Of course there will be. There's always a war. You go off and you see a beautiful flower. You say, "I want that flower." But if you pick it, it will surely die. If you don't pick it, it will die anyway. But if it dies where it is planted, it will go to seed...and from the seeds we can grow many, many flowers.
Often, we don't want to wait for the seeds. Hence, the wars. Long ago, when I began my contemplative life, God 'messaged' to me the word, "Enough." Two hours of prayer and that was the result: Enough. But I knew what the one word meant. It meant I wasn't going to starve. I didn't need to worry. It meant that there was enough for all of us. In fact, there was more than enough. I've written about this before. God seemed to tell me so much back then. And I ran away to seminary, trying to make sense of it all. I wanted to know I was not crazy. Or I wanted to know I was crazy. I just wanted to know.
I was yelling at God in Perkins chapel. I was saying something like, "Okay I'm here! Now what? I've come to learn and I feel so out of place. What the hell do you want from me?" (I know I said a bit more, and I think I may have been swearing a bit...) A little man...oh hell, my New Testament professor, was sitting behind the pulpit, invisible to me until he stood up and coughed.
I stood mortified. In his usual polite, respectful manner, he said, "If you've come for the service, we are meeting in the back room."
I kind of thought my whole career in seminary had ended in those few moments. My humiliation was deep and I deserved it. But there was more...I was interiorly exhuberant that I was working on a graduate degree in theology. At long last, I was finally doing something that I wanted to do instead of all the things I did because I thought someone else wanted me to do.
That was worth the humiliation of a prayer heard by a stranger. It was worth this professor minister knowing that perhaps I was a colorful character. I went to the back room...wondering if would ever speak to me again...and if he would ever be curious about the madness that brought me to Perkins.
And you know, he did. He cared deeply. He cared honestly. And he found me a spiritual director. A Catholic of all things. A curious beautiful Catholic woman, who, after two meetings, told me I was a Catholic and to return to the Eucharist. And I decided to never visit with her again.
The messages come from strange places...strange in my mind at least. And always with much drama. Most of the messages, I resist...I know immediately what they mean and my response seems to always be, "Oh, hell, no!" But like a woman deeply in love, after a bit of a struggle, I always give in. But never without a struggle. I'm not like Bernadette in the movies. I do not have a gentle manner. I am a fighter, kicking and screaming still for my own way...why am I so resistant? Why must I do everything the hard way?
So God brings these messengers, encounters with the Divine...and I laugh because I see that He is wooing me over and over again...why does He bother, when there are so many others who would play the Bernadette role...and look pretty and smile and be glad that...that they actually like that Ephesians 5 passage in the Bible. I would rather be dead than submissive to a man...one who was probably not even as strong as me...just because he is a man does not give him the right to tell me what to do...and I get all fired up and bothered. Ain't nobody going break my heart again. Ain't nobody gonna slow me down...
And then, in the midst of the Mass...all my logic evaporates...and I realize all I want to be is submissive...to God. Completely and totally insane. And perfect. And nothing like all the things I have experienced in this world. Surrendering to an invisible being that seems to enter every cell of my body and calm me down. I rock in his arms and there is no greater peace. I have become Jello...and I protest, even as I rest inside this amazingly perfect love...I'll never give in...
Stumbling to Bethlehem...
Oh God, you have ravaged me...and you are all that I want...Oh God, would that you rescue me from this love, this power you hold over me...never.
No one is going to understand...I don't understand...I write because I am in love...and I want you to be in love, too. Let this world's noise become a whisper in your ear. Get up and hold out your hand, and He'll take it and press it into His heart. He will fill you with all you need to be happy, no matter what is happening. Feel His heart beat, allow your heart to beat with His. You will have all your need to do the work, you will find peace, you will see beauty and you will love without bounds.
Where did this come from? I don't know. Words really don't help much, but they are all I have.
Love, Cindy
Monday, August 27, 2012
Sunday, August 26, 2012
Staying the Course
It's been a difficult August. Been wandering through the swamps of sadness, feeling used and abused by the ones who I thought were supposed to help me along the path. It is hard to wake up to the truth that your first impressions of people, places and things and most often the correct ones. I wonder though, sometimes, if that is just self-fulfilling prophesies: what I have always claimed: we see only what we want to see.
I wonder today, if I should just put on the blinders again...and settle for something less.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Started with these words over a week ago. Nothing has changed. Listening to the documentary on how and why the television show "Joan of Arcadia" came into being. The creator Barbara Hall, spoke about trying to create the series:
"A million things went wrong, but we made it anyway."
"I knew what I wanted but I didn't know how to get there."
"I needed a natural warrior (her father) and a supernatural warrior (Joan)"
"11/11/2001 changed everything, people wanted to know"
including
including
"Why does it [life] have to hurt so much?"
"There was nothing simplistic about it [the show]."
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
So I ask God again: Why does it have to hurt so much?
There have been some very challenging moments this summer. Things I expected and things I did not. I see I have done good work for others. I am sure I've done some good internal work, but I can't see it. Must have, because I know I am ready to do the next thing. But it still hurts.
Joan: "Why does it hurt so much?"
God: "Because you feel it, Joan."
In the show, God explains to Joan that all this mess of feelings is what makes us human, what allows us to love. The pain now is part of the pleasure later. The pleasure now is part of the pain later. There is no escape.
And I realize this reflection contains nothing new.
Life is pain. Anyone who tells you different is selling something--Princess Bride
"What if this is as good as it gets?"--from the movie with the same name.
"The Uncertainty Principle"
And I realize this reflection contains nothing new.
