a whiner...a woman?"

And I don't think I could hear much more. I was simply slain by the idea that, once again, God has given me what I want.  And I cannot figure out why.

The storms came into the area this week, and many buildings and other things were destroyed, but no lives were lost.  I saw on the news the name of a town where my very special friend lives, so I called to see that he was safe. He was. And he said things, as always, that made me better understand myself, because he always goes right to the truth. He kind of validates for me that I really am a human being in this world. I don't know how else to explain it.

I mean that others have come into my life, and I am aware that they value me...but it most often feels like for what I can do, rather than who I am.  I can't say that it is their fault, or their weakness or sin.  It is just that, with this one friend, I don't feel like I have to be anyone for him.  In the beginning, that was my "plan," but somehow, in the ways in which I was respected, I let down the wall...and found a real friend. 

Please don't misunderstand. I have other real friends, but they are far away...and the things on my mind might bore them, whereas this friend can match me and challenge me theologically, while my other wonderful friends can only listen and smile. So, like the 'vision' in the sky, God has provided me with an incarnate kindred spirit to keep me from feeling too alone.

The whole week has been about cleaning. Deep cleaning. Someone might come to my house, see it...and ask me, "What are you talking about?  This does not look clean!"  And I suppose, to a stranger, it doesn't. I still have a long way to go. 

The list of "God events" yesterday filled three pages in my yellow flower journal.  Just a list of words to remind me of this Good Friday.  In my usual fashion, I mistook a woman after morning prayer for a woman I saw the night before. I asked, "Are you okay?" because I observed her tears last night...only it wasn't the same woman.  This woman knew me, but I couldn't remember how I knew her. With my question, she opened her heart...a suicide the day before. I listened, while my internal 'person' was screaming, 'oh hell, God, are you going to make me think about all that stuff again?  All the suicides I have dealt with in my life...like a file drawer, I opened them...listening intently to her...what does she need?  Why did God allow this mistake? How can I be helpful to her? At the came time I had to check all my emotions. 

It seemed like God was making me look at my entire life. Three days of cleaning house, now I must examine myself again. How do I work? How do I serve?  What the hell is going on? 

So I pray with her, after she talks. I had already spoken with one of the someones I was to bring Communion to after prayer. The next meeting began innocently enough...and then, it was as if another bomb had gone off. Another person had so much to say, and I saw her great beauty...and in her story, she rattled my cage some more...and I wondered how I would survive all this resurrecting of feelings I did not want or need to have on this Good Friday.  And I was stunned by her beauty...and how she ministered to me in her telling what she needed to tell.

The next visit was to a woman who found me in a hallway...and she handed me an answer I needed. An invitation to become a Lay Carmelite.   (Don't laugh, I might actually learn obedience before I'm dead) That conversation was quite wonderful.

Then, surprise, I had lost my keys. Again. Went to get them, but in the losing...a connection was made. God, you are so clever. What needed to happen, happened.

Another few visits. Trying to follow the map on my phone, it was a nightmare and I dislike all young people who don't have a problem with technology.  More visits, each one a pearl...each one a gift...and I was stunned by it all. And exhausted.

Well after noon, with no food yet that day, I needed to eat. A real restaurant, a sit down meal. Four people called.  Now I was taking someone to Stations at 3.  I had worked out a deal to get some people to the noon event at church...that was cool...now I was helping some high school kids. I get nervous around kids...and I found myself giving a dissertation on how the gospels were written and added to the Canon...know they must have loved that!  I told them about the birth of the Jesus Freaks in the 1970s. Geesh!  Just trying to fill the air with words...but I got them to Stations...and that felt good. I cried for them, because I wondered if they were thinking about their brother, who was with God now...but I was too timid to ask about something so private. So I played 'teacher' insead...



I look at all I've written, and it only scratches the surface. The thousand moments that happened in this very long, Holy Week...and it's not over: discussing Egyptian mythology with a priest in the columbarium, as lector, reading during Holy Thursday Mass would take quite a lot of words...easiest to say:



Brothers and sisters:
I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you,
that the Lord Jesus, on the night he was handed over,
took bread, and, after he had given thanks,
broke it and said, "This is my body that is for you.
Do this in remembrance of me."
In the same way also the cup, after supper, saying,
"This cup is the new covenant in my blood.
Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me."
For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup,
you proclaim the death of the Lord until he comes.

In my usual fashion, I choose to not really read the words given me to read before a Mass.  I like to keep it all fresh...and see what happens without my own feelings trying to interpret what I think needs to be shared...and as I looked out on the standing room only church, I glanced quickly down and begged God for courage...and then I began to read...but my heart almost burst as my brain acknowledged the words on the page.  I was given the gift to read these words, during a Catholic Mass.  These words that meant so much to me, I could explode in saying them aloud...and I knew this would be as close as I could ever get to speaking such holy words before a Catholic congregation...and I was terrified that I might stop reading them, and just say them...which would be wrong for this group of people...while at the same time remembering the many times I offered these words before a Protestant congregation, while standing at the table. My head was spinning, but some part of me knew God was telling me that's it's all going to work out just fine...the anullment, the vision...and now the prayer. I don't have a clue where this will all lead, but I will walk out into the unknown and, as always, do whatever He tells me. I was so humbled...this was a week of gifts...teaching me who I am.  I still don't understand it all, nor do I think I am supposed to understand. I am simply to continue to do...and to pray without ceasing.

These clouds, they come and go...they tell us that the earth turns, that we are prisoners of time while we are here...and that time is truly a gift. Time is how we measure our holy moments in our lives. Time is that way in which we remember all the good and all the bad, and gives us choices in how we remember what happens to us, lets it inform what we might do next...and helps us to be aware of God's presence in our lives.

What I wrote above is only one interpretation of events that occurred in time. It is no more than that and no less than that. I have been given the gift of time to reflect on what I have done and on what I may have failed to do.

I give it all back to the God who gave it to me. My prayer for you is that you might have the time to reflect on God's loving presence in your own life. I have put a lot of words here...and you must know that your lives are just like mine...full of God experiences...your own story unfolding in time. I pray that you might be aware of your own life and celebrate it, good and bad...it is all gift.

May you know, in moments, how your life touches another. May you be aware of your own beauty. May you have the courage to hold the hand of a stranger...and be still. May you enjoy the true pleasure of silence.

The boy is lying in the tomb.  Perhaps I should say, the Body is lying in the tomb while the boy goes around and breathes life into the dead...cleans out the debris in our hearts and renames us and our lives with a mark of hope and salvation. He did not die in vain. He did not live in vain.

May that be said of us as well. 

There will always be clouds, there will always be dark nights...but there will be bright sunny days and full moon nights to sing under...I have a saying I rely on in moments of depression, "for every Good Friday, there is an Easter." He wounds us with the truth...and He heals us with His love. 

Let Him happen to you...

Love, Cindy