Never Judge a Book By Its, Cover, or Maybe You Should
27 May 2012 3 Comments
in Bumps in the Road of Life, Catholicism, Marriage, Parish, Pentecost, Spiritual Growth, Worship Tags: Las Cruces, New Mexico, spiritual home
Today I went to St. Albert the Great. It serves the NMSU and the surrounding neighborhood. I expected, (hoped?) to find a younger, more tolerant crowd. That didn’t happen, but what did was not unpleasant or disagreeable either.
I arrived a bit early. The church is in the adobe style, modern, meaning post Vatican II. It was pleasant inside although the pews were without kneelers. For those who don’t know me much, I am, good or bad, rather impressed or depressed by the physicality of a church. Some leave me flat and spiritless, others inspire. I prefer the latter.
This did inspire, until I sat down. For the next 10-15 minutes I was hailed by a variety of aged men and women, who chattered so loudly that at times I thought I was in a sports arena filling for a title bout. The usual complaints and explanations of physical ailments, treatments and medications ensued. Hardly the place where one can quiet one’s mind turn toward God. You can make the usual arguments, I’m well aware that I’m being petty.
About three minutes before Mass, the place began to fill with the families and the college fare until it was fully bursting at the seams.
The music began, part in Spanish and part in English, which I find utterly delightful, and voices rose in harmony and vigor.
So far, my experiences in New Mexican Catholic churches suggest that most homilies are left to the deacon. This one was neither especially good or bad, average, which most are. Father was attentive and friendly.
I learned that the diocese is getting a new bishop and the parish a new priest. This suggests to me a great time to schedule an appointment and go in and talk to Father about my marriage issues, and get a feel for the reception I might receive there as a permanent member. It will be a bit of drive when we move to our new house (should we get it), but still it is only 20 minutes, and frankly the only one close to our new house has an awful mass time of 11 am which I dislike. And I’m not particularly fond of Saturday evening masses, though I will surely do it at least once to give it a chance.
All in all, my first impression was bad, but my the end of the Mass I found myself quite taken with it. It was much more warm it seemed to me than the Cathedral which is no cathedral at all, and cannot even maintain a piano player for the Sunday mass.
I find all this surprising, since New Mexico is overwhelmingly Catholic. I expected to find really old churches here, instead I find that most are modern and rather unappealing architecturally speaking. The one closest to our new home, looks from the outside to be a warehouse that has been converted. It’s long and low. Where are my spiraling and soaring vaults to heaven?
Again, I know, the place is not important. But frankly it is to me. This has always been the case and frankly I don’t think I’ll be changing now.
Anyway, it was a good Pentecost.
Amen.
Journeys on the Road
22 Apr 2012 1 Comment
in Bumps in the Road of Life, Easter, Jesus, Luke, Spiritual Growth Tags: Emmaus, Jesus, Luke, peace
The two disciples recounted what had taken place on the way,
and how Jesus was made known to them
in the breaking of bread.
Thus we hear of how those two men, on the road, discovered the risen Lord was their traveling companion.
I suppose it is much the same for us. That is a direction that is obvious in the reading–how and what prompts our first encounter with Jesus. What triggered our realization that we were in the presence of the Holy? What meaning did that have for us as we realized that our experience, our very existence, is part of God’s world and life.
Yet, we can apply the lessons of Emmaus to a much more general arena. That is, if you are like me, about to make an epic journey half way across the country.
It is all too easy at this hectic and chaotic time in one’s life, to forget God.
“I’ll be back with you Lord, just give me a few weeks to get this packing done, this traveling done, this house found and bought, this moving in, this. . . . I’ll be back in the pew, back in my mediation, back in my rosary, my study. I will, I promise. I’m just too busy right now. You understand don’t you?”
And we trust that God does understand. Why?
Because he is right here, experiencing my panic, my excitement, my fears and anxiety as I careen every faster down this road to a new future. And I don’t realize that most of the time. I’m too busy you see.
I’m too busy with maps and with not forgetting this or that. I’m too busy with real estate agents and Internet pictures of houses that exist “down there” where I am heading. I’m too busy trying to make simple meals and eating out the freezer, and remembering to call and cancel all this stuff that has framed my life for so long.
But God doesn’t forget.
I can imagine the shaking of the head. “If only she’d let me help her a bit more. I hate to see her so filled with anxiety. I can ease that tension and bring peace. If only she’d remember me, for just a minute or two.”
If only I would.
But I am blessed with people who very long ago, experienced these things, and actually met our Lord in their journey. And they were so ever-changed by the experience, that they told it far and wide, literally to everyone they met. And somebody decided to gather all these stories and write a coherent statement of what Jesus had meant to him through the stories and through the people who told them.
And some how these stories in the form of a Gospel, were copied and copied and saved and passed down and I had my own encounter finally. Just enough of one for me to see out the book and read and study, and learn. And thus this passage came to be my reminder that I can find this peace just for the asking.
Bless us on our journey, on the Road. For He is with us.
Amen.
Related articles
- The Road to Emmaus, Journey to Enlightenment! (psalmsofpraisewomensministries.wordpress.com)
- The Pax Vosbiscum of Christ. (lifeondoverbeach.wordpress.com)
- The Presence We Need Most Is Always With Us (marypenich.wordpress.com)
- Emmaus: An Invitation to a Journey (living3368.wordpress.com)
- Make the Most of the Journey (peterbierer.wordpress.com)
- The Road to Emmaus (billpeddie.wordpress.com)
Finding Blessing in Trouble
09 Sep 2011 1 Comment
in Bumps in the Road of Life, Faith, God, Spiritual Growth, Tough Issues Tags: bad things, God's love, mature faith
Recently we received some bad news that impacts when we move to New Mexico. Basically, we’ve decided to put the move off until next Spring. It is more irritation than anything else, but could cost us money we would rather put into more lifestyle things.