Life is pain. Anyone who tells you different is selling something--Princess Bride
"What if this is as good as it gets?"--from the movie with the same name.
"The Uncertainty Principle"
This was my favorite episode, because God asks Joan to do something totally outrageous...and not until the "deed is done" does God explain how and why what she did worked.
I am right there today. I am pissed at God, not for what I've done...or perhaps didn't do...but because it hurts and I don't understand why. No, that's not completely true. I know why it hurts. I even told God it was okay. "Use me anyway you want." I said. But I didn't say I would like it. And I didn't say that I wouldn't pitch a fit.
That's one reason why I love Teresa of Avila so much. She is so honest in her writings about her conversations with God. Much more human, not all that Hollywood style of saintliness. I think real saints have a large range of emotions...and God taps in and uses every single one of them.
So now, added to my usual visiting is an unusual visiting. A young mother with cancer. This is a real growing edge for me...and tapping into a multitude of emotions that I didn't expect to access in my chaplaincy. Ha! The reality that every aspect of our lives works into our ministry is kind of the first rule of being an apostle, a minister, a servant. A servant means being the property of the one you choose to serve. It means you don't really get answers to all those questions you might have when asked to complete a task. It means not always understanding, but doing anyway. It means trust and it means love. How creepy to me to think that I have a "master" that I obey. Human beings are a bit more challenging to embrace. I have let a few into my inner being...and some of them have let me down. While that depresses me, I must remember that I am answering God's call, not some man's call. I have wounds that I wonder if they will ever be healed. I even spend time thinking that perhaps they are not meant to be healed, that I might lose some of my mojo if I were suddenly healed.
It is always a challenge to stay the course. Especially when you are uncertain if you are staying true to the initial call, the initial commitment, the initial love. And then there's that whole human body thing that can rear up it's head and say, "No! You must pay attention to me!"
Stay the course. A thousand years ago, God called my name and I said yes. A thousand years ago, He knew I would be here...and He knew I would be given choices...and that I'd do some things right and some wrong...and that my being here, in this moment of time mattered. A thousand years ago, someone else said yes...and now I am here. And a thousand years before that, someone said yes, so that a thousand years later, another yes; a thousand years and another yes...and that one was mine. I have always held in my heart the idea of eternity going in both directions, before me and behind me. I have always known that now is so very small, but that now matters.
I try to keep humble, in the sense that I am needed and not needed, in the big scheme of things. But humble takes on an immense role when it is fully realized. It doesn't mean being quiet, or obedient to the things of this world...for me, it is a submission only but totally to God. Yet, in this small dot on the timeline of eternity, I still get upset and anxious about so many little things. That reminds me how much I am not humble.
I watch a priest friend play with the trappings of his profession and I judge. He reminds me too much of my mother, who had the most beautiful house she could have on her budget...and I lived in it and I was miserable. It was pretty. But there was no family, no love...just pretty. I wonder why a man with so many spiritual gifts would choose things over people. I am judging. I don't know what he is thinking. It is none of my business. So I have sinned. Sinned in judging and sinned in wasting my time thinking about it. I am not humble. And I do know a clean house is needed to think, to pray. To be inspired. To be proud....and there you go...there is no real escape from our humanity.
Nor should there be. It's all part of our gift. Something was said, or I heard...about truth this week. Our brains are good for so much, yet we use them to justify our position, our choices, our actions...not always to our own good nor for the good of others. I was trying to read Aristotle again this week...and I kept thinking outside the words I was reading: Why is he choosing these words, these examples, when he could write more clearly? And then I thought about the translator, gifted with a particular education, and how he took Aristotle's words and did the best he could to translate them into a language I could read...and still it made no sense to me.
I read different theologians. Some speak to my heart and others drive me batty. How could someone with a good brain come up with "that" conclusion? I start thinking about the female perspective on creation, Christology, mythology, systematics...and I start to realize it's all babbling. Some people hear and some do not. Absolutely nothing in linear. Absolutely nothing is simple. There may be a perfect truth out there, but human beings, in this form, will never know what it is. Such a thought brings on so much despair.
We can never figure it out. So why go on living? Why try, when people are so mean to each other? Why they hate? Why they kill? Why they destroy each other's souls, creativity and life source? Why go on living, when only suffering and old age lie ahead for the survivors? Why can't I have it (my life) my own way?
Then my mind goes back to the image I have inmy head from the last retreat. What was supposed to be a beautiful experience that evening, a selfish man chose to write his wife a letter: "I do not love you. Your son does not love you. Why won't you listen? We are divorced now. Let go." I sat in that circle, across the room from her, watching her shoulders rise and fall with her sobs. I watched the arm that was placed around her, as she silently wept. I knew from where I was, it was not my place to go to her again...now...but merely to witness...and then suddenly, in my mind's eye, I saw Jesus again on the cross. Hands bound my nails so that his body could not move...as He watched the crowd before him.
I remember my vision from so long ago...that odd moment when I saw Him die on the cross...and I watched Him watch the crowd of people...and, in my head, I kept trying to sort it out for years later...so confusing, I wondered if I should try to forget... Why was this happening? Why am I seeing this? He was watching...all of us...his lovers and his betrayers...and all the ones who were so confused...and He knew...He was dying for all of us: the good, the bad, the ugly.
I looked at that woman, with whom I had a commonality: ( I too was told, "I don't love you anymore." by the one person I believed would never leave me...I knew the betrayal...and the hate...) And I knew Jesus knew it all...in those moments on the cross.
