September rain

Third weekend of September. First speech tournament of the year. I'm reading "Mila 18" by Leon Uris, or maybe "Nightmare at Noon" by Stephen Vincent Benet, or maybe "The Bet" by Chekhov...whatever it is. I sit on the grass in front of New Braunfels High School alone and I am weeping a bit. I hear the flags flapping against the pole, I watch the Johnson grass bending to the wind and I wonder what kind of year it will be. It this my year to go to State? Will I like my teachers? Will I fall in love? Why can't I have normal parents? Why do I always feel so alone? Where are you God? Does any of this really matter?

A month of questions. Looking for something but not knowing what it is. I don't know why people call January the first month of the year. Clearly the first month of the year is September. I suppose it is connected to the birth of Christ, the beginning of something new, better, more perfect. The days begin to become more light. Yes, a beginning.

But the real beginning is in September. And the Church must have figured that out because today is called the birth of Mary. And frankly, without her, the Incarnation would never have happened.

For the birth to happen, the seed had to be planted. It had to go into fertile ground, a deep, dark place where it could be protected from the elements until it became strong enough to live in the world. It had to hide. To hide in the strongest creature on the planet, someone who was all about nurturing life, someone who was brave enough to love, to risk life so that another might live, and that can only happen one place: inside a woman. The world needed Mary first. To be human, God needed a mother.

And today, in the rain, I remember how that all works. I became fully female forty years ago in September. No matter what anyone says, that is one of the most holy, sacred days of a woman's life. In my usual fashion, never quite doing things as perhaps it is always done, I told my father first. He just held on to the steering wheel of the Plymouth, stared forward and said "Tell your mother." I really didn't get it. I was (and still am) that naive.

Growing up Catholic, being a woman in the likeness of Mary was always a part of our education. That being a woman part was big. It wasn't just human, it was holy and it was for God. And when we get there, we celebrate. Most of the time, it is a celebration among women. But I guarantee the young men's ears are never more sensitive when they know women are discussing life.

The most important things of our lives, we are so private about. So many of them need to stay private perhaps, and yet...they need to be shared with the people we love. I suspect in the old days, women talked with women about women things. We told each other what to expect, how to cope, what the rules were and maybe a little bit about what it means to be a woman of God. Then later, when the carrying of the the child, when the seed planted in the ground must at last flower, the women gather again to help a new mother bring life safely into the world. There were private rituals and prayers to protect both the life of the child and the life of the mother, for child-bearing is always a potentially life-threatening situation. That is why we women were created relational. We give and carry life at the risk of our own. The sacrifice is great. We have to stay connected to each other just to survive. A woman who walks the path of pregnancy alone is the most vulnerable human being in the world. If a woman chooses to kill her child, she does it because she feels alone.

We must love one another. All the time.

Where will I find food for my child, once it is here? How to I make a home for her? What will I teach him? How can I make sure she knows she is loved? How do I protect him from the world, which has an agenda all its own? Will the father stay around? How do I count on a future when I have no control over it? Will he grow well? Will she be happy? How do I hold on and let go at the same time? How do I teach her to love?

All this comes to mind when I think about Mary. I don't know why I'm writing it here. Then again, maybe I do. I'm not telling the whole story. Not yet. This feels vulnerable enough for now.

When I was teaching at CCCC, I had a Tanner print on the glass of the window in my door. It was Mary, sitting a bed, holding a scroll, while perhaps a 9-year-old Jesus is standing next to her and leaning into her. They are reading together.

My daughter leans against me in her bed and reads to me before she falls asleep. She is surrounded by Strawberry Shortcake everything: sheets, pillows, curtains, pink walls and few dolls...and Kitty...Kitty is always there. The first toy I made for her before she was born. And she is the most beautiful creature in the world. She is the most perfect creature in the world. She is the reason I came into the world.

