Priest Charmer

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

That's how love works.  One way anyway.

Okay, I'm done for now.

Love, Cindy

Little Girl Alone

Who is she?

Could she read?

She looks so sad, so innocent, so alone.

And so very beautiful. 

I want to rescue her from her beauty.

Take her home and sing her to sleep. 
I want to teach her to read.

Give her a reason to smile.

Set her free. 

I wrote those words under the picture last night, feeling frustrated. I was not certain why it mattered that I write about her then.  Now I know a bit more. I don't know hwo to write this, I don't know if I can write it...but it's important.  If it is important to me, it must be to someone else. Perhaps it is why I did the strange thing on the retreat, the Stations of the Cross in a particular manner.  I was trying to remember somthing...and there what seemed like a thousand images given to me over this week, each one a miracle. Jesus was telling me, "It's time to put the pieces together. It's time to connect the dots. I think you are finally ready, Cindy." 

A couple of years ago, I had my house blessed by a priest. My son said he was coming in town, so I cleaned things up a bit (I am quite messy) and then he called to say that something had come up.  I was to receive the Prayer Chalice from the Church that week, so I thought perhaps I would get the house blessed. I could not bring a holy thing into my house without making my house more welcome to it.

The priest agreed to come on Sunday.  As Sunday arrived, I got nervous and invited a friend to be present. A witness to what was happening.  Still very nervous, I escorted him through the house. He blessed all the rooms.  When we got to my bedroom, he stood still, as if surprised.

I suppose all good Catholics have a crucifix above their bed.  I have the picture of a little girl.  A copy of a painting, just like the picture of the little girl on the top of this page.  She was all alone.  Suddenly I felt almost embarrassed about the picture. I explained her to the priest. "She is me. When I got divorced and I bought this house, I found her and just knew.  She is me." And we continued to walk through the house and complete the blessing.

I thought, maybe, finally, I'll get to be a real girl.

Since then, I have shared that story with a few people, one of them, who listens well, heard another story.  A story about a beautiful picture of Jesus with the little Children.  This picture is called "Suffer the Little Children to Come Unto Me." 

She heard the second story, about the picture above my bed. This was the picture that hung over my bed when I was a little girl.  I would kneel on my pillow, hold on the headboard and just stare at it.  All these children getting to be close to Jesus!  How lucky they were...and I would imagine myself as one of them, crawling on his lap, hugging his knees, wlkaing with Mary up the hill to see Him...

Then one day, the picture was gone. I don't remember why, I just knew it was gone. I think my mother was redecorating, which she liked to do very often. It was always a surprise. The fact that I slept there did not seem to matter to her. But I never complained.

She knew about the little girl, and so one everning after RCIA, she and her husband presented me with this beautiful picture...what I would call life size...and I wept deeply, in the church parking lot, not believing for a single moment that anyone could or would ever love me this much. I cannot remember ever crying so much from happiness before.  I felt naked and exhausted.

She said to me, "Take the little girl down now and put this above your bed."  I was incapable of even nodding.

I brought it home and it was much too big for above my bed. My ceiling was too low, the headboard was too high. I hung it on the east wall, so that I would see it along with the dawn each morning.  It has brought me great joy and peace, not just in having the picture back...but in the manner in which it was given. 

So the little girl stayed above my bed. I could not take her down. Sixteen years she has been there.

I reflect on the last week. It seemed to begin with a woman holding my hand.  In fact, I'll write it was the mother of the priest who blessed my house who held my hand. She held it for a very long time. We talked about many things, and she just kept holding my hand. It was odd to me...again...one of those things that I am used to doing for others but I am definitely not used to people doing for me. Without saying anything, she let me know she cared...really cared...or perhaps she needed me?  Who really knows? The why doesn't really matter. But I received a gift. I hope I gave one. 

That set the tone for the week. Women. The week was all about women for me. Ones who like me, ones who don't like me. Ones I would approval from.  Ones I admire. Ones who I watch...who love well...and those who don't love well...women who are young and old. Women who are dying.  And the women children they leave behind.  Seems like so many now. I would like to write about each one, but I can't right now.  The alarm just went off and I'll be going to Mass soon. 

But they are there: the one who gingerly held her mother close to her during Mass yesterday...I remember watching her wash her mother's feet during a Last Supper event a few years ago.  I sat next to her, and my heart bled with a desire to have had the chance to know that kind of love while my mother was still alive.