The pain of the physical death was harsh, but temporary. The suffering He knew in his body was completely overshadowed by the suffering of the knowing of how horribly we treat each other. How we judge and condemn and isolate...and kill love at every turn. He knew the abuse and the wars and the horrors, the big things and the little things...breaking a toy rather than sharing it with your brother...beating up a man because...he's different...raping your wife...because you can...telling a lie about your best friend...not forgiving someone for not saying hello...and for writing your wife a letter so that she can read it again and again "I don't love you."
As a spiritual director, I was aware of many of the sufferings that at in that circle...many wounds that would take longer than one retreat to heal. And I was there, also, in that moment, with Jesus on the cross. He was so close to me, I could smell the wood and blood before me. And I wondered, 'How did you endure it? This knowing...when I know only a few small things...how did you endure it, knowing all things? Only God could stay on that cross and take it to Himself. Only a God who loves would be willing to do it. Only a God could stay the course and see it to it's holy conclusion. To die, so that we might stop hurting each other.
This is the God I love. This is the God I serve. This one. Who did it all...for me...and for all of us.
I'm drawing close to another blue moon. I thought, if this is the time to let go...then I should do it now. But the closer I get to trying to go back to an ordinary life, the more strongly I realize the love that has been given to me. Part of me just wants to run away. Part of me is so ashamed of my own selfishness, and of my own sins.
But if He stayed the course...then so will I.
Because I love Him.
Because He loved me first.
Love, Cindy
Stay the course. A thousand years ago, God called my name and I said yes. A thousand years ago, He knew I would be here...and He knew I would be given choices...and that I'd do some things right and some wrong...and that my being here, in this moment of time mattered. A thousand years ago, someone else said yes...and now I am here. And a thousand years before that, someone said yes, so that a thousand years later, another yes; a thousand years and another yes...and that one was mine. I have always held in my heart the idea of eternity going in both directions, before me and behind me. I have always known that now is so very small, but that now matters.
I try to keep humble, in the sense that I am needed and not needed, in the big scheme of things. But humble takes on an immense role when it is fully realized. It doesn't mean being quiet, or obedient to the things of this world...for me, it is a submission only but totally to God. Yet, in this small dot on the timeline of eternity, I still get upset and anxious about so many little things. That reminds me how much I am not humble.
I watch a priest friend play with the trappings of his profession and I judge. He reminds me too much of my mother, who had the most beautiful house she could have on her budget...and I lived in it and I was miserable. It was pretty. But there was no family, no love...just pretty. I wonder why a man with so many spiritual gifts would choose things over people. I am judging. I don't know what he is thinking. It is none of my business. So I have sinned. Sinned in judging and sinned in wasting my time thinking about it. I am not humble. And I do know a clean house is needed to think, to pray. To be inspired. To be proud....and there you go...there is no real escape from our humanity.
Nor should there be. It's all part of our gift. Something was said, or I heard...about truth this week. Our brains are good for so much, yet we use them to justify our position, our choices, our actions...not always to our own good nor for the good of others. I was trying to read Aristotle again this week...and I kept thinking outside the words I was reading: Why is he choosing these words, these examples, when he could write more clearly? And then I thought about the translator, gifted with a particular education, and how he took Aristotle's words and did the best he could to translate them into a language I could read...and still it made no sense to me.
I read different theologians. Some speak to my heart and others drive me batty. How could someone with a good brain come up with "that" conclusion? I start thinking about the female perspective on creation, Christology, mythology, systematics...and I start to realize it's all babbling. Some people hear and some do not. Absolutely nothing in linear. Absolutely nothing is simple. There may be a perfect truth out there, but human beings, in this form, will never know what it is. Such a thought brings on so much despair.
We can never figure it out. So why go on living? Why try, when people are so mean to each other? Why they hate? Why they kill? Why they destroy each other's souls, creativity and life source? Why go on living, when only suffering and old age lie ahead for the survivors? Why can't I have it (my life) my own way?
Then my mind goes back to the image I have inmy head from the last retreat. What was supposed to be a beautiful experience that evening, a selfish man chose to write his wife a letter: "I do not love you. Your son does not love you. Why won't you listen? We are divorced now. Let go." I sat in that circle, across the room from her, watching her shoulders rise and fall with her sobs. I watched the arm that was placed around her, as she silently wept. I knew from where I was, it was not my place to go to her again...now...but merely to witness...and then suddenly, in my mind's eye, I saw Jesus again on the cross. Hands bound my nails so that his body could not move...as He watched the crowd before him.
I remember my vision from so long ago...that odd moment when I saw Him die on the cross...and I watched Him watch the crowd of people...and, in my head, I kept trying to sort it out for years later...so confusing, I wondered if I should try to forget... Why was this happening? Why am I seeing this? He was watching...all of us...his lovers and his betrayers...and all the ones who were so confused...and He knew...He was dying for all of us: the good, the bad, the ugly.
I looked at that woman, with whom I had a commonality: ( I too was told, "I don't love you anymore." by the one person I believed would never leave me...I knew the betrayal...and the hate...) And I knew Jesus knew it all...in those moments on the cross.
The pain of the physical death was harsh, but temporary. The suffering He knew in his body was completely overshadowed by the suffering of the knowing of how horribly we treat each other. How we judge and condemn and isolate...and kill love at every turn. He knew the abuse and the wars and the horrors, the big things and the little things...breaking a toy rather than sharing it with your brother...beating up a man because...he's different...raping your wife...because you can...telling a lie about your best friend...not forgiving someone for not saying hello...and for writing your wife a letter so that she can read it again and again "I don't love you."