Many years later, I sit with my son at the dining room table. He's perhaps 12 years old. He opens the Bible and begins to read to me. The passage is from Daniel. "What do you think, Mom?" and I shake inside. My child, my son, wants to discuss the Bible with me...and Daniel at that. Even though the forces around us have told us not to bring God here, God nevertheless has arrived. Perhaps He never left.

All because Mary said yes to the impossible.

September is perfect. The winds change. The weather gets cooler. I can bury my nose in new books and new notebooks. Seven new teachers, seven new classes. Tabular rasa. New clothes, new friends...old friends: Sam, Fred, Bill, Chris, John, David...and a few girls who weren't too girly. I suppose Stacy is on the top of the list, Cindi, Lisa, Lisa, Marti, Jackie, Kim, Charlie, Patty...wow, I had forgotten there were so many! But all the connections and reconnections were fresh and filled with hope. And Friday night football when I wasn't at tournaments.
September was perfect in every way. A new year.

All because she said yes. Happy Birthday, Mary. I wrote this for you.

Love, Cindy

We're on Holy Ground

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

"Of priests, who are Levites and Descendants of Zadok..."

That would be Ezekiel 44:15. And verse 16: "They alone are to enter my sanctuary, they alone are to come near to my table to minister before me and perform my service." (NIV)

I had to call him. I realized I had taken the wrong road again. In the beginning, things looked familiar, the exit ramp, the highway, the Walmart on the right...even the names of a few exits...then I encountered the water. I don't remember water before. I've gotten off on the wrong road. I'm going to be late. Oh, why didn't I look at a map before I left? Why did I think I would remember how to get there?

I made the first call. "I'm on this road."
"That's the wrong road, Cindy. Go back to the beginning, when you get to this marker, call me. I'll tell you what to do."

Sigh...

I make the second call. "OK, now I'm on the right road. Things are starting to look familiar. What next?"
"Go to Exit 3313. Cross the railroad tracks. Stop in the parking lot. Call me again."

Sigh...

And things do look familiar. And I have to make a bathroom stop. I take the next exit. I think, 'Hey, this looks very familiar. This was where I got off the last time. Maybe he's forgotten. Maybe he thought I was somewhere else. Maybe I should go down this road instead. He gave me directions yesterday. Maybe I could just go from here and follow the directions I have. Then I wouldn't have to call him again.'

sigh...

I ask the kid working at the Burger King, "Do you know where Exit 3313 is?"
He looks at me and then walks into the back...comes back later. No one knows. "I just know how to get to the Walmart," he tells me.

sigh...

I look at the road I took before on my last visit. Then I think, not once has he ever led you astray. Not once has he ever been wrong. Why are you questioning him again?

sigh...

I think, 'Just do what he tells you do to.' And of course, there is a train coming down the tracks. I remember: "When you get across the tracks, stop in the parking lot and call me." Only I'm not on 3313 yet.
Trust him. I go through the light. I see the sign: 3313 Next Exit. I breathe a little easier. Now I have to wait for the train.

I simply have to do what he tells me to do. I hate bothering him. I hate having to be told twice. Three times. And I am embarrassed about how patient he is with me. He never makes anyone feel small. That's his nature to forgive our weaknesses.

The train passes. I cross the tracks. I pull into the gravel parking lot. I call him.

"Hello, it's me."

" OK. You have a pen? Here's what you do: first continue on this road for about 2 and a half miles. You'll go over three hills. At the third hill, you will make a right. The road does not have a name. Drive until you get to a dead end, then turn left. You will drive about 100 feet and then you will turn left on a road that has no name, but there is a red fire plug."

I am laughing now. "100 feet, right?"

"Yes. then go another 75 feet and turn left. I have a swing in the front yard."

I'm looking at this paper on the seat next to me...with all these little notes.

"You know I'm going to write about this."

He laughs. "See you in a few minutes."

I drive down an almost two lane road for about two miles. Each car or truck I pass waves a friendly hello to me. Reminds me of driving to TAMU, when everyone on the road was nice. I try to miss the pot holes. I don't miss all of them. I sometimes veer into the grassy fields on the right.

