So Then What Happened?

The Prodigal Son - Luke 15: 11-32

“So then what happened?” I was always a total bookworm as a kid and this was always my favorite question. I loved to read but hated coming to the end of a book because I was always left wondering what happened after the happy ending. Okay, I admit this is still my favorite question. Probably even more so now that I have enough life experience to know that “happily ever after” doesn’t necessarily mean “happy all the time ever after”. That leads to another question – “Why don’t I ask that question of the scriptures?”

Returning yet again to one of my favorite parables, The Prodigal Son, I have never questioned what happened after the big welcome home party. In earlier posts, I have explored his lengthy journey home, his brother’s judgmental attitudes, and his father’s unfailing love. But what about the son’s life after that? Did he settle down and take his place on his father’s estate? Did he make peace with big brother? Did he swear off his wild ways forever and completely? What do these questions mean for me on my journey?

I always pictured the prodigal son returning home, putting his disgrace behind him and becoming a model son. Reality tells me that this is highly unlikely. I know I struggle with the same things in my spiritual life over and over. I come back to the one line in the Act of Contrition that I can always remember and I beat myself up for not being able to “go forth and sin no more”. How unfair! How unrealistic! The Sacrament of Reconciliation was never meant to be a one-shot deal. There’s a reason it’s offered every week. As a flawed human being I will always have things that I struggle with and God knows that, which is why His mercy and forgiveness are always there for us.

So the prodigal son most likely had his moments, too. He probably got enough of his older brother’s condescension or his father’s too-high expectations. He probably took his weekly wages into town on more than one occasion and partied like a rock star, only to come crawling home again broke and disgusted with himself. Only now instead of staying away from the estate starving and slopping hogs, he knew he could come home and brush off the dirt. He knew he was still worthy to sit at his father’s table. No matter whether big brother ever accepted him or not, his father loved him. He knew he would always be welcomed home with open arms. It’s a lesson I’ve always struggled to accept.

But I’m slowly learning it’s time to lighten up on myself a bit. I will always be welcomed at God’s table, even when I’m struggling and don’t have it all together. Being a perfectionist can be exhausting emotionally and spiritually. Somehow I’m starting to think that seeking perfection will always be my greatest flaw. But only God is truly perfect. He must laugh at my silly journey from imperfection to imperfection, knowing I’ll need Him to forgive each inevitable flaw that marks my earthly path. I’m glad God has a sense of humor.

The Ides Of March

Pink Lady's Slipper

For much of my life, March has been a difficult time of year. Dad passed away March 28, 1987, on my 14th birthday. His funeral was March 31st, my sister Kitty’s 32nd birthday. Kitty passed away very suddenly 11 years later. The reminder of those losses is tough to get away from and, yet, at the same time March has always been my favorite time of year. This past week, I’ve watched the crocuses start to appear as the last of the snow melted away. I’ve seen birds return to brighten the still dormant trees with colors and their songs.

Dad loved nature. He saw beauty everywhere and in everything around him. He was famous for his long hikes into the woods to photograph and catalog wildflowers. One spring he dragged all six of my older siblings with him to hike up a long hill to the same spot week after week, just to capture the budding and blooming of a single Lady’s Slipper. Dad saw much of the world that way. He could capture a single fleeting moment in time with his camera lens and he could also do it with his mind. He would remember the tiniest details most people would never have noticed. He taught me to be an observer of life and the world around me. I’ve never forgotten that and I never will.

Maybe due in part to that observer’s perspective, I’ve often felt like an outsider. I’m the youngest of seven children, five girls and two boys, but there’s 10 years between me and the next youngest. I might as well be an only child. I moved twice in grade school from New Jersey to Kansas to Connecticut, each time I had to learn to deal with being “the new kid”. Then I married and had my children at a younger age than many of my friends. As I’ve become more involved in their school and in our parish, I am often the youngest one by at least a decade.

As a writer, I’ve learned to embrace that “outsider” feeling as a designated observer status, a sort of press pass for life. I tend to look at life differently than most people. I notice little but important details that can change my whole perspective. I’ve learned to capture those unique fleeting moments in time with the tip of my pen. God has blessed me by surrounding me with all the world’s tiny details and giving me the eyes to see them and the words to record them for others.