As a spiritual director, I was aware of many of the sufferings that at in that circle...many wounds that would take longer than one retreat to heal. And I was there, also, in that moment, with Jesus on the cross. He was so close to me, I could smell the wood and blood before me. And I wondered, 'How did you endure it? This knowing...when I know only a few small things...how did you endure it, knowing all things? Only God could stay on that cross and take it to Himself. Only a God who loves would be willing to do it. Only a God could stay the course and see it to it's holy conclusion. To die, so that we might stop hurting each other.
This is the God I love. This is the God I serve. This one. Who did it all...for me...and for all of us.
I'm drawing close to another blue moon. I thought, if this is the time to let go...then I should do it now. But the closer I get to trying to go back to an ordinary life, the more strongly I realize the love that has been given to me. Part of me just wants to run away. Part of me is so ashamed of my own selfishness, and of my own sins.
But if He stayed the course...then so will I.
Because I love Him.
Because He loved me first.
Love, Cindy
Wednesday, August 8, 2012
The One Who Didn't Matter
What I thought was going to be a one hour meeting ended up closer to two and a half hours. I have sought the proper muse, and I am working to bend myself to the challenges I actually asked him to place on me. It is a contract designed by me to help me achieve my goals. Immediately, he challenged me to write nothing but poetry for the next six months. I thought perhaps I could walk into that yesterday...but I am still standing at the abyss, not quite certain...not that I might not complete the task...but that I might not survive it.
It all boils down to a decision I made, somewhere in the age of nine: I decided to never feel again. I looked at the world I was born into, I had lived in it for ...at least eight or nine years...and I learned quickly that, if I felt what was happening to me and around me...I would be dead or go insane. I happened on a Star Trek episode, where I was introduced to the character of Spock, a 'man' whose people learned how to survive by not feeling. It was a scathlingly brilliant idea. Somewhere, in my journals, perhaps destroyed, I wrote the words: I will never feel again. I won't go into why here. If you have read some of my writings, you will discover why...but it is not so important...or is it? When I was 33, I read in some books that I was not unique in my decision. It is a pattern some of us choose to cope. To survive. But it is not to think about today.
I have always been drawn to poetry, in particular, to poetry written by people who suffered greatly in their lives. By age 14, I was in love with the poets who wrote about slavery, and war and prison and famine...I wept so easily of the ballades of Joan Baez, Bob Dylan...and others.
I could recite most of it to you. And the others.
I have always loved poetry, great and small. Perhaps that is why I love the Gospel of John so much...and Jeremiah and Isaiah...the poetry parts...
When confronted with great suffering, there are no words...only feelings: confused, intense, unceasing feelings...that need a name to be set free.
I used to write them down on little bits of paper and hide them in my house: behind picture frames, inside statues...anywhere...so they might not be destroyed, but found, like a message in a bottle...to prove that I existed...just in case...somebody killed me...or I finally decided to kill myself.
Such was the desperation of "the one who didn't matter."
I don't think it's a unique feeling, but ironically, the ones who thought they didn't matter really didn't matter. There is a powerful new generation out there who truly believes they don't matter. (Yes, the grammar is horrible). So very evident in this present darkness where our culture seems to glorify humiliation to levels that almost make the age of the gladiator seem civilized. But I digress.
My exercise now, is to remove my coping skills of studying life and myself as some kind of experiment and feel it. To invite chaos and let it happen. To let go of cause and effect responses. To let the art of poetry heal my wounds.
I tell you because...you might be able to help someone...or help yourself...by casting aside that safe world of logic and rules and take on that other part of your humanity...the gift from God that feels...
I know for a fact that some of you have divorced yourselves from emotion, much as I have done, but for very different reasons. I am convinced that God wants me to use ALL of my gifts, not just the ones I've found so far...not just my head, but my head and my heart together.
Some of you are already good at that, already there...and I love you for it. That you are a friend to this strange woman who is still about five years old in that "love" category...or perhaps nine years old...
But this work, like any Ignatian work, should never be done alone. It needs an observor. It needs a herald. It needs an historian. It needs mercy and grace. And it needs a brave soul. I have had companions along the way, brave knights who were up to part of the challenge, but were vanquished along the way. Perhaps their armor was not yet completed for their bodies. Kind of fun to think of it that way...but truthfully they worked hard and sweated blood...as they were willing and able. Any spiritual encounter has a price...but its gifts far outweigh the sacrifice, which is why I do the work, why I love the work.
But it is never ever linear. It is never simply cause and effect. Enter into someone's life and you are changed by it, too.
This week...I was changed by a woman, who may not remember me...but she changed me...as I told her the truth about what I saw, what would happen, and her tasks...and I saw the miracle yesterday. Telling you now would say too much. Then today, another woman. She needed me and not a priest, not yet.
Why would I ever doubt my work?
But this wounded healer, to keep going, to not die...must heal more...and again...and each time is scarier than the one before. Each thing I think I cannot live without, I must learn to live without...but not shut down from the next thing, the next time I may fall in love...and risk it all. I can claim a holy purpose for letting God cut me open again...and risk death...but I must own the selfish desire I cannot leave behind of one more union with Him, the One who created me...what pleasure and joy it brings me...a love that is not afraid...and will never leave me. The side effect, the child born of this love is the work I get to do.
But each time I see the miracle...each time I feel like that woman in the reading from Matthew today: "But my Lord, even the dogs get to eat the scraps from the table." Sometimes, to get what we want, we don't just have to be humble, we have to be humiliated.