Is that the third hill or the second? And exactly what does he mean by hill anyway? Finally something looks right. I turn. I see houses. This looks promising. There is no name on the road, just a post where it used to be. 'Drive to the dead end and turn left.'

OK. Trust him. Listen to him.

I get to the dead end. I turn left. I drive the next 100 feet slowly...how do I know how far 100 feet is? But I see the red fire hydrant. I turn left. Ahead, I see the street I am looking for and I see the swing.

I pull up and grab the orchid I brought him from the back seat. It tipped over. Oh, well.

The priest opens the door, "You made it!" and he has a great big smile on his face. "Welcome!" and he introduces me to his sister, Sarah. I look at her and try to hold back my tears. I think about how good it is that she is here. What must it be like to have a brother? To have a brother who is a priest? To have a brother who is this priest? This priest, the one who 'came to me in a vision' when I thought I was going to die one night about 13 years ago. He matters in my journey.

Of course, he tells me he doesn't matter. Only God matters. Of course, I say. But you are stuck with me anyway. You are part of what has happened and are a part of what will happen.

He listens. I listen. In my head, I think about all the people whose lives he has touched and I trying to send him a message without speaking: Remember. Remember the good stuff. You changed my life. OK, God changed my life by using you. You said yes. You will never know in this life all the lives you have blessed with your kindness.

I'm thinking, why am I here? Because he has never led me astray. Because his words are true. Because he saw me when I was ugly and confused and saw me to the other side. Because if he says no, I will seriously consider no. But especially because, for whatever reason, he thinks I am a good person and that I will continue to do good work. And every now and then, I need to remember that about myself.

Yes, any priest would do that. Any good priest. Any holy man. Any true Levite and descendant of Zadok who is allowed to enter the sanctuary, whose only inheritance is God.

But he was the one who said, "Cindy, return to the Eucharist. Nothing else will make you happy."

And I listened. And I obeyed.

Before I left, I got his sister to take a picture of us. 15 years...really 26 years since I met him...and I only have a photo from a long distance. He gave me a blessing and walked me to the door.

He tells me how to get home. I said, I can remember how I got here. He says, "When you go home, you will be going a different way. It will be easier." Then he tells me. "You don't have to write it down. Just remember: two rights and then a left."

Theologically a thousand thoughts are running through my mind: Obedience and free will. Getting lost. traveling an often unmarked path to reach the goal. Having to trust. Having to ask. More than once. Not getting tempted to do what you think you know. Remembering who he is. Remembering why you are here. And all those things we talked about that aren't mentioned here.

"I'll be coming back." And you better be well, I think. Oh please, God, take care of him. I'm not ready to say goodbye. Does he know that's what I am afraid of?

He smiles. I start to get in my car.

Then he says, just before he closes the door, "Call me when you get to Waco."

Love, Cindy

Diamonds and Jade

I have some interesting pieces of jewelry. There was a time when I thought such things were symbols of love from one person to another, and more particularly a man to a wife. We women like pretty things. Shiny things. Sparkly reflective things.

Just like fish. Fish are drawn to the surface of the water by shiny little pieces of metal because they look like bait. And you know, sometimes that's all jewelry is. It is bait. And you get caught.

I have this one diamond ring, quite stunning. Belonged to my aunt. One of my little tests (and oh, I have so many of them!) is to wear the ring and watch people's eyes. Some are so drawn to the ring that they do not even know that they are staring at it. I'll start waving my hand around in some animated form of conversation and watch their heads move as if I was conducting a symphony. I suppose I should confess that to a priest. I am making fun with someone else's weaknesses.

Then there are the ones who pretend not to notice. They look when you think they are not looking. And they treat you differently because of what you wear. We are such shallow animals. We are so vain.

We think it is ALWAYS about us. Whatever happens, well, it is about us. It's about me: what I did or didn't do, where I was, who I spoke to, who I ignored, what I am wearing, who is noticing, why they are noticing, why they are ignoring, why...the whole damn world would just fall apart if I stopped thinking about it, right?

