untangling the knot

God isn't speaking to me in words.
I may have told you this before.
When I pray I either get great gaping silence:

or I get images. The problem with the images is that I don't know what they mean. It is like picking up a knitting project only to find that my yarn is all tangled into a huge mess. Where do you start when what you find is this?I know that I am not sure where to begin. I just drop the work in frustration and move on to something else.

I should, I suppose be happy that I am aware that God is close to me. There are those who are in the dark night of the soul who don't have that awareness.

Where I used to feel that I could float forever on the warmth of the ocean of mercy that is my Loving God. Now I feel as though I am being pulled under, and I am struggling, gasping for breath as I submerge, struggling against whatever change is coming. Then today it occurred to me that I should just cooperate.

One of my friends said something though that really gave me pause. I am struggling because I am still trying to do this, whatever it is that is happening, whatever is causing such chaos inside of me. Perhaps my response should be that I should stop doing, and let God take over completely. Maybe that is why it is such a struggle; because I am "trying to help."

If I surrender completely to the change and get out of God's way maybe the change can happen more easily and there won't be as much struggle. Maybe the knot will unravel itself if I just leave it alone instead of trying so hard to untangle the ends.

Something to think about . . . in the silence.

Pax

Apparently, it is only Tolerance if we believe what they want us to believe.

It has begun in Massachusetts.

A Christan gentleman was fired from his job for stating his belief that homosexuality is wrong after being repeatedly pressed on the topic by a manager from another store on the announcement that she was going to "marry her fiance", another woman.

According to the HR department of his company his beliefs amounted to harassment.

You can read the story here.

I agree with this gentleman. If homosexual marriage is passed in more states anyone who feels as though homosexuality is morally wrong will face the dilemma of keeping silent or facing the loss of their job for stating their personal belief.

So much for tolerance, apparently it only goes one way. Keep your job by keeping your beliefs to yourself.

John 15: 18-19

Pax

The Catholic Blues

h/t to my pal Diane from Gradual School via email.

Pax

A Daily Moment Of Grace

For about ten months I have subscribed to an email list that sends a daily message of hope and encouragement to my walk of faith.

Each of these quotes comes from a Saint or other inspirational person who has lived in the world. There have been moments when the message spoke exactly to where my life was at that point in time; as if the Divine Physician were sending a healing balm meant just for me. At other moments the message has been one that has challenged me to be better, stronger, and more radical in my call to follow not only God's will, but the universal call to holiness, peace and sisterhood/brotherhood.


Yesterday, for instance was one of those days when the message hit me like a celestial arrow considering what happened in Texas at Fort Hood. The message was this:

Let us not tire of preaching love;

it is the force that will overcome the world.

- Archbishop Oscar Romero (1917-1980) Martyr

And if that weren't enough balm for a weary soul, We just had to look to Wednesday's message to find our marching orders:

The good we accomplish is not through the action of ourselves, as
much as it is through the spiritual pressure of God's grace. All we have to do
is create a vacuum, to count ourselves as nothing, and immediately God fills our
soul with His power and truth. - Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen

I just wanted to share something with all of you that has helped me so much and takes such a little moment of my time each day to read and absorb. If you would like for this email to brighten your day just click on the link below give them your email address and hit the subscribe button. .and start receiving a moment of grace each day.

Daily Blessings

GoodNews.net has many other lists that you may join if you like, just go to their main website and you can find many others from which to choose.



Pax

Gonna Get All Political For a Minute

I have been hearing a lot lately about a treaty that will be signed at the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference.


This is the first article that I think has begun to unravel exactly what the treaty is really about.

I think you might want to take a look at the treaty for yourself, before December 7th, and decide what your opinion is concerning whether our president should sign such a document which would make it the responsibility of the United States (among other developed countries) to make reparation payments to developing countries for past carbon emissions. (Just one of the ways the US will be made to pay in the treaty).

This will amount to taxation without representation because this "tax" will be levied by the UN and we as a people will not be able to have any say in how this is levied or collected. It seems to me, the last time that happened to us there was a little bit of a revolution.

If this doesn't sound right to you, make your voice heard before our president signs our constitutional right to representation away, because if he does sign this treaty it will supersede our constitution.