I’ve often written about my struggles with my faith, my shortcomings, and the battle with the gremlin that lives in my head. These last few weeks in March remind me of my Dad and all the wonderful things I learned from him. Losing Dad at such a young age from a terrible and agonizing disease was devastating. Yet I’ve cherished all that he taught me so much more because it’s all I have left of him.

As my children have grown old enough to pay attention, I take the time to point out to them the beauty in the world around them. I show them the flowers, the birds, and the constellations. I teach them all the names of the natural world that Dad taught me. I beat myself up too often for being impatient with them for just acting like typical little boys. As if to remind me to lighten up on myself, six-year-old Eugene looked up at the stars coming home the other night, stopped on the driveway with his head tipped all the way back and picked out Orion in the night sky. “That’s what I’m named after!” he cried out. He’s right. Eugene was Dad’s middle name and Orion is the first constellation that Dad taught me to find. It was one of those precious “good Mommy” moments when I knew for certain that I’d given him something special to cherish.

Deacon Ron’s favorite question for me is always “Where’s God in all this?” Dad gave me the answer when I was still a little girl. He’s everywhere and in everything all around me. This time of year, as the frozen winter fades away and spring’s gentle warmth returns, I see God’s face in every new flower and hear His voice in every bird’s song. I love having designated observer status.

Spiritual Homework

When I saw Deacon Ron last month, he gave me his customary spiritual homework, asking me to go back through my writings, public and private, to pick out the recurring themes. “That’s easy,” I told him, “The road. There’s always a road, a destination, a search for direction, traveling too fast, a million speed bumps, my own recklessness, then ending up wrecked and hurt.” Now after almost two years, I should know better than to say something so simplistic. Deacon Ron isn’t about to let that type of response slide by unanswered. So he added to my homework. Besides searching out any other possible themes, I was told to focus my time on the road.

How was I traveling? What model car was I driving? Was I alone or was there someone with me? Who? How fast was I going? When I crashed, did I get blindsided or did I see it coming and couldn’t stop? Then what? Did I get back into the same old beat up car and race off with the bumpers dragging or did I start fresh in a shiny new car?

Deacon Ron certainly knows how to appeal to my creative imagination. Which leads to a major theme I’ve noticed in my writings. God has always, without fail, surrounded me with people I needed to get me through the various stages of my life.

My mother, who opened her home to me, my two young boys and our dog, complains every month that I’m insane to have chosen a spiritual director who is over an hour away on the opposite side of the state. I wasn’t looking for a spiritual director. Like most of my spiritual life, I sort of stumbled into spiritual direction. I attended a week of guided prayer and was randomly assigned to Deacon Ron. We just clicked and by the end of the week I knew I would be calling him again to talk. A few months later I was driving to his office and have been every month since. At the time, my futile attempts at marriage counseling were winding down and my guilt over the increasing possibility of divorce was at an all-time high. Deacon Ron not only helped work me through the guilt but also strongly encouraged me to seek out a therapist for myself to help me through the process. He specifically told me to ask Fr Tom for a name. So I did. Fr Tom sent me to Michael, and I would never have made it through without Michael’s help. Yet another of God’s “random” people in my life.

God had sent Fr Tom into my life only months after Dad died. Fr Tom has been like a father to me. All through school, he knew about my teachers, my grades, and my boyfriends. Later he performed my wedding, baptized my children, counseled us in our crumbling marriage and has helped me to start the annulment process. Throughout he’s been a constant reality check for me. He’ll call me out when he knows I’ve screwed up and yet he’s the best confessor I’ve ever had because he knows me so well. There’s no ducking responsibility with Fr Tom. He forces me to keep my relationship with God very, very real.

This list of people God sent me could go on and on but there were some other important themes I found as well. Fear, trust or lack of it, acting like a spoiled brat with God, seeking direction and answers to questions I’m afraid to ask, moving too fast to see or hear God my life, having difficulty accepting myself as is, and seeking honesty in my relationship with God. I have focused a great deal of time and ink to all of the above and yet they all come down to one thing – a struggle. I have viewed much of my life as a struggle. I’ve struggled to get past grief, past the hard times -- even past the past. While writing this, I’m asking myself “When did I live? When was I not struggling just to survive life?” Those are hard questions for me to face. I have faced hard times, this is true, but my life is easy compared to what many people face in their lives.