I am really stuck in trying to understand true humility, but I am thrilled that God is providing so very good, very hard lessons. The price for learning these lessons will be very high. In fact, much higher than I think I am willing or even able to pay.

Yet, if I survive these next few weeks, or this next year...I think I can really walk up to the door of the monastery, ring the bell, and stay on the steps for five days or longer if necessary, for them to let me in. I think maybe I can stand naked before them, as I grow, and willing admit that my love is so great for God that "even my body is no longer my own."

And that is what hit me so very hard at Mass this morning. I had forgotten that part of the Benedictine Rule. Not only would I not own any property, any sparkly jewelry to tease strangers with...I would not even own my body. That awakening has taken this whole strange journey of mine to another level.

I mean, such a "handing over" is a step so far beyond the humility that I have not even begun to grasp, that I wonder if it is even possible for me. Ah, but with God, all things are possible.

I love my friends. I look around this house and see so much baggage: physical, mental, emotional, spiritual. My very cool books, my chair, my skylight, my espresso machine...my journals, which are not just in tubs in the closet, but all over the house. Things I've written, started to write, notes that jog my memory to places I'd rather not go.

I'm sure you all have stuff like that. Things that are not your flesh and blood, but nevertheless feel like flesh and blood.

When I love perfectly, none of these things will matter anymore. And that, my dears, is the real cost of loving God. I kind of realize that now. These things and these relationships are surreal, they are illusions of the real...and yet, they need food and water and shelter and guidance and protection...they have to be cared for, but not owned. Not possessed. It hurts my head to think about it and I'm not sure if I really want to do it. But I know in my gut, it is the only way to be truly happy and truly free. Not free of God, mind you, but free within God.

Had a conversation with a priest who continually surprises me. Just doesn't seem like I would gain so much from him, yet he has a gift of telling me something I don't want to hear in such a way that I don't fight him on it. He's just so practical about it. Acts like it is not a big deal, and perhaps for him, it is not...but for me, who has been wrestling with God out in the woods for about 40 years, it's s big deal. Such encounters support the argument: if you get lost, go back to the beginning. For he works from the beginning...I am working from 'the wounds of my life.' So the priest says something annoying to me like, "Remember Cindy, even if you are not there, other people can get the job done, not just you."

And I think, "Yes, but...I have a style, it's special, it seems to do a lot of good." And oh hell, how I hate how the truth of that statement is unfolding for me. Jeez, putting me in stocks would feel more comfortable than the truth.

He gave me such a Catholic answer.
But he gave me the right answer.

Not one of us is going to change the world. Jesus Christ is going to change the world. He might use me for a time, and then He just might let me tread water for a month, a year, the rest of my life and I had better learn to be happy with that. He might ask me to spend my whole life pushing against a rock that will never move.

I don't get to advise God about anything. Certainly I can tell Him what is on my mind, but I don't get to change God's mind about anything. If I do what God wants, I'll feel joy and if I don't do what He wants, I'll feel pain...and He will get someone else to do it. And I shouldn't care. I should be glad that the work of the Kingdom is getting done.

I said one decade of the rosary aloud at St James this week, one evening. I did it because she asked me to do it. Sister asked me to do it. I sat in this church, where there is so much poverty and struggle, where people are not so 'book-educated' as I like, English is not the primary language here...the lines for confession are so long and the priests look so very tired...and I put my head down and read like a mouse. I close my eyes because I do not want to see anyone, because in seeing them, I have to see who I really am. I make out a little bit of the white with blue trim habits(?) of the Missionaries of Charity, but I look away quickly.

Oh, Lord, I am am not worthy to be here.

And for those moments of terror for me, a woman who has preached in front of so many in other places...I suddenly 'get it.' All the wrestling with God and with my spiritual sojourners, I feel in those moments that I have been fighting the wrong demons, trying to win the wrong arguments, looking for approval from the wrong people and not doing the real work he has called me to do.

