Feast of the Immaculate Conception

I'm up incredibly early today, inspired -- yes, finally inspired once again! -- to center my life on the Lord, to focus, to live for Him at least for today. For today is all I can manage to wrap my mind around. I can focus on eternity this minute, this hour, this day. I can't worry about tomorrow. That might burden me too much. Too overwhelming. Too much to do. Too much work and sacrifice which requires more energy than I have at this moment. But today -- I can handle that.
Lord give me the graces to do what I need to do right now. Oh most Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us who have recourse to thee.

Andrew Paul -- redemption

Andrew is the name of a coward I knew in 8th grade. Typical of most cowards, he was also a brooding bully – one that tormented me daily throughout that last junior high year. Even when my insightful 14-year-old self confronted him about how he picked on me merely as a way of making himself look good in front of his friends, he scoffed, deflecting the remark with, “Oh, and you know everything. Ha.”
I pitied the boy because not only was he never honest with me, but he also was never honest with himself.
Andrew is also the name of a brave young man I knew in college. Like many brave souls, he was jovial, with a hearty laugh which resounded through the hallways. I last spoke to him when visiting campus after I’d graduated. He gave me a huge smile, said it was great to see me, and congratulated me on my recent engagement to his dorm buddy. I last saw him less than a year later at my fiancé’s graduation. Andy arrived for the ceremony, bald, swollen, assisted by a walker, dying from a brain tumor. He was greeting and congratulating his graduating class, a class he was simply witnessing, due to his illness.
Later that same year, I was married, pregnant, and kneeling beside Andy’s body in a casket, asking for his prayers that I might be a good mother.
Even though his life was cut short at age 22, his was the most beautiful funeral I’d ever attended, mostly because he had led a beautiful life.
I believe a name can be redeemed. What once was a sound of scorn in my ears became a lift of delight. We all have our weaknesses, our faults, our dark hidden corners of the soul. Some of us flagrantly display inadequacies; some of us painstakingly mask them. But we all have them. Every one of us is in some way wanting strength, healing, light.
For a select few, the answer greets them with a knock to the ground, a blinding flash, and a reprimanding voice from heaven. So it was for Paul, “Persecutor of Christians” turned “Pillar of Faith.” Yet for most of us, direction, wisdom, and redemption are found through a long winding road. And as long as we continue on the journey, we maintain hope.

Love is messy.

Love is not a crisp linen sheet to be folded into neat creases and stored on a shelf, awaiting a special occasion to be laid out and displayed. No. Love is messy. Meant for daily use. Acquiring stains and wrinkles, fraying edges. Regular shaking out, washing and pressing required.

how much I've fallen short

All day yesterday I didn’t feel pregnant. I wasn’t waddling or aching or sighing from exhaustion. I was simply me again. And I felt good for a while. But I felt guilt too.

A friend of mine has a two year old daughter, comatose in the hospital. The family found her a few days ago at the bottom of their pool and she hasn’t woken since.

I prayed for the family during my morning walk, before school lessons, at lunch time, while grocery shopping, and all through the hour it took me to prepare a meal for them. I was happy to offer up all that I could. Yet my frustration with myself crept up all around me, reminding me of how much I’ve fallen short of my own ideal of motherhood. I wanted to do better and yet I was still not ready to completely let go of myself – to surrender — once again.

wisdom

"I suddenly saw...that you could want something your whole life but realize in the moment of achieving your desire that it couldn't save you the way you always thought it could, that it could in fact change you irrevocably into someone you didn't know and would not want to be."
-- John Tilden speaking in "Shame" by Greg Garrett

Billy Rimmer asked me out once. Well, he suggested “we give it a try sometime.” This is a boy I’d had a crush on for the past five years since 5th grade. He was a blond haired blue eyed boy, outgoing, athletic. I had known every girl he’d ever dated and I knew too that I wasn’t like any of them. They were much more cute, athletic, and well, just plain popular. Yet here he was on the phone with me – it was probably me that called him – suggesting that “who knows, it might work out." I chuckled, hesitated, then declined, saying, “If I went out with you now, it would only be because I’ve always wanted to, not because I really care about you. I’d be doing it only because it’s something I’ve always wanted to do, not really because I think there would be any chance of it working between us.” I’m not sure he understood my reasoning. I’m not even sure I knew how it was that I was able to pass up such an opportunity at age 15. But I did. I was wise back then, very wise.

park day

I went to the park yesterday. I go once a month, and for those few hours, I get to escape all the petty annoyances of my life and just immerse myself in nature. I get to be surrounded by children’s laughter and women asking me, “How are you doing?” rather than, “How do you do it?” They don’t view me as extraordinary or unusual because they have a daily routine just as challenging as my own.

We know each other well, we know each other’s kids, we’ve held each other’s babies. It’s a nice group of moms. Whenever I consider giving up on my “profession” I continue because of them. There were about fifteen families at the park yesterday. I conversed with various clusters of individuals. The topics centered around quality healthcare which takes a minimalist approach on medications and vaccinations, proper ways to receive the sacraments, the difficulties encountered when ensuring the moral upbringing of our children, ways to be charitable toward neighbors while still warding off their negative influences on our families.

This unique group of mine, so conservative and quaint, concerns themselves with topic most people never consider. Yet I admire them because these women are thoughtful, passionate, and authentic. I’ve never received a scoff or stare or snide remark from any one of them. They are all friendly, even if I don’t quite know some of them well enough to call them friends.

