Fine Tuning my EARS for Jesus!

This morning, I woke up and did not hear God tell me that He wanted me to live Through Him, With Him, and In Him. Or maybe I wanted to hear Him tell me He wanted to live through me, with me and in me.  :(

After practicing some French...in bed.  A trip to Facebook, and then the store, the washing machine and outside to hang things....breakfast with Dave...and then I remembered and went back to bed.

I looked at the Crucifix on our wall.....and the ceiling made of 2 inch wide boards I sanded over 6 times to prepare for installation. Then the Crucifix again.  I opened my Magnificat , and began to say my morning prayers.  I find it is St. Benedicts feast day. The man of Prayer, Work and Study. His Rule says "get up in the morning when you open your eyes".  Among other things.   Oh.....I look at the crucifix again.    Jesus was available for me at 6:30, and again at 8:00. The 8:00 appointment could have happened at three different parishes all within a 5 minutes of my home.  Not only would I have heard it, I would have been given the physical means for accomplishing this Great Mystery. 

Last summer, a priest told me I needed to believe that God loves me.  How does one do that?  It isn't a doing thing.  It is a being very interior and in fact I think Quiet!  I lay there now looking at the boards I sanded full length one summer, only to have to do it again the next, after they wintered outside.   How do I really love you God.  By being available? ...being with?....saying so?.....giving service to others?....gifting others with time talent and needed, and not so needed material goods?  

Faith....Hope...Love.... I don't feel loved right now.  I don't feel important or needed.  I feel "in the way".  It doesn't matter what I feel.

I would like David to believe me when I tell him he needs to eat.  I would like him to believe me so much that he can stomach things he believes to be icky to him.

I would like it if only..... Oh there is the "IF ONLY..." Fallacy!  Caught you Satan. 

"I can TRUST YOU Jesus!" "I Can quietly believe that you love me and that all things will work out!"  Not to, would be foolish, it is a beautiful day in the neighborhood!!  

Intimacy Part II

The Communication of the Five Love Languages

Introvert/ Extrovert

Gifting Receiving Formation

Quiet

Seeking and Finding

  In early 2011 I ordered a CD of a talk given at the Northwest Catholic home School conference of 2010.  Sculpting Your Communication Muscles given by Tina Crosby.  I listened and then gave away her talk to my two college attending daughters who in turn shared with friends resulting in lively discussions and practice of the communication muscles.


Here are the  "Communication Muscles"
1. Direct: says what is clear and directly. Example: the child in "the Emperors New Clothes". 
2. Narrative:  Narration is formation, Narratives tell stories and drive direct and logical communicators crazy because they take so long to get to the point, and sometimes forget the point.
3. Logic: from point a. to b. to c.
4. Empathetic: listeners.

When I filter Tina's talk through all the other wisdom I have been hearing lately I hear her say that intimacy can be found when we employ, not one, but all the communication muscles, exercising them regularly, hearing how others communicate, and  the practice of appreciation for others' strengths.
                                                      Susan Cain Author of "Quiet"

My daughter Karen attended St. Thomas the Apostle parish in Grand Rapids .  In 2012 she heard these homilies on Intimacy.  A persons understanding of intimacy can really mess up the ability to communicate with others effectively. In the same way that a bad prescription in a pr. of glasses must be corrected by an optometrist, our understanding of intimacy must be transformed and transfigured by Christ. In the intimacy of my union with Christ, every relationship I have can be brought to the Holy Trinity.  The practice of bringing my relationships to God gives me faith, hope and Love for those persons, the event-ual results are unimportant to me,  outside of the fact that EVERY relationship we have with others, is a means of Sanctity, our friends, our family, those we like and those we have no affinity for.   

Fr. Chelich and Tina Crosby inspire this petition: "God, give me the grace to know and give ear to you, speaking to the best Man in me, even when the person delivering the message, is not skilled at communicating, for so often, communciation is not MY best skill!"

 Like Dr. Susan Muto in the quote below, our seeking and finding intimacy with the Lord, He transforms and transfigures not only my own heart but the heart of beloved friends and relatives (and maybe an enemy or two ).  I must entrust to him in the context of my intimate prayer and surrender; an acknowledgment of not understanding God's ways, and admitting to "not knowing what is in a persons heart",  receiving the consolation from God, that he 'thirsts for (my) expressions of Faith Hope and Love'.   In that entrusting, I become more clearly the person he has created me to be, from all eternity. The hidden Jesus comes courageously in view. Friendships and marriages and all other relationships have the potential for transformation in that kind of light.

Have a joyous Ash Wednesday, and praying for your faithful perseverance.