It’s not just with God that I need to be honest but it’s also with me. I don’t allow myself to just let go emotionally. This day it may be because I’m recovering from a horrible 24-hour stomach bug that drained off seven pounds and I’m still delirious, but I’m allowing the emotions to surface tonight. I’m grateful for that. God has given me so much more than I would have ever thought to ask for or even guessed that I would need. The friendships alone in my life are all God-given gifts.

As for the other recurring themes, on the rare occasions when I’ve let God guide me and accepted that He knew what He was doing even if I thought He’d lost His mind, I was always blessed in ways I could never have imagined. He doesn’t want me to struggle so much. He wants me to let go and trust that He’ll be there to guide me, to comfort me, to support me, and most of all to love me.

And yes I know I haven’t addressed any of Deacon Ron’s road test questions. I’m still struggling with that added assignment. Maybe it’s time to ask my Divine Co-pilot for some road rules.

Stained Reflections

Lent has arrived with its quiet dusting of ashes and with the hushed call to repent. I’ve learned to love the season of Lent for its somber silences. Deacon Ron has asked me to expand beyond my prescribed 30 minutes a day silently spent in the church. Some days I can sit quietly but many days I wander the Stations of the Cross or meander through the little shrines. On one of my restless days, I took this photo. Outside was a clear, sunny day and the sunlight was streaming through the windows painting the dim church with brilliant colors. But it was this reflection on the floor that caught and held my attention. The bright colors of the window appear on the marble floor but there they are muted and flecked by the patterns of the stone. God handed me a beautiful metaphor. I love it when He does that. It’s one of the ways I’ve learned to recognize that He shows His love for me in ways I could never imagine.

Like the reflection on the floor, Lent is a time for me to reflect on my spiritual flecks, my imperfections, each having their regrettable and hard-to-forget patterns. That’s a lot of reflecting to do. What I’ve found over time is that there are some areas of my heart that I don’t like to think about. I push these thoughts aside and go on improving what doesn’t need improving. God just waits patiently, knowing sooner or later, something will trip up my denial and I’ll be face-to-face with those pieces of myself that I’ve worked so hard to cover up, much the way I used to try to hide adolescent blemishes with every make-up trick known to women. And just like the make-up, my spiritual cover-ups don’t hide much either. What do I do now? Cry usually. Then rant, rave, write madly in my journals, go back to God and tell Him its all His fault because, damn it, He made me this way.

When I’m finally ready to be honest with myself and with God, I admit that I’ve struggled for years with my Irish temper and my lack of patience. I’m honest with myself about my judgmental tendencies both toward others and toward me (see the Prodigal Daughter and the Gremlin posts). What I’m not so quick to admit is that I am a spiritual spoiled brat. It goes way beyond spiritual naiveté. I’m still looking for a Daddy-like God who will make it all better, make all the bad stuff go away, and make it all nice for me. Now I’m grown up enough to know better and I’ll accept that God doesn’t work that way, but I’m still going to whine about it first.

I’ve worked very hard to at least become mindful of my temper and impatience. I have returned to the Sacrament of Reconciliation because I know I need that reassurance of the Lord’s forgiveness and mercy. I know that He can heal my wounded heart, which often exacerbates my unloving actions. I also know that He can heal those that I have hurt by my actions or inactions, and that relieves me of my guilt.

But no matter how polished my stony heart becomes, there will always be imperfections because like everyone else in Creation, I’m a flawed human being. But that’s just it. God created me to be a human being, not a human doing. He doesn’t hand me a quarterly performance review with an improvement plan attached to it. He asks only that I have an open, honest, loving relationship with Him. When I do, I reflect His love outward towards others. That reflection is muted and flecked by my imperfections but the beauty of His love shines on me anyway and the stains become less noticeable. No cover up required.

Spiritual Fast

When I was a little girl, blogs didn’t exist. The World Wide Web was just an inkling in some programmer’s brain and computers were for huge corporations and the military. In the span of 35 years, the Internet has shifted the world from high gear to light speed. I remember what it was to wait by the phone to wait for my latest crush to call me. There was always that fear that I’d miss the call if I wasn’t home. Gen-Xs like me will remember a time when it took days, even weeks to get a letter from a friend who was at college. When it finally came, that letter was savored. I would read and re-read it to make sure I had absorbed every precious word.