For a few moments, I am humble. And it is wonderful and terrifying. And very scary. Part of myself was disappearing. A little death.

Am I ready for this? Can I be that kind of servant for Him?

Oh Lord, I am not worthy.
But since you have received me into your heart, let me open myself and receive you into mine.

Love, Cindy

Truck Drivers

I wonder if heaven will include a way for me to journal...This gift God has given me right now, the time to write...I wonder if I will get to write in heaven. I'm thinking not, for I have had a taste of heaven and it is nothing like anything we can imagine. But I want to write forever. That might me heaven for me, it is a kind of heaven now, but that is all it is, it brings personal pleasure and perhaps brings comfort to some others every now and then.
What is heaven? How far are we from heaven? I think we are kind of existing in heaven right now...and we are in hell right now...if you can get your head around the idea that time and space are human constructs, then the possibility that heaven and hell occupy the same space in which we exist might not seem so impossible. We just have to slow ourselves down enough to get a taste of it. We have to humble ourselves and make our ego sit in the corner, so that we can see something besides ourselves.

I suppose I am thinking about that because of all the deaths that have occurred in August, and in particular, the three little babies that the church buried yesterday. Trying to make sense out of tragedy...is really a touch of our egos trying to feel safe. Everything we have comes from God, belongs to God. He gives and we rejoice. He takes and we mourn. The more we do not attach, the happier we will be. Yet, who in their right mind would say that do a mother who is burying three children. I noticed the young nephews weeping. How young they are, to understand loss. How do we go about comforting each other, knowing what we know about the truth of God, and being present and active in the suffering of another? No platitudes are acceptable. We don't need to make noise to fill the air in the silence of suffering. Yet we still want to fill it. We don't really want to know our own pain and we don't want to know (and I am thinking the Biblical understanding of knowing here)anyone else's pain. And yet, it is knowing and being known that is the Body of Christ. Sharing one another's joys and sorrows. Feeding each other, holding each other, that's how it's supposed to work. Kind of a marriage vow shared between each Christian. To be with each other in good times and in bad. To endure it, to celebrate it, to encourage, to admonish, to hear each other, to provide, to be close and to step back. I suppose my analogy fails because I suppose the whole point of marriage is to procreate...but what if we were procreating...not physical human beings, but Christians...working together to build up the Body of Christ? Not everyone will be comfortable with the idea, I know...but stretch your mind...to think about it. As brothers and sisters in Christ, we are required to protect and care for each other within the Body, but as spouses, we are challenged to create in His image, the Life of Christ.

Okay, maybe I'm in the deep end of the pool. It's Friday. Humor me.

When my daughter was small and we are almost no money for anything, we drove across country (well, Tucson to Dallas) to visit the grandparents. Having no money for a motel room, we drove straight through, about a 24 hour drive. Bob and I traded off shifts. I offered to take the dead of the night. Bob's parents had loaned us their CB radio to use for the trip.

I recall a couple of things, first, that as I drove at sunset and after sunset, I found the road increasingly difficult to see. I thought I was tired. It was an hour or longer before I realized I was driving at night with my sunglasses still on. What a relief it was to discover that I was wearing them and I was not settling into early blindness.

When it gets dark, maybe you need to take off the glasses that helped you to see in the day. Not everything we have is meant forever. In fact, most of what we get in life is only for a season. Enjoy it and then let it go.

The second thing was the truck driver I "met" on the radio. While my husband slept, I was determined to keep driving and not fall asleep. The 18 wheeler in front of me was carrying toilet seats. (You don't forget something like that) He talked with me the entire night, driving through east New Mexico and then east of El Paso. I did not wake to have to wake my husband to take over. He needed his rest. The truck driver was friendly. I don't remember what we talked about, but he would occasionally say, "Little lady, you're getting a bit too close to my bumper, better back off a bit." And he would tell me about the places he had traveled to. He kept me going. He passed me off to another Truck driver somewhere around San Angelo as the sun began to rise, but I missed him and was glad Bob was rustling and we would soon stop for breakfast...at the next MacDonald's...