What matters is the deepening of our relationship with our Lord and in the light of that mysterious intimacy all else eventually works itself out. ~~Susan Muto~~

Silence

 

Mother Teresa wrote, “We need to find God, and He cannot be found in noise and restlessness. God is the friend of silence. The more we receive in silent prayer, the more we care in our active life. We need silence to touch souls.”

One of my daughters and I share a habit of introspection; an analysis of persons, events and things, in relation to self, present, past and future.  The future part is really tough, “What do you want of me Lord, right now?   What do I want from myself? And the wrong question to ask some times comes up as well,  “What do you want of others?”   That question is most often inappropriate.    

That same daughter had an Epiphany, I am so happy she shared it because it I needed to hear it!    She went swimming and in the silence of her swim, she heard and sensed God working on her whole being.  In the rest of the water, she was able to surrender to His work, in with and throughout her whole person.

I have this same experience when I go floating in the lake.  The analytical habit is set aside for the more effective surrender to God’s will.   This floating becomes time to re-order and re-member God’s infinite love for me, and His providential care for me! Then, in awe of the sky above and the pine trees in my peripheral vision, I REmember my love for God, resting in that knowing.  But this can be an every moment experience.  Brother Lawrence writes of it in, “Practicing the Presence”  and Thomas Kelly writes about it in his classic, Testament of Devotion.

Said daughter and I are growing up together.  She is far away from home and I have been withdrawing my presence from friends I have known for years. I quit Face book during Lent and deleted my account on my Mother’s birthday in the spring as a way to honor her.  It has changed my day to day a great deal.  I have silenced a lot of noise in my head that did not need to be there.  But then why is it so hard to relate to old friends face to face?   

Some relationships are like Face book, the good and the bad.  Sentimental stroking, a rehashing of news, a bemoaning of our inability to be “good” and a tirade of what’s wrong with the world and even me.   When the most effective human action might be to shut the mouth, still the imagination, and the analytical mind and let God re-order and re-member our beings into the Vine of Eternal Life.  God is in control, He is able to love in with and through us, but He can’t if we are too busy thinking it is all up to, and about us. The Self Serving, Self Shielding Pride Form* is the child throwing a tantrum about something the Parent is holding out for the child’s good.  The child is thinking for/in place of, the parent and has no space to receive the gift that is offered.  We need to still the wild imagination of the child and place The Holy Trinity in that time and space of the mind, going there regularly to be held and kissed, being reassured of my purpose; to love God, THAT IS MY PURPOSE, not the fruit of that love!  The interior snuggles with the Holy Trinity, produce peace, gentleness, and the person I was created to be for others, the fruit of my life.  When my love relationship with God is intimate, the other relationships; with people things and events, will be ordered to His will. God does not want me to coerce them. Sometimes withdrawing from those relationships where I am asking “God what do you want of them?” (None of my business) is the best I can do.

New Dialogue with God:  “Do you love me Lord?  Show me again please.  Let me know that your favorite indoor recreation is to love me as I go about the everyday cleaning and cooking and being available to the formation field you have gifted me with. Let Your love for myself and others distract me from my grasping coercive habits of the mind a will!”

 

*Muto, van Kaam term

 

Minding My Own Business

 Reflections on Todays Readings

Reading 1 1 Tm 4:12-16

Beloved:
Let no one have contempt for your youth,
but set an example for those who believe,
in speech, conduct, love, faith, and purity.
Until I arrive, attend to the reading, exhortation, and teaching.
Do not neglect the gift you have,
which was conferred on you through the prophetic word
with the imposition of hands by the presbyterate.
Be diligent in these matters, be absorbed in them,
so that your progress may be evident to everyone.
Attend to yourself and to your teaching;
persevere in both tasks,
for by doing so you will save
both yourself and those who listen to you.

 

When I attempt to contribute out of my home, many times, my social presence seems to be an utter failure.  And that is just fine, I have come to expect it.  My husband is well aware of my attempts and reflections after my failures.  I have a large family and I have trouble balancing individual needs with grace, someone gets too much or too little of some form of attention, sometimes everyone.  When he read the readings this morning during his prayer he needed to read it out loud for me. "This one is for you, (in other words) what you have been saying, you just have to follow your own vocation." Focus is just not one of my strong points, but I will not give up. How can I keep my focus?  By not focusing on the task, but on the Task Master.  He knows better than I know myself what is best for me to do at any given time, I can't hear my Lord unless I have an appreciative heart for His infinite goodness.  Next reading....