The work I have to do will be humbling and humiliating. But I must remember that, by dying to self...in ways I never imagined...life will be more than exquisite...it will be exhilirating.
I tell you to challenge you to try. Like a broken record: if we each do our part, we can change the world...and the world needs changing. Not just analysis, not just some facimile of justice, not some self-righteous display of a particular side of truth...but that real love of God...that lasts...that is trustworthy...that heals...that makes us fully human.
I can't do this alone. I need your help. But more importantly, God needs your help.
Someone today is discouraged...and needs your hand, not mine...so reach out. Take the risk. Get hurt. Cry if you need to. Then get up and try again.
From the one who didn't matter to the other one who didn't matter:
Breaking news: you matter.
Love,
Cindy
It all boils down to a decision I made, somewhere in the age of nine: I decided to never feel again. I looked at the world I was born into, I had lived in it for ...at least eight or nine years...and I learned quickly that, if I felt what was happening to me and around me...I would be dead or go insane. I happened on a Star Trek episode, where I was introduced to the character of Spock, a 'man' whose people learned how to survive by not feeling. It was a scathlingly brilliant idea. Somewhere, in my journals, perhaps destroyed, I wrote the words: I will never feel again. I won't go into why here. If you have read some of my writings, you will discover why...but it is not so important...or is it? When I was 33, I read in some books that I was not unique in my decision. It is a pattern some of us choose to cope. To survive. But it is not to think about today.
I have always been drawn to poetry, in particular, to poetry written by people who suffered greatly in their lives. By age 14, I was in love with the poets who wrote about slavery, and war and prison and famine...I wept so easily of the ballades of Joan Baez, Bob Dylan...and others.
"It is fitting that you be here, my little brown boys with Christ-like eyes and curling hair
Look you upon that crucifix, where He hangs, nailed and pierced
And eyes all blind with the blood that drips from a thorny crown
Look you well. You shall know this thing.
Judas kiss will burn your cheek
And you will be denied my your Peter also..."
"Where's the Jim Crow section of this merry-go round, Mister,
Cause I want a ride. Down south where I come from,
white folks don't sit with colored folks,
they don't sit side by side..."
I have always loved poetry, great and small. Perhaps that is why I love the Gospel of John so much...and Jeremiah and Isaiah...the poetry parts...
"And like a lamb led to the slaughter, He opened not his mouth..."
When confronted with great suffering, there are no words...only feelings: confused, intense, unceasing feelings...that need a name to be set free.
I used to write them down on little bits of paper and hide them in my house: behind picture frames, inside statues...anywhere...so they might not be destroyed, but found, like a message in a bottle...to prove that I existed...just in case...somebody killed me...or I finally decided to kill myself.
Such was the desperation of "the one who didn't matter."
"This is my letter to the world that never wrote me..."
I don't think it's a unique feeling, but ironically, the ones who thought they didn't matter really didn't matter. There is a powerful new generation out there who truly believes they don't matter. (Yes, the grammar is horrible). So very evident in this present darkness where our culture seems to glorify humiliation to levels that almost make the age of the gladiator seem civilized. But I digress.
My exercise now, is to remove my coping skills of studying life and myself as some kind of experiment and feel it. To invite chaos and let it happen. To let go of cause and effect responses. To let the art of poetry heal my wounds.
I tell you because...you might be able to help someone...or help yourself...by casting aside that safe world of logic and rules and take on that other part of your humanity...the gift from God that feels...
I know for a fact that some of you have divorced yourselves from emotion, much as I have done, but for very different reasons. I am convinced that God wants me to use ALL of my gifts, not just the ones I've found so far...not just my head, but my head and my heart together.
Some of you are already good at that, already there...and I love you for it. That you are a friend to this strange woman who is still about five years old in that "love" category...or perhaps nine years old...
But this work, like any Ignatian work, should never be done alone. It needs an observor. It needs a herald. It needs an historian. It needs mercy and grace. And it needs a brave soul. I have had companions along the way, brave knights who were up to part of the challenge, but were vanquished along the way. Perhaps their armor was not yet completed for their bodies. Kind of fun to think of it that way...but truthfully they worked hard and sweated blood...as they were willing and able. Any spiritual encounter has a price...but its gifts far outweigh the sacrifice, which is why I do the work, why I love the work.
But it is never ever linear. It is never simply cause and effect. Enter into someone's life and you are changed by it, too.
This week...I was changed by a woman, who may not remember me...but she changed me...as I told her the truth about what I saw, what would happen, and her tasks...and I saw the miracle yesterday. Telling you now would say too much. Then today, another woman. She needed me and not a priest, not yet.
Why would I ever doubt my work?
But this wounded healer, to keep going, to not die...must heal more...and again...and each time is scarier than the one before. Each thing I think I cannot live without, I must learn to live without...but not shut down from the next thing, the next time I may fall in love...and risk it all. I can claim a holy purpose for letting God cut me open again...and risk death...but I must own the selfish desire I cannot leave behind of one more union with Him, the One who created me...what pleasure and joy it brings me...a love that is not afraid...and will never leave me. The side effect, the child born of this love is the work I get to do.
But each time I see the miracle...each time I feel like that woman in the reading from Matthew today: "But my Lord, even the dogs get to eat the scraps from the table." Sometimes, to get what we want, we don't just have to be humble, we have to be humiliated.
The work I have to do will be humbling and humiliating. But I must remember that, by dying to self...in ways I never imagined...life will be more than exquisite...it will be exhilirating.