And there so many more...perhaps I will add later. All week long, God has been pushing me, gently pushing me, into yet another truth.

"It's time, Cindy," He tells me, "Let her in."
"Who, Lord?" 
"My Mother. Mary. It's time."
"I am afraid."
"She was once, too, you know."
"Yes, I know."
Silence.
He says, "That's because you both are already one.
She is in you and you are in her. That's how love works.
Now you must see the truth.
Let her love you
as you have let Me love you."
I close my eyes and see the women:
Jessica, Joelle, Launa,
Veronica, Kathy, Pam,
Maria, Amanda, Martha,
Sandy, Mary, Elsie,
Bella, Zoe, Diana,
Kelly...Jackie...so many others...
and Aunt Dell, who died on the Feast of the Annunciation.

I have been told today, by God, in my heart...that my little girl will not be alone anymore. Mary has come to us, to show us how to love more and better. And it is time to change the picture. 

You think you are alone, but you never are. It just feels that way when things get hard.  It's not that it's going to necessarily get easier, you know...but here and now, it is time to realize you are not going to have to do it alone anymore.

Love is here. In the form of men and women who have heard and said "Yes. Let the impossible be done unto me, according to His Holy Will."

Say Yes to the impossible today. Let love in, so that you can give it away.

Love, Cindy

He ascended into Heaven

The retreat went well. Even better than I imagined, than I hoped. I think it will be a long while before most of us will understand the fruit from that day. 
I have to force myself to not think about the mistakes I made...but it is not as hard as it used to be. In my heart, I know everything happened exactly as it should.  In community, God's plan worked.  The gifts of the two other women who shared in presentation...as with the beautiful woman who put together the Bible study...I was privileged to watch them bloom. I thought, "God allowed me to help water their seeds!"  How great is that?! All I did was say, "Do it!" and they did.  But I must be so careful in my joy here...because I had others saying to me, "Do it!" and I did.  So where did it begin and where might it end? 

In heaven, of course. From where we came, we shall one day return.

I did the hardest thing I have had yet to do, I think...on this last retreat. I spoke of the most important thing to me: how to die. Too early now to know if I did it right...I feel that it was okay. That was why I was created: to die.

From an old Star Trek episode, Captain Kirk tell the mother of his only son, "How we die is at least as important as how we live."  And from an Angel episode, Wesley interprets an ancient text, " the champion[Angel] will die" and everyone is sad...until they realize that 'to die' means 'to live.'  We are fascinated with life and death.  Even more than food and sex!  In my opinion, these are the cornerstones of all religions: life, death, food, sex. We want to make sense of why we are here. In primitive religions (oh I am speaking so out of line here!) concern was with sex...but now that we are "older," I think we have graduated to "love."  Sort of.  Alright, I am not going to write of this anymore today.  At some point, I will...but I don't want to lose track of why I write today. 

Life and death. They are the same thing.
From the Gospel of John:

"The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.
Amen, amen, I say to you,
unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies,
it remains just a grain of wheat;
but if it dies, it produces much fruit.
Whoever loves his life loses it,
and whoever hates his life in this world
will preserve it for eternal life.

I spoke yesterday about how Jesus teaches us how to die.  That was so very hard for me to do.  I felt like I had just given birth to a child. I played the heavy...and I am very pleased that my 'bookends' were women who brought the beauty and love of life into the day. I asked the retreatants to die with me, and then, as God had planned...they ascended into heaven.  Every life brings death...and every death brings (okay, 'can bring') life. It only ends if you want it to.  It only ends if you cling to it.  Death is a doorway into the next thing.

Of course, that requires that you believe our souls are eternal. Which means you have to believe in your soul's existence.  Don't be too proud to believe in your soul. Just as I ask you to not be too proud to believe in God.

The bird that sings outside my window just now may just be biology, a simple evolution of a single celled organism...or just a chain of proteins linked together in random order...or that bird could be a gift from God, sent to me, on this Sunday morning...to warm my heart and make me believe that I am loved and that I need to do my part to give love back.

What seems like foolishness to some might save my life and maybe some others when it seems like death is going to win.  

I assure you, it will not win.  There are enough fools in this world who dare to believe, and because they believe, they love...even when they know they will get nothing in return...ah, because they have learned that love is that strange thing that never stays...and never leaves.  As soon as you share it, you receive it.