When we have a task in front of us, we need to not try to do it all alone. We need encouragers, someone with clear eyes and different baggage, to keep us on the road. We need someone who knows the path...the potholes and the detours and how to stay safe.

A baby being born into the world is hard work. And you don't get a break until it is done. The work, the labor will not rest until life arrives...and we need an encourager to focus on. It takes the pain of the work away, somehow, knowing you are not walking alone.

Like in the Passion of Christ, it had a surprising effect on me. This relationship between mother and son. Keep your eyes on me, Mary tells her Son. Keep your eyes on me, what you are giving life to will happen, the child will be born alive, look at me. Remember. You are not doing this alone. Look at me. The child will be born healthy. The child will live.

Guess I'll stop here and get to my hospital visiting. Be the firm hand others need when that lost feeling occurs and hell seems closer than ever. Help them find their way to heaven...

Love, Cindy

Stratos

Votre tête a la tête dans les nuages
Su cabeza está en las nubes
הראש שלך בעננים
Το κεφάλι σας στα σύννεφα

I just found a way cool English language translator. Remember that the Hebrew is read from right to left, not left to right.

"Your head is in the clouds."

That's what my French teacher told me as I struggled with even the simplest phrases. I have four semesters in French, a year of eighth grade Spanish, two semesters of Hebrew and one semester of Greek. Just because I passed most of those classes with A's, I can remember very little of it now.

Why? Because I don't use it. Because I don't practice it.
I have to work a funeral this morning, so I need to leave in moments. But I thought this program was cool.

You want to have something inside you? You've got to practice. You've got to use it. You've got to give it your time. You've got to share it. You've got to find others who want it. You've got to live it.

Such as it is with God. Nobody really 'gets it' in the beginning. You've got to wander around in the dark a bit before the light shines...or you've got to get your eyes accustomed to the brightness of Him whom you most desire. You have to learn to rest in the unknowing before you can really get to the knowing. Break in the new shoes, wash the scratchy new shirt, get used to the smell of a new book. Make it your own by loving it. Truly, madly, deeply.

Love,
Cindy

Practice

Almost twenty years ago, I thought about becoming a concert pianist. Just thought about it, mind you. I was told by my not so warm and fuzzy piano teacher that I had reached the point that I could play anything. I still had misgivings about my left hand, which just doesn't respond as well as my right hand. Still, it was a nice thing for a piano teacher to say.
At that point, I had mastered enough for a fairly decent recital. A little Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, Chopin, Debussy. There were days when I played that I felt one with the universe, that I was singing to it and for it. (These were my days before I could say the word 'God') I did just fine until I smelled his coffee. Then I knew he was standing outside the door and listening. Why did he do that? I didn't get it. And of course, at the thought of an audience, I became stiff and fearful. It I even think someone is listening to me, I get horribly afraid.

I have severe performance anxiety. What I have learned many years later is that I have a huge, gigantic, enormous ego. An ego of this size cannot be ignored. It has to do with self-worth and how I was treated as a kid and what I thought people expected of me and what I expected of myself. I didn't want to let anyone down. I didn't want to let myself down. I knew that, with just a bit more practice, I could do it (my music, golfing, dancing, writing, art, hiking, climbing, 'priesting') perfectly.

Only God is perfect. The rest of us don't even make a close second. Pride. Narcissism. Hubris. There was a line in "Almost Famous," a fairly good movie about life in the 70s...a wasted guy is standing on the roof at a party and cries out "I am a god!" and jumps from the roof into a swimming pool. We seem...okay, I seem to swing my pendulum between feelings that I am going to change the world to feelings that I can't even change myself. And of course, the operative word here is "I."

I'm into pronouns. They say a whole lot about what we are saying and most of the time we don't even know we are doing it. I had a great conversation with someone yesterday about it. I thank God that He continually brings me the people I need to sort out my own puzzles...and perhaps in the sorting, I can be of use to others...but I went back to the pronoun topic; one I had wanted to write about 15 years ago.