I tell you to challenge you to try. Like a broken record: if we each do our part, we can change the world...and the world needs changing. Not just analysis, not just some facimile of justice, not some self-righteous display of a particular side of truth...but that real love of God...that lasts...that is trustworthy...that heals...that makes us fully human.
I can't do this alone. I need your help. But more importantly, God needs your help.
Someone today is discouraged...and needs your hand, not mine...so reach out. Take the risk. Get hurt. Cry if you need to. Then get up and try again.
From the one who didn't matter to the other one who didn't matter:
Breaking news: you matter.
Love,
Cindy
Tuesday, August 7, 2012
What to expect
So here's the deal. I'm changing a lot of things, with the hope of becoming more...human. My prayer life, I hope, will grow more disciplined...as much as my ability to play more. I will start another CPE unit at Children's Hospital this fall. While Methodist might have given me more clinical experience, I chose Children's because of the personal challenges it will require.
I have agreed to write only poetry for the next six months, which means, if I choose to publish anything, it will more likely be at www.bluedogstories.blogspot.com This will be challenging work...kind of like learning to play a new instrument...yet not new, because I used to write poetry often...
In order to understand my writing, you will have to work for it, like parables...but it will be much more fun, I think...because your story will naturally take its own form inside the work. It will be life changing for me...and at the end of the time, next spring, I may actually have reached a different spiritual place as well.
I will list the books as they are assigned, but I will only be able to write about them as poetry. I don't know if I can be completely true to the challenge, but I look forward to giving it all my very best.
I had a good day of sharing with people, a long day...and ran out of time. I cannot believe it is August 7th already. My wandering in the desert, I hope, will end soon.
May the Lord bless you and keep you
May the Lord make His face to shine upon you
Lay the Lord be gracious unto you
And give you peace.
Love, Cindy
I have agreed to write only poetry for the next six months, which means, if I choose to publish anything, it will more likely be at www.bluedogstories.blogspot.com This will be challenging work...kind of like learning to play a new instrument...yet not new, because I used to write poetry often...
In order to understand my writing, you will have to work for it, like parables...but it will be much more fun, I think...because your story will naturally take its own form inside the work. It will be life changing for me...and at the end of the time, next spring, I may actually have reached a different spiritual place as well.
I will list the books as they are assigned, but I will only be able to write about them as poetry. I don't know if I can be completely true to the challenge, but I look forward to giving it all my very best.
I had a good day of sharing with people, a long day...and ran out of time. I cannot believe it is August 7th already. My wandering in the desert, I hope, will end soon.
May the Lord bless you and keep you
May the Lord make His face to shine upon you
Lay the Lord be gracious unto you
And give you peace.
Love, Cindy
Sunday, August 5, 2012
Chicken of God
I had a beautiful week in Estes Park with my son, his wife and their five children. Each day was unique, each day refreshing and a little bit challenging. I never once felt like I "needed" to do something, except perhaps go to Mass, which I did, but not every day. When I did go, I liked myself better and my day better, so I still recommend it and wonder why my Protestant friends don't see the benefit of collecting together, as the Body of Christ, each morning to do the "five things" of our namesake: praise, humility, petition, word and song, communion abd thanks. Okay, maybe more than five things.
It was hard to come home, to watch my son's big black SUV head straight down the road as I exited to U.S. 287 in Amarillo. The umbilical cord cut once again. I work hard to not be attached too much to anyone for just these moments...when I have to let go. Be alone again, which seems the lot of my life and yet, seems that it a path I have deliberately chosen.
So after a week of bliss, clean air and deliberate slowness, I hurry back to the life I have in Dallas...sort of. The silence allows me to reflect again, "what's the next step?" The accident slowed me down even more. And even before I was home, I was back into my ministry. So far, so good. But still always out of the loop.
Working the funeral on Wednesday, I encountered some unexpected challenges. On a private level, I was reminded of our many human weaknesses...things I had put out of my mind, hiding in my self-built ivory tower. Jealousies and envies, areas of unforgiveness and places devoid of trust...and so very much misunderstanding, mixed with that manipulations and judgements. Everyone was hurting, including me, and I was helpless to offer any consolation to anyone. Things might have gone awry when one priest left, then two, then three...but things are broken and I don't know my place anymore. Was it that I expected too much (but perhaps was given too much) in that first bizarre entry back into the Catholic Church? Was what I experienced a skewed representation of the church?
Or is it that things are just getting uglier out there? When I lived in Tucson, I found that we had seasons of more deliberate evil. There were times, in the nearly unbearable summer heat, when rapes went up, beatings and robberies increased...times when, even though I did not want to believe in God, I found myself running to St Cyril's Catholic Church in Tucson to ask a priest "Why?" Why is this happening, why is there so much evil?
**************************************************
That was Wednesday. And maybe Thursday. I ran out of time...may run out tonight, too. But will try to finish this...
While in seminary, my wonderful professor of OT, Bill Power told a story about the reason why a lamb was sacrificed on Passover. Back then, lamb was a common food. He told us that nowadays, chicken in more common. He said, how easily the words of our great prayer might have been, instead of "Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world..." could have easily been "Chicken of God..." and the class roared in laughter. In my laughter, I was certain I would go to hell for laughing...