And as soon as you die (however you die, to body, to mind, to spirit, to possessions, to attachments...) you live.  ..."nihil habentes, et omnia possidentes" [2 Cor. 6:12] (Having nothing, yet possessing all things) Book 2, Chapter 8 "The Dark Night"

Love, Cindy

 

Never gonna fall in love again...

In my attempts to prepare for tomorrow's retreat, I have been writing much here. (I hardly ever write in my journals these days, so the ink and paper ones have lasted much longer than expected. I still enjoy looking at them more than going on line, though). I don't know exactly who reads these things, so I must be careful how I process my ideas.  I need tomorrow to be free of any bias.
Yet I am exposed this week to many images of heaven and hell.  From personal experience and from the experiences of others. And in this wash of ideas and feelings and prayer, I supposed I am required somehow to write about it.
In the "Catholicism" series, Fr. Robert Barron reminds us of certain ancient images of heaven and hell.  He reminded me that hell is cold.  It is a frozen wasteland. Frozen because it is the place where the ego is turned on itself.  This might be hard to grasp: but where there is no connection, there is no love.  Where there is no love, there is no God.  Where there is no God (even little "g" god), there is hell.
If all we had is ourselves, then existence has no meaning, no purpose, no identity.  We would have no name. Alone is hell. Being alone for eternity...without even a thought to torment us...that is hell.

Of course, the belief that we are alone is the core belief in depression.  We take pills to make "the feeling" go away.  But we don't need pills. We need to connect...to the earth and to each other. That is a huge and scary risk. To risk love is to risk pain and suffering. And loneliness. But not the loneliness associated with emptiness. This is a loneliness that is associated with the great desire to always be with the Beloved. It is not the alone-ness of hell. It is more of a waiting, a longing, for that which will complete us.

These things are difficult to write about, but I see so much suffering, I must try.

This week, in my work, one room I visited contained both heaven and hell.  This week I go to a place where people live to be cared for by others. This week, it smelled good. That is not always the case. But this week, too, I sat with a young woman who was near to tears because she and her brother can no longer afford the care they are giving their mother. They are forced to move her to a less expensive place. How often do I hear this!  We spend a lot of time talking about the unborn, yet we must also be advocated for the old and infirm, though I suppose the passion for their care is causes less outrage...sigh...
I always digress. The air was breathable. I offered communion to one, who struggled to sit up, even though I told her it was alright to lay down. Clearly, she did not wish to receive Jesus lying down. And we prayed together. As I left, I spoke with her roommate, who had always been sleeping. This other woman began to tell me how horrible it was to live there. How she was not getting proper care and how she had to hide her valuables under her pillow.  I said I would speak to the nursing staff. She told me it would do no good. I then said I would pray for her...and she became so angry.
What good is prayer?
 God doesn't listen.
Don't waste your time.
I'm not a child.
 There is no one to help.
And it went on from there. I suppose I should have shut up, but I didn't. Why not give it a try, just for a few days?  Pray and see what happens. She continued to speak of her misery.  

When I left, I thought about how heaven and hell were in the same room. How we don't always have control over the circumstances in our lives, but we do have control on how we receive them. 

This morning, I work to Beethoven's Piano Sonata in E-major. This one I had worked on for so long, my fingers grew numb at times while I was trying to build up my muscles, and it was during that struggle I began to play the piano with some real skill.  I practiced hours a day, often leaving dinner preparation to the last minute. I began to think about my husband, who had to hear hours of those notes as I tried again and again to get the left had trills just right. And suddenly, this morning, I realized how much I had not considered him.  I realize I was not a very good wife, but this morning, I found pain my heart....

Because he loved the piano, too.  We began to date because we both loved the piano so much.  I loved his Beethoven and he loved my Rachmaninov.  Only I got to take lessons and study the piano.  He got create and build satellites and such...but he would no doubt come home, and hear the piano...and wish that he had time to play. I suppose I sensed this, but I was too selfish then to offer compassion.  All I could see was how my marriage prevented me from being a concert pianist.  So we both lived in a kind of hell.  Seeing what we didn't have, rather than what we did. We were not grateful.

At least, I probably should say, I was not grateful. I cannot speak to his feelings, but it must have been bad...for he looked elsewhere for love and understanding. Truth is, no one is free from guilt when a marriage fails. And, no one person is fully responsible for its failure. That will be a hard pill to swallow for some of us. 

In this season of Lent, we need to know our truths, befriend them and the forgive them.  It is hard. The ego wants its own way. The id can never say no to pleasure. I kind of think that love is the only way to survive this world. Yet, we place such constrictions on love. And when we do...we can slide back into the ice cold of hell.