(stepping down off my soap box now.)

Pax

Mystic Monday: Take Another Look at The Cloud

Today dear children we are going to take another look at The Cloud of Unknowing.

Mostly because I spent the weekend rereading it for my own benefit, so it is fresh in my mind. I wanted to focus on one little part. It may not make sense to some of you, or it may speak directly to the hearts of some of you. If it does, great. If it doesn't just let it go.

Anyone who aspires to contemplation aught to cultivate Study, Reflection and Prayer or to put it differently, reading, thinking, or praying. . . these three are so interdependent that thinking is impossible without first reading or - what amounts to the same thing- having listened to others read. For reading and listening are really one; the priests learn from reading books and the unschooled learn from the priests who preach the word of God.

Beginners and those a little advanced who do not make the effort to ponder God's word should not be surprised if they are unable to pray. Experience bears this out. God's word, written or spoken is like a mirror. Reason is your spiritual eye and conscience your spiritual reflection.

Pax

Gentle Reminder

This has adult content, but thanks to Paul and Storm a funny look at the rush to begin the Christmas Season.

Remember kids, we don't decorate until the third Sunday of Advent, the Same Sunday that we begin the O Antiphons. Anticipation is everything.





Pax

You Can't Avoid the Dark Night By Redefinition

I went to see my Spiritual Director today. He had some cold hard truths to tell me about where I am in my current spiritual path.

For a while now I have been struggling with a new and for lack of a better term mystifying (interesting coming from someone who has such a fascination with mystics) prayer life. Me, the person who loves words, has been unable to pray with words or receive answer to prayer in words. What I do get when I pray is either great silence, or images. Neither causes me great distress, but neither gives me comfort, because I have no idea what to do with these images.

I am what you might call an idea person. Give me a topic and a sufficient amount of time and I can come up or brainstorm an entire notebook of ideas about that topic, so when I first started getting images in prayer I would immediately go into brainstorm mode and come up with 99 interpretations for what the image might mean. With no one to guide my mind's wandering or to help me sift through the processing (or so I thought) I was left confused most of the time until after the fact when suddenly I could see in hindsight how the image fit into what was going on in my life.

I could feel myself slipping into a lost state, and knew that God was trying to stretch me by this new form of communication in prayer, but somehow I was the one who wasn't getting the message; I was the imperfect receptacle. I kept thinking to myself, If I know that God wants to stretch me, and I know that it has something to do with the images, can I avoid the pain and loneliness of the Dark Night?

It was at this point that my wise Spiritual Director stopped me. "Don't you see," he said to me "that you are already in the dark night, just because you understand what it looks like and want to call it something else doesn't change the fact that your prayer is no longer consoling and life giving, but confused and causing you great pain."

That stopped me short. Here was that amazing mirror that good Spiritual Directors use. He held it up in front of me and helped me to see myself exactly as I am. No matter how rationally I think about where I have been, and where I need to go, there is no denying the pain and loneliness and confusion of where I am at this moment. No matter how many books I try to read on prayer or dreams or divine imagery I can't deny that where I am is in the Darkness.

What I do know is that what used to work for me doesn't any longer. What I need to do is learn to be comfortable where I am; with the images. If there is some meaning that is supposed to be attached to an image, it will come, if not, it isn't my job to try so hard to find it.

Teresa of Avila uses the imagery of prayer as water. You go to the well, and draw water from the well using a bucket. It is labor intensive, but it works. Eventually the well runs dry because God wants you to move to a different kind of prayer.

In the second form of prayer your fields are irrigated by a stream that runs near it, it is much easier to get the water this way, much less labor intensive.

God eventually sends rain onto the fields, and all you have to do for that kind of prayer is be present, and the water falls upon you, no movement on your part is necessary at all in this form of prayer.

And finally there is the water in the stream or ocean that surrounds you; this form of prayer doesn't just touch you, it engulfs you. You can fight against the water or you can rest in it, allowing your own buoyancy to keep you afloat and upright.