There were at least fifty kids on the playground yesterday. Not a single skirmish occurred. It rarely does. Sometimes sand gets thrown on a little tot’s head. But there’s hardly ever pushing or shoving, name calling or teasing. I can expect my kids to enjoy themselves while we’re there.
And I can expect to enjoy myself too.

Woman and Man

A woman and a man are in a bedroom together.

The woman drapes herself over some pillows on the bed. Her eyes are half closed, looking toward the man. Her head is tilted back, her lips parted. Her arm lies across the pillows, reaching out toward the man. Her other arm lies on her chest, her fingers brushing over her breast. Her back is slightly arched and her legs separated as the foot of one leg rests against the knee of the other.

The man stands at the window. His eyes are wide open, side glancing out toward the street. His head is lowered, his lips pressed together. His arm bars the window while the other hangs by his side. His back is straight and his footing sure.

What does this image display? Why are the man and the woman both appealing in their own ways?

The woman relies on the man’s protection. She waits for him to come to her. She knows he will come when he perceives that she is safe. She leaves herself vulnerable on the bed, her neck and torso exposed. Her fingers direct him to the part of her that nurtures. Her open legs beckon the seed-bearer into her garden. She is in a welcoming position of surrender and she is completely alluring.

The man exhibits self control. He knows the woman is completely available to him at this moment, but he first patrols the area, making sure no danger lurks around. He faces the woman, but keeps an eye on the world. He is alert and prepared to battle whoever poses as a threat to the woman whom he holds as his greatest treasure. He will ease his mind and fully enter into her embrace only when he is certain that all is secure. He displays confidence and patience and he is utterly appealing.

As twisted as our gender-confused world is at times, I find it fascinating that we can still find so many signs of what women and men innately find attractive. All you have to do to test this out is imagine the man stretched out on the bed and the woman standing guard at the window. Ridiculous!

Women are called to surrender and nurture. We think of these as weak, martyrish qualities. But in truth, it takes a strong woman to give herself completely, with total trust, time and again. A woman who remains protective of herself inadvertently belittles the man, which leads him to either abandon or dominate her.

Men are called to protect and maintain self control. We think of these as brutish, stoic qualities. Yet it takes a determined man to patiently await the proper time for taking what is offered to him. A man who remains ruled by his passions instills fear in the woman, which causes her to close herself off to him.

Our culture continues to define and redefine what it means to be a woman and a man. I believe though that we will never completely turn from those qualities to which we are innately called.

Crossing the roads of life.

A friend of mine recently told me that his biggest problem is his lack of faith. Lack of faith. I find this is a problem with a lot of people I’ve met lately. And I notice too that the people who have the biggest problem with faith are the people who have the biggest problem with trusting other people. They don’t want to get close to anybody because they are skeptical of other people’s motives. They stay away from words like “love” and “forever.” They don’t really believe that such concepts exist.

These people seem to only want to trust themselves. But too often I find that these are the same people who seem to be royally screwing up their own lives. They push away anyone who tries to care about them and they turn to substances to fill the ever-present void in their hearts. Essentially, they become addicts, enslaved to their own less-than-fulfilling passions. And then they have to ask the Dr. Phil question: How’s that workin’ for ya? Guess what, people – it’s not!
Sometimes I tell people the stories of my life – my choices regarding residential moves and growing my family and they tell me I have extraordinary faith. I am flattered by the compliment, but faith comes easily when you trust that another person truly does have your best interest in mind. If I picture myself as a child taking hold of my father’s hand as we cross the busy street, faith is not something to struggle with. It’s simply a matter of trust. I trust my father to lead me across that intersection and see that I safely reach the other side. It’s as simple as that.

Too often, we expect ourselves to reach the magical age when we will have all the answers in life. For me, it was twenty-three. I thought, “Surely, when I reach twenty-three, I will know everything there is to know about life.” Well guess what? When I reached twenty-three, I was a newlywed expecting my first child, terrified that I didn’t know any of the answers for all my all-important questions. Then I thought, “Maybe when I’m twenty-seven, I’ll know everything there is to know.” When I reached age twenty-seven, I was the mother of three children, trying to follow my passion of writing, not really knowing where I was going and having only a slightly better clue as to how to handle it all.

Over the years, I became friends with many other moms, women of all different ages, and I discovered something quite amazing: nobody has all the answers. There is no magical age of omniscience. We all are continuously bumbling through life, doing the best we can with what we have inherited, what we have experienced, and what we have studied. Many times, we just have to trust. We have to trust that all will work out for the best. We have to trust in other people. We have to have faith. We cannot make it alone.

Too much love? Never.

Someone asked me yesterday, "Is there such a thing as too much love?" No. Never. Love is as infinite as the universe. We have to know what love really is though. Loving a person is wanting what is truly best for him as well as what is best for myself. It does not mean allowing myself to be used or mistreated. It is not in a person's best interest to be allowed to act selfishly.

Think of it in a parental manner. Parents lovingly deny a child many things which they know are not good for the child. They do this in an effort to teach self discipline and discernment. Also, when a child misbehaves, a parent lovingly chastises the child in an effort to prevent the child from larger troubles later on in life. Love is justice as well as mercy.

Sometimes we give and give and receive nothing in return. It is in those times that we are tempted toward bitterness and selfishness. We think, "What good is love anyway?" But if we continue on in love, it is then that we experience passion. It is then that we suffer with love. When we suffer with love, we want to pour out our lives for the sake of our loved one. We ache with longing that that person might be fulfilled.

That person is then seen not as someone for our own purposes, but as a wonderfully made creation. He is a son, a brother, a father, a comrade. She is a daughter, a sister, a mother, a companion. Love sees through pure eyes and expects nothing but hopes for everything in return.