In the 18 years since I graduated from high school, computers have come out of the labs and into my home. I have instant access to my family, friends, and a world of information, all at my fingertips. In the time it takes to brew my evening cup of tea, I can search through several hundred images on Google related to any blog topic. My cell phone is also equipped with email and text messaging. I am never out of touch anymore. There is no waiting by the phone. The phone is always with me.

My calendar has exploded in the past two years due in part to my separation and subsequent divorce. I have rediscovered my freedom and at the same time a deep need to connect with a support system. At the moment, I am part of seven different ministry teams between the parish and school. In addition to that, I have taken on leadership roles in at least two of those. This does not include the time spent writing for this blog, writing my spiritual memoir, my spiritual direction sessions, therapy for myself, therapy for my two sons, nor does it include the time I spend working and being a mom, walking the beach to have some moments solitude and checking my Facebook or exchanging emails each night with close friends.

As life continually speeds up in the world around me, I feel compelled to try to keep up. The speed of it all is scary at times. My days start at 6:30 a.m. and often end some time after midnight. My spiritual director, Deacon Ron, has ordered me into stillness for 30 minutes a day, every day. That was several months ago and while I have gratefully managed to work that time into my schedule, I am still in constant motion for the rest of my waking hours. I wonder - does God want me to move at this pace? Or does He want me to slow down? Am I missing important things because I am so over busy? Too often I’m left struggling to answer Deacon Ron’s favorite question for me – “Where’s God in all this?”

I have to ask myself - What happens to my relationship with the Almighty when God doesn’t move at the speed of life to which I have become accustomed? What happens to my faith in this era of the immediate? Surely the desire for God is no less, but what of patience and trust? The need for instant answers can lead to anxiety and feelings of abandonment when that instant answer fails to arrive in my inbox.

One of my greatest struggles in my spiritual life is accepting that just because God didn’t answer me directly doesn’t mean He isn’t speaking to me. Just because the answer didn’t come right after I asked the question doesn’t mean that the answer is never going to come. Especially when I ask for direction I often find myself craving an Instant Message from On High, the Divine Chat Room, and the Eternal Email.

Then I have to ask, what if…? What if God told me tomorrow that He wanted me to write a book series on the spiritual struggles of Gen-X in contrast to the lives of seven different saints whose lives I have never studied? Then the next day He told me that, in addition, He wanted me to give witness talks to those who have faced the fear of God’s abandonment. And what if He continually added to my to-do list daily without reprieve? Would I be overwhelmed, perhaps even frightened by all He was asking of me.

The direction and answers may be slow in coming, but when they do finally come I need to take the time to savor and absorb it all. Patience is a virtue, I’m told. Unfortunately, it has never been one of mine. My prayer life is one long hard lesson in patience, but it’s a lesson I am determined to learn. I just wish I could Google it.

Cruise Control Christianity

The image of the Good Samaritan is still resonating with me even a week later. As I’ve reflected on it further, it occurred to me that so many of my favorite scripture passages revolve around a journey. The Good Samaritan, The Prodigal Son, The Conversion of Paul, The Road To Emmaus, even the greatest journey of all, The Passion, all occur on the road to somewhere or even to nowhere for those that never reach their intended destination. As always with scripture, I am led to more questions than answers.

Why the road? What is it that is so important about being on the road that the theme is repeated over and over and over? All these characters are traveling to somewhere or from somewhere and I have to ask, what put them on the road in the first place? All this traveling makes sense to the nomadic populations of ancient times but what does it mean to me in the here and now?

That last question really made me think about how I travel the roads in my life. And I don’t mean the figurative two roads of Robert Frost diverging in the yellow wood. I mean the very literal highways and byways that I travel every day to work, to the boys’ school, to church, to the food store and all the mundane little errands that I run on a regular basis. I get in my car, usually alone, and go on my way. Most of the time, I drive with the music on a bit too loud and aside from not colliding with other drivers or pedestrians, I am quite blissfully oblivious to the fellow travelers around me.

In my younger years, I grew up in Ridgewood, New Jersey. Ridgewood, being all of 15 minutes outside of New York City, has very convenient public transportation. My mother didn’t drive when we lived there and really didn’t need to drive. In addition to all those Jersey buses, I have ridden trains and subways in Boston, New York, and Washington. On all of those, even as one who does not commute daily, I was aware of the commuter’s credo: “I will stay in my own little space and you will stay in your own little space and we’ll get along fine.”