My Spiritual Director thinks there might be one more invitation. If God is the ocean. Then perhaps some of us are called to stop just floating, and to learn to totally let go, let God and be open to the total metamorphosis into an ocean dwelling creature who can be content to be totally submerged always and no longer need to breath air. Is that where I am in my prayer life, am I still fighting to breathe air and God is asking me to let go (die to self) and let God become even my breathing apparatus, so that I am totally engulfed in God alone? Am I being called to let my entire life "be prayer"?

This was what my Spiritual Director left me to ponder. This is my dark night, learning to totally die to self, learning how to breathe God alone, so that my life can be prayer. It is a staggeringly humbling thought.

Could it happen?

Pax

Mystic Monday: In a Cloud

Today dear children we are going to enter a deeply spiritual work that is at once simple and layered with complexity. This work is the 14th Century classic The Cloud of Unknowing.

Little is known about the author of this amazing work. It was written for someone, possibly a monk or hermit just starting out on his spiritual journey. Interestingly, the techniques that "the master" offers are ones that are being used today, such as centering prayer and meditation.

We cannot ever fully understand God or penetrate the Cloud that surrounds God, but as we strip away our need to gain knowledge, what we can do says the author is to send “sharp darts” of “longing love” — for while we may never fully know God, at least we are able to the best of our ability to love God.

One of my favorite passages from the book states how God perceives us:

It is not what you are nor what you have been that God sees with his all-merciful eyes, but what you desire to be.

Now that is a God of love that I can learn to love. God already sees us as mystics, we just have to learn to be content being in God's presence whatever that means. Who knew it could be that simple. Oh wait a minute, the author of "The Cloud of Unknowing" did in 1375.

Pax

This is the Best Week Ever!!!

I am having a very Spongebob week.

Each time I think my week can't get any more surreal, something new happens that makes it just that much more strange and not ordinary. It all started on Saturday when the old adage that a good deed never goes unpunished was proven to be true when I cut my thumb trying to open a box while I was volunteering at the concession stand at the IU game. It was a pretty bad cut, and I thought it needed a butterfly, but the kitchen only had a first aide kit so I put a band aid on it and went back to work, but an hour later after having had to change the band aid twice I finally found the First Aid station in the stadium and the nurse there put a butterfly on it and that was exactly what it needed.

Then by Sunday when I took the gauze off it looked as though it was pretty bruised, and by Tuesday the bruise looked even bigger and I just felt wrong. It turns out that I have a pretty bad infection in the cut. Had the kitchen just sent me to the First Aid station in the first place I probably would have avoided the whole trauma and drama of the infection and antibiotics and all that mess.

Then on Tuesday we found out that my daughter lost her new cell phone. She swears that it has to be somewhere in the house, but she can't remember if it was in the pocket of her coat when we were shopping on Saturday. So we have to deal with that.

In the rush to get to school after spending all the time looking for her phone I forgot to bring a package with me to Indianapolis that I was intending to deliver to my supervisor to save on mailing it. It turns out that she was even at lunch that day and I could have hand delivered it to her. Each day since then I have forgotten to mail it too, so I still have that to do this week before I forget.

Then Tuesday in the middle of the night the same daughter got sick and woke up Wednesday with a sore throat which with all the H1N1 panic, meant she had to stay home from school and she was terrified that it meant that she might have to miss a week or more of school. She was really upset, and I couldn't console her because I didn't know the extent of her illness, because at the time she was just sick, but no fever which was a good thing. Still no fever, and a bit of a cough but I doubt since she has no fever that she has anything approaching H1N1. She doesn't even have the sore throat anymore, so I am thinking if she wants to go back to school tomorrow I will let her since she feels so much better today.

Then on Wednesday, while I was getting ready for my presentation for the RCIA in Terre Haute, the strap of my favorite purse broke. So now I have to go shopping, which is about my least favorite thing to do, so I can replace that purse because the ones I have in the closet are way too big for my needs anymore.

And my dear loving husband only gets to come home for the weekend before he has to fly back out for another meeting in Maryland, so I get to see him for less than 48 hours before he will be gone again. the last two times he has traveled this has happened and he was supposed to be traveling less now.

Oh well, the phone will either be found or we will replace the sym card and she will use her brother's old phone. I am tolerating the mega dose antibiotic pretty well without too awful side effects, and I will get to see my hubby for the weekend, so as the balance sheets go I am doing pretty well.