But love love does burn us. When I begin to fall back into my pity party, my feeling that I'll never have what I want in this world...I can think of those people who have loved me without reserve. In fact, I have one particular image of one person particular person, on one particulr day, who gave me what I needed most at the moment I needed it most, and when I thought I was the one doing the giving, the tables turned on me and I was the one who was wounded...while the other was wounded.

And that sacrifice, all I have to do is remember it...and it defeats all of the evil the devil tries to tells me is true. It's fire melts the ice I didn't even know existed in my heart and I am able to love again.

This is what we must do for each other. Not for everyone, but just for the ones God sends to us. Nothing is by chance. In every moment, we choose between heaven and hell. Between fire and ice.  The living flame of love, or the eternal ice wasteland of hell.

What keeps you from falling in love again? Ask God to show you. Then offer it up in sacrifice. Risk love. Risk connection. Risk the pain it will bring.

And the Kingdom of God will be within you.
You know I'm right. <3

Love, Cindy

Books...it had to be books...

Sometimes I wonder if the only reason I have been in this house for the last 16 years is because I dread the thought of letting go of my books. 
"When I get a little money, I buy books, if any is left, I buy food and clothes" (The book bag that had that printed on the side wore out in...1989, I think)  I have probably 10 wonderful book bags in the closet, still attached even to them. 
About three years ago, one of my nook bags turned up in the back of a restaurant, found only when a new manager decided to clean out a back room...

We all have addictions. I have several. Perhaps the most debilitating is my love for books.  Ironic then, that my reading habits have declined so horribly in the last two years.  My excuse? Faster computers.  Technology.  Facebook.  But not books to download.  I went on a cruise in 2008 and my friend was reading books on the deck on her 'computer thing.'  I thought, how depressing.  No smelly pages, no coffee or margarita stains, chili or hot sauce to remind me of where I was when I read it...no notations on the side to remind me of what I thought on a particular day.  

Books.  I felt like they were denied to me as a child. I walked to the Episcopal Church parking lot on Tuesday to spend the afternoon in an air conditioned trailer to browse the books that were brought into my neighborhood each week.  The good books were in the back of the trailer: stories about animals and astronomy...and there was one section of books with an "M" on them, meaning that I was too young to check them out.  I filled my arms with as many as I could carry...and walked the mile back to my house...and cracked them open and at first, just smelled them. 

I do that with my breviary every morning and night. I just smell it. And it is almost better than reading it. Of course, I have cheated with the breviary...it holds the scent of chrism oil...and when I smell it...I leave the world and enter into God. I know that, for me, if God has a smell...it is this guarded scent of the perfect life, the life I will always want and will not have until I die.

 But back to the books: The words on the page, someone thought up and cared enough to write down, so that I could read a story...and leave the so-called dreary existence I lived and go off into a castle, or into the woods, or out on a boat, where I was pretty and smart and brave and happy. 

I have a stack next to me now, gathered together for a need, a challenge, an idea.  I love research, learning new things...and oh my sweet Jesus, how much I desire to be a real author and not just a blogger.  Yet this is really quite fun, to sort out ideas in this manner.  I used to play golf. Now I write. And I cannot ever write enough. 

But you know...whatever I do...it always ends up about God.  It begins with God and it ends with God.  And I am helpless when I find myself in this space when the world makes sense to me. Each evening Mass, when the light gets a certain color...and people kind of begin to be still...and I sudden smell the earth and cement whetted by a summer rain...and I'm singing "The Impossible Dream" out in a field of weeds a couple of blocks from my house...that image always comes back to me during the Eucharistic prayer...in the evenings, as the light from the candles begin to matter...there is a kind of union through time and I am neither young nor old...I am just suddenly grateful for my life. 

That's what the Mass does for me.  Because it's always the same...since I was a little girl...words on a page...on the altar in a great big book...with it's own unique scent...combined with my little book with words on a page...with its own special scent. 

I don't really know why it matters. It just does. 

I suppose this post really doesn't have a point.  Perhaps when Josiah read the words that the people forgot...and wept...and then rebuilt the temple. And people began to remember...and turn back to God...at least for a time. 