How different and alien it is to me to read about the travelers in ancient times. They meet people on the road. They interact with others on the road. The traveler meets a kind stranger. The son meets his father again. The disciples on the way to Emmaus meet the risen Christ. Paul meets God Himself. Jesus meets His mother, has to accept help from Simon, and welcomes the tenderness of Veronica. All that interacting involved real people sharing their stories, sharing meals, getting their hands dirty, messy, and sometimes bloody to help another traveler.

My car is my own private microcosm. This is my bubble of false reality and I like it that way. I can roll up the windows and crank the tunes and blow through the real world at 70 MPH without dealing with any of it. But is that what it means to be on the journey of discipleship?

In my spiritual life I can put myself on cruise control and set the destination on the GPS for Heaven. I can put in my time in all the nice things at church, attending the functions and Masses, interacting with nice like-minded people at a polite commuter-like level. I don’t get too into their space and they don’t get too into mine and we all get along nicely. I have God just outside the windshield, just the way I like Him, where He can’t mess with me too much.

But if I were to look in the rearview mirror I might be shocked to see the Devil himself riding in the backseat of my car. The Devil is just enjoying the ride, telling me “It’s ok. You’re a nice person. You don’t need to get too involved. You have your own life to worry about.”

There is no cruise control route to God. Nice doesn’t count. The priest and the Levite who walked by the traveler were most likely nice men. The road to Calvary was lined with nice people.

I know in my soul that I am called to be a disciple of Christ. I will never be perfect personified, but that’s not what I’m called to be. I’m called to be a broken human being. I’m called not to make the mistakes, but to accept that I will make them in the first place. I’m called to acknowledge them and to learn from them. I’m called to share my experiences with my fellow travelers. Often times that means getting my hands dirty, exposing my own open wounds to others, and stepping out of my little bubble of nice safe solitude to try to offer assistance to my fellow travelers.

I am called to park the car and walk the walk of my Lord. Thankfully, He knows I won’t always choose to do that. It seems like every time I decide to hit the cruise control and coast for a while I either hit a pothole or have a blowout. Then I’m reminded how much I need the sometimes messy interactions of my fellow companions on this journey of life and discipleship.

And as for Devil, he can hitchhike his way straight back to Hell.

Called To Be Neighbor, Not Savior

Luke 10:24-37 Parable of The Good Samaritan

I had the opportunity last night to take part in Lectio Divina, (translation: Sacred Reading) with a group of other women. Lectio Divina is a way of praying with scripture by reading it three times aloud, slowly and prayerfully. The first time, listening for any word, phrase, or image that stands out for me. The second time, listening for any parallels in my own life or what feelings it stirs up it me. The third time, listening for what the Lord is trying to say to me and determining my response is to that.

We focused on the passage, the Parable of The Good Samaritan. Like many of the parables, this one is very familiar to me but as I read it I was startled by the images that stood out for me. I read it aloud all three times and I could see the story unfolding on the pages in front of me. I knew our discussion was to focus on the topic of “who is my neighbor” and how it isn’t just a matter of reaching out to strangers but also to those closest to us. There was an excellent discussion and our sharing was very fruitful, but the images that I am still drinking in were very different.

I’ve always pictured the story unfolding like this:

This poor traveler gets jumped, mugged, beat up, and left for dead. The priest and the Levite don’t want to deal with the ritual cleansing they would have to go through if they attended to his wounds so they just keep walking, pretending not to notice. Then this foreigner comes along and takes over. He administers first aid and takes the traveler to an inn and essentially nurses him back to health.

As I read this story that I’ve known since childhood, I realized for the first time that the Samaritan did not nurse the victim back to health. He bound up the worst of his wounds and found him a place of relative safety. He provided monetary support for his care and went on with his journey. The Samaritan didn’t hang around indefinitely. He went on with his life.

There have been many times in my life where I have felt an overwhelming need to rescue someone, only to have that relationship drain me almost completely. Why? Because instead of binding the immediate wounds and helping the individual find a place of safety, I would stay on trying to heal wounds I had not inflicted and could not truly understand.