 

Responsorial Psalm PS 111:7-8, 9, 10

R. (2) How great are the works of the Lord!
The works of his hands are faithful and just;
sure are all his precepts,
Reliable forever and ever,
wrought in truth and equity.
R. How great are the works of the Lord!
He has sent deliverance to his people;
he has ratified his covenant forever;
holy and awesome is his name.
R. How great are the works of the Lord!
The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom;
prudent are all who live by it.
His praise endures forever.
R. How great are the works of the Lord!

There is more!

Gospel Lk 7:36-50

A certain Pharisee invited Jesus to dine with him,
and he entered the Pharisee’s house and reclined at table.
Now there was a sinful woman in the city
who learned that he was at table in the house of the Pharisee.
Bringing an alabaster flask of ointment,
she stood behind him at his feet weeping
and began to bathe his feet with her tears.
Then she wiped them with her hair,
kissed them, and anointed them with the ointment.
When the Pharisee who had invited him saw this he said to himself,
“If this man were a prophet,
he would know who and what sort of woman this is who is touching him,
that she is a sinner.”
Jesus said to him in reply,
“Simon, I have something to say to you.”
“Tell me, teacher,” he said.
“Two people were in debt to a certain creditor;
one owed five hundred days’ wages and the other owed fifty.
Since they were unable to repay the debt, he forgave it for both.
Which of them will love him more?”
Simon said in reply,
“The one, I suppose, whose larger debt was forgiven.”
He said to him, “You have judged rightly.”
Then he turned to the woman and said to Simon,
“Do you see this woman?
When I entered your house, you did not give me water for my feet,
but she has bathed them with her tears
and wiped them with her hair.
You did not give me a kiss,
but she has not ceased kissing my feet since the time I entered.
You did not anoint my head with oil,
but she anointed my feet with ointment.
So I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven;
hence, she has shown great love.
But the one to whom little is forgiven, loves little.”
He said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.”
The others at table said to themselves,
“Who is this who even forgives sins?”
But he said to the woman,
“Your faith has saved you; go in peace.”

Dave: I wonder what the expression on Jesus' face was, while the woman was bathing His feet with her tears and wiping them with her hair.

Me: I don't think Jesus was thinking about His 'social presence'; what people were thinking about all of this.  I think He was thinking of the woman and how beautiful her appreciation for His love was.  I think He was tenderly loving her by allowing her to thank Him. What a wonderful dynamic to meditate on.  The Pharisee's comment was an ugly, obnoxious attempt to interrupt the Love Will of the Father.

Those ugly interruptions happen all the time in social settings, and in our private thoughts. Jesus, help us to learn how to take the moments back into the ordered will of God and His infinite Love for all of us.  I hope today, the Love Will of the Father, will be known and practiced. I hope I can mind my own business; keeping to who and what I love, know and am called to serve....right in front of my face.


 

The Interior Castle, the Family Castle, Respecting and Protecting the Jewels Within MODERATUS

Boldt Castle, Heart Island, New York

This is a continuation of these previous posts. Daughters, Drop in Visitor, and Brave 

I think I am going to place a sign on my door, "home of five princess'".  I need a reminder of this reality, as the mother of five beautiful daughters, the word princess calls to mind a value that the world does not often see, and I too, am blinded by this world view; objectification.  Rather than focus on the great Love God wishes to bestow upon us, in us, and through us, I focus on the avoidance of all that is evil.  In the same way, rather than see my girls as princess' I might think of the fortress like boundaries that I must impose to keep them from thinking of them selves as objects, or others to think of or treat them as such.

Yes, that is the way of fear.  And fear can make us crazy.  Moderation, the Latin form Moderatus means to keep within bounds, restrain. Again from the word Mode, the Latin, Modus, a manner of acting, doing, or being.  Who wants to be crazy? I would prefer to live within the boundaries that remind us who we are. The Fortress like boundaries are not a bad thing, it is just that the emphasis in on the fortress, and not on the jewels inside.

Fr. Robert Barron in his DVD "Untold Blessings" compares Jesus the Christ as Warrior King, with the worldly view of warrior and king.   Christ was Obedient to the Love will of the Father in all things.  Being born of a woman in a stable, a life of Poverty and Chaste Love, sourced in, again, the Love Will of the Father.  So too there is a Fortress that is otherworldly. I do not have to give up that narration.  You see, I am the queen mother of my home, I know I don't do it perfectly, but I know who I and my children can go to for The Queens guidance, the Queen of Peace.   Jesus is The King, but my husband stands in his place in this Domestic Church, just as a priest stands in the place of Jesus for a Parish.   The King and Queen are not self seeking, or fortress building, they are forming souls.  The Focus is not what is seen, but what is unseen, the interior castle.  Like Jesus the Warrior, the Prince of Peace, this King and Queen seek Ladies Poverty, Chastity and Obedience; to the Love Will of the Father.  The Castle is meant to protect the hearts and minds of the inhabitants from the Usurper. Our home is open, we aren't perfect at the welcome mat.  We have a lot to learn about civility, but we practice. Civility goes both ways, our home is open to the stranger, but we can't control the perception.  We can invite those who are afraid, to take courage and slay the Dragon at the door that is the liar and author of fear.