As my pal Spongebob says: This is the best week ever!.

Pax

Who Really Creates Peace

Who except God can give you peace? Has the world ever been able to satisfy the heart?


- Saint Gerard Majella (1725-1755)

h/t to daily blessings

Mystic Monday Christ's Hands and Feet Edition

Today dear children we are going to revisit our wonderful friend Teresa of Avila for a little inspiration concerning the job description of a Christian.

Teresa was a 16th century Carmelite nun who wrote the primer on the mystical life called "The Interior Castle" In it she describes the journey one must take to reach an intimate relationship with God.

What I wish to share with you today is a short poem that she wrote to help us to understand our mission as Christians.

"Christ has no body now on earth but yours,

no hands but yours, no feet but yours,

Yours are the eyes through which to look out

Christ's compassion to the world

Yours are the feet with which he is to go about doing good;

Yours are the hands with which he is to bless men now."

Pax

Krazy Mixed up Week of Mine

I have had one strange week. Nothing has been simple or in the right place all week. Sorry I missed a Mystic Monday post, but I didn't even realize I hadn't posted one until this morning when my week got even stranger.

Anyway, to make up for it I am going to offer you today a quote from a man who just may be a mystic, but is most assuredly the only philosopher that I can read without my head feeling as though it will explode: Soren Kierkegaard. This particular quote is on Christians and biblical interpretation and offers a glimpse at the need of the human heart.

The matter is quite simple. The Bible is very easy to understand. But we Christians are a bunch of scheming swindlers. We pretend to be unable to understand it because we know very well that the minute we understand, we are obliged to act accordingly. Take any words in the New Testament and forget everything except pledging yourself to act accordingly. My God, you will say, if I do that my whole life will be ruined. How would I ever get on in the world? Herein lies the real place of Christian scholarship. Christian scholarship is the Church's prodigious invention to defend itself against the Bible, to ensure that we can continue to be good Christians without the Bible coming too close. Oh, priceless scholarship, what would we do without you?

This is such a Kierkegaardian statement, full of empathy and humor that it breaks your heart to realize that he is actually seeing exactly what you are feeling.

Or is that just me?

h/t to inward/outward for the quote.

Pax

Not So Radical Obedience

I learned something really interesting about obedience in the last few weeks. It isn't enough to simply be obedient to the will of God if you are doing so grudgingly and letting everyone know how burdensome doing God's will is for you. This kind of obedience isn't true obedience. That kind of obedience never really leads to true peace.

If you grudgingly offer to do God's will. then let everyone know just how burdensome that effort is for you your submission to the will of God borders on back patting and vainglory.

God wants us to surrender, but God wants that surrender to be willing, self giving surrender. We have to make the decision, after looking at whatever situation we are faced with, and decide for ourselves that God's plan is right and follow it willingly, peacefully and humbly. Any other submission on our part really isn't true submission, but to some extent is a way to hold back some control on our part. In a way we are saying "I'll do this, but I won't like it." or "I'll go along with your plan but it is never going to work out." Either of these responses will in some respect have to have a negative effect on the outcome of our submission. At least that is what I have found in my own life.

True obedience takes a few steps: First I have to admit that God has a plan for my life; and whether I like it or not, God's plan may not look at all like the plan I have made for my future.

Next, I have to admit that no matter how much I want my life to work out the way I had it planned, even if what I am planning to do is something that I think might come to a good end or be good in the long run, to stick with my plan would be a form of disobedience to God's will.

I need to be willing to admit that God's plan is the one that I should follow, and follow it willingly, meekly and at least without grumbling to everyone who will listen ( and some who don't even care to listen) that I am grudgingly doing God's will, patting myself on the back the entire time.

When I follow these steps in my life, the obedience doesn't get easier, but the humility makes for a greater sense of peace. I begin to see that maybe God's plan makes sense. Maybe there is a way ahead of me that I couldn't even see because I was so determined to make my life work out exactly as I had it planned. At the same time it no longer matters to me what the world thinks about how my life looks, or how successful I may seem in the eyes of the world, because I know that I am doing God's will, and that is enough for me.

When we surrender to God's will, get that sense of peace that surpasses all understanding, then we can move into areas where we might not have gone on our own. We are more willing to allow God's plan to unfold before us and show us a way to live that is radically dependant upon God, and totally free at the same time.