Everyone’s place of safety is different. Some just need to be heard. Some need a little money to get on their feet. Some need to be reassured. Some need a way to reconnect with family or friends. Rarely, but most importantly, some need professional help. Those were the relationships that became most unhealthy and even dangerous. But I had always seen it as my good Christian duty to bring these desperate people back to health.

Having read and re-read this parable the last day and a half, I have come to realize that God didn’t call me to save people. He sent Jesus to do that. He called me to offer a hand of support and friendship to those in need, but not to lose myself completely in their problems. I can help someone to the inn, offer prayers in support, and go on my way trusting the Innkeeper to take care of nursing them back to health in His time and by His methods.

Explaining The Gremlin

In many of my earlier posts I have made reference multiple times to the Gremlin in my head. Well, meet the Gremlin. I didn’t draw this but it’s pretty close to the way I picture him. I wish I could capture his voice for you. It’s eerily familiar. It’s soft and low, yet has a screechy quality to it. When it laughs, it has a maniacal cackle that just ripples with derision, delight, and desecration.

I guess most people would picture that whole angel/devil on the shoulder bit. Same idea roughly but this little dude doesn't poof away when I make a good choice. He keeps whispering that I'll just mess that up too. I've had the Gremlin my whole life and from what I've seen, everyone has one to some extent or another. I've just chosen to personify mine more than most people. To be perfectly blunt, it makes it easier to deal with the little bastard.

No, I am not on any meds and I am not schizophrenic. To simplify, I use the image of the Gremlin to come to grips with my own self-doubts and self-punishments. The Gremlin is that nasty, little voice that says things like "You're fat" and "You're a screw-up" and basically questions every move I make. I take a new job. The Gremlin says, "You can't handle it." I'm doing well at the new job. The Gremlin says, "You're screwing it all up and they will fire you sooner or later." I meet somebody and the Gremlin says, "You aren't good enough for him" or "He's soooooo out of your league, loser!"

This same Gremlin talks about other people too. My ex is a favorite topic lately. "He's trying to screw you over stupid," whispers the Gremlin and I will fly off the handle over something minor. I will get my Irish up & get stubborn only to figure out later it was over something that was no big deal and now I look like a psycho bitch from hell. The Gremlin finds that hilarious.

The Gremlin used to have free reign in my head and he weaseled his way into every thought I had. I reacted to every situation instead of responding to it with a clear mind and heart. Through learning to recognize his voice and his motives, I've managed to lock him into a little cage that he doesn't like very much. It isn't soundproof so he's still chattering but it's easier to ignore him now.

If it weren’t for the grace of God, I’d still be listening to his cruel commentaries. I once asked my therapist, “How do I deal with this crazy little voice telling me I’m such a screw-up?” His answer was so simple, “You need to find another voice.” I started asking God to let me hear His voice and to shout down the Gremlin for me. God doesn’t work that way. He won’t shout down the Gremlin, but He whispers lovingly to my heart, while the Gremlin stays locked up in the cage in my mind screaming in rage. More and more I’m learning that anything nasty I think about myself or someone else is probably coming from the Gremlin. I’m learning to ask myself why I’m thinking this way. Am I reacting to something other than what is really there in front of me? And when I need help with the answer, I try to remember to go to God first. Keyword – TRY.

I mean, honestly, would you want to trust the Gremlin for advice? Scary how often I did listen to him. The best advice I’ve gotten so far came at a Healing Mass with Fr. Roy. He said, “You know that voice, not God’s voice, but that other little guy? Yeah, you tell that little guy to go straight to Hell.”

Will You Please Come To Me?

Joel 1
Chapter 2:12-13

Even now, says the LORD, return to me with your whole heart, with fasting, and weeping, and mourning; Rend your hearts, not your garments, and return to the LORD, your God. For gracious and merciful is He, slow to anger, rich in kindness, and relenting in punishment.

As I write this, Ash Wednesday is a mere 30 days away. I used to dread Lent. It was time to remember all the wrongs I had done and feel miserable, guilty, unworthy, and shamed. Now I look forward to that time. The mercy of God is as boundless as His great love.

Since my return to the sacrament of Reconciliation two years ago, I have often found myself in conversation with people who tell me that they couldn’t possibly come back to God. Not to a confessional. Not to a church. To God. It breaks my heart every time I hear it because I remember so well what that pain is like. It is a loneliness, an emptiness, and a longing that cannot be assuaged.