I have five beautiful daughters, one is called to the single life.  She is convinced of it and has a thread of direction that will get her to what God has in mind for her.  She is invaluable to us in her wise ways with others. The other four,  believe they have a vocation in married life.  But that is dependent upon the invition of another. 

This family is not shaped by the culture directly.  Though we can't help but be influenced by it. The struggle to know the truth about many things is really a struggle against the belief of the day, and what is true and good. It is good for a Mother and Father to guide and direct that social life of their children to what is good true and beautiful.  When they become adults making choices that may affect them and the parents for the rest of their lives, it isn't unreasonable to continue to have a hand in that guidance.  Think grandparent raising grandchild of divorced children. OR unmarried daughters child.  The word that comes to mind is Insurance, pay with your time patience and loving concern now, or pay later when there is less receptivity. Tell me a story that this narrative is good for all, because it is VERY common and not attractive to me! I would not mind babysitting my grandchildren, but I want a Husband and Father in the lives of my daughters and their children!  I also want what I had with my in-laws, a loving relationship, they are actually the first persons I hope to see in Eternity.   Really, do I have another duty that is more critical? NO! 

Cinderella and Prince Phillip is the narrative.  The above castle is not Disneyland's Cinderella castle, it is a modest castle, yet beautiful.  Large enough to welcome the stranger and the friend, who has the courage to seek and to find.

Cinderella's parents feared for her life and gave her to others to raise in hopes that their Princess would be spared.  They also chose a Prince for her with hopes for her future.  I wouldn't get away with signing any of my daughters off to any Prince, children are not objects to 'give away'.  The free will of both parties is always a loving transendent dynamic that even God does not take away. Today women and men seek eachother out alone....outside the home. Yet in the area of intimate friendships, I am not comfortable allowing my young adult women to seek alone, as long as they are living with us.  The world has lost the narrative of protecting the chosen virtues of  Ladies Poverty(Simplicity) Chastity and Obedience, in the castle of the home.  Today, that narrative is mine. The welcome sign is out for those who have the courage to swim out of the moat of control, pleasure, and "my way or the highway" mentality, take up the sword to battle with ones imagination of what it is like to get to know a Princess in the home of her parents, and enter  into Christian communion with this family, we have no expectations of a lifelong relationship, some we hope for and some we will just enjoy the pleasure of another image of Christ in our home for the moment.

The practical rules for persons parents don't know well:
1. Come and see.
2. Be with us, eat, work, play and hang with us.
3. If you take one of our beloved daughters out, respect our need to protect by going out with others,  tell us where you are going and respect the curfew. 10:00 PM
4. . If you are walking out to the park just the two of you, 45 minutes max.

If the daughter is older and independent, these rules do not apply.  I am confident that they will choose persons that know that marriage is not (the other fortress) 'all about me." the ego drama that plans the 'happy everafter,' without much thought to the wider world.  "It's about, my house, my career, my kids, if I have any, my marriage is good as long as I am happy with what I get out of it."   My hope is that they are generous Princess' bringing them home for us to know the unique imago dei that they have discovered and love.

Anger Management 101

I read Pearl S Buck's Portrait of a Marriage while nursing my first baby, pregnant with the second 26 years ago.  It was so thought provoking, in that third year of my own marriage that I sent it off to my Mother in law, because I wanted to discuss it with her.  She disliked it so much she felt insulted that I had sent it to her. : (  Dad had told me once that she had been the sole parent in the raising of their 8 children.  His very much appreciated contribution was a successful OB practice in San Diego.

 The husband in this novel was not a big contributor, financially or emotionally.  He was an artist, and the wife worked very hard on their farm to provide for them. While administering a whooping to her oldest son, a teenager, the father walked in.  He had never seen her so mad and he tried to stop her.  The son interrupted and told his dad angrily that he had deserved the belt and if he couldn't stomach it, to leave.  Retelling the story, it seems sick.  Yet this was not a sick relationship. This was a telling of the dynamics of parenting, and parenting alone. Of anger, and it's affects on others.  No one likes to be angry. The son had made an already spent mother's life more difficult by his carelessness and she only knew how to inflict pain so he would not forget to do it again! The father was an artist, he lived to see beauty and retell it in his paintings. He knew nothing of the discomfort of hard labor. This "Portrait of a Marriage" is not unique to fallen man, wife raises a family and husband does what he is 'inspired' to do, without getting his hands dirty with the everyday duties and conflicts. Of course there are other stories where the father is the one who lays down his life for an unknowing wife and children.  Or the overindulgent mother and the husband whose attempts at forming children are sabotaged by the same. Where is Peace?

