Monday, October 27, 2008

The Glass is Full

Okay so I don't believe in the glass half empty theory. After all, if the glass is half full of water the other half must be full of air. Now in my estimation you would die a lot sooner of lack of air than water. So.....if I see the glass as half empty I am throwing my lot in with the air. I guess what I am getting at is that life always has opportunities. It always offers hope. It always offers choices that will determine where we will spend eternity.

I used to divide humans into two camps, the self-confident and the insecure. I, subscribing to the latter, would gravitate towards the former somewhat like a parasite. I guess I hoped that some of that courage would rub off - at the very least I could hide behind it. Then low and behold I found out that what I was, was the same! It is a polar issue: we wield power one way or the other. I had just as much power to change something, like a relationship, by my actions or refusal to act. I had power to the negative. I had a courage to move and shake that was very submerged but nonetheless there. So in a way I think of myself as the half glass of air. Both personality types are needed to run the human race. There is a purpose, an important purpose, for the depressive personality. For the self-confident have their own "power to the positive" to control or be controlled by. We can drown in a person's half glass of water.

Now I am not sure that this is important at all except for this: either power or personality has a potential for destruction unless it is properly submitted and humbled. How? By absolutely understanding our life and our place and purpose in it. Either you believe that your glass is all you have or that your glass is provided by someone else (and you know Who I am getting at) as a testing ground.

We are living in pivotal times. As a historian I take comfort in history - as a child I used to take great comfort in it. I always believed back then that the bad stuff was over and I was fortunate to live in good times. I have always loved my country and have been grateful to be a citizen of it. I have long since realized that the times are not static - there is always something of which to fight and speak. Evil is always present. But as Jesus says, "I have overcome the world." May we turn the gifts God has given each of us to goodness, and have the courage to stand, and die, for it.

Friday, October 24, 2008

Life

I was speaking with my neice, an intelligent, thoughtful young lady of twelve the other day. She came to sit with me as the dining room contingant were discussing politics. Because there were more able bodied and adroit speakers than myself I just sat on the sidelines with my crochet. She said, "I hate talking about politics." I answered, "I don't enjoy it but sometimes it is necessary. My idea of voting is very simple. The bottom line is, is the candidate for abortion or not? If a person cannot get it right at the level of our unborn children then they can't get anything right."

I have had that ideology for a long time and it has never failed me. Because ultimately God gives authority. Jesus said to Pilate, "You would not have authority over me where it not from my Father in heaven." So as I vote I believe I must vote for Life which can only come from God. If I ever vote for death at this most precious basic level I cannot call myself a Catholic, Christian, human being. Lots of people talk about how the pro-life candidates start wars etc....I am not talking about people being perfect. But murder of our babies who are the most innocent can NEVER be a person worthy of being a public servant.

Okay War. Who in their right mind wants war? That is insane. And there are insane people out there who want our country wiped off the face of the earth. They want all of those unlike them to be either converted or killed. Ther is a group of people who have this mindset. How we deal with that is very different from person to person. But the bottom line is this: God will judge us for killing our children either by a foreign power or our own astute ability to do ourselves in.

I pray for His mercy on all of us, but must, must welcome His justice and partake in it. After all His Son did and he was most innocent of all. I would find myself in wonderful company to carry His cross in any way He sees fit for me.

Friday, October 17, 2008

Hope

"Hope does not disappoint us...." You'll find that in Romans five right after Paul talks about all the things that make us three dimensional. I hope you read it. It is the first five verses of that passage. Hope must be divine. Anyway I believe it is. What I wrote about fear was a frustrated cry from the heart. It was informing you a hidden part of me. But it wasn't the last word. I am still in a dark place right now but the historian in me, the faith child in me clings to hope not as a rope on a cliff, but as arms holding me all the time. And it is in the dark places where I get to exercise that will that says to evil and the Evil One, "No matter what you throw at me I will not doubt that God has me in his arms and He will save me from all harm." It is a chance to "set my face like flint, knowing I will not be put to shame" as the suffering servant speaks of Himself in Isaiah. In fact it is my defining passage. I love that image to "set my face like flint" even as the enemy plucks my beard. I hope you read that passage also, I think it is chapter 49.

I do envy people who have hope naturally, courage naturally but that is not my path. I believe God has made me the way I am as a safety for my soul. In the horse world wise people say that we tend to buy horses that mirror our personalities. That was a major insight to me when I realized that Max is just about the strongest willed horse in the kingdom. If he doesn't back down from a buckskin mare whose name is Duchess and uses her back legs like battering rams then I am in trouble. Yet I had to laugh at God's joke. He has such a wonderful sense of humor! I have this will ......so strong to the negative pole.....so thanks!

Hope will never disappoint. There is nothing outside of Our Lord's blessed sight or intervention. There is nothing that is not from His Hand if we are in his arms and wanting His will in our lives. What a comforting thought!

Friday, October 10, 2008

Fear

I wanted to greet the day worthy of its beauty. The dawn is just crisping over the treetops and the animals are restless, but not yet yelling, for their modicum of breakfast. Soon.....

I think that when I came out of the womb the first feeling I encountered was fear. If I could have spoken I am convinced that it would have been that. And it has been my major battle my whole life. I think the worst thing is that it makes me mean and small spirited and that is a true battle. I realize how thin a veneer is my front of courage. Everyday I ask the Holy Spirit for courage realizing that I have none and only hope for it.

I cannot defeat the fear that is part of me. I cannot separate it from myself. My own battle is a conflict that only lowers its head, it does not leave.

How comfortable I am! How I surround myself with that which is unthreatening to me! How I am so careful to not injure the bubble I protect myself with! All the time I know that this bubble is so fragile and it is so patched that my vision through it is distorted.

I have asked God why I am the way I am. Why has fear been such a part of my very soul - inseparable? Why is my life such battle? Conflict with myself is really all I understand or have ever understood. If it brings me to God then I thank Him. But it is an uncomfortable bedfellow. I wish sometimes I could just fling it off and be free of it. That I must look forward to.

Oh wretched woman that I am! That which I want to do I fail to do. That which I want to be is as unreachable as the stars. To be a fine person through and through evades me and teaches me the mercy of God. Not that I love fear nor like what it does to me, but if it is the only vehicle that brings me to my knees then I must welcome it.

Friday, October 3, 2008

Simply Wise

I was reading Archbishop Fulton J Sheen last night. He is such a wonderful writer and holy man. He spoke about how only the simple and the wise can know God. And the link between the two is humility. He said at the Nativity there were the shepherds and the Wise men. So I thought, which am I? And I decided that I would love to be simple and my tortured mind won't let be. So I must settle for simply wise. My wisdom is this: I don't really know anything but that Jesus' died so that I might live. I can't figure out the Trinity but I believe it. I can't figure out what will happen to me or any that I love, but I believe in His Great Love for them. Sheen was, in a sense, combining the two - the Wise men were smart enough to know that they didn't know so they sought. The shepherds were wise enough to see heaven's host and know that something supernatural was happening.

Those who cannot know God are those who think they know already. They have no need of God because they know - they cannot be taught ignorance nor realize their ignorance. Their quest is only a search to prove what they already believe to be true. This to me would be the greatest tragedy of my life - to think I know and cannot be taught, cannot be humbled by my most gracious Lord - Jesus reduce me to love. Please Lord, let me always be humbled every moment of my life - stooping to enter the cave where you were born and standing to find myself in heaven's land.