What a concept.

Pax

Mystic Monday: Out of the Mouths of Babes Edition

Today dear children we will take a detour of sorts from our visits with Christian Mystics to watch a short video about a young boy who understood the ineffable quality of the mystical One.









In later years Einstein wrote quite a bit on the fact that he rejected the anthropomorphication of God (creating God in our own image) but he did firmly believe in a higher power that was intimately involved in the intricate and ineffable design of the universe.

I see him as someone who had a mystical relationship with the creator, because of his scientific exploration. Perhaps he saw science as a way to explore the mysteries of God.

Pax

The Audible you Might have Missed from Monday Night Football

Peyton Manning called an awesome audible Monday night that surprized most of the Colts organization . . .





He contacted Jim Irsay, the owner of the team and asked if his friend Tiger Woods could be granted a sidelines pass for the game against the Dolphins.

It turns out that Tiger wanted to see the game and because of his, well, notariety the best place for that to happen without him being swamped by fans screaming "Tiger, Tiger, Tiger Woods Y'all" (that has to get really old) was going to be from the Colts sidelines.

Good thing that Tiger had a golfing buddy who happened to have some suction with the team and could hook him up.

picture credit IndyStar.com

Pax

It Has to Start Somewhere

I hate to admit it, but I am swiftly approaching that magic number birthday, when I will start to get all that wonderful mail from the old folks organizations. I hate to even mention it, but I will (gritting my teeth and closing my eyes)be 50 on my next birthday.

Wow, look at that, the world didn't even shift a bit, no portend of impending doom. I am just going to be officially one of those old people. I will no longer be able to call myself an "older young adult" and will have to start referring to myself as *gulp* "younger middle aged".

Anyway I have decided that I needed to do something momentous for my birthday. Something fitting the passage of time and something that will help me to feel like I am fully alive. Since I am much to sane to 1) jump out of a moving airplane, or 2) jump off of a stationary bridge, I decided that it would have to be something that would require all of my strength and determination. Some friends at the school where I volunteer are putting together a training team to run in the Indianapolis 500 Festival Mini Marathon, so I have decided to join them, only I have no illusions that I will be able to run 13.1 miles by then so I am planning to walk the mini. Mrangelmeg is being so supportive that he signed up to run in it so that we can be there together (we will see each other before it starts and then he will be waiting for hours after he finishes for me to cross the finish line, but that is the kind of supportive spouse I have.)


This race is one that has thousands of participants every year. It is a huge deal around here.

I started training with my initial three-mile walk today. I was hoping for a pace of 18 minutes per mile. What I accomplished was 16.34 minutes per mile! Tomorrow I rest and then I walk again on Wednesday and Thursday. I rest again on Friday and then my longest walks are on Saturdays. By ten weeks I should be up to 13 miles on Saturdays. Then I rest a week and start the whole process over again.

After three rounds of training I will be totally ready for the race. And a natural by-product of all that training will be that I should be in pretty awesome shape in time for my 50th birthday, and then mrangelmeg and my anniversary which is just a few months after my birthday. So my deciding to give myself this mini marathon for my birthday will have benefits that will enhance the rest of our lives.

And it all started with my looking into the inevitable abyss of AARP membership applications.

How cool is that?

Pax

Mystic Monday: Obedience Edition

Hello dear children.

Today we are going to go back and visit with our dear friend Dag Hammarskjold because he has something very important to say about obedience to God's will. I have been wrestling with this exact subject lately. When you have discerned that a certain path is God's will, must you follow that path as quickly as possible? How slowly can one dawdle and still be following the will of God? How long can one delay before it becomes disobedience to the will of God?

I have coined a new term for stepping out in faith even when one feels totally unprepared for what one sees up ahead: I call it moving forward in terrified obedience. God is in control, and must know what is going to happen better than I do, so I will go forth, but it sure doesn't look very promising on this path I am traveling.

Anyway our old pal Dag has something to say on this exact subject and I want to share it with all of you:

When the morning's freshness has been replaced by the weariness of midday, when the leg muscles quiver under the strain, the climb seems endless, and suddenly, nothing will go quite as you wish -- it is then that you must not hesitate.