No one likes anger.  I don't know anyone who enjoys being angry or being in the presence of someone who is angry.  But when self serving, self protecting, self shielding anger is ruled out of the event, say for the anger of one who is being denied a drink or some other addictive substance, being upset with the person for being angry, or trying to suppress anger, or worse yet, focusing on the emotion of the inflamed person, is not helpful!   Anger is not beautiful, it is not something that the soft artist wants to look at.  He closes his eyes and walks away to find beauty while the opportunity for self giving love and peace, is lost.   The artist/husband would have redeemed himself if he had asked the son what he had done to anger his beloved wife so, and asked the wife to hand over the belt for him to give it to the lass. He would have made more points if he apologized for not involving himself in the past and made himself present to both wife and children in the labor of love that family is.

Rules that govern a family's emotions are dysfunctional.  on the other side of that coin, families that are ruled by emotions are also dysfunctional. 

Here are the healthy alternatives to the above: Conflict is allowed, your emotions are neither good nor bad, they just are, feel them, and if possible learn from them, then move on.  Being human is a journey into Eternity through, with and in, Christ.  Threats to that union, in ones heart, or ones beloved spouse, child or friend, can turn an otherwise calm soul into a raging bear.  When an angry person experiences the compassion of a calm friend or spouse, we are one step closer  to practical solutions to nurturing our relationships with one another, and one step closer to heaven.

The Sacred Space of the Mind

Memory, Imagination, Anticipation

Moma MIA

 

 

Sanctity depends on an attentive presence to people, things and events.  Placing the every day moments before Jesus and Re-membering that Jesus wants to be my filter eludes me, most of the time.   I can begin recalling and then re-membering my life in Christ to the every day moments of life by reverencing the reality that time and space is desecrated or made Sacred by habits of maintenance such as maintaining the Sacred Space in a room, by keeping it beautiful.  On exiting a room I can ask myself , "Is there something I can do to leave this room more beautiful than when I came." 

 Today I have an occasion to reflect on the imagination.  The same applies.  If I can not think well of someone, then Jesus is the one I should fill my mind with. If I am worried about an event or a combination of persons, events and things and or circumstances.... Jesus is the ONLY one who can save a situation, a heart, He restores all our 'stores'. Our store of patience, compassion, forgiveness, etc.  


Fr. Adrian van Kaam gifted us with the articulation of MIA.  The purpose of our Memory is to serve our salvation. We remember where we have been, we remember salvation history for all humanity.  Our memory should serve the virtues of Faith and Hope.   Imagination can serve the virtue of compassion and future opportunities for grace, and avoidance of sin.  For instance, remembering a certain situation tends to illicit anger in my heart and my imagination tends to go where it shouldn't go.  If I expect a similar situation in my future, I can Anticipate making a conscious effort to call on the Holy Trinity to adjust my behavior, "SAVE ME, Jesus give me a new perspective." or avoiding all together occasions of sin. 


So how do I apply the MIA of my mind?  Jesus come with me and transform my interior to be sacred!   Christopher West, scholar of the JPII Theology of the Body, expanded my view of what Jesus meant when he told us that He came not to abolish the law, but to fulfill it. Christopher tells us that it would be insane to make a specific law "thou shalt not murder your wife." most people don't need that law, because they have no desire to murder their wife.  So too, Jesus came to FILL our hearts with Him, that we have no desire to lust, or steal or break any commandment!   What a beautiful thought.  I know this to be true for me for many of the commandments.  There are some things I do not desire to do at ALL!  I never feel the need to steal.  I believe God will provide all my needs. But I do have to be very careful with time and events.  I have to check myself, am I trying to steal time or attention from moment to moment from others. 

MIA comes to the rescue. Jesus call to mind when my imagination running wild, leaving me in fear and doubt, anxious and afraid?  What, when and where, Jesus,  am I not allowing you to fill my heart?  Where do I live in doubt of your providence, your love, and your mercy? Let me see where I need to clean/ surrendering to you the interior of my soul and allow you to remain there transforming it to Sacred Space in which you wish to dwell.  Make it my habit Jesus that you dwell in my imagination in Faith Hope and Love.