What's what Lent is about perhaps: remembering what you had...that you had and threw away...or lost...in the reading of books, and for me, the smelling of them...you remember the sacred time when you believed and reached out and loved God and yourself and your neighbor...how the book brought back perspective and hope...and innocence. That what was lost can be found.That real love never goes away...and is always real.  And it is nothing like you thought it would be, because it's so much more than a person or a place or a thing. Love is God. God is love. And sometimes, He smells like rain...or a book.  You know.  He is for you what you need.

I am curious, what might God smell like for you? 

Love, Cindy

But For Love

Each day is better than the one before.
That statement is a miracle. I suppose no one but God will get that.  No one can step into my life and know how completely alone I once was, to appreciate what a miracle it is that I can speak today a thank you from the deepest part of whatever it is that make me...me. 

How much I am willing to write here is still limited by my need to keep safe the gifts given to me, but I am compelled by God to speak in some way about it. Now I am aware of certain people reading my words, so I am inclned to hold back, lest I be misunderstood. I suppose there will be a day when God will command me to speak freely about some things, perhaps He is doing that now...but until I know more, I have to keep working it out as I am able.

Thomas a Kempis explains that feelings are unreliable, which is true, but they are authentic indicators that the Spirit of God moves within us.  It's just that our interpretations of what we feel, the mind's understanding, is not always so truthful.  We want what we want. We see what we want to see. We draw conclusions that support our theories...and if our theories are not based in truth...then all sorts of unfortnuate things will happen. 

I spent the night with the guests of the Missionaries of Charity.  We had some revealing conversations out in the yard...discussions of how and why the pregnancies occurred, how many children...and I was saddened to learn that many of the fathers were in jail. The conversations were oddly not judgmental. The discussion kept going, I shared in with the 'foolish assumptions' I had in my youth...and then I asked the question, by not asking the question, that was in the front of my mind:

"I suppose I was looking for someone to approve of me. I wanted my father to love me, to say that he loved me...and since I couldn't get that, I looked for it elsewhere."  

That comment opened a door. Everyone was completely engaged. What I learned was that none of these women had any fathering...good fathering...ever.  One said her dad has been in jail for 17 years and she has seen him only a few times.  Another said that she wanted to talk with her father about important stuff and he would brush her off, or just help her to get high. Some just sat quiet but listening intently, while the children played.

I waited for them to make a another connection. Then I heard the holy words, "I don't want my daugher to grow up like that." 

But for love, this world and everything in it would be condemned to hell. But for love, we would never know anything but hunger and want. But for love, loneliness would be the only authentic feeling our brains could understand. But for love, many would die by their own hands. But for love, existence would arrive and end without meaning.  But for love, real life would not exist.

For love, we are here. For love, we risk. For love, we give and forgive.  For love, we serve one another. For love, we do not stay hungry, naked or alone. For love, we bring life from life.  For love, we sacrifice. For love, life has meaning and purpose.

In a conversation yesterday, about an upcoming movie, I can't recall the name of the movie...it is about a young woman who realizes she was an aborted baby that survived and went in search of her mother. I found myself weeping deeply, thinking about that.
It's taken almost 24 hours to understand my own tears.  The feeling then now has a name: In my heart, I am not much more than an aborted fetus, looking for my mother. I did meet her and she died, by her own hand...those are the facts...but I am still looking for her...I am looking for her love, for her approval, for her hand in mine, to rest my head on her chest and hear her heart beating, to have her sing me to sleep...even at age 55...those are deep, deep hungers inside me.  And nothing can make them go away.

But for love, I can live with them...because others, who were not required to love me...have loved me anyway.  I stand within myself and feel the goodness of that love.  I stand outside myself and see the miracle that it is: to be loved.

For real love is all that Corinthian stuff: it is given without expectation of anything in return. It fills the soul and it's taste is sweet. It is without burden, it is free. It is more than enough...and giving it away only makes it grow more deeply inside. It does not attached but is deeply connected. It is a perfect appreciation of the gift of being alive.  It is the onlysalvation we can know while we are in these bodies. 

One of the guests understood this idea. I watched her as she spoke of her understanding that the past, her past, was not going to be in charge of her life anymore. That she knew what mattered and how she would move forward...and how she felt called to help others out of hell.  I watched the other women listen to her and marveled at God's work. 

So I guess that explains my tears this morning, during a Latin Mass, in which the priest, who read the gospel in Latin, by my sweet Sister Anima Christi, held her prayer book close to me and let me read along...of Susannah...and the woman found in adultery and brought to Jesus...

What was, is no more. What you had lost, has been returned to you. Remember the mercy given. Remember the love you feel in this moment. then go and do likewise.