I’ve had people tell me that I have an “in” with God because I go to church or because I pray. Somehow to them that means that God likes me better. Kind of like the perfect older sibling that Mom and Dad always told you to emulate. It took me a long time to figure out that God doesn’t work that way. I didn’t have to measure up. I didn’t have to fix my whole life all at once. I couldn’t fix it. I needed God’s help. I was so far gone, I needed God’s help to see where I needed His help.

I look at this way, when would I be most grateful to see a trained paramedic: when I’m perfectly healthy or when I’ve been hit by a bus? In life, we all get hit by the bus sooner or later. God is the only one who can find the wounds and begin the healing. He can show us what needs healing and then how to mend it. He is the paramedic, the surgeon, the dedicated nurse and the physical therapist we need to get back to health.

As your sister in Christ, I urge you to take the next 30 days and just think about where you are with God. Maybe Reconciliation seems like a leap off a cliff and returning to church seems like trying to swim across an ocean. But maybe, just maybe, spending a little time talking to the Eternal Therapist would ease those fears a bit. If nothing else, it opens the dialogue. It can’t be any worse than lying on the side of road bleeding to death.

I’ve been there. I was lonely and scared and in desperate need of God’s understanding. I finally found it in the Confessional. The silence wasn’t enough to make His forgiveness real for me. I needed to see a friendly face and hear a reassuring voice. There was no judgment, no shock, only understanding and guidance.

In the Diocese of Bridgeport, every parish will offer the Sacrament of Reconciliation on Tuesdays from 7-9 PM. In other areas, call your local parishes for more information.

Think about it. Pray on it. What else do you have to lose?

Soup Kitchen Salvation

I had a wonderful conversation with a friend of mine recently that really made me stop and think about how I see my faith life. He pointed out that most people are “consumers of God” and like most consumers, there are different price brackets.

For the Wal-mart consumers, their version of a relationship with God comes at a very low cost. They lead nice lives and do nice things trusting blindly that someday God will sit down with them, pat them on the head and open the gates of heaven for them.

Then there is the opposite extreme, the Tiffany consumers. For the Tiffany consumers, that same relationship with God comes at a very dear price. They evaluate and re-evaluate their choices in life. They examine every setback and every trial trying to determine its worth in God’s eyes. Their version of heaven is a lofty goal that must be reached through living lives of near perfection. Every mistake is a glaring black mark on the most permanent of permanent records. There are some who secretly fear that this pricey relationship is out of their reach.

So where do I fit in? After giving myself a little time to consider both options I realized that I don’t fit into either category. I fall into a third category - the soup kitchen. I know I have nothing worthy to offer my God and yet I know I am welcome anyway. And I come to be fed at His table. I come because I am hungry for His love and starving for His mercy. There is no demand to fix what very little I have to offer because Jesus has already paid the price for me. I will eat my fill and whatever mistakes I make are already forgiven because He loves me so much.

God is not a commodity that can be bartered, bought, or sold. God is my life’s breath and the only thing God wants is to love me. His love is the only love that can truly satisfy me and thus allows me be more loving with others, even my enemies. Will I get that loving my enemies thing right all the time? Not even close. And that’s okay too.

Think about your own kids and how much you love them. Remember those times when they screwed up or made choices you knew weren't good ones? Did you love them any less? Of course not.

Being in a relationship with God isn't about getting it right or shaping up. And most important, it isn't about later on after death. It's about right now. The Holy Spirit resides in every one of us - that is God. He isn't out there in space somewhere sipping a peppermint latte and waiting for us with a report card of our lives. He's right here, right now, loving us and desiring only to have a cup of coffee and talk about life. And not in some formal, flowery prose written by some saint 500 years ago but just a chat between very dear friends. It isn't about Him being in a position of power over us, rather it is about being in a relationship of communion, co-union with Him. As for the afterlife, that is the ultimate conversation with God, when we will see Him face to face and our own human faults will fall away. Jesus paid the way for all of us and threw open the doors of heaven to all. All God desires is a real, honest relationship with all of His children.

So when it comes to God – are you still shopping around or are you ready to accept the free gift of His love?

Thanks to R. for the inspiring conversation!