Smart man, he. Trust in the Lord always and move forward, upward, whichever direction God is pointing.

No hesitation here, just ignore the sound of my knees knocking together with every step. I am sure they will stop soon enough.

Pax

150 Days With the Psalms: Today is for Deacon John

So some of you may know that I am spending 150 days immersed in a study of the book of Psalms in the bible. Just last night my dear friend Deacon John Simmons posted a note on his blog about some disheartening news he just got from his Insurance Company denying the treatment option that his Dr.'s have decided upon for his best chance at treatment.
You can read about it here:

http://meandpoindexter.blogspot.com/2009/09/i-found-one.html

Then, when I got up this morning, the Psalm was # 28:

To You Lord I call,
My Rock, do not be deaf to me.
Do not drag me off with the wicked,
with those who do wrong,
Who speak peace to their neighbors
though evil is in their hearts.
Repay them for their deeds,
for the evil that they do.
For the work of their hands repay them;
give them what they deserve.
They pay no heed to the LORD'S works,
to the deeds of God's hands.

God will tear them down, never to be rebuilt.
Blessed be the LORD, who has heard the sound of my pleading.
The LORD is my strength and my shield,
in whom my heart trusted and found help.
So my heart rejoices; with my song I praise my God
LORD, you are the strength of your people,
the saving refuge of your anointed king.
Save your people, bless your inheritance;
feed and sustain them forever!


One of my reflection books talked specifically about those who are dealing with Cancer in reference to this psalm. and Of course when I read it, my thoughts immediately went to John and his troubling news from the Insurance Company, who only see the cost of the treatment in dollar signs and not in the loss of his quality or length of life.

The reflection book also had this to add:

Cancer is so limited--
It cannot cripple love,
It cannot shatter hope,
It cannot corrode faith,
It cannot kill friendship,
It cannot suppress memories,
It cannot silence outrage,
It cannot invade the soul,
It cannot steal eternal life,
It cannot conquer the Spirit.
"What Cancer Cannot Do" The Senior Times



My dear friend John, We must not forget that ultimately this corporation is not the one who is control of your life, but our loving heavenly Father is in control. God will make a way where there is no way.


As the psalmist says: My heart rejoices, with my song I praise my God. Lord you are the strength of your people!


Let God be our strength as we wait for God to make the way we cannot yet see .

Pax

Mystic Monday: Again Blessed Hermit Susan

I spent the summer in the desert, did I tell you this story already? It was HOT! I went there to support mrangelmeg who had to go there for work, and because it happened to be the California desert so it was a bit of a vacation, but along with the vacation-y parts of the trip came the discomfort of the HOT sun and the HOT wind and the dust, and did I mention the heat?

Anyway, as I spent my three and a half weeks in the desert I got to thinking about the desert fathers and mothers that we have been talking about on these Mystic Mondays. They lived in the desert and they didn't have the modern conveniences like central air conditioning and automobiles and trains to make travel so convenient as they moved through the desert.

So, today I want to share some wisdom from one of these desert mothers:Blessed Hermit Susan

From the time Susan was a little child in Persia she had dreams of going off and being a hermit. She so wanted to travel to the land of the desert mystics but her family kept her from doing so because of her age; at the time she first asked she was only eight years old. A few years later she ran away, joined a caravan of women and found her way out into the desert. She stayed with them for a long time but when they were ready to return she slipped away and remained in the desert.

She joined a monastic order but she longed for the solitude of a cave away from everyone and every distraction. She found just such a cave and moved herself there and eventually lived out the remainder of her life in that type of seclusion out in the desert, away from all human companionship and distraction. For her, this was what God was calling her to do. (Swan, Laura The Forgotten Desert Mothers, 2001 Paulist Press , p100)

God is probably not calling any of us to give up everyone we know and love and move out into a cave in the desert, but God often calls upon us to do things that others might not understand; like take a lower paying job because the hours are better for the family, or the stress level is better for our health.

How many of us would be willing to give up everything if that is what we know in our hearts is what God is calling us to do? How many of us are willing to live a life of total submission to God's will? Especially when others don't understand what or why we were doing what we were doing?

Pax