Love, Cindy

Repeats

I have two television shows on right now.  Both of them I have seen several times before. Outside my window, the hanging basket swings back and forth to remind me that the doves have returned.  Yesterday I lost my Duffy keys...again.  My house is messy...again.  I'm still waiting for my annulment papers...wondering if the Catholic Church is going to give a second chance.  A very tall, attractive man waited for me after Mass this morning at St Monica's.  I saw him and ran as quickly as I could in another direction.  I don't need to be tempted to make another mistake.

Then, at the hospital, during the last IPR we were going to have, a man in the group made a sound. A certain kind of sound, that reminded me of a grave evil committed against me 40 years ago.  Suddenly I felt nauseous and threatened. I wanted to run out of the room.  It took twenty minutes for my heart to stop pounding. It wasn't his fault.  He simply made a sound.

Memories...likes the corners of my mind. Misty water color memories of the way we were. 

We can learn from our mistakes, we can forgive our enemies and our friends...but forgetting is more about biology than choice. The whole point of training to be a chaplain is to pay attention to our past...and how it informs the present moment. We have to know what we feel so that it is helpful and nor harmful in a time of crisis.  How well we know ourselves is the best indicator of how we will chaplain, pastor, befriend people. 

We mark ages and seasons by the moon and the sun. We have habits and rituals. Now we are in Lent. 40 days, which in Hebrew is an unspecified amount of time, but generally is interpreted as "enough."  We take the time to reflect on the repeats in our lives.

Some stories we want to hear over and over again.  Those stories take us to a happy place.  They help us remember the good, when perhaps the "not good" is all around us.  Then there are the stories of warning. Sometimes scary stories or morality tales help us remember what not to do.  Often though, it is experience that informs us best. It is the best teacher, for good or for bad.

If you have always been hurt by Jane, or by teachers or by men in authority...you expect a repeat performance.  If you have been consistantly loved by someone, you expect that love to continue.  It all depends, many times, on the repeats of your life...the things that happen...and the things that you choose to surround yourself with.

Mom and Dad were right.  If you hang out with certain people, you will become like them, think like them perhaps even dress like them.  Their ideas and their conclusions become yours.  It's all about repeats.

If they forgot your birthday last year, they will probably forget it this year, too. 

What's the point of these ramblings?  Nothing is set in stone. Change is possible. Sometimes really hard, but possible.  Reclaiming the good. Refusing the bad.  Letting go of that which destroys. Hanging close to that which builds up. 

The doves used to come every year, when I had my piano. They loved the music, but I gave the piano away four years ago to my daughter. And the hanging basket just rotted away.  In a desperate hope, I hung out another basket.  No doves the first year.  I did not plant anything in it. No doves the second year.  But the third year, I went out side and heard that familiar sound of wings flapping...and we had babies again. This year, they are back again.  Without the music, they found the basket.

Nothing ever really stays exactly the same, but we can choose to repeat those things that blessed us before, even though we have changed in many ways...we can bring the blessing back just by being open to it.  And we can let go of continuing to repeat those things that hurt...because we deserve so much better that being hurt over and over again. To do that involves attention to what really happened, to find the real truth...and not just rely on what someone was telling you (and that someone may be yourself)...and then forgive it...or him...or you.

I figure we've got about 27 days left in Lent. To bring back the good. To wash off the bad. Just remember, the calendar is just a calendar...forty is a very fluid number. If Easter comes and your not finished, that's okay. Celebrate with others...and then keep working toward your own Easter...your own resurrection. Stay close to Him, who loved you first. 

I had a great visit with God this morning...and a nice short uplifting conversation with a priest. I told him I was feeling old.  We walked into a group of white haired people and he said, "Look around you," and I smiled at him. But then the day got harder. There was a time all I would remember was the bad: the failures, the disappointments, the ways I hurt others when I meant to love. But I've grown a bit...enough to know that repeats are only there if that's what you want. Adventure into the unknown, trying something different (and healthy!) is good, too. 

Each day, I must forgive others.
Each day, I must forgive myself.
Each day, I must love others
Each day, I must let others love me.
Each day, I must create the good
Each day, I must discard the bad
Oh yeah...and ask God to show me which is which.
And say thank you. 

Not too poetic, but I didn't say anything about perfect here...

There's much more on my mind...always is...

May God greet you with a holy kiss before you fall asleep tonight...He's there for the long haul...you don't need to worry...

Love, Cindy