That little story came back to me this week. Apparently, to show your belief in your "Christian values," you were supposed to go to Chick-fil-A to show your support of...something...I think they were calling it "freedom of religion," but what I felt was "let's put those perverts in their place, I want the world to know I want Christian values to reign in this country" That may not have been what it was. That was how it felt. At least, that was the anger that came across on FB about it. It was less about "religious freedom" but more about some kind of definition of what marriage is supposed to be, according to what the Bible says. It felt like anger all over the place, and the more I read, the more frightened I became. My thought was, "if people believed in marriage so much, then why is divorce allowed? Why do we have annulments? Why do we get to change partners, why do fight over child custody? If marriage is so sacred, why do we...and in particular, why do many Christians, believe they can change partners and call it holy? And if some same sex couple wants to have a binding legal deed created to protect them and their families...then why not? Not all heterosexual couples choose to have children, and most of them choose how many they want and when to have them...if it's all about God...then what about that? Fix that first, then come to me with a mandate to redefine marriage. The hypocrisy just took me to a place of great sadness...and then anger.
Please be certain, I am not claiming a right or a wrong here, I am just saying...do it right. Then I'll know how to behave, what to do, how to help. But right now, it's not consistent, or well defined. I see the evil of our lack of respect for marriage and the horrible consequences of a 'relaxed' understanding of commitment, but I don't think an attack on gays...and on gays who are trying to maintain a fidelity within their relationship...as the solution to a society broken by moral permissiveness.
I don't claim to be right, I don't know if I'm wrong...but something about what is happening right now just feels so skewed and broken. It hurts because I see the hate, the feeling of superiority and self-righteousness. It hurts my heart. It hurts my head.
I'm pretty certain it is not my mission to be a martyr to this cause and I must let it go, but it has disturbed my ability to love right now. I am stuck listening to both sides and I don't want to listen anymore, because no one is looking at the Truth. And the Truth is to love one another. The moral debate will continue, just like debates over subtle understandings of salvation. I do not believe God will put me to a theological test when I meet him (although He might, if He wishes)...but He will ask me how I loved myself, and my neighbor.
I hurt all over. Not about the Truth of God...but about the way we have chosen to live out our faith. I think about my beautiful Sisters, the Missionaries of Charity...I cannot see them deliberately going to a Chick-fil-A to prove that they are good Christians. They work with people who have done terrible things...and they don't judge. They have rules, though. If you follow the rules, you may stay in the house. If you don't, you are asked to leave. Yes, I'm sure some of you can find a way to take that and argue it to support your point of view. I don't claim to be right, to be smart or to be clever. I just know my gut is telling me something is wrong.
I had the funeral to deal with on Wednesday, so I didn't have time to stand in line for my "right to believe in God the way I want to" or whatever it is. I blame the Obama administration for taking this to a destructive level with the HHS mandate, which is clearly a violation of the Constitution...but I am also aware that carpetbaggers will run with this mistake and turn it into a weapon and make it evil. Someone always wants more. That is where governments and theologians fail. They take it one step too far.
I am so very sad.
There is a feeling, a sense, a wonder...that happens when I know I'm being manipulated. I've watched politicians for years incite riots to fight for a cause...that had nothing to do with the real rights and liberties of people. I have read the speeches of Hitler and what seems like a thousand other dictators...and how they manipulate people. (I almost have a second degree in history) I studied the French Revolution, I've read Burke and many others, I've read of the conquest of Mexico, and the history of dictators, and studied the Jewish Question. Since I was 14, I've read slave accounts and narratives, the poetry of violence and suppression...and I can feel the difference between what is morally right and what is emotion. At least I can for myself. And right now hurts.
Since the Wednesday Chicken of God event, fires have been deliberately started in Oklahoma, and today a Sikh was the target of a shooting...several shootings...I believe seven people died. On the day I left for Colorado, an attack in a movie theater killed twelve and injured many, many more.
Something is happening...and it has to do with morality, and how we teach it and how we live it. I've done my best to live outside of the world, but this week...it is very hard to not look at what is happening here...that I know about. I realize there is much more all over the world. So much, that to try to grasp it might be more than any one human being could possibly do.
So perhaps it is time to return to that love one another thing. The problem is so big and so horrible...the devil wants us to think, to believe, that we are helpless. But we are not. We have God's word...and we have each other. We must love...now, while we can, because we can. Because He loved us first. While we were yet sinners. While we mocked him on the cross. While we doubted and questioned Him. While we were so angry with Him for not giving us what we wanted.
We must love. I beg that, while there is a right and a wrong...and only one truth, love first. When you are done loving, then argue the fine print. Please. Do not be distracted from your call by your need to be right. Please love. There are so many who need you. Today.
You can hate me if you wish. But love who you can. Now.
Love, Cindy
It was hard to come home, to watch my son's big black SUV head straight down the road as I exited to U.S. 287 in Amarillo. The umbilical cord cut once again. I work hard to not be attached too much to anyone for just these moments...when I have to let go. Be alone again, which seems the lot of my life and yet, seems that it a path I have deliberately chosen.
So after a week of bliss, clean air and deliberate slowness, I hurry back to the life I have in Dallas...sort of. The silence allows me to reflect again, "what's the next step?" The accident slowed me down even more. And even before I was home, I was back into my ministry. So far, so good. But still always out of the loop.
Working the funeral on Wednesday, I encountered some unexpected challenges. On a private level, I was reminded of our many human weaknesses...things I had put out of my mind, hiding in my self-built ivory tower. Jealousies and envies, areas of unforgiveness and places devoid of trust...and so very much misunderstanding, mixed with that manipulations and judgements. Everyone was hurting, including me, and I was helpless to offer any consolation to anyone. Things might have gone awry when one priest left, then two, then three...but things are broken and I don't know my place anymore. Was it that I expected too much (but perhaps was given too much) in that first bizarre entry back into the Catholic Church? Was what I experienced a skewed representation of the church?