My reaction was deep and disturbing. I slipped quickly into a deep depression.
But oddly, I felt a certain relief as well. As the window of time to get the move done before winter narrowed, I realized I was become more and more anxious that there was simply too much to do in too short a time, and we had been unable to set up dates because of this obstacle which seems meritless, but yet hasn’t been successfully addressed.
What I did realize as well, is that my first reaction was NOT to ask God why. No blame, no railing at the unfairness of it all. I simply knew that God was there, in the unhappiness, holding me tight.
That’s a good thing. It’s a wonderful realization that one might have matured in faith enough that one doesn’t automatically shake a fist at the heavens and demand answers and fixes.
God did not cause our problem. God stands with us, and with all parties to the dilemma and calls us to respond out of love and truth. Although that can be most hard and I am no better than anyone else at submerging my angers, I can indeed pray for those who see things in opposition to my way of thinking.
So today, I awoke in calm and peaceful acceptance. This is my life now. This is what it is. In the end, we will prevail as we most likely will, and we will continue our planning for moving. If we do not, we will lose some money, not enough to change plans really, and we will be fine. It will be what it will be. I will accept it good or bad.
I have already received a blessing beyond measure–the simple knowledge that as the psalmist says, “my inheritance is the Lord.” God will lead, teach, uphold if I let go of anger, disappointment, worry, and all the other negative thinking that prevents me from hearing that still soft voice within.
Old documents will be found or not. A decision will be made, but one thing never changes–God. In the end, moving serenely through the event, without seeking that someone “get what they deserve” will allow me to successfully see truth, present it, and allow that beyond that I can have no control.
I can only control me. I can only voluntarily give up my peace, it cannot be taken from me. Countless political and religious prisoners have made that clear. They so very often spoke of the fact that although their bodies were controlled by others, no one could control their minds.
Isn’t that amazing? Isn’t that wonderful? To know that no bad thing can truly touch us. Bad things do happen to good people. God does not cause them. But he stands ever within us waiting to comfort and support. If we listen to that wise counsel, than we are led to good choices, good decisions, and hopefully better outcomes insofar as we have any measure of control. This takes us to the Serenity Prayer which advises us to change what we can, accept what we can’t change, and to know the difference.
It’s that last part that leads us to pain.
God Bless.
Amen
Pet Heaven?
14 Aug 2011 8 Comments
in Pets, Tough Issues Tags: afterlife, Brandy, Faith, pets
Unless you read my main blog, Afeatheradrift, you are unaware that we lost one of our pets earlier in the week.
Brandy, or beloved “girlie” died unexpectedly on Wednesday. We found her unable to get up, in her favorite outdoor spot that morning, and she died around noon. She did not appear to be suffering at all, she was just too weak to rise.
Her death has been harder on both my husband and I than we had ever thought possible. We had talked of this inevitability a number of times this last year as she approached 12. Our other dog is near 14. Both were/are large dogs, so anything much over the age of ten is a gift.
I’ve spent plenty of time in the morbidity of “not being with her in her last moments”; she probably died about fifteen minutes or so before and both Parker and I had sat with her within the hour, petting her and speaking of our love for her. I’ve also found myself in tears thinking of her alone in the dark grave on the top of the hill where we buried her that afternoon.
What am I to conclude?
As believers, all Christians believe in some sort of afterlife I think. It goes from the rather (in my opinion) childish thought that we all wander around in a park wearing white clothes and smiling a lot to a more ethereal existence as “spirit” among Spirit. We take comfort in the belief that life doesn’t end with the physical death of the body, but endures in our Creator. How that happens and what the future holds, we speculate upon endlessly, but have no real knowledge.
What of our pets? Indeed what of all the other sentient or semi-sentient creatures that we share this planet with? What of any bit of life, however primitive?
Is there some dividing line? Can there be? Should there be? I take no stock in feel good preachers who assure us that our pets await us in heaven. For some, a huge menagerie would await them.
But yet, I struggle to deal with the pain of there being no bit of my Brandy still existing. I tear up at the thought that she is no more in any manner. I need to think of her safe and at peace, wagging her indomitable tail as she flies across a meadow chasing rabbits and butterflies with the same joyous heart she exhibited every moment of her life on earth.
It seems to me that there is no sense in some arbitrary line of demarcation. You can conceive of your Creator, and thus you have eternal existence; you on the other hand have not that capacity and therefore do not. But what of all those characteristics of unconditional love, loyalty, patience, and the ever wished for ability to live totally in the moment? Don’t these count for something? Don’t they in some way equal or near equal this tipping point of what it means to be a soulful creature?
If there is anything that I demand in my God it is that God be understandable and therefore rational. If God is not that, then He is beyond my comprehension and in some manner not worth my efforts of faith. I have always been able to reconcile the world as I see it, and God.
I have approached every seeming contradiction with an open heart and mind. I have not assumed a reconciliation is given. I have always known that honest critical thought required that one option must always be that God is not real. But so far, I have always, by reason arrived at what to mean seem rational means to explain reality with God as the Creator.
I sense that I will find a satisfying and comforting answer in all this. So far, it is still too confusing, the pain too fresh, the loss too sudden and violent to my senses. Yet I pray each day and night, and frankly several times each day, that whatever exists of my beautiful dear Brandy is safe with my God, protected and with an understanding of her place in creation. I trust that she hears me in some way. I trust that she knows that we will never forget her.
She, more than most humans, represented what Jesus would have us learn about love and trust. She did her job well. She has gone to her reward. I trust that this is so. I trust that I can believe this fully and find my peace with the empty place in my heart.
Amen.