Why do we speak in third person when we are in the hospital and talking with a doctor but are not the identified patient. "Stop talking as if I am not here!" We often hear that when something important is happening. We try to distance ourselves from the reality around us by changing our pronouns. I thought I was a genius for realizing that when I was reading and re-reading the mystics...but then I found out, from a Harvard professor, that psychologists have known that for YEARS. Sigh...I am not a genius after all.

Yet each "aha!" moment is relevant for our lives. Yes, the news may be known, but now it is known to ME. I recall a woman who refused to learn math and it was my job to get her through her first year of college. I kept telling her "Math is your friend." And she used words I will not put here about what she thought of math. Then one day, late in the semester, the idea of "x" (a variable) seemed to click. She looked at me with wide eyes and said, "Cindy! Math is my friend!"

No doubt, the apostles, maybe a few days after Jesus ascended into heaven...okay, maybe years for some of them...they "got" it. An aha moment. A mountaintop experience. A moment of holy ecstasy.

But to get there, we've got to let go of so many presumptions and wrong learnings. Pride is the most horrible of our vices...and yes, I'll call it a vice. Humility is damn near impossible. Especially when you have low self esteem...and you would be so very surprised that almost all of us are ill with that disease.

Thinking we are not good enough means that we will probably overcompensate for that which we think we lack. And that angry demon manifests in such clever ways. Like thinking we have to be perfect at everything. Like creating a Barbie doll, or Ken doll, image of what we think we are supposed to be. And that makes us posers. It make us plastic, superficial and it denies us the real pleasure of being human and being alive.

I had someone recently tell me "Keep your eyes on Jesus," and all I felt was the hypocrisy in the statement. I heard the litany that accompanied the statement. I felt the pride that it tried to hide. And I was pissed. You know that feeling, when you are struggling with something and a person says to you, when THEY can no longer handle your truth, or they just want to shut you up, or they disagree and really believe they are right and you are wrong, "I'll pray for you."

"I'll pray for you." was a statement I heard over and over again from my so-called Christian friends when I was still unwilling to see God again in my life. I recoiled at their inference of self-superiority. I recall how one "Christian" action drove my daughter from the church. I recall how I begged a relative to leave my husband alone as she pounded his with her reasons for why he should believe in God. She gave him a good reason to say no.

And all this holiness is dripping with pride.

Humility is a hard thing. It is am almost impossible thing...at least for me, because trusting anyone was not possible as a child, and unlearning those lessons has been slow and painful.

I look at the Missionaries of Charity (nuns) as I attend the Novena Masses for Mother Teresa...and I think, I will never be like them. There is no way I will ever be able to be so humble, so submissive, so obedient. And I love being in their presence. Two nights ago, two of the nuns shook my hand during Mass. I was humbled. They usually do not touch anyone.

I have a special talent on the piano, I am pretty sure. Even yesterday, as I was pounding away on reclaiming passages of pieces and trying to rebuild my muscles, a woman said as I was leaving, "That was beautiful." I wanted to argue with her, but I knew better...I learned better. My world and my issues are mine. I have no right to impose my baggage on her. I said thank you and smiled.

But I have kept my music to myself, not because of humility, but because of pride. I was too proud to make a mistake before others. I was too proud to allow God to use me as an instrument because I didn't want to be embarrassed or humiliated at not being perfect.

Can you see how warped that thinking is? I am willing to bet that you are hiding a great gift from God because you have decided you aren't "good enough." I heard a woman speak last night who told me she was 'uneducated' and without a doubt she is one of the wisest women I have ever met. I have been blessed with a multitude of steel magnolias who think that they are dandelions, victim to the winds of life.

Father and Son by Cat Stevens on the radio here. Just ran into another student I used to teach.

I better stop here. Time for Mass.

Be who God made you to be. Practice being real. Don't hide. He'll hold your hand and you will dance with Him for the stars.

Love, Cindy