Or is it that things are just getting uglier out there? When I lived in Tucson, I found that we had seasons of more deliberate evil. There were times, in the nearly unbearable summer heat, when rapes went up, beatings and robberies increased...times when, even though I did not want to believe in God, I found myself running to St Cyril's Catholic Church in Tucson to ask a priest "Why?" Why is this happening, why is there so much evil?
**************************************************
That was Wednesday. And maybe Thursday. I ran out of time...may run out tonight, too. But will try to finish this...
While in seminary, my wonderful professor of OT, Bill Power told a story about the reason why a lamb was sacrificed on Passover. Back then, lamb was a common food. He told us that nowadays, chicken in more common. He said, how easily the words of our great prayer might have been, instead of "Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world..." could have easily been "Chicken of God..." and the class roared in laughter. In my laughter, I was certain I would go to hell for laughing...
That little story came back to me this week. Apparently, to show your belief in your "Christian values," you were supposed to go to Chick-fil-A to show your support of...something...I think they were calling it "freedom of religion," but what I felt was "let's put those perverts in their place, I want the world to know I want Christian values to reign in this country" That may not have been what it was. That was how it felt. At least, that was the anger that came across on FB about it. It was less about "religious freedom" but more about some kind of definition of what marriage is supposed to be, according to what the Bible says. It felt like anger all over the place, and the more I read, the more frightened I became. My thought was, "if people believed in marriage so much, then why is divorce allowed? Why do we have annulments? Why do we get to change partners, why do fight over child custody? If marriage is so sacred, why do we...and in particular, why do many Christians, believe they can change partners and call it holy? And if some same sex couple wants to have a binding legal deed created to protect them and their families...then why not? Not all heterosexual couples choose to have children, and most of them choose how many they want and when to have them...if it's all about God...then what about that? Fix that first, then come to me with a mandate to redefine marriage. The hypocrisy just took me to a place of great sadness...and then anger.
Please be certain, I am not claiming a right or a wrong here, I am just saying...do it right. Then I'll know how to behave, what to do, how to help. But right now, it's not consistent, or well defined. I see the evil of our lack of respect for marriage and the horrible consequences of a 'relaxed' understanding of commitment, but I don't think an attack on gays...and on gays who are trying to maintain a fidelity within their relationship...as the solution to a society broken by moral permissiveness.
I don't claim to be right, I don't know if I'm wrong...but something about what is happening right now just feels so skewed and broken. It hurts because I see the hate, the feeling of superiority and self-righteousness. It hurts my heart. It hurts my head.
I'm pretty certain it is not my mission to be a martyr to this cause and I must let it go, but it has disturbed my ability to love right now. I am stuck listening to both sides and I don't want to listen anymore, because no one is looking at the Truth. And the Truth is to love one another. The moral debate will continue, just like debates over subtle understandings of salvation. I do not believe God will put me to a theological test when I meet him (although He might, if He wishes)...but He will ask me how I loved myself, and my neighbor.
I hurt all over. Not about the Truth of God...but about the way we have chosen to live out our faith. I think about my beautiful Sisters, the Missionaries of Charity...I cannot see them deliberately going to a Chick-fil-A to prove that they are good Christians. They work with people who have done terrible things...and they don't judge. They have rules, though. If you follow the rules, you may stay in the house. If you don't, you are asked to leave. Yes, I'm sure some of you can find a way to take that and argue it to support your point of view. I don't claim to be right, to be smart or to be clever. I just know my gut is telling me something is wrong.
I had the funeral to deal with on Wednesday, so I didn't have time to stand in line for my "right to believe in God the way I want to" or whatever it is. I blame the Obama administration for taking this to a destructive level with the HHS mandate, which is clearly a violation of the Constitution...but I am also aware that carpetbaggers will run with this mistake and turn it into a weapon and make it evil. Someone always wants more. That is where governments and theologians fail. They take it one step too far.
I am so very sad.
There is a feeling, a sense, a wonder...that happens when I know I'm being manipulated. I've watched politicians for years incite riots to fight for a cause...that had nothing to do with the real rights and liberties of people. I have read the speeches of Hitler and what seems like a thousand other dictators...and how they manipulate people. (I almost have a second degree in history) I studied the French Revolution, I've read Burke and many others, I've read of the conquest of Mexico, and the history of dictators, and studied the Jewish Question. Since I was 14, I've read slave accounts and narratives, the poetry of violence and suppression...and I can feel the difference between what is morally right and what is emotion. At least I can for myself. And right now hurts.
Since the Wednesday Chicken of God event, fires have been deliberately started in Oklahoma, and today a Sikh was the target of a shooting...several shootings...I believe seven people died. On the day I left for Colorado, an attack in a movie theater killed twelve and injured many, many more.
Something is happening...and it has to do with morality, and how we teach it and how we live it. I've done my best to live outside of the world, but this week...it is very hard to not look at what is happening here...that I know about. I realize there is much more all over the world. So much, that to try to grasp it might be more than any one human being could possibly do.
So perhaps it is time to return to that love one another thing. The problem is so big and so horrible...the devil wants us to think, to believe, that we are helpless. But we are not. We have God's word...and we have each other. We must love...now, while we can, because we can. Because He loved us first. While we were yet sinners. While we mocked him on the cross. While we doubted and questioned Him. While we were so angry with Him for not giving us what we wanted.
We must love. I beg that, while there is a right and a wrong...and only one truth, love first. When you are done loving, then argue the fine print. Please. Do not be distracted from your call by your need to be right. Please love. There are so many who need you. Today.
You can hate me if you wish. But love who you can. Now.
Love